This story is a work of fiction. It contains references to violent behavior between adults and minors, and expressions of physical affection between consenting males. 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.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the consent of the author.
I do not know how well-received these chapters are. The only clues I get are emails from readers. Like the story? Hate it? Let me know. I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons. All rights reserved by the author.
17 To Post With Such Dexterity
Hamlet: O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2, Line 156
One bell before sunset, Anlota returned. Evendal and a sleepy Prince, alerted, met with the midwife in the Throne room.
"Mother Anlota," Evendal's face showed surprise. "We commanded you to retrieve a toddler. We made no dispensation for a wet-nurse to accompany it."
"Your Majesty," Anlota breathed. "May I present Cheselrh olm'Onkirh? She would not be parted from the child, despite all arguments and entreaties."
"You may not so present her!" The King responded hotly.
"Please, Your Majesty!" Cheselre called out. "I would beg your grace and liberality for this child. Do not subject him to my kinswoman's blighted nature. He is an inquisitive child of sweet disposition and... No open-hearted child should be fostered in the turmoil and havoc of Onkira."
"Anlota, are you prepared to give over this child into Onkira's tender care? Understand, all Our warnings and consequences still apply should you ill-choose."
Shivering from reaction, Kri-estaul tried to burrow into Evendal's chest. Uncertain, he kept his eyes on the impassive mien of his adopted father.
"How can I consign a child to all that you endured? How can you?"
"Would not the question be... How can you relegate the child and his mother to Our displeasure? So you refuse?"
Anlota glanced at the girl, then at Cheselre, who nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty. I mean to say..."
"We refuse, Your Majesty!" Cheselre insisted.
"What say you, Anlota?"
Sweating with her plight, Anlota cried out. "This is wrong, Your Majesty! You make me responsible for two lives. And a decision I have no right to make."
"Mother of Midwives," Evendal reminded quietly, but with cold impassibility. "You have been responsible for many more lives than two. And you have made this decision, without witnesses but with mortal consequence, many times." He looked askance at her. "You could always exact a pledge from Us to keep a watch on the two of them... What say you?"
In pain and anger, Anlota grabbed the child from Cheselre and lurched toward the Throne. Cheselre grasped the old woman by her kirtle to stop her. "Let me go! At least this way he will live. And mayhap find others to show him love. Did I not see a thriving orchard at his birth?"
Cheselre wrapped long, determined arms around the midwife, all but rendering Anlota impotent. "But by your own confession His Majesty's return, his very existence, rendered all your visions uncertain. And I do not care if he blood-eagles me, you will not give over my child to that walking wasteland!" Neither woman showed any sign of releasing the now panicky two year old.
"Papa!" Kri implored.
"Yes, Kri, this has been more than enough." Evendal agreed. "Anlota, desist!" After adjusting his hold on Kri-estaul, the King stood and approached the suddenly motionless threesome. "Midwife, did you pay no attention to Our words before you left on this errand?"
He turned to the mother. "Cheselre... Had Anlota followed Our impossible directives, your child would have come back to you undistressed but weighted down with whatever goods you might not have managed for your residence. Were We alert and thinking clearly, such an errand as We gave Anlota would not have survived a single lucid thought or criticism. And you would have been given free choice to meet with Us at your leisure, or never to do so, as you chose. You and your child are in no danger from Us. And have never been. I had asked Anlota what her restitution should be, for giving the Dowager complete freedom over me since an infant. With her answer, she gave responsibility over to another. Again."
Cheselre was quick to respond. "You play with people's lives and hearts!"
The Lord of Osedys nodded. "Yes. As does Anlota. Is that not so, Mother?"
The midwife had no eloquence and no aplomb. "The dread and the... the inevitability... The thought of her with another boy to twist and warp! In no time at all I was in such despair. What you put me through, lad!"
"Was not nearly a tithe of the turmoil We knew! Not anywhere near one thousandth! True?"
The fire of anger in Anlota's gaze faded, and her shoulders sagged. "Too true, my lord."
"So." Evendal took a hard-won breath. "Thus are We recompensed. Do you know why We forced this confrontation?"
"I can only suppose it was a test that I failed."
Evendal smirked. "Interesting idea, but no. We just told Cheselre. When We asked you what restitution you decided on, what did you answer?"
It took a moment for the midwife to engage her mind. "I said 'Whatever seems good and right in your eyes'."
The King nodded. "Anlota, you acknowledged that you failed me, your especial charge. But that answer you gave showed me you had learned nothing from your failure." Weary to his bones, and still trembling inside from maintaining a pretense of indifference for so long, Evendal again sat in the Throne.
"You made the best decision you could, given the circumstance. Having told Us what was involved, not even the Left Hand of the Unalterable can fault you in that choice."
"But! You alone knew Onkira's measure from the hour of Cheselre's birth, yet you did nothing, arranged nothing, to mitigate Onkira's influence. The safeguards Menam exacted for protecting members of his Court were never applied to me. Where were you, after having arranged your deception? Yes, you were always under foot, but in public gatherings only. An acquaintance to me, like all the others. Too far removed, on the other side of the facade my parents fashioned, to be even thought of in any need. This was what you created, with Menam and Onkira, and yes, Wytthenroeg."
"You knew the problem better than anyone. You had sufficient authority, that Onkira could not endanger, to help. You did nothing. Once-dear lady, having made one tough decision, did you think your responsibility stopped there? You know this is not so."
"I..." Anlota winced. "I was busy," she whispered. "I embraced the distractions of my vocation, and abandoned you to her. I already admitted fault, Your Majesty."
Evendal nodded. "But you hide still, Anlota. You chose. You chose to be distracted. Chose to relinquish responsibility after the initial decision-making. As a habit! You did it in your answer earlier. Give Us some time, please. We do not like feeling this fury toward you. During that time, once-dear lady, We advise you to review your memory and examine your heart for others whom you have neglected out of self-preservation or personal comfort. This is not a request. And do not rely solely on your own judgment as to what constituted 'neglect.' You have Our leave."
Without protest, Anlota quietly took that leave.
"Cheselre, if you would approach. Please?"
Uncertainty beading her brow, the young woman obeyed.
"Rest easy, Cheselre. We merely want to greet you and your child properly, having forced you here through Our mummery. What name have you given your son, for now?"
"Meracaldi, Your Majesty."
"A sonorous name. Does he respond to it, yet?"
Cheselre grinned. "Only when he wants to, Your Majesty."
"Greetings, Cheselre. Meracaldi. I am called Evendal. This is Kri-estaul, my son."
"Peace and health to you," Kri-estaul added, staring at the toddler in curiosity. The child held tight to his mother's skirt and burrowed his head.
"Mistress Cheselre, you seem... sanguine after what many would consider a cruel gesture of power. We are relieved, of course, yet likewise puzzled."
"Your intentions were clear to me upon our approach, and you have, just now, explained them most ably, Your Majesty. Had I felt threat, my reactions would have been utter and final. My bit of drama with the Mother, just now, served her need." Cheselre's brow wrinkled in consternation. "Didn't it?"
"Most certainly. She has been a secret pillar supporting the heart of this land. The loss of confidence, of self-possession, will affect more than just Anlota."
Cheselre nodded. "Anlota has always spoken with me as a child, a girl, and a woman. Where other's tended to see a bauble, a cauldron, or one fey and moon-kissed."
"Why a cauldron?" Kri-estaul asked.
"A receptacle, having whatever a claimant expects their cauldron to hold. Rulers are seen the same way: the solution to every plea, or utterly useless." Evendal elaborated.
"Precisely! Precisely! But as she is a woman of discernment, I cherish her, and, like you, hurt to see her sang-froid diminished. Would it enlighten if I said that Anlota reckons me as a protege? It is not true, of course. Such is simply a title; if it eases, I am hardly burdened. But I would fail miserably as a Mother of Midwives. I have neither the tact nor the insight. Being both gentle and ruthless with the skeins of other people's lives... Such is not for the likes of me."
"Cheselre, We do not know how you feel about her. But We would tell you that, with ebb-tide on the morrow, Onkira will be cast and cleansed from the land."
The woman looked troubled. "To tell the truth, I, also, do not know how I feel. But it may be that I will, in part, be relieved."
"Once that is accomplished, you can make your home wherever you wish. We shall not impede you, or restrict you. We would, however, tender one suggestion."
"My lord?"
"Your child, regardless of his father, is the Arkedda's only hope and heir. We would request you let him know, through our emissary, that he is an great-uncle."
Cheselre curtsied, relief on her face. "If Your Majesty would be so kind."
"Which would you, Mistress Cheselre, for the moment? Ddronthys or the mainland?"
