This story is a work of fiction. It contains descriptions of and references to violent behaviour between adults and children, along with expressions of physical affection. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the direct consent of the author.
I do not know how well-received these chapters are. The only clues I get are emails from readers. Like the story? Hate it? Have liked it since its emergence? Feel it is getting too violent? Not Tarantino enough? Let me know. I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
Special thanks to Rob for editing.
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons. All rights reserved by the author.
31 Force His Soul To His Own Conceit
Hamlet: Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wan'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, lines 561 ff.
The Temple tolled the sixth hour of the afternoon, and Evendal sat considering. Twenty-six saemonds, magisters, praetors, reeves, marshals, and ordinaries: Nearly every single one of them had, at some time within the past nine years, delivered up a resident -- along with his goods or kin -- to Mean and Ugly's ravening. Eleven of them had held out until the promise of profit stroked their ear. Eight of Menam's select had enjoyed how lucrative pressganging could be; and two of those eight had been implicated with Mar-Telohema.
Drussilikh had promised a school of clerks(102) to peruse what looked to become a litter(103) of paper and parchment testifying to malfeasance, usury, false detention, and deaths both sudden and lingering.
Evendal, incensed by the stories and too certain of the fate of the listed detainees, stood prepared to execute all twenty-six without confrontation or elaboration, but for Sygkorrin's and Drussilikh's protestations and the unintentionally damning example of one Magistratus.
The eighth magistrate through the door wandered in with the aid of a willow cane. Lean like Polgern, but taller, with an older-looking face wrapped in almost concentric wrinkles, the man peered about from the doorway, bowed, then approached the King and the Heir.
"Urhlysha, Magistratus for the Mockingbird Hobblers," Bruddbana announced.
Two and a half ells(104) from Evendal, the old gentleman gripped the midpoint of his staff and eased himself into a genuflection.
Evendal protested even as he gestured to a Guard. "Master Urhlysha! We had posted that such manners were not required or desired for courtiers and counsel bearing more than two score and ten years. You need not distress yourself so."
The tall thin man waved the Guard away and lifted a blatantly challenging gaze upon the King. "Your Majesty, I may no longer be graceful or swift, but by thunder I can and will give my respects to my liege!"
"Forgive Us then, Master Urhlysha." The man's name echoed in Evendal's head as one he had heard before. "Rise and let us deal justly with one another. Is there aught We can provide for your comfort?"
"Yes," the man replied soberly. "Your methods lack any moderation. No consideration. Would you be so accommodating as to use a human agent for your next summons?"
Evendal gaped, to be taken so to task. The aged man showed none of the lineaments of braggadocio, of anger or insolence. He looked nothing so much as like a paterfamilias chiding a dense or boorish grandson.
The King offered no apology. "We cannot readily discern between reluctance and defiance without some measure of response from Our father's friends. We received none."
"When you sent your first request for the assemblage of the Sixty-six, you displayed gentility employing Guard to deliver the invitation. Such was the state of dismay and anxiety your request evinced in me, I have not had sufficient time since to respond satisfactorily."
"Sufficient for what?"
"Your Majesty, what are your intentions?"
Evendal blinked, bemused. "Our intentions? To rule. Nature, tradition, and training have fashioned Us toward that purpose. To rule, and to provide a rule of justice and righteousness. Our intention regarding Our father's appointees is to bring them to an accounting."
Urhlysha nodded and chose to answer the previous query. "Then my answer is... Sufficient time to give such a proper accounting, Your Majesty. If I may bring in my escort, Your Majesty?"
The King glanced at an amused Bruddbana and nodded. "You may."
Urhlysha stepped briefly to the door, waved, and came quickly back. Two females -- one having less than fourteen years, the other a mature, broad-hipped woman -- came into the room. After their courtesies they began to shed their winter garb. Hidden beneath the layers of flannel were chains upon chains of vianki and orikas. The two women unlooped and untied the ropes of coinage weighing them down and let the treasure clank and chime against the hard floor.
"Urhlysha, wherefore? What does this signify?" The King followed the attendants' movements, still bewildered.
"An accounting." From his tunic he withdrew a large bronze-clasped tome. "My kalendarium(105), Your Majesty. 'Tis preliminary and rushed, but before you is our guess at the taxes, fees, and tithes that we had 'neglected' to provide your predecessors."
Evendal waited until the last string of metals was untied and dropped, the two assistants had curtseyed with more ease, and Bruddbana had directed a Guard and a scribe to secure and tabulate the cache. During this interim he watched Urhlysha watch him.
"What do you hope for with this remarkable behaviour?" the King enquired.
The females wore thin white linen shifts that, after the weight and warmth of the coinage overtunics, left little to the imagination. The older woman stood healthy and voluptuous, the younger still in the midst of puberty's clutches. The room retained just enough of a chill to make the state of both women quite evident.
Evendal waved a hand negligently. "Ladies, restore your capes and fleeces, please," he insisted.
The younger moved with alacrity to obey. The elder delayed and hesitated, until she realised that His Majesty waited only on her obedience and looked no lower than her nose.
The Magistratus cocked an eyebrow and then answered the King as though uninterrupted. "Your deliberate ignorance, Your Majesty. Or, at least, your willingness to let us continue to provide such."
Evendal almost comprehended. "A feat you can best accomplish so long as We do not interfere with the gift-giver. You."
The older man bowed but shook his head. "Your Majesty is most astute. Say rather 'gift-givers'."
And thus the King understood: Urhlysha had taken up Menam's commission with gravity atypical to a threatening of courtiers(106). "Danlienn," Evendal roused. "You spoke to Us of one called Urhlysha at some point within the last sennight, did you not?"
The young man paused, reclaiming the reference. "Yes, Your Majesty. Telohema professed to fear him. She had sought his death, through Frichestah's aid, and failed. Twice. She insisted that five other adjudicators she knew of had failed also, and had died soon after."
"Oh, yes," Evendal nodded in turn.
