Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 16:51:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kris Gibbons <bookwyrm6@yahoo.com>
Subject: SongSpell-31
This story is a work of fiction. It contains descriptions of and references
to violent behaviour between adults and children, along with expressions of
physical affection. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are
underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All
characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or
deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any
form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to
the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but
it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the direct
consent of the author.
I do not know how well-received these chapters are. The only clues I get
are emails from readers. Like the story? Hate it? Have liked it since its
emergence? Feel it is getting too violent? Not Tarantino enough? Let me
know. I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
Special thanks to Rob for editing.
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons. All rights reserved by the author.
31 Force His Soul To His Own Conceit
Hamlet: Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wan'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, lines 561 ff.
The Temple tolled the sixth hour of the afternoon, and Evendal sat
considering. Twenty-six saemonds, magisters, praetors, reeves, marshals,
and ordinaries: Nearly every single one of them had, at some time within
the past nine years, delivered up a resident -- along with his goods or kin
-- to Mean and Ugly's ravening. Eleven of them had held out until the
promise of profit stroked their ear. Eight of Menam's select had enjoyed
how lucrative pressganging could be; and two of those eight had been
implicated with Mar-Telohema.
Drussilikh had promised a school of clerks(102) to peruse what looked
to become a litter(103) of paper and parchment testifying to malfeasance,
usury, false detention, and deaths both sudden and lingering.
Evendal, incensed by the stories and too certain of the fate of the
listed detainees, stood prepared to execute all twenty-six without
confrontation or elaboration, but for Sygkorrin's and Drussilikh's
protestations and the unintentionally damning example of one Magistratus.
The eighth magistrate through the door wandered in with the aid of a
willow cane. Lean like Polgern, but taller, with an older-looking face
wrapped in almost concentric wrinkles, the man peered about from the
doorway, bowed, then approached the King and the Heir.
"Urhlysha, Magistratus for the Mockingbird Hobblers," Bruddbana
announced.
Two and a half ells(104) from Evendal, the old gentleman gripped the
midpoint of his staff and eased himself into a genuflection.
Evendal protested even as he gestured to a Guard. "Master Urhlysha! We
had posted that such manners were not required or desired for courtiers and
counsel bearing more than two score and ten years. You need not distress
yourself so."
The tall thin man waved the Guard away and lifted a blatantly
challenging gaze upon the King. "Your Majesty, I may no longer be graceful
or swift, but by thunder I can and will give my respects to my liege!"
"Forgive Us then, Master Urhlysha." The man's name echoed in Evendal's
head as one he had heard before. "Rise and let us deal justly with one
another. Is there aught We can provide for your comfort?"
"Yes," the man replied soberly. "Your methods lack any moderation. No
consideration. Would you be so accommodating as to use a human agent for
your next summons?"
Evendal gaped, to be taken so to task. The aged man showed none of the
lineaments of braggadocio, of anger or insolence. He looked nothing so much
as like a paterfamilias chiding a dense or boorish grandson.
The King offered no apology. "We cannot readily discern between
reluctance and defiance without some measure of response from Our father's
friends. We received none."
"When you sent your first request for the assemblage of the Sixty-six,
you displayed gentility employing Guard to deliver the invitation. Such was
the state of dismay and anxiety your request evinced in me, I have not had
sufficient time since to respond satisfactorily."
"Sufficient for what?"
"Your Majesty, what are your intentions?"
Evendal blinked, bemused. "Our intentions? To rule. Nature, tradition,
and training have fashioned Us toward that purpose. To rule, and to provide
a rule of justice and righteousness. Our intention regarding Our father's
appointees is to bring them to an accounting."
Urhlysha nodded and chose to answer the previous query. "Then my
answer is... Sufficient time to give such a proper accounting, Your
Majesty. If I may bring in my escort, Your Majesty?"
The King glanced at an amused Bruddbana and nodded. "You may."
Urhlysha stepped briefly to the door, waved, and came quickly
back. Two females -- one having less than fourteen years, the other a
mature, broad-hipped woman -- came into the room. After their courtesies
they began to shed their winter garb. Hidden beneath the layers of flannel
were chains upon chains of vianki and orikas. The two women unlooped and
untied the ropes of coinage weighing them down and let the treasure clank
and chime against the hard floor.
"Urhlysha, wherefore? What does this signify?" The King followed the
attendants' movements, still bewildered.
"An accounting." From his tunic he withdrew a large bronze-clasped
tome. "My kalendarium(105), Your Majesty. 'Tis preliminary and rushed, but
before you is our guess at the taxes, fees, and tithes that we had
'neglected' to provide your predecessors."
Evendal waited until the last string of metals was untied and dropped,
the two assistants had curtseyed with more ease, and Bruddbana had directed
a Guard and a scribe to secure and tabulate the cache. During this interim
he watched Urhlysha watch him.
"What do you hope for with this remarkable behaviour?" the King
enquired.
The females wore thin white linen shifts that, after the weight and
warmth of the coinage overtunics, left little to the imagination. The older
woman stood healthy and voluptuous, the younger still in the midst of
puberty's clutches. The room retained just enough of a chill to make the
state of both women quite evident.
Evendal waved a hand negligently. "Ladies, restore your capes and
fleeces, please," he insisted.
The younger moved with alacrity to obey. The elder delayed and
hesitated, until she realised that His Majesty waited only on her obedience
and looked no lower than her nose.
The Magistratus cocked an eyebrow and then answered the King as though
uninterrupted. "Your deliberate ignorance, Your Majesty. Or, at least, your
willingness to let us continue to provide such."
Evendal almost comprehended. "A feat you can best accomplish so long
as We do not interfere with the gift-giver. You."
The older man bowed but shook his head. "Your Majesty is most
astute. Say rather 'gift-givers'."
And thus the King understood: Urhlysha had taken up Menam's commission
with gravity atypical to a threatening of courtiers(106). "Danlienn,"
Evendal roused. "You spoke to Us of one called Urhlysha at some point
within the last sennight, did you not?"
The young man paused, reclaiming the reference. "Yes, Your
Majesty. Telohema professed to fear him. She had sought his death, through
Frichestah's aid, and failed. Twice. She insisted that five other
adjudicators she knew of had failed also, and had died soon after."
"Oh, yes," Evendal nodded in turn.
