A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  So to travel on a longship again brought back happy memories of his violent, lusty youth. Compared to Kalkor, though, he had never been more than an amateur. Times were relatively peaceful now, and raiding wasn’t what it once had been — men might be allowed to flee if they left their valuables behind, and women were often spared if they submitted pleasingly. Kalkor was a throwback to the Great Days, to legendary raiders like Stoneheart, or Axeater, or Thousand-Virgins.

  He was mad beyond question, if sanity was to be judged by the behavior of other men. But mad in exactly what way? Why had he plunged himself and his crew into this impossible trap? When the first letter had arrived, Krushjor had been certain that it was some sort of a joke, or an elaborate subterfuge. He had been aghast when his nephew had actually accepted the safe conduct and put himself into the enemy’s power. The old man dearly wanted to know why and also to know what might be expected of him personally — but anytime he drew near to the topic, his nephew would smile, and the madness would sparkle up in his blue-blue eyes, daring Krushjor to ask that one impertinent query. And Kalkor himself was certainly the only man aboard who knew the answer. A thane’s crew never questioned.

  Why, for another matter, did he have a goblin on board? A goblin was hardly less likely than a silo, or a tannery. But the goblin was there, rowing with the rest, his black hair and khaki skin making him conspicuous among so many blonds. He seemed tiny in that company, and yet he was handling his oar with apparent ease.

  “It’s so tempting!” Kalkor sighed. He was staring at a wide water meadow, completely covered with gawking imps.

  Krushjor could see more temptation in the city that lay behind the mass of spectators. It was unwalled, of course, here in the heart of the Impire, and its old stones and planks were sun-worn, mellowed by centuries of peace.

  “They’ve left the town unguarded, you mean?”

  His nephew raised pale eyebrows in mockery. “Have you forgotten, Uncle? Imp towns are always unguarded! Guarding requires courage, remember? No, I was just wondering what would happen if we made a feint at that crowd — drew our swords and faked a landing. How many would be crushed in the panic, do you suppose? Care to lay a wager?”

  His eyes danced with merriment, but there was a crazy longing there, too. Perhaps a week or two without the smell of blood was beginning to sap his self-control.

  “The imps would put so many fine-feathered shafts in us that we’d look like a poultry market. And they’d claim you’d broken the truce.”

  The madman’s eyes gleamed even brighter. “But Nordland would never believe them. Would they risk a war?”

  “Yes,” Krushjor grunted, trying to seem impassive.

  Kalkor sighed and leaned back again, surreptitiously nudging him a fraction closer to the edge of the deck space. “And I should be deprived of my great ambition.”

  “Which is?” The question slipped out before the older man could stop it.

  “Why, to see the City of Gods, Uncle!” Kalkor smiled at him mockingly. “Don’t the imps have a saying — ‘See Hub and Die!’?”

  If that was what he wanted, he was going to be satisfied. What else did he plan to do beforehand? And whom did he want to take with him?

  10

  Iron hooves thudded, iron-rimmed wheels thundered.

  Less than a year ago, the sunniest summit of all Rap’s dreams had been to become a wagon driver, but the limit of his ambition had been a rickety dray loaded with peat and salted beef. He could not have imagined a vehicle one-quarter so grand as this opulent coach, with its cunning suspension wrought of dwarvish steel, with its gilt trim and glass windows and all those shiny carriage lamps. He certainly would never have imagined its team of six giant bays pounding along the imperor’s highway at a pace that snatched the breath from a man’s lips. To be the coachman on such a wonder would have seemed a dream of ecstasy to that lonely rustic lad of Krasnegar.

  Well, now he was a mage and there was nothing to it. It was not unpleasant, though. It did keep a man from brooding, maybe.