The King examined Urhlysha, silently bewildered. The man's staff might have served initially as a simple festuca, but time's passing had turned it into a necessary support for his thin, almost wasted frame. Liver spots dotted the back of the man's hands and forearms, and his fingers' enlarged joints told of a painful trip to the Palace. The eyes, however, shimmered an acute storm-cloud grey, and every movement and word so far had demonstrated caution, wit, and intelligence. "Clearly you are a dangerous man, Master Urhlysha. Why, then, did you not retaliate against Telohema and Frichestah?" The question was asked only half in jest.
Urhlysha offered no demur. "Tremoyl and a few others of Lord Menam's thegn(107) sent idiots, rabid dogs that cared not whom they killed so long as I counted among the dead. Whereas Frichestah acted with pardonable restraint."
Evendal found himself confused again. "Because he showed... better style, you spared him?"
"Your Majesty?" Urhlysha's younger assistant tremulously spoke up.
Evendal nodded for her to proceed.
"Lepralya!" Urhlysha hissed in a higher pitch, more in worry than anger. The girl subsided. The Magistratus ambled about with seeming casualness until he hid the girl from Evendal's line of sight. "Your Majesty, I spared Telohema and her minion because they kept their message private."
"Message?"
Urhlysha shrugged. "A rule I gleaned through my last six or seven years as a justiciar: If a peer killed you, he expanded his territory. If he did not succeed, then he'd sent you a message. But if he killed or endangered others, I deemed, justice was demanded."
"How long have you served your appointment?"
The elderly man considered. "Fifteen years, Your Majesty,"
"Do you wish to continue in your office?"
"Unless you have another better suited to meet the needs of your people, yes, Your Majesty."
"First let Us be certain of what We have heard, Master Urhlysha. You, without any other human agent, managed to assassinate five fellow adjudicators,"
"No, Your Majesty. No assassination. The Co-regium learned not to openly interfere with disputes between your late father's raggle-taggle administrators. But this placed the burden of exacting and enacting justice toward the Sixty-six upon our own shoulders. What I did, Your Majesty, was judge their actions against the citizenry and exact the punishment traditional to their crime. They were guilty of endangering or murdering innocent citizens within my cordon."
Evendal nodded again and chose to act obtuse. "The pressgangs? The Rosette?"
Urhlysha shook his head. "Your Majesty jests. Those were beyond the scope of any authority I could pretend to. Only the attempts to kill me. I, as a servant of the commonweal, see no reason to waste vengeance on one who attacks just me. But where the assailant endangers the lives of others, I have a responsibility to protect those imperilled."
"So you spared Telohema because she assaulted you directly and specifically?"
Finally Urhlysha nodded. "Poison rubbed along the rim of my supping cup. An asp, chilled to sleep, bound under my bed-pillow. Methods that harmed no one else."
"That must have been solely Telohema's instigation," Evendal tendered. "Frichestah did not strike Us as that patient or imaginative."
The Magistratus hesitated. "Your Majesty, permit me to dismiss these my helpers to their homes."
"No, good Master Urhlysha. You brought them before Us yet did not present them."
"Forgive the lapse, Your August Majesty," the magistrate responded woodenly. "The younger is called Lepralya olm'Eprayan. The elder hights Jeselyan olm'Eprayan. They insisted on braving the cold with me once they learned of my compulsion and, like myself, they are at your service."
"Good Master Urhlysha, you clearly brought them to serve more than one purpose, should they leave unfulfilled."
Urhlysha stiffened an already straight back. "What means Your Majesty?"
Evendal opened his mouth to retort when the younger aide, Lepralya, drew his attention. She had not moved but to open her mouth in apparent dismay, and peer from behind Urhlysha in wide-eyed fear. The muscle-clenched look of resolution on her face told Evendal that the young woman's fear was not for herself.
He perceived his error. "Ask Lepralya or Jeselyan." As his mind reconfigured the information this interview had provided, Evendal added. "They must love you deeply."
Urhlysha blinked rapidly, befuddled. "I do not understand."
The King waved Urhlysha's confusion aside as irrelevant. "Again We would enquire. You, without accessory, executed five fellow adjudicators. Because they were indifferent to the safety of your charges in their attempts to kill you."
"That is correct, Your Majesty," the lanky and aged man calmly answered.
"But have you yourself never arranged the death or degradation of others in order that you might acquire a larger number of citizenry to tax? Have you yourself ever relinquished, or directed another to relinquish, a citizen or visitor over to Horest or his emissary, or to Polgern or a like deputation?"
"I have not, Your Majesty. Such would foul the honour your father granted me, and the trust of those who rely on me."
"Then how did you keep Polgern from replacing you?"
"But he nearly did so!" the Magistratus explained. "Before Mausna, we numbered more than Sixty-six, Your Majesty. Most of the late King's bestowals were open hereditaments(108). It was Polgern's and Abduram's depredations that inspired many of my fellows to imitation. Polgern made a simple tactical error. He tried to cut a murderous swath through the many appointees and honoured, in order to put his spineless or inept marionettes in their place. One or two of Menam's Dignified(109), goaded by Abduram, caused some of Polgern's choices to meet with 'accidents' and 'excitable thieves.' Once the vulnerability and mortality of these lickspittles was displayed, my established peers killed and scared away most of Polgern's heelbiters -- then claimed their authority and their regions of its exercise."
"But you refrained from such tactics?"
"I had no need. The Hobblers' annex has always been sufficient. I curb my ambitions to match my abilities."
That sounded like an apt indictment of Polgern's co-rule. "Is that why you never sought to bring Mean and Ugly to judgement?"
Urhlysha nodded. "I am well aware of what I can accomplish, and what is beyond me."
This cipher of a man disturbed Evendal. "Master, We are prepared to accept this extraordinary gesture," the King pointed to the cache, "and even so, as We have with so many of your peers, divest you and detain you."
Urhlysha grimaced. "I can only beg Your Majesty to reconsider. What might I do to ease Your Majesty's distemper?"
Not answering the question, Evendal replied, "The two you have escorted into Our Presence are quite comely and might prove great sport, Urhlysha. We would not refuse an additional gift. Or two."
Urhlysha frowned. "They are mine to guide, not to peddle, Your Majesty."
