Black has no reply. His thoughts go elsewhere. As he regards his host, he considers his purpose in a new light. It is not an unending struggle against such men as Sought and Haul Varder. It is not measured by his opposition to bullies like Ing Hardiston. It stands at his bedside now. It belongs to men like the priests, to women like Rose, to children like Arbor and lost Tamlin.
When he is well, he will return to the King. He needs his purpose as much as it needs him.
eep in what I pleased to call my laborium, surrounded by walls of dark stone, by trestle tables black with old blood, by vessels for discarded bones, tissues, offal, and rank fluids, and also—a much-needed improvement—by foul drains that emptied into fouler sewers, I strove by the guttering light of candles to surmount the obstacles arrayed against me.
Of course, by arrayed against me I mean that they had nothing whatever to do with me personally. I was merely a servant. The obstacles were not mine, and their participants took no more than private notice of my existence. Rather they pertained to the doings—that is, the machinations, chicanery, and obfuscations in pursuit of obscure ends—the doings, I say, of my Queen, Inimica Phlegathon deVry, the fourth of that name, and the first monarch in seven generations of Queens to hold sway over a court largely embroiled in treachery.
On its face, such engagement in double-dealing and the general quest for advantage was strange in a realm as prosperous as Indemnie, blessed as it was with nature’s abundance in every form. Streams that became rivers poured fresh and cleanly from the Fount Peaks which dominated the heart of the island. Rich forests draped down the slopes of the Peaks gave timber aplenty for every purpose. Mines among the Fount foothills yielded necessary ores and meretricious gold enough to sate most appetites for wealth. In every direction from those foothills to the coasts lay arable fields of such fertility that crops of every description appeared to spring forth unbidden by effort or indeed attendance. And the seas themselves teemed with edible life. Our horses grew fat, our cattle fatter, and many of our folk both high-born and low fattest of all.
True, the isle was not large—or so I deemed it, though it was larger than my knowledge of it. By the vast measure of the surrounding seas, Indemnie was little more than a scrap of flotsam alone in an immeasurable world. A determined man on a good horse could have ridden the land from south to north in four or five days, had he not been compelled to skirt the Fount Peaks. A more leisurely canter around our coasts would have occupied no more than two fortnights.
Still my Queen’s realm was altogether comfortable. Gifted in every way by earth and weather, Indemnie’s five barons and their sovereign had no obvious cause to strive against each other with such stubborn duplicity.
During the first years of my service to Her Majesty, I had conceived that our populace must have come to the island from some savage people passionate for slaughter and cruelty—come, and then lost either the ability or the will to return to their homelands. Spared by wealth from the impulse to kill each other, they sought advantage by less bloody means. Now, however, events and demands had taught me better wisdom.
The reign of Queen Inimica Phlegathon deVry III, like that of her mother, and of her mother before her—indeed, like those of Indemnie’s seven generations of monarchs—had been admirably placid. The court’s present thirst for conniving was too recent to be blamed upon our forebears.
In some other life, I might have grown as fat as Indemnie’s folk, and cared as little. Alas, I was cursed by one small gift—and as a youth I had been foolish or foolhardy enough to make it known. Therefore I was now my Queen’s Hieronomer, her seer into the unknown—indeed, into the unknowable. It was my task to advise her in all matters pertaining to Indemnie’s future. Hence the obstacles arrayed against me. And in this opaque endeavor I had but one ally—one ally, and no resources apart from a devoted heart and a desire for comprehension to keep my head upon my shoulders.
Of my gift itself I seldom spoke. Oh, I was no charlatan. I gained insights of substance from blood and offal, intestines and malformations. In my own fashion, and on my own terms, I could scry more keenly than any practitioner of catoptromancy, certainly more than any mere caster of bones or interpreter of dreams. But the fashions of Inimica Phlegathon deVry IV were not my own—and her terms were decidedly not. It was chiefly by devotion rather than by augury that I served her, fearing for my head as I did so only somewhat less than I feared for Indemnie.
