by Roger Taylor
Nefron scowled. She had her elder son clearly marked as a brute and she always found the idea of his being gentle and thoughtful extraordinarily amusing in its incongruity. His father certainly hadn't been, but then, neither had she. Now, however, the humour rose unwanted, to mingle with serious concerns, and the disturbance angered her.
’ … distracted…’ the letter said. Did he mean mad? No, had Drayner meant mad he would have said mad.
With an effort, Nefron sat down on a long settle by the window and forced herself to read the letter again, slowly and carefully. The grey morning light fell coldly on the paper and quietened her. She could see no subtle plot beneath it all, nor did she sense any danger. There was nothing in the letter that could not be brought before the Duke himself. Only a concern for a patient and for the harm to the city that Menedrion's strange behaviour might cause should it become too public.
Drayner knew well enough that though bitter differences lay between the Duke and his wife, these were concerned predominantly with the succession to the rule of Serenstad and its dominions and no benefit lay to anyone, except perhaps the Bethlarii, if some scandal involving the Duke's eldest son were to undermine confidence in the future. And he would not have written had it not been a truly serious matter.
For a moment it occurred to Nefron that if there were more like Drayner in public affairs, then much of the factional and family quarrelling that bedevilled them would stop. The thought barely received an acknowledgement, however. Drayner could afford to be above it all. All he had to do was mend cracked heads and gashes. Greedy merchants, scheming, envious relatives, malcontented citizens, power-hungry lords and Guild Leaders were a different matter by far.
Then a genuine spark of motherly concern rose within her. Her little boy was ill. Abruptly she was by his cot again, next to her concerned Duke, bathing a fevered brow, and hanging on to Drayner's confident reassurances. ‘Just a childish illness, there's nothing to fear. He's a strong boy, he'll be well again in a day or two. Don't worry.'
The memory and its attendant emotions caught her unawares and she raised her hand to her throat as had been her way in those days when she was anxious. Then, catching sight of herself in the mirror she straightened up and, slightly embarrassed, called to her maid.
'Have the Lord Menedrion come to me straight away,’ she said imperiously as the woman entered. Maara's mouth opened as if to question the order, but seeing her mistress's demeanour she remained silent. ‘I must see him now, no matter what he's doing, do you understand? Make sure that the message is clear.'
Maara bowed and left rapidly.
Since Ibris had confined Nefron to her old family palace, the Erin-Mal, he had allowed no one to visit her without his express permission except their sons, Menedrion and Goran. It had been a risk, but he had had little alternative. The effective imprisonment of his wife, the daughter of one of the city's most powerful Senedwr, some thirteen years previously had caused a great deal of political unrest, which assurances that ‘The Lady Nefron has been advised by her physicians to retire from public life’ did little to allay. To have denied her ‘the comfort and solace of her children', as her supporters pleaded on her behalf, would have been to court disaster.
Ibris conceded all such matters at that time with a splendid public grace and a very ill private one.
'The bitch is lucky I haven't had her hanged,’ he declaimed to his immediate advisers on more than one occasion. ‘She can thank her father for that. I need him too much.'
On their last meeting, however, he had been unequivocal. ‘Father or no, Nefron. If I catch one whisper of you or your followers plotting against Arwain again, you can look to a pillow over your face one night.'
Nefron had blanched at the sight of her husband's rage, as many a fighting man would have done, but she had held his gaze and her demeanour. ‘I don't deny that I'd have rejoiced if those assassins had been successful,’ she replied viciously. ‘But if you think it was I who hired them to kill my sister's precious bastard, then you're wrong, and you know it. If you'd an ounce of proof you'd drag me through the courts regardless of my father and family just to have done with me, wouldn't you, great Duke?’ Then she looked at him enigmatically. ‘What a pity all the assassins were killed,’ she added.
Ibris's eyes blazed. ‘Cling to your solitary thread of good fortune, Nefron,’ he said. ‘One day … One day…’ The sentence faded impotently.
