Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen

by H. Beam Piper

  “Balthar of Beshta is the most cowardly, and the most miserly, and the most suspicious, and the most treacherous Prince in the world. I served him, once, and Galzar keep me from another like service. He goes about in an old black gown that wouldn’t make a good dust-clout, all hung over with wizards’ amulets. His palace looks like a pawnshop, and you can’t go three lance-lengths anywhere in it without having to shove some impudent charlatan of a soothsayer out of your way. He sees murderers in every shadow, and a plot against him whenever three gentlemen stop to give each other good day.”

  He drank some more, as though to wash the taste out of his mouth.

  “And Sarrask of Sask’s a vanity-swollen fool who thinks with his fists and his belly. By Galzar, I’ve known Great Kings who hadn’t half his arrogance. He’s in debt to Styphon’s House beyond belief, and the money all gone for pageants and feasts and silvered armor for his guards and jewels for his light-o’-loves, and the only way he can get quittance is by conquering Hostigos for them.”

  “And his daughter’s marrying Balthar’s brother,” Rylla added. “They’re both getting what they deserve. The Princess Amnita likes cavalry troopers, and Duke Balthames likes boys.”

  And he, and all of them, knew what was back of that marriage—this new Princedom of Sashta that there was talk of, to be the springboard for conquest and partition of Hostigos, and when that was out of the way, a concerted attack on Nostor. Since Gormoth had started making his own fireseed, Styphon’s House wanted him destroyed, too.

  It all came back to Styphon's House.

  “If we smash Sask now, and take over some of these mercenaries Sarrask’s been hiring on Styphon’s expense-account, we might frighten Balthar into good behavior without having to fight him.” He didn’t really believe that, but Xentos brightened a little.

  Ptosphes puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. “If we could get our hands on young Balthames,” he said, “we could depose Balthar and put Balthames on the throne. I think we could control him.”

  Xentos was delighted. He realized that they’d have to fight Sask, but this looked like a bloodless—well, almost—way of conquering Beshta.

  “Balthames would be willing,” he said eagerly. “We could make a secret compact with him, and loan him, say, two thousand mercenaries, and all the Beshtan army and all the better nobles would join him.”

  “No, Xentos. We do not want to help Balthames take his brother’s throne,” Kalvan said. “We want to depose Balthar ourselves, and then make Balthames do homage to Ptosphes for it. And if we beat Sarrask badly enough, we might depose him and make him do homage for Sask.”

  That was something Xentos seemed not to have thought of. Before he could speak, Ptosphes was saying, decisively

  “Whatever we do, we fight Sarrask now; beat him before that old throttle-purse of a Balthar can send him aid.”

  Ptosphes, too, wanted war now, before Rylla could mount a horse again. Kalvan wondered how many decisions of state, back through the history he had studied, had been made for reasons like that.

  “I’ll make sure of that,” Chartiphon promised. “He won’t send any troops up the Besh.”

  That was why Hostigos now had two armies: the Army of the Listra, which would make the main attack on Sask, and the Army of the Besh, commanded by Chartiphon in person, to drive through southern Sask and hold the Beshtan border.

  “How about Tarr-Esdreth?” Harmakros asked. “You mean Tarr-Esdreth-of-Sask? Alkides can probably shoot rings around anybody they have there. Chartiphon can send a small force to hold the lower end of the gap, and you can do the same from the Listra side.”

  “Well, how soon can we get started?” Chartiphon wanted to know. “How much sending back and forth will there have to be first?”

  Uncle Wolf put down his goblet, and then lifted the kitten from his lap and set her on the floor. She mewed softly, looked around, and then ran over to the bed and jumped up with her mother and brothers and sisters who were keeping Rylla company.

  “Well, strictly speaking,” he said, “you’re at peace with Prince Sarrask, now. You can’t attack him until you’ve sent him letters of defiance, setting forth your causes of enmity.”

  Galzar didn’t approve of undeclared wars, it seemed. Harmakros laughed. “Now, what would they be, I wonder?” he asked. “Send them Kalvan’s breastplate.”

  “That’s a just reason,” Uncle Wolf nodded. “You have many others. I will carry the letter myself.” Among other things, priests of Galzar acted as heralds. “Put it in the form of a set of demands, to be met on pain of instant war—that would be the quickest way.”

