Treachery of Kings

by Neal Barrett Jr

  “Who was it, who did this?” he asked, though he was near certain that he knew.

  “The same bunch that brought you here, I think, though they all dress the same. Maddigern, though, he was the only one I knew.”

  “Obern Oberbyght. Was he here as well, or only Maddigern?”

  “I don't know any person with a name like that. Who's he?”

  “Sorry, I forget. You don't know him, and that's no regret.”

  Though he tried not to show it, Finn was greatly alarmed by Letitia's appearance, by her sad demeanor. While Maddigern hadn't done her bodily harm, he had clearly broken her spirit, left her too weary, too shorn of all feeling to even be frightened anymore. The luster was gone from her eyes, the dark, iridescent Mycer eyes that brought Finn a love of living he had never known before.

  “Don't, Finn, please,” she said, with the weary shadow of a smile. “I can guess your thoughts as clearly as if they were printed in a book. You're bursting with anger, and that will do us no good at all.”

  “A chance will show itself, Letitia. And when it does, anger may well prove a most effective weapon to set us free, for surely—

  “Knaves and Staves, I've been so relieved to find you I haven't asked. Where's Julia, did she escape, did she get away?”

  Letitia sighed. “They took her, dear. It breaks my heart to tell you, but she's gone.”

  “Gone? And where, do you know? Have they harmed her, could you tell?”

  “They took her, that's all. She maimed two or three, but they overwhelmed her at last. I imagine the very worst, for they'd never seen the like of her before. I think the Badgie folk have a great fear of any mechanical device. At least, I've always understood this to be so.”

  Finn took a deep breath and fought to still his heart. Learning of Julia's loss, he had tightened the noose around his neck without thinking and nearly throttled himself.

  “I don't know Maddigern's intentions,” he said, “but you're quite correct in thinking he wishes us ill. I have learned there's a great deal amiss in this place, intrigue and deceit, dark manipulation of a kind I've yet to understand.

  “Though you and I have no part in this, it appears we have landed in the midst of a very sticky mess. There is great danger here, Letitia, I'm certain of that.”

  “I don't guess you have to tell me, Finn. I'm not feebleminded, you know.”

  “Of course not. I didn't mean that, I only meant to say… “

  The words seemed to stick in his throat. He didn't know where to begin, didn't know what use it would be to waste words at a time like this when there might be little time left at all.

  Maddigern wouldn't simply leave them here, he would see the business out. By now the Badgie would have discovered the spot where he'd broken through from the tunnels into the palace hall. And, if he guessed, if he imagined what he, Finn, had seen down there, if what Finn guessed about the Badgie was true…

  He pushed the thought aside. That wouldn't happen, that couldn't be. The horrors a creature as cruel and demented as Maddigern might conjure in his head would make the simple act of dying seem a welcome reprieve.

  “I don't know exactly what to say to you, Finn,” Letitia said, suddenly breaking into his thoughts. “I was quite angry—more than that, I suppose—when I left you there with the King and that—I saw how she looked at you, a look of such raw, unfettered lust, yet a look of cunning, cold and uncaring contempt for every male who ever gazed at her with helpless desire.

  “She quickly let me know you had met her before, and that pained me most of all, Finn, for you hadn't shared that with me.

  “That's when I turned and left you there, for I was so hurt, so angry, to think I had been betrayed… “

  “I have not betrayed you, Letitia,” Finn said, cursing the deadly stricture of his bonds that kept him from going to her.

  “I have wronged you, but only in a very slight manner. A passing weakness, a frailty of the moment, but never a betrayal of the heart. Never, certainly, a physical thing, an action beyond restraint—”

  “Please, Finn, you'd best stop there and let it be, for you tend, in every matter, to go a mile farther than you need.”

  Her smile, then, reaching him even through the weight of her weariness and fear, brought him such relief his eyes stung with tears. And, when he blinked them away, he saw that she was crying, too.

  “I was not thinking clearly at the time,” she told him, “or I would have known you had truly done me no wrong.