The King examined Urhlysha, silently bewildered. The man's staff might
have served initially as a simple festuca, but time's passing had turned it
into a necessary support for his thin, almost wasted frame. Liver spots
dotted the back of the man's hands and forearms, and his fingers' enlarged
joints told of a painful trip to the Palace. The eyes, however, shimmered
an acute storm-cloud grey, and every movement and word so far had
demonstrated caution, wit, and intelligence. "Clearly you are a dangerous
man, Master Urhlysha. Why, then, did you not retaliate against Telohema and
Frichestah?" The question was asked only half in jest.
Urhlysha offered no demur. "Tremoyl and a few others of Lord Menam's
thegn(107) sent idiots, rabid dogs that cared not whom they killed so long
as I counted among the dead. Whereas Frichestah acted with pardonable
restraint."
Evendal found himself confused again. "Because he showed... better
style, you spared him?"
"Your Majesty?" Urhlysha's younger assistant tremulously spoke up.
Evendal nodded for her to proceed.
"Lepralya!" Urhlysha hissed in a higher pitch, more in worry than
anger. The girl subsided. The Magistratus ambled about with seeming
casualness until he hid the girl from Evendal's line of sight. "Your
Majesty, I spared Telohema and her minion because they kept their message
private."
"Message?"
Urhlysha shrugged. "A rule I gleaned through my last six or seven
years as a justiciar: If a peer killed you, he expanded his territory. If
he did not succeed, then he'd sent you a message. But if he killed or
endangered others, I deemed, justice was demanded."
"How long have you served your appointment?"
The elderly man considered. "Fifteen years, Your Majesty,"
"Do you wish to continue in your office?"
"Unless you have another better suited to meet the needs of your
people, yes, Your Majesty."
"First let Us be certain of what We have heard, Master Urhlysha. You,
without any other human agent, managed to assassinate five fellow
adjudicators,"
"No, Your Majesty. No assassination. The Co-regium learned not to
openly interfere with disputes between your late father's raggle-taggle
administrators. But this placed the burden of exacting and enacting justice
toward the Sixty-six upon our own shoulders. What I did, Your Majesty, was
judge their actions against the citizenry and exact the punishment
traditional to their crime. They were guilty of endangering or murdering
innocent citizens within my cordon."
Evendal nodded again and chose to act obtuse. "The pressgangs? The
Rosette?"
Urhlysha shook his head. "Your Majesty jests. Those were beyond the
scope of any authority I could pretend to. Only the attempts to kill me. I,
as a servant of the commonweal, see no reason to waste vengeance on one who
attacks just me. But where the assailant endangers the lives of others, I
have a responsibility to protect those imperilled."
"So you spared Telohema because she assaulted you directly and
specifically?"
Finally Urhlysha nodded. "Poison rubbed along the rim of my supping
cup. An asp, chilled to sleep, bound under my bed-pillow. Methods that
harmed no one else."
"That must have been solely Telohema's instigation," Evendal
tendered. "Frichestah did not strike Us as that patient or imaginative."
The Magistratus hesitated. "Your Majesty, permit me to dismiss these
my helpers to their homes."
"No, good Master Urhlysha. You brought them before Us yet did not
present them."
"Forgive the lapse, Your August Majesty," the magistrate responded
woodenly. "The younger is called Lepralya olm'Eprayan. The elder hights
Jeselyan olm'Eprayan. They insisted on braving the cold with me once they
learned of my compulsion and, like myself, they are at your service."
"Good Master Urhlysha, you clearly brought them to serve more than one
purpose, should they leave unfulfilled."
Urhlysha stiffened an already straight back. "What means Your
Majesty?"
Evendal opened his mouth to retort when the younger aide, Lepralya,
drew his attention. She had not moved but to open her mouth in apparent
dismay, and peer from behind Urhlysha in wide-eyed fear. The
muscle-clenched look of resolution on her face told Evendal that the young
woman's fear was not for herself.
He perceived his error. "Ask Lepralya or Jeselyan." As his mind
reconfigured the information this interview had provided, Evendal
added. "They must love you deeply."
Urhlysha blinked rapidly, befuddled. "I do not understand."
The King waved Urhlysha's confusion aside as irrelevant. "Again We
would enquire. You, without accessory, executed five fellow
adjudicators. Because they were indifferent to the safety of your charges
in their attempts to kill you."
"That is correct, Your Majesty," the lanky and aged man calmly
answered.
"But have you yourself never arranged the death or degradation of
others in order that you might acquire a larger number of citizenry to tax?
Have you yourself ever relinquished, or directed another to relinquish, a
citizen or visitor over to Horest or his emissary, or to Polgern or a like
deputation?"
"I have not, Your Majesty. Such would foul the honour your father
granted me, and the trust of those who rely on me."
"Then how did you keep Polgern from replacing you?"
"But he nearly did so!" the Magistratus explained. "Before Mausna, we
numbered more than Sixty-six, Your Majesty. Most of the late King's
bestowals were open hereditaments(108). It was Polgern's and Abduram's
depredations that inspired many of my fellows to imitation. Polgern made a
simple tactical error. He tried to cut a murderous swath through the many
appointees and honoured, in order to put his spineless or inept marionettes
in their place. One or two of Menam's Dignified(109), goaded by Abduram,
caused some of Polgern's choices to meet with 'accidents' and 'excitable
thieves.' Once the vulnerability and mortality of these lickspittles was
displayed, my established peers killed and scared away most of Polgern's
heelbiters -- then claimed their authority and their regions of its
exercise."
"But you refrained from such tactics?"
"I had no need. The Hobblers' annex has always been sufficient. I curb
my ambitions to match my abilities."
That sounded like an apt indictment of Polgern's co-rule. "Is that why
you never sought to bring Mean and Ugly to judgement?"
Urhlysha nodded. "I am well aware of what I can accomplish, and what
is beyond me."
This cipher of a man disturbed Evendal. "Master, We are prepared to
accept this extraordinary gesture," the King pointed to the cache, "and
even so, as We have with so many of your peers, divest you and detain you."
Urhlysha grimaced. "I can only beg Your Majesty to reconsider. What
might I do to ease Your Majesty's distemper?"
Not answering the question, Evendal replied, "The two you have
escorted into Our Presence are quite comely and might prove great sport,
Urhlysha. We would not refuse an additional gift. Or two."
