The peasant’s face had gone very pale, his knuckles wringing at the brim of his hat. ‘Good my Lord,’ he stammered, ‘I’ve already been to the Commission . . .’
Hoff looked up sharply, making the farmer stammer to a halt. ‘Good day, I said!’
The peasant’s shoulders slumped. He took a last look around the room. Morrow was examining something on the far wall with great interest and refused to meet his eye. The Lord Chamberlain stared back at him angrily, infuriated by this unforgivable waste of his time. West felt sick to be a part of it. Heath turned and shuffled away, head bowed. The doors swung shut.
Hoff bashed his fist on the table. ‘Did you see that?’ He stared round fiercely at the sweating assembly. ‘The sheer gall of the man! Did you see that, Major West?’
‘Yes, my Lord Chamberlain, I saw it all,’ said West stiffly. ‘It was a disgrace.’
Fortunately, Hoff did not take his whole meaning. ‘A disgrace, Major West, you are quite right! Why the hell is it that all the promising young men go into the army? I want to know who is responsible for letting these beggars in here!’ He glared at the Under-Secretary, who swallowed and stared at his documents. ‘What’s next?’
‘Er,’ mumbled Morrow, ‘Coster dan Kault, Magister of the Guild of Mercers.’
‘I know who he is, damn it!’ snapped Hoff, wiping a fresh sheen of sweat from his face. ‘If it isn’t the damn peasants it’s the damn merchants!’ he roared at the soldiers by the door, his voice easily loud enough to be heard in the corridor outside. ‘Show the grubbing old swindler in, then!’
Magister Kault could hardly have presented a more different appearance from the previous supplicant. He was a big, plump man, with a face as soft as his eyes were hard. His purple vesture of office was embroidered with yards of golden thread, so ostentatious that the Emperor of Gurkhul himself might have been embarrassed to wear it. He was accompanied by a pair of senior Mercers, their own attire scarcely less magnificent. West wondered if Goodman Heath could earn enough in ten years to pay for one of those gowns. He decided not, even if he hadn’t been thrown off his land.
‘My Lord Chamberlain,’ intoned Kault with an elaborate bow. Hoff acknowledged the head of the Guild of Mercers as faintly as humanly possible, with a raised eyebrow and an almost imperceptible twist of the lip. Kault waited for a greeting which he felt more befitting of his station, but none was forthcoming. He noisily cleared his throat. ‘I have come to seek an audience with his August Majesty—’
The Lord Chamberlain snorted. ‘The purpose of this session is to decide who is worthy of his Majesty’s attention. If you aren’t seeking an audience with him you have blundered into the wrong room.’ It was already clear that this interview would be every bit as unsuccessful as the last. There was a kind of horrible justice to it, West supposed. The great and the small were treated exactly alike.
Magister Kault’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he continued. ‘The honourable Guild of Mercers, of whom I am the humble representative . . .’ Hoff slurped wine noisily and Kault was obliged to pause for a moment. ‘. . . have been the victims of a most malicious and mischievous attack—’
‘Fill this up, would you?’ yelled the Lord Chamberlain, waving his empty goblet at Morrow. The Under-Secretary slipped eagerly from his chair and seized the decanter. Kault was forced to wait, teeth gritted, while the wine gurgled out.
‘Continue!’ blustered Hoff, waving his hand, ‘we don’t have all day!’
‘A most malicious and under-handed attack—’
The Lord Chamberlain squinted down. ‘An attack you say? A common assault is a matter for the City Watch!’
Magister Kault grimaced. He and his two companions were already starting to sweat. ‘Not an attack of that variety, my Lord Chamberlain, but an insidious and underhanded assault, designed to discredit the shining reputation of our Guild, and to damage our business interests in the Free Cities of Styria, and across the Union. An attack perpetrated by certain deceitful elements of his Majesty’s Inquisition, and—’
‘I have heard enough!’ The Lord Chamberlain jerked up his big hand for silence. ‘If this is a matter of trade, then it should be handled by His Majesty’s Commission for Trade and Commerce.’ Hoff spoke slowly and precisely, in the manner of a school-master addressing his most disappointing pupil. ‘If this is a matter of law, then it should be handled by the department of High Justice Marovia. If it is a matter of the internal workings of his Majesty’s Inquisition, then you must arrange an appointment with Arch Lector Sult. In any case, it is hardly a matter for the attention of his August Majesty.’
