by Dave Duncan
“I was going to ask if you need help,” Rasny said, “but you obviously don’t.”
Irona stood up. “Take over, please. I’ve had enough.”
She thought she would never sleep again, but in fact the massacre did not weigh long on her conscience. The accusations from the women jurors had confirmed the sort of scum she was exterminating, and the world was a cleaner place without them. There was nothing romantic about piracy.
The next day the mass hearse was towed well out to sea and set afire, sending roasted pirates to feed the hagfish and lobsters. Rasny left a large contingent of marines at Udice to refurbish the pirate vessels and defend the inhabitants from any pirates who had managed to escape inland, but the villagers predicted they would soon freeze there, or die of thirst.
The sun shone, and Caprice sent a north wind to speed the expedition’s triumphant return to Benign. Those captains whose craft no longer carried marines were talking of seeking other cargoes. It was a good time for seals, and the humpback whale migration was almost due.
As Pelican neared the mouth of the fiord with Captain Aporchal at the tiller, he turned a regretful eye on his distinguished passenger, who was leaning on the rail talking with her pretty-boy guard.
“You’ll be in haste to get back, ma’am?” he asked tentatively.
Irona could guess exactly what the big old rogue was thinking: it was a great honor to have her aboard, but there was a lot to be said for a hold full of baby seal pelts.
“I’d love to skin a walrus or two again for old times’ sake, Captain. But I’m afraid I must report to the Seventy as soon as possible. However,” she added thoughtfully, “I was going to ask if we could make a brief detour. I’d like to visit Kadowan.”
Aporchal’s expression changed as if he had been kicked in the crotch. “Can’t advise that, ma’am. No, no. A long way off our course. Very dangerous shore there. Bad currents, lot of fog.”
Irona felt Vly bristle at this defiance, and nudged him into silence with her elbow. “I’m sure your advice is good, Captain.”
A few minutes later, when they had moved forward and thus downwind and out of earshot, Vly angrily demanded, “What was all that about?”
“Kadowan Island. It’s small, very rocky, no water, no inhabitants, no really safe landing.”
“But why did he react like that?”
The trouble with keeping secrets from Vly, which she was forced to do sometimes, was that he knew her very well. Better than anyone else did, certainly.
“I’d rather not tell you, lover. It really doesn’t matter.”
He smiled forgiveness, but she knew her evasion rankled. The secret of Kadowan Island could explain how Irona Matrinko had become Irona 700 and it was better that nobody else know that.
The Year 709
Effort begot success and success begot jealousy. Udice made Irona 700 a hero in the eyes of the younger Chosen and the people, but the establishment subtly closed ranks against any more wild adventures. Children simply could not be trusted with authority—given her head, she had callously chopped off more than two hundred heads. For the next few years Irona was loaded up with well-paying but routine offices: Fish Markets, Education, Harbors, Night Watch, Property Commission, Morality, and so on. She always did her best and never complained.
Time was on her side. Dostily 631’s tide ebbed at last and he was succeeded as First by Knipry 640. More and more younger faces were gathering around Irona at meetings of the Seventy and, although she was careful to continue deferring to Ledacos 692 as her patron, she could deliver almost as many votes as he could without her. She played the game, never making enemies, always collecting IOUs against the future. In 707, she won a hotly contested seat on the Treaty Board and spent the entire summer inspecting allied ports on the mainland.
In 708, she was elected to several offices, including a seat on the Treason Court, which was an honor, but an empty one, because the Treason Court heard few cases, and in most years none at all. The stipend was correspondingly low. A few days before her term would end, the Republic was appalled to hear that a Chosen had been murdered. The victim was Trodelat 680, Irona’s former tutor, and the chief suspect was her majordomo, freedman Jamarko.
For the two days that elapsed between the announcement and the trial, Irona agonized over her responsibility in the matter. Her former relationship with the deceased offered a slim chance that she might persuade the First to excuse her from participating. For three nights she barely slept, tossing and turning, thrashing in nightmares, and keeping Vlyplatin awake also.
“I do not understand,” he said, clutching her to him as if she were a wild animal trying to escape, “why your former friendship—which I hardly believe in anyway, from some of the stories you tell of her—should exclude you. I would have thought you would want to see her killer punished.”
That was precisely the problem. Justices of the Treason Court were required to witness the executions they ordered.
“I knew Jamarko, too.”
“But you always told me you disliked and distrusted him. Sounds like your judgment was better than Trodelat’s. Of course, I’ve always thought it was.” Vlyplatin tried nibbling her ear.
“But he isn’t a citizen!”
“So?”
“So they don’t just hang him!”
“Serves him right.” Ear nibbling did no good. “Would it help if I sexually violated you now?”
“No!”
“Oh?” he said judiciously. “I think I will anyway.”
Of course Irona had known from the start that it was her duty to serve. She never evaded a duty and didn’t in this case. The Treason Court always comprised the First, two Sevens, and two other Chosen. As the most junior, Irona sat at the far left.
