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43 What Duty Is
Polonius: My liege and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2, lines 86-89
Karondeo asked, "Strengths? Or weaknesses?"
"Both," the King assured, grinning slightly. He glanced behind and whispered to one of the Guard, who in turn left the room. This roused Aldul's curiosity. Guard Ierwbae then stood and waved another Guard from the doorway to replace the first.
Evendal's mind leapt to another matter. "How is it the Swan Song was not being careened?" Careened? Aldul wondered at the word, but did not have to wonder long.
The seaman frowned, unhappy. "You saw the condition she is in. We are... were not loved in Alta this year. As reward for what accusations, threats, and measures we did make, thinking you nabbed, their Maritime Council put her name last on the roster. If the river froze over before they hauled her, so be it."
Evendal winced.
Aldul had not thought. Ice could trap a ship and, he supposed, its thawing could tear one up. He had read all he could find about the Thronelands, disturbed Kwo-edans who had journeyed there. Its seasons had interested him for what plants grew when. But no words written conveyed the dreadful immediacy of winter north of the Verge. The cold encompassed all his perceptions, overwhelmed him at times, so that the numbness in his hands and feet commandeered his awareness from any movement and conversation around him. That, for him, was a raw frustration. Kri-estaul's earlier plaint of living as a doorstop struck to Aldul's core.
Metthendoenn shifted in his chair, at the same time that Karondeo and Ierwbae did, drawing Aldul's attention back to the King.
Evendal stared off into the space between him and Edrionwytt, frowning as at some off-colour remark or vagrant memory come wandering back. "This is my mess to clean," he murmured. "Though how could I have forgotten?" Evendal clearly addressed a matter impinging solely on his awareness.
Guard Ierwbae felt it incumbent, nonetheless, that he anchor his lord's attention to the immediate surroundings. "Your Majesty?"
Aldul could have told the Guard that his King was well aware of circumstances.
"Would it cause further consternation among our celebrants were we to return to the table we first sat at? What say you, Ierwbae?"
Asked in the act of sitting, Ierwbae paused and answered. "So what if it did, Your Majesty?" Aldul liked this Guard for just that quality of surprise.
"I agree. Then let us return. Seaman Minfal has arrived. `We' should be present when he addresses Master Alekrond, for I doubt he will remember to seek me out first."
Karondeo stood first and looked toward the door that they had all come through. Aldul noted anomalous movement peripherally, but all his focus was on moving himself. Thronelands weather did not visit him with terrible agonies, else he would have petitioned Sygkorrin retire him. Rather he endured a collection of annoyances: What pain he waited out came on as a dull ache with occasional sharp twinges, and would have been bearable, ignorable, if it were constant. He found his hands trembled for no clear reason, whether gripping a stylus or gripping air. And even though his legs got him from Kwo-eda to Osedys, they lately did not want to lift him out of a crouch or a bend.
His enemy was not pain but debility. He blamed the permeating cold. When his calves shook, even a little, then his knees invariably buckled. His fingers ached of course, but he could ignore that until they numbed. That such an elemental wore him out -- a condition he saw everyone else accommodate to so blithely -- demoralised him as well. He may have avenged his father and his degradation by Tothofir and Hanikrest, but that did not repair what exposure and toxemia had damaged in him.
Karondeo stayed in place as Evendal grasped his forearm to lever himself and Kri-estaul out of their chair. Edrionwytt, of his kindness or out of habit, performed the same service for Aldul. The vigourous King preceded his entourage back. Aldul took his time, refusing to let his chilled and unsteady limbs betray him further.
The approaching movement resolved itself into the sly lad Ierowen and Alekrond's crewman. Ierowen stopped a proper distance from the royal table and waited. Minfal continued straightly for Alekrond, until the older seaman scowled at him, and pointed him back beside the lad.
The King sat, but halted Ierwbae and Metthendoenn with another gesture. "You," he accused the younger Guard, "are not sane enough for this occasion." Kri-estaul opened his eyes, glanced fuzzily around, and closed them again.
"Your Majesty..."
"You would argue? Wytthenroeg is more hale than you."
Aldul paused at his chair to see if the King intended to single him out also. He breathed a relieved sigh when Evendal did not.
"Ierwbae, see to Metthendoenn's retirement and return here." Ierwbae, supporting his lover, turned to comply when Evendal m'Alismogh added, "After you have reassured each other."
The spryer Guard looked confused. "Reassured?"
M'Alismogh gazed heavy-lidded toward Ierowen and Minfal as he addressed his Guard. "Go. Both of you. While you two are always wanted at my side, you need time at one another's side. Exclusively. Ierwbae, your challenge has been to remain chaste -- not a eunuch. So, as you have fallen into the habit of letting Metthendoenn labour over you and that would be a hardship at present, I might suggest instead that you demonstrate your own passion for Metthendoenn hence." Both Guard froze open-mouthed at their King as Evendal distractedly continued. "Do not be distressed or angry if Metthendoenn does not respond well initially. The change from habitual giver to recipient might seem too foreign for him at first."
Having just seated himself with some care, Aldul could only lower his head, momentarily confounded. "Evendal," he groaned as the back of his hip protested its very existence.
Evendal caught the dismayed tone and looked doubtfully down the table.
The Kwo-edan spoke slowly, gently, but did not mince words. "No parent offers such advice unsought. No friend unveils another's lawful intimate behaviour in a public fete. No King publicly broaches a concern over...sensuality, unless the person being helped has given permission outright. Or unless the person involved is an enemy that that King wishes to shame." Aldul chided himself not to lecture but to employ what mattered most to Evendal. "Honouring those bounds is a gauge of trustworthiness. Divulging details of others' congress baldly, without their prior sanction, signals a lack of respect for them."