"While I have reason to return to Ddronthys, for a day or more I would tarry here, if it please Your Majesty."
Evendal frowned. "What matters is what pleases you. Would you wish to abide in the Palace, as Our guest?"
"If you would bear with the addition of myself and my boy, then I am humbled by you magnanimity."
The King sighed. "My dear Mistress Cheselre, you will find, after even brief acquaintance with Ourselves, that certain manners and compliments sit ill across Our shoulders. Some effects of Our station We cannot alter, some We cannot abide. Allow Us to request someone see to your comfort, and that of your patient son."
"We would be pleased." The daughter of Onkira replied, suddenly coquettish. "By Your leave?"
"Most certainly." At a gesture, Cheselre left, appropriately attended.
Before Evendal could leave the Court, Heamon and Guard Hielbrae approached, an unfamiliar Guard trailing them. When Hielbrae knelt, the King frowned and bade her stand. "How can We serve you?"
Hielbrae smiled. "I beg to detail that ex-Guardsman Nisakh has been apprehended and detained. He ran me a right and merry chase into the Cinqet. And that proved his defeat. Heamon's resident patrols pinched him and a companion, and had the dastards trussed up and waiting for me."
Evendal startled in surprise. "How can I encompass such good fortune? Heamon and Hielbrae, you are like a herald to the Left Hand. Be welcomed tonight, and, if you will, give us an accounting of your efforts. Here," he gestured to the seats just off the dais. "Let us sit a moment."
"Lord, there is little to tell." Heamon deferred. "Hielbrae had much earlier alerted me of her need. So, I petitioned my friends to keep a hawk's eye out for some newborn, one not even a dolphin for wit or touch."
Guard Hielbrae added. "My Lord, my Prince, I regret that my efforts took so long to bear fruit. Nisakh seemed to vanish, at the first. But, by a chance question to an Archate priest, I learned the reason Nisakh had disappeared so successfully: he cleared his trail as he moved. He coerced or purchased each hiding place from his fellows, then killed them when he felt compelled to find another. This priest had been called on to cremate a high number of ex-Guard over the last fortnight. I checked with Bruddbana for the cohorts of which these corpses had been part. They fell exclusively into two bands. So with the list of the surviving ex-members, I had some of my compatriots keep furtive attendance on them. In this way, he overstayed his welcome one too many times. But he escaped our cordon, and fled. Of course, alerted, he avoided other ex-Guard he had associated with. It wasn't two days later, Heamon asked to speak with me." Hielbrae turned and looked at the gaunt ex-Guardsman.
Heamon shrugged. "It was as I said, Your Majesty. He fumbled his way through our territory for two days, and got caught trying to intimidate Pru-elaiam. Pru-elaiam looks a child of twelve, but is twice that age, and a fierce dirt-feeder. Nisakh did not have a hope."
"What's a dirt-feeder?" Kri-estaul asked.
Evendal answered. "Someone who knows how to fight to win, obeying no rules except to be the one still standing and breathing at the end."
Heamon elaborated. "A dirt-feeder knows all vulnerable spots, and feels no compunction about slamming the larynx, or the bridge of the nose, tearing off testicles, breaking bones, gouging eyes..."
"Enough, Heamon!"
"What is your will regarding Nisakh at present?" Hielbrae intervened.
"We would have him shackled to the wall of a room in the fourth level of the under-grounds. Use short, thick chain - nothing he could turn for his own purposes. Otherwise, treat with him as with any common prisoner. We will consider his disposition later. What of his companion?"
"A fishmonger. Merely the most recent house-mate in Nisakh's queue of hiding-places."
"Keep that one on the first level, until We have opportunity to enquire further." The Guard behind Hielbrae bowed, and walked out.
"Hielbrae, Our gratitude for thwarting the vermin. And to you, Master Heamon, for your Family's perspicacity."
"Hielbrae?" Kri-estaul muttered, then called out louder.
"My Prince,"
"Were any of your friends hurt?"
"Two are waiting to see if their feet will heal without infection. Nisakh had one of the darker rooms in his escape route strewn with sharpened, shit-stained caltrops. Another received a blade in the shoulder. Those were the worst."
"I am sorry. Where are they, now?"
"The man with the injured shoulder is resting in an apartment here. One foot-sore Guard was taken to the Archate, while one remains here." Expecting that the Prince had a motive to his questions, both King and Guard waited.
After a long period where the child sat in thought, Kri-estaul looked up at the King. "Father?"
Evendal so wanted to embrace the fear out of Kri-estaul's countenance; the terror that showed whenever his son spoke up, whenever Kri asked for anything. "Might. Might we visit them?"
"Certainly," Evendal replied, surprise put a lilt in his voice.
"They were injured in my service. I should visit them. Is that right?"
"A fair response, my son. Yes." Kri-estaul smiled, relieved. "Have you a preference for escort?"
"Escort? Why do I need an escort?"
"As Prince, it is expected. Really you have had one at all times: My Guard. But you can choose whoever you wish, it need not be the people assigned to me. I thought you might feel more at ease knowing you can choose Guard."
After a moment's recapitulation Kri-estaul spoke, and, in deliberately not looking at the Guard, mimicked the Royal economy of motion. "Oh. What say you, Hielbrae?"
Startled to be asked, the Guardswoman, stammered in answering. "I know of two who would feel pleased with such duty, my Prince. Shall I retrieve them now?"
Kri-estaul nodded. "If. If they won't mind." His voice became a whisper, so Evendal interjected. "Do not impose on them. Rather request their attendance."
"If you wish, my liege. As I have your leave?" Both King and Prince nodded, and Hielbrae raced out.
Freed from Guard Hielbrae's attention, Kri-estaul sought the comfort of his father's hold. Evendal had watched all this with a tickling warmth suffusing his chest. His son responded first not to the capture of his torturer, which may have been too frightening to think about so immediately, but to the misfortune of his own deputies. What is more, Kri used Evendal as his template, mirroring choices and gestures Evendal had made. Heamon, in a subtle sign of regard, retrieved Kri-estaul's mobile chair, and held it still as the Prince freed himself from his makeshift sling and scooted backward into the vehicle.
That moment, the zealous Hielbrae hurried in with three more Guard in tow. Kri-estaul backed up hard against the Throne. When Hielbrae saw the flare of fear in the Prince's face, she herself turned sunset-red. "Thunders! Forgive me, Your Highness."
"Hielbrae, the injured are not going to rush off somewhere!" Evendal barked. "We think, after such a display, any comfort Kri-estaul might have drawn through an escort has been destroyed." Evendal's gaze encompassed the two Guard in Hielbrae's wake. "We thank you for your willingness and goodwill. And hope to have the honour of calling on you both at another time."
Both Guard bowed, once to their King, and again to their Prince, and retreated.
When Evendal turned his attention back to his son, it was to see misery. "Kri-estaul. My son. What is toward?"
Undone, the child could only mouth 'I'm sorry.' After swallowing a few times, he found his voice again. "Will. Will I always? Will everything scare me?"
"No. You have three fears. Unfortunately, two of them are constantly presented to you every bell here. The under-grounds and the Guard."
"What's the third?"
"Being abandoned by those you trust."
"You. You don't think me a coward, then? Weak-livered?"
"Kri-estaul, I will not talk to the top of your head." Evendal admonished.
The child jerked his head up and stared, hurt.
"What do you see?"
For what felt to Evendal like several bells, Kri-estaul stared into his father's glowing gaze.
"You. You don't hate me?"
Evendal all but choked on his breath. "No. Never."
"You don't think I'm bad, or weak?"
"You know you are not. So do I." Evendal grinned uncertainly. "What do you see?" he repeated.
"How. How can you... L. Love me?"
"So. You do see that?"
"Its more... I feel it."
Evendal shrugged. "How could I not? I have no answer. Look harder."
"But you're not really... looking, yourself!"
"You deserve some privacy. With you, my son, I do not need such." Evendal knew that if he were to explain what he meant by that, he would make no sense. But in that moment, with Kri-estaul so fragile, so distraught by the capture of his tormentor, his offer possessed its own logic.
"You. You are so strong."
The King shrugged again. "I am stubborn." He corrected. "You are strong. Look harder."
"I. I can't. I can't see past that you love me." Kri-estaul sounded peeved. "But not..."
"Not like Nisakh." Heamon, who had remained unnoticed up to this moment, spoke up.
"Not like anybody!" Kri-estaul protested. "Except maybe Drussie. Only she..."
"Yes?"
"She..." A child's loyalty fought with a child's brutal honesty. "She doesn't feel as strongly."