  Usually Gathmor sat up on the box beside him, but this was the last leg of the day’s progress, so he was clinging on at the back as if he were the genuine footman his fancy livery denoted. Gathmor still dreamed vain dreams of revenge on Kalkor. He had agreed to stain his face and hair, and he was short for a jotunn. He had even removed his beloved floorbrush mustache, to seem more impish. Rap could have dissuaded him from coming, at least for a few hours — for long enough to have left him behind at Ollion, by the sea where he belonged, but Rap had been reluctant to use mastery on a friend, and he hated himself for his stupid scruples. He did not know what awaited Gathmor in Hub, for his foresight would not work on anyone other than himself, but at least nothing could be more improbable than finding Kalkor there.

  Rap was driving now with his eyes shut, because evening was coming and the ruddy western sun hung unpleasantly close to dead ahead. The wide pavement stretched toward it as straight as an arrow, flanked by neat hedges to restrain the cattle. Good dairy country, this. Earlier he had seen forest and near desert and desolate swamp; he had caught faint glimpses of the snowy Qobles, far to the south. Now the hills were green — impossibly green for so late in the year. The trees were mostly bare, and the harvest gathered, yet the herds could still graze their fill, and to a Krasnegarian that seemed very odd.

  Everywhere he saw prosperity: white farms and great mansions, villages and big cities. The Impire rolled past as if it would never end, rich and safe and powerful.

  And yet … out of sight of casual travelers on the Great East Way, behind the nearest hills, the wealth grew more patchy. There were hovels there, whose inhabitants wore rags. And when the highway rolled through the hearts of great cities, then behind the great-fronted buildings — in the back streets and alleys — a seer could find slums and misery without much searching. The Impire was more than he had ever dreamed, and considerably less than it thought it was.

  The world had certainly grown in the last year.

  How would humble little Krasnegar seem to him now?

  On the sumptuous padded benches inside the coach, Princess Kadolan and Doctor Sagorn chatted pleasantly together, saying nothing of any importance, so far as an eavesdropping mage had noticed. When she arrived at her destination, her companion would be Andor, though. Sir Andor would have been mentioned in the letter the courier had borne on ahead in the morning, so it would be Andor again tonight.

  It didn’t always work, of course. A few times they had lodged at post inns, especially when they had first left Ollion, but the princess had spent a lifetime entertaining guests at Kinvale. She was acquainted with hundreds of the Imperial nobility, and as she drew closer and closer to Hub, so more and more of them lived within reach of the Great East Way, or their relatives did. They welcomed her like long-lost kin, they feasted her and tried to make her linger. Failing in that, they wrote introductions to others ahead, their own friends and relations. They sent couriers to warn of her coming. Kade was proceeding in royal style from mansion to mansion. The straw pallets and pottery bowls of the inns had given way to silken sheets and golden plate.

  Her coachman and footman boarded with the servants, of course, and that suited both of them. As far as Gathmor was concerned, that also suited Princess Kadolan, but she kept trying to persuade Rap to play a grander role. A postmaster expected to provide postboys along with his horses, she said. She would gladly hire such men to drive her equipage. Then Rap could be her secretary, perhaps, or a Sysanassoan prince on vacation, if he wanted. She appreciated now that he was capable of faking anything, of fooling anyone, and yet she still cherished dreams of taking him in hand and polishing him up to be a fitting consort for Inos. Rap had politely declined. When she had grown more pressing, he had gone stubborn on her again. His premonition would not let him be happy, but he was less miserable when he was being as near to his real self as possible.

  A courier of the Imperial mail went galloping by and vanished into the sunset. Rap
pulled out to overtake two lumbering wagons. Traffic was always heavy on the Great Way. That morning a whole legion had trudged by, five thousand solid young men bound eastward to the wars, singing a rousing marching song with their heads held high and their eyes glazed.

  Rap had wondered how many of them would ever return, and if they were wondering the same.

  He had wondered how it felt to be a sword in the imperor’s army. Did it make a man feel important? Or very unimportant? Strong or vulnerable? Proud? Ashamed? Scared? He recalled what the outlaws in Dragon Reach had told him about freedom.

  One thing driving did do was give a man time to straighten up his thoughts and lay them out in rows.