"Not even for your liberty?"
"I do not barter people, Your Majesty. I did not countenance it within my demesne before your return. I do not suffer it now." The man's affront was utter and without theatrics.
"Indeed? How did you avoid playing Polgern's game?"
"Which one? How do you mean?"
"You never allowed a citizen to be delivered up to Horest, Polgern, or their deputies. How did you avoid the political necessity?"
"The people I guide did not permit such an occasion to arise. No Hobbler or visitor to our annex sought by those invested agents of the Co-regium was ever found by them."
Long did Evendal m'Alismogh sit and stare at the older man. Kri-estaul slept, warmed and at ease in the circle of his father's arms. Drussilikh and Sygkorrin sat and relaxed, unperturbed. The only sounds heard were Aldul's rough breathing and the rustlings of the scriveners.
"Indulge Our difficulties, Master Urhlysha. The silence informs Us as distinctly as your so precise wording. Let Us lay matters out simply and crudely."
"If Your Majesty so wishes."
Evendal grinned. "We sent out messengers to all of Father's Sixty-six, messengers whose invites were ignored. You came here in some despair because you felt the compulsion We then sent. And not knowing what manner of King you faced, you hoped to convince Us that Our coffers would be better served by leaving your annex unmolested. You grew confused when We did not respond to the allure of your addition to Our thesaurus.
"We appreciate that at no time in Our talk did you utter a single falsehood. You have indeed demonstrated what, in other circumstance, would have been the King's justice in executing a handful of reckless and vulpine thanes. You and your enclave kept those who reside within your bounds from being found and claimed by Horest's and Polgern's ilk.
"Your two companions turned anxious just now, when We did not respond to their slatternly displaying of their bodies, their juvenile attempt to safeguard you by diverting Our attention."
Stunned, Urhlysha gasped, "Your... Your Majesty!" He glanced to the elder of the women, who refused to meet his look.
"And if there had been the remotest chance you would suffer it, those most forward in your demesne would have hidden you from Us as well.
"These Our people, the Hobblers, became your kith long before Mausna. We hear, wreathed around you like a chaplet of witness, words of fury and pain that you vented when a neighbour, called Oentaklyen, gurgled her last from an arrow in the dark meant for you.
"Rest easy, Master Urhlysha." M'Alismogh stared pointedly at the man, forcing eye contact. "Tell Us. What you've confirmed speaks of great trust, effort, planning, and sacrifice. Why would people who cling to the routines and rites of their days like a miser to a vianki, shoulder the discomfort of extra obligations and expend such forethought for others?"
Urhlysha, spellbound, pursed his lips a few times and opened his mouth twice before speech emerged. "Your Majesty, the Hobblers is not a rich area. Being near the Cinqet, it is rough farm land. The residents are a loud folk in the day-to-day. When your Illustrious Father granted me magisterial powers over them, I thought them vulgar and endemic imbeciles, and unbearably nosy. I came to see them instead as passionate, unassuming, and quiet -- and... empathic. They have survived by taking care of each other. What one lacks, another stands ready to provide. A hug, a cow, a roof, a care-tender for a senile elder. Sanctuary."
"Sounds idyllic."
Urhlysha shook his head. "I cannot explain well. It is not. Wilful stupidities, tempers, and festering rivalries abound as anywhere else. Two merchants' bitter differences make life uncomfortable for both families, which is what they want for each other. But in a crisis their differences are simply not referred to until that crisis has passed."
"We are reminded of the laws of hospitality."
The elderly gentleman considered. "Yes, Your Majesty! Taken as a guide for all intercourse. Exactly."
What Evendal did not say was that it also reminded him of a friend of his, and of Kri-estaul's. Kul had insisted that human interaction was not his demesne, had protested too pointedly perhaps. This concord reeked of Kul's influence, his almost simple attitude toward all matters human.
"We greet you as a kindred heart. Like you, We are here for Justice, not some shallow 'Fairness.' We are here to speed the turning of Ir's great toy."
The King turned an amusedly glowing gaze on the two currently dour-faced women. "Ladies, We wish and will no harm to befall your Magistratus. And, unlike Our unfortunate predecessors, We do not lack for loving companionship. You are free to depart, now or with Master Urhlysha.
"Master Urhlysha. We, the reigning Majesty of Osedys, as Swordbrother of the Sea, have Our own thesaurus that, while hardly bottomless, is yet impressive. Return to the Hobblers, you and your entourage, along with what vianki and orikas from this cache the Hobblers might need for this season. Rest secure in your honour and honours, and assured that this rough winter will prove but the nascence before a quickening for Our people."
Urhlysha bent and, disregarding the clerical assessment going on, lifted five strings of vianki and one string of orikas from the pile. He draped them over the elder female and bowed low to the King in gratitude.
Evendal frowned. "Three sennights from this day return and retrieve more as you need."
"Your Majesty?" Surprise at the King's prodigality shifted the creases in Urhlysha's face.
"Master Urhlysha, are you a man of honesty and probity?"
"Such has always been my goal and need, Your Majesty."
"Until We demonstrate a contrary nature, presume to treat with Us as though We had a more than passing acquaintance with those virtues. Take back with you what the Hobblers might need to survive this season."
Urhlysha hesitated. "Your Most Clement Majesty, that might would leave you with but a half dozen strings of vianki," he warned.
"Are We not your liege?"
"Aye, Your Majesty."
"Are the people you serve not Our people?"
"They are, Your Majesty."
"Then where would the monies be of more use? We love this home of Ours and, like the pelican, would give much more than these bits of metal for its well-being.
"We do confirm you in the dignity Our father first shouldered you with. Tarry and provide what intelligence you can on your fellows."
Mindful of Evendal's prior request, Urhlysha saw no alternative but to comply. He dismissed his two companions with the King's permission and promise of an escort back to his home. Evendal had a chair placed at his left, and hot metheglyn dispensed to the briefly grateful man.
"This sapling growing from my heart is my son and heir, Kri-estaul."
Urhlysha nodded but said nothing.