Urhlysha frowned. "They are mine to guide, not to peddle, Your
Majesty."
"Not even for your liberty?"
"I do not barter people, Your Majesty. I did not countenance it within
my demesne before your return. I do not suffer it now." The man's affront
was utter and without theatrics.
"Indeed? How did you avoid playing Polgern's game?"
"Which one? How do you mean?"
"You never allowed a citizen to be delivered up to Horest, Polgern, or
their deputies. How did you avoid the political necessity?"
"The people I guide did not permit such an occasion to arise. No
Hobbler or visitor to our annex sought by those invested agents of the
Co-regium was ever found by them."
Long did Evendal m'Alismogh sit and stare at the older man. Kri-estaul
slept, warmed and at ease in the circle of his father's arms. Drussilikh
and Sygkorrin sat and relaxed, unperturbed. The only sounds heard were
Aldul's rough breathing and the rustlings of the scriveners.
"Indulge Our difficulties, Master Urhlysha. The silence informs Us as
distinctly as your so precise wording. Let Us lay matters out simply and
crudely."
"If Your Majesty so wishes."
Evendal grinned. "We sent out messengers to all of Father's Sixty-six,
messengers whose invites were ignored. You came here in some despair
because you felt the compulsion We then sent. And not knowing what manner
of King you faced, you hoped to convince Us that Our coffers would be
better served by leaving your annex unmolested. You grew confused when We
did not respond to the allure of your addition to Our thesaurus.
"We appreciate that at no time in Our talk did you utter a single
falsehood. You have indeed demonstrated what, in other circumstance, would
have been the King's justice in executing a handful of reckless and vulpine
thanes. You and your enclave kept those who reside within your bounds from
being found and claimed by Horest's and Polgern's ilk.
"Your two companions turned anxious just now, when We did not respond
to their slatternly displaying of their bodies, their juvenile attempt to
safeguard you by diverting Our attention."
Stunned, Urhlysha gasped, "Your... Your Majesty!" He glanced to the
elder of the women, who refused to meet his look.
"And if there had been the remotest chance you would suffer it, those
most forward in your demesne would have hidden you from Us as well.
"These Our people, the Hobblers, became your kith long before
Mausna. We hear, wreathed around you like a chaplet of witness, words of
fury and pain that you vented when a neighbour, called Oentaklyen, gurgled
her last from an arrow in the dark meant for you.
"Rest easy, Master Urhlysha." M'Alismogh stared pointedly at the man,
forcing eye contact. "Tell Us. What you've confirmed speaks of great trust,
effort, planning, and sacrifice. Why would people who cling to the routines
and rites of their days like a miser to a vianki, shoulder the discomfort
of extra obligations and expend such forethought for others?"
Urhlysha, spellbound, pursed his lips a few times and opened his mouth
twice before speech emerged. "Your Majesty, the Hobblers is not a rich
area. Being near the Cinqet, it is rough farm land. The residents are a
loud folk in the day-to-day. When your Illustrious Father granted me
magisterial powers over them, I thought them vulgar and endemic imbeciles,
and unbearably nosy. I came to see them instead as passionate, unassuming,
and quiet -- and... empathic. They have survived by taking care of each
other. What one lacks, another stands ready to provide. A hug, a cow, a
roof, a care-tender for a senile elder. Sanctuary."
"Sounds idyllic."
Urhlysha shook his head. "I cannot explain well. It is not. Wilful
stupidities, tempers, and festering rivalries abound as anywhere else. Two
merchants' bitter differences make life uncomfortable for both families,
which is what they want for each other. But in a crisis their differences
are simply not referred to until that crisis has passed."
"We are reminded of the laws of hospitality."
The elderly gentleman considered. "Yes, Your Majesty! Taken as a guide
for all intercourse. Exactly."
What Evendal did not say was that it also reminded him of a friend of
his, and of Kri-estaul's. Kul had insisted that human interaction was not
his demesne, had protested too pointedly perhaps. This concord reeked of
Kul's influence, his almost simple attitude toward all matters human.
"We greet you as a kindred heart. Like you, We are here for Justice,
not some shallow 'Fairness.' We are here to speed the turning of Ir's great
toy."
The King turned an amusedly glowing gaze on the two currently
dour-faced women. "Ladies, We wish and will no harm to befall your
Magistratus. And, unlike Our unfortunate predecessors, We do not lack for
loving companionship. You are free to depart, now or with Master Urhlysha.
"Master Urhlysha. We, the reigning Majesty of Osedys, as Swordbrother
of the Sea, have Our own thesaurus that, while hardly bottomless, is yet
impressive. Return to the Hobblers, you and your entourage, along with what
vianki and orikas from this cache the Hobblers might need for this
season. Rest secure in your honour and honours, and assured that this rough
winter will prove but the nascence before a quickening for Our people."
Urhlysha bent and, disregarding the clerical assessment going on,
lifted five strings of vianki and one string of orikas from the pile. He
draped them over the elder female and bowed low to the King in gratitude.
Evendal frowned. "Three sennights from this day return and retrieve
more as you need."
"Your Majesty?" Surprise at the King's prodigality shifted the creases
in Urhlysha's face.
"Master Urhlysha, are you a man of honesty and probity?"
"Such has always been my goal and need, Your Majesty."
"Until We demonstrate a contrary nature, presume to treat with Us as
though We had a more than passing acquaintance with those virtues. Take
back with you what the Hobblers might need to survive this season."
Urhlysha hesitated. "Your Most Clement Majesty, that might would leave
you with but a half dozen strings of vianki," he warned.
"Are We not your liege?"
"Aye, Your Majesty."
"Are the people you serve not Our people?"
"They are, Your Majesty."
"Then where would the monies be of more use? We love this home of Ours
and, like the pelican, would give much more than these bits of metal for
its well-being.
"We do confirm you in the dignity Our father first shouldered you
with. Tarry and provide what intelligence you can on your fellows."
Mindful of Evendal's prior request, Urhlysha saw no alternative but to
comply. He dismissed his two companions with the King's permission and
promise of an escort back to his home. Evendal had a chair placed at his
left, and hot metheglyn dispensed to the briefly grateful man.
"This sapling growing from my heart is my son and heir, Kri-estaul."
