There was the problem of sixteen peasants who had fled their farms when an unseasonable eruption scattered a landslide of pumice and ash across the fields. They brought the sulfurous stench of the Smoking Hills into the very audience hall; it hung about their unwashed bodies and their tattered clothes. These were shiftless, dull-witted folk whose only conceivable virtue might be termed persistence by someone too charitable to employ the correct name: obstinacy. Two or three such cases arose every year; some families in the district had been driven from their holdings by lava ten times in as many generations, and still drifted back to the foothills as though fatally addicted to the vapors the breeze blew down on them.
Sir Bavis sighed, and resisted the impulse to tell them to go jump in a volcano. This was a season when omens counted, and to help the unfortunate was a source of spiritual benefit. Brusquely he ordered lodgings to be found, medicaments for the sick, work for the able-bodied. At the mention of the last he saw their faces fall, and was so disgusted that he barely noticed their departure.
It was a relief, after that, to find Trader Heron facing him—a man who, for all that he engaged in vulgar commerce, was intelligent and cleanly and an altogether welcome visitor. To the dismay of the court officials who were trying to hurry the proceedings, Sir Bavis accorded Heron twenty minutes of his time, some in conversation, some in an exchange of gifts. Heron had valuable spices, and much fine cloth, and some iron swords that he wanted to barter as stud-fee for the service of some of his graats, which he then planned to leave in Carrig until they foaled in midwinter next Graats being southerly beasts, it was a risky plan, but as Heron explained, he wanted to breed from the tough northern strain so that his early-spring caravans would come through the hills more easily.
Sir Bavis chuckled and gave permission. It was good to have some joke to lighten his depressed mood, and the idea of Heron trying to get caravans through even earlier than the spring new moon was amusing; it led to visions of the portly man sunk up to his waist in a snowbank and wondering how he could turn the experience to profitable use.
Finally, as custom required, all the travelers from the south who had arrived under Heron’s aegis came to cast themselves on the city, thereby acquiring temporary rights of citizenship. The notators listed the names of those concerned as well as they could, and issued porcelain certificates to each, whitish plaques as big as a man’s palm.
Among the applicants, Sir Bavis noted two who were apart from the ordinary run of artisans, entertainers, traders, and footloose adventurers. Instead of standing respectfully by while Heron discussed his business, they had taken seats beside him, and from the fact that he made no objection it was clear that he regarded them as persons of some status. He did not offer to introduce them, but that was proper; until they received their certificates of citizenship they did not officially exist. Sir Bavis listened as they gave their names to the notators, and made a mental note—for what reason, he did not know—that the dark one was Belfeor and the fair, lean one was Pargetty.
As they withdrew, he had a curious feeling that Belfeor was looking not merely at, but into him, searching out secrets Sir Bavis would far rather have kept. Of course, the idea was nonsensical. But it was disquieting.
The great doors of the audience hall closed; there were no more cases to deal with today. At once servants began to drag in benches for the assembly this evening, ranging than in groups for the various clans, and to change the stubs of last night’s torches in the brass wall-sconces. Although the screaking of the Bench legs on the flagstones made him wince, Sir Bavis did not move from his high throne.
Tomorrow …
There was a sudden sharp pain in his chest—a pain that he could not localize, neither on the surface like a blow, nor from the surface inward like a sword-cut He seemed to be embedded in it; he felt his heart slow and falter, and the hall grew dark. Like a drowning man fighting back to the air, he mastered it and took a desperate new grip on the world, panting.
He looked around covertly. No one appeared to have noticed. To outward view Sir Bavis was as he had always been—older, of course, and more care-lined about the forehead, but still a strong and burly man. And yet a god’s hand had reached into his body and closed around his heart, warningly.
Sir Bavis Knole, chief of the Clan Parradile, had ruled now in Carrig for eighteen years, for in all that time no one had slain the king. With every passing year the king had grown huger and stronger and more cunning. It seemed at last to Sir Bavis that he had vaingloriously expected to do the same.
What plainer warning than the shadow of death in the hall of audience could he seek to prove himself wrong?
Yes indeed: he had been wrong, and he had done wrong. These eighteen years of supremacy that he imagined he had secured by his own scheming, his own efforts—they were after all a loan from the gods. And now his stewardship was over. Useless to rail at it.
With the admission, the pain eased and his heart resumed its regular rhythm. Oh, the omen was unmistakable! This year, then, let the king-hunt go forward without interference, even though men said that Saikmar of the Clan Twywit was sure to kill the king. Let him! Let the gods’ will be manifest, and put an end to this sorry masquerade.
Sir Bavis, his head cleared and cooled by making up his mind, rose to his feet and stalked majestically from the hall.
Heron rode slowly through the crowded streets in the vicinity of the marketplace with the two southern strangers beside him. They wore patronizing expressions, which did not correspond with Belfeor’s professed tolerance for all things human. He wished he could make these two out; they puzzled him. Of course, they hailed from parts he did not ordinarily travel to himself, but these was something about them which rang false—some contradiction, some paradox in their natures …
He reached a decision, and waited for the right moment to put it into effect.