Nefron picked it up. ‘One day, our son will be the Duke of Serenstad. Duke Menedrion will rule in your wake. You'll have no choice but to decree it sooner or later. And should anything befall him before then, whatever the cause, I'll see the spawn of your adultery in hell, though you throw me from the Aphron Dennai for it.'
'Don't tempt me, woman,’ Ibris retorted furiously.
Nefron laughed. The cruel taunting laughter that only a lover can inflict.
'Tempt you, my love?’ she said in mock allurement. ‘Didn't you know that none of my insatiable sister's innumerable lovers was worth tempting.'
Ibris strode forward, his hand raised. Nefron's face twitched involuntarily in anticipation of the blow, but apart from that she did not flinch.
For a long moment, they had looked into one another's eyes, then Ibris had lowered his hand and, without speaking again, turned and left.
The quiet closing of the door behind him had unexpectedly struck Nefron to her heart and, despite herself, she had sent a silent oath after him as she wiped tears from her eyes.
Now she had few tears left.
Menedrion was in a foul mood when he eventually arrived, bursting into his mother's room virtually unannounced.
'Mother! What the devil…'
Nefron casually raised a hand to still his thunderous approach and, looking past him, she smiled at the indignant and flustered Maara who had attempted to escort him into the room with due decorum and who had been swept aside for her pains.
'You may leave us, Maara,’ she said. ‘I apologize for my son's hastiness. He's unused to the company of ladies of refinement. Oh, and please thank whoever carried my message for their speed.'
Mollified, Maara bowed and left, and Nefron turned her attention to her son.
'I'll thank you to have a little more regard for my servants, Irfan,’ she said in mild reproach as she offered her cheek for a kiss. ‘Heaven knows, I've few enough that I can trust these days.'
Menedrion bent forward and, unclenching his teeth, just managed to kiss his mother without growling.
'Mother…’ he began again, purposefully.
Nefron waved a silencing finger in front of him. ‘Let me look at you,’ she said, reaching up and brushing a maternal hand over his tunic. ‘I haven't seen you for weeks and weeks.'
'You said, “Don't come so often,” the last time we met,’ Menedrion protested immediately in irritable mitigation.
'There, there,’ Nefron said, irrelevantly, at the same time taking his arm. ‘Sit down, you're too big for my little room.'
Menedrion cast a brief, ironic glance at the large, ornate receiving room, then followed the prompting of his mother's hand like a convalescing invalid.
Nefron sat down in front of him and looked at him earnestly.
'Tell me exactly what happened last night,’ she said briskly, just as he opened his mouth to speak again.
The question left him gaping as he looked into his mother's wide, inquiring eyes.
There was a flicker of something in his face that startled Nefron, but she showed no outward sign other than intensifying her penetrating gaze.
Menedrion seemed to chew around the possibility of a denial for a moment, then bluntly said, ‘Why?'
'Because I need to know,’ Nefron said in a tone that would brook no debate. ‘I know that you nearly killed one of your women. What I want to know is, why?'
Again Menedrion seemed briefly to consider denying the charge, but suddenly his face distorted with anger and, pushing his chair back, he stood up. ‘Who told you this?’ he shou
ted. ‘If it was that…'
'Sit down,’ Nefron said, before Menedrion could outline his vengeance. He hesitated.
'Sit down!’ she repeated forcefully, looking up at him but speaking directly to the knees of the child she had reared. They bent in compliance.
Seated again, and momentarily quelled, Menedrion leaned forward and affected to be examining his boots.
'Never mind who told me,’ Nefron continued, addressing the top of his head. ‘Suffice it that I know. And if I know, then others will. And if others know then it might well come to the ears of the Gythrin-Dy…'
Menedrion echoed the name with a dismissive snarl.
A brief look of angry frustration passed over Nefron's face. ‘I despair of you sometimes, Irfan. The Gythrin-Dy is not the Sened. They're jumped-up traders and Guildsmen full of their own importance. Always anxious to chip away at the authority of the great merchant houses and the lords. Even your father has difficulties getting things quietly set aside there. If they catch wind of this there are those who'll gladly call for your father to punish you in some way, and some who'd speak to have you prosecuted.'