The head of the Mercer’s Guild opened his mouth but the Lord Chamberlain spoke over him, voice louder than ever. ‘Your King employs a Commission, selects a High Justice, and appoints an Arch Lector, so that he need not deal with every trifling issue himself! Incidentally, that is also why he grants licences to certain merchant guilds, and not to line the pockets . . .’ and his lip twisted into an unpleasant sneer ‘. . . of the trading class! Good day.’ And the doors were opened.
Kault’s face had turned pale with anger at that last comment. ‘You may depend upon it, Lord Chamberlain,’ he said coldly, ‘that we will seek redress elsewhere, and with the very greatest of persistence.’
Hoff glared back at him for a very long while. ‘Seek it wherever you like,’ he growled, ‘and with as much persistence as you please. But not here. Good . . . day!’ If you could have stabbed someone in the face with the phrase ‘good day’, the head of the Guild of Mercers would have lain dead on the floor.
Kault blinked a couple of times, then turned angrily and strode out with as much dignity as he could muster. His two lackeys followed close on his heels, their fabulous gowns flapping behind them. The doors were pushed shut.
Hoff smashed the table once again with his fist. ‘An outrage!’ he spluttered. ‘Those arrogant swine! Do they seriously think they can flout the King’s law and still seek the King’s help when things turn sour?’
‘Well, no,’ said Morrow, ‘of course . . .’
The Lord Chamberlain ignored his Under-Secretary and turned to West with a sneering smile. ‘Still, I fancy I could see the vultures circling around them, despite the low ceiling, eh, Major West?’
‘Indeed, my Lord Chamberlain,’ mumbled West, thoroughly uncomfortable and wishing this torture would end. Then he could get back to his sister. His heart sank. She was even more of a handful than he remembered. She was clever alright, but he worried that she might be too clever for her own good. If only she would just marry some honest man and be happy. His position here was precarious enough, without her making a spectacle of herself.
‘Vultures, vultures,’ Hoff was murmuring to himself. ‘Nastylooking birds, but they have their uses. What’s next?’
The sweating Under-Secretary looked even more uncomfortable than before as he fumbled for the right words. ‘We have a party of . . . diplomats?’
The Lord Chamberlain paused, goblet halfway to his mouth. ‘Diplomats? From whom?’
‘Er . . . from this so-called King of the Northmen, Bethod.’
Hoff burst out laughing. ‘Diplomats?’ he cackled, mopping his face on his sleeve. ‘Savages, you mean!’
The Under-Secretary chuckled unconvincingly. ‘Ah yes, my Lord, ha, ha! Savages, of course!’
‘But dangerous, eh, Morrow?’ snapped the Lord Chamberlain, his good humour evaporating instantly. The Under-Secretary’s cackling gurgled to a halt. ‘Very dangerous. We must be careful. Show them in!’
There were four of them. The two smallest were great big, fierce-looking men, scarred and bearded, clad in heavy battered armour. They had been disarmed at the gate of the Agriont, of course, but there was still a sense of danger about them, and West had the feeling they would have given up a lot of big, well-worn weapons. These were the sort of men who were crowded on the borders of Angland, hungry for war, not far from West’s home.
With them came an older man, also in pitted armou
r, and with long hair and a great white beard. There was a livid scar across his face and through his eye, which was blind white. He had a broad smile on his lips though, and his pleasant demeanour was greatly at odds with that of his two dour companions, and with the fourth man, who came behind.
He had to stoop to get under the lintel, which was a good seven feet above the floor. He was swathed and hooded in a rough brown cloak, features invisible. As he straightened up, towering over everyone else, the room began to seem absurdly cramped. His sheer bulk was intimidating, but there was something more, something that seemed to come off him in sickly waves. The soldiers around the walls felt it, and they shifted uncomfortably. The Under-Secretary for Audiences felt it, sweating and twitching and fussing with his documents. Major West certainly felt it. His skin had gone cold despite the heat, and he could feel every hair on his body standing up under his damp uniform.