"Yes and no, Kri. She has had to go on for two years without you as part of her life. Not something she wanted to do, but inevitable. If she loved the Courtier's game more than she loved you, I would not now be your father." The King had no clue what Kri-estaul saw, but felt no surprise at the child's perception, his ability to heart-walk. "Do you know how I see you?"
Kri-estaul shook his head. "It changes all the time."
"So do you."
"Sitting on the Throne with the Trident in my hands."
"That is just one ambition I own. Just one, Kri."
"...Or. Walking."
"Yes. I'm sorry, Kri. That fancy is impossible to destroy as yet."
"But mostly warm and safe... Sitting with you, or sleeping on your lap. Or, I guess it was when you raced me home... to the Palace, I mean. And I look like I do when I look in water."
"Do you still think that I don't see you for who you are? For what you are?"
Kri-estaul shook his head vehemently. The Prince opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Evendal got up from his Throne and knelt in the space between Kri-estaul's footpads. "Don't think about it. But say what comes. Who am I?"
"My Papa."
Evendal smiled, his eyes brightened. "Yes. That is exactly right. And you will never see anything lurking beyond my fatherly love for you." He turned to a chastened Guard. "Hielbrae. You and one other, leading and following only. Kri-estaul, Heamon and I will guard your back."
"Papa," Kri-estaul hesitated, a look of confusion on his face. "What did I just do? I looked inside you, but I couldn't say I saw anything I could touch... while at the same time what I saw was clear. Right before me!"
Evendal waved his son to the entrance; now was the time for misdirection, studied nonchalance. "I said you were full of nice surprises. One thing, though..."
"Yes?"
"Wait on visiting the Guard cozened at the Archate. When they say she is able to receive visitors, we can visit with your grandmother at the same time. Is that well with you?"
"Very well, Papa." The Heir of Osedys paused long in his perusal of Evendal, anxiety and uncertainty sweeping back and forth across his scarred countenance. Unable to settle on words, Kri-estaul followed Hielbrae, and two of the three Guard, out.
Evendal made to follow his son, only to realize the boy had paused just beyond the door. The King waited, giving Kri-estaul time to compose himself. "Master Heamon," Evendal returned his attention to those attending him. "Granted that the residents of the King's Fifth are all people of virtue and good report..." He marked the un-distressed murmur of Kri-estaul's and Hielbae's voices, but not the words.
The ex-Guard didn't answer immediately, uncertain what he had just witnessed. "Of course, Your Majesty. And fiercely loyal to your charitable rule." Heamon's mouth and tone twisted, imbuing his words with irony.
"No doubt." Amused, Evendal mirrored Heamon's dry tone. A muffled knock against the wall, Hielbrae's courtesy, alerted Evendal that Kri-estaul had begun to move again. So Evendal, Heamon, and Evendal's Guard left the Chamber. Kri-estaul had paused at the first corridor turn. Seeing the King emerge, the child turned and continued on, one Guard preceding him and Hielbrae following.
"How would some from the Cinqet fare working a talm(45) more fertile, or one inhabited with breeding stock?"
Heamon took the query as a blithe hypothetical. "I ken some would find it a challenge, some a hardship, and some would try not to think about it at all."
"Well, with the disenfranchising of Onkira, her manor and lands return to Us. We have no use for them. It is likewise with Kernost. Between those two annexes, We have what is probably the most fertile ground this far from the Kul. Would either of these lands help at all in bringing a greater sense of... security and autonomy to the Clan?"
Heamon halted motionless, his pale face turned chalk white. When he could think, he asked the first thought that came through his shock. "Why? In exchange for what?"
The King closed his eyes, briefly, then rounded on the representative. "There are times, Heamon, when your heart could teach my foster-mother's to grow thorns." He drew a deep breath and bellowed. "'Why?' Because the Cinqet is founded on sea-salt and rocks! Because it might help you in providing for the Cinqet! Because I don't want any of my people to starve! Even you!"
Kri-estaul, some distance ahead, stopped and looked back, alarmed. Evendal smiled and waved at his son to proceed. Heamon, with belated wisdom, said nothing.
Unable to look the ex-Guard in the face, shaking with reaction, Evendal continued softly as they marched. "I make this offer, disregarding the insult you have just delivered, in all verity as a gift. I know what I would like to see happen. But as it is a gift, what the Cinqet does with the plot that it chooses will be entirely their decision. And that decision will stand."
"What..." Heamon croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "What would you like to have happen with the land?"
"If the plot you choose can do so, planting grains, vegetables, would provide both food, an added bartering resource, and healthy labour for the youth in the King's Fifth."
"An ambition with foresight." Heamon tendered.
"Cattle have their own benefits, and a few more drawbacks. But I think the larger manourland, Kernost, is better suited for livestock." Evendal's voice came out as a thin-timbered whistle.
"Your Majesty," Heamon rasped. "Tomorrow, if you so please, I would present a fellow of the Clan. She is called Hwen-hirost."
"Tomorrow? Tomorrow, We provide a spectacle for the crowds. My foster-mother Onkira is to be dispersed."
"I had not heard. Then my cousin(46) can wait until whenever you deem best."
"What need has she?"
"No need, Your Majesty, except to be presented for your consideration as my replacement."
Evendal's head jolted up. "Who requested your replacement?" They had reached the apartments, and Evendal raised a hand, indicating to Kri-estaul a need to pause.
"Lord, would it not be best?" Though it stayed at a moderate volume, Heamon's voice carried all the emotion it had previously hidden. "When I don't aggravate you, I try to thwart you. When I am not refusing you at every turn, I insult you in my distrust. Hwen-hirost does not have my anger and bitterness."
To Evendal's complete bewilderment, Heamon began to weep. "I have tried with all I have, Lord Evendal, but I am not the best choice as intercessor for the Family. I. Just. Can't. Do. It."
As if his spine could no longer support him, Heamon slumped to the floor. In a trice, the King knelt beside him and wrapped an arm around Heamon's unresisting shoulders. "No, Heamon. You do not see. You are the right person for this task."
Heamon shook his head in denial, but Evendal continued. "The last thing I or the Clan needs is someone less affected by the past nine years. I know you are... haunted by what you have seen and done. It permeates your every reaction and word. You may not see in the long term, as I do. But your first instinct, your first thought, is honest: To safeguard your Family. Your post needs someone suspicious of the Throne, because I am just as focused as you. I may not take the well-being of the Cinqet seriously, as I pursue my goal of fostering the entirety of the Thronelands."
Heamon, blotched-faced, stared at the King. All his youth, long smothered under a fervent gravity, now irradiated out from him in vulnerability, in a frightful fragility. 'How do we survive our own expectations?' Evendal mused. 'Nevermind, another's demands?'
"There is another reason you are the best man for this duty. I would imagine this Hwen-hirost is one of the fortunate ones, huh? Never faced the Beast? Never faced the Wise Counselor." Again Heamon shook his head. "Nor had to watch her nathlil die, and do nothing. You are the wounds of the Cinqet, Heamon. The people and places King Misrule will never permit me near, the voices I would never otherwise hear. You are the heart of the Cinqet, Heamon. And as the emissary for the King's Fifth, you keep the needs and the pain of those neediest right here, where I cannot ignore them. Where this Court cannot ignore them."
"I... I try to... I want to believe you, Lord Evendal. I tell myself I can trust you, that there is no treachery in you. I see your sincerity! But when a crisis crests, what comes out of my mouth is the legacy of the co-rulers. I can't seem to change. Every time you petition for my attendance, I anticipate a charity-blanket."
"A what?"
"Oh. No one told you about that?" Heamon cackled harshly. "Almost two years ago, a 'benevolent' Manourlord dared to smuggle a boatload of blankets into the Cinqet, to serve us through an approaching winter. Well, the shipment got stored with some mite-ridden corn. Our priest decided to delouse the seed and distribute the blankets in the same week. One of his daughters, apprenticed to him, contracted smallpox and died. In a rage of grief, the priest examined the corn(47) and the blankets for contagion and then burned the blankets over his daughter's corpse. It seems that Polgern had encouraged that Manourlord, who later most tragically died of smallpox, to devastate the Clan."
The King felt no surprise at the tale, but let a moment's quiet acknowledgement pass.
"Heamon, I offered you your position, expecting you to do exactly as you have. And you are wrong, you know."
The ex-Guard laughed. "This is a surprise? How am I wrong?"
"You can so change. You have changed." Heamon looked at Evendal in confusion, and not a little fear. "You speak to me as one man to another. Not as your dearest enemy. I am not your enemy, Heamon. I think you know that, as of this moment, at least."
Heamon's splotches returned; he had no need to answer.
"You are a man, Heamon. You are what your home requires, right now. Ir willing, a day will come when you will be at a loss for complications to complain of."