Urhlysha nodded but said nothing.
"The tired man asleep behind Us is Aldul mek'Alinda, formerly of
Kwo-eda, Our emissary from the Paramenate and Archate Temples."
"I had obtained word regarding both names," Urhlysha tendered.
Evendal took a bracing breath. "And what was that word?"
"That you had adopted the son of the Kohermarthen, after finding his
corpse in the under-grounds and restoring him from the dead." The gentleman
deliberately, visibly, hesitated before continuing. "That you had arrived
out of smoke and lightning in the Palace with a stranger, your Kwo-edan
lover, at your side."
Evendal shook his head in amazement. When he could refrain from
barking his laughter out loud and speak sensibly, he countered, "You
paused, good curate, and withheld further speech regarding the general
gender(110). Do not think to spare Us or fear Our temper."
"Very well. 'Tis given out that you have made this child your toy: the
recipient of the fruit of your rages and receptacle for your wide-ranging
lusts."
All good humour fled the King's countenance. "You shall not hear such
week-old tripe served up again, We trow. We have dealt with the source of
that particular rumour. This child, a wonder and untiring delight, had been
the plaything of the Beast and one of his acolytes beneath the Palace
proper for two years. We recollected him from durance and, with his
sister's selfless goodwill, adopted him as Our son. He does love Us with a
fierce and wholesome love. We find Ourselves returning that love as
wholesomely as We know how.
"As to Aldul mek'Alinda, he found Us senseless, prone over a crate in
the Wastes, as he made his way to Osedys in answer to a summons from the
Archate. We provoked and burdened him sorely on the journey, for We knew
Ourselves but lightly and Our memory played miser. He is Our first and
dearest friend.
"But enough on that. Now you know the right of things. The details can
be carded from Our satellites at leisure."
The afternoon's work had nine judges and authorities scheduled for
execution. Twenty-five appointees tearfully admitted to ignoring witnesses,
altering documentation, fabricating offences or taxes or fines, all to
provide revenue and manpower for the duumvirate. Four had handed
supplicants over to Horest personally, obedient to their understanding of
the policy and will of Polgern. Some brought their spouses, their children,
their aging or sickly parents before Evendal, instinctively knowing that
whatever summoned them thither pulled them into perilous circumstance. Such
manoeuvres served to infuriate the King, defeating their very purpose. Only
Metrwlye showed no anxiety in recounting his 'wise acquiescences' to the
lex terrae.
"Your Majesty, I do indeed repent of my failure of nerve!" cried out
one such dignitary.
"That is easily done at this juncture, as you have mysteriously lost
all that you drained from your jurisdiction. How do you propose to
demonstrate your recapitulation?"
"By restoring the funds intended for Your Majesty's thesaurus."
Scowling at an answer he did not care to hear, Evendal growled,
"Commendable." He held the woman's gaze like a snake charming a
fool. "How?"
"Raising the keelage(111), groundage(112), and exacting gressom(113)
with the properties I hold."
"None of that shall you do," the King insisted. "We expect you
yourself to show your penitence, not for Our charges to do so. Clearly you
do not repent, you merely regret. Else you would confine the responsibility
for your behaviour to your own purse and household."
"Then what would Your Majesty?" the woman demanded querulously.
"Are you fertile yet, Fierkoles?"
"No longer, Your Majesty."
"Have you those who can secure your family's line beyond the horizon
of this day?"
"I bore four children, Your Majesty. A woman and three men. They were
not permitted to view the light of your countenance and thus await in one
of the rooms adjacent, along with my spouse."
"Do you all dwell together?" The King kept Fierkoles kneeling, so that
she had to squint up at him nearsightedly.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Then you shall list all surviving kin of those you relinquished into
the greedy grip of the pressgangers. We herein divest you of those goods,
properties," his face twisted in disgust, "and people that you have
accrued. You shall confiscate all the earnings and assets of yourself, your
spouse, and your children so that each is permitted two vianki every
fortnight. The remainder you shall apportion equally and then hand deliver
to each person on that list."
"Two vianki! I fear I must protest, Your Majesty. No one can run a
household on such a pittance!"
"You think Us too generous? Very well, one vianki."
"A single silver every fortnight? Are you simple... Your Majesty?"
When Evendal graciously ignored the pugnacious query, the woman offered
another one. "For how long should we bear this burden, Your Majesty?"
"In perpetuity. We divest you of those rights and powers you have
accrued since Lord Menam's murder. But you may retain the title Our
Illustrious Father bestowed on you, with the addition to it of Our
geas. And so when you die, both honour and burden fall to your spouse, and
then to your firstborn, and then to their spouse and successive
firstborn. Similarly, they shall provide a comparable percentage of their
earnings to the spouses and firstborn line of the survivors. In
perpetuity."
The woman voiced no protest as her face settled into a mask of calm
resignation. She clearly had no intention of direct disobedience or
outright compliance.
"We shall accept your ensign now," the King directed pointedly.
With arm slow and stiff, the maritime magistrate handed over her
pennon: Gules, a cygnet pose argent, crowned or.
Evendal smirked at his father's choice; swans, however graceful, were
known for vicious selfishness. "Appropriate. But let Us order your sigil
differently. Argent, a seagull pose gules, gorged or, vulning." Seagulls
were traditionally the dogs of the shallows and the ports -- blindly
rapacious, indifferent to filth, vicious, carriers of many ills and ill
humours. Conversely, seagulls also held the moniker of "sailors'
sweethearts" for being a seaman's first sign of nearing landfall and so
were tolerated better than dogs or swans.
Danlienn changed pens and inks to note the command.
During the pause, Evendal sat and held his son, and stared with
unnervingly bright calm at this representative of the minor gentry that
Menam had created. Many of the Sixty-six started out with purely nominal
honours, but found ways to garner stable influence, authority, and estate
through bargaining, craft, and chicanery: acquire land through one
contrivance, get the hold on city buildings and their importunate tenants
in another scheme. Or the lion's share of profit on a pending shipment
turned to ownership of the vessel because of an arranged accidental
spoilage of the goods.
At last the King spoke. "As We have pronounced, so it shall be."
Evendal m'Alismogh extended his hand, and Fierkoles moved to touch her
lips to the red and black ring. But when she steadied herself and bent
forward, her movement halted. She recoiled. A strained expression exuded
from her face, as though her doom sat waiting before her.