The King sat with his mouth ajar, finding no flaw in Aldul's castigation. He wanted to plead his intention to help his friends, but intention was questionable too: Because his advice was nonsense. If Metthendoenn was too wearied to sit idly at table, he could hardly take any joy in the exertion of lovemaking. His Majesty had announced matters not his to know and, since known by him, certainly not his to reveal. He had visibly upset four of his guests and made Ierwbae and Metthendoenn to feel a spectacle. Where had his mind scurried?
"I just enacted Onkira. I practically marched down the very avenues of her thought." He glared in horror at a bemused Ierwbae.
The Kwo-edan was quick off the mark, thinking back on his second day in the Palace. "Yes and no! The fashion of her haviour would be the one most immediate, most accessible to you. Also, recall when we arrived, after your first confrontation with her. You asked me if other mothers commonly discussed their conjugal joys or sorrows with their sons. You have merely revealed your ignorance, now as then. Nothing more. Would Onkira have sought to guide someone whose goal was not all toward pleasing her?"
Looking nauseated and red-faced, Evendal answered in a careful monotone. "Not for long. And most often it served as a segue to a salacious ramble about herself or a segue to some inappropriate demand." He took a deep breath. "So, I do not perpetuate her mentation, then?"
Aldul shook his head carefully. "The trappings, but not the hunger or venom."
Evendal drew in another slow, deep breath and blatantly relaxed. "That does nothing to assuage my humiliation of you, my kinsmen."
Startled by Aldul's revelation as much as Evendal's indiscretion, his face dusky, Ierwbae floundered. "I. We. I do not know what to say, Your Majesty. I did not expect. How do we?"
The two Guard stopped and gazed at each other until both began to chuckle. The chuckle quickly turned into nervous laughter interspersed with groans and grunts of pain from Metthendoenn. Aldul understood the impulse well.
Ierwbae's mirth stayed visible even as he struggled to excuse his liege. "Your Majesty, no matter the circumstance, your will has ever been for our benefit. This is no different. Since last we spoke of... my faults, I have submitted myself to Metthendoenn's instruction. We have talked to much purpose. Unknowing, you but provide a test for a stricture we both have determined to live by. It follows then that no offense was served and none received. In truth, I would take your advice and implement it." The man gave his beloved a randy look.
Softly, with his own eyes downcast, Evendal rumbled. "I, We, most humbly thank you for your forbearance."
Ierwbae rightly waved the comment aside. "I would be no worthy man were I to affect righteous indignation at what is merely an unconsidered gesture of love. Enough on that, if you please, Your Majesty."
Evendal acquiesced, but his look made it clear he would not forget. "If you wish, though I shall indeed task myself over the frowardness of my tongue. And what effect I truly sought. Tell us what proceeded from this instruction of yours'."
Then Metthendoenn spoke up. "I have learned anew how very different he and I are. We likewise concluded how we are more temperate men, vassals, and Guard when knit together than when unmated from each other."
As Metthendoenn had halted, Ierwbae continued. "Between us we have cleared much of the chaff from the destruction that I sowed. And we have gleaned some guides, some regulae, Your Majesty, one of which pertains here. The reason for our mirth. 'Day, night, or twilight, commit no act you cannot talk freely about to anyone.' That imposition is proving as much a challenge for Metthendoenn as for me."
The King saw the ramifications immediately. "From you, Metthendoenn, it requires more temerity; that you must talk most bluntly about what you want and what you do not want of Ierwbae. In plain language. And from Ierwbae it entails a threat and demands restraint. That he account for his time to you without lying by omission. For were you to uncover mischief, you can demand he give an accounting of his misdeeds to other people."
Ierwbae nodded. "I gave Metthendoenn the liberty to ask an accounting of my days, and to expect truth from me." He continued on with evident reluctance. "Then it came to me that I yet acted the coward. What specie of man would actually ask? Any such demand by him, however sweetly worded, exposes his doubts of me anew, fanning resentment -- in him and in me. Rather, we contrived a set bell and place, wherein I give over that intelligence freely and unprompted.
"Toward that end, Your Majesty, know that I did, in the summer months, spend most of my leisure either haunting the Guard sword-practice or meandering by one or two much frequented marinas. All with the unprofessed hope of dipping my horn up some stranger. My purpose in burdening you with this is twofold: I would not have you ignorant of the manner of man you call kin. And I still beg your tolerance of my unsummoned presence, those times when I do not trust my strength or will."
Aldul listened in fascination. Did Evendal not treat Ierwbae's apparent efforts with gravity and approbation, the Kwo-edan would not readily have credited that someone could be in vassalage to a constellation of sensual habitudes. Aldul did not doubt the validity of Ierwbae's plight, but had never witnessed a struggle quite like the Guard confronted.
He once knew a neighbor in Kwo-eda who, when anxious or beleaguered, ate. She would insist repeatedly that only food soothed her. She had died from infections due to a ruptured bladder, having refused to leave a table one night even for a brief moment in the jakes. He also knew two people, emigrants from different provinces now settled in Kwo-eda, who regularly drank themselves into a stupor. They admitted to their narcotic routine, and agreed such excess unproductive. Their remorse was fierce and genuine. They also forgot family, friends, all pledges and deepest convictions whenever their liege, Lord Ferment, demanded earthly worship.
To Aldul's view, Evendal justly intervened. Whether it be called brandywine, orgasm or hodge-podge, if the very yearning for some habit suspended a man's sense and will, that yen was a tyrant that needed displacing -- the actual lord of a vassal if not the mortal one.
Evendal took his Guard's confession in stride. "You are always a welcome attendant, Ierwbae. And I would rather you intrude on me, on Us, than fail at your ambition utterly. How say you, Metthendoenn? Would you feel it a source of shame or jealousy, or of security, for your man to come to us when feeling harried or nightmare-ridden by his worst instincts?"
Metthendoenn looked surprised. "Both, my lord. But I no less than Ierwbae rely on your honour, good Your Majesty."
