Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:23:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kris Gibbons <bookwyrm6@yahoo.com>
Subject: SongSpell 41

This story is a work of fiction. It contains references to both sexual and
violent behaviour, 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 onto 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 in emails from readers. Do you like the story? Hate it? Think Evendal
should take a vow of silence? Hope I have written other works? 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.


                       41 Peevish Opposition


                    It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
                    A heart unfortified, a mind impatient;
                    An understanding simple and unschool'd:
                    For what we know must be, and is as common
                    As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
                    Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
                    Take it to heart?

                                     Hamlet Act I, Scene ii, lines 95-101


     Having not eaten since the night before, Karondeo felt no hesitation
when the woman brought in the food. Almost everything tasted delicious,
although he had yet to resign himself to honey on any kind of
vegetable. During his second helping, feeling several eyes on him as he
ate, he sought to divert attention along the mostly silent table.
     "So many unanswerables whirl in my head, but bear with me and let me
rescue coherent questions from their maelstrom. Clearly much has happened
since I fled six years ago. Would it be too onerous a labour for you gentle
folk to slake my thirst for clarity?"
     "What would you?" Drussilikh asked.
     Karondeo did not say what he most wanted: Malismogh still free of the
Throne and at his side on the Swan Song. "Lady Melianth, I feel that I and
my father offended against you most directly. How did you fare after I
fled? How came you to accept my father's mercenary courtship?" She was,
after all, the point from which all else had followed, for him.
     The woman nattered on about his father being in a foul humour after he
had left -- which came as no surprise - and that she, Shenrowyn, and
Alekrond had conspired. Then Karondeo heard, "I insisted that your father
attend Court...", which sounded like either self-delusion on her part or an
indirect way to murder Alekrond.
     Karondeo held both hands up to interject. "But the sandcrabs(254) hate
us! They fear us only slightly less than plague. The Court must have made
Polgern's life miserable over that guesting."
     Melianth referred to the Court as 'a conclave of merchants who fear
the introduction of any rival' -- an opinion he himself had long held --
and then explained how Polgern had issued an edict that had guaranteed
Alekrond and his seamen welcome and liberties throughout the
Thronelands. Polgern had supposedly made this an arrangement in
perpetuity. She spoke naively, as if Polgern would have felt bound by such
an agreement.
     Polgern had also issued her an ultimatum: give over the office into
his hands or marry the 'lawless' corsair. He granted Melianth procuracy of
the Counsellorship and she agreed to the marriage, provided she was granted
a proper courtship. During the delay Shenrowyn, Melianth, and Alekrond
stocked Ddronthys Island for possible siege, and slipped all of their
confederates and friends off the mainland.
     The whole situation reeked of Alekrond's tendency for excess and
exaggeration. It made no sense to Karondeo that Melianth would invest her
future survival in the slippery old salt. "You make it sound as though you
had no qualms at all in wedding my father."
     "Qualms? I had plenty. But during that courtship your father treated
me well. And showed my father every respect." That assertion surprised
Karondeo, but not as much as her next.
     "Were I to compare his manner to anything... he dealt with me, at
first, just as a father would his daughter: forgiving of my ignorance,
gentle with my worries, cordial but not overly familiar." That did not
sound like his father at all! Alekrond was well capable of kindness and
affectionate display, but it was of a piece with his temperament: sudden,
fierce, mercurial. Gentilesse was not a policy Alekrond had ever
demonstrated around Karondeo.
     Melianth continued. "I learned, though he never said so outright, that
he did not truly want another wife. He expected that I would be a burden on
his heart and time, a fragile and sensitive bit of coloured glass."
     Karondeo recalled the first time he had demonstrated that same
attitude toward Malismogh.
     "What I got, lad," Alekrond rumbled, "was a ride through the Straits
of Pylaustwydd!(255) Bracing and perilous and the joy of my old age."
     Melianth smiled and rested her hand on Alekrond's. "While I got a man
who knows how to love both a wench and a lady."
     This was almost too much for Karondeo. He had had a surfeit of the
Kwo-edan sorghum being fed him in his father and stepmother's answers. It
was not that he begrudged Alekrond happiness. But he had both hoped for and
dreaded this reunion, well acquainted with his father's skill at
rationalisation and self-delusion. "I am relieved at your felicity, Lady
Melianth. Father, you know the root of my reluctance to wed any bride?"
     Alekrond nodded, sad-eyed. "If you had been forthright with me, we
both would have been spared so much."
     Karondeo's own eyes bulged in affronted but not surprise. "Had I been
forthright with you, I would not now be breathing! Shall I list the labels
with which you grace everyone you despise? A spineless molly-boy! A
brown-noser! A bolt-chewer!" The digits of both hands flailed out,
punctuating each exclamation. "To everyone who will hear. And am I to place
myself among those you so scorn? Offer myself up as the target for knife
practise aboard your ships?"
     "You are not anything like that!" Alekrond bellowed in protest.
     Blithely avoiding hitting Edrionwytt, Karondeo stretched his arms out
just above the table, fingers splayed, and all but shouted, "Do you think I
would not have struggled to fashion myself to your much-trumpeted
expectations?" Eyes fixed on Alekrond, he gestured obliquely toward his
lap. "The women were comely, willing, and yet my bolt remained a piece of
seaweed!" One hand rotated before him, like a wynch pulling out the
words. "They were kind, cordial, and meant less to me than the men whose
company I more honestly enjoyed. I am exactly 'like that', father." He
thumped on his own chest with two fingers several times for
emphasis. "Others may be able to take their pleasure without regard for
gender, but not I. And so I left under my own sail, rather than wait for
you to jettison me." His hand paused, pointing at Alekrond.
     "I would never..."
     "Father, in the time it takes two waves to slap against a ship!"
Karondeo clapped his hands sharply for emphasis. "You did precisely that,
nine years past, merely because I refused your demand! Do not tell me you
would have stomached a man-loving heir!"
     Astonished and slightly dismayed at Karondeo's forceful manner,
Kri-estaul watched as the young seaman waved his right hand, then again