  Or surely not a great wrong, for such an exotic creature would turn any man's head. Even one as stalwart and strong as you, my dear.” “Yes, uh, well… “

  Letitia's smile faded. “When Maddigern came, he told me that you had run, that you had left me here on my own.”

  “You did not believe that.”

  “No, not for a moment. It is what he told me next that all but shattered any hope for us all. He said you would be taken. That you would be brought here and—and that we would both pay the price for your acts against the King.”

  “That is not what happened at all, of course. There are no acts against the King. Pots and Pans, there is so much I have to tell you, and I don't know where to begin… “

  “Then don't, all right?” She closed her eyes, as if she dared not look at him again. “I don't think we have time to waste on your ventures, or any matter that may have passed before. I think that all we have is now.”

  “It's not over, Letitia.” He strained against his bonds again. “I promise you, though things really do look chancy now, that we will overcome this, that no harm will come to you again. This I vow, with all my will, my love!”

  And, it was at that instant, that moment, that the door burst open with such power, such might, that it slammed against the wall and sent a rain of dust to the ground.

  “Well, then,” Maddigern said, his bristled face a pitiless mask, his eyes as hard as stone, “we are all here together, at last. Now we can begin… “

  FORTY-FIVE

  YOU GAVE US A CHASE, MASTER FINN. THAT was not a wise thing to do. Maybe you have no laws in that foul land of yours, but you cannot flout the King's justice here.”

  “And what law did I flout?” Finn asked. “I'm afraid I don't remember any crimes at all.”

  Maddigern studied him a long moment, as if he were giving the question deep and serious thought. Then, he bent down until his dark face was close to Finn's, so close that Finn flinched at the fellow's odorous breath.

  “It is not going to be this way, human,” the Badgie said, his voice a near-gentle reproval, as if Finn were a rebellious pupil who had broken the rules.

  “There are things I need to know. You will tell me these things, and you will not waste my time with foolish jests.”

  The Badgie straightened, glanced at Letitia, then back to Finn.

  “If I like your answers, things will go easier in the end. For the Mycer, I mean. There is nothing you can say that will be of help to you.”

  Letitia gasped. The Badgie had meant for her to hear his words, and Letitia reacted as he was certain that she would.

  “I don't expect any decent behavior. Nothing would surprise me, Maddigern. But you'll have to help me recall my misdeeds, or we'll be all day at this.”

  Only the Badgie's eyes betrayed his fury. “Do you think I won't do things to her? Here, in front of your eyes?”

  “Of course I think you will. And when you do, I'll admit to anything you ask. I'll tell you whatever you wish to hear. You've done this before, you know that's so. And when you're done, you'll wonder if anything I've babbled is true.

  “Now. Why don't you simply get to it? I know I have nothing to win for myself, but I'll do what I can to save her.”

  Though nothing I say will make the slightest difference in what you do, we both know this is true

  “We understand each other, then. What would you like to know?”

  The Badgie scratched his bristly chin. In the cell's faint light, the white thatch tha
t streaked his dark hair gave him a fierce demeanor that matched his chill, uncaring eyes. Finn thought of Koodigern, who had given him a dagger to protect himself, then gone to his death unarmed. How such a fellow could be a brother to this wretched creature was something he would never understand.

  “I know the features of the human face,” Maddigern said. “Do not look at me in such a manner again. Now, you will tell me how you got back in the palace. Who told you there were passages beneath the grounds?”

  “No one told me. I found the entry myself.”

  “That is not so.”

  “I said I would not play games with you. I won't risk her life to beat you.”

  “You did not find this entry yourself. Those tunnels have been abandoned for a hundred years.”

  “I said I found the way myself, and that is true. I must also tell you I gave a great many silver coins to a slightly drunken servant. Don't concern yourself, he was human, not a Badgie at all. Certainly not a courageous member of the King's Third Sentient Guards.”

  For a moment, he thought he had gone too far. He had to hide his anger from this creature, who had filled Letitia with dread, driven her to the edge with his dire promises, and threats of greater pain and humiliation to come.

