by Dave Duncan
Travel began to seem more appealing. The clothes were unfamiliar—the women wore neck-high robes, brighter and more elaborate than simple Skjaran wraps, the men mostly just pleated kilts. Hair was longer, smells were spicier, laughter louder, and even the alley dogs seemed to bark in an unfamiliar accent.
"I will be honest," Ingeld said, expertly driving, acknowledging the plaudits of the crowd, and making conversation, all at the same time. "My son is far from ready for marriage. A mother should not say such things, but five years would not be too long. Weru's training cultivates crass and overmuscled juvenile horrors. I was forced into marriage with one. Horold was a stunningly handsome man and certainly the pick of the litter, but life with him has not been easy." She bit her lip. "You know all about the children of Hrag, of course?"
"I understand that the sister rules the brothers, except maybe Stralg."
Golden eyes shot a sideways glance at Fabia. "Have you heard any rumors that the Queen of Shadows is not their sister?"
"No, my lady, I mean Ingeld ... What else could she be?"
Ingeld smiled softly at the alley ahead. "There are dark whispers that she is their mother, Hrag's widow. She has also borne four sons to Eide Ernson. Her remarkable preservation is taken as evidence that she is a Chosen."
"No one doubts that in Skjar."
"Chosen look after their own. She raised Horold. She can still terrify him. I am taking you to meet your brother. That is agreeable?"
"Oh, yes! I always hated being an only child, and now I learn of three brothers!"
"You did not know your history?"
Fabia told of her upbringing by the wealthy merchant and his Florengian wife, and what she officially knew of her past. She heard in turn about Benard's arrival as a stricken child and his blossoming into the finest artist in the city, perhaps in all Vigaelia.
"He is not the most practical of men, but we all love him," Ingeld concluded.
"I hope my return to Celebre will not put him in danger," Fabia said warily.
Another stab of the brilliant eyes: "I hope so, too. We must persuade him to accompany you to Tryfors for the wedding."
"Would he not be safer here?"
"No! Absolutely not. There he is. As you see, there is quite a lot of him."
The chariot had emerged onto empty ground, a sunburned weed patch beside a high, circular building. At the far corner three white statues stood incongruously in front of some sort of storage shed. Two men were working on them—a leggy Vigaelian boy and a Florengian. Fabia's heart was racing. Fable was about to become reality and produce a genuine, living, breathing brother.
The man had been crouching beside one of the figures, polishing its leg with a cloth and abrasive. He looked up, scowling angrily at the interruption. Then he rose, and she saw that he was not unusually tall, just very wide and thick... his black hairiness was barely concealed by a leather overall that seemed to be his only garment... dusty, sweaty, unshaven, unkempt. Unprepossessing. A quarry worker—with a wrist seal.
He saw Ingeld and a smile like summer sunrise turned him into a huge, overgrown boy, black stubble and all. As the lady skillfully brought the chariot to a halt without ever reaching for the brake, Benard's dark eyes switched to Fabia and stretched wide.
The apprentice came running forward, all awkward arms and legs and gaping smile. "My lady! Great honor.. ."
"Veslih bless you, Thod!" Ingeld said. "Will you water them for me? And walk them a little?" She accepted the boy's hand to descend and gave him the reins.
Fabia left the car without noticing she had done so. Benard was still staring at her as if she were a sending from the Dark One. She could do no better than stare back at him. Twenty-three was not really old at all. He had incredible arms ... wavy black hair down to his shoulders ... eyes black, lustrous.
She stopped just before she walked into him.
"Fabia?" he said in a sort of squeak.
"Brother!"
"Mother's eyes." He touched her face with a hairy knuckle. "Cheekbones from Father, but the rest is all Mother... They told me you were dead!"
"No one ever told me about you at all."
Whereupon Master Artist Celebre uttered a scream that raised pigeons from half Kosord. He grabbed his sister, swung her up like a child, spun around several times. Setting her down again, he kissed her and yelled, "Fabia, Fabia, Fabia, Fabia!" He was stronger than the Wrogg in flood and gentler than thistledown. Where had he been all her life? "Oh, Fabia!" He kissed her again.