"You are in truth the man you claimed! How? Why?" Fierkoles cried.
"What is this trumpeting? Why this hue? Foolish woman! Do you only now
accept that We are Osedys?"
"How could one know? With your countenance so transfigured by light
and none of your late father in your haviour! I have no memory of ever
greeting you, the Heir, at fete."
"What so proved Us, then?"
"Yon circle. Once before did I touch my lips to that ring, as it
graced your royal father's hand."
"Do so again, Fierkoles. And show better faith and less lust in the
act."
Chastened by bewilderment, the woman obeyed.
Fierkoles' expression turned avid, animated. "Does this bode the
return of those most dear? Those dearly lost at Mausna? Has Death released
her grip on others as well?"
"Alas, no, vassal of Ours. We are no vanguard for the dead and
lost. Mystery removed Us from the siege 'ere Death could swallow Us.
"You have eight days to provide Us a list of assets and a list of
survivors or surviving kin. You have thirteen days after that within which
to distribute the first wergild. That is not much time."
"I would not know where to begin!" Fierkoles cried, still stunned.
The King rolled his eyes and shook his head.
A vagrant gesture from the Guard at the door heralded the appearance
of Fierkoles' eldest son, with what proved a satchel of books and scrolls.
"What passes, Ioannlyn?"
The Guard bowed. "This gentleman did beg me interrupt your interview,
Your Majesty, to provide some personal intelligence."
"Mierkolan, no!" Fierkoles hissed.
The fellow in question was a solid young man, thick-necked and
smooth-faced. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the lone
indicator of his distress. "And you are?"
"The eldest son of Fierkoles, Your Majesty. Please forgive my
intrusion, Your Majesty. Mother. Well, mother knows what she needs to do
now. And I." The young man swallowed hard and looked down for the rest of
his speech. "I now know how she was able to tend us and feed us and get me
an apprenticeship."
"We regret you had to learn her failings so baldly."
Mierkolan shrugged. "Mother's amazing. I love her and admire her
still. But she is... ringed about, caged, by her own upbringing. She used
to tell us how she had fought for every vianki, how she often went hungry
as a little girl. And how she refuses to return to those days, to such
ignominy. If we adhere to your word, we won't starve, but..."
"But We have engaged her oldest and deepest fear," Evendal completed
the thought. "She would contravene Our will, simply because the insecurity
from her youth commands her -- has more authority over her than We
presently demonstrate."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"We had determined earlier how she had no intention of complying. And
you have come forward, unrequested, because...?"
"To offer myself as incentive, Your Majesty."
"To what end? What do you think We would do with you, should she prove
faithless... again?"
The young man hesitated, considering, clearly surprised to be
asked. "You have commenced removing the wall about the city. I have some
fitness for such toil." Even as he spoke, Mierkolan looked
uncertain. "Grant me some rags against the chill and a daily feeding and I
can work toward her debt in labour or in service. I would labour hard and
without complaint."
Lord Evendal felt a chill of dissonance, some vital element
unconsidered. "Tell Us about yourself, Mierkolan. Have you a spouse?
Children?"
Again came a long pause as the son adapted to an unexpected change in
topic. "No, Your Majesty. I have... friends who might miss me."
"Miss you? Are We reported some kind of weasel(114)? We do not devour,
do not assail, the blameless. We sport neither black attire nor a balding
pate! How many years have you?"
"I own sixteen years, Your Majesty."
The answer shocked Evendal, who had anticipated a contemporary. At the
age of fourteen, a male is granted the right to squire elders in conflicts
and war, the right to have such children as he might sire acknowledged by
his family, and the right to assay a wage-providing trade. While adult by
tradition, Mierkolan could not be given over to the labour to which he
stood ready to pledge himself.
"We do not bargain the lives of others that We might coerce Our gentry
into fulfilling their obligations. As your mother baulks, she must learn We
are absolute in Our authority. Just now you made an empty avowal,
Fierkoles. Perform that rite once more," m'Alismogh ordered, "as We endow
it.
In lieu of your token,
Seal yourself to Our new dignity
With a palmer's kiss
Upon the ring of Our authority.
The woman looked on the verge of apoplexy. She had obviously heard
something of her liege's Songmastery.
Evendal turned his lambent gaze upon her in grim amusement. "Have you
now discovered, perhaps, some argument against the manner in which you
yourself served Our people?"
"Your Majesty." Fierkoles could not hold enough breath in her lungs
for what she wanted to say. Evendal extended his hand. Confronted with the
choice between breath or intransigence, Fierkoles chose for breath and
kissed the ring.
It was with tears and trembling that Fierkoles fell back into her
kneeling posture. "As you have encompassed and overshadowed my will in this
matter, so do I obey Your Majesty."
"Understood, Fierkoles," Evendal admitted readily. "We did not say We
would not coerce, simply that We would not involve others, innocents. We
adjure you to consider: Ineffectual acts of defiance are Pyrrhic(115)
nonsense. We do not punish a single citizen for the inertia that
self-preservation demanded during the duumvirate, except where the threat
was patently minor or could readily be countered. But you did not simply
leave ill-enough alone. Yes, you permitted Polgern's and Horest's
winnowing, a 'failure of nerve' that you shared with most citizenry. But
you also pillaged your precinct of money, property, and its trust, to pay
extortion to Polgern's lackeys. You gave unsound judgements, declared
property and monies to be escheatable against the evidence of rightful
inheritors. You deliberately ruined people, rendered them vulnerable to the
predation that you and yours escaped."
The King turned to his left. "Honourable, name for Us, if you can,
three adults of moderate means and no ambition, yet possessing discernment,
heart, and discipline."
Urhlysha deferred. "Your Majesty, the names that well up most readily
belong to those who no longer breathe. As well, I would fear recommending
anyone, lest my judgement prove flawed."
"Be bold, wise Urhlysha. For any such offerings would be but tenders
-- tokens to be tossed in a bag -- for Us to draw out or leave be. The
testing, decision, and consequence would be Ours alone."
Urhlysha grinned. "On that understanding, Your Majesty, I could
provide a list of people who have proven themselves to me as youngsters of
probity and good report. However, I warn you, while I would trust them with
the welfare of my friends, I would not trust them to always know a hawk
from a handsaw."