pointed an accusing finger at Alekrond. Evendal had noted the use of the
slang 'sandcrab', a term he did not remember hearing before, but his
attention wandered afterward. Karondeo's vigourous vituperation made no
impact on the King until he felt his child press timourously against him.
     "What troubles you, my son?"
     "Is he unmanned, Papa?" Kri whispered, wide-eyed.
     Evendal considered. "Not any longer, I think. Karondeo is clearly a
very direct man of enviable vitality. Not knowing why, I felt more troubled
for him earlier when he spoke so carefully and gravely, for I expect that
such is not his nature. Though fierce and vocal, there is no violence in
him."
     Surn-meddil, eyeing the large-framed seaman, spoke up. "How can you
know this? You have little to no memory of your time with him."
     The King countered, "But I know myself. I would not endure someone
truly intemperate as friend or lover."
     "You seemed...distracted just now," Surn-meddil ventured.
     "I was?" Evendal grinned slightly. "Just enjoying a moment's concord."
The King then turned his ear to the seamen's converse.
     "And now His Majesty is the man you love?" Alekrond sighed heavily.
     "With all my breaths," Karondeo asserted, not readily hushed or
convinced of his father's conversion(256). "Male spouses of Hramal kings
are permitted fewer freedoms than female, father, so you can expect no
advantage from this bond Malismogh and I share. Do you still welcome your
son wholeheartedly? Do I disappoint you now? Do you still reckon me a man
of worth?"
     "Are you yet a man? In his eyes?" The Maritime Counsellor enquired
levelly. "Is His Majesty then 'Queen' of Osedys?"
     Karondeo prepared to do battle, almost relieved. "Am I yet a man?" he
repeated, and then wagged his index finger between himself and Evendal. "We
are each other's man, each the mould of virility in the only eyes that
matter. If your goal is offence, you labour too lightly toward it. Say on."
     Evendal noted the flush to Alekrond's granite mien and, against his
natural reluctance, chose to intercede. "We think you might -- in this
instance -- misjudge your father, beloved. Had his aim been for mischief,
you alone would have made a more politick target. No. Master Alekrond asks
for clarity, using the least offensive words with which he is familiar to
discuss a topic with which he is unfamiliar."
     "No, Your Majesty," Karondeo replied in warning, waving a hand
dismissively. "I have not misperceived the direction of my parent's
argument. And so I will leave the exchange of snarls and drones to you
two(257)."
     "We can guess at the thoughts plaguing you, Master Alekrond." Evendal
grinned slightly, knowing -- without questioning his certainty -- that
Alekrond was a man prone to meddling in the lives of those he cared
about. "Which of us suffered what you fancy as the humiliation of
submitting to the other? Was your son defamed? Did Karondeo act the pathic?
Or did your liege? You harbour most honestly the old Nikraan, and of late
Arkeddan, presumptions."
     "How else? How else am I to dress this offence? Either my King ceded
his authority, discarding that which makes him sovereign. Or my son
divested himself of his adulthood."
     "We do not see the matter so. Upon Guard Ierwbae and Guard
Metthendoenn We rely, and they have proven worthy of Our trust and the
authority We impart to them. Yet clearly one must submit to the other, so
it is not relevant to their service, their repute, their character or glory
which one enjoys the ascendancy."
     Alekrond shook his head. "The authority they exercise is not their
own, and so not corrupted by their own weak..."
     The King regretted his intercession. "You ascribe to Our word, Our
vassalage, qualities you would account ludicrous were that ascription not
necessary to your argument. Give over. You object to the limits and scope
of your son's affections simply because you do. You will not permit it a
wholesome model or see in it a wholesome affect, simply because you do not
wish to. It follows that you will encompass the genius of our relationship
only when it serves some impulse in you to do so. So no discourse can
provide you clarity.
     "That your son embraced haviour you deem disgrace-causing had to have
engaged your mind before ever you approached Us to retrieve him. Certainly
when you learned what impelled him to flee. Still you demanded his return
and spoke only of how you had wronged him and hoped for atonement, not of
how he soiled a repute your family does not have nor of how you would judge
him. You changed the song you were singing, Master Alekrond, from a noble
hymn of humility and repentance to an irate march for an imagined injury.
     "Let Us remind you how, earlier this very day, your dearest ambition
was the opportunity to demonstrate to Karondeo your repentance -- that was
your word! You bewailed your habits of thought as more Nikraan than Hramal,
and were disgusted in the admission. Where is that righteous disgust now?
That repentance?"
     "What do you want of me, Your Majesty?" Alekrond cried. "Am I to
simply accept that my son is a catamite?"
     "Your son has never been kept for that purpose. Do not use hyperbole
on Us, old fool!"
     "Papa!" Kri-estaul looked up and then, grinning with excitement,
looked around the table of carefully bland faces.
     The son of the Maritime Counsellor had kept a statue-like pose, his
trunk resting on the edge of his chair, legs stretched out under the table
and crossed at the ankles, fingers of both hands interlaced over a flat,
food-tautened belly. He seemed the eikhon of contented satiety. He fooled
no one.
     "Your Majesty?" Gwl-lethry alone looked troubled. Melianth sat, face
impassive, with tears filling her eyes.
     The King was neither embarrassed nor penitent. "We did not challenge a
sea power and endanger Karondeo just so he could be subjected to the
baseless anxieties of an inconstant heart. I call this man an old fool. Do
I misrepresent him?"
     "Not from what we have witnessed thus far," Aldul admitted. "But who
is not a fool over family?"
     Evendal, uncertain if he had encroached on familial privilege in his
assessing, glanced aside at Karondeo. The younger seaman turned his head,
his expression grave, his eyes dull. The sight hurt. "You misrepresented
yourself, Master Alekrond, asking the aid of the Throne. A liege must feel
confidence in the responses of his vassals, in both their constancy and
consistency. If you show no steadfastness toward your heir, We Ourself can
hardly expect it of you. We excuse you from Our presence, Alekrond
lin'Agredd, until such time as you truly have abandoned the clan of your
father's father, or until We call upon you."
     Alekrond paused a moment, to assure himself of the King's
sincerity. He then stood and stepped behind his wife's chair, to draw it
out and help her to stand.
     Melianth, jaw clenched, drew her chair back.
     "Wife? Beloved? Our King bids us to depart."
     "He exiles only you, old fool." She stared across the table at a
sad-faced, sympathetic Cheselre.
     "Melianth?" Alekrond besought.
     "And what will you do when our son or daughter mortally offends you?
Or offends your hoary code?"
