The Chronocide Mission

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  The drum began to sound again. The lashers of the prince’s guard were marched down from the court. They were still wearing their fancy uniforms, but not for long. The peer’s own guardsmen stripped them down to a single, scant undergarment, after which they were severely lashed. The twenty strokes that each received peeled away strips of flesh and left the patch of meadow where they stood stained red with blood. The drum halted, and they were brought, one at a time, to face the peer.

  The land warden told the first, “You were 792. Now you are naught.” He was dragged away whimpering with fright, and the second was brought forward. “You were 1473. Now you are naught.” And so it went with each of them.

  The peer had taken away their numbers. It was an awesome, a terrifying fate. No more horrible punishment could be imagined. Death would have been far kinder. They had lost their identities. They were no longer lashers; they were no-namers, work humans, and they would be relegated to the work pools of the no-name compounds where len treatments would burn away the little intelligence that remained to them and they would spend their waking hours in incessant labor while their former cohorts peeled more flesh from their backs with expert whip strokes. No lasher who witnessed this happening or even heard it rumored would ever again dare to raise his whip to a one-namer.

  The last of them was led away. The drum sounded again. Peeragers at the end of the line stirred. A murmur arose and was quickly silenced. The Prince of Midlow was brought forward. She also wore the new uniform she had devised. The peeragers watched incredulously as the peer’s guard led her slowly along the line and turned her to face the slumped figure of her mother the peer.

  “Terril Deline,” the high-pitched voice announced. “You have defied the traditions of the peerdom. You have defied the commands of your peer. You are unworthy of your family, unworthy of your status, unworthy of your rank. Therefore rank, status, and family are stripped from you.”

  Members of the peer’s guard stepped forward and roughly tore off her garments and boots, leaving her in a knee-length undergarment and with her feet bare. At first she resisted furiously, but they quickly overpowered her. When it was over, she stood with head bowed in quiet resignation.

  “You are no longer Terril Deline,” the shrill voice announced. “Now and forever after you will be known as Deline, and you are cast out from the place you have occupied.”

  The guards stepped forward again, seized her firmly, and cropped off her long golden hair close to the back of her head. The hair was handed to the Land Warden, who in turn handed it to the peer.

  The prince had lost one of her two names. She was no longer Prince of Midlow. She could no longer wear her hair long because she was not even a peerager. She was a one-namer.

  11. DELINE (1)

  As the peer’s guard led the former prince away, Wiltzon, who was standing beside Arne, whispered incredulously, “Is it possible? I have never heard of such a thing—anywhere. Can the peer really do that?”

  “She has done it,” Arne said.

  In a peerdom like Lant, where the peer was a ruthless tyrant exercising absolute power over everyone and everything, no one would have been surprised. In the Ten Peerdoms, where other traditions had evolved, the power was still there for any peer who cared to use it, and both peeragers and commoners had to be reminded of that.

  “What will the prince do now?” Wiltzon asked.

  “She is no longer the prince,” Arne said. “I don’t know what she will do. There isn’t much she can do.”

  Nowhere in the peerdom was there an occupation for a deposed and denamed prince, a wilfull female accustomed to having her own way about everything. She had no craft; she had never worked at anything. She was now a one-namer, but one-namers would have no place for her—in this peerdom or any other. She couldn’t remain at Midlow Court in any capacity without becoming a focus of unrest and a problem for the new prince.

  A peerager who had fallen from favor often sojourned for a time at the court of a neighboring peer. Perhaps the prince could find haven with her friend the Prince of Chang.

  “Can a deposed prince succeed?” Wiltzon demanded.

  “Certainly not,” Arne said. “She isn’t even a peerager.”