"Know that were the odour of deceit to waft from either of you, We would not be slow in sending the offender to the other to give such an accounting as you, Ierwbae, spoke of. But you uplift my, Our, heart with the measures you have taken, the healing you have accomplished. Now, Metthendoenn, you must permit your frame to heal as well. Go with Our good will. Ierwbae? Return when you are satisfied of your beloved's disposition."
As the two Guard left, Evendal beckoned Ierowen to his side. "How fare you now, Master Ierowen?"
"Well, Your Majesty. Again, I feel quite the fool here, amidst all these nobs."
The King smiled. "Be of good cheer. You will find you are a good deal more honest than half of them could aspire to be."
Ierowen's blush and furtive eye jump toward the smirking Minfal gave Evendal and Aldul -- the ones who knew the lad -- two coins of intelligence: That Minfal had entered the Palace with an item of value. And that the seaman was unaware he no longer possessed that valuable. Beckoning the youth closer, His Majesty lowered his voice. "This example you shadowed..."
"Yes, Your Majesty?" Ierowen in turn mimicked the King, dropping his tone with a worried expression.
"What did he do to rouse you so?"
"He would not give over his coats, Your Majesty. And he represented no one but himself. He boasted of that."
Nearly every attendant at this fete represented a place or a people, with the exception of five of the celebrants at the King's table. "His coats?" Evendal thought a moment on what that might signify to a street-urchin. When the answer finally came to him, he wanted to hug the lad, but knew Ierowen would not countenance such yet.
"Thank you. Did you satisfy yourself as to his harmlessness?"
"He has an unsheathed blade strapped to each arm," Ierowen warned. "'Twas all I had the opportunity to ken."
That report did not please Evendal. "No doubt Guard Ottily, being of more genteel upbringing, did not consider the threats that can be concealed therein. When you pressed your concern, and she failed to exercise prudence and diligence, she became a Guard-in-training." The King craned his neck to the Guard at his right. "Remind me, should I not address this negligence within the bell."
"Your Majesty," the Guard responded neutrally.
"Ierowen. This rough fellow has come to return a bauble I quite lost track of, he just does not know that such is his purpose. Do you think you could help him?"
"What manner of toy?" Ierowen knew himself to be caught out.
"A stone, tossed into the boat we habited and, such was the weight and number of subsequent events, I forgot to retrieve it."
The red of Ierowen's hair seemed to seep down into his face. "Do you mean this trifle?" Turning a hand occluded from Minfal palm up, the lad revealed a dull, smooth, gray-green ovoid.
The King grinned at the picker like a parent made proud. "I do indeed. Bear its weight for the moment, but not on your unprotected skin like that, while I learn the measure of this man." Evendal then thought to ask. "What think you of gingerbread?"
Baffled at his continued liberty as much as the non-sequitur, Ierowen could only, he felt, reply in kind. "I have heard of it, Your Majesty, but never tasted it."
"I am not sure if I have or not. Restore the salt you scooped from the doorway as best you can. Then if you could let either Mistress Shulro or one of her ordinaries know that We would like three portions of gingerbread, and return to take your ease with Us, you would have my, and Our, thanks."
"Ever your grateful servant, Your Majesty."
Evendal winced and scowled, and then wondered at his own reaction.
Ierowen retreating, the King gestured for Minfal to approach. "Greetings, officer Minfal. How fare you now?"
"I humbly thank you, Your Majesty. Well indeed." The seaman projected the aire of a contented ralur.
"Is there business between us?" Evendal set his features in what he hoped signalled innocent curiosity.
"No, Your Majesty. At least... I am not certain, Your Majesty. Is Swan Song yet Captain Karondeo's? Your Majesty." The man's mockery with each repetition of Evendal's honour was thick though his countenance remained cheerful. Alekrond's son stared blankly at his father's crewman, surprised at both the man's recklessness and at being an object under discussion.
Evendal smiled to show as many of his teeth as possible, and dropped a reassuring hand on his beloved's. "The Swan Song remains the property of Alekrond lin Agredd and under the command of Karondeo lin Alekrond."
"Then who will stand good for its cleaning, repair and careening? My mortally ailing Master Alekrond? Or Master Karondeo, who has paid what he could to Alta for the service, and, according to his mates, hasn't enough revenue to pay a second time?"
Disappointed in the direction and occupation of the man's thoughts, the King groused. "Is there a target to your expressions of concern, or are you simply flight shooting?(270) If so, We cry `Loose' and beg you have done with it."
The seaman frowned, offended at the ruler's seeming flippancy. "The goal of my address, Your Majesty, is to give whoever holds Swan Song notice that I would claim her and restore her. For myself."
The Swordbrother of the Sea sat up straighter and signalled Surn-meddil, who suddenly held Kri-estaul in his lap.
"You woke up," Evendal accused. "You woke before Our congress with...the Sea was ended." The two Guard flanking the King took a telling step toward Minfal, alerted by their liege's tone.
"Is that what you call it? `Congress'? With a monstrous, obscene..." Uneasy at the proximity of his liveried company, Minfal paused to gather wit and breath. Though he addressed the King, his gaze fixed on Alekrond. "It took my walk from the ports to even begin to ken all your talk aboard that boat. But I did. Enough."
The King stood, offhandedly waving his supper companions to refrain. With deliberate steps, he maneuvered so that Minfal faced away from the mass of diners, making it difficult for the two of them to be overheard except by those at the King's table. "Did you? We think not. What would distinguish you from other tavern talespinners?"
Minfal grinned, only glancing at Evendal. "The token that...got tossed. The effect it gives off in sunlight proves it more than a common carbuncle. And I fancy that so long as I possess it, that fell beast shall treat with me most civilly. I have hopes the Throne will as well. Report of secret communion with murderous sea dwellers would not endear Your Majesty to your people."
The Lord of the Thronelands felt a temptation to encourage Minfal into testing Llyssh's `civility', but forbore. Alekrond's crewman obviously believed a simple memory-marker -- the convention of a creature that sought every compensation for a short attention span and a tidal memory -- some wondrous halidom. The man was partially blinded by a blatant obsession: Alekrond. Though Minfal properly addressed the Royal Majesty in this public occasion, his insinuations were not truly directed toward the ruler.