     "Is this how you support me?" the old salt asked, and too late
realised his error. He could hardly intimate fecklessness on her part.
     "Yes. With honesty and honour. 'Tis not a tradition in the Thronelands
to support with blind obedience. If mute compliance is what you want now
after four years, I shall see our bond and contract nullified and you can
pursue some histrionic flit - outside of the Thronelands." She twisted her
head up to squint at her spouse. "Walk out that door, or stay, robed in
injured pride, and I shall indeed nullify our marriage and name Karondeo my
child's father."
     Alekrond looked as though his wife had hit him with a halberd. "You
would give over a father's office(258) to someone who abrogates a man's
authority?"
     Melianth was not impressed with the argument. "You would toss aside a
son for transgressing an ethos you have disdained for decades. If you are
going to punish him for leaving you to Polgern and a groomless bride, do so
honestly. If you cannot? Keep that portcullis of a mouth shut and go punch
a wall until you feel better."
     "Do you truly think I confront him out of spite?"
     The woman shrugged. "I care little as to why. I only know that
Karondeo has shown more honour and virtue than you, though it cost him his
home and kin. Such manhood can hardly be diminished by whom the man beds or
who beds him."
     "I don't understand," Kri-estaul complained. "Master Alekrond is mean
to his son? Why?"
     Evendal answered. "Because Karondeo might have been buggered by me. I
told you how it is for some men."
     Kri-estaul nodded, his mind engaged. "Those who love each other, as a
way of showing love. I remember." Evendal held a breath, uneasy at
broaching such a topic with his abused son, but unwilling to cosset him
completely. "But I still do not understand. Did Papa plough you, Master
Karondeo?"
     Utterly nonplussed at the child's gravitas -- most boys having eight
years would be giggling or showing exaggerated disgust mixed with delight
-- Karondeo could only nod.
     "Did you like it, Master Karondeo, when Papa ploughed you?"
     Again a nod, an easing of the tightness around the eyes.
     "I hated when Nisakh did," Kri-estaul confided. "It hurt like nothing
else did. Did you plough Papa also?"
     Karondeo cleared his throat before replying "I think you must ask your
Papa that. I am sorrowed for your ordeals, Your Highness. 'Tis the
penultimate in heinous acts to do against a boy or girl."
     "Your Papa thinks it somehow turns you into a little child, right?
That it means you are no longer a man, but a boy, right? That sounds
ridiculous."
     "Yes, it is risible. He also says, though I know not how thoroughly he
believes it, that 'any man who takes it up the ass is more woman than
man'." Karondeo bent his fury-stiff neck and grinned at Kri-estaul in
reassurance. "You and I both know it takes a man's strength to endure such
use. My father has a number of strange notions. I yet love him because he
always intended nought but well for me."
     His Serene Highness turned his stare on Alekrond, a gaze made lambent
by intensity and sincerity. "Then are you angry at me because Nisakh
ploughed me?"
     Evendal stirred. "Yes, Master Alekrond, tell Us," he insisted with
vinegared sweetness. "Though We do not recall the occasions of Our 'fault',
as your son was Our purpose(259) We have no doubt they were many. So do you
companion three people whom you would label 'mollies' by the criteria you
have already voiced? Does Nisakh's abuse of his 'masculine privilege' mean
Kri-estaul, the recipient, will grow up to be less of a man? Does that make
him weak, who survived two years whipped, buggered, branded, and hamstrung?
Shall We make wagers on your survival of the same treatment? You who have
never played the pathic for any man?
     "Your son," the King spat, "chose -- against your coercion and direct
command -- not to deceive or defraud an honest maiden. Your son banished
himself rather than embarrass or 'shame' you before your assembly of
captains. Your son's concern has ever been for other people, We need no
memory of Our own to glean that. Nor do We need recollection of Our time at
Alta to assert that he is a vital, integral man of virtue and honour.
     "Then there is Ourself. We are your liege for as long as you are
indeed wed to Melianth. We have prevailed against two successful despots
whom no one had challenged so before. We have brought the turn of Fortune's
Wheel for Osedys. We manifest the Left Hand of the Unalterable and a
Mastery of Song. In what way are We diminished by this expression of Our
love for your son, this indicator of Our trust? Explain to Us how We are
less than a man, or less of a man? Speak."
     Kri-estaul yet held Alekrond's eyes, though both blinked as
needed. "How..." The older seaman's throat closed and he had to try
again. "How could I be angry at you for the maleficence of another? And I
fear... your father might be correct in every instance and every hint. Once
I had my son home my thoughts turned immediately to my own welfare."
     "Is that bad?" Kri-estaul asked, bewildered.
     "Not in and of itself, no. But my thoughts run to worry over how I
would be looked at, murmured about, challenged for primacy, because my son
is a mollycoddle. Because my heir submits to the virility of another. That
my son yields his strength, his control, to another man and is seen by many
as soft, as less virile. That I will be laughed at, ridiculed, because I
serve an unabashed passive and raised one."
     "So what?" the boy replied blithely. "What does that matter?"
     "Master Alekrond," Evendal added, "when has that happened?"
     "What do you ask? I do not ken."
     "When have you seen any of your crew, or any Hramal, ridicule a man
for his pleasures? Or overthrow a leader for his heir's behaviour? When?"
     Alekrond shook his head. "Never. But these are fears my heart has
harboured, they are not reasonable."
     "Then they are your burden, not Karondeo's. Your burden and your dead
father's."
     Alekrond stood ruminating, chewing his upper lip as his labouring
stomach rumbled and he struggled with what to do, to leave proudly or to
accept his chastisement, to accept being in error. He glanced repeatedly at
the frozen countenance of his grown son. Coming to a decision, the Maritime
Counsellor strode past his wife, Sygkorrin, Ierwbae and Edrionwytt to kneel
at his son's side.
     "Karh," he grumbled in what had to be his lowest register, "I keep
hurting you, it seems."
     Karondeo straightened in his chair, to give himself some small
distance; he swallowed a couple of times before he felt ready to
answer. "Well, it would be easier to endure with some warning,
chulta(260). Perhaps if you could provide a broadside(261) to warn me
before your broadsides(262)?"
     The levity hardly warranted a chuckle, but it encouraged an ashamed
and timorous older seaman. "I have distrusted everything about my days, my
command, since you ran off. It has felt as though I lost... You were the
most beautiful of my fashionings. When you left, and I had only crew to
shout at, my life felt so grim. My heart hurt."
     "No more so than mine, father. I turned to you for so much else. But
not this, I did not dare. You painted the facade of a virile, fecund rascal