With the precision of entrails—the squirming of my own would have sufficed, but I read the same outcomes in chickens, lambs, piglets, and one still-born infant—I saw that the island and all its people were doomed.
High against one wall of my laborium hung two bells which could be jangled by ropes from several distant chambers in the opulent manor-house which served as the residence and seat of Indemnie’s monarchs. One summoned me to attend upon my Queen privately, the other to observe her unseen. It was this second bell which scattered my thoughts now. Prompt to my duty, I doused my hands in a cistern to remove the more blatant traces of blood, adjusted my black robes—black not to produce an impression of mystery, but rather to conceal their stains—applied a brush to the worst tangles of my hair, and left my workrooms with a vague pretense of dignity, taking care to lock them behind me. Then I trudged up the many long and generally disused stairs within the walls of the house to search for my Queen.
The edifice had been styled simply the Domicile by its founder, Inimica Phlegathon deVry I, and there were no tales or indeed hints attached to her reign which suggested that she had ever required secret passages and hidden stairs. Yet she must have foreseen the changing exigencies of future monarchs—foreseen them herself, or been advised by some nameless personage with gifts resembling mine. The stairs and corridors I traveled were old, thick with dust, and unlit except when gleams or glows leaked inward from occasional chinks and embrasures in their walls. They had been unused for uncounted years.
The bell which had summoned me did not reveal where I might find Her Majesty, but my choices were few and familiar. Also she had informed me the previous day that Baron Glare Estobate was expected in the Domicile, and that he had requested or demanded—or had perhaps been hailed to—a private audience with his sovereign. She was unspecific about such details. I assumed therefore that she would receive him in her public boudoir, a chamber in which she could pretend to both ease and intimacy, but which in fact served no purpose other than to create the illusion of privacy. And when I had made my way thither, and had cracked open a door masked by one of the Domicile’s many hanging tapestries, I found that I had arrived in time to hear the Baron announced.
Knowing my Queen’s wishes in such circumstances, I slipped through the door and stood behind the tapestry, where I would be able to hear without difficulty, and to catch more than a glimpse of what transpired without betraying my presence.
Her Majesty’s putative boudoir was large and ornate, as befitted the prosperous ruler of a prosperous land. Tapestries depicting farmlands, men at hunt, regal festivities, or squat ships warmed the walls, while the floor between them was piled with rugs more welcoming than my poor mattress. To one side of my covert, curtains nominally intended to conceal a bed which could have pleasured a party of twelve had been drawn aside to convey an impression of invitation, though to my certain knowledge they had never been closed. And everywhere was light. Forenoon sunshine slanted to the rugs from a number of high windows, and its effect was embellished by an abundance of lamps burning scented oils. Altogether the chamber proclaimed itself a place in which any secret which did not fear illumination could be unveiled freely.
The irony may have been impenetrable to many of the men with whom Inimica Phlegathon deVry conversed here. It did not mislead me. I had learned that my Queen spoke here when she particularly wished her lies to be believed—or when she wished those who spoke with her to believe that their own lies were indistinguishable from truth. Therefore she stood so tha
t the sun’s light dazzled other faces than hers.
As for the Baron himself, Glare Estobate, I was uncertain of his penetration. Foppish in attire and coarse in manner, with a thick snarl of beard that concealed his mouth entirely, thereby distracting attention from the hard glint of his eyes, he called to mind a wild boar playing the part of a sycophant. Unsure of him, I suspected that he courted others only as a means of courting himself.
Rumor said of him that his lusts were dark—and that they were painful to endure.
Making a leg, he presented himself. In a growl which may have been a failed simper, he proclaimed, “Your Majesty, I have come at your command. Three nights and six horses I have spent on the road, such was my haste to obey your summons.” Without pausing for her reply, he continued, “Your herald’s words were explicit. ‘Your hopes await you.’” His growl became overt. “But I rode past the harbor. No ship of mine sits at anchor. No vessel of any baron sits at anchor. Only the boats and coracles of fishermen.” With apparent effort, he remembered courtesy. “Your Majesty.”