  Now, he sought to break Finn himself, make him lose his self-control in front of Letitia Louise. Finn knew his strengths, and his weaknesses as well. If he didn't stand up for himself, the Badgie would bring him down. And, though he knew there was little chance the brute would spare Letitia any pain, he had to walk the thin line and play the fellow's game

  If Maddigern had learned to read a human's features, Finn was becoming adept at piercing the near-inscrutable Badgie's expressions as well. Finn was sure, now, it was Maddigern he had seen in the chamber below with DeFloraine-Marie. Maddigern knew he'd been in the tunnels, but he couldn't know for certain Finn had seen the lair of the Deeply Entombed.

  This, then, was his quandary, for the knowledge of that place was a secret so deeply ingrained in all who were privy to it, that Finn was near certain the Badgie could scarcely bring himself to speak of it aloud, even if his prisoner was never meant to leave this cell alive.

  “Let me begin at the beginning, Master Finn. Perhaps that will help bring your answers to mind.”

  The Badgie peered thoughtfully at the ceiling, at the hard stone floor, as if the thing he truly sought lay hidden there.

  “You left the palace with our esteemed seer… “

  “With his blessing, as it were. As a free citizen of Heldessia. You can find no fault in that.”

  “… and then you escaped, through a mass of irate farmers at the inn.”

  “How could I escape? Escape from what? I hold one of the highest honors in the land. Higher than a Captain/Major, though that is a worthy rank in itself.”

  Maddigern bent quickly to Finn's face. “If I kick that stool away from her, she'll strangle. Right here, right before your eyes.”

  “And I will answer your questions better then?”

  Maddigern backed away, as if Finn hadn't spoken at all.

  “You left with Obern Oberbyght. Some hours later you discovered a way back into the palace. I think you know the question I'm asking now, human? How did you get back into the palace the first time? After you left the seer, and before you came back through the corridors underground?”

  Finn stared. “What first time? What on earth are you talking about? I left once, I came back once. You're already aware of that—”

  Maddigern didn't answer. He turned so swiftly his long green cloak billowed in his path. He stalked out the open door, stopped, shouted orders to a pair of the King's Guards who stood rigid in the hall. The two turned and disappeared.

  Moments later, the Badgies were back again. Between them they dragged a heavy bundle, wrapped in a dirt-stained cloth. With a nod from their leader, they tilted the burden and spilled its contents roughly to the floor.

  Letitia cried out, a low moan of despair. Finn felt the bile rise up in his throat and prayed his stomach would behave, and not choke him to death.

  Dostagio had been savagely cut across the throat, his head nearly severed from his body. In death, his face showed more emotion than Finn had ever seen him betray in life.

  “This is the question you will answer,” Maddigern said, his own features nearly reflecting his true feelings now.

  “Why did you do this thing, Master Finn? By damn, you'll tell me why you murdered a loyal servant of the King or I'll skin that Mycer of yours alive!”

  FORTY-SIX

  DAMN ME, THIS ISN'T WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE, it's some dark scheme, some deadly pursuit. And only Maddigern knows its name!

  Finn felt strangely calm, somehow detached, as if he played no part in this at all. He didn't look at Letitia, for she would understand what had happened here as well.

  “There's no point in telling you I had nothing to do with this,” he told the Badgie. “Whatever nasty business you're about, it has nothing to do with me. You're well aware of that.”

  “Don't talk to me of nasty business, Finn. There's little worse than murder most foul.”

  “Yes, I quite agree with that. And this is what the King will hear, no doubt. That Finn, maker of lizards, was discovered slitting this poor fellow's throat. Loyal guards tried to take him alive, and had no choice but to cut the maniac down.”

  “You've a way with words, human. I'll hand you that.”

  “And Letitia? She's a slasher as well?”

  “I think she hangs herself in despair.”

  For all his efforts, there was no way Finn could hide his fear, his apprehension now. The Badgie's words had struck home, and Maddigern knew it well.