The ex-Guard assayed a smile at the notion. "I assume, should that happen, you will so provide."
"Of course. On that day I'll marry you to Hwen-hirost."
"Do you intend to interview our... acquisitions now?"
"After this duty. Should Nisakh's attendant prove an innocent, it behooves Us to act promptly. So, yes."
"Would it incommode you to be accompanied by the Cinqet emissary?"
Evendal grinned. "Not in the slightest."
Evendal accompanied Kri-estaul to the designated cell, at first pointedly standing back, beyond the entranceway. As much as it was possible he wanted this visit to be what Kri-estaul intended, an expression of concern and gratitude. Evendal felt certain that part of what motivated Kri was curiosity and disbelief - that anyone would endanger themselves over him.
At first, Evendal stared at the convalescent in shock. The woman within had, perhaps, fifteen years.
"Greetings. Peace and health to you." Kri-estaul warbled, from the doorway. The girl within the room looked harmless, but she was a Guard even so.
"Health and prosperity to you." An alto voice replied. "You... You aren't here to show me how to use one of those things, are you?"
"One of what... Oh. You mean my chair? No. This is how I get anywhere, unless my Papa carries me. I am called Kri-estaul."
"Kri-est... Your Highness!"
"Well. Yes."
"This is not good. And not fair at all." The young woman bewailed, her face scrunched up in dismay.
Kri-estaul felt confused and worried. 'Fairness' mattered. "Why is that? What is not good?"
"To be visited by you now. The priests just fed me a decoction that has me babbling like some tributary of the river Donnag. Saying the first thing that enters my head."
The Prince almost smiled in relief, realising the source of the girl's upset was not himself. "Priests seem to enjoy giving people those kinds of drinks." The girl-woman's concerns disarmed Kri-estaul's anxiety in a way simple avowals of harmlessness could not have.
The young woman nodded vigourously from her bed.
"How are you called?"
"Oh. Tienselikh, Your Highness. Thunders! I really do have manners."
"You are very brave, Tienselikh. Are you in much pain?"
"Not since I drank that stupid potion. Or, I don't think I am."
"No need to worry about your manners or how you sound around me. I have a powder I have to drink also. It tastes really weird, and makes me feel stupid and slow."
"Yes." Tienselikh exclaimed. "Like I am moving and thinking slower than everyone around me. I hate it!" Any normal self-possession submerged, she began to sob.
Kri-estaul rolled up to the Guard's bed and, tentatively, touched her hand. "After a while, you recover. I actually have begun to think in my usual way. You chased Nisakh through a darkened house? I would have been terrified."
"I was. But my commander ordered me in there. Not the whole house, just that room. But 'no torch, no lamp, no spill'." The change in her tone told Kri-estaul she quoted her commander.
"Hielbrae?"
"No. Rinca-eldenth. Hielbrae is her commanding officer."
"But why have you search just that room?"
"I don't know."
Intrigued, Evendal pointed at Hielbrae, then gestured further up the corridor.
"Tell me about Rinca-eldenth, Hielbrae." The King hissed as they moved away.
"I do not know what to tell you, Your Majesty." The woman replied, clearly miserable.
"Then retrieve her. Drugged or not, Tienselikh's word choice alarms me." Hielbrae rushed down the hallway. Before the Temple bell sounded the next quarter, Hielbrae had returned. The woman accompanying the Prince's Guard looked to have over forty years, with hair cropped close to the scalp and a series of ear-studs lining one lobe, in the corsair fashion.
"Your Majesty, I present Guard Rinca-eldenth. As you requested."
"Greetings, Guard Rinca-eldenth. Are We to understand that Guard Tienselikh works in your cohort?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And that she did indeed injure herself, in the efforts to capture Nisakh?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." If carriage and demeanor spoke, then Evendal heard self-satisfaction, smug anticipation, in the angle of the woman's head, the stance, the silence before and after her terse responses.
"Did you inform her that any such effort, any measure taken, was the free choice of each Guard?"
Rinca-eldenth opened her mouth, but said nothing.
"Rinca-eldenth? How long have you held your commission?"
"Twenty years, Your Majesty."
"As a seasoned Guard, having twenty years serving King and Protector, having given your pledge and seen the kind of Guard We want. What moved you to order - to order! - a Guard to risk their life in a maneuver that was absurd, suicidal, and unnecessary?"
"We didn't know that, Your Majesty."
"We were apprised of the situation Tienselikh found herself in: a dark room, simply one part of a labyrinthine escape route, littered with shit-coated spikes or caltrops. How many other traps or surprises had your cohort come across, previous to that room?"
"Three, Your Majesty."
"And were those previous perils discovered and disarmed? Or stumbled upon?"
"Discovered and disarmed, Your Majesty."
"We commend your cohort, Commander."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
"Guard Rinca-eldenth. Tienselikh is heavily drugged, and in such a way that she is incapable of dissembling. Were We to ask if she volunteered to walk through the spike-laden room, how do you think she would answer?"
Rinca-eldenth said nothing.
"If we were to ask her if the other Guard had volunteered in their disarming the previous traps, how do you think she would answer?"
Again, Rinca-eldenth said nothing.
"Guard Rinca-eldenth, silence will not serve. And We thought Our own Guard would know by now, willful silence around Us does not last when We do not wish it to."
"You made a set of mistakes, Guard Rinca-eldenth. Would you care to show some intelligence and enumerate them for Us?"
"I endangered the life of a Guard in my command. Unnecessarily."
"We said 'a set' of errors."
"I cannot think of where else I erred."
"You were given a Guard-in-training, one just barely in adulthood. You ordered her into a situation she had no experience for. You provided no guidance. You not only endangered a fellow-Guard unnecessarily. You insulted the trust your cohort, and Hielbrae, place in you. When a commander deliberately endangers a Guard-in-training, that commander jeopardizes the training, not just the student. Did you think you had no accountability? Fourth, you reported no deviation in your handling of your trainee." That last, he knew without asking. "Fifth, you had no rationale for sending her into that room. No goal or gain. Again, did you think you had no accountability?"
Rinca-eldenth said nothing.
"That is the fourth question We have asked that you have refused to answer."
"Papa?" Kri-estaul called out, simply letting his father know he was there. Evendal had already noted his son's approach, back when he had commended Rinca-eldenth's company. The somber expression on Kri-estaul's face told Evendal his son knew what was toward.
"Kri-estaul, this is Tienselikh's commanding officer. Does Tienselikh understand what was done to her?"
"I don't think so. No. Not really. But then, the stuff she drank is weirder than what I have to drink."
"I know you have more to tell me, son."
"This was her first assignment. She had nothing to compare it to. Neither did I, since I don't know how Guard... do things. But... But she explained to me what she understood. And. And I've been listening to you just now. I'm sorry, Papa!"
"Don't be, Prince Kri-estaul. That is exactly what you are to do." Evendal grinned and nodded once his approval. "What did she understand?"
"That she did not know what to do. I mean... That she knew her commander's order was wrong, but that she herself was a... subordinate." Kri-estaul clearly understood the word, but had trouble pronouncing one he had never needed to use before. "She told me her only choice, when given any order, is to obey or quit the Guard."
"I wonder who sold her that week-old tripe?" Evendal stared hard at a Guard commander who failed to meet his gaze. "When that potion wears off, she'll be able to think it all through." Evendal warned. "Hielbrae, you had better have someone both gentle and wily at hand for her."
The woman nodded. Evendal ald'Menam noted the tense expression on his son's face. "Which shall it be, my son?" Kri-estaul looked at Evendal in puzzlement. "Justice? Or Equity? The offense occurred in your service."
"Papa," Kri-estaul hedged. "Can we go somewhere else?"
"No," Evendal replied, then continued when Kri-estaul hunched in his chair. "But you can look at me, and only me. And talk to me, and only to me."
"I want to know why?" With the force of Kri-estaul's question, Evendal flashed back to the diver, the intense Mar-Kestlen. "The last thing... The last thing I wanted was someone else being hurt by Mas... Hurt by Nisakh. Why?" Hielbrae looked surprised at the ferocity in Kri-estaul's voice. Evendal understood.
"A vital question. Personally, I opt for Justice, but..." Evendal drawled. "Hielbrae. Escort Rinca-eldenth back to that house, blindfold her, then set her to marching barefoot through that room. Until she reports her goals, motives, or intentions, in inflicting such an assignment on Tienselikh."
"As you will, Your Majesty." Hielbrae bowed.
The dapper Guard protested. "But Your Majesty, your pledge!"
"How interesting you should mention that, Rinca-eldenth. We will see if 'your limbs fail you, or your gifts natal and acquired.' Because this treatment of someone under your charge falls into the arena of 'Nor shall I ever with will or action do anything to besmirch the honour and virtue of his reign'."