Only Hoff seemed unaffected. He looked the four Northmen up and down with a deep frown on his face, no more impressed with the hooded giant than he had been with Goodman Heath. ‘So you are messengers from Bethod.’ He rolled the words around in his mouth, then spat them out, ‘The King of the Northmen.’
‘We are,’ said the smiling old man, bowing with great reverence. ‘I am White-Eye Hansul.’ His voice was rich, round and pleasant, without any accent, not at all what West had been expecting.
‘And you are Bethod’s emissary?’ asked Hoff casually, taking another swallow of wine from his goblet. For the first time ever West was pleased the Lord Chamberlain was in the room with him, but then he glanced up at the hooded man and the feeling of unease returned.
‘Oh no,’ said White-Eye, ‘I am here merely as translator. This is the emissary of the King of the Northmen,’ and his good eye flicked nervously up to the dark figure in the cloak, as though even he was afraid. ‘Fenris.’ He stretched out the ‘s’ on the end of the name so that it hissed in the air. ‘Fenris the Feared.’
An apt name indeed. Major West thought back to songs he had heard in his childhood, stories of bloodthirsty giants in the mountains of the distant north. The room was silent for a moment.
‘Humph,’ said the Lord Chamberlain, unmoved. ‘And you seek an audience with his August Majesty, the High King of the Union?’
‘We do indeed, my Lord Chamberlain,’ said the old warrior. ‘Our master, Bethod, greatly regrets the hostility between our two nations. He wishes only to be on the best of terms with his southern neighbours. We bring an offer of peace from my King to yours, and a gift to show our good faith. Nothing more.’
‘Well, well,’ said Hoff, sitting back in his high chair with a broad smile. ‘A gracious request, graciously made. You may see the King in Open Council tomorrow, and present your offer, and your gift, before the foremost peers of the realm.’
White-Eye bowed respectfully. ‘You are most kind, my Lord Chamberlain.’ He turned for the door, followed by the two dour warriors. The cloaked figure lingered for a moment, then he too slowly turned and stooped through the doorway. It wasn’t until the doors were shut that West could breathe easily again. He shook his head and shrugged his sweaty shoulders. Songs about giants indeed. A great big man in a cloak was all. But looking again, that doorway really was very high . . .
‘There, you see, Master Morrow?’ Hoff looked intensely pleased with himself. ‘Hardly the savages you led me to expect! I feel we are close to a resolution of our northern problems, don’t you?’
The Under-Secretary did not look in the least convinced. ‘Er . . . yes, my Lord, of course.’
‘Yes indeed. A lot of fuss over nothing. A lot of pessimistic, defeatist nonsense from our jumpy citizens up north, eh? War? Bah!’ Hoff whacked his hand on the table again, making wine slop out of his goblet and spatter on the wood. ‘These Northmen wouldn’t dare! Why, next thing you know they’ll be petitioning us for membership of the Union! You see if I’m not right, eh, Major West?’
‘Er . . .’
‘Good! Excellent! We’ve got something done today at least! One more and we can get out of this damn furnace! Who do we have, Morrow?’
The Under-Secretary frowned and pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘Er . . . we have one Yoru Sulfur,’ he wrestled with the unfamiliar name.
‘We have a who?’
‘Er . . . Sulfir, or Sulfor, or something.’
‘Never heard of him,’ grunted the Lord Chamberlain, ‘what manner of a man is he? Some kind of a southerner? Not another peasant, please!’
The Under-Secretary examined his notes, and swallowed. ‘An emissary?’
‘Yes, yes, but from whom?’
Morrow was positively cringing, like a child expecting a slap. ‘From the Great Order of Magi!’ he blurted out.
There was a moment of stunned silence. West’s eyebrows went up and his jaw came open, and he guessed that the same was happening, unseen, behind the visors of the soldiers. He winced instinctively as he anticipated the response of the Lord Chamberlain, but Hoff surprised them all by bursting into peals of laughter. ‘Excellent! At last some entertainment. It’s been years since we had a Magus here! Show in the wizard! We mustn’t keep him waiting!’