Menedrion looked up, his face a mixture of alarm and disbelief. ‘They don't have the authority,’ he said uncertainly.
'No,’ Nefron confirmed. ‘They don't. But they're free to speak and they have money and the public ear. And if this blows into a scandal then you'll soon find the mob who acclaimed your battle successes will be howling for your head, and there's precious little anyone can do if that happens.'
She paused. Even Menedrion knew the power of the mob, but he did not seem to be listening.
'Don't you understand?’ Nefron ploughed on, her eyes narrowing and her tone sharpening. ‘You could end up being banished to one of the islands for a year or more and the succession denied you forever. Arwain would rule in your stead.’ She could see that no response would be forthcoming so she drove her final words in like a lance. ‘Now what happened?'
Physically, Menedrion was his father's son. Slightly shorter but equally powerfully built, he was a brave man and had a commanding presence. There, however, the resemblance ended, for Menedrion did not have his father's innate and subtle understanding of people, placing his faith instead in his ability to use force and bluster to deal with most problems. He had many staunch and loyal allies, but on the whole, his wild behaviour had made his popularity brittle and uncertain.
A phrase that Aaken Uhr Candessa had once used about Menedrion came to Nefron now as she waited for some response. ‘The Duke could hang a thousand and be cheered by their friends and relatives as he did it. Menedrion could get himself hanged for kicking a cat.'
It was not a statement that Nefron could wholeheartedly deny as much as she would have liked to. She was thus prepared for a robust, blustering rebuttal, either denying the incident or proudly and defiantly proclaiming it. Instead, however, Menedrion put his hands to his head, and, for one heart-stopping moment, Nefron thought he was about to burst into tears.
But the expression on his face was one she had never seen before. The faint flicker, that she had glimpsed earlier, bloomed to full light as she watched. Her son's face was haunted.
Her own face reflected his expression and, uncharacteristically, her hands dithered uncertainly, involuntarily drawn to reach out to him, but also repelled.
'What is it?’ she said in soft alarm.
Menedrion looked at her, then his eyes began gazing about the room like some trapped creature looking for an escape. And, indeed, Nefron's hands were not unlike striking predators as they suddenly shot out and grasped his oscillating head to hold it firm.
'What is it?’ she said again in a voice calculated to drive out any phantom.
Strong though he was, Menedrion could not pull himself free from his mother's grasp. ‘I did hit her, Mother,’ he said hesitantly, as though unable to believe his own words. His eyes met hers and Nefron released him. ‘In fact … I beat her.’ He held out his powerful hands and stared down at them. ‘I half strangled her. But it wasn't me. I…’ His voice faded.
'What do you mean, it wasn't you?’ Nefron asked severely, ill-disposed towards any pleading.
Menedrion pulled away from her again. ‘I don't want to talk about it,’ he said brusquely, preparing to stand. ‘I'll deal with the girl and her parents. They're the only ones involved. There'll be no problem, no scandal. I'm not so foolish, mother. I've sorted out worse than this before now.'
But his heartiness rang hollow.
'Drayner told me about you, Irfan,’ Nefron said starkly. ‘He said that you needed my help in some way. And Drayner is considerably less foolish even than you, isn't he?'
'He had no right.’ Menedrion began, goaded by his mother's acid tone. ‘What game's he playing?'
'He had every right,’ Nefron said, sweeping his protest aside. ‘Drayner plays no games, you know that. He sides with no one, but he's more political wits in his finger than many a Senedwr has in his entire body. And if he's concerned enough to bring your affairs to my attention then the matter's serious. Now, stop this nonsense. I want to know everything that happened. Do you understand?'