Rinca-eldenth exploded. "I sent her because I hate the bitch! She has been sniffing after my spouse for months. And talking about me behind my back. I finally had had enough."
Evendal stared at Rinca-eldenth, as at some exotic bug that had waltzed from under a bit of slate.
"You think to lie to Us? How pointless."
Wheat from chaff,
Truth I trust,
Let me quaff
And be Just.
"I was not about to let Siartthalee or Han-gelloryn down there. For one, I would never hear the end of it. For another, they are my best at tracking and capture. Whereas that bit of fluff and down! All anxious and eager. She about drove me to the edge of my temper, questioning everything. Practically tripping over her own feet! Well, not any more."
"When Hielbrae came and all but begged for people to join the hunt, I thought 'Here's a way to get my name remembered, and not have to do much but send this poor sot out for us' Make up for all the time I got nothing for my efforts."
The King nodded. "We are certain Hielbrae told you the manner of scum-sucker you would be facing."
"Oh, I remembered Nisakh." Rinca-eldenth assured Evendal with a grin. "We never said more than 'greetings' to each other. But I knew his measure and his reputation. Sharp and tough."
Evendal wondered how many other Guard recalled the man so fondly. "Let Us make certain We understand correctly: You sent Tienselikh into a room that you knew Nisakh had imperiled and already vacated, not letting her know what she could be facing, to keep her from annoying you further with questions she was expected to ask. And, in truth, you were depending on her injuring herself. So that, as the veteran commander of a Guard wounded in successful pursuit of a dangerous Royal fugitive, you might gain notice or advancement."
The Songmaster looked the Guard in the eye. "Is that accurate?"
Rinca-eldenth swallowed hard. "Yes."
Evendal turned to Kri-estaul. "Your decision?"
Kri-estaul looked ready to cry, but held it in for the moment. "Equity, Papa." And Evendal ald'Menam nodded. He wondered if Kri-estaul would ever feel able to trust a King's Guard now.
To those you know tell your shame,
Once they know it, tell your gain.
For serving silence and lies,
Say more than is truly wise.
Voice your true feelings to all;
No evasion, no recall.
"You make me sick. Lording your arrogant little pecker over all of us who are only trying to make our thankless work a bit easier. Here I've been a Guard for over twenty years and what kind of trainees do I get? This dewy young chatterbox who is enough to make any Guard want to stuff her head in the Kul. That walking corpse they hoisted on me a few weeks before was embarrassing enough. At least Brinau knew which end of a sword to grip."
Rinca-eldenth turned pale. "Your Majesty! What have you done to me?"
"When you meet any 'old friends', Rinca-eldenth, you will tell them what you did to Tienselikh. Or, if you have wronged the person before you, you will reveal that instead. Then, without preamble, you will tell that person what you truly think of them. I trust that you have been a woman of unimpeachable honesty and guilelessness. For the present you remain a Guard, but not welcome before Us. Leave now."
The visit to the other Palace-bound convalescent, "the walking corpse" Brinau-tehir, passed without incident. Brinau-tehir proved to be a man having over fifty years who had been injured early at Mausna. Though in pain, and abjuring the offered painkillers, he showed a sense of humour, remarking how he had managed to avoid injury only between kingships.
Kri-estaul responded well to the fellow's quiet, unassuming presence. Upon introduction, Brinau-tehir's responded simply. "I wager Mausna is looking more attractive every day. You poor man." Evendal decided he liked this quietly observant Guard.
"Did he stab you?" Kri-estaul asked, once more timid and fretful.
"Who? Oh, you mean that spruce brat, Nisakh? Not directly, no. He wouldn't do that unless I was tied down and helpless. His type's the coward." Kri-estaul's eyes bulged at Brinau-tehir's offhanded disparagement of his chief tormentor. "No, this shoulder wound is a souvenir from a trap he left behind." A swift look shared between Brinau-tehir and Evendal, and the King knew otherwise. The two adults understood each other: Kri-estaul did not need further examples or excuses to fear Nisakh's violent nature.
"Is there ought for your comfort, Brinau-tehir?"
"I can guess where you go now, Your Majesty. Do you think Your Highness needs to endure that?"
"We would rather he did not."
"Where?" Kri-estaul's head swiveled back and forth.
"To speak with Nisakh, Kri."
"No!"
The King grimaced. "He will need to face his fears. The sooner the better."
"That is so much swash!... Your Majesty."
"Oh, I don't mean just Nisakh. I mean the under-grounds." Evendal could see the sullen expression on Kri-estaul's face and correctly intuited its cause. "Kri, at least once a day I will be called on to go down there. Giving you the choice of being with me when I do or being in the care of a Guard."
"At this time, Your Majesty, I am unassigned." Brinau-tehir offered.
Evendal waited. Kri-estaul said nothing. And the King realized he was treating an eight-year-old like an adult - inappropriately. "Guard Brinau-tehir, We thank you. And accept. But only with Hielbrae attending as well." He stared down at his son's troubled face. "She is, after all, your personal Guard."
Once through the entry-door, Heamon and the King's escort preceded the King down the stairwell and the other doorways. Though not necessary, the Guard held onto a lit torch. "So. If Nisakh was caught roughing up a Clan-member, how did you link this other person to Nisakh?"
"By virtue of the unfortunate's testimony, to be certain. The woman practically chased after the Guard in her... eagerness." Heamon assured. "You do understand that what this person peddles is... not octopus?"
"Oh." If Evendal had not understood, he did when he entered the woman's holding cell. "Someone, please, light a censer."
Heamon, grinning crazily, pulled a bauble out of his sleeve and dropped an ember from the Guard's torch into it. He clearly enjoyed Evendal's bemusement.
"And people... respond well to such perfumes?"
Heamon laughed. "You ask the wrong man, Lord Evendal. I have never felt the need to approach such a... merchant."
A woman's voice interrupted. "It's a convention, good sir. Certain scents signal a person willing to satisfy specific tastes, or types of clients. No one has seen fit to offer reason or invitation for my abiding here. While not the barest setting for romance, this apartment lacks those amenities I would deem most basic. That, and your professed ignorance of the langue d'eau, tells me I am not detained because of my expertise."
Evendal shot Heamon a puzzled glance, then approached the owner of the amiable palaver.
"Oh, how accommodating of you, you brought better light. That is so considerate. I was afraid I would not be able to see well enough to repair this!" Oblivious of her surroundings, a bespangled middle-aged matron turned her sleeve toward the King's eyes and set a threaded needle through some bloodied selvage. The woman's manner and words bespoke a delicacy belied by her body and voice.
"Greetings, kind woman. How are you called?"
"Iesaldim, as of late. Who do I have the pleasure and honour of addressing?"
"I am called Evendal. How came you to be caught up with such desperate company?"
"Are you? Why?" Still concentrating on her sleeve, Iesaldim knotted her thread and bit the end free.
"No. I do not mean myself. I mean that you were brought here because of a former Guard you were in the company of. One known as Nisakh."
"Oh," Iesaldim responded with a flat tone, all coquettishness evaporated. "That... That pathetic pretense at virility? Are you his friend?"
"No. He is our prisoner. And awaits judgment."
The colour in Iesaldim's cheeks matched the red of her dress. "You are... Your Majesty." The woman performed a courtesie that could have shamed the most particular courtier.
"Yes. I am, but I try to forget it. Sometimes."
"When people say that they bask in the light of your countenance, those are not empty words. Are they?"
Evendal blushed. "Again, I ask. Mistress Iesaldim, how came you to be apprehended with Nisakh?"
"By the most wretched injustice of all, Your Majesty. My mother claimed she gave him birth. Though I have long suspected that he was whelped."
Startled, Evendal turned to Heamon. "Surely you detained her for other reasons. Did you harbour him?"
Iesaldim's expression could have taught ice to freeze. "Majesty, since word of the Beast's ruin reached me, I have awaited Nisakh's visit with eager anticipation. What I harboured," She stressed the verb. "my lord, was visions of his demise. The death of his protector made our reunion inevitable. So everyday I attired myself for the occasion: Studded bracers, resin-hardened blades and glass-imbedded darts, boiled-leather kirtle, serrated hairpins and garrote-strength wire accenting my bodice. Nightshade in the brandy, mistletoe in my wine, lime in the milk. Each room of my home has bedding and cloths wrapped for storage. Should he remove the wrappings he would soon find himself poxy."
Evendal listened to this summation with pure awe.
"Your sterling qualities, it would seem, are not merely the obvious, Mistress Iesaldim."