  The happening wasn’t finished. Elone Jermile, the peer’s younger daughter, a shy, plump girl of fifteen, was invested as Prince of Midlow. In appearance and manner she was totally unlike her sister. Her long hair was brown, as were her eyes, and she was introspective and contemplative where her sister was outgoing and domineering. As far as Arne knew, she had not yet taken a consort. Little attention was paid to the second daughter of a peer, and Elone Jermile had moved about the court like a shadow, almost unnoticed, always ignored. Arne couldn’t recall that she had ever spoken to him.

  The ceremony droned on. Finally those present were brought forward, a few at a time, to swear fealty to the new prince. The peeragers seemed dazed. Probably they had never heard of a denaming, either. They took their oaths mechanically and returned to their places in silence.

  After them came the one-namers attached to the court. Then all of the lashers present were sworn as a group.

  Arne and the other spectators were overlooked until one of the officials suddenly remembered the peer’s first server had not yet been sworn. Then his little group of one-namers was hurried forward.

  Arne came last of all. He touched his knee to the ground, the land warden recited the formula in a voice now cracking with fatigue, and Arne firmly repeated it. As he got to his feet, the old man leaned forward and whispered to him. “The peer wants to see you. The prince does, too. Meet me at my lodge, and I will take you to the palace.”

  Arne murmured, “Certainly, Master.”

  He wondered how the peer would be able to conduct audiences after the prolonged, exhausting ceremony. She seemed to have lost consciousness.

  The drum sounded. Surrounded by her guard, the peer was carried away. The wardens and the new prince followed. After them came the remainder of the court in the order of its arrival: Peeragers, the court one-namers, and then the various guards.

  Again the spectators were left until last. They drifted toward their horses and wagons, leaving Arne alone. He had much to think about. He waited, a solitary figure in the broad meadow, until everyone else had vanished from sight, and then he slowly made his way to the court entrance.

  As he plodded up the steep, spiraling road that rose to the castle, he was saluted by every lasher posted along the way. The land warden’s house and garden, and the lodge in which he worked, were on the level just below the palace, and the crusty old official was waiting for him at the turning.

  He greeted Arne with a sigh. “It has been a tiring day.”

  “A bewildering day,” Arne said. “A day of strange events. I understood very little of what was happening. Why are the lashers saluting me?”

  “The peer ordered it. I told you how angry she was. She is determined no first server of the Peer of Midlow will ever be lashed again. As a reminder of today’s ceremony, every lasher in the peerdom has to salute you.”

  Arne thought it would be achievement enough for the lashers just to remember the salute. They would quickly forget the deed that prompted it. “How is the peer?” he asked.

  “Exhausted. I was afraid the strain would be too much for her, but she insisted she had to do it. She was right, of course. She did have to do it.”

  “She looked awfully weak.”

  “She is awfully weak, but she insists on seeing you. Determination is all that keeps her going. She is determined to see the end of this—to see that Midlow is ready for whatever comes—before she dies.”

  They walked to the next level and took the long avenue to the low, sprawling palace. The guards posted there saluted both of them, giving Arne’s salute a special flourish. Inside, the hushed atmosphere was deathlike.

  A group of servers had gathered near the entrance. They looked stricken. They were the former prince’s personal servants, and the denamin
g of the prince had cost them their places. Down through the sikes, they had inflicted an unending series of cruel discourtesies on the prince’s totally unimportant younger sister. Now that object of their disdain would be choosing her own servers, and none of them would be included.

  In the days of the peer’s good health, she had received Arne in a small room near the entrance where she worked at an old, ornately carved desk that her mother had salvaged from a ruin. When her health began to worsen, she transacted business from a bedside chair. Later, as she became still weaker, she reclined on the bed propped up by pillows. Now she lay corpse-like, as though the effort to turn her head toward Arne was more than she could manage. Delor, the one-name server who had been her close companion from childhood, stood nearby and watched over her anxiously.

  Each time Arne saw the peer, the ravages of disease had written new chapters of pain and suffering on her face, but always the steely determination had been there. She refused to succumb.