For a moment Menedrion held his mother's gaze, then he conceded defeat with a scowl. ‘It was just a bad dream, that's all,’ he said with airy self-consciousness. ‘I was fighting. Fighting in a battle … unhorsed … surrounded … I wasn't awake properly … I didn't realize…'
Nefron was shaking her head slowly as he spoke and his voice tailed off. ‘No dream about a battle put the look on your face that I just saw,’ she said, leaning forward and bringing her own face very close to his. Menedrion swallowed and she went on. ‘Because you're half-berserk when you fight, Irfan Menedrion, and no battle odds would frighten you. And while you might wake up thrashing and flailing, you wake like a warrior; wide awake and well aware of where you are. You know dream from reality well enough. And no dream of a battle would make you go pale at the memory hours later.'
Menedrion looked away from her and stared across the room, but he did not see what his eyes focused on. There was a long silence. Nefron watched and waited. The grey daylight from the window cut cold shadows in Menedrion's face.
'It was a battle, mother,’ he said eventually, reluctantly turning towards her again. ‘But I'm not sure it was a dream.'
Nefron frowned in genuine concern. For an instant all her ambitions for her son began to teeter as images of insanity formed before her. There was no history of it in either family, but …?
'It was … real…’ Menedrion continued. ‘I was … somewhere else. Somewhere bleak. And dark, like an unnatural night. And cold.’ He began to rub his arm with his hand. ‘Bitterly cold. And all around were shadows. Blacker than the darkness. In the distance at first, but moving, searching. Searching for me.'
His breathing became shallower. ‘I looked round, but I couldn't see anything but this expanse of dark emptiness. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They knew I was here because they'd brought me here and now they were just looking for me.'
Nefron watched in mounting horror as the blood drained from Menedrion's ruddy face and the haunted gaze returned. ‘Then, as if they'd heard my thoughts, they saw me … sensed me. They began to close in … like hunters. Slowly at first, then quicker and quicker. I couldn't run, because that was what they wanted and I knew they'd take the power of my running for themselves and pursue me the faster.’ Menedrion's hands rose up as if to protect himself. ‘As they closed, I struck out, but … they weren't there … yet they were.’ He looked at his mother intently, explaining now. ‘When I struck, I passed right through them … and they through me … like a coldness … a deathly coldness. Possessing me, mother. Wanting me. “Yes,” they kept saying. “Yes, yes, this one too.” They were drawing me away … drawing me … I couldn't stop them … I didn't want to … I…'
He let out a massive gasping breath and seemed unable to continue for a moment. ‘And then someone else was with me, inside me … no … I was someone else … so
meone who didn't belong there … and they couldn't reach me any more … except one … more silent, more terrible than the others. He, it, touched me just as I … woke … came back.'
Menedrion ran his hand over his chest as if to assure himself of something. ‘But some of it was still with me … tiny, but real … dancing deep inside me like a black candle flame. And I was still someone else. Someone else being me. Someone else who didn't feel the flame. Who didn't hear it say, “Strike. Let me be fed.” But who struck anyway.'
Suddenly he let out an anguished cry and dropped his head into his hands. Nefron looked at him, wide-eyed and, for the first time in her life, speechless with shock.
'I'm not mad, mother,’ Menedrion said unexpectedly, without looking up. ‘I'm not mad.'
Nefron opened her mouth to speak some reassurance, but she knew her voice would betray her. Instead she laid a hand on his head as the cold, reasoning part of her mind struggled to dominate the powerful emotions that had swept through her in response to her son's pain.
Menedrion looked up. ‘I'm not mad,’ he said viciously into her silence. ‘I know that. I thought I might be, but telling you about it has told me I'm not. It could have been a madman's dream, but it wasn't. But I am frightened.'
Nefron had never heard, nor thought to hear, such an admission from her son in all his life, but still she could not trust her voice. Menedrion had many flaws in his character, but he had both faced and dealt out death in combat and his judgement in the heat of action was to be trusted utterly. Beset by enemies, Menedrion knew where every part of his mind and body were to an extent that would be the envy of a meditative sage. It was his wholeness that made him so formidable, often robbing his opponents of their will even as they attacked him.