Iesaldim dimpled daintily. "You are too kind. But I could hardly call myself my mother's daughter if I didn't do everything I could to destroy that blight-on-three-legs. Nothing's too good for my brother."
"There you may be wrong, fair Iesaldim." the Left Hand corrected. "But indulge me for a moment, kind woman, and tell me again how Ambassador Heamon came to include you in his retrieval?"
"The bag of scum was caught trying to force guest-rights from me. Showed up outside my door, as I expected! He knew I would not simply let him in. So he had grabbed Pru-elaiam, shouting that if I did not let him in, he would gut the child! He did not understand why I laughed so hard... not at first."
As Iesaldim related her story, Evendal stared hard at her, waiting for the telltale. "And how do you feel about the possibility of his execution?"
Somber-faced, the matronly woman matched the King, stare for stare. "I mourned my brother's death a long time ago, Your Majesty. I will feel sad, and relieved. Safe. It may sound inhuman, but his simply dying is not Justice!"
"I have an eight-year-old boy in my care who's pain and night-dreams tell me the same. So I am sentencing him to his crimes."
"I do not understand, Your Majesty."
"Tell me, Mistress Iesaldim," Evendal whispered. "Did Nisakh bugger you? Did he steal your virginity, your innocence? Did he beat you, throw you around the room and into walls?"
Iesaldim hesitated, obviously surprised at the turns her conversation took. "Yes," she hissed back. "That and more!"
"Can you watch such treatment being done to anyone and stay calm?"
Again, the woman did not respond immediately. "I have." Her lips barely moved. "I have had to."
The King nodded. "Then come with me."
Heamon escorted them three floors down.
Nestled in a corner, each arm bound to a conjoining wall, a young-looking man hunched. Smooth-faced, Nisakh resembled some vapid, well-fed courtier. As Evendal neared he saw the man sported a cut on his cheek. Without affectation, unresponsive and unremarkable, Evendal thought how Nisakh could have walked by him in a corridor and gone un-noticed. "This is your brother?"
Iesaldim nodded, her eyes feverish, her lips pinched between her teeth. "That's the scum that makes others into scum-suckers."
The man opened his eyes on hearing Iesaldim's reply. When he saw his sibling, Nisakh smiled gently. "Greetings, my sweet songbird. Have you come to peck out my liver?"
"Not this time, fool. I have come for a last look at you. Any words of wit you want remembered?"
Nisakh shrugged. "Not particularly. My work speaks for me, as this noble beside you will, no doubt, attest. Am I right?"
Evendal nodded, inwardly bemused at Nisakh's composure. "You have much that will survive your death. Though I am doing my best to see that it does not live on for long."
"You have a few advantages over me, good sir. You are now assured of my name, but I do not know your own."
"I am called Evendal m'Alismogh ald'Menam."
"I would bow but my limbs will not obey me at this moment." Nisakh quipped. "You are new here. How are you known?"
"We are sulen ureg is'dah, hraktreh'amel yr Ddys, me'Seners Oatelharh(48) We are the judge of your public deeds and duty. Are you now enlightened?"
"I dare say that Your presence, Your Highness, would enlighten any room. What have I done to so offend you?"
"Your violence against children first brought you to Our attention. That, in Our estimation, is sufficient to have you strung up for public repudiation and target practise."
Nisakh looked amazed, almost bewildered. "Children? You expended all this effort because I diddled some child?"
"What is this word? 'Diddled'? You make it sound as if what you did were some bit of silliness. You committed an intentionally violent act against someone who had no defense against you. You reamed a six-year old child, repeatedly. You tossed him against these walls like a sack of oats. You assaulted his body, his innocence, his heart." With Herculean force of will, Evendal reined in his own violation-fed anger. "We have dealt with those indifferent to the pain of others, we have dealt with those for whom that pain was simply a messy consequence of their ambitions or delusions. But you have neither excuse for your actions, do you?"
"Who needs excuses? They are for the cowardly. If fools are broken its because they are brittle."
"Brave words, little man. Let us see what is behind them."
You shall not resist,
You cannot run.
You shall here abide,
'Till our judgment is done.
Speak, urbane schemer,
Let no masks remain.
What you hoard unveil,
All your acts make plain.
"Spare me the bad rhymes, Your Insufferable Majesty. Where should I begin? With you, my loving sister? Do you want this Courtier's Courtier to know how much fun you were growing up? Lord Evendal, she has the most exquisite way of sobbing after she has screamed for maybe an hour or so. There's a catch in the throat that she has. Both her ass and her pudendum have this way of palpitating that is so... gratifying. Makes me almost proud to be her brother, her tutor."
"She is your sister. Had you no sense of love, or even respect, for her?"
Nisakh turned away from Iesaldim, to stare at Evendal in confusion. "What do you mean? What is this nonsense about love? I taught her about her body as no one else could. I kept her from the crude puerile pawing of others. I was her first, and I'll wager she has not had another man since me."
"When father caught on to our play, he sponsored me in the Guard, to get me out of the house. I later came back for a visit and showed him my appreciation. Oh, 'Seldi! Da was tighter than you ever were! Even after he died. He always said he had a surprise or two in him if I ever bothered to notice." Throughout his babble, Nisakh's smile held. The bound Guard looked like a happy man delighted to share some fantastic secret.
"I was disappointed when you fled to the Archate. I thought you had more loyalty than that, but well... you actually showed you had a brain under all your... pulchritude." Listening, Evendal realised he heard an emotionally shallow man, warped but honest. A man with no understanding of life, of compassion or personal pain or joy, beyond the conventions Osedys society fashioned to signify them. To compensate, to draw possible attention away from his lack, Nisakh did not recognise any boundaries, any distinctions, any limits. There were only two kinds of people in his world: Toys and Powers. Abduram had been his patron; perhaps an anchor he almost understood, perhaps the only Power he acknowledged. Perhaps. Everyone else then served as either his toy or Abduram's. Everyone and everything - including his own feelings - was simply a resource to serve whatever urge emerged. Nisakh could not imagine, not really. He could not imagine what another person felt or wanted. When Nisakh felt generous, his magnanimity showed his macabre set of values, springing from his own unchecked - and therefore extreme - fancies of what he himself enjoyed, while clothed in his superficial understanding of 'accepted behaviour'.
"Father's murder told me all I needed to know about my future if I had stayed!" Iesaldim muttered.
"Nevermind your sister's, no doubt, frustrating desire to survive, Nisakh. Attend us."
"Oh, Your Majesty. You actually want to know of all the people I have loved? We will be many hours. I am a loving and extravagantly giving man. After father sponsored me, I joined a cohort. Finding little in common with my comrades, I became a prodigal benefactor to the needy in the area I served."
The King felt as sick to his stomach as Iesaldim looked. "Enough of your euphemisms."
As darkness closes in around you,
As your heart labours its last
With no reprieve in store,
The evils of your life await you,
To crush you under their dread
Taunt you over and over.
Every blow meant mortal,
Every betrayal so dear,
Every child assaulted,
Stands plain before you,
Clamours in your ear,
Till Justice is served,
Or the survivors healed.
The violence on which you dwell,
Find etched on your body as well.
And with the temperance of the Undying,
Punishment or reward to yourself bring.
When they re-emerged, Iesaldim came out first, a goodly distance from the King. She stumbled, blinded by ambiguous emotion. Heamon moved to help, but Evendal signaled otherwise.
"What think you of Our Justice, mistress?"
Iesaldim gasped for breath, still whelmed by what she had seen.
"My apologies for insisting you attend, but nearest kin should bear witness."
"I yet cannot believe the... extent of his perfidy. The number of people he must have victimized. And you! You can evoke such a judgment? Make him experience the evils he inflicted?"
"All but the final ignominy. That waits on my will, or the decision of his surviving victims."
Iesaldim whispered. "I never thought I would see him cry! Will he continue writhing, or does he cease when you leave him?"
"He will continue suffering the pain of his prey for as long as he breathes. Even were someone to rescue him from Us. Even were We to die."
Iesaldim stared Evendal in his glowing eyes. "I will venture this, I who waited a long time for my brother's destruction... You do know... Your judgment is not the act of a soft or compassionate man. Nor of one entirely stable in mind..."
The Lord of the Thronelands grinned lopsidedly. "You are wrong, Madame." He said baldly. "I cannot countenance providing penalties woefully inadequate for the atrocities of the culpable. What is it to kill such a one as Nisakh? Such a retribution would not fit the crime. It satisfies no one but Nisakh, who experiences less than a moment of pain. I punish because punishment is necessary to defend the honour of he who was hurt by the offence."
Iesaldim enjoyed some deep breaths, too shaken to pursue her point. The atmosphere, the tension in the Chamber, changed, encouraging Heamon to speak.