Resplendent as ever, Inimica Phlegathon deVry faced the Baron. As I had often observed—at some cost, I might add, in sweated sheets and twisted dreams—she was a magnificent woman. Ripe of breast and slim of waist, she dressed to accentuate some few of her many advantages, displaying an expanse of bosom and her regal carriage. Silks thin as gauze draped her form as though at any moment they might waft away. Held by a string of fine pearls, a ruby worthy of Indemnie’s Queen rested in the delicate hollow of her throat. As for her features—well, her skin was flawless, her mouth and nose as delicate as works of art, her lips a moist pink, her brow apparently incapable of displeasure or doubt. The light of the sun crowned her auburn hair. And the brown luster of her eyes promised that they would warm to any desired word or touch. All in all, she was so finely wrought that even a careful study of her person might fail to discern that she was not in her best youth—or that she had been some fifteen years a mother.
“My lord Baron,” she replied in a voice like liquid music, as self-harmonized as a madrigal, “my herald’s words were indeed explicit. They were also honest. Yet I confess a woman’s wish to provoke you. My summons did not refer to the vessels which you have kindly commissioned to search the seas surrounding our friendless isle. Rather it concerns your other ambitions.”
A variety of emotions confused Glare Estobate’s visage. References to his ships inspired one response. Comments concerning a woman’s wish and ambitions surely evoked another. To which should he give prompt response? For a moment, he forgot himself enough to knot both fists in his beard and tug in opposing directions. On one side, the three ships which he had contributed to my Queen’s questing had been a considerable drain on his treasury. On the other, anything that Inimica Phlegathon deVry said of his ambitions might be equally expensive. She was known, after all, for her whims—and for her happy willingness to inflict their price upon her barons.
I could have counseled him to put his ships from his mind. By my arts, I knew them utterly lost. As, indeed, did my Queen. Also history was against him. Full of pride, his vessels had sailed from Indemnie’s harbor on varied eastward headings. From the direction of the sun’s rising, no ship ever returned.
However, it was not my place to speak in such an audience. I remained hidden and watchful.
With an effort, the Baron mastered his hands. Squinting fiercely, he retorted, “Your Majesty, you confuse me. My ships are my ambitions. Only their success will appease—” He caught himself. “I mean gratify my liege.”
My Queen granted him a smile that would have ravished an ox. “You place too little value upon yourself, my lord Baron,” she observed lightly. “Both your deeds and your person are more worthy in my sight than you know.
“Are ships truly the sum and limit of your ambitions?”
Glare Estobate’s face became a scowl, beard and brow and all. His eyes flicked a glance at the canopied bed, then returned to confront his monarch’s gaze. Clearing his throat, he replied in a congested tone, “Speak plainly, Your Majesty. I have ridden hard and long to no visible purpose. Innuendos will not relieve my confusion.”
Inimica Phlegathon deVry’s smile became yet more ravishing. “Then I will be plain, my lord Baron.” Musicians relished their melodies in her voice. “I wish to make of you my husband.”
The Baron did not appear appropriately surprised. Nor did he evince quick eagerness. Rather his scowl threatened thunder. It threatened wild lightnings. “To what advantage?” he demanded without pause for consideration. “Do you conceive that my ambitions will be sated by a place in your bed? I am not such a fool. You see some advantage to yourself. You do not desire my person. And you have already secured the succession. Wedlock with you will not provide for my sons”—he muttered a curse under his breath—“or indeed for my daughters.”
In contrast, none of his mistresses would complain of it if his attentions were directed elsewhere.
“Where does your advantage lie,” he concluded, “Your Majesty?”