on me, 'twas your expectation and nearly all our crews' presumption of me."
He waved both hands in the air, then gripped his father's shoulders in
earnestness. "I saw no other avenue that would leave you with any respect
but for me to flee."
     Once again, Karondeo asked, "Do you now welcome your son
wholeheartedly? Or do I disappoint you? Do you reckon me a man of worth?"
     Alekrond stood and, bending slightly, wrapped Karondeo in an
embrace. Seated, the son was nearly as tall as his father. To Kri-estaul's
confoundment the young seaman started to tremble. "Yes. No. And yes,
always." Alekrond mumbled into Karondeo's shoulder. "You are my son, a
strong and good man, and His Majesty might someday be worthy of you."
     "You've got a wife who clearly loves you. Seems a good exchange,
father. I would have caused trouble for you with the other captains. I will
now, whether I want or not. Forgive me that."
     The Maritime Counsellor hushed his pain-wracked son. "Shhh. Granted
sevenfold. I must ask your forgiveness, my son, for I have hurt you and
distrusted you brutally. I do repent of my foolish cruelty." He raised his
considerable voice so that all might hear. "You are a man, a son such as
every father hopes for. And my silly wife is also right; all that which
makes a man dwells in you, in full measure.
     "About this wife you left to me. She was a better consequence than I
had any right to, and we both know it.
     "As for my captains. They must either accept the particulars of my
family or I shall openly remind them of their many faults and less public
vulnerabilities. Do not worry over them! Our liege might be correct -- it
might be that any such trouble exists solely in my fancies."
     Alekrond patted Karondeo's salt-tangled hair and ceased projecting his
voice. "I do not think I have seen you cry since my brother died. Your
father is a tired old fool, Karh, whose ignorance could swallow the sea and
more. Thunders, you deserved better at my hands than ever you got. But I do
love you and am right glad you are back here."
     Alekrond returned to his seat and both father and son schooled their
countenances as if nothing untoward had occurred, though Karondeo took a
table linen and blotted his cheeks. "What prompted my macabre mode of
return?"
     The question created another moment of tense quiet at the table.
     Karondeo had settled and looked about in expectation of a response
before Alekrond provided a placebo of an answer. "As you can see, the Lady
Melianth is nearing her time, and I needed to know if the child she bears
was my heir or merely your sibling. Did you yet live? So I besought His
Majesty Lord Evendal, and His Majesty begged the aid of his peers."
     "You know some aweful peers, Your Majesty." Karondeo commented with a
shudder, arm up and palm facing out in warding. Kri-estaul moved from
indifference to liking the young seaman.
     "Your father lies by omission, Master Karondeo, to spare you further
turmoil on an emotional and tiring day."
     Karondeo gripped his edge of the table and, taking a deep breath,
rolled his eyes in dread anticipation. "I would rather know all, and
now. Tell me, Father."
     The old seaman actually flushed in dismay. "I am not well, Karh," he
mumbled. "I have been feeling weaker and more worn every day. And it is not
just the season's effect or my fouler habits. I... I may not live long."
     "What nonsense!" The son was clearly thunderstruck. "Who has told you
this? Why?"
     Alekrond shrugged. "Two healers. A heart arrhythmia, among other
things. Bile spewing up from my guts late at night, setting me to vomit up
chyme and blood."
     "No. No! No!" Stunned, Karondeo shook his head rapidly and then turned
pain-widened eyes of night upon the young woman down the far end of the
table. "Lady Melianth? This cannot be!"
     The wife of Alekrond mimicked her husband's shrug. "'Tis true, Master
Karondeo. We all wish it were not." She gazed down at nothing.
     The young seaman declined his head and furrowed his brow, flummoxed by
the lady's light tone of voice. Seeing no expression, finding no hint of
remorse or concern on the woman's pale face did not sooth Karondeo's
already agitated state. "You championed me over your husband, Lady, and I
thank you. But your cold manner just now belies your words! Do you even
mean what you spout? Do you hate him so? It is like you simply wait for my
father to die!"
     Swiftly, Evendal reached across and gripped Karondeo's arm, tightly
enough to leave marks. "Beloved, stop!" he hissed, sotto voce. "Think! Look
at her closely! She only acts on your father wishes." He leaned closer and
spoke even more softly. "Have no doubt that she has been bearing grief
along with her baby these past eighteen fortnights."
     After a moment masking his face in his hands, Karondeo lowered them
and turned back to his father and stepmother. "Forgive my baseless
accusations, Lady Melianth, Father. I spoke from selfish pain, ignoring
your own travail and clear integrity."
     The daughter of Shenrowyn sat as though made of stone, her hand still
and lifeless over her husband's. When Melianth's immobility continued to
where Evendal doubted the woman had even taken a breath, Alekrond turned
about. The scrape of the old seaman's chair against the floor seemed loud
in the respectful silence. He placed his other hand over his wife's.
     "Here now, Meli. I am doing fine right now. Nothing to fret over, you
hear me? We agreed..."
     Melianth sucked in a tremendous breath and began to shake and
whisper. To have her struggle unveiled so succinctly brought a pressure
against her breastbone, made the mass of sorrow and anxiety she held tight
to suddenly and swiftly unbearable. Her voice slowly rose in volume and
pitch as she repeated one word. "No. No. No. No." Evendal had no doubts
that her voice would have elevated into a shrill shriek had she not broken
down into sobs in her husband's massive arms.
     "Forgive us, Your Majesty," Alekrond begged hoarsely, "but if we might
retire for a time?"
     Perversely, the King again shook his head.
     "Your Majesty? I'll not have us be a lodestone for people's pity!"
     Evendal glanced up and down the table. "Master Alekrond, We doubt if
anyone here pities you. We may feel pain for your wife's terrible burden
and your own, but nothing so useless and patronising as pity. You are not
diminished in Our eyes nor, We deem, in the opinion of anyone here,
Madame. But We suspect that you grieve prematurely."
     Alekrond scowled and squinted belligerently at his King. "Speak
plainly, Your Majesty."
     "Have you not noticed that you can? 'Speak plainly', We mean? You have
not coughed or lacked for breath since sitting. We think that your stay on
the Swan Song may have proven a tonic for your ailments, Master Alekrond."
     "My stay on the Swan Song?" Alekrond queried. Then enlightenment
showed in his face and he fell silent. Evendal had seen, just since leaving
the pier, a less cadaverous skin tone on the old seaman. His breathing had
subtly eased. And Osmaredh's granddaughter of long ago did refer to the
Moonchild as 'the Old Meddler'.
     "I do not understand," Melianth complained, her face tear streaked.