"The tired man asleep behind Us is Aldul mek'Alinda, formerly of Kwo-eda, Our emissary from the Paramenate and Archate Temples."
"I had obtained word regarding both names," Urhlysha tendered.
Evendal took a bracing breath. "And what was that word?"
"That you had adopted the son of the Kohermarthen, after finding his corpse in the under-grounds and restoring him from the dead." The gentleman deliberately, visibly, hesitated before continuing. "That you had arrived out of smoke and lightning in the Palace with a stranger, your Kwo-edan lover, at your side."
Evendal shook his head in amazement. When he could refrain from barking his laughter out loud and speak sensibly, he countered, "You paused, good curate, and withheld further speech regarding the general gender(110). Do not think to spare Us or fear Our temper."
"Very well. 'Tis given out that you have made this child your toy: the recipient of the fruit of your rages and receptacle for your wide-ranging lusts."
All good humour fled the King's countenance. "You shall not hear such week-old tripe served up again, We trow. We have dealt with the source of that particular rumour. This child, a wonder and untiring delight, had been the plaything of the Beast and one of his acolytes beneath the Palace proper for two years. We recollected him from durance and, with his sister's selfless goodwill, adopted him as Our son. He does love Us with a fierce and wholesome love. We find Ourselves returning that love as wholesomely as We know how.
"As to Aldul mek'Alinda, he found Us senseless, prone over a crate in the Wastes, as he made his way to Osedys in answer to a summons from the Archate. We provoked and burdened him sorely on the journey, for We knew Ourselves but lightly and Our memory played miser. He is Our first and dearest friend.
"But enough on that. Now you know the right of things. The details can be carded from Our satellites at leisure."
The afternoon's work had nine judges and authorities scheduled for execution. Twenty-five appointees tearfully admitted to ignoring witnesses, altering documentation, fabricating offences or taxes or fines, all to provide revenue and manpower for the duumvirate. Four had handed supplicants over to Horest personally, obedient to their understanding of the policy and will of Polgern. Some brought their spouses, their children, their aging or sickly parents before Evendal, instinctively knowing that whatever summoned them thither pulled them into perilous circumstance. Such manoeuvres served to infuriate the King, defeating their very purpose. Only Metrwlye showed no anxiety in recounting his 'wise acquiescences' to the lex terrae.
"Your Majesty, I do indeed repent of my failure of nerve!" cried out one such dignitary.
"That is easily done at this juncture, as you have mysteriously lost all that you drained from your jurisdiction. How do you propose to demonstrate your recapitulation?"
"By restoring the funds intended for Your Majesty's thesaurus."
Scowling at an answer he did not care to hear, Evendal growled, "Commendable." He held the woman's gaze like a snake charming a fool. "How?"
"Raising the keelage(111), groundage(112), and exacting gressom(113) with the properties I hold."
"None of that shall you do," the King insisted. "We expect you yourself to show your penitence, not for Our charges to do so. Clearly you do not repent, you merely regret. Else you would confine the responsibility for your behaviour to your own purse and household."
"Then what would Your Majesty?" the woman demanded querulously.
"Are you fertile yet, Fierkoles?"
"No longer, Your Majesty."
"Have you those who can secure your family's line beyond the horizon of this day?"
"I bore four children, Your Majesty. A woman and three men. They were not permitted to view the light of your countenance and thus await in one of the rooms adjacent, along with my spouse."
"Do you all dwell together?" The King kept Fierkoles kneeling, so that she had to squint up at him nearsightedly.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Then you shall list all surviving kin of those you relinquished into the greedy grip of the pressgangers. We herein divest you of those goods, properties," his face twisted in disgust, "and people that you have accrued. You shall confiscate all the earnings and assets of yourself, your spouse, and your children so that each is permitted two vianki every fortnight. The remainder you shall apportion equally and then hand deliver to each person on that list."
"Two vianki! I fear I must protest, Your Majesty. No one can run a household on such a pittance!"
"You think Us too generous? Very well, one vianki."
"A single silver every fortnight? Are you simple... Your Majesty?" When Evendal graciously ignored the pugnacious query, the woman offered another one. "For how long should we bear this burden, Your Majesty?"
"In perpetuity. We divest you of those rights and powers you have accrued since Lord Menam's murder. But you may retain the title Our Illustrious Father bestowed on you, with the addition to it of Our geas. And so when you die, both honour and burden fall to your spouse, and then to your firstborn, and then to their spouse and successive firstborn. Similarly, they shall provide a comparable percentage of their earnings to the spouses and firstborn line of the survivors. In perpetuity."
The woman voiced no protest as her face settled into a mask of calm resignation. She clearly had no intention of direct disobedience or outright compliance.
"We shall accept your ensign now," the King directed pointedly.
With arm slow and stiff, the maritime magistrate handed over her pennon: Gules, a cygnet pose argent, crowned or.
Evendal smirked at his father's choice; swans, however graceful, were known for vicious selfishness. "Appropriate. But let Us order your sigil differently. Argent, a seagull pose gules, gorged or, vulning." Seagulls were traditionally the dogs of the shallows and the ports -- blindly rapacious, indifferent to filth, vicious, carriers of many ills and ill humours. Conversely, seagulls also held the moniker of "sailors' sweethearts" for being a seaman's first sign of nearing landfall and so were tolerated better than dogs or swans.
Danlienn changed pens and inks to note the command.
During the pause, Evendal sat and held his son, and stared with unnervingly bright calm at this representative of the minor gentry that Menam had created. Many of the Sixty-six started out with purely nominal honours, but found ways to garner stable influence, authority, and estate through bargaining, craft, and chicanery: acquire land through one contrivance, get the hold on city buildings and their importunate tenants in another scheme. Or the lion's share of profit on a pending shipment turned to ownership of the vessel because of an arranged accidental spoilage of the goods.
At last the King spoke. "As We have pronounced, so it shall be."
Evendal m'Alismogh extended his hand, and Fierkoles moved to touch her lips to the red and black ring. But when she steadied herself and bent forward, her movement halted. She recoiled. A strained expression exuded from her face, as though her doom sat waiting before her.