The prisoner was led in, clattering his chains. Irona had never seen Jamarko except in armor, and now he wore only a slave’s sack. Somehow he seemed more of a man in it, or perhaps that illusion sprang from the way he held his head up in spite of his captors’ efforts to humble him. He had been savagely beaten. He recognized her and smiled, but his smile was a toothless grimace that must have hurt his battered face.
He admitted his name, heard the charge, and mumbled that he pled guilty.
The First frowned. “You realize that the punishment for murdering a Chosen is the sea death?”
Jamarko sneered. “It was worth it.” His speech was slurred.
“Has the accused been tortured?”
The chief bailiff said, “No, Your Reverence. He never denied his guilt and there were several witnesses.”
Elevation to head of state had not sweetened old Knipry’s acidulous humor. “No torture, but he has fallen down several flights of stairs recently and landed on a hot stove every time?”
“He was questioned about his motive and possible accomplices, Your Reverence.”
“Defendant, you admit you killed a Chosen of the goddess?”
“I broke her neck with my bare hands,” Jamarko said proudly.
“Why do such a terrible thing?”
Another gaping smile. “To be a man again,” he said, his mutilated mouth mangling his speech. “For twelve years she used me as a toy—me, once a cadet captain of the Havrani! Three days ago she dismissed me. Told me to turn in my weapons and armor and leave. Turned me out in the street with not so much as a crust. She had put a boy in my place!”
The worm had turned at last, but it had turned into a serpent.
“Questions?” Knipry glanced along the bench and met only silence. He turned his disk to black. The four others concurred. He spoke the legal formula: “You are sent to the goddess for her justice.” Then he added, “Don’t ask me for mercy, because you won’t get it.”
The prisoner spat at him and was clubbed down by the guards.
“Bailiff, what time is low tide today?”
“Right about now, Your Reverence.”
“Then the execution will be held three days from now. We decree the usual public holiday.”
On the appointed day, Irona and the other judges—plus most of the rest of the Seventy—were rowed in the state galley to Execution Bridge, which was close to the northern entrance to the bay, across from Brackish. Huge crowds from the city were already in place, with more streaming in by land and water.
The site of the execution was a gully that cut through the headland, dry at low tide, an arm of the sea at the flood. When the Chosen arrived, the grassy slopes on either side of the gap were already packed with spectators, many of whom must have been there all night. None of the thousands still on their way were going to find good vantage points, but those who had were in no small danger. There were many records of human avalanches on those slopes, with hundreds of people swept down to join the condemned. When the goddess was being especially capricious, she would smash boatloads of bloodthirsty spectators on the rocks. “The Cruel One” was well named.
The five justices sat in an official gallery of black basalt, whose benches were well cushioned, and whose roof provided welcome shade and protection from the view of gawking spectators. As soon as the justices were seated in their places, with the other Chosen standing around it, the prisoner was marched out to the center of the pass and chained there by the ankles. Naked except for the cruel iron branks around his head that would prevent him from uttering a death curse, he was left to wait upon the mercy of the goddess.
Having studied reports of previous executions, Irona knew that sometimes the spectators cheered these human sacrifices, sometimes mocked them, and sometimes wailed or threatened riot. So far this crowd remained ominously silent. Jamarko turned painfully until he faced the judges, then urinated in their direction. Still the crowd neither cheered nor booed.
He had hours to wait until the full tide swept through there, and even then it might not be deep enough to drown him. There were records of tall men surviving virtually unharmed, unable to swim because of the weight of chain on their ankles, but standing with their faces raised above a mirror-calm sea. Such survivors were deemed to have been pardoned by the goddess. The horror was barnacles, which completely covered the rocks and even the chains. Jamarko’s feet and ankles were already bleeding and he could not sit down without increasing his torment. The sea looked deceptively calm at present, but the swell was quite enough to send breakers foaming through the gap when the tide rose. No man could stand against the might of the waves. At first he would be able to cling to rocks, but they would abrade him. Eventually, he must be torn free and dragged back and forth on his tethers. The stronger he was, the longer he would suffer.
A man’s hand settled on Irona’s knee; Ledacos 692 was kneeling beside her. She edged away from the hand, and it was withdrawn. He never stopped hinting, but he treated all women that way. She bent her head to hear what he wanted. Her neighbor on her right was chatting with the First and probably wouldn’t care what she discussed with her patron.
Ledacos whispered. “I’m thinking of trying to succeed Rasny. How do you rate my chances?”
Rasny 650’s term as a Seven was due to expire in a couple of weeks, and he would be ineligible for reelection for a year. But already? Ledacos was only thirty-three.
“I thought forty was the minimum. Are there precedents?”
He chuckled. “I want to set one. There were a couple of thirty-eight-year-olds, back a century or so. How many hands could you deliver?”
She stopped short of saying she would need time to think. Anything that would distract her at the moment would be better than sitting staring at a man waiting to be rasped down to bare bones. So think!
