by Kage Baker
“You may,” said Lord Ermenwyr. He spread jam on his toast, dipped it into his tea and sucked at it noisily. “Oh, bliss. It’s good to be back, too. I trust the parents are both well?’
Krasp genuflected. “Your lord father and your lady mother thrive, I rejoice to say.”
“Mm. Of course. Siblings all in reasonably good health, I suppose?”
“The precious offspring of the Master and his lady continue to grace this plane, my lord, for which we in the servant’s hall give thanks hourly.”
“How nice,” said Lord Ermenwyr. He sipped his tea and inquired further: “I suppose nobody’s run a spear through my brother Eyrdway yet?”
The steward turned with a reproachful look in his sunken yellow eye. “The Variable Magnificent continues alive and well, my lord,” he said, and held up two pairs of boots of butter-soft leather. “The plain ones, my lord, or the ones with the spring-loaded daggers in the heels?”
“The plain ones,” Lord Ermenwyr replied, yawning. “I’m in the bosom of my family, after all.”
When he had dined, when he had been washed and lovingly groomed and dressed by a succession of faithful retainers, when he had admired his reflection in a long mirror and pomaded his beard and moustaches—then Lord Ermenwyr strolled forth into the corridors of the family manse, to see what amusement he might find.
He sought in vain.
All that presented itself to his quick eye was the endless maze of halls, hewn through living black basalt, lit at intervals by flickering witchlight or smoking flame, or here and there by a shaft of tinted sunbeam, from some deep-hewn arrowslit window sealed with panes of painted glass. At regular intervals armed men—well, armed males—stood guard, and each bowed respectfully as he passed, and bid him good-morning.
He looked idly into the great vaulted chamber of the baths, with its tiled pools and scented atmosphere from the orchids that twined, luxuriant, on trellises in the steamy air; but none of his sisters were in there.
He leaned on a balustrade and gazed down the stairwell, at the floors descending into the heart of the mountain. There, on level below level to the vanishing point of perspective, servants hurried with laundry, or dishes, or firewood. It was reassuring to see them, but he had learned long since that they would not stop to play.
He paused by a window and contemplated the terraced gardens beyond, secure and sunlit, paradise cleverly hidden from wayfarers on the dreadful slopes below the summit. Bees droned in white roses, or blundered sleepily in orchards, or hovered above reflecting pools. Though the bowers of his mother were beautiful beyond the praise of poets, they made Lord Ermenwyr want to scream with ennui.
He turned, hopeful, at the sound of approaching feet.
“My lord.” A tall servant bowed low. “Your lord father requests your presence in his accounting chamber.”
Lord Ermenwyr bared his teeth like a weasel at bay. All his protests, all his excuses, died unspoken at the look on the servant’s face. He reflected that at least the next hour was unlikely to be boring.
“Very well, then,” he said, and followed where the servant led him.
By the time he had crossed the threshold, he had adopted a suitably insouciant attitude and compiled a list of clever things to say. All his presence of mind was required to remember them, once he had stepped into the darkness beyond.
His father sat in a shaft of light at the end of the dark hall, behind his great black desk, in his great black chair. For all that was said of him in courts of law, for all that was screamed against him in temples, the Master of the Mountain was not in his person fearful to look upon. For all that his name was spoken in whispers by the caravan-masters, or used to frighten their children, he wore no crown of sins nor cloak of shades. He was big, black-bearded, handsome in a solemn kind of way. His black eyes were calm, patient as a stalking tiger’s.
Lord Ermenwyr, meeting those eyes, felt like a very small rabbit indeed.
“Good morning, Daddy,” he said, in the most nonchalant voice he could summon.
“Good afternoon, my son,” said the Master of the Mountain.
He pointed to a chair, indicating that Lord Ermenwyr should come forward and sit. Lord Ermenwyr did so, though it was a long walk down that dark hall. When he had seated himself, a saturnine figure in nondescript clothing stepped out of the shadows before him.