The King turned to his Maritime Counselors. "Master Alekrond? Matron Melianth?" Startled, the two shifted their attention from Minfal to the Evendal, bemused. "He is of your cohorts. What would you?"
"I rescued you from a Nikloan galley, Minfal." Alekrond grumbled, eyes glinting in anger and grief. "This is your gratitude? This, your service?"
"Did you never wonder why they put him there?" Evendal whispered rhetorically.
Minfal flashed the King a furious look. "You may try to silence me, but I reckon I can shout out a few deadly truths before you succeed. Your Majesty. And your treatment of me will then indict you."
"That might be true on one of Alekrond's ships, facile manikin, where mob rule prevails. Here, the mindless masses do not govern. Show Us your token. Show the entire hall your token. Do you think anyone here would care?"
Belatedly, the seaman looked around. Adjacent tables held peerage who in equal parts ate appreciatively and listened ambivalently. None showed alarm or great interest in the King's business.
"It would not serve them. Gentry or commoner, they may benignly accept or reject whatever you might choose to spout, for they are free to do so. They are free to do so, and then to leave it in Our hands. They know it is the nature of rule and kingship to be a thesaurus of weighty secrets kept from them."
The King's eyes widened in a lightning strike of realisation, though his glow stayed dim. "It was when she sought to lure us overboard. Her casting awakened you!"
Minfal shrugged, not caring; his fury he still directed toward Alekrond. "The most difficult task I ever managed, Your Majesty, was keeping still when I heard Master Alekrond scream. For him to step out of the boat was sheer stupidity! That is when I decided I could not serve under such an addlepated captain."
"Instead you now `pledge to yourself and pay homage to an idiot'(271)? Show Us your gray-green bauble."
Theatrically disdainful, Minfal shook his head, then his smug expression swiftly changed to alarm as he wondered how Evendal knew to describe a token he had never glanced at. When he searched blindly at the small of his back, and scrabbled under his winter garb, the man's rough fingers found a slit in the tunic.
Evendal m'Alismogh asked again, "Master Alekrond? Have We your sanction?"
People knew when Alekrond was in a room, even if the man said no word, made no deliberate disturbance. It was not a skill Alekrond encouraged but simply the nature of the man; even at his weakest, his presence made itself felt. At that moment, the male half of the office of Maritime Counsellorship seemed much diminished, indistinguishable from any other guest.
Alekrond sighed, but did not answer promptly.
Minfal, all anger displaced by shock and the beginnings of panic, shared gazes with his captain. The moment stretched like a harp-string in unnerving silence. Evendal glanced from one seaman to the other, uncertain of what passed, certain only of the tension and pain. That harp-string, that strain, broke on a hoarse reply.
"I had hoped... He has left us, you, no other path, my son."
Startled by the endearment, Evendal gaped open-mouthed at the older man and missed the resentful gleam in Minfal's eye.
"You rock-hearted, cowardly, son of a bitch and a weasel!" Minfal shouted. "How can you call him that? And not a word of acknowledgement for me, who laboured without fail for years?"
The outburst was both sincere and calculated, to draw the attention of those attending. Most guests considerately continued finishing their meal, inured to the tactic.
Evendal m'Alismogh chanted, projecting easily over the seaman's low-voiced rant:
Minfal, you will not speak hence,
Though your living flesh we flense,
Give out no sly sign nor mime
Of what you have heard betime,
No mewl of pain nor rough jeer,
Until the Sea claims your bier.
Your gift of life we retake
For our two dear kingdoms' sake.
The seaman inhaled ostentatiously, preparatory to bellowing again, but all he produced was warmer air; the effort to vacate his lungs could not summon so much as the rasp of a wheeze.
"Our life is worth more to Us than a collection of wood, pitch, metal and rope, Minfal. Too bad your's is not worth more to you. We must sentence you to an ordeal having but one outcome and no witness but its executioners; no one to know of your passion. But on whom do We inflict the chore of exacting your sentence?"
"Your Majesty has but to ask," Ierwbae interjected, having walked back in and bowed.
Evendal glanced askant. "'Tis butcher's work, Ierwbae. You of all Our Guard know what need's be done. But We would not wish this task on you."
"Then do not. Merely wish it done. Direct me."
"He is to have his testicle sack cut off, cauterised, the acorns cooked and served to him. Whether he be living or dead, they are to lodge in the cage of his mouth."
Then did Ierwbae encompass the man's offense. "He went diving?!"
"Ambitions to the same effect. He will make no protest as We have reclaimed his liberty to speak. After you have unmanned him, though it is traditional for the miscreant to choose from tongue removal or death, he may not. He will die this day."
Ierwbae nodded. "What manner? Where?"
Pie-eyed, Minfal dropped to his knees and grabbed the King's in fruitless supplication, so that Evendal briefly struggled to stay upright. The two Guard pried the now sobbing man's arms away and restrained him. "'Ware the blades at his wrists. He comes before Us armed without Our sanction."
The Guard responded with alacrity.
"Do not kill him outright, leave that to another. But if he dies from the damage you inflict, so be it. Tradition presumes We abide at the old cliff-side court northward, the offender to be weighted down and cast into the ocean alive. What other records We know of have the traitor flayed and blood-eagled at the king's feet. Neither commend themselves to Us. But We would advise cracking his ribs as a final gesture."
"I will take that advising; I may not be skilled with what details precedent might demand," Ierwbae warned.
"This will not demand skill, stomping upon his chest should suffice. It needs no banquet-master, as he shall not long survive the effort." The King stepped away from the table, beckoning Ierwbae with a finger to follow. He meandered to the least populous corner of the room and contemplated its wall.