Fabia's eyelids prickled painfully. She hugged him in return, and kissed him, all stubbly.
"You two know each other, I see," Ingeld remarked.
He roared, "Why didn't you tell me she was coming?" Which was no way to address the dynast.
"Because I didn't know. Are you going to crush her to death?"
He laughed and apologized and kissed Fabia yet again, all at once, and finally he let her go. For a moment it seemed as if he would grab Ingeld and kiss her also, but he remembered his manners and bowed low.
"Benard, you'd better know this right away. I told you your father is very sick. He may have returned to the womb already. Fabia is on her way home to Celebre."
His face went wooden. "Female succession? What of Dantio? Is he not the heir?"
"He's dead. You know that." She spoke to him like a mother or a teacher. "And it wouldn't necessarily be him, even if he weren't."
"You are not plotting to make me a doge, I hope?"
"Only the gods do miracles. Benard, Fabia is to marry Cutrath."
He turned almost as pale as a Vigaelian. He yelled, "No!"
"Benard—"
"No! No!"
Across the yard the echoes agreed, "No! No!"
"Benard—"
"No! I am her eldest surviving male relative and I absolutely forbid—"
"Don't be such a puddle-brained, idiotic—"
"Over my dead body and any other bodies I—"
Fabia concluded that they were not going to sit down in some comfortable, shady place for a family chat. Back in Skjar artists ranked just above laborers, well below merchants and artisans, while Ingeld sprang from a long line of royal foremothers—twelve generations in Kosord alone—yet here these two were screaming at each other like bazaar hucksters in a slow spell. Thod, walking the team slowly by, stared with owl eyes at the unseemly squabble.
One might conclude that Benard did not approve of Cutrath Horoldson and that Ingeld thought he was being unrealistic, but the quarrel had sprung up much too fast to be only that. Fabia had seen the same pattern in her friends, in her father's employees, and even in the riverfolk. She was almost certain that Benard and Ingeld were yelling about this because they dared not yell about some other, more important thing. Curious!
"You want my opinion?" she asked.
Benard wheeled on her. "No, I do not..."
Ingeld said, "You keep out of ... Yes, of course we do."
"Tell us, Sister," he said hastily.
"With no disrespect to your fine son, Ingeld, I will not marry a Werist. Any Werist. Benard, if Stralg wants to use me to control Celebre, then he will leave no rival claimants alive. Saltaja will see you dead before she leaves here, and yelling at each other won't help the situation."
The disputants eyed each other warily and declared a truce.
Benard folded his massive arms. "How do you plan to escape the Cutrath disaster?"
"I shall need your help. As my nearest male relative, you have a duty to escort me to Tryfors."
He pouted. "Satrap Horold would rather I remain here in Kosord, in an unmarked grave."
"We'll discuss it tonight," Ingeld said firmly. "Um, everything all right for tonight?"
He grinned with what seemed like sheer boyish glee. "She's willing!" He did not deign to explain to his sister who was willing to do what.
"Get your hair cut," Ingeld said, sounding more like a mother than dynast of the city. "I'll send a chariot for you. The brother of the bride must be
present at the feast. Did your robe arrive? I'll send one for Thod, too!"
Benard's huge grin flashed back, wiping ten years from him. "He'll eat himself sick and his mother will die of pride!"
"That's what feasts are for." Ingeld waved to the boy to bring the chariot.
Fabia had just taken her first proper look at the three silent bystanders, the marble goddesses. Horth would give gold by the bucket for such art. "Benard, you carved these? But they're ... beyond words! Oh, I am so proud to have a brother who can do this. This is holy Mayn, of course? And this one? ..."
twenty-nine
INGELD NARSDOR
whipped up the team and sent the chariot rattling across the yard. That had gone very well. She had not blushed like a child on seeing her lover and Benard had behaved himself as well as could be expected. Fabia could have no reason to guess their secret.
"Does he remember?" the girl asked.
"Remember what?"
"His parents giving him away—our parents."