  The Imperial posts were set about eight leagues apart, usually in little villages or in market towns. At those he would turn in one team and hire another. The ostlers would try to browbeat him, of course, always. Anxious to hire out postilions to ride those horses, they would insist that even a faun couldn’t handle six from the box. They would refuse to believe him when he said that a shoe was ill-fitting or a fetlock sore before he had even lifted the animal’s foot. And so Rap would apply a hint of mastery, and get whatever he wanted, and despise himself for doing it.

  But he was circumspect, for there was magic everywhere. Ancient ruins and tiny cottages still held faint vestiges of occult shielding. Here and there he saw things or people blurred by a curious shimmer that suggested they were not what they seemed. In the towns he often sensed the ripples of the occult at work; at night in the great houses he would feel Sagorn prowling the library or Andor recruiting a winsome servant maid to cheer his bed. He knew when Thinal took up a collection for a good cause.

  Before the expedition had even departed from Arakkaran, the princess had produced some brooches and strings of fine pearls, requesting that Sir Andor sell them to finance the journey. Perhaps she had a rough idea of what first-class passage cost on a fine ship, but she obviously did not grasp the expense involved in bowling along the Great Way in style at twenty-five leagues a day.

  And yet perhaps she suspected, for she always became uneasy and fretful when Andor wandered off to visit the markets in the cities. Pawnshops were his objective, of course, although they were never mentioned. The ongoing finances were being unwittingly contributed by the princess’s hosts, her friends, and Thinal was her agent. Rap wondered if Inos would have found it funny, as Gathmor did. He didn’t.

  But if the princess did guess that she was thieving, she was willing to do even that for Inos.

  And here, at last, was the turnoff. He did not doubt, for a mage needed few directions. He slowed the coach to a stop before the awe-inspiring gateway. A man came running from the gatehouse, tugging his forelock for the gentry. He swung the flaps, and Rap sent the team cantering up a long driveway, graveled and wide. Rich parkland stretched out on either hand, and turrets showed over the trees ahead.

  Now Andor had replaced Sagorn, and the princess was peering into a hand mirror. They’d done twenty-two leagues today, less than usual. Tomorrow they would try to do better. And tomorrow, as every day, Rap’s premonition would lie even more heavily on him. It scratched at him constantly, telling him to turn back, turn back!

  Eventually the journey would end. Of course he might go mad first, but otherwise the spires of Hub and the waters of Cenmere must inevitably crawl up out of the smoky distance. Then he would discover what awful destiny awaited him there behind the fearful, agonizing white glare of his foresight. The magic casement had given him three prophecies, and two were left to come — and yet, somehow, he thought that the white glare took precedence over those. He dared not pry at the future now, to find out.

  In Hub, perhaps, would be Inos. The princess was confident of that, or tried to be so. Rap hoped so. He would like to see Inos again, to cure her scars and to assure her that he bore no ill will. What would she care, though, for a stableboy’s forgiveness? Who was he to forgive?

  There was nothing to forgive.

  He spoke a thought to the horses, and the great coach rolled gently to a halt before wide steps and a massive archway surrounded by centuries of ivy.

  Even before Gathmor had dropped to the ground, a great door flew open. As happened on so many evenings, a middle-aged lady in a fine gown came racing down the stairs with her arms held wide, shouting “Kade! Aunt Kade!”

  11

  The nearside front wheel caught in a pothole; the carriage lurched and a spring broke with an audible crack. Horses shrilled in fright, and the rig bounced to a shuddering, canted halt.

  For a few moments Odlepare sat and listened to the roar of rain on the roof. Beyond the windows, all was black — or as near to it as no matter.

  He could hardly believe that there would be only one pothole on a major highway within a hundred leagues of Hub, but even if there was, the king’s coach would have found it as surely as swallows return in the spring.

  “What’s happened?” Angilki demanded, the sulky, pouting expression of his doughy face just visible in the last, faint gleam of evening.

  “A broken spring, I fear, your Majesty.”

  “That’s very inconvenient, Odlepare.” At least he could remember his secretary’s name now. He had tended to forget it during the first few weeks.

  “Yes it is, Sire. We shall not make Hub tonight.”