"You are in truth the man you claimed! How? Why?" Fierkoles cried.
"What is this trumpeting? Why this hue? Foolish woman! Do you only now accept that We are Osedys?"
"How could one know? With your countenance so transfigured by light and none of your late father in your haviour! I have no memory of ever greeting you, the Heir, at fete."
"What so proved Us, then?"
"Yon circle. Once before did I touch my lips to that ring, as it graced your royal father's hand."
"Do so again, Fierkoles. And show better faith and less lust in the act."
Chastened by bewilderment, the woman obeyed.
Fierkoles' expression turned avid, animated. "Does this bode the return of those most dear? Those dearly lost at Mausna? Has Death released her grip on others as well?"
"Alas, no, vassal of Ours. We are no vanguard for the dead and lost. Mystery removed Us from the siege 'ere Death could swallow Us.
"You have eight days to provide Us a list of assets and a list of survivors or surviving kin. You have thirteen days after that within which to distribute the first wergild. That is not much time."
"I would not know where to begin!" Fierkoles cried, still stunned.
The King rolled his eyes and shook his head.
A vagrant gesture from the Guard at the door heralded the appearance of Fierkoles' eldest son, with what proved a satchel of books and scrolls.
"What passes, Ioannlyn?"
The Guard bowed. "This gentleman did beg me interrupt your interview, Your Majesty, to provide some personal intelligence."
"Mierkolan, no!" Fierkoles hissed.
The fellow in question was a solid young man, thick-necked and smooth-faced. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the lone indicator of his distress. "And you are?"
"The eldest son of Fierkoles, Your Majesty. Please forgive my intrusion, Your Majesty. Mother. Well, mother knows what she needs to do now. And I." The young man swallowed hard and looked down for the rest of his speech. "I now know how she was able to tend us and feed us and get me an apprenticeship."
"We regret you had to learn her failings so baldly."
Mierkolan shrugged. "Mother's amazing. I love her and admire her still. But she is... ringed about, caged, by her own upbringing. She used to tell us how she had fought for every vianki, how she often went hungry as a little girl. And how she refuses to return to those days, to such ignominy. If we adhere to your word, we won't starve, but..."
"But We have engaged her oldest and deepest fear," Evendal completed the thought. "She would contravene Our will, simply because the insecurity from her youth commands her -- has more authority over her than We presently demonstrate."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"We had determined earlier how she had no intention of complying. And you have come forward, unrequested, because...?"
"To offer myself as incentive, Your Majesty."
"To what end? What do you think We would do with you, should she prove faithless... again?"
The young man hesitated, considering, clearly surprised to be asked. "You have commenced removing the wall about the city. I have some fitness for such toil." Even as he spoke, Mierkolan looked uncertain. "Grant me some rags against the chill and a daily feeding and I can work toward her debt in labour or in service. I would labour hard and without complaint."
Lord Evendal felt a chill of dissonance, some vital element unconsidered. "Tell Us about yourself, Mierkolan. Have you a spouse? Children?"
Again came a long pause as the son adapted to an unexpected change in topic. "No, Your Majesty. I have... friends who might miss me."
"Miss you? Are We reported some kind of weasel(114)? We do not devour, do not assail, the blameless. We sport neither black attire nor a balding pate! How many years have you?"
"I own sixteen years, Your Majesty."
The answer shocked Evendal, who had anticipated a contemporary. At the age of fourteen, a male is granted the right to squire elders in conflicts and war, the right to have such children as he might sire acknowledged by his family, and the right to assay a wage-providing trade. While adult by tradition, Mierkolan could not be given over to the labour to which he stood ready to pledge himself.
"We do not bargain the lives of others that We might coerce Our gentry into fulfilling their obligations. As your mother baulks, she must learn We are absolute in Our authority. Just now you made an empty avowal, Fierkoles. Perform that rite once more," m'Alismogh ordered, "as We endow it.
In lieu of your token,
Seal yourself to Our new dignity
With a palmer's kiss
Upon the ring of Our authority.
The woman looked on the verge of apoplexy. She had obviously heard something of her liege's Songmastery.
Evendal turned his lambent gaze upon her in grim amusement. "Have you now discovered, perhaps, some argument against the manner in which you yourself served Our people?"
"Your Majesty." Fierkoles could not hold enough breath in her lungs for what she wanted to say. Evendal extended his hand. Confronted with the choice between breath or intransigence, Fierkoles chose for breath and kissed the ring.
It was with tears and trembling that Fierkoles fell back into her kneeling posture. "As you have encompassed and overshadowed my will in this matter, so do I obey Your Majesty."
"Understood, Fierkoles," Evendal admitted readily. "We did not say We would not coerce, simply that We would not involve others, innocents. We adjure you to consider: Ineffectual acts of defiance are Pyrrhic(115) nonsense. We do not punish a single citizen for the inertia that self-preservation demanded during the duumvirate, except where the threat was patently minor or could readily be countered. But you did not simply leave ill-enough alone. Yes, you permitted Polgern's and Horest's winnowing, a 'failure of nerve' that you shared with most citizenry. But you also pillaged your precinct of money, property, and its trust, to pay extortion to Polgern's lackeys. You gave unsound judgements, declared property and monies to be escheatable against the evidence of rightful inheritors. You deliberately ruined people, rendered them vulnerable to the predation that you and yours escaped."
The King turned to his left. "Honourable, name for Us, if you can, three adults of moderate means and no ambition, yet possessing discernment, heart, and discipline."
Urhlysha deferred. "Your Majesty, the names that well up most readily belong to those who no longer breathe. As well, I would fear recommending anyone, lest my judgement prove flawed."
"Be bold, wise Urhlysha. For any such offerings would be but tenders -- tokens to be tossed in a bag -- for Us to draw out or leave be. The testing, decision, and consequence would be Ours alone."
Urhlysha grinned. "On that understanding, Your Majesty, I could provide a list of people who have proven themselves to me as youngsters of probity and good report. However, I warn you, while I would trust them with the welfare of my friends, I would not trust them to always know a hawk from a handsaw."