"Yes he does. It scarred him terribly. The first time I met him, he was curled up in a ball. It was a sixday before he would uncurl long enough to feed himself." For a thirty or so, she had been the only person who could get him to straighten out. A year later—when he had finally stopped following her around the palace all the time, when he would sometimes talk with other people, even play with other children—any mention of his family, his home, the war, any of those, and he would promptly just curl up again. On some level, he was still doing it.
Fabia said, "Is he bitter?"
"Very."
"I don't. Remember, I mean. I was a baby."
"Of course not. Curse my sister-in-law! She is going to drag you away before we can even begin to get to know each other." But Fabia's arrival could have been a serious impediment to the lovers' planned flight, for she would certainly notice their disappearance, even if everyone else was too busy partying. So bless Saltaja for whipping her away again so promptly! "And you'll miss most of the feast. You don't have to eat until you're sick, but you are entirely free to do so."
The girl laughed, neither too much nor too little. She was strong and deep-breasted, not sylphlike like Benard's goddesses, but she sparkled with youth and health, and her royal breeding showed in poise and diffidence, wit and intelligence. Broad shoulders must run in the family. She would be wasted on Cutrath, who had not yet discovered that women had uses outside bedrooms.
Fabia might also be a spoiled brat, accustomed to getting her own way, overindulged by a wealthy father. Her demand that Benard drop everything to escort her, while not absurd, could have been more tactfully phrased. Her flat assertion that she would never marry a Werist was as unrealistic as some of his crazier logic. It was a rare bride who had any say in the selection of her husband, and girls with dynastic claims never did, as Ingeld well knew. Fabia would be taken to Tryfors under guard, and there her choice would be wedding ring with or without thumbscrews.
"Benard is stubborn, isn't he?" Fabia asked.
"Bena? Why, he flows as smoothly as the Wrogg."
"And only one way?" She was quick.
"Exactly one." Ingeld waved to acknowledge cheers. "He refuses to see trouble until he steps in it. Who was the man who came with you?"
"My foster father, Horth Wigson. Saltaja brought him along as hostage for the hostage. I suspect Eide is currently looting his home and business."
"Very likely. I saw him dissolve into the crowd. It was smoothly done." His absence might tempt Fabia to try an escape, Ingeld thought, and wondered if the girl knew how dangerous Saltaja Hragsdor was. "Will he be all right?"
"He will own half of Kosord within the year."
It was Ingeld's turn to laugh. "We have Ucrists here, too." Fabia's grin was impish. "Pity them."
♦
Ingeld swept into the palace like a spring flood. She summoned the flankleader of the palace guard; sent for a pair of golden rods; committed Fabia to the tender care of San-sya, who rushed her away, both of them chattering happily in Florengian; established that Saltaja had been given a room but was now closeted with Horold and thus safely out of the way; ascertained that preparations for the feast were in full roar, with edible meats due almost at once; added Thod to the list of honored guests to receive festive wreaths and robes; and settled a dozen other problems.
By then she had reached her chamber. She tossed a handful of godswood on the smoldering coals in the brazier and paced a few lengths while she went over her escape plan. She could not hope to deceive the Witnesses, but they never volunteered information. By the time Horold got around to asking questions, she should be far, far away.
Two youngsters knelt in the doorway, each clutching a gilded baton.
"Come in." She smiled to put them at ease. Neither was known to her and they were both so sweaty and dusty that they had obviously been working hard already, but she had expected as much today, which was one reason why she had summoned two. The other reason was that two rods made a message an affair of state.
"Both of you to High Priest Nrakfin," she said. "Make sure there are other priests in attendance, understand?"
They both nodded and the taller boy smiled slightly, so she need not labor the point. Nrakfin's aides would see that her commands were obeyed.
"Say to him: "The Nymph of holy Eriander known as Hiddi, who dwells in the Lesser Street of Silversmiths, has given grave affront to holy Veslih. The woman must be brought in penitent garb to the Shrine of Repentance and our gravest ban shall fall on any who delay her.' Repeat."