Uncomfortable with them, Evendal eventually voiced his thoughts. "I do confess, Ierwbae, were it not for such as yourself and those here seated, I would too readily consign the lot of my people to the depths."
"What charged this sudden ill-humour?"
"That fool threatened my home..." For a moment Evendal could hardly continue. "That man thought to gamble the safety of my kingdom for a... a coracle! Is this the mettle of my citizens?"
"Your Majesty knows better," Ierwbae reproved. "He is a menial, is he not? On Master Alekrond's flagship it is true, but nonetheless not a principal deputy. Am I correct?"
Diverted by his companion's tone, Evendal gave over staring at the stone and rugs. "You are correct. He directs none of Alekrond's fleet' or manpower. But when I sought Master Alekrond's imprimatur, his relevant comment was I rescued you from a Nikloan galley, Minfal.' And to accuse him of ingratitude. As though Alekrond had made a singular effort to rescue him."
"I suspect, as he was taken off a galley, he has been a fair time in Alekrond's service. More than nine years." Back in his more earnest days, Alekrond lin Agredd had made it his habit to fire up every galley pressing slaves or criminals that his crews came across. He quit that particular pastime just before Mausna.
The King peered at his companion and aide in puzzlement. "Do you think I seek a whipping-boy for my earlier embarrassment?"
"No, Your Majesty."
"Do you warn Us, then, that We execute a man deep in Alekrond's councils and affections?"
"I would assert the contrary, Your Majesty. I contend that you kill a dog in the act of savaging a citizen of your's. If my supposal is accurate, after ten or more years without advancement or commendation, who would not feel much abused? No good word from a rescuer who might well know what put him in the chains but clearly has never pushed him to seek his fortunes elsewhere. Ambivalence. Whereas had the man any worth in Master Alekrond's soft heart, I'd have heard the Maritime Counsellor's defense of him from back in our rooms."
The King considered. "The man acts a cockney,(272) which is no crime. But Alekrond did indeed have no word for the churl, of command or approbation, no look or gesture, no acknowledgement the fellow even breathed.
"Before you returned, Minfal admitted to hearing report from Karondeo's mates of his penury. He could only have done this at the same time he asserted he was..."
"Was what, Your Majesty?"
"Struggling to make sense of a conversation aboard the dinghy that was death for him to hear," Evendal answered truthfully, if evasively. "A discussion that he claimed engaged him utterly on route to the Palace.
"That his first impulse should be to mask his presence of mind from the lord securing his continued survival bodes no good. And to labour during this deception, sifting small bits of intelligence from a confrontation not meant for his ears. That shows someone practised at extortion(273)."
"Your converse must not have engaged him that thoroughly, Your Majesty." Ierwbae warned sardonically.
"Why so?"
"Minfal would not have your gift for snatching the marrow of matters from the lips of others. And for him to learn of Master Karondeo's financial woes in as brief a time as he had, argues vigorous effort with seamen who are too likely to trumpet their own woes and wounds without pause --- heedless of his wishes for dispatch -- first and foremost."
Tangentially proud of Ierwbae, Evendal grinned: He heard a fine counsellor. "So in truth he knows and comprehends less than he presents. And plans further mischief against Our vassal Alekrond."
Evendal turned back and locked gazes with Surn-meddil. He asked an unvoiced question of the late ruler. Surn-meddil nodded in answer.
"This is all irrelevant, you know? The man will inform naught but sea anemones. When the gelding is done, bind his jaw and lightly sew his lips together around his organs."
"Sew his lips together?" Ierwbae looked doubtful.
The King shrugged. "Thread the lips loosely, or fashion a leather or hemp net that fits securely against his face. It must be seen that he mouths some object -- but his acorns cannot be allowed to slip out in water."
"Be seen by wh...? No. Nevermind. Forgive me, Your Majesty."
"Forgiven. Do We ask too much? We can do this act Ourself with Our heart clear, soft and intact, Ierwbae. You are vital to Us in other, greater tasks."
Ierwbae shook his head stubbornly. "No. A man threatens you out of avarice. Without you saying so openly, I ken that he threatens more than your august person. Either means treason and therefore it is my office to execute his just sentence. Your Majesty."
Evendal stared stonily down at the sweating, desperate seaman. "There is naught `just' about this."
"I would voice one qualm, Your Majesty. Evendal."
The King glanced up at the softly spoken familiarity.
"Is this not a guest we stoop to savage?" Ierwbae's face displayed serious misgivings; the rules of Hramal hospitality were older than the Moonchild.
Evendal ald'Menam shook his head. "No. So eager was he for his prize, Minfal disdained Our salt. Thus did he indicate of his intent."
Minfal struggled against his captors in vain; until the King waved the Guard desist. Surprised at his release, he glared up and pleaded with his eyes, setting palm to palm and extending them toward the King.
Evendal ald'Menam took a deep breath, sadness dimming the glow of his face. "No. We will not accept so poisonous a gift. We will not reward calumny. You chose the wrong secret by which to wring favour. Had you straightway delivered up the stone and not meddled, you might have found your humble ambition blithely granted. Instead you imperil Our realm so that any decision We might make regarding you is all but made for Us. Rely on Guard Ierwbae; he is mercifully ruthless and sure."
He turned back to Ierwbae. "We do not want him a spectacle for any witnesses, including fellow Guard. When he is gelded and sewn, hood him and have him taken to where we found Metthendoenn and Hielan-Plwa(274)." The startled look that arced across Ierwbae's face alerted Evendal to their harbouring contrary assumptions. "Thunders, kinsman! Alert Bruddbana. We do not expect you alone to cart him about or clean up his mess or haul him out to the wild. Mean and Ugly made sudden deaths commonplaces; no fellow Guard will do more than groan over assisting you in this. However, were you to delegate the necessary gelding and sewing, the seeming barbarity of it would repel and remain memorable to the labourer; that chore must be your's alone."