     "We are saying, dear lady, that We would be very surprised if your
husband's health does not improve hence."
     "Truly?" The female half of the Maritime Counsellorship leaned left
and forward in her seat, as though to get closer to the King. "Why?"
     "Nothing We did. Consider it a gift of the sea."
     Attending this exchange closely, Karondeo protested, "Your Majesty has
me caught between grief and ease."
     "Patience. Only time will give proof. Instead, continue with your
questions, and let us grant your family a respite from Our attentions while
still providing what comfort Our presence might give."
     But Karondeo could not resist a final question. "Father, who told you
the cause for my refusal?"
     Alekrond blinked owlishly at his son and began to bluster. "What? You
think that, once I had calmed, I could not reason my way to the truth?"
     With a brittle grin Karondeo answered, "Yes, that is what I think,
Father."
     "Bri-etalin."
     "Bri-etalin," Karondeo echoed and, obedient to the King's greater
wisdoms, did not pursue the matter. But Evendal, seeing the younger
seaman's down-turned mouth and troubled air, understood that his beloved's
heart might have a history.
     "Most of my questions I would address to my fellow mariners and my new
liege, so those can wait. And as Your Majesty has wisely said, I am tired
and distressed. So let me turn to less weighty queries and ask Master
Edrionwytt how old he is."
     Edrionwytt had discovered that honeyed beets were not as sweet as
their name indicated, and was drowning the taste in a cup of mulled
cider. Once he had succeeded, he turned to his questioner and stared as
though harpooned. Karondeo noted the unusually thick fold at the inner
corner of the eyes.
     "Sire?" he whispered.
     "How many years have you?"
     The youth struggled to find an answer, his eyes darting about and
blinking with the effort. The flattened bridge of his nose gave him a lost,
cross-eyed appearance. "Mama said I had three years when my father
died. Sire."
     Startled, Karondeo softened his brisk tone. "That means you now have
twelve years, Master Edrionwytt. And who is your mother?"
     Again a look of anxious confusion crossed Edrionwytt's face. "Mother?
She's just my Mama."
     "But does no one address her by a name when they speak with her?"
     "We do not entertain at home, Lord. Forgive me. I remember M... Matron
Drussilikh and the woman who told me to go to the Scriveners calling her
some name, but I cannot recall it. I forgot. I apologise." It was clear, at
least to Karondeo, that the boy was mimicking.
     Karondeo flung his arm across Edrionwytt's shoulder. "Peace, lad. You
comport yourself well for one who has never guested."
     "Sire?"
     "You show good table manners, young master."
     Edrionwytt grinned, well pleased, and recited, "'Almost anything can
be forgiven you, so long as you never embarrass your host. Or guests.'
That's what Mama told me."
     Karondeo grinned back, fully engaged. "Your mother is correct. I
gather that you seldom left your home?"
     "A few times when I was very young. We went to the Scriveners, where
Mama taught a lot of people. That is how I knew where to go. See, I
remembered how to get there." He was clearly proud of his accomplishment.
     Evendal interrupted. "For Karondeo, and those who may not have
approached a Crier's Post these past few days, beside Us sits my brother
Edrionwytt, the last son of my mother Wytthenroeg of Alta and my father
Lord Menam (may his memory be green)."
     Karondeo's brow knotted. "Your Majesty claims the Lady Wytthenroeg for
your mother? What, then, was Onkira?"
     "Our father, on his authority, had papers composed that bound
Wytthenroeg and her fortunes to him and his. Composed, signed and given the
royal seal prior to his then duplicitous avowals to Arkedda."
     "Yes," Edrionwytt recalled, "The girl called Mama 'Wytthenroeg'. Do
you like honeyed beets?" he asked Karondeo.
     "Not overmuch," Karondeo deferred. "So Her Highness Onkira had no path
to advancement even had she sought one? And died without issue?"
     "None," Evendal affirmed. "But she bore one child. Introductions might
have been a bit rushed, if so Our apologies. At Our oldest friend's right
hand sits the only offspring of the union of Master Polgern ald'Morruth and
Her Highness Onkira olm'Aguandit a Mulhassoir. Cheselre olm'Onkira ba
Polgern, born the same season as Ourself. The Lady Cheselre is the gracious
mother of a strapping boy having two years named Meracaldi."
     This was the first Alekrond had heard of his former passenger's
pedigree. "And you suffer this claimant here?"
     "Claimant to what, in Osedys?" Evendal asked rhetorically. "It is
north she must go had she any ambitions. Lady Cheselre?"
     The woman looked down the table at the King, again sad-faced in the
scrutiny of her dinner companions. "I am content with the kingdom I have
made, Your Majesty, among the people of Ddronthys. And I happily
acknowledge you as my sovereign."
     "We recommend to you converse with Our friend and scribe,
Danlienn. And We repeat that you are most welcome here. We grant the
freedom of the Palace to you and to your son."
     "Thank you, Your Majesty."
     "Who raised you?" Danlienn blurted out. "How did you live? Where?"
     The lady turned to and looked uncertainly at the scribe. "The couple
who raised me dwell on Ddronthys. We live very well, to my mind, as we are
seldom bothered."
     The King redirected the attentions of his guests. "Lest We forget,
Matron, Priestess, Master Gwl-lethry, Masters Alekrond and Melianth, Guard
Ierwbae -- you may be visited by a young brine-neck under Our
protection. He is called Limmal and is nephew to the late Master
Polgern. An intense, honourable young man seeking the truths regarding his
uncle's history. Treat him well, bear with his rough ways, and be honest,
for Our sake."
     "How has he remained ignorant to his uncle's perfidy?" Gwl-lethry
enquired.
     "He has spent a time of exile in Alta. That one of Our Guard escorted
him there suggests that Master Polgern sent him for his own safety."
     Karondeo resumed, his arms extended out at his sides, palms open,
doggedly seeking clarity. "When last I was here, Her Highness had done
little more than attend fetes. What warranted her execution?"
     Drussilikh dryly addressed that last query. "She arranged for an
assassination attempt upon Wytthenroeg of Alta, employing some of my
students. She attempted a coup here and in Arkedda."
     Having missed the event, Karondeo remained ignorant of the
significance of the execution. "How troublesome," he adjudged blandly. With
an enervated, heavy-lidded look, he waved one hand limply in the air as
though brushing the issue aside. This simple imitation of a Court-bored
courtier caused Evendal to grin over his spoon. "Has there been some suit
the Archate would beg of His Majesty?" He resumed his avid expression, his
eyes glittering like polished obsidian.
     The King gestured to Sygkorrin to answer as he had a mouth full of
oats.
     "Not particularly. Why?"
     "'Tis strange to see both an Honourable Ambassador for the Temple and
the Prince of the Archate herself in attendance without honours or
entourage."