They parroted it back, watching each other's lips for timing.
"Good. Go."
They did not merely go; they fled. It must be ten years since Ingeld had threatened anyone with exile, and old Nrakfin would gibber if he understood. His aides would pass the thunderbolt on to the light of Eriander, and it would be up to her to deliver the package.
Flankleader Guthlag was next, beaming toothlessly and bowing in proper Werist fashion—a move he had been quite unable to make before Ingeld's last attempt to ship Benard out of town.
"You sent for me, lady?"
"Indeed I did, Packleader," she said, giving him the rank he had borne in the days before Horold. "I want to ask a favor."
"Anything at all, of course."
"Not unlike the last one I asked of you. When the hostages check in today, can you arrange to see them alone?"
Only one hostage was required to register at the guard room these days, and the old man caught her meaning at once, leering his pleasure. She had never doubted that he would aid her flight. Quite apart from his lifelong loyalty to her, he had always had a soft spot for Benard and now additionally credited Bena with finding an excuse for him to battleform and so cure his rheumatism. That was not how Benard told it, but Guthlag looked ten years younger than he had before their escapade in the summer. He was even staying sober.
"No difficulty, my lady. I was thinking of taking a stroll down to the temple." Meaning he could talk privately with Benard there.
They exchanged a few meaningless remarks and the Werist departed. Guthlag would do his part, but last night Ingeld had given Benard a bag of silver for expenses. She hoped he would not mislay it before Guthlag got there.
Now back to the feast—the anteroom was again full of people with problems.
♦
Ingeld's everyday dress as a Daughter was ostentatious enough, but her festival robes were a state treasure, copiously decorated with amber, coral, topaz, rubies, car-nelians, jasper, and garnets. She could not sit down in them, but she could fill a small room, and her headdress was an eruption of red and gold feathers that posed problems in all but the highest doorways. She had long ago learned to tolerate the weight and discomfort in exchange for the awe she could provoke in almost anyone. By the time she was made ready for the feast, the garden outside was shadowed and the sky burned sunset-red.
She was advised that the two Celebre hostages were awaiting her pleasure in the anteroom. She
was also informed that a woman in penitent garb had been delivered to the Shrine of Repentance. She sent for Tene and Sansya.
"There is a vicious old baggage Nymph in the Shrine. Tene, summon a Witness and scribes for a trial. We'll make it quick and run her out of town. Sansya, take three or four acolytes, and don't let her within arm's length of a man, whatever you do. Show her the shackles, whips, and branding irons, and explain how they are used. Then bring her here... Go around by the Great Corridor and Crystal Court..."
She outlined an itinerary that would show Hiddi the wealth and grandeur of the palace. She would walk high-vaulted halls and wide corridors, see polychrome murals, mosaics of semiprecious stones, paneling of fruit woods and alabaster, furniture of gilt and ivory, tin and amber, rare fabrics and soft furs. She would pass early feasters starting in on meats and fruits piled high on gold and silver platters; heaps of fish and beans, dates, peaches, innumerable cheeses, cucumbers, and poultry; rivers of beer fortified with mead; wine cooled in the palace cellars, all being served by many sixty servants. She would see the dancers and tumblers, hear the musicians and the laughter of jeweled nobles reclining on their couches. If that didn't do it, Ingeld thought, she was sadly misjudging her victim. Sansya looked puzzled, but went off to obey.
Ingeld called for the Celebres and threw more godswood twigs on the brazier.
Fabia entered first and Ingeld saw she had been too hasty to judge someone who had spent many sixdays on the river without a single attendant. Not sylphlike, no, but the girl did have beauty beyond the mere glow of youth. Surprisingly, her dresser had robed her in dark colors, a gown of deep blue and costly purple that gave her a strange air of mystery, and whose simple lines made her seem taller and slighter than before. It was a curiosity of Kosordian costume that the men covered their chests for festive occasions and the women bared theirs. Fabia's decolletage would have shocked Skjaran society to the marrow, but she had the figure to justify it and apparently the confidence also. The high black coil of her hair sparkled with amethysts.