"Which is as well. My needlework is just bad enough to accomplish your wishes." Ierwbae grimaced and, turning back toward the kitchens, signalled his fellows to follow with an openmouthed, silently tearful Minfal who flailed his limbs and strove in vain to draw salvific notice.
"The people here will wonder," Evendal muttered. "And gossip that We executed the sole menial who took Us on Our furtive boat ride."
"Of course they will," came a voice at his ear. "And they will deliberately snag the wrong clew scrabbling for the whole ball. If you give people nothing untoward, young one, they will create it -- and resent you for making them put in the effort."
"Why do I feel as though I betrayed that fool, when he is the one who betrayed his oaths?"
"Because you had hoped for a brief moment of unalloyed relief and celebration; an understandable delusion. Because you and I -- and a now hale Nikraan --- are the only ones who know what that oaf was gambling against and with. Because he truly is a fool: To accost the Majesty of Osedys with his surety on his person. To have no accomplice. To expect you to submit in fear of his unconsidered threat. No surprise that what he fancied a circlet twisted into a garrote. He is one `gift' I shall deliver to the Moonchild promptly.
"Come back to table. If you must think about that greedy gullet, think on what he chose against. He could have done what was given him to do, and with such a will that he would indeed have achieved all that he thought owed to him. But he chose against that. In the end, he will die because of his choices more than your's."
Evendal complied, weighing Surn-meddil's words. The revenant had listed many reasons for the King's disquietude, but had not thought of the one that now came clear to Evendal: He was killing a man who did not know why.
It mattered to him; even though the man would be just as dead within the next bell with or without that knowledge. And the intelligence -- learning that his death was not the Crown's punishment for blackmail but a survival measure against a man proven untrustworthy --- was not likely to mean much to Minfal. But then Evendal acknowledged that by making such a conclusion he was deciding for the miscreant.
"Tell him, please," Evendal adjured Surn-meddil directly. "Explain to him why he must die, so that he comprehends his true error." Evendal spoke as though continuing a conversation, a chat no one else at the table had heard. None flinched, though Edrionwytt looked puzzled.
Surn-meddil's semblance responded. "Why? What does it matter if he dies knowing or safely ignorant?"
"It might matter to him. We did not declare him t'bo, he is still Our's. His name will not be forgotten or vilified." Alekrond sighed, whether in dismay or relief not even the Songmaster knew.
Surn-meddil argued with the King. "He is guilty of treason."
Evendal shook his head. "Do not cosset Us. That is the fiction Ierwbae fashioned for himself, to feel at ease with what was asked of him. Minfal intended no treason."
"You can say that? Intended or no, had he persisted in his aim, you would have known injury, and all Osedys after you. And that would not have mattered to him, so long as he was content. Few traitors intend harm to another -- only benefit to themselves -- that makes them no less guilty of treason."
The King shrugged. "You are correct. However, from his view, his ambition might have earned him branding, indenture, exile or crippling. Castration and death have never been venial blackmail's reward."
"Are you troubled that a man who will not see the sunset thinks you cruel?" The nature of Surn-meddil's mobile made it impossible to tell if the question was indifferent or scornful.
"Yes," Evendal answered surprisingly. "Minfal kelh'Kron Agrit'kelig," he struggled and failed to pronounce the names as he heard them in his mind. "Minfal kelh'Kron Agrit'kelig is yet a vassal. We are not, and dare not be, deaf even to such a one. And what comfort We can provide us both, We will."
"I will indeed do as you have asked. And will reassure him how you yet acknowledge him a citizen."
Evendal m'Alismogh nodded. "Whence the 'keli'?"
Alekrond stirred. "I have not heard that augmentative in many years. It is Pharikian." When no one showed a hint of recognition, he elaborated gruffly. "From an island cluster north of Arkedda."
The King of the temperate-zoned Thronelands raised both brows in surprise. "North of Arkedda! What do they do at wintertide? Hibernate?"
"No," was all Alekrond said, closing his eyes as one wearied.
Melianth answered for her spouse. "They would flee south and west to another set of islands we call Se-Shemmah. How do you know of Ekron Agri'kelig?"
"He sired Minfal."
Shenrowyn's daughter gripped Alekrond's hand and turned to him with a troubled expression. It was Alekrond's turn to nod as he forced himself to speak. "After prolonged effort, I rescued him off a Nikloan galley. From the first day aboard, I sensed that he doubted my generosity and my intentions. So I let him be, left him to make his own place among us if he wanted to. He made friends, and then made them enemies of each other. He fomented dissension and distrust. I would see crew snarling and challenging one another, but never did they challenge him. At first I thought he was serving as mediator, for I would see disputants in impassioned talks with him. That is what I thought, until injuries seemed to inevitably follow his mediation."
"How did you deal with his manufactures?" Ierowen and a kitchen-drudge returned, bowed, and set three platters on the table.
"I let a few of the cannier mates know what he was about. They in turn calmed the more pliable and redirected their distrust until, eventually, none would talk to him. There were a few who had no coinage of thought, and so paid us no mind. The measure of distrust he had sowed meant that those few did not live long; you have to trust your mates in order to survive on the seas."
"Why did you continue to suffer such a worm?"
"I thought we had pulled his fangs. But he changed tactics. He. He troubled Melianth..."
Surn-meddil made a show of transferring Kri-estaul bodily into Evendal's sling. When the child was secured, Alekrond's wife took up the telling.
"Minfal paid me court, Your Majesty. Chaperoning me spuriously. Gifting me with baubles and delicacies. Applauding my looks, my wit, my temper and manner." She shook her head in remembrance. "'Twas sad and macabre. Had I wanted any of the trifles he stole or extorted, I would have already possessed them -- freely given by my husband. And I am well aware of my flaws and qualities. The very idea of his pursuing me chilled me."
Evendal protested. "To accost a married woman makes him troublesome, certainly, and crass. The perfect provocation to rid yourself of an ambitious barnacle."
Melianth's troubled expression did not change. "He said much to me that was flowery and excessive. But never -- in words -- did he press his suit."