     Sygkorrin declined her head. "I am here in my offices. Master Aldul is
here, despite his health, out of his curiosity and friendship to His
Majesty."
     Karondeo turned his hawklike gaze down the table to a man who looked
as robust as any. "Despite his health?"
     Aldul grimaced briefly. "The cold and wet makes my bones ache on
occasion," he demurred. "I am well."
     Sygkorrin was permitting no prevarication. "The winters here are going
to be a constant impediment for Master Aldul. His joints and sinews betray
him into pain after any lengthy period of rest or immobility."
     "You seem young to be suffering from such a rheum."
     Aldul shrugged.
     Evendal drew the young seaman's attention. "It was Aldul who found Us,
as he journeyed from Kwo-eda to here. He has been witness to nearly all of
Our cardinal moments, and has consistently supported Our better thoughts
and ambitions. His wisdom and experience have greatly benefited Us and Our
son."
     "So gratitude places him here?" Karondeo challenged.
     The King stared, owl-like, at the closer table guest. "No. An
agreement of wills. As Her Eminence told you. What troubles you?"
     Karondeo blushed as much as his tan allowed. "My own position and
status yet unsecured, I find myself hard pressed to treat all of Your
Majesty's company with the manners they deserve."
     Evendal nodded. "So the questions you have for Us most specifically
will not permit pause?"
     "You did conjure me into this occasion of feasting and commemoration,
taxing my affability. I have never been one to dance in a ceilidh(263)
while my ship burned in the harbour." He waved his hand toward where he
supposed the Swan Song lay.
     "Speak then. Perhaps We can ease your heart with dispatch."
     "What I would say, how I would speak with you... I would not weigh
others down with sentiments and intelligence of no moment to them. I do not
yet share your ease or intimacy with these your companions."
     "We have no doubt that We likewise suffered a constant traffic and
intercourse of your crew during moments of great personal delicacy to
Us. Can you not think of this as another such occasion?" Evendal saw
Karondeo's turmoil, and knew the true answer to that question. He held up
his hand to pre-empt the seaman's accommodation.
     "You ken that, as Osedys, We are never alone?"
     "Yes. But, here and now, I feel like a town crier facing the curious
masses."
     The King looked about the table and raised his voice. "Kith and kin,
Madame Shulro intends gingerbread(264) as the meal's final plate. Ourself
having had a surfeit of sweetness, We will leave it to you to do her noble
effort gustatory justice." He looked down at his son. "Have you had enough
oatmeal for the moment?"
     "Yes, but I want gingerbread too. I think."
     Evendal understood from Kri-estaul's word choice and tone that the boy
could not recall if he had ever consumed 'gingerbread' before. "Do you want
to eat it now? Or would you rather stay with me while I speak with
Karondeo?"
     "Can't I eat it and stay with you?" After a period of serious
consideration, Kri-estaul grudgingly decided, "Stay with you."
     "Good. I shall ensure you get gingerbread after." His Majesty singled
out those he felt necessary to the possible scope of the coming
discussion. "Master Aldul, Guards Ierwbae and Metthendoenn, if you would of
your grace join Us. Cart what refreshment you require. Master Karondeo,
would you feel more at ease at another table or another room?"
     Karondeo clearly was not delighted with the number of attendants, but
said nothing. "Another table would be sufficient, provided people do not
petition for their King's time while we speak."
     With a frisson of dread and hope at the prospect of a more immediate
tete-a-tete, Evendal glanced behind him to the two Guard quietly flanking
his chair. "That is Our will as well," he bade them. He readjusted his grip
on Kri-estaul and stood, requiring all table guests to stand and bow. The
Priestess, the Lord Tinde'keb, the Matron, the Heirs Apparent and
Presumptive of Arkedda, and the Maritime Counsellors of the Thronelands all
remained standing as the King and those he had singled out claimed an
adjacent table. Ierwbae moved quickly to help a convalescent Metthendoenn
out of one chair and into another. Edrionwytt, after a moment's hesitation,
followed Aldul to the new focus.
     Karondeo waited, and watched the procession in irritation and
amusement. Had he merely witnessed this unheralded migration, which
silenced conversation at all occupied tables, he would have been utterly
bewildered, especially as it was not a discommoding of the King's subjects
but of the King. He grasped at the incidental as a reassuring sign; the
lover he knew had likewise discarded protocol at others' need without
second thoughts. The lover he knew might yet await him beneath the
distracting accretions of Evendal's temporal power.
     "Master Edrionwytt," Karondeo cautioned, "unless His Majesty did
signal for your attendance, it would be the better part of valour for you
to abide and chaperone the ladies thus temporarily abandoned."
     The youth halted and turned to Karondeo. "Sire?" He blinked and
shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Master. Karondeo. My Mama
bade me stay with my brother and my... his son."
     The lad said nothing more, as if his commission was sufficient to
silence any objections. After the briefest of considerations, Karondeo
realised Wytthenroeg's fiat did just that. King or no, 'Mama Wytthenroeg'
outranked everyone in Edrionwytt's hierarchy of authority.
     Though Edrionwytt's assertion was delivered like an irresistible
passport past any difficulty, Karondeo did not see assurance on the lad's
face, only confusion and worry. This youth was twice a child, required by
his mother's frailty to perform a man's office with naught but the barest
of verbal instructions to guide him through. He himself had had Shenrowyn
and Melianth to help navigate and, as a seaman, had been comfortable
dealing with groups in close quarters and in swiftly changing
circumstances. Edrionwytt had to feel very alone, and terrified of
offending or embarrassing his brother as much as of disobeying his
mother. He probably cared not at all for the conversations he could not
follow, just so long as he survived this social occasion unscathed. The
youth was not stupid, Karondeo felt fairly certain of that, or else
Wytthenroeg would have chosen another deputy to witness the execution.
     "Then that is what you must do, Master Edrionwytt, and allow me to
intercede should anyone challenge you. Is your mother well?"
     The lad turned and paused before reciting, "She regrets being
indisposed and hopes you'll pardon her absence."
     For Edrionwytt's greater ease, the young seaman gave him the expected
social amenity in return. "Tender my sincere wishes for her restored
health." After the King sat at the head, Karondeo took the first place at
the King's right and gestured to the chair across the table from
his. "Sit."
     Edrionwytt complied with alacrity.
     Karondeo perused the four witnesses he now had, to his thinking an
improvement over the twelve he had felt surrounded by. Ierwbae and a pale,
tired Metthendoenn seemed more aware of each other than of anyone else; not