  His Serene Majesty, King Angilki the First of Krasnegar, Duke of Kinvale, et cetera, had noticed a milestone that morning and had been convinced by it that he was within one day’s drive of the capital. Thereafter nothing would satisfy him but to prove it. Who was Odlepare to point out that Hub must be considerably larger than Kinford, or even Shaldokan? Reaching the extreme outskirts at this hour would not solve anything.

  “Extremely inconvenient! You are not suggesting that I spend the night in this diabolical contrivance, are you?”

  “I am sure there will be an inn somewhere nearby, Sire.”

  With the fat man’s luck, though, it would be considerably less comfortable than the coach would be. But of course the fool had insisted on pushing on after sunset. He could always be trusted to push his luck, King Angilki, and he invariably had the worst luck imaginable. Angilki the Unruly. King Angilki the Last. The rain had not stopped since they left Kinvale, and yet every night someone had remarked with regret on the glorious weather that had just ended. Angilki brought winter with him. Very likely the sun broke out as soon as he departed.

  Someone was going to have to go out in that downpour …

  It had been the fat capon’s fearsome mother who had conscripted Odlepare for this Evil-begotten journey, summoning him to her sickbed.

  “Without proper guidance,” she had said, “my son is more likely to arrive in Krasnegar than at Hub. I have decided you are the only one of his regular confidants who can tell east from north.”

  Odlepare had resigned on the spot.

  She had bought him back with a promise of a bonus equal to ten years’ wages. He had counted every minute of those ten years going by. Accidents and temper tantrums, absentmindedness and endlessly repeated dissertations on the next round of renovations planned for Kinvale … He had aged twenty years in the last six weeks. Had it only been six weeks?

  God of Greed, forgive me!

  A rap on the door. Odlepare pulled down a window and recoiled as icy rain slashed in at him. “Yes?”

  The postilion, sodden: “We have a broken spring, Master Odlepare,”

  “His Majesty surmised as much. Have you by chance observed any inns or hostels recently? Even a private establishment of quality?”

  Any of the minor gentry would be honored to provide hospitality for a benighted king — at least until they discovered just how benighted a king could be, The postilion could not possibly be wetter had he spent ten years underwater, so Odlepare need not offer to go exploring himself.

  “There is an inn just across the road, master.”

  Odlepare shuddered. This was going to be even worse than he had expected.

  �
�It’s called the Soldier’s Head,” the postilion added hopefully.

  “And I expect it will smell like it. You had better send someone across to count the bedbugs.”

  His humor brought him a black glare, warning him that he had spent the day inside the coach, while the postilion and coachman and footmen had not.

  “There is an inn across the road, your Majesty,” Odlepare reported.

  “Excellent. Where is the umbrella?”

  “I recommend a cloak also, your Majesty …” It would take more than an umbrella to keep a shape like his dry in weather like this.

  Using all of the interior of the coach. King Angilki the Unwieldy struggled into his voluminous sable overcoat. Odlepare found the umbrella, the door was opened, and the two footmen helped their master to clamber down, while Odlepare attempted to hold the umbrella overhead. It leaped in his hand and then turned itself inside out. By that time he was already soaked and it was too late to hunt up his own cloak. He climbed down, unaided.

  Wrapped and billowing, Angilki was leaning against the storm. He very rarely addressed any of his retainers except Odlepare, and he could have identified none of the others by name, but even in near darkness the iron brace on his right leg made a postilion recognizable. The king was waving a finger under his nose and, while most of his angry bellowing was muffled by the high collar pulled over his face, enough was audible to convey his meaning.

  “Evil-accursed carelessness!” he bleated. “Serious error … grave inconvenience … dismissed without notice … no references … your job to look for hazards …”

  Despite the cold and his already drenched condition, Odlepare was fascinated. He had never seen the fat fool so aroused before, and there seemed to be an excellent chance that the dismissed postilion would retaliate with a right hook to the jaw, or some equally appropriate demonstration of lese majesty. But no, alas! Modern youth was sadly lacking in the nobler virtues — the man merely cowered back in dismay, accepting the destruction of his livelihood without a murmur. How disappointing!