  “I'd face you on even ground,” Finn said, “if you had the courage for it.”

  “That would be too easy, too quick. I'll need more than that.”

  Finn risked a look at Letitia. She returned his glance with a smile, her eyes bright, her chin raised in defiance. Finn gave her an encouraging smile in return.

  The Badgie shook his head. “You so carelessly show your feelings to the world. I cannot imagine such a weakness as this. … Cadigar! Sigdin!”

  The Badgie's words had scarcely left his lips before the two cloaked guardsmen came at a run through the open door. Both came to rigid attention, as Maddigern shouted orders in the harsh Badgie tongue.

  At once, the first mailed warrior took up a position at his leader's side. The other moved to Letitia, stood with his stubby legs apart, his hands behind his back.

  “Tell him to get away from her, Maddigern, now!”

  “Don't concern yourself, please. I'll give you time to say your farewells before he takes the stool away. I have something else for you first. My kind are more efficient than humans, Finn. When we begin a task, we see it to completion. We do not leave a job undone.”

  He turned, then, facing the Badgie by his side. The Guardsman started to move, but Maddigern stopped him with a glance.

  “Hold your post. I shall handle this myself.”

  Maddigern stalked to the door and disappeared.

  “What do you think, Letitia? I'm guessing fatcake, sugar tarts. Squash pudding with a cherry on top.”

  “Thornberry pie,” Letitia added. “That's the least I'd expect from such a caring fellow as this. Thornberry pie, dripping at the crust.”

  “I knew you'd say that. A thick red filling, bubbling at the—”

  “Stop. No talk!”

  The Badgie close by clutched the hilt of his sword. “You know what we're saying, then? Fine. What would you fellows think of a tub of gold coins? One each, of course, wouldn't ask you to split a single tub, why, you'd slaughter each other out of hand.

  “No? How about two tubs, a place in the country, a vat of ale so big you can bathe in it if you like. Wouldn't hurt either of you fellows, no offense—”

  “Wassik! Jass dega!”

  Something in the Badgie tongue, Finn was sure, and no translation was required. The tip of a s
word at Finn's throat said it all.

  “Oh, I think I understand. One thing more if I may… “

  “Finn!”

  At Letitia's cry, Finn turned, startled, and stared in disbelief at the door. Maddigern held an iron cage in one hand, held it out stiffly well away from any bodily parts. Behind the thick, rusty bars, hung Julia Jessica Slagg. Her long tail was fastened securely to a chain attached to the inner dome of the cage. Julia swung free, flailing her wicked claws, snapping at the air with her jaws.

  The two Badgies glared at the angry lizard and backed up a cautious step as Maddigern hung the cage from a hook in the ceiling of the cell.

  Clearly, the two had faced Julia's wrath before and didn't care to get within her reach again.

  “Julia, you're not looking your best,” Finn said, “but it's good to see you again.”

  “I'm not looking well? That's the bush calling the grass green, I'd say. You're not one to talk, but it is, indeed, a pleasure to be back. Though I wish you would inform me before you leave on one of your exciting expeditions again.

  “Letitia, I'm sure you know I did what I could to maim these brutes, but I fear I was foully undone.” “I know that, Julia. You did what you could.” “You never get that right,” Finn said. “You do it every time. That business of the bush. It's not a bush it's kettles and pots. And it's black and not green… “

  “Enough,” Maddigern said, and stepped between Finn and the lizard's cage.

  “Sigdin, when I tell you, remove the Mycer person's stool. Do it slowly, for Master Finn will want to see the life go out of the creature's eyes. When he's finished, Finn, I'll personally slice this damnable machine into very small bits. Then we'll get to you.”

  “What do you want?” Finn said, straining at his bonds. “Did I kill poor Dostagio? Yes, of course, and anyone else you'd care to name. Let them go, they're no use to you at all.”

  Maddigern waved Finn's words away. “I'm done with you, Finn, there's nothing I want to hear. Look at her once more. In a moment, she won't be a pretty sight to see.”