"We will plumb them, do not doubt, both to their capacity and to their disposition. We would not burden the unwilling."
Urhlysha, with many caveats and elaborations on each person's character, provided a roster of citizens whose integrity he relied on. Fierkoles and Mierkolan waited on the King's pleasure through the elder's verbal peregrinations.
When Urhlysha confessed an end to the names he could offer in complete good conscience, Evendal turned his gaze back to the mother and son. "Our thanks again, Honourable. Now, what think you of Our tentative relegation of these two?"
Having been asked so direct a question, Urhlysha thought nothing of responding in kind. "If your purpose is the succour of those she has injured, you will have succeeded, Your Majesty. If you have greater ambitions, encompassing her reformation, I fear you shall be disappointed and sorely so."
Evendal nodded as his lip twisted in dismay. "We suspect you are correct, Master Urhlysha. But the effort itself is a worthy one."
"It is that, Your Majesty. If this audience is common, Your Majesty, I confess you seem not as ruthless as reported."
"We do not know if that is praise or chastisement, Master Urhlysha."
The King weighed his treatment of this felonious woman. Inherent human self-interest dictated her public actions, whatever persona that instinct wore; but unlike Urhlysha she exercised no counter-fiction, no boundary, against that self-interest. It was clear that both the poorly-masked indifference and the consequences demanded more immediate and final sentence. So why had he mitigated the requisite judgement?
"Have you made the acquaintance of the Heir of the Tinde'keb?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Urhlysha hesitated. "An ornament to any Court."
Startled at the double entendre, Evendal barked out a laugh. "In all verity!"
The sound startled Kri-estaul, who squirmed against Evendal's arm seeking greater comfort, and then patted the King on the opposing arm and murmured soothingly. "'Tis well, Papa. 'Tis well."
Evendal strained his neck to peer at his son's nestled head. Their proximity to each other made it difficult for him to focus, but what the King could see of his son's scarred face was calm. Kri-estaul slept at ease upon his father's breast. Evendal ignored the ache in his head that came of peering at a point too close. "Would that I had come sooner," he burbled in sorrow.
"'Tis well," Kri-estaul repeated, and then his murmur softened into a mumbled "'Love you."
Quickly Evendal turned his face up and away, so that the sudden incandescence from his eyes would not fall so directly on his beloved son and disturb him further.
Urhlysha, having observed the brief interaction with an apt silence, glanced about to glean the disposition of others. Fierkoles flinched at the King's swift motion and the brightening of the room. Mierkolan quietly watched his fey lord, an expression of awe etched on his face by the glare. Aldul slept on, exhausted. Ioannlyn and the other Guard simply squinted and waited in a patience that spoke of familiarity. Danlienn scribbled on, oblivious. Sygkorrin, yet in converse with the Quillmaster, stopped and waited to see if she was needed, her features schooled to calm but for the slightest upward curve in her lips -- rather like a nis-ralur's puss.
Drussilikh sat as one frozen in her chair, staring at the King and her brother; a passion imbued her features, but whether of sorrow or rage Urhlysha could not be certain.
Apparently satisfied that the Majesty of Osedys did not require her aid, the Priestess returned her attentions to her immediate companion and considered. "Your Gracious Majesty," she whispered.
The King gazed to his right. The Matron turned away as though sparing her sight, so only Sygkorrin and Urhlysha perceived the King's troubled countenance. "Lady Sygkorrin?"
"The Matron and I would like to revive our laggard bodies and clear our sluggish minds with a brief walkabout. Have we your leave to absent ourselves for a bell's quarter?"
Drussilikh stiffened and half-turned to the Priestess, but did not protest.
"Of course. Do you desire an escort?"
"Your Majesty is generous, but no."
Evendal nodded. "Take your leave, then, and Our grace to return anon."
Sygkorrin gave a courtesy, Drussilikh imitating, and strode out of the apartment, past several doors and around a corner, before she halted and rounded on Drussilikh.
"You are sorely troubled, Matron. I thought to get you away from the provocateur of your misery."
"I needed no rescue, Priestess."
"Silly chit. You most certainly did. Much longer and your eyes would have turned from grey to lime(116). Talk."
"You interfere where you have no rights."
Sygkorrin grinned. "Think better, dear brat. Who else can you speak to? Your kin? Your fellow adepts? You do not want to open any windows for them to your weaknesses. The King? He is the focus of your misery. I derive no benefit from any intelligence you proffer, and you know as Quillmaster that any discussion between us is under the rose."
"Excepting it involve deliberate killing or death-dealing," Drussilikh reminded.
"Somehow I have no fears that you have travelled such a path. Success and survival in both our vocations require a like-felt sense of obligation, a like discipline, and a painful degree of humility(117). Our stations are equal in age and in depth. I am the closest you will find to a comrade, and one who can assure you of discretion."
Drussilikh scowled. "Why should it matter so to you?"
"You have always mattered to me, silly girl." Their ages were not really so disparate, yet for that moment the term seemed apt. "Did you think I held conference with your kin upon the recovery of your brother out of spite? It was to aid you both. What did you know from raising a child? Granted you could have learned as so many do, by trying and erring, but that would have guaranteed your brother's death by bone-bruising, exsanguination, or hypothermia. Grief over your mother's murder and your brother's capture drove you to master your guild and its vultures. What would your grief and guilt have pressed you to, had your brother survived his captors only to die from your well-meaning neglect?"
Drussilikh leaned against a wall and hid her face behind her hands.
Sygkorrin continued, "You know how the gentry turned to the Temple, for the safeguarding of their legacies. Your mother, after a fashion, led the way in that practise. She and I and my predecessor often discussed her hopes and fears for the Scriveners, her darker expectations for the future. She entreated us, should she die or disappear, to give you whatever aid you permitted."
The Matron swung around and spat back at Sygkorrin, "And what help was that? None! The Scriveners stood alone. Alone we pursued her hazard-ridden solution to our peril with the duumvirate. Alone we smuggled our students and adepts out through any avenue and agency. We forced our own from their homes and homeland, without aid or credentials, without any way of linking them to us."