Coming now to the marketplace, they found it crowded with the graats from the caravan and their respective owners. Men and beasts milled around randomly as harassed overseers tried to keep track of mercenaries whose contracts called for them to stand guard tonight over valuable merchandise but who kept tending to vanish in the direction of nearby taverns, and innkeepers shouted offers of accommodation, which were eagerly taken up. Naturally, people who had goods to vend tomorrow wanted to lodge as near as they could to the market and ensure an early chance at the best sites for stalls; but those who were merely weary also wanted beds close at hand, rather than having to trudge to the outskirts of the city for the night, and several squabbles were developing.
Heron lowered himself from his saddle and waddled into the midst of the confusion. With sharp jests and ripe insults he brought some kind of order out of it, and returned at last to Belfeor and Pargetty with a satisfied expression.
“Well, sirs!” he exclaimed. “What have you in mind to do now?”
Belfeor shrugged. “To find where we can lodge, I suppose,” he answered.
“You’ll have no luck dose to the market now; we’ll fill every bed in the middle of town. Besides, most everyone from the district comes to the king-hunt, the greatest festival of Carrig’s year; and though you may find what you think is a decent room, a greedy landlord might very well insist on your sharing with some smelly peasant family toting bags of spring produce they won’t let out of their sight. Look you, though: I have a house here, small but comfortable, and were you willing to sleep in one room you’d be my honored guests.”
He thought for a moment that Pargetty was going to refuse, but Belfeor smiled quickly and cut in before his friend could speak.
“We’d be more than glad,” he said. “I may say we’ve enjoyed your company too much to relinquish it before we must, and hope you think the same.”
Pargetty said, “But—”
“Our business will not suffer any delay by this,” Belfeor interrupted. “Is that what worries you?”
Pargetty nodded, and Heron noted with interest: So they do have business here! They never spoke of it bef
ore.
He wondered what business it could be. Certainly it was of no ordinary kind.
“What happens this evening in connection with the king-hunt?” Belfeor asked, falling in beside Heron as they left the market.
“Oh, if I recall aright, when the evening star comes out Sir Bavis must declare the season of the king-hunt open; then there will be an assembly of all the clans, who’ll put forward their chosen contenders, one from each. These then will be dedicated, and must watch the night through until dawn while the other nobles hold a great feast in the fortress. Or so I’ve been told—you’ll appreciate that this is a sacred matter to them, and not one whose details they readily divulge to foreigners like myself. Tomorrow they’ll send to wake the king from his lair in the Smoking Hills. Sometimes it takes a day or two to find out which cave he’s chosen for his winter sleep, though usually it’s marked the year before. And then in the rising currents of hot air above the volcanoes the contenders do battle with the king until he is slain—which has not befallen in eighteen years!—or until all the gliders are brought down. Some skillful challengers, they say, have remained aloft in constant battle for three days and nights, until the king was wearied and slow and a dart found him. But that must have been a generation ago, or more.”
“And what honor to him who kills the king?” Belfeor asked.
“His clan rules from that day until the next spring new moon.”
“This then is how the old man we had audience of came to be the regent?”
“Ah, that no.” Heron raised his hand. “At present Carrig is under the law of the interregnum, and Clan Parradile holds the power, being barred, you understand, from killing the king. And all the other clans attack together. Were it otherwise, were another clan ruling, then he who killed the king the previous year would go forth first alone for a chance to renew his power. So usually he does, for the old king will have driven away all serious rivals of his own kind, and a new king is often young and inexperienced. But this one, after surviving eighteen years, is mightier than ever was seen before.”
“You’ve seen him?” Belfeor suggested.
“From a distance. For myself, I’d willingly go no closer to him than a day’s fast march.”
Heron’s wife here was a Carrig woman and the household was run in Carrig style, which meant that when he arrived in the city he was treated like a visiting monarch. To have made his wife behave otherwise would have upset her view of what was right and proper. She had four children now; he was certain they were none of them his, but he had never complained—after all, a barren woman was regarded with contempt by most local people, and he was seldom in Carrig more than two months of the year. And it was very pleasant after a long and arduous trek across ice-bound hill passes to subside into the lap of such luxury as this one alone of his four wives knew how to provide.
He had allotted attendants to wait on Belfeor and Pargetty, presuming that they too would welcome hot baths, massages, the services of a barber, and clean comfortable clothes. He was surprised, therefore, to find those same attendants returning to him in less than half an hour. He demanded the reason, leaning out of the cloud of steam which enveloped him and muttering an apology to his wife, who was combing his hair.
“Your guests, sir,” one of the attendants explained, “declared their intention of giving thanks for a safe journey before a portable shrine they carry with them, and ordered us to leave them undisturbed while they did so.”
Unbidden, there came a prickling at the back of Heron’s neck. In memory he reheard those conversations by the fire during which, only a few days ago, Belfeor and Pargetty had expressed such remarkable skepticism concerning the gods.
“It doesn’t fit!” he muttered, and clambered out of the bath so energetically he slopped half a gallon of water over the side. To his wife’s solicitous inquiries he replied only, “Give me a towel!”