  “Insulting demands,” Klestreus specified. “Well, give me a slate and a soapstone, somebody,” Rylla said. “Let’s see how we’re going to insult him.”

  “A letter to Balthar, too,” Xentos said thoughtfully. “Not of defiance, but of friendly warning against the plots and treacheries of Sarrask and Balthames. They’re scheming to involve him in war with Hostigos, let him bear the brunt of it, and then fall on him and divide his Princedom between them. He’ll believe that—it’s what he’d do in their place.”

  “Your job, Klestreus,” Kalvan said. A diplomatic assignment would be just right for him, and would keep him from combat command without hurting his feelings. “Leave with it for Beshta Town tomorrow. You know what Balthar will believe and what he won’t; use your own judgment.”

  “We’ll get the letters written tonight,” Ptosphes said. “In the morning, we’ll hold a meeting of the Full Council of Hostigos. The nobles and people should have a voice in the decision for war.”

  As though the decision hadn’t been made already, here in Princess Rylla’s smoke-filled boudoir. Real democracy, this was. Just like Pennsylvania.

  THE Full Council of Hostigos met in a long room, with tapestries on one wall and windows opening onto the inner citadel garden on the other. The speaker for the peasants, a work-gnarled graybeard named Phosg, sat at the foot of the table, flanked by the speaker for the shepherds and herdsmen on one side, and for the woodcutters and charcoal burners on the other. They graded up from there, through the artisans, the master-craftsmen, the merchants, the yeomen farmers, the professions, the priests, the landholding gentry and nobility, to Prince Ptosphes, at the head of the table, in a magnificent fur robe, with a heavy gold chain on his shoulders. He was flanked, on the left, by the Lord Kalvan, in a no less magnificent robe and an only slightly less impressive gold chain. The place on his right was vacant, and everybody was looking at it.

  It had been talked about—Kalvan and Xentos and Chartiphon and Harmakros had seen to that—that the Princess Rylla would, because of her injury, be unable to attend. So, when the double doors were swung open at the last moment and six soldiers entered carrying Rylla propped up on a couch, there were exclamations of happiness and a general ovation. Rylla was really loved in Hostigos.

  She waved her hand in greeting and replied to them, and the couch was set down at Ptosphes’ right. Ptosphes waited until the clamor had subsided, then drew his poignard and rapped on the table with the pommel.

  “You all know why we’re here,” he began without preamble. “The last time we met, it was to decide whether to have our throats cut like sheep or die fighting like men. Well, we didn’t have to do either. Now, the question is, shall we fight Sarrask of Sask now, at our advantage, or wait and fight Sarrask and Balthar together at theirs? Let me hear what is in your minds about it.”

  It was like a council of war; junior rank first. Phosg was low man on the totem-pole. He got to his feet.

  “Well, Lord Prince, it’s like I said the last time. If we have to fight, let’s fight.”

  “Different pack of wolves, that’s all,” the shepherds’ and herdsmen’s speaker added. “We’ll have another wolf-hunt like Fitra and Listra-Mouth.”

  It went up the table like that. The speaker for the lawyers, naturally, wanted to know if they were really sure Prince Sarrask was going to attack. Somebody asked him why not wait a
nd have his throat cut, his house burned and his daughters raped, so that he could really be sure. The priestess of Yirtta abstained; a servant of the Allmother could not vote for the shedding of the blood of mothers’ sons. Uncle Wolf just laughed. Then it got up among the nobility.

  “Well, who wants this war with Sask?” one of them demanded. “That is, besides this outlander who has grown so great in so short a time among us, this Lord Kalvan.”

  He leaned right a little to look. Yes, Sthentros. He was some kind of an in-law of Ptosphes ... had a barony over about where Boalsburg ought to be. He’d made trouble when the fireseed mills were being started—refused to let his peasants be put to work collecting saltpeter. Kalvan had threatened to have his head off, and Sthentros had run spluttering to Ptosphes. The interview had been private, nobody knew exactly what Ptosphes had told him, but he had emerged from it visibly shaken. The peasants had gone to work collecting saltpeter.