Sygkorrin's brow furrowed in consternation. "Are you truly so naive? Did you think the success of your diaspora came solely from your own efforts? Cargo holds that did not get examined so closely as to reveal their living additions, because a priest had sealed the contents as an Archate concern. Merchants adamant that a scribe who had travelled with them had been a harpist or fellow merchant. Woodsmen and innkeepers who happened to misdirect pursuit, or misunderstand enquiries made. Carts or caravans trundling over trails, or coincidentally shadowing the path of a Throneland fugitive. Your efforts were those of the juvenile you still were, Drussilikh, thus the need for our intercession so many times. You did nothing 'alone!'"
Drussilikh paled with the revelation of how she had perhaps been slipshod toward her especial cause for pride, and had insulted and offended her only unflagging ally. "You never said anything?"
Seeing she briefly faced a more rational Matron, Sygkorrin's tone gentled. "We did not dare! Only now have you begun cleaning the corruption from your numbers. I did not dare, for the sake of both our duties.
"But I did not mean simply that the Archate was pledged to your guild's aid. For such a pledge appears on no document, posesses no witnesses. Rather, your mother asked that my predecessor and I give you yourself what help we dared to." The Priestess paused to allow Drussilikh a chance to consider, to glimpse the measure of trust the Kohermarthen had held the Priestesses in, and then answered the next obvious question.
"You, in your grief, rage, and fear, would allow no one to aid you directly. You trusted no one outside your clan and guild, and -- fortunately -- quickly learned to trust very few within it. And the Archate was more effective in the shadows, not heralding any obvious approval of your passive defiance.
"Now, what boils over in your brain, that you look daggers at Osedys and your brother?"
Yet reticent, Drussilikh whispered, "Is he truly my brother?"
When the creases between Sygkorrin's eyebrows multiplied, the Matron elaborated. "I looked on the two of them, and did not see my Lord and my brother. I saw a... frieze, troubling and most strange. Not a hawklike, kingly visage, grave and grim, but a manikin who sheds light! A breathing creature, human only in semblance. One who wields authority no mortal has ever boasted, and boasts for friends creatures out of our most distant past. I saw a child who had no chance of life, who had died once and nearly died twice, sleeping in perfect trust against the chest of this monster(118)."
"Both are as human and mortal as you or I," Sygkorrin protested softly.
Drussilikh shrugged, struggling against the shame her confession evoked in her. "I speak not of what is, but of how I saw, how I felt."
"Of course. My apologies."
"It swept over me how contrary to all my experience and imaginings the two seemed. How... grotesque. Like a parody, rather than a veridical court, king, or heir."
The Archate nodded slowly. The Matron previously had acted indifferent to the marks of Evendal's dwoemer. More accurate, perhaps, to say she had overlooked and ignored them as the eccentricities of one who was meeting her needs. At first they were ephemeral in the face of her need to know the true disposition of her loved brother; later they were irrelevant to her political -- and her brother's physical -- perils. Her question answered and the threats diminished, she no longer accounted these peripherals quite so inconsequential. Her courage had decided she was strong enough, safe enough, to take issue with Evendal.
Sygkorrin, while having found no reference or precedent to Evendal's Songmastery or eye-gleam, had concluded long ago that mysteries infuse everything, and felt none of Drussilikh's alarm.
"The kings of our stories and in our memories are trouble-riven men with haunted eyes of grey, alternately foolish and autocratic or cruel and autocratic. Such a king permits no transgress upon his dignities. Such a king's support of an heir apparent assures that prince of his station and his fitness. An heir sound in body, capable and whole, and the rightful issue of king and consort. Such a king summons others, more competent and less besieged than himself, to answer to the prodigal wants of his heir. He is watchful, guarded, and distrustful toward all, as befits a ruthless man making many enemies, for 'tis better that a monarch be feared than loved. Is such a king the wellspring of your comparison? Is such a comparison the main of your argument?"
Drussilikh flushed. "Yes," she admitted. "We whisper, yet I suspect he can hear our converse even so. His eyes glow at the turn of his humours. The elements both extrinsic and intrinsic(119) answer to his sung request. Another's death debilitates him. He can plumb from people truths they did not ken they held. This is no king such as I know!"
Sygkorrin's look was pitying. "I can assure you that, should he bend his will to do so, he could indeed hear our every word. But why would he do so? Both for your own self and as sister to his son, he loves and trusts you." The young woman appeared unmoved and unconvinced. "So tell me, Matron, who did wail to the King of the need to find Kri-estaul?"
Drussilikh grimaced. "I did,"
"And who did give over their brother to his adoption?"
"I did,"
"And what censure did the Throne impose on your guild for harbouring a murderer, two seditionists, and a larcenist?"
"None."
"How has the Majesty of Osedys that you so supported, that so supported you, changed since the adoption?"
Reluctance slowed Drussilikh's answer. "Not at all,"
"Remind yourself again of what we just left. A man whose eyes shine with his passion, who commands the heart to reveal itself against its own self-interest, who can sing to bend nature and human will."
"Did I not just say these very same..."
"But you do not look long enough or clearly enough, if that is all you see! You responded as someone newly arrived from beyond the Eastern Dark, with no familiarity. Shallow and callow. Not as someone who has seen his anxieties, his turmoil, his love, wrath, and pain."
"What do you see?" Drussilikh demanded, suddenly desperate for another viewpoint. "Think on the visage of the King as we just left him; what did you see?"
"I saw a man in a precious agony of tender feeling for his son. I saw a King possessing a few more tools than most rulers to accomplish his calling -- and wielding an equal number of debilitating lacks and encumbrances. I saw a man who does not trust himself, a loving and lonely man, terrified of being inadequate to his duty and to his ambition for his home."
After a long hiatus, the Matron pivoted again, resting her back against the wall. "I let a moment's distress overrule my good sense."
"Yes." Sygkorrin's simple response yet came out gently.
"I thought him some enemy! Some predatory curse with the power to cloud our better thought. But... he is the saving of us, not our doom!"