“Your report, please,” said the Master of the Mountain. The spy cleared his throat once, then read from a sheaf of notes concerning Lord Ermenwyr’s private pastimes for the last eight months. His expenses were listed in detail, to the last copper piece; his associates were named, their addresses and personal histories summarized; his favorite haunts named too, and the amount of time he spent at each.
The Master of the Mountain listened in silence, staring at his son the whole time, and though he raised an eyebrow now and then he made no comment. Lord Ermenwyr, for his part, with elaborate unconcern, drew out his smoking-tube, packed it, lit it, and sat smoking, with a bored expression on his face.
Having finished at last, the spy coughed and bowed slightly. He stepped back into the darkness.
“Well,” said Lord Ermenwyr, puffing smoke, “I don’t know why you bothered giving me that household accounts book on my last birthday. He kept much better records than I did.”
“Fifteen pairs of high-heeled boots?” said the Master of the Mountain, with a certain seismic quality in the bass reverberation of his voice.
“I can explain that! There’s only one cobbler in Deliantiba who can make really comfortable boots that give me the, er, dramatic presence I need,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “And he’s poor. I felt it was my duty to support an authentic craftsman.”
“I can’t imagine why he’s poor, at these prices,” retorted his father. “When I was your age, I’d never owned a pair of boots. Let alone boots ‘of premium-grade elkhide, dyed purple in the new fashion, with five-inch heels incorporating the unique patented Comfort-Spring lift.’”
“You missed out on a lot, eh? If you wore my size, I’d give you a pair,” said Lord Ermenwyr, cool as snowmelt, but he tensed to run all the same.
His father merely stared at him, and the lordling exhaled another plume of smoke and studied it intently. When he had begun to sweat in spite of himself, his father went on:
“Is your apothecary an authentic craftsman too?”
“You can’t expect me to survive without my medication!” Lord Ermenwyr cried. “And it’s damned expensive in a city, you know.”
“For what you spent, you might have kept three of yourselves alive,” said his father.
“Well—well, but I’ve been ill. More so than usually, I mean. I had fevers—and I’ve had this persistent racking cough—blinding headaches when I wake up every morning—and see how pale I am?” Lord Ermenwyr stammered. His father leaned forward and grinned, with his teeth very white in his black beard.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, boy, that a good sweat won’t cure. The exercise yard, quick march! Let’s see if you’ve remembered your training.”
***
“Just what I expected,” said the Master of the Mountain, as his son was carried from the exercise yard on a stretcher. Lord Ermenwyr, too winded to respond, glared at his father.
“And get that look off your face, boy. This is what comes of all those bottles of violet liqueur and vanilla éclairs,” continued his father, pulling off his great gauntlets. “And the late nights. And the later mornings.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, where a bruise was swelling. “Your reflexes aren’t bad, though. You haven’t lost any of your speed, I’ll say that much for you.”
“Thank you,” Lord Ermenwyr wheezed, with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
“I want to see you out there again tomorrow, one hour after sunrise. We’ll start with saber drill, and then you’ll run laps,” said the Master of the Mountain.
“On my sprained ankle?” Lord Ermenwyr yelled in horror.
“I see you’ve got your breath ba
ck,” replied his father. He turned to the foremost guard bearing the stretcher. “Take my son to his mother’s infirmary.
If there’s anything really the matter with him, she’ll mend it.”
“But—!” Lord Ermenwyr cried, starting up. His father merely smiled at him, and strode off to the guardroom.
***
By the time they came to his mother’s bower, Lord Ermenwyr had persuaded his bearers to let him limp along between them, rather than enter her presence prostrate and ignominious.
But as they drew near to that place of sweet airs, of drowsy light and soft perfumes, those bearers must blink and turn their faces away; and though they propped him faithfully, and were great and horrible in their black livery and mail, the two warriors shivered to approach the Saint of the World. Lord Ermenwyr, knowing well that none of his father’s army could meet his mother’s gaze, sighed and bid them leave him.
“But, little Master, we must obey your lord father,” groaned one, indistinctly through his tusks.