negligent per se, but each throwing shy or wary glances when one thought
the other preoccupied. Edrionwytt looked back at the first table
momentarily; glad to have left the beets behind. Aldul gave the King and
Karondeo his steady and undistracted attention.
     "Your Majesty, I abandoned crew in Alta, good folk ignorant of my
fate."
     The King nodded, anticipating the likelihood. "As soon as the crocus
blooms outlast the nights here, We shall send for them."
     Flustered, Karondeo willed himself to ignore the strangers beside
him. "When... when you did not return to the ship, I thought perhaps I had
driven you beyond your patience."
     Troubled, Evendal asked the obvious. "How?"
     Karondeo twisted in his seat to look at the kitcheners' entry and wish
all these attendants gone through it. "Can we not...?" he began, but saw
the futility of any wish for greater privacy.
     "Pretend that there are only you and I. That is easy enough for me to
do."
     The glow on Malismogh's face could not obscure his expression, one
that, for Karondeo, was sweetly familiar. He chuckled, but with a pained
expression. "Stop. You confuse me."
     "How so?"
     The young seaman cleared his throat, and turned a solemn gaze back on
Evendal. "The Prince I knew was the sum of his forbears, actual and
assumed. You would to chase after the Sheikh of Alta than confess error or
need. When first we met, to be the target of the assertion 'I love you'
infuriated you. To say it terrified you."
     "Demanding and snobbish? Arrogant?" the King mused. "I sound more the
burthen than the helpmate."
     "Not arrogant. Constrained. With me alone would you speak to the point
-- eventually. I... I learned to suspend judgement regarding you." Karondeo
waved a hand back toward Alekrond. "My father never held out the
possibility of his love as a goad. I grew up awash in his affection and
pride in me. Whereas when you heard 'I love you'," he pointed at Evendal,
his brow knitted, "you girded yourself to perform some unsavoury task or
support some unpalatable lie from your parents. The only vulnerabilities
unveiled around you were fabricated or exaggerated manipulations, so you
had learned to hide all felt needs and deny all shortcomings..."
     Evendal ald'Menam finished the assessment. "... that I might serve the
need of whichever parent I faced. Now I sound battle-scarred and
hag-ridden."
     Karondeo nodded. "That would be accurate enough. You were impassible
at times. But conversely anxious to please at others. And if I told you to
climb the mast to spare my mates from mortal injury, you would though a
tempest raged, not out of affection for them but because you knew how they
mattered to me. You counted your life less than your wounds and your
loves."
     Evendal sat puzzled by this description. "Is such the manner of man I
was before my disappearance?"
     "Not wholly," Karondeo clarified. "You fought against your second
nature with the determination of an Arkeddan chasing an errant
kypri(265). This last season you would admit to loving me outright with a
smile rather than a grave look. Hearing me say 'I love you' no longer
rendered your body still with anxiety. We... we accepted each other,
provisionally, from our first talk. When we did not, we talked, shouted, or
whispered, until we had at least restored trust in the other's love and
respect."
     "But it sounds like an austere and unrewarding courtship for you," the
King opined.
     The seaman shook his head in dispute and chuckled. "Far from it. There
are so many ways to tender love without resorting to the word itself."
     "So what did you think I had taken such umbrage to that I would
abandon you?"
     Karondeo glanced at the few around him, then grimaced. "I have thought
much on this since you vanished.  When first you...left, and after I became
convinced Alta had not absconded with you, I thought perhaps you had chosen
to free yourself of her detention in a way that kept me and my crew
blameless. But you would not have done so without apprising me. So I
returned again and again to the belief that you had tired of the
accumulation of misunderstandings and demands and expectations I met you
with over the whole of our time together."
     "Oh. Did I hoard grievances so?"
     "No."
     "Were you such a termagant?"
     "No. But nothing else I could posit made any better sense." The young
seaman's dark complexion turned darker still.
     "Your mouth spouts 'No.' Your face disagrees."
     Karondeo's right hand gripped the thumb of the left, the fingers of
the left then covering the back of the right. Clamped thusly, he pressed a
knuckle against his lips as he sought to make order out of the jumble in
his tired mind. "Unwittingly, I worked to herd you back to the
Thronelands."
     Evendal's left eyebrow rose with the right corner of his lip,
encouraging his spouse to elaborate.
     "Whenever our itinerary included the Eastern Dark or the Tinde, I all
but begged you to accompany me on those expeditions." His hands separated
again, relaxing now that he had broached the wellspring of his pain and
shame.
     "That much closer to home, eh?"
     "That much closer to your birthright and your vocation," Karondeo
corrected, shaking his head and tapping a finger on the table for
emphasis. "At every opportunity I saw, I hinted for you to quit your pledge
to the Sheikh. I would carp on how much safer you and I would be in any
other port but Alta's and how the Thronelands needed you home."
     "Is this a confession?" Evendal asked both amused and slightly
bemused.
     The young man pondered the question, and then nodded. "Yes. I did not
allow myself to see my habits for what they were: I cast doubt on our few
allies in Alta, and had encouraged you to do so as well. Three fortnights
ago I woke from a sodden sleep perceiving how thorough my...purpose had
been."
     "I do not understand your meaning."
     "You trusted me. So you assumed that I pressed you to leave because I
mistrusted your support, your Altan friends. But I mistrusted those allies
only because I wanted us to leave."
     "And the reason I fled the ship, that last time?"
     Karondeo studied his long fingers. "You refused to leave the Sheikh
while her enemies yet threatened. That alarmed me. So I chose to see her as
my rival, furious that your affection -- and not just your word -- might be
behind your commitment to her."
     "You asserted this then?"
     "Yes." Feeling that a simple affirmative was not enough of an answer,
Karondeo elaborated. "'Twas the apex in a ladder of accusation I hurled at
you that bell."
     "And what was my counter?"
     "The truth." The young seaman looked squeamish.
     "Detail this 'truth' for me."
     Karondeo took a deep breath. "That I exalted my unadmitted wants above
your honour and the needs of others. That I expected you to betray Alta --
even as Osedys had at Mausna -- for the sake of what would only be my
equanimity, not my weal. That you were tired of enduring my idea of subtle
coercion, and after over eight years in Alta with a target sewn to your
tabard you knew better than I did which Altans you could rely on. When I
insisted on my innocence, you stormed off saying you would return in time
to supp. You didn't."