"No!" Sygkorrin protested, making Drussilikh gape in surprise. "He is, himself a tool, a marvel, and a help. But he cannot do all for us. He is a help, but he alone is no saviour. Do not burden him so."
"He's vulnerable, too," Drussilikh observed.
"Yes. Another contrast to the kings of our past. He does not want a court or perpetual audience so much as he wants the companions, the 'family,' he never lived with. He leaves himself very vulnerable."
"I let the incidentals, the trappings of his aspects, unnerve me!"
The Priestess sought to alter the Matron's focus, move away from possible self-denigration. "And his son, your brother?"
The voice of the Matron turned soft, tired. "I want to weep until no one has a tear left to shed. I want to maim the miserable puns of dust(120) who took a sweet happy child and mutilated him so utterly, and leave them as they left him: alive and helpless and alone. Right now it hurts so much to see him. The King can hold him and... I dare not. My stomach knots at the idea. All I want to do is scream at the injustice, at what has become of my brother."
Briefly immobilised by Drussilikh's admission, Sygkorrin's face darkened with the rush of blood to her cheeks. "You mud-headed lazy fool! Exercise your imagination to better purpose! You dwell on how your brother looked before his capture. On how he smiled and rushed about and sparkled with innocent vitality. No?"
"Yes."
"That is laziness. Easily evoked remembrances, pathways in your mind that you have walked regularly for nine years. Not so long ago you helped preserve his life. You both are truly 'one blood' as you have never been before. Turn your mind to what is before you now, not what is past. He yet smiles and sparkles with vitality, a vitality you helped provide. You are Matron of the Scriveners. Would you cease to be competent or worthy of your station if you could no longer walk?"
"No."
"No. Legless, would you cease to be Drussilikh daughter of the Kohermarthen?"
"No." Drussilikh cringed at her own selfishness and stupidity. "Thunders! I sound so churlish. Ungrateful. But I'm not! I love Kri! The happiest day of my life was not when I became Quillmaster, it was in the under-grounds, when I heard him call me 'Drussie' again."
"What you are not saying very well, child, is that you hurt still. You fear for your brother, for the difficulties ahead for him. That you love him and hate what he has had to endure, what you both have had to endure."
The Priestess's words, her perception, undid the young Guildmistress. Sygkorrin wrapped an arm around the sobbing woman. After several sodden breaths, the Priestess put both arms about her and swayed back and forth.
Drussilikh cried, not alone with her tears for the first time in nine years. Her outburst before Evendal upon their first meeting had been just that, an outburst, and more in anger than anything else. Sygkorrin's very show of temper, her scorn and disputation, convinced Drussilikh of the woman's sincerity. Sygkorrin challenged her, goaded her to explore her own motives, and refused to accept the gloss of intolerance Drussilikh had tried to put over her pain-born urge to withdraw from a much-changed brother. For the moment, and with this person, Drussilikh felt safe as she had not in nearly ten years; safe to be less than her haughty, stern, and demon-driven persona. For the first time in nearly ten years, she could be an orphaned girl who had been living isolated in a house full of fond if ineffectual acquaintances and mortal enemies. She could be herself.
Drussilikh continued to weep, and Sygkorrin to minister.
(102) A corruption of 'shoal', ~and originally derogatory in Hramal-renan~. My cyber-friend and editor had brought a potential problem to my attention; distinguishing my fabrications in the chapter endnotes from historical verities. So from hence, if a phrase, a word, or its meaning, owes more to my imagination than to history, and the words 'Osedys,''Hramal,' or 'Kelotta' are not in the reference, then I shall frame it with ~.
(103) Detritus; an untidy accumulation of objects; leaves.
(104) Approximately 10 ft.
(105) Kalendarium: In the civil law, a calendar; a book of accounts, memorandum-book, or debt-book; a book in which accounts were kept of moneys loaned out on interest.
(106) A term of venery, like 'an unkindness of ravens'. See http://www.kith.org/logos/words/upper/V.html.
(107) An Anglo-Saxon term meaning a retainer.
(108) Hereditamentum: Things capable of being inherited, tangible or intangible or mixed.
(109) Menam's thanes. Dignity: In English law, an honour; a title, station, or distinction of honour. Dignities are a species of incorporeal hereditaments, in which a person may have a property or estate.
(110) The common folk.
(111) The right to demand money for the privilege of anchoring a vessel in a harbour; also, the money so paid.
(112) A custom or tribute paid for the standing of shipping in port.
(113) In old English law, a fine, or sum of money paid for a lease.
(114) "Mustela nivalis" is meant: the most bellicose of the sub-species.
(115) "Pyrrhic nonsense," in this context, means that the person lost more than they would gain by an act of defiance. n
(116) The land of Kelotta does not yield limes. Literally, 'the green of a willow's early spring shoots.' which is a bit too cumbersome for the sentence. Sygkorrin was taunting that Drussilikh's jealousy was obvious to anyone looking.
(117) Dantean 'umilte'; knowledge of self almost to the point of paralysis. The current European understanding of the word is not the traditional: e.g., Webster's 1913 dictionary uses terms such as "modest", "not high or lofty" and "not pretentious or magnificent" to define humility.
(118) Sport. A creature whose every attribute is excessive.
(119) "both extrinsic and intrinsic" is my own addition. The Hramal do not separate so utterly as we do human subjective elements and the natural world.
(120) When a European quotes 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' his fellows get the idea that he is either about to make a joke ('if the whisky don't get you, the women must') or is being somber and meditative -- even if they are not speaking at a funeral. For those Hramal who are pissed off at the dead, calling the dead one 'an absurd pun of dust' is genteel but effective venting. On those very rare occasions when a Hramal is morosely contemplative, all creatures -- living and past - are understood as absurd puns that the five elements tell each other. Of course, calling anyone a pun of dust is diminishing, Hramal or not. (A bow of acknowledgement to Andrew Meit for his 'translation' of the phrase.)
To update readers, my father is cranky and recuperating at his home. That he is cranky and impatient is how I know he is recuperating. The house we have moved to is wonderfully large for us and we are enjoying it thoroughly.