“Advantage, my lord Baron?” The Queen granted the word an inflection of amusement. “It is true that I have secured the succession, as did my mothers before me. That is as it must be. Still I am surprised to hear your ambitions so simply named. Do you not crave stature among your fellow barons? Do you not desire a voice among my counselors? Do you not yearn for influence, Glare Estobate?” She let the corner of her mouth twist humorously. “And are you truly incurious to taste the pleasures of my bed?”
Though I heeded closely, I did not hear her reveal where her advantage lay.
However, the Baron did not pursue that query. He barked a laugh. “My confusion grows, Your Majesty.” His mien said otherwise. Now he looked avid as a pouncing cat. “Less than a fortnight has passed since my friend and ally, Baron Thrysus Indolent, informed me that you have proposed marriage to him. Proposed, he assured me—and was accepted.”
His beard bristled with triumph. “Will you wed us both, Your Majesty? Will you dare such mockery? If you do, all Indemnie will cry out against you.”
For my part, I heard him as though I had received a blow. That my Queen had proposed wedlock to Thrysus Indolent—and had been accepted—was known to me. I had been present on that occasion, as I was now. And I was not unduly struck by her offer to Glare Estobate, though I had no conception of her motive. I had been likewise present when she had engaged herself to three other barons before Thrysus Indolent. That the toll of the land’s lesser rulers was now complete did not unsettle me unduly.
But that Baron Indolent had confided in Glare Estobate—! That was a blow indeed. To my mind, Thrysus Indolent was much the sharpest, and therefore the most dangerous, of my Queen’s subjects. Of his predecessors in courtship—if her machinations may be so styled—I would more readily have expected indiscretion from Praylix Venery, who could not have kept a secret if it were locked in a vault. As for Quirk Panderman, his dedication to wine was so profound that his engagement to his sovereign might well have escaped his mind. And Jakob Plinth was too dour and self-contained to betray ambitions of any kind. When he had accepted his monarch’s offer, he had done so with an ill grace, indeed with an air of duress, apparently fearing the fate of his present wife if he refused. Assuredly he would not have spoken of his coming nuptials until—or unless—events compelled him to confess them.
In contrast, if Thrysus Indolent had indeed spoken—and had confided in Glare Estobate, of all men the one most likely to take violent umbrage—he was playing a deeper game than I could then explain. One deeper than I could justify.
However, Inimica Phlegathon deVry’s game was likewise deep, as it had been from the first. I had labored until my eyes watered and my brain ached to find and refine the auguries she sought. And when I was not cutting and prodding and interpreting, I had studied her seeking itself, hoping thereby to improve my ability to answer her. Yet I could not apprehend h
er lies and reversals, her demands and rejections, her constant play of openness and concealment. She remained as hidden from me as I from the Baron. Glare Estobate’s challenge did not disconcert so much as a hair on her head.
As though she could dismiss Thrysus Indolent’s revelation with a twist of her hand, she countered, “Must I conclude, then, my lord Baron, that I am refused?”
His beard positively bristled with triumph. “You must. Thrysus Indolent is my ally and my friend. Should I accept, I will be gravely disadvantaged by the loss of both friendship and alliance. It has perhaps escaped Your Majesty’s notice that such bonds have become precious in Indemnie. I cannot suffer the consequences of your proposal.”
“And you do not consider,” she asked lightly, “that you will be disadvantaged by the loss of my friendship? My alliance?”
Glare Estobate snorted. “Your offer is surpassingly expensive, Your Majesty. My treasury cannot bear the price of a wedding—and certainly not the price of standing at your side while you turn all Indemnie against you.”
To this charge, my Queen replied with a sigh which would have melted a pillar of salt. “My lord Baron,” she returned, “I am not fickle. Nor am I deliberately unkind. I have indeed proposed matrimony to Thrysus Indolent. But his was merely the fourth of my offers. Now you alone are not pledged to me. By this test, I determine the disposition—I may say the loyalty—of men who name themselves my subjects.” Her manner suggested that he now stood higher in her estimation, although her words implied otherwise. “The consequence of your refusal is that I must now try you further. I will amend my proposal.