  Now even her determination seemed exhausted. As he knelt beside her bed, she tiredly stretched out her hand to him. “Arne,” she murmured. Her eyes remained closed; her voice was no more than a whisper, weak, tired. “I am sorry for Terril Deline. The fault was mine as much as hers. She was a beautiful child and such a beautiful prince—but I overlooked what she did too long and too often.” The tired voice broke. “I have done what I could to make amends. I do hope things will go well for Elone Jermile.”

  Suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at him. “Twice your father saved the peerdom, Arne. He and the one-namers. He saved it once for my mother and once for me. Did you know that? When he was as close to death as I am now, he told me you would make a better first server than he had been. You are still little more than a boy, but already you have saved the peerdom and more. You have saved the Ten Peerdoms. I don’t know how you did it. The Peer of Weslon said there was no way to stop the wild lashers, and most of the peeragers ran off like the cowards they are, but you took your one-namers and destroyed the lashers utterly. Those who saw the battlefield said there were dead lashers lying everywhere and no one ever won a more overwhelming victory. The other peers wanted to give you a second name and make you a peerager, but I told them you were invaluable to all of us just as you are—as a one-namer and my first server. You saved the peerdom—the Ten Peerdoms—and the prince’s guard lashed you.”

  She was exhausted and fighting for breath, but for the moment her indignation had aroused her. “Each of my subjects, peerager, one-namer, no-namer, and lasher, has a responsibility to the peerdom, and the peerdom bears a responsibility to each of them. One-namers know that. Too many peeragers don’t. I have made certain that the new prince knows. I don’t have to ask you to give her the same loyalty you have given to me. I know you will.”

  Her eyes closed again. Her breath was coming in a whistling wheeze. Her lips moved again. “Have you any favor to ask of me, Arne?” She didn’t say “last favor” but Arne knew what she meant.

  Arne thought for a moment. “There is one thing, Majesty. The prince’s guard acted on the prince’s orders in raiding Midd Village. Its conduct during the raid was inexcusable, and the lashings were deserved, but not the loss of numbers. Give the guard to me, Majesty, and I will use it to start the army we have long needed. Further delay might be fatal.”

  The peer raised up for a moment and looked at Arne intently. Then she turned her gaze on the land warden, nodded, and sank back.

  The land warden touched Arne’s arm. As he got to his feet, the peer’s eyes opened again. “Arne—did I do the right thing? About the prince?”

  Arne clasped her hand and spoke firmly. “Majesty, you did the right thing. You did what had to be done. If Terril Deline had become peer, Midlow would have been torn apart in less than a mont.”

  She whispered, “Thank you.”

  The Land Warden led Arne away.

  In an adjoining room, the new prince was waiting. Arne and the land warden dropped to one knee and then got to their feet again. The prince said to her uncle, “How is she?”

  “Tired,” the land warden said. “Terribly tired, but still fighting. She has a fierce determination.”

  The prince turned to Arne. The astonishing upheaval in her status seemed to have matured her. Her poise surprised him. She said, “The peer has made it clear to me that the success of my reign will depend upon you. I already knew that. All of my life, whenever anything needed to be done or whenever anything went wrong, the first server was sent for. When I was a child, it was Arjov, your father. Now it is you. We are both still young. My hope is that we will grow old together and I will always have you to turn to. I make you one solemn promise. In this peerdom, no lasher will ever again raise his whip to a one-namer, and the first server is to be accorded all of the respect due a peerager—by everyone in the peerdom, including the peeragers.”

  Arne thanked her.

  “I will send for you soon,” she said. “I have much to learn, and there is an enormous amount of work to be done.”

  He and the land warden knelt, and the prince took her leave of them.

  The land warden said, “The peer asks one more thing of you. She wants you to take an assistant. Not only would this lessen the burden you carry, but the peerdom needs someone who can stand in your place when you travel.”

  “The peer and I have discussed this,” Arne said. “Neither of us could think of a suitable person. The more capable one-namers are already skilled crafters, and Midlow never has enough of them. Their work is needed. The less skilled are less capable in other ways, also.”