  “Just who is this Kalvan?” Sthentros persisted. “Why, until five moons ago, nobody in Hostigos had even heard of him!”

  A couple of other nobles, including one who had just sworn to wade to his boot-tops in Saski blood, muttered agreement. Another, who had fought at Fitra, said:

  “Well, nobody’d ever heard of you in Hostigos, either, till your uncle’s wife’s sister married our Prince.”

  Uncle Wolf laughed again. “They’ve heard of Kalvan since, and in Nostor, too, by the war god’s mace!”

  “Yes,” another noble said, “I grant that. But you’ll have to grant that the man’s an outlander, and it’s a fine thing indeed to see him rise so swiftly over the heads of nobles of old Hostigi family. Why, when he came among us, he couldn’t speak a word that anybody could understand.”

  “By Dralm, we understand him well enough now!” That was another newcomer to the Full Council—the speaker for the fireseed makers. There were murmurs of agreement; quite a few got the point.

  Sthentros refused to be silenced. “How do we know that he isn’t some runaway priest of Styphon himself.”

  Mytron, present as speaker for the physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, rose.

  “When Kalvan came among us, I tended his wounds. He is not circumcised, as all priests of Styphon are.”

  Then he sat down. That knocked that on the head. It was a good thing the Rev. Morrison had refused to let the doctor load the bill with what he’d considered non-essentials when his son had been born. He’d never say another word against Scotch-Irish frugality. Sthentros, however, was staying with it.

  “Well, maybe that’s worse,” he argued. “It’s flatly against nature for anything to act like fireseed. I think there are devils in it that make it explode, and maybe the priests of Styphon do something to keep the devils from getting out when it explodes ... something that we don’t know anything about.”

  The speaker for the fireseed makers was on his feet. “I make the stuff, I know what goes in it. Saltpeter and sulfur and charcoal, and there aren’t any devils in any of them.” He didn’t know anything about oxidization, but he knew that the saltpeter made the rest of it burn fast. “Next thing, he’ll be telling us there are devils in wine, or in dough to make the bread rise, or in ...”

  “Has anybody heard of any devils around Fitra?” somebody else asked. “We burned plenty of fireseed there.”

  “What in Galzar’s name does Sthentros know about Fitra?—he wasn’t there!”

  “I’m going to have a little talk with that fellow, after this is over,” Ptosphes said quietly to Kalvan. “All he is in Hostigos, he is by my favor, and my favor to him is getting frayed now.”

  “Well, devils or not, the question is Lord Kalvan’s place among us,” the noble who had sided with Sthentros said. “He is no Hostigi—what right has he to sit at the Council table?”

  “Fitra!” somebody cried, from a place or two above Sthentros; “Tarr-Dombra!” added another voice, from across the table.

  “He sits here,” Rylla said icily, “as my betrothed husband, by my choice. Do you question that, Euklestes?”

  “He sits here as heir-matrimonial to the throne of Hostigos, and as my son-adoptive,” Ptosphes added. “I hope none of you presume to question that.”

  “He sits here as commander of our army,” Chartiphon roared, “and as a soldier I am proud to obey. If you want to question that, do it with your sword against mine!”

  “He sits here as one sent by Dralm. Do you question the Great God?” Xentos asked.

  Euklestes gave Sthentros a look-what-you-got-me-into look. “Great Dralm, no!”

  “Well, then. We still have the question of war with Sask to be voted:’ Ptosphes said. “How vote you, Lord Sthentros?”

  “Oh, war, of course; I’m as loyal a Hostigi as any here.”

  There was no more argument. The vote was unanimous. As soon as Ptosphes had thanked them, Harmakros was on his feet.

  “Then, to show that we are all in loyal support of our Prince, let us all vote that whatever decision he may make in the matter of our dealings with Sask, with Beshta, or with Nostor, either in making war or in making peace afterward, shall stand approved in advance by the Full Council of Hostigos.”

  “What? “ Ptosphes asked in a whisper. “Is this some idea of yours, Kalvan?”

  “Yes. We don’t know what we’re going to have to do, but whatever it is, we may have to do it in a hurry, and afterward we won’t want anybody like Sthentros or Euklestes whining that they weren’t consulted.”