Yoru Sulfur was something of a disappointment. He had simple, travel-stained clothes, was scarcely better dressed than Goodman Heath had been, in fact. His staff was not shod with gold, had no lump of shining crystal on the end. His eye did not flash with a mysterious fire. He looked a fairly ordinary sort of a man in his middle thirties, slightly tired, as though after a long journey, but otherwise well at his ease before the Lord Chamberlain.
‘A good day to you, gentlemen,’ he said, leaning on his staff. West was having some difficulty working out where he was from. Not the Union, because his skin was too dark, and not Gurkhul or the far south, because his skin was too light. Not from the North or from Styria. Further then, but where? Now that West looked at him more closely he noticed that his eyes were different colours: one blue, one green.
‘And a good day to you, sir,’ said Hoff, smiling as though he really meant it. ‘My door is forever open to the Great Order of Magi. Tell me, do I have the pleasure of addressing great Bayaz himself?’
Sulfur looked puzzled. ‘No, was I wrongly announced? I am Yoru Sulfur. Master Bayaz is a bald gentleman.’ He pushed a hand through his own head of curly brown hair. ‘There is a statue of him outside in the avenue. But I did have the honour to study under him for several years. He is a most powerful and knowledgeable master.’
‘Of course! Of course he is! And how may we be of service?’
Yoru Sulfur cleared his throat, as though to tell a story. ‘On the death of King Harod the Great, Bayaz, the First of the Magi, left the Union. But he swore an oath to return.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s true,’ chuckled Hoff. ‘Very true, every school-child knows it.’
‘And he pronounced that, when he returned, his coming would be heralded by another.’
‘True, also.’
‘Well,’ said Sulfur, smiling broadly, ‘here I am.’
The Lord Chamberlain roared with laughter. ‘Here you are!’ he shouted, thumping the table. Harlen Morrow allowed himself a little chuckle, but shut up immediately as Hoff’s smile began to fade.
‘During my tenure as Lord Chamberlain, I have had three members of the Great Order of Magi apply to me for audiences with the King. Two were most clearly insane, and one was an exceptionally courageous swindler.’ He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers before him. ‘Tell me, Master Sulfur, which kind of Magus are you?’
‘I am neither of those.’
‘I see. Then you will have documents.’
‘Of course.’ Sulfur reached into his coat and brought out a small letter, closed with a white seal, a single strange symbol stamped into it. He placed it carelessly on the table before the Lord Chamberlain.
Hoff frowned. He picked up the document and turned it over in his hands. He examined the seal carefully, then he dabbed his face with
his sleeve, broke the wax, unfolded the thick paper and began to read.
Yoru Sulfur showed no sign of nerves. He didn’t appear troubled by the heat. He strolled around the room, he nodded to the armoured soldiers, he didn’t seem upset by their lack of response. He turned suddenly to West. ‘It’s terribly hot in here, isn’t it? It’s a wonder these poor fellows don’t pass out, and crash to the floor with a sound like a cupboard full of saucepans.’ West blinked. He had been thinking the very same thing.
The Lord Chamberlain put the letter down carefully on the table, no longer in the least amused. ‘It occurs to me that the Open Council would be the wrong place to discuss this matter.’
‘I agree. I was hoping for a private audience with Lord Chancellor Feekt.’
‘I am afraid that will not be possible.’ Hoff licked his lips. ‘Lord Feekt is dead.’
Sulfur frowned. ‘That is most unfortunate.’
‘Indeed, indeed. We all feel his loss most keenly. Perhaps I and certain other members of the Closed Council can assist you.’
Sulfur bowed his head. ‘I am guided by you, my Lord Chamberlain.’
‘I will try to arrange something for later this evening. Until then we will find you some lodgings within the Agriont . . . suitable for your station.’ He signalled to the guards, and the doors were opened.
‘Thank you so much, Lord Hoff. Master Morrow. Major West.’ Sulfur nodded to them graciously, each in turn, and then turned and left. The doors were closed once more, leaving West wondering how the man had known his name.
Hoff turned to his Under-Secretary for Audiences. ‘Go immediately to Arch Lector Sult, and tell him we must meet at once. Then fetch High Justice Marovia, and Lord Marshal Varuz. Tell them it is a matter of the very highest importance, and not a word of this to anyone beyond those three.’ He shook his finger in Morrow’s sweaty face. ‘Not a word!’