(254) ~Landlubbers.

(255) ~A stretch of water seasonally connecting the Kerilawyn and Donnag
rivers.

(256) andern-unbewuBt, root or radical change.

(257) ~Karondeo compares the succeeding dialogue between Alekrond and
Evendal to the earsplitting barks and hoots between territorial sea-lions.

(258) akhsi-wma - that of which one is thought worthy, an honour; rank,
position.

(259)~ 'Attractant', eromenon. The text is awkward in English. Evendal is
offhandedly asserting that since what he feels from Karondeo is universal
eros(which infuses & motivates every element of the Hramal kosmos), Evendal
must have sought union with him many times. He is not being gauche here:
Evendal actually means 'sought union', not 'had sex'. For those unfamiliar
with 'universal eros' and its implications, see Love & Will, Rollo May,
W. W. Norton & Co.; 1969; pg.72-94.

(260) ~Nikloan: sire, father

(261) a (1) a sizable sheet of paper printed on one side; (2) a sheet
printed on one or both sides and folded b : something (as a ballad) printed
on a broadside

(262) a: all the guns on one side of a ship; also : their simultaneous
discharge; b: a volley of abuse or denunciation

(263) Celtic ref., equivalent to a community dance, pronounced 'kay-lee'.

(264) http://www.recipesource.com/misc/medieval/ginger-bread1.html

(265) ~Much as the ha'penny used to be. An incremental measure in copper.