"We will plumb them, do not doubt, both to their capacity and to their
disposition. We would not burden the unwilling."
Urhlysha, with many caveats and elaborations on each person's
character, provided a roster of citizens whose integrity he relied
on. Fierkoles and Mierkolan waited on the King's pleasure through the
elder's verbal peregrinations.
When Urhlysha confessed an end to the names he could offer in complete
good conscience, Evendal turned his gaze back to the mother and son. "Our
thanks again, Honourable. Now, what think you of Our tentative relegation
of these two?"
Having been asked so direct a question, Urhlysha thought nothing of
responding in kind. "If your purpose is the succour of those she has
injured, you will have succeeded, Your Majesty. If you have greater
ambitions, encompassing her reformation, I fear you shall be disappointed
and sorely so."
Evendal nodded as his lip twisted in dismay. "We suspect you are
correct, Master Urhlysha. But the effort itself is a worthy one."
"It is that, Your Majesty. If this audience is common, Your Majesty, I
confess you seem not as ruthless as reported."
"We do not know if that is praise or chastisement, Master Urhlysha."
The King weighed his treatment of this felonious woman. Inherent human
self-interest dictated her public actions, whatever persona that instinct
wore; but unlike Urhlysha she exercised no counter-fiction, no boundary,
against that self-interest. It was clear that both the poorly-masked
indifference and the consequences demanded more immediate and final
sentence. So why had he mitigated the requisite judgement?
"Have you made the acquaintance of the Heir of the Tinde'keb?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Urhlysha hesitated. "An ornament to any Court."
Startled at the double entendre, Evendal barked out a laugh. "In all
verity!"
The sound startled Kri-estaul, who squirmed against Evendal's arm
seeking greater comfort, and then patted the King on the opposing arm and
murmured soothingly. "'Tis well, Papa. 'Tis well."
Evendal strained his neck to peer at his son's nestled head. Their
proximity to each other made it difficult for him to focus, but what the
King could see of his son's scarred face was calm. Kri-estaul slept at ease
upon his father's breast. Evendal ignored the ache in his head that came of
peering at a point too close. "Would that I had come sooner," he burbled in
sorrow.
"'Tis well," Kri-estaul repeated, and then his murmur softened into a
mumbled "'Love you."
Quickly Evendal turned his face up and away, so that the sudden
incandescence from his eyes would not fall so directly on his beloved son
and disturb him further.
Urhlysha, having observed the brief interaction with an apt silence,
glanced about to glean the disposition of others. Fierkoles flinched at the
King's swift motion and the brightening of the room. Mierkolan quietly
watched his fey lord, an expression of awe etched on his face by the
glare. Aldul slept on, exhausted. Ioannlyn and the other Guard simply
squinted and waited in a patience that spoke of familiarity. Danlienn
scribbled on, oblivious. Sygkorrin, yet in converse with the Quillmaster,
stopped and waited to see if she was needed, her features schooled to calm
but for the slightest upward curve in her lips -- rather like a nis-ralur's
puss.
Drussilikh sat as one frozen in her chair, staring at the King and her
brother; a passion imbued her features, but whether of sorrow or rage
Urhlysha could not be certain.
Apparently satisfied that the Majesty of Osedys did not require her
aid, the Priestess returned her attentions to her immediate companion and
considered. "Your Gracious Majesty," she whispered.
The King gazed to his right. The Matron turned away as though sparing
her sight, so only Sygkorrin and Urhlysha perceived the King's troubled
countenance. "Lady Sygkorrin?"
"The Matron and I would like to revive our laggard bodies and clear
our sluggish minds with a brief walkabout. Have we your leave to absent
ourselves for a bell's quarter?"
Drussilikh stiffened and half-turned to the Priestess, but did not
protest.
"Of course. Do you desire an escort?"
"Your Majesty is generous, but no."
Evendal nodded. "Take your leave, then, and Our grace to return anon."
Sygkorrin gave a courtesy, Drussilikh imitating, and strode out of the
apartment, past several doors and around a corner, before she halted and
rounded on Drussilikh.
"You are sorely troubled, Matron. I thought to get you away from the
provocateur of your misery."
"I needed no rescue, Priestess."
"Silly chit. You most certainly did. Much longer and your eyes would
have turned from grey to lime(116). Talk."
"You interfere where you have no rights."
Sygkorrin grinned. "Think better, dear brat. Who else can you speak
to? Your kin? Your fellow adepts? You do not want to open any windows for
them to your weaknesses. The King? He is the focus of your misery. I derive
no benefit from any intelligence you proffer, and you know as Quillmaster
that any discussion between us is under the rose."
"Excepting it involve deliberate killing or death-dealing," Drussilikh
reminded.
"Somehow I have no fears that you have travelled such a path. Success
and survival in both our vocations require a like-felt sense of obligation,
a like discipline, and a painful degree of humility(117). Our stations are
equal in age and in depth. I am the closest you will find to a comrade, and
one who can assure you of discretion."
Drussilikh scowled. "Why should it matter so to you?"
"You have always mattered to me, silly girl." Their ages were not
really so disparate, yet for that moment the term seemed apt. "Did you
think I held conference with your kin upon the recovery of your brother out
of spite? It was to aid you both. What did you know from raising a child?
Granted you could have learned as so many do, by trying and erring, but
that would have guaranteed your brother's death by bone-bruising,
exsanguination, or hypothermia. Grief over your mother's murder and your
brother's capture drove you to master your guild and its vultures. What
would your grief and guilt have pressed you to, had your brother survived
his captors only to die from your well-meaning neglect?"
Drussilikh leaned against a wall and hid her face behind her hands.
Sygkorrin continued, "You know how the gentry turned to the Temple,
for the safeguarding of their legacies. Your mother, after a fashion, led
the way in that practise. She and I and my predecessor often discussed her
hopes and fears for the Scriveners, her darker expectations for the
future. She entreated us, should she die or disappear, to give you whatever
aid you permitted."
The Matron swung around and spat back at Sygkorrin, "And what help was
that? None! The Scriveners stood alone. Alone we pursued her hazard-ridden
solution to our peril with the duumvirate. Alone we smuggled our students
and adepts out through any avenue and agency. We forced our own from their
homes and homeland, without aid or credentials, without any way of linking
them to us."