  “That’s probably wise. We’d do it anyhow, but this way there’ll be no argument.

  Harmakros’s motion was also carried unanimously. The organization steamroller ran up the table without a bump.

  VERKAN, the free-trader from Grefftscharr, waited till the others—Prince Ptosphes, old Xentos, and the man of whom he must never under any circumstances think as Calvin Morrison—were seated, and then dropped into a chair at the table in Ptosphes’s study.

  “Have a good trip?” Lord Kalvan was asking him. He nodded, and ran quickly over the fictitious details of the journey to Zygros City, his stay there, and his return to Hostigos, checking them with the actual facts. Then he visualized the panel, and his hand reaching out and pressing the black button. Other Paratimers used different imagery, but the result was the same. The pseudo-memories fed to him under hypnosis took over, the real memories of visits on this time-line to Zygros City were suppressed, and a complete blockage imposed on anything he knew about Fourth Level Europo-American, Hispano-Columbian Subsector.

  “Not bad,” he said. “I had a little trouble at Glarth Town, in Hos-Agrys. I’d sold those two kegs of Tarr-Dombra fireseed to a merchant, and right away they were after me, the Prince of Glarth’s soldiers and Styphon’s House agents. It seems Styphon’s House had put out a story about one of their wagon-trains being robbed by bandits, and everybody’s on the lookout for unaccountable fireseed. They’d arrested and tortured the merchant; he put them onto me. I killed one and wounded another, and got away.”

  “When was that?” Xentos asked sharply.

  “Three days after I left here.”

  “Eight days after we took Tarr-Dombra and sent that letter to Sesklos,” Ptosphes said. “That story’ll be all over the Five Kingdoms by now.”

  “Oh, they’ve dropped that. They have a new story, now. They admit that some Prince in Hos-Harphax is making his own fireseed, but it isn’t good fireseed.”

  Kalvan laughed. “It only shoots half again as hard as theirs, with half as much fouling.”

  “Ah, but there are devils in your fireseed. Of course, there are devils in all fireseed—that’s what makes it explode—but the priests of Styphon have secret rites that cause the devils to die as soon as they’ve done their work. When yours explodes, the devils escape alive. I’ll bet East Hostigos is full of devils, now.”

  He laughed, then stopped when he saw that none of the others were. Kalvan cursed; Ptosphes mentioned a name.

  “That story has appeared here,” Xentos said
. “I hope none of our people believe it. It comes from Sask Town.”

  “This Sthentros, a kinsman by marriage of mine,” Ptosphes said. “He’s jealous of Kalvan’s greatness among us. I spoke to him, gave him a good fright. He claimed he thought of it himself, but I know he’s lying. Somebody from Sask’s been at him. Trouble is, if we tortured him, all the other nobles would be around my ears like a swarm of hornets. We’re having him watched.”

  “They move swiftly,” Xentos said, “and they act as one. Their temples are everywhere, and each temple has its post station, with relays of fast horses. Styphon’s Voice can speak today at Balph, in Hos-Ktemnos, and in a moon-quarter his words are heard in every temple in the Five Kingdoms. Their lies can travel so fast and far that the truth can never overtake them.”

  “Yes, and see what’ll happen,” Kalvan said. “From now on, everything, plague, famine, drought, floods, hailstones, forest-fires, hurricanes—will be the work of devils out of our fireseed. Well, you got out of Glarth; what then?”

  “After that, I thought it better to travel by night. It took me eight days to reach Zygros City. My wife, Dalla, met me there, as we’d arranged when I started south from Ulthor. In Zygros City, we recruited five brass-founders—two are cannon-founders, one’s a bell-founder, one’s an image-maker and knows the wax-runoff method, and one’s a general foundry foreman. And three girls, wood-carvers and pattern makers, and two mercenary sergeants I hired as guards.

  “I gave the fireseed secret to the gunmakers’ guild in Zygros City, in exchange for making up twelve long rifled fowling-pieces and rifling some pistols. They’ll ship you rifled caliver barrels at the cost of smoothbore barrels. They’d heard the devil story; none of them believe it. And I gave the secret to merchants from my own country; they will spread it there.”