"But, Lord, which matters most to you? Accomplishing an impossible equity through punishment and reward? Or healing and restoring your home and people?"
"Heamon, you, of all people, ask this?" Yet, just as simply, Evendal could see the path that he had started down because of Kernost's murder-attempt, though understandable as a temporary aberration, warping all his hopes for his home and himself. To the point where he could resemble Horest Stonesmith, or Polgern, in his view of the people he served and of what they needed. His actions and the use of his gifts needed no correcting, but his motives and purpose, his focus, must not be forgotten or occluded.
"Do you know why We handed Polgern over to the Cinqet? Or Horest over to the Rosette?"
Neither Iesaldim nor Heamon answered.
"I was trained under the assumption that a great crime offends Nature. That human evil violates a natural harmony that only retribution can restore. That the wronged community owes a duty to the moral order to punish the criminal."
"Thank you, Heamon. Mistress Iesaldim, I now have an assignation with my son Kri-estaul. Would you care to join us, perhaps abscond with some tea and muffins from the kitchens?"
"Your Majesty is mocking me." Iesaldim accused, eyes flashing.
"Why? How?" The King asked, looking confused.
"I have endured too much to allow anyone to deride me, whether he be King or brother."
"Ridicule is for the envious, Mistress Iesaldim. For those who feel they lack." Evendal assured the nettled woman. "You are welcome to Our company on this day, to Our attention. You are not constrained to attend Us. You are welcome to go your way, wherever you wish, provided you do not approach those We have detained."
"Suspecting I might rescue Nisakh in a flush of sibling compassion?"
The King shook his head. "Mayhap deliver a coup-de-grace, out of outrage. Our condition remains, as does Our offer."
"Wise as well as courteous. I would be delighted to accompany you, Your Majesty."
When they emerged into the Chamber, it was to meet Kri-estaul and Hielbrae.
"I thought you might still be there, Papa, so I chose to wait here." The boy looked worried. "Is that... right with you?"
"That is well, son. Whatever you felt safest doing is good in my sight."
"What... What did you do to him? Is it he?"
Evendal walked up to his son, crouched down, and held him. "Yes, it is Nisakh, Kri. Right now he is learning what his perception of 'love' and 'training' meant for others. Do you need to see?"
Kri-estaul immediately shook his head, and held onto Evendal with a painful grip. After a moment spent in silence, Kri-estaul reconsidered. "He's chained up. Right?" The King nodded. "He can't hurt me?" The King shook his head. "Then. I have to see it, myself. If we can be quick."
"I will have him brought up here."
Kri-estaul shook his head. "I want to see him helpless, and in the place he... he hurt me. I want... Does. Does that sound bad?"
Evendal could think of no adequate reply, except to lift Kri-estaul out of the chair. "If you will excuse us, Mistress?" Iesaldim nodded. Once more, Heamon led the way.
Once they were in the stairwell, and beyond the hearing of Madame Iesaldim, Heamon protested. "Your Majesty, this cannot be wise, or good for His Highness."
"Peace, Heamon. I agree. Yet if Kri-estaul can ask my help in defying his terrors, for whatever reason, the least I can do is help without vacillation or pause. He knows that all he needs do is point to the doorway, and we are headed back. He also knows that I will take him back up if I think he has endured more than he can." As they descended, Kri-estaul grew more restless, squirming, shifting his grip around Evendal's neck.
"Son, please. I cannot hold you safely and navigate these steps, unless you remain still. You have every right to feel scared. So if you must do something, grip the selvage on this tunic. You can fold it, chew on it, rip it off the tunic-shirt, for all I care. Or talk. Or hum or sing."
Heamon gestured, an offer to carry the boy. But the Cinqet Emissary came off too much the King's Guard still, Kri could not even countenance looking at him. Kri-estaul took Evendal up on his offer, maniacally folding and unfolding a crease in the selvage around the King's nape as they descended the last flight and walked down the corridor. Again, Heamon opened the door to the cell, taking an unnecessary torch from a hall-sconce.
Heamon's torch proved unnecessary because Nisakh had a light in his cell already. A young woman knelt beside the ex-Guard, the torch she brought wavering in a sconce. Her hands and attention were occupied with a wire, wrapped around wooden handgrips at each end, which she worked to saw through a link in Nisakh's chains. Nisakh glanced up from the woman's efforts and froze with an admonitory hiss. The young woman paused to snap at the ex-Guard, "If you could stop convulsing..." then realised they were no longer alone.
"What do you here, Illiamarro?" Evendal asked aloud, sadness in his lambent gaze and ice in his voice.
"Freeing someone in distress."
"You should have waited a trifle longer, Illiamarro. Then you might have succeeded in freeing someone indeed, if not Onkira. Heamon, though you are no longer Our Guard, would you be so kind as to restrain her?"
Understanding that Evendal could bind the woman with merely a couplet, Heamon bowed with an ironic smile, then borrowed a set of leather strips from the King's body-Guard with which he then bound the aide-de-chambre of Dowager Onkira.
"That, Your Highness, is already accomplished." The young woman boasted.
The Left Hand of the Unalterable shook his head. "We are not that lack-witted. Were you to have followed your mistress smartly, you would both have found the previously unguarded entries into the undergrounds to be either blocked from the outside, or heavily attended. We anticipated for such an attempt. What We did not expect, was Onkira's ambition to thwart me so totally as to free any and all Our wards."
Nisakh, eyes wide and chin moist, stuttered. "How could you know?" Without preamble or visible cause Nisakh let out an agonized shriek. He jerked forward, then collapsed in a puppet-like slump, his weight cruelly borne by his stone-fast chains. Kri-estaul flinched and shivered in Evendal's embrace. The King turned his head to look a question at his son. Kri shook his head, eyes bulging; he was not ready to leave as yet.
"We are the Left Hand of the Unalterable, the closest thing to Justice Incarnate(49) that the land of Kelotta has. Also, both you and my foster-mother acted far too sanguine for people expecting death. Such ease bespoke a personal sense of safety, a means of thwarting Our sentence."
Just then, Ierwbae came through the door and bowed. "She has been captured and is re-secured, my lord."
"Thank you, Ierwbae. Any others?" Heamon gave over Illiamarro's cutter, and a stiletto he found on her person. Nisakh's huffing and painful grunts provided a macabre counterpoint to the King's calm interaction.
"Yes, Lord. The first-mate of her... barge, and the eldest son of Niem Dir of the Eastern Wold."
Evendal sighed. "Hard news to bear to a loyal family."
Ierwbae nodded. "He was one who fell asleep at your mustering of the Guard."
The King merely raised an eyebrow. "Send a messenger to the Maritime Counsel, thanking him for his efforts and asking him to see that the Traitor's Wash is readied tomorrow. How fare you, Kri?"
"He. He didn't br... break free. Did he?"
"No, he abides, for the moment. It would not help him even were he unchained." Evendal pulled his son away from his shoulder that they might look at each other. Kri-estaul had been weeping. "Are the sounds he makes hard to bear?"
Sweat-drenched, trembly and white-faced, Kri-estaul nodded. "I would hear them from others. Not so close. First they gave me really bad dreams. Then, they were how I knew someone was here. That I wasn't alone. They still scared me, 'cause I knew someone was being hurt. Really badly. But I... I was almost glad to hear them." He sobbed. "I know its bad to feel that way. But it meant... But I wasn't all alone."
Evendal nodded. "I understand, a least a little bit. You were not bad to feel relieved someone else was nearby. You were not bad! Now. Let me turn you around for a moment." And he suited action to word.
Sweat-drenched, trembly and white-faced, Nisakh locked his knees and straightened to an unsteady standing position. On a deep-drawn breath he looked at Evendal and Kri-estaul and he sneered. "This?" he coughed. "This rabbit is why you sent out your lackeys and alerted the Cinqet against me? He is why you drove me from home and into hiding? This pusillanimous, mindless, worthless bit of scrivener-dung. He is why you went after me?" Nisakh raised his right hand and pointed as his voice rose melodramatically in volume and pitch.
Without warning, the nails on his index and middle fingers sloughed off, and Nisakh shouted in the surprise of pain as they began to bleed. Then the same nails came off the protective left hand as well.
"Eww!" Kri groaned in revulsion, clutching Evendal in reaction to Nisakh's hysterical tirade.
"By Hartelume's breath, my lord," Nisakh shrieked. "No one deserves this!"
"Apparently, you do, Nisakh." Evendal replied coldly. "You are only feeling the pain you gleefully inflicted on others. Nothing more than that. No one else's crimes or violence, only your own. Everything but the death you have dealt."