Sygkorrin's brow furrowed in consternation. "Are you truly so naive?
Did you think the success of your diaspora came solely from your own
efforts? Cargo holds that did not get examined so closely as to reveal
their living additions, because a priest had sealed the contents as an
Archate concern. Merchants adamant that a scribe who had travelled with
them had been a harpist or fellow merchant. Woodsmen and innkeepers who
happened to misdirect pursuit, or misunderstand enquiries made. Carts or
caravans trundling over trails, or coincidentally shadowing the path of a
Throneland fugitive. Your efforts were those of the juvenile you still
were, Drussilikh, thus the need for our intercession so many times. You did
nothing 'alone!'"
Drussilikh paled with the revelation of how she had perhaps been
slipshod toward her especial cause for pride, and had insulted and offended
her only unflagging ally. "You never said anything?"
Seeing she briefly faced a more rational Matron, Sygkorrin's tone
gentled. "We did not dare! Only now have you begun cleaning the corruption
from your numbers. I did not dare, for the sake of both our duties.
"But I did not mean simply that the Archate was pledged to your
guild's aid. For such a pledge appears on no document, posesses no
witnesses. Rather, your mother asked that my predecessor and I give you
yourself what help we dared to." The Priestess paused to allow Drussilikh a
chance to consider, to glimpse the measure of trust the Kohermarthen had
held the Priestesses in, and then answered the next obvious question.
"You, in your grief, rage, and fear, would allow no one to aid you
directly. You trusted no one outside your clan and guild, and --
fortunately -- quickly learned to trust very few within it. And the Archate
was more effective in the shadows, not heralding any obvious approval of
your passive defiance.
"Now, what boils over in your brain, that you look daggers at Osedys
and your brother?"
Yet reticent, Drussilikh whispered, "Is he truly my brother?"
When the creases between Sygkorrin's eyebrows multiplied, the Matron
elaborated. "I looked on the two of them, and did not see my Lord and my
brother. I saw a... frieze, troubling and most strange. Not a hawklike,
kingly visage, grave and grim, but a manikin who sheds light! A breathing
creature, human only in semblance. One who wields authority no mortal has
ever boasted, and boasts for friends creatures out of our most distant
past. I saw a child who had no chance of life, who had died once and nearly
died twice, sleeping in perfect trust against the chest of this
monster(118)."
"Both are as human and mortal as you or I," Sygkorrin protested
softly.
Drussilikh shrugged, struggling against the shame her confession
evoked in her. "I speak not of what is, but of how I saw, how I felt."
"Of course. My apologies."
"It swept over me how contrary to all my experience and imaginings the
two seemed. How... grotesque. Like a parody, rather than a veridical court,
king, or heir."
The Archate nodded slowly. The Matron previously had acted indifferent
to the marks of Evendal's dwoemer. More accurate, perhaps, to say she had
overlooked and ignored them as the eccentricities of one who was meeting
her needs. At first they were ephemeral in the face of her need to know the
true disposition of her loved brother; later they were irrelevant to her
political -- and her brother's physical -- perils. Her question answered
and the threats diminished, she no longer accounted these peripherals quite
so inconsequential. Her courage had decided she was strong enough, safe
enough, to take issue with Evendal.
Sygkorrin, while having found no reference or precedent to Evendal's
Songmastery or eye-gleam, had concluded long ago that mysteries infuse
everything, and felt none of Drussilikh's alarm.
"The kings of our stories and in our memories are trouble-riven men
with haunted eyes of grey, alternately foolish and autocratic or cruel and
autocratic. Such a king permits no transgress upon his dignities. Such a
king's support of an heir apparent assures that prince of his station and
his fitness. An heir sound in body, capable and whole, and the rightful
issue of king and consort. Such a king summons others, more competent and
less besieged than himself, to answer to the prodigal wants of his heir. He
is watchful, guarded, and distrustful toward all, as befits a ruthless man
making many enemies, for 'tis better that a monarch be feared than
loved. Is such a king the wellspring of your comparison? Is such a
comparison the main of your argument?"
Drussilikh flushed. "Yes," she admitted. "We whisper, yet I suspect he
can hear our converse even so. His eyes glow at the turn of his
humours. The elements both extrinsic and intrinsic(119) answer to his sung
request. Another's death debilitates him. He can plumb from people truths
they did not ken they held. This is no king such as I know!"
Sygkorrin's look was pitying. "I can assure you that, should he bend
his will to do so, he could indeed hear our every word. But why would he do
so? Both for your own self and as sister to his son, he loves and trusts
you." The young woman appeared unmoved and unconvinced. "So tell me,
Matron, who did wail to the King of the need to find Kri-estaul?"
Drussilikh grimaced. "I did,"
"And who did give over their brother to his adoption?"
"I did,"
"And what censure did the Throne impose on your guild for harbouring a
murderer, two seditionists, and a larcenist?"
"None."
"How has the Majesty of Osedys that you so supported, that so
supported you, changed since the adoption?"
Reluctance slowed Drussilikh's answer. "Not at all,"
"Remind yourself again of what we just left. A man whose eyes shine
with his passion, who commands the heart to reveal itself against its own
self-interest, who can sing to bend nature and human will."
"Did I not just say these very same..."
"But you do not look long enough or clearly enough, if that is all you
see! You responded as someone newly arrived from beyond the Eastern Dark,
with no familiarity. Shallow and callow. Not as someone who has seen his
anxieties, his turmoil, his love, wrath, and pain."
"What do you see?" Drussilikh demanded, suddenly desperate for another
viewpoint. "Think on the visage of the King as we just left him; what did
you see?"
"I saw a man in a precious agony of tender feeling for his son. I saw
a King possessing a few more tools than most rulers to accomplish his
calling -- and wielding an equal number of debilitating lacks and
encumbrances. I saw a man who does not trust himself, a loving and lonely
man, terrified of being inadequate to his duty and to his ambition for his
home."
After a long hiatus, the Matron pivoted again, resting her back
against the wall. "I let a moment's distress overrule my good sense."
"Yes." Sygkorrin's simple response yet came out gently.
"I thought him some enemy! Some predatory curse with the power to
cloud our better thought. But... he is the saving of us, not our doom!"