“It’s all right; most of the time I can’t look her in the eye, myself,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Besides, you were only told to bring me to the infirmary, right? So there’s a semantic loophole for you.”
Precise wording is extremely important to demons. Their eyes (bulging green and smoldering red respectively) met, and after a moment’s silent debate the two bowed deeply and withdrew, murmuring their thanks. Lord Ermenwyr sighed, and tottered on through the long grass alone.
He saw the white-robed disciples walking in the far groves, or bending between the beds of herbs, gathering, pruning, planting. Their plain-chant hummed through the pleasant air like bee song, setting his teeth on edge somehow. He found his mother at last, silhouetted against a painfully sunlit bower of blossoming apple, where she bent over a sickbed.
“…the ointment every day, do you understand? You must have patience,” she was saying, in her gentle ruthless voice. She looked over her shoulder and saw her son. He felt her clear gaze go through him, and he stood still and fidgeted as she turned back to her patient. She laid her hand upon the sufferer’s brow, murmured a blessing; only then did she turn her full attention to Lord Ermenwyr.
He knelt awkwardly. “Mother.”
“My child.” She came forward and raised him to his feet. Having embraced him, she said:
“You haven’t sprained your ankle, you know.”
“It hurts,” he said, and his lower lip trembled. “You think I’m lying again, I suppose.”
“No,” she said, patiently. “You truly believe you’re in pain. Come and sit down, child.”
She led him into the deeper shade, and drew off his boot (looking without comment on its five-inch heel). One of her disciples brought him a stoneware cup of cold spring water, and watched with wide eyes as she examined Lord Ermenwyr’s ankle. Where her fingers passed, the lordling felt warmth entering in. His pain melted away like frost under sunlight, but he braced himself for what else her healing hands would learn in their touch.
“I know what you’ll tell me next,” he said, testily. “You’ll say I haven’t been exercising enough. You’ll tell me I’ve been eating and drinking too much. You’ll tell me I shouldn’t wear shoes with heels this high, because it doesn’t matter how tall I am. You’ll tell me I’m wasting myself on pointless self-indulgences that leave me sick and depressed and penniless.”
“Why should I tell you what you already know?” his mother replied. He stared sullenly into his cup of water.
“And you’ll reproach me about Lady Seelice and Lady Thyria. And the little runner, what’s-her-name, you’ll be especially sorrowful that I can’t even remember the name of a girl I’ve seduced. Let alone chambermaids without number. And…and you’ll tell me about all those poor tradesmen whose livelihoods depend on people like me paying bills on time, instead of skipping town irresponsibly.”
“That’s true,” said his mother.
“And, of course, you’ll tell me that I don’t really need all those drugs!” Lord Ermenwyr announced. “You’ll tell me that I imagine half of my fevers and coughs and wasting diseases, and that neither relief nor creative fulfillment will come from running around artist’s salons with my pupils like pinpoints. And that it all comes from my being bored and frustrated. And that I’d feel better at once if I found some honest work putting my tremendous talents to good use.”
“How perceptive, my darling,” said his mother.
“Have I left anything out?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You see?” Lord Ermenwyr demanded tearfully, turning to the disciple. “She’s just turned me inside out, like a sock. I can’t keep one damned secret from her.”
“All things are known to Her,” said the disciple, profoundly shocked at the lordling’s blasphemy. He hadn’t worked there very long.
“And now, do you know what else she’s going to do?” said Lord Ermenwyr, scowling at him. “She’s going to nag at me to go to the nursery and visit my bastard children.”
“Really?” said the disciple, even more shocked.
“Yes,” said his mother, watching as he pulled his boot back on. He started to stamp off, muttering, but turned back hastily and knelt again. She blessed him in silence, and he rose and hurried away.
“My son is becoming wise,” said the Saint of the World, smiling as she watched him go.
***
The way to the nursery was mazed and obscured, for the Master of the Mountain had many enemies, and hid well where his seed sheltered. Lord Ermenwyr threaded the labyrinth without effort, knowing it from within. As he vaulted the last pit, as he gave the last password, his heart grew more cheerful. He would shortly behold his dear old nurse again!