And, kilting it roughly around him, he set off barefoot down the passage from his own suite to the room he had given the visitors. He walked quietly for all his bulk, automatically remembering every loose board and avoiding it.
Not caring that some of his servants had followed him and were having trouble hiding their amusement, he put his eye to a fine crack in the slatted wall. The window of this room was to the west, and although it was near sunset and the shutters had moreover been closed, there was enough light to reveal his mysterious guests. He also had a perfect view of their “portable shrine.” He recognized it immediately. He had one himself.
It was a subspace communicator.
He took a pace back and to the side, poising himself opposite the door. Curtly he commanded his servants to follow him. No time for precautions now—he had to act, and act quickly. He flung himself forward.
The door’s wooden lock had not been designed to withstand almost three hundred pounds of determination. It snapped; the door shot back and let Heron through to confront the astonished “southerners.” Southerners hell! No wonder he hadn’t been able to place them. They were from off the planet!
He had hardly spoken Galactic except to make his quarterly reports since he was posted here. But it was his birth-tongue, and his alarm and amazement made it automatic that he should revert to it now.
“All right, switch that thing off! Both of you are under arrest!”
Pargetty, at the controls of the communicator, was absolutely thunderstruck. But Belfeor, moving as though he had been expecting this moment and had been rehearsing his response for weeks, took up something else that lay on the table beside the communicator. An energy gun. An old one, but serviceable.
With a blazing bolt he cut Heron down where he stood, and the servants—to whom it was as though he had wielded the lightning—screamed, turned tail, and fled for their lives.
CHAPTER THREE
When Sir Bavis lost his temper for the third time with the valets who were robing him, in a little stone-walled room close to the summit of the fortress’ great tower, he realized that his futile, self-directed irritation ran the risk of delaying him past the moment when the evening star should appear. Mastering himself with a violent effort, he called to a harper to quiet his jangled nerves.
Shortly one appeared, who bowed with a flourish and inquired his master’s preference of songs.
“Sing The Ballad of Red Sloin,” Sir Bavis ordered.
The harper bowed again, seated himself on a red velvet stool, brushed back his long dark hair, and struck a chord. In his ringing tenor voice he began:
“I sing the honor and renown,
The glory brought on Carrig town,
When first Clan Parradile was—”
“Stop!” exclaimed Sir Bavis, so sharply that his valets, already victims of three outbursts of unaccountable fury, cringed reflexively away from him. “Not that version! The old version!” He heard his voice ragged with tension.
The harper was not the least astonished of the company. He said doubtfully, “But, sir, the old version is—”
“Have you forgotten it?” Sir Bavis cut in.
“I, sir?” The harper looked affronted. “I, who can recall the snatches my mother taught me ere I learned to walk? I intended only to say—”
“If you remember the old one, then in the name of all the gods do as you’re told and sing it!” Sir Bavis roared. Paling, the harper shrugged and began again.
“I sing a hero of renown,
Red Sloin who came to Carrig town,
A stranger and a man of might …”
Listening, Sir Bavis felt a grim stir of satisfaction. It was as though he were symbolically regulating accounts with the gods. The Ballad of Red Sloin was so old no man could be sure when it was made; it told how the first interregnum had come about. There had been nine clans then, instead of the present eight, and the chief of the ninth, Clan Graat, was a treacherous schemer, hated by all. But his son was the skillfullest glider pilot of his day, and as spring and the king-hunt approached, men were certain that he would be the one to kill the kin
g, and his clan would achieve power, and would then sell the city to a tribe of bandits who had besieged it for three summers running.
From the south, though, came Red Sloin, a mighty stranger, and he spoke up in the assembly called at the beginning of the king-hunt. Though he was not a clansman, not even a native of the city, everyone was so desperate to escape the threatened triumph of Clan Graat that they would snatch at any straw for deliverance and agreed that he must be allowed to go forth with the other contenders … not that anyone imagined he had a chance to win.
But he dashed his glider against the king’s neck, and fell together with the king into the crater of a volcano, and thus laid clear the way for the chief of Clan Parradile to assume power, which he did, his first act being to extirpate the treacherous Clan Graat by slaughtering its adults and scattering the children among the other clans. Afterward the bandits were driven off and peace returned.
During the eighteen years that Sir Bavis had now ruled, the harpers of the city—perhaps out of a deliberate wish to flatter him—had taken to making Red Sloin’s part in the story smaller and Clan Parradile’s far larger. But to Sir Bavis it now seemed imperative that the original version should be restored.
His mind rambled as his valets finished putting on his regalia, started to comb his beard and to dress it with the paste of oil and lampblack, which he used to disguise the fact that it was turning gray. Reaching back into time with his imagination, he tried to picture the way things must once have been—before men learned to count the number of days in a year, perhaps, when the first new moon of spring came as a surprise. Doubtless, back then, they must have called the people together and chosen the fittest to attack the king by popular acclamation. It would all have been spontaneous. Not as nowadays, when all the clans had spent the entire winter preparing for this season, putting their most hopeful contenders through grueling tests, improving their gliders, redesigning their darts to make them fly farther and straighter and penetrate more deeply, until long before the assembly they knew almost beyond doubt whether anyone this year was good enough to kill the king.