"No!" Sygkorrin protested, making Drussilikh gape in surprise. "He is,
himself a tool, a marvel, and a help. But he cannot do all for us. He is a
help, but he alone is no saviour. Do not burden him so."
"He's vulnerable, too," Drussilikh observed.
"Yes. Another contrast to the kings of our past. He does not want a
court or perpetual audience so much as he wants the companions, the
'family,' he never lived with. He leaves himself very vulnerable."
"I let the incidentals, the trappings of his aspects, unnerve me!"
The Priestess sought to alter the Matron's focus, move away from
possible self-denigration. "And his son, your brother?"
The voice of the Matron turned soft, tired. "I want to weep until no
one has a tear left to shed. I want to maim the miserable puns of dust(120)
who took a sweet happy child and mutilated him so utterly, and leave them
as they left him: alive and helpless and alone. Right now it hurts so much
to see him. The King can hold him and... I dare not. My stomach knots at
the idea. All I want to do is scream at the injustice, at what has become
of my brother."
Briefly immobilised by Drussilikh's admission, Sygkorrin's face
darkened with the rush of blood to her cheeks. "You mud-headed lazy fool!
Exercise your imagination to better purpose! You dwell on how your brother
looked before his capture. On how he smiled and rushed about and sparkled
with innocent vitality. No?"
"Yes."
"That is laziness. Easily evoked remembrances, pathways in your mind
that you have walked regularly for nine years. Not so long ago you helped
preserve his life. You both are truly 'one blood' as you have never been
before. Turn your mind to what is before you now, not what is past. He yet
smiles and sparkles with vitality, a vitality you helped provide. You are
Matron of the Scriveners. Would you cease to be competent or worthy of your
station if you could no longer walk?"
"No."
"No. Legless, would you cease to be Drussilikh daughter of the
Kohermarthen?"
"No." Drussilikh cringed at her own selfishness and
stupidity. "Thunders! I sound so churlish. Ungrateful. But I'm not! I love
Kri! The happiest day of my life was not when I became Quillmaster, it was
in the under-grounds, when I heard him call me 'Drussie' again."
"What you are not saying very well, child, is that you hurt still. You
fear for your brother, for the difficulties ahead for him. That you love
him and hate what he has had to endure, what you both have had to endure."
The Priestess's words, her perception, undid the young
Guildmistress. Sygkorrin wrapped an arm around the sobbing woman. After
several sodden breaths, the Priestess put both arms about her and swayed
back and forth.
Drussilikh cried, not alone with her tears for the first time in nine
years. Her outburst before Evendal upon their first meeting had been just
that, an outburst, and more in anger than anything else. Sygkorrin's very
show of temper, her scorn and disputation, convinced Drussilikh of the
woman's sincerity. Sygkorrin challenged her, goaded her to explore her own
motives, and refused to accept the gloss of intolerance Drussilikh had
tried to put over her pain-born urge to withdraw from a much-changed
brother. For the moment, and with this person, Drussilikh felt safe as she
had not in nearly ten years; safe to be less than her haughty, stern, and
demon-driven persona. For the first time in nearly ten years, she could be
an orphaned girl who had been living isolated in a house full of fond if
ineffectual acquaintances and mortal enemies. She could be herself.
Drussilikh continued to weep, and Sygkorrin to minister.
-------------------------------------------------
(102) A corruption of 'shoal', ~and originally derogatory in
Hramal-renan~. My cyber-friend and editor had brought a potential problem
to my attention; distinguishing my fabrications in the chapter endnotes
from historical verities. So from hence, if a phrase, a word, or its
meaning, owes more to my imagination than to history, and the words
'Osedys,''Hramal,' or 'Kelotta' are not in the reference, then I shall
frame it with ~.
(103) Detritus; an untidy accumulation of objects; leaves.
(104) Approximately 10 ft.
(105) Kalendarium: In the civil law, a calendar; a book of accounts,
memorandum-book, or debt-book; a book in which accounts were kept of moneys
loaned out on interest.
(106) A term of venery, like 'an unkindness of ravens'. See
http://www.kith.org/logos/words/upper/V.html.
(107) An Anglo-Saxon term meaning a retainer.
(108) Hereditamentum: Things capable of being inherited, tangible or
intangible or mixed.
(109) Menam's thanes. Dignity: In English law, an honour; a title, station,
or distinction of honour. Dignities are a species of incorporeal
hereditaments, in which a person may have a property or estate.
(110) The common folk.
(111) The right to demand money for the privilege of anchoring a vessel in
a harbour; also, the money so paid.
(112) A custom or tribute paid for the standing of shipping in port.
(113) In old English law, a fine, or sum of money paid for a lease.
(114) "Mustela nivalis" is meant: the most bellicose of the sub-species.
(115) "Pyrrhic nonsense," in this context, means that the person lost more
than they would gain by an act of defiance.
n
(116) The land of Kelotta does not yield limes. Literally, 'the green of a
willow's early spring shoots.' which is a bit too cumbersome for the
sentence. Sygkorrin was taunting that Drussilikh's jealousy was obvious to
anyone looking.
(117) Dantean 'umilte'; knowledge of self almost to the point of
paralysis. The current European understanding of the word is not the
traditional: e.g., Webster's 1913 dictionary uses terms such as "modest",
"not high or lofty" and "not pretentious or magnificent" to define
humility.
(118) Sport. A creature whose every attribute is excessive.
(119) "both extrinsic and intrinsic" is my own addition. The Hramal do not
separate so utterly as we do human subjective elements and the natural
world.
(120) When a European quotes 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' his fellows get
the idea that he is either about to make a joke ('if the whisky don't get
you, the women must') or is being somber and meditative -- even if they are
not speaking at a funeral. For those Hramal who are pissed off at the dead,
calling the dead one 'an absurd pun of dust' is genteel but effective
venting. On those very rare occasions when a Hramal is morosely
contemplative, all creatures -- living and past - are understood as absurd
puns that the five elements tell each other. Of course, calling anyone a
pun of dust is diminishing, Hramal or not. (A bow of acknowledgement to
Andrew Meit for his 'translation' of the phrase.)
----------------------------------------
To update readers, my father is cranky and recuperating at his home. That
he is cranky and impatient is how I know he is recuperating. The house we
have moved to is wonderfully large for us and we are enjoying it
thoroughly.