"And what of you, Master Alekrond? Did you observe this? Permit it?"
"Your Majesty, I am not a young man. After Melianth and I came to understand each other, I decided that she herself must determine the character of our contract, our marriage. So I watched their intercourse, and at first thought her discreetly(275) seeking out a boy nearer her age and vigour. She bluntly disabused me of my error." Melianth and Alekrond grinned complicitly.
"How?"
"Melianth called for a meeting of the crew. She then gathered up every rough note given by Minfal, every trinket and trifle unclaimed by a previous owner, tossed them in a barrel with some pitch, set a fire in it. After the fire had devoured what it could, she tossed the open barrel over the side."
"And was your integrity finally written plainly enough for him?"
Alekrond and Melianth exchanged looks again. "Yes," the husband answered.
The King knew that the described crisis was not the end of the matter. "He responded as a man abused and frustrated in his purpose. Correct?"
Alekrond nodded. "Having painted Melianth to the crews as a hireling whose price he had found, when she torched his tokens he changed his insinuation: My wife was suddenly an espier for Polgern, waiting for the opportune moment to betray us into some massacre."
"In many ways Minfal truly acted the pathetic clod." Melianth asserted solemnly.
Evendal evinced surprise at the bald assessment.
"Those of the crews that harboured a thought in their heads knew they would not have a home or liberty in the Thronelands without my wife's sacrifice and steadfast resolve. For three months Minfal sported bruises and cuts; my crew's response to his tale-fabrication. For three months he strove to find someone else disgruntled enough to betray her -- and us --- to Polgern or Abduram."
"For three months Minfal could have died in a convenient accident at sea, had my husband given the slightest hint that such was his whim."
"I would not."
Melianth frowned in remembered frustration. "Had that greedy bastard(276) been incautious...But he revealed very little about himself that was true. None of the crews know his parentage, though some approached us with their guesses. I treated Minfal as I would any fellow crewmember, so he thought me equally ignorant. That is how I could glean that his purpose was not to consummate any passion for me, but for my office and my Alekrond's life."
Alekrond took up the telling. "Then one of my oldest friends came to me while Minfal was on another ship. He reported how the cur had been sniffing around for a pack of braves to join him the next time he went on the mainland. This fellow, as dense as I am, feared Minfal planned for I and Melianth to disappear -- into Polgern's annex of the Palace under-grounds."
Melianth grinned fondly. "If that stolid old salt, insensible to emotional currents flowing around him, anticipated trouble from a crewmember, true threat existed. We confined Minfal to Ddronthys and to those ships that did not have the mainland in their itinerary."
"Finally, we had a respite from his conniving. Every few months he would return to the Swan's Down from Ddronthys or another ship, battered or with a bone broken. And we would know that he had tried to convince one of my kith that black was white. Again."
Evendal interrupted. "And a third time I ask you. Why did you endure him for so long?"
Melianth opened her mouth, but Alekrond slipped his hand from under her's and waved it to halt her. She demurred, letting her husband reply or not as he chose.
"Because, Your Majesty, one score and fifteen years ago, I dwelt for two years among the Phariki as Ekron Agrit'kelig."
The King's reaction was instantaneous. "Besayle, Uæstrho(277) Surn-meddil, detain Guard Ierwbae in his duties. Immediately."
The spectre turned its passionless countenance on the Maritime Counsellor. "Is that your desire, Master Alekrond?"
Stymied, Alekrond did not answer. He did not ken any affection for or from Minfal; indeed, he had spent the last eleven to twelve years striving to fashion a complicity or a fulcrum for mutual respect that Minfal repeatedly ignored.
The murder of a son, however estranged, was hard to contemplate. For twelve years he had offered Minfal tasks that could justify advancement, only to have the young man refuse them or perform them with flawless indifference. After twelve years of learning again and again how the son he had boarded galleys to free was by habit lazy but greedy, resented everyone for what he saw as undeserved good-fortune -- and was determined to lay claim to all Alekrond had laboured for and nurtured -- the milk of his kindness had turned. Now this squid of an offspring had latched onto his liege, a `prey' more perilous than his rabid predecessors, and all Alekrond felt was tired and empty-headed.
How could he allow his son to suffer and die so? But how could he endure more years dreading Minfal's next attempt at usurpation? Minfal would not scruple endangering Melianth and her yet-to-be-born child. Were he to say the right word, Alekrond knew Evendal would pursue a way to defy the laws of this land and permit Minfal to keep his life and all his organs-- a continuous threat to Alekrond's family and to Thronelander safety and peace of mind.
Evendal intruded into the silence of Alekrond's pain. "Almost everyone at this table has had to make a damnable decision. None will think you a stone-heart for refusing this chance. None will think you a fool for accepting it."
After several laboured breaths, Alekrond turned a conflicted countenance to his wife. "Melianth? What would be best?"
His wife responded pointedly. "For whom?"
Evendal ald'Menam raised his hand, reconsidering. "Forgive us, Counsellors. Despite Our hasty command and Lord Surn-meddil's query, We realise that the decision is not your's to make. And so Our sentence, once pronounced, is to proceed."
Surn-meddil nodded.
Alekrond sighed again. "Minfal, as I said, has left us with little choice. He is my son, yes, but he is also his own man -- long past his fourteenth year. I will grieve him. But..."
"He never knew, did he?" Evendal's glowing eyes widened in disbelief.
"About what?" Melianth asked, confused by her husband suddenly avoiding all gazes. "Of course he knew his heritage, `twas part of what pushed him to act so."
"You are the bane of every secret, Your Nosey Majesty!" the elder seaman sniped.
The King glanced back and forth between Melianth and Alekrond and a long silent Karondeo. "How many have survived to acquire captaincies?"
After a moment's staring contest, Alekrond protested, "'Twas the one repeated stupidity of my younger years. Your Majesty. Melianth."