There were eight Chosen junior to her now, although two were still in tutelage. Pavouk 708 had promised to fasten his flag to her mast, but he would not be free of his tutor until after the election. He seemed such a cunning young rascal that she was flattered he considered her worthy of his support. The other six would follow her lead, especially in a vote as important as the election of a Seven.
“Seven for certain,” she said, “including me. Another four possibly, depending on your competition.”
“You can do better than that!”
“If I put my back into it, maybe another three,” she said. “You know how reluctant some men are to be led by a woman. But a lot of mine will support you anyway. I won’t waste my credit chasing mermaids. Who’s going to run against you?”
Ledacos smiled cryptically. “I estimate sixty-two Chosen voting in a three-way race, so anything over about twenty-six on the first ballot has a good chance of winning.”
“The old guard will make it a two-way fight just to keep you from collecting votes on a second ballot, sonny.”
He nodded, not taking offense. “Maybe. What do you have your eye on next?”
She shrugged. “I remind you that I am presently warming three benches. My ass is not wide enough for more.”
“It’s a beautiful ass. You can be promoted!”
A Chosen could not refuse election to anything, but almost all of them held several offices, and when two positions could not be reconciled, resignation was permitted. Another Chosen would then have to be brought in, often resulting in a cascade of replacements. The length of term remained the same, counted from the day of election, so elections happened all year round. Only the goddess’s choosing had a fixed date.
“To what?” Irona asked warily. She felt she was about due for something prestigious, but she would never say so.
Ledacos chuckled. “In four days we elect a new governor for Vult. Two-year term. Go for that!”
“Vult? Why on earth should I want Vult?” Vult was a fortress in the far north, at the end of the Benesh Empire. Even South Wind had never gone that close to the Dread Lands. Grim, cold, and remote, yuck! “I suppose the gratuity is enormous, so I will be able to buy basketfuls of jewels?”
“The gratuity is a miserable pittance.”
“Huh?” That made no sense.
Ledacos was smirking, definitely up to something. “You want a worthy cause? You’re always looking for causes. Go to Vult and clean it up! You know how much. … Or perhaps you aren’t aren’t familiar with the market in black magic?”
“Of course not! Are you?”
Ledacos smiled. He always knew everything. He must be aware that she had slept with a human billy goat for years without conceiving. Twice she had been forced to replace the Malefic talisman she used to ward off babies. But when it grew too smooth to make out the grotesque face engraving, it would stop working, so said the legend. The first time Vly had obtained a replacement for her, it had cost thousands, but the second time much less.
“Believe me, then,” Ledacos said, “a torrent of fixes is flowing south these days, rivers of evil spreading all through the Empire. Vult is supposed to keep it out. It doesn’t, anymore.”
“Why not?”
“The present governor is Zajic 677. The next one will probably be Redkev 676, who was the previous governor, having succeeded Zajic two years ago. The pair of them have been playing catch with it for the last dozen years.”
Irona wondered why she had never noticed that strange alternation in the governorship of Vult during her nine years as a Chosen. Lower price meant larger supply and therefore more customers. It was obvious; why did it take a political genius like Ledacos to see a wrong that screamed for righting?
“What happens if anyone runs against them?”
“Nobody wants to, because the money is terrible, the weather appalling, and the sky turns purple and green. Not to mention the ghouls.”
“Tell me about the ghouls.”
Ledacos stopped smiling. “The army prefers to call them the Shapeless. They haven’t been seen since Eboga 500 whipped their asses. They cannot get into the rock of Vult itself, and they shun dayligh
t. As long as you don’t go for long walks at night, you should be safe.”
“You believe in them?” She had thought the ghouls were just bogeymen to scare children.
“I believe Maleficence rules the Dread Lands and the evil must be contained. It’s a vitally important job, Irona, and it is not being done properly. The Empire is being poisoned with fixes.”
He had given her the bones and she could add the flesh for herself. It was not true that the goddess’s Chosen could never be bought. They lacked for nothing, but most of them had children or other family who could benefit. The kickbacks from an illicit trade in Eldritch fixes would be mountainous.
“You guarantee that I won’t find moray eels in my bed or succumb to terminal dandruff the moment I announce my candidacy?”
“The point is this,” Ledacos said, choosing not to answer that question. “You and I are known to be partners—political partners, not bedmates, unfortunately, although I keep hoping. If we put ourselves about, twist all the arms, call in all the favors owed us, promise the moon, we can beat Redkev and elect you governor of Vult. Then I run for Rasny’s seat on the Seven! The waverers will jump aboard our bandwagon.”
And Irona would earn two delightful years on the edge of the Dread Lands itself, being stalked by Shapeless. She said, “Not today, thank you.”
“It is your duty, Irona 700! The frontier of evil there was set by Eldborg 300 and reestablished by Eboga 500. This is why the goddess chose you on that special turn-of-the-century year. Both of those men went on to be First, and great Firsts they were, too.”
“Nice try, but the answer is still no.”
The crowd sighed with a sound like a spouting whale. The first ripples had reached Jamarko’s feet.
“It’s started,” she said.