Twin demonesses guarded the portal, splendid in black livery and silver mail. The heels of their boots were even higher than his, and much sharper. They grinned to see him, baring gold-banded fangs in welcome.
“Ladies, you look stunning today,” he told them, twirling his moustaches. “Is Balnshik on duty?”
“She is within, little lord,” hissed the senior of the two, and lifted her blade to let him pass.
He entered quite an ordinary room, long and low, with a fire burning merrily in the hearth behind a secure screen. Halfway up the walls was a mural painted in tones of pink and pale blue, featuring baby rabbits involved in unlikely pastimes.
Lord Ermenwyr curled his lip. Three lace-gowned infants snuffled in cots here; four small children sat over a shared game there, in teeny-tiny chairs around a teeny-tiny table; another child rocked to and fro on a ponderous wooden beast bright-painted; three more sat before a comfortable-looking chair at the fireside, where a woman in a starched white uniform sat reading to them.
“…but the people in that village were very naughty and tried to ambush his ambassadors, so he put them all to the sword,” she said, and held up the picture so they could all see.
“Ooo,” chorused the tots.
She, having meanwhile noticed Lord Ermenwyr, closed the book and rose to her feet with sinuous grace.
“Little Master,” she said, looking him up and down. “You’ve put on weight.”
He winced.
“Oh, Nursie, how unkind,” he said.
“Nonsense,” Balnshik replied. She was arrogantly beautiful. Her own body was perfect, ageless, statuesque and bosomy as any little boy’s dream, or at least Lord Ermenwyr’s little boy dreams, and there was a dangerous glint in her dark eye and a throaty quality to her voice that made him shiver even now.
“I’ve come about the, er, the…those children I—had,” he said. “For a sort of visit.”
“What a delightful surprise!” Balnshik said, in well-bred tones of irony. She turned and plucked from the rocking beast a wretched-looking little thing in a green velvet dress. “Look who’s come to see us, dear! It’s our daddy. We scarcely knew we had one, did we?”
Baby and parent stared at one another in mutual dismay. The little boy turned his face into Balns
hik’s breast and screamed dismally.
“Poor darling,” she crooned, stroking his limp curls. “We’ve been teething again and we’re getting over a cold, and that makes us fretful. We’re just like our daddy, aren’t we? Would he like to hold us?”
“Perhaps not,” said Lord Ermenwyr, doing his best not to run from the room. “I might drop it. Him. What do you mean, he’s just like me?”
“The very image of you at that age, Master,” Balnshik assured him, serenely unbuttoning her blouse. “Same pasty little face, same nasty look in his dear little eyes, same tendency to shriek and drum his little heels on the floor when he’s cross. And he gets that same rash you did, all around his little—”
“Wasn’t there another one?” inquired Lord Ermenwyr desperately.
“You know perfectly well there is,” said Balnshik, watching tenderly as the baby burrowed toward comfort. “Your lord father’s still paying off the girl’s family, and your lady sister will never be able to hold another slumber party for her sorority. Where is he?” She glanced over at the table. “There we are! The one in the white tunic. Come and meet your father, dear.”
The child in question, one of those around the table, got up reluctantly. He came and clung to Balnshik’s leg, peering up at his father.
“Well, you look like a fine manly little fellow, anyway,” said Lord Ermenwyr.
“You look like a very bad man,” stated the child.
“And he’s clever!” said Lord Ermenwyr, preening a bit. “Yes, my boy, I am rather a bad man. In fact, I’m a famous villain. What else have you heard about your father?”
The boy thought.
“Grandpapa says when I’m a man, I can challenge you to a fight and beat you up,” he said gravely. “But I don’t think I want to.”
“You don’t eh?” A spark of parental feeling warmed in Lord Ermenwyr’s heart. “Why not, my boy?”
“Because then I will be bigger than you, and you will be old and weak and have no teeth,” the child explained. “It wouldn’t be fair.”