"No! Everything? I will never be able to survive that!"
Evendal shrugged, seeming indifferent. "If you break it is because you are brittle. Is that not what you said?"
Nisakh gasped against a phantom pain. Evendal lifted a fist and sang out, "Tsalem(50)," and the threatening pain halted. The boy in Evendal's arms squirmed.
"Papa, I'm going to heave..." Evendal moved to a small hole in the floor, near a corner of the room, and perched Kri-estaul against his knees.
"Kri, there is no reason for you to stay here and watch him suffer the torments of his other victims. But..." Kri-estaul turned from his fascination with the piss-hole and stared, shaking and wide-eyed, into Evendal's earnest face. "But, I can interrupt this recapitulation and make him experience the violence he inflicted specifically on you. If you wish."
Evendal m'Alismogh ald'Menam listened to his own words, the nature of his offer, and cringed. He grimly remembered Iesaldim's opinion and silently wondered. Was he of wholesome mind? Had he ever been?
Kri-estaul was slow to respond. "You can? I... I don't know. I hate him, but I hate this!"
"Do you want to leave?"
"Yes!"
"Shall I leave him like this?"
Kri-estaul did not answer immediately.
"Attend." the King corrected. "Most likely, what you hate is seeing blatant pain and suffering. It is upsetting, alarming, nauseating. Am I right?"
Kri-estaul nodded.
"That is not compassion, Kri. It offends your... sensibilities. Which is the first excuse of a hypocrite and a philanthrope. And before you ask, I do not enjoy watching him in turmoil either. Fascination with the suffering of others is... an acquired taste, as Nisakh could tell you." He paused to let his words sink in.
"Are you mad at me? Ashamed of me?" Kri whispered, after several breaths of stone-moist air.
"Thunders, no! But I am not about to pass sentence without you there to see and know that he cannot hurt you anymore."
"But I hate him. He still scares me. I want him gone. But I want him to hurt like I have."
Now the question he had clumsily guided his son to. "Do you wish him to know what you felt at his hands?"
"I think so." The boy replied, and then blurted. "No! I want him to know what it meant!"
"Ah. That I have no power over. That is not something I can provide."
Kri-estaul collapsed against Evendal's chest. "I cannot think. Do what you feel is right, Papa. Please."
"My strong little man," Evendal murmured. "You have told me what you want, and We are in agreement. Can you face him now? Are you well?" Kri-estaul nodded, weakly, and felt briefly reassured at Evendal's concern, the unthinking sign of his father's steadfastness. Evendal shifted his grip on his son, then stood and returned to the prisoner. In a tone that rang through non-existent rafters, the Songmaster declaimed. "Nisakh, for all you have done, just to this child, not even considering your abuse of kin, We would ignore Our habit of reciprocal justice and have you slain outright. But in lieu of this casualty's wounds, We shall defer to his wishes, and give you the same sentence We imposed on another violent victimizer. Kri-estaul, can you place your hand on him?"
The eight-year old shook his head vigourously.
"Easy there, my son. Let me guide your hand. Then, if you are willing, I will have Heamon carry you back above ground. I will be along soon enough."
Tears of anger, fear and shame in his eyes, Kri-estaul could not bring himself to care who helped him out of the undergrounds. "Hold me tight, Papa. I can do this. Just hold me tightly." he insisted, as he stretched out his hand with all the appearance of docility. When Evendal moved in closer, Kri-estaul pulled his arm away, then swung his small fist into Nisakh's face. Unprepared, the prisoner shied back into the stone wall. Arms flailing over his head, Kri-estaul fired a fusillade of blows and scratches on the ex-Guard. Abruptly, Kri-estaul stopped himself, once he realised Evendal did not intend to intervene. Lungs puffing heavily, Kri-estaul leaned back against the King and frowned.
"How is it with you, my son?"
Kri-estaul flinched, then considered the question with childlike gravity, in between gasps of air. "I am sorry."
"For what?"
"For not asking. I didn't know I was going to hit him until I did."
"How did it feel?"
"Good. But its like when I tried to run over that scum assassin - I don't know what good it did."
"It did you some good, and you needed to, otherwise you would not have done it. That is what is important now."
"How touching!" Nisakh spat. "What I would like to know is... How can you call what you are doing to me Justice?"
"We don't." Evendal replied simply. "More often than not, Justice is not served. But people's wounds are soothed; their sense of equity or personal equilibrium is restored. Aside from simple theft, most wrongs cannot be righted, most wounds cannot be removed. Execution does not serve the ends of Justice, in that sense. What execution does is guarantee that the community is safe from the violence and depredations of specific enemies to its weal." He paused for a moment. "Kri, beloved, please go with Heamon."
When the Guard and the child were out of the room, the King resumed. "You are one such. You have left in your wake at least one casualty whose wounds can be eased a little by this recapitulation of your violence, by confronting you in your present condition. That remains the most important reason, out of all the reasons We have, why you still breathe. You will remain Our... guest, until We am certain he has benefited as much as he can from your disposition."
"What?" Nisakh panted. "That's absurd! How will you know?"
"Then let Us be a bit more honest, you cowardly excuse for a man. You will remain, bound so, living, and experiencing your own violence, until either Kri sleeps one whole night without terror, or until he no longer imagines you waiting for him in every darkened room." Evendal insisted. "You will abide, on the chance We need to show him your bound carcass, yet again, to sooth his fears."
"Rachaes!(51)" he shouted, the second syllable an octave below the first.
Evendal watched as Nisakh thrust out his groin and shouted in pain. The ex-Guard pushed his buttocks back against the wall, vainly trying to protect it from an intangible assailant. Every few seconds, Nisakh grunted in sudden hurt. When the crotch of Nisakh's tunic-pants darkened with blood, Evendal remarked it with a raised eyebrow, then turned and signaled his Guard to leave with him. The King emerged to see Kri-estaul in the ample lap of Iesaldim, both of them weeping. Hardly daring to breathe, Evendal moved to stand beside Heamon and waited. After a time, tired from his confrontation, Kri began to doze.
Evendal gestured, catching the woman's attention, then whispered greeting. "Mistress, if you are amenable, let us sit nearby for a moment and let him rest."
"Most certainly," Iesaldim demurred. "How came you to sire him? Word in the Fifth has you virgin."
The King smiled at the woman's bluntness, and the inconsequentials people obsessed over. "By adrogation. Kri-estaul endured two years of Nisakh's abuse and neglect in the undergrounds. When Matron Drussilikh brought the loss of her brother to my attention, he became... It seemed the most important issue to find him. When I realised he might have been below us during the weeks of my residence here... Well, you could have taken a sword to me and I would have called it Justice. I found him, in the room we left your... Nisakh. Bloated from starvation, cringing from me and begging forgiveness... for, for living!"
"My brother has that effect on people. Had."
"Had." Evendal affirmed.
"He looks to be recovering well, under your care. Your Majesty."
Evendal smiled and, with some awkwardness, retrieved an unresisting Kri-estaul. "Shall we go? I fear I have made the others wait on us."
As they walked out of the Chamber, Evendal wheeling his son, Kri-estaul asked. "Papa, did I do well?"
"You did very well, Kri. Another appropriate surprise was your striking the scofflaw(52). It was a courageous action."
"No it wasn't," the boy sulked. "It was dumb. He was bound up. He couldn't protect himself."
Evendal felt a gladness bubbling inside; that Kri-estaul argued with him, for whatever cause, put a cherished ache in his chest. "That matters not. Nisakh and the Beast were the source of your pain and fear. You are an eight-year-old boy, and faced a grown man. That you could face him at all, and in the under-grounds as well, shows amazing fortitude. That you were not reduced to a pile of slug-slime when I pressed you to touch him... You are an amazing boy."
"I could not have gone near him, if you hadn't held me. And if I hadn't had my pain potion." Kri-estaul mumbled.
"But you did." Evendal hesitated; a bit unnerved with the question he needed to ask. "Do you think you would be helped by watching him die?"
"Do I have to?"
"That is what I am asking, Kri. Not 'Do you want to' but 'would it help you?' Think about it for a while."
(45) Platform, a rectangular plot of land. (46) Cousin - the word signifies an ambiguous relation, distant family. (47) Any perennial grain. (48) King Absolute in Osedys, Swordbrother of the Sea, the Left Hand of the Unalterable. (49) The phrase translates 'Justice Encamped', as with a tent or some temporary structure. (50) Tsalem - orig. unk.; the pause in a melody. (51) Rachaes - orig. unk.; musical command to return to the base melodic line of a tune. (52) English does not have the word. 'Injurer' with emphasis on someone who causes a permanent injury, not a temporary one. Hramal language makes such distinctions.