  His assistant had to be a one-namer. No peerager would consent to serve under a commoner, and a lasher could not be put in the position of giving orders to one-namers even if one had been capable of it. “Did her majesty suggest anyone?”

  “Yes. She has already made the appointment. Your new assistant is waiting to meet you.”

  Arne was astonished. It was unlike the peer to take such an action without discussing or even mentioning her choice. “Is it a court server?”

  “Yes. From the peer’s own household. The peer thinks her capable of learning quickly and assuming responsibility, which are essential qualities for your assistant.”

  Arne nodded resignedly. “If the peer requests it—”

  “She does. She knows training an assistant will be one more burden on you, and the fact that you didn’t choose her yourself may make it especially difficult, but she asks that you do the best you can.”

  Arne wondered if the peer was using his need for an assistant as an excuse for choosing a wife for him as she had done for his father. There were several conspiracies underway to get him wived, and he received broad hints in that direction almost daely. The most recent, firmly put forward by his mother, Lonne, was an attractive village girl named Selta, a talented seamster. Lonne had long considered Arne’s household poorly managed, and Selta was her candidate to correct that—the fourth she had advanced since Arne’s father died. She persistently recounted each girl’s virtues to him until the girl lost patience and accepted another man’s offer.

  All of Arne’s lovers had thought him the most desirable suitor in the peerdom at first—he owned the best and largest house in Midd Village, he had the highest earning credits of any one-namer, and the wife of the first server would instantly become the first woman of the peerdom among commoners—but they quickly learned that a man who worked enormously long hours, who had to travel frequently, who could be called away at any moment, who always had his thoughts on some crisis that had to be resolved immediately and several others that might happen, made a poor lover and would make a worse husband. Lonne didn’t know it yet, but Selta already had taken another lover.

  Until now, the peer had been more subtle. She frequently asked Arne about the village girls, but their discussions always concerned work skills.

  The land warden led him to the room where his new assistant was waiting. She was looking out of the window when they entered, a ta
ll, slender woman with blond hair cut short in the manner of court servers. The land warden spoke to her, and she turned to them with obvious reluctance.

  Arne didn’t recognize her until she flashed a look of undisguised hatred at him. It was Deline, the deposed prince.

  He was too startled and disconcerted to speak. More than that—he was flabbergasted, but even as his mind struggled to grasp this strange turn of events, he could not help admiring the dying peer’s wisdom. She had a mother’s concern for her elder daughter. She knew there was no place in the peerdom for a former prince, so she had created a place. The peer also knew Arne would have to look after Deline if she were his assistant.

  The land warden introduced her with awkward formality and then left them. Arne seated himself—which he could not have done without permission a few hours earlier—and signaled Deline to sit down. “Did the peer offer you any choices?” he asked.

  Deline shook her head dully. “She ordered me. This is my punishment.”

  Arne frowned. If Deline thought of her new job as punishment, she would be a thoroughly inept assistant. In order to succeed, she must see it as an opportunity for redemption.

  “Your life will be entirely different,” he said slowly. “If you come to Midd Village with the idea of continuing the leisure you enjoyed as a peerager, you will be useless to me and to yourself. One-namers work. If they didn’t, the Peerdom of Midlow and Midlow Court couldn’t exist.”

  “I know that—now.”

  “The first server’s job is to plan their work, make certain they have whatever it is they need to work with, and then see that the work is done and done well. I was trained to it from childhood—almost from infancy. I served a prenticeship with every kind of crafter in Midd so I could learn the techniques and requirements of all of the crafts. You will have to do the same. While you are doing it, you also will have to train yourself to know what is happening everywhere in the peerdom, and what has to be done, and when, and how. The position of assistant to the first server is both an honor and a responsibility. In order to deserve the honor, you must fulfill the responsibility. My father taught me that honors must be paid for, over and over. Do you understand?”