Neither of those named responded except to stare demandingly, as Melianth realized that even now she was not yet her husband's confidante.
"Ten. Three from former crew. Four who sought me out. And three that I sought out once I learned of them."
"I am surprised you had time to command your business," the King joked weakly. "You truly are a father to your people!"
To Evendal's surprise, Melianth, once she grasped the gist of the conversation, turned toward the head of the table. "You knew this, Karondeo?"
The King's beloved looked around Edrionwytt and shrugged. "My father is a man of passions and impulses. This is why, when he insisted I was to be his heir, I insisted he cast word of it openly, and in writing, to all his ships and the ports we frequented. I feared another impulse might move him to change his decision."
"What are they?"
"The captains of Swan's Down's cadre. Though I do not know what father did with Kerrágisir?" At Melianth's blank expression, Karondeo clarified, "He was captain of the Swan's Down before father, in his peeve, gave her to me."
She turned back to her motionless husband. "When was I going to learn of this? After I had paraded our child as what they were to think as your second-born and -- with Master Karondeo exiled -- your heir? After I had made a fool of myself and insulted them with ignorant bragging?" Melianth nudged herself away from Alekrond's outstretched arms.
"How could you let...? I thought I was supporting... giving you what you had lost! Something precious. Not what you already had ten of!"
"Eleven," Alekrond murmured uncomfortably, "if we include Minfal."
Melianth glanced back toward Karondeo, then away, her orbs spilling tears. "Oh, yes," she whispered. "We include Minfal."
After respecting this overwrought scrapper's just complaint with a time of silence, Karondeo tendered a sop. "You are providing something, someone, precious, Lady Melianth. Yourself. And the second child of his line that he will have known from its very birth."
"Of the eleven, I count myself the most fortunate," Karondeo asserted solemnly. "I grew up a seaman. I did not have to learn, for a second time, habits of thinking, moving, conviviality. When I fled upriver, I had abandoned and betrayed not just my father."
"How so?"
Alekrond mumbled, "You never betrayed me."
"Only after I had left did I acknowledge how a few of my brothers relied on me almost as...their priest or nathlil. They came to me for assurance, clarity, corrections. I saw my...my life differently in listening to them, so I never laughed at their ignorance. But. They must be furious with me for leaving them."
Evendal proffered, "They will get over it, so long as you do not change toward them too much. Am I correct in guessing that the ten captains we speak of are all male?"
"Aye, Your Majesty." Alekrond answered, uncertain if he would regret this answering as he did the last.
"Then, Matron Melianth, be assured that you do indeed provide Master Alekrond with a singular grace."
Evendal found Ierowen's gaze fixed on him, and recalled he had other business. "So Minfal irritated you and plotted or anticipated violence. Did anyone else defy the King's Peace in your presence?"
"No, Your Majesty." Ierowen answered, his body as taut as Minfal's had grown.
"Had anyone sought to conceal items contraband in this setting?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Ierowen answered. Then, much to the surprise of everyone but for Surn-meddil, Aldul and Edrionwytt, the lad uncertainly tendered an enquiry. "Do you want, now, what they tried to hide?"
"If you would be so kind," Evendal nodded.
"Your Majesty," As though the discussions were a commonplace, Aldul commented blithely from his end of the table. "This gingerbread is very different from what I have eaten in Kwo-eda and called `gingerbread'."
Kri-estaul stirred, roused by the projection of Aldul's voice. "Papa?"
"Greetings, Your Highness," Ierowen blurted quickly, then blushed again.
"I slept!" he accused, frustrated. "Did I sleep through anything important?"
Ierowen was about to apprise the Prince, but Evendal spoke first. "Some fool refused Our hospitality, then tried to bargain with Us for what was Ours to begin with. You slept so sweetly, I was in no hurry to awaken you. Are you hungry yet?"
"Yes. I think so."
"I'll keep the krater in place, you claim as much as you wish." Evendal suited action to word.
Gwl-lethry bowed from the neck to his lord. "Might I answer Aldul's confusion, Your Majesty?" He looked eager to broach some innocuous topic.
Evendal, his hands full, again nodded.
"That is because of climate, Master Aldul. The traditional Osedys gingerbread survives better in the cooler weather. In Kwo-edan heat this... fondant would turn out a sodden, gooey mess. So in Kwo-eda it is made as a cake. Your Majesty, that is quite the collection."
Gwl-lethry referred to the items Ierowen had been placing on the table and to his left: A silver seal-cutter with a large oval amethyst crown. Two cubit-long cylinders, one made of bone the other of oak. Five ampoules with fluid contents; two green, two red, and one clear glass. Two talismans; one amber, one obsidian.
"How were you able to `borrow' the trinkets?" Karondeo asked, intrigued.
"While they had them, the nobs were not wearing them, not as anklet, bracelet, or necklet. This made nabbing them easy."
The King's hands otherwise engaged, Karondeo pulled at one cylinder, which separated from the middle to become a bone-handled blade in a bone sheath.
"It is a sign of the gentry's love for their deliverer," Evendal jested sourly. "And they will have more cause to love me anon."
(270) A discipline of archery purely aimed at attaining the longest distance able to be shot with a bow.
(271) ~A proverbial saying, and a double-entendre on the word `idiot.' Idiot: from Latin idiota ignorant person, from Greek - one in a private station, layman, ignorant person, from idios one's own, private; akin to Latin suus one's own.
(272) a : a spoiled child b : a squeamish woman
(273) Any obtaining by any person of property of another with his consent through a wrongful threat to do injury.
(274) Ch.19
(275) discreet / discrete Discreet is an adjective that means prudent, circumspect, or modest. Discrete is an adjective that means separate or individually distinct.
(276) Melianth is not speaking pejoratively.
(277) (waist-row) - Elder, patriarch
I know not how you good readers will percieve it, but this is -- to my mind -- the least exciting chapter so far. But necessary. And no, I did not expect Alekrond to be such a prolific fellow!