The Book of Words

by J. V. Jones

  “What guarantee do I have that it is safe? How do I know it is not poison or worse?” The queen looked directly into his eyes, challenging him.

  “I give Your Highness my gravest undertaking that it will do the king no harm.”

  “And what if I have no faith in that undertaking?”

  “Your Highness, I have a proposition.” Baralis dug into the fold of his cloak and brought out the small glass bottle containing the potion. He held the bottle up to the light, and the brownish fluid sparkled with promise. “This vial contains hope for the king.” He handed it to the queen. “In it is ten days supply of medicine. Take it from me this day, and administer it to the king. If you see a noticeable improvement in his health, I will be willing to supply you with as much of the remedy as the king will ever need.”

  The queen regarded Baralis impassively. He suspected that beneath her serene exterior was a frenzy of emotions. “I repeat, Lord Baralis, how do I know this remedy is safe?”

  Baralis remained calm. He had expected no less and was prepared for it. He approached the queen and noticed that she winced slightly as he did so. Slowly, for his hands were in pain and he was anxious not to betray that fact to the queen, he pulled the stopper from the bottle. He then raised the bottle to his lips and swallowed a quantity of the thick, brown liquid. Baralis resealed the bottle and held it out for the queen to take.

  For what seemed to Baralis like an eternity, but was in fact only a few moments, he stood there offering the bottle to the queen. At last, she stepped forward and took it. Their fingers touched for the barest of seconds.

  “If this works, what will you expect in return?”

  “Your Highness, let us first see if you are willing to buy before we talk of the price.”

  The queen’s face was as cold as stone. “You may go now, Lord Baralis.”

  He left obediently. Everything had gone perfectly. The medicine would appear to work well. It would improve the king’s condition, as it was part antidote to the poison that had been on the king’s arrow. Of course, the king would never be himself again, but the medicine would halt further decline, and might enable him to remember names and walk a little once more. Might even stop his constant drooling. Nothing too drastic, mused Baralis. Nothing that would interfere with his plans.

  It would only be a matter of days before the queen would come to him, eager for more of the medicine. So eager, she would agree to anything he asked. He must remember to make the second batch much weaker. It wouldn’t do to have the king too well.

  As Baralis returned to his chamber, he had the vague feeling he was being watched. He turned around, and no one was there. He shook his head. He was probably imagining things; it might even be an aftereffect of the king’s medicine. Baralis smiled to himself. A little paranoia would go unnoticed among the king’s other ailments.

  The assassin watched as Baralis returned to his chambers. He was careful not to approach the door too closely. He had seen markings like those before, and he knew they were wardings. Maybor had tried to make light of the man’s powers, but he was no fool. He knew what the dangers were. In part that was why he’d accepted the commission. Baralis’ murder would be his finest achievement, the crowning glory in his long dance with death. He was excited by the prospect of taking such a craftily guarded life.

  Scarl had spent several days monitoring Baralis’ movements. He suspected the king’s chancellor had access to secret passageways, for the assassin had waited outside rooms, only to find that Baralis never left them, yet he would appear in a different part of the castle later. The assassin liked the idea of secret passages as much as the next man. He would make it his business to find out more about them.

  He was, he admitted, a little afraid of Baralis. That the man possessed great power was highly evident, despite Maybor’s attempts to deny it. The secret of murdering a sorcerer was to catch him unawares, to give him no chance for a defensive drawing. Scarl would have liked to kill Baralis whilst he slept, but it was impossible to gain access to his chambers—Crope and the wardings saw to that. He would have to find a time when the man’s attentions were diverted by something just as compelling as sleep.

  One moment off his guard and the knife would be his fate. Scarl had yet to meet a man who would not succumb to a blade. All died equally as fast when their windpipes were severed. That was how Scarl liked to do his job: one clean, deep sweep with a sharp knife. It had proved most successful in the past. It would do for Baralis, too.

  There was a lot to be said for slitting the throat. It silenced the victim instantly, it was quick, there was never a struggle, one approached one’s victim from behind, and lastly, if one was skillful, which Scarl was, one never got as much as a drop of blood on oneself.

  Yes, mused Scarl, others might go in for the showier executions—the dagger in the eye, the blade in the heart—but nothing beat a good throat slitting.

  Scarl knew he had to be careful to choose the right moment. The castle passageways were too public, guards or others could approach at any time and foil his plans. He would not rush into this. It was his nature to watch and wait. At some point Baralis would be vulnerable, and that would be the instant he felt the keen blade of Scarl’s knife at his throat.

  After Baralis left, the queen sat for a long while, turning the small bottle in her hand. She watched the tawny fluid move within the glass. On impulse she unstopped the cap and smelled the contents. She pulled away from its strong and unpleasant odor. She tipped one single glistening drop onto her fingertip and raised it to her lips—she would rather endanger herself than the king. The taste was bitter.

  She waited for many hours, refusing food and drink, and could detect no harmful effects. It was true she had only sampled a drop, but she was satisfied nonetheless. She would take the medicine to the king.

  As she walked to the king’s chamber, she came across her son Kylock. Seeing him thus, she realized how very little she saw of him normally. He was a stranger to her. She didn’t know what he did from day to day. His chambers were out of bounds; he had never once invited her past his door. Several months back, when she knew Kylock was off for the day on a hunt, the queen stole into his rooms. The act had been unworthy of her, but curiosity won over pride and she made her way to the east wing. She chose her time well and met no one on the way. Her first feeling on entering the chamber was relief. It was clean and orderly, every chest in its place, not a fold falling amiss. Then it occurred to her: it was too meticulous. The rugs were perfectly square, not a mote of dust on the sill, not a flake of ash in the fire. Too orderly by far for a boy of seventeen, it was as if he didn’t live there at all. One particular rug drew her eye—the deep crimsons of its weave seemed strangely random. The queen crouched down and ran her fingers over the silk. Even before she raised her hand to her face, she knew what it was: blood. Sticky, nearly dry, less than a day old.

  The most unsettling thing was not the blood itself as much as its presence in such a pristine setting. Like a beautiful maiden in the company of old dowagers, the blood seemed more striking by comparison.

  The following day she’d passed Kylock in the stables. He’d asked how she was and then, just as she stepped away, he said, “So, Mother, what did you think of my rooms?” His tone was mocking. He didn’t wait for a reply, merely smiling, then walking away.

  She never felt easy in his presence. He was so unlike her or the king, and not just in appearance—though he was as dark as she and the King were fair. It was his whole bearing that was different. He was so secretive, so introverted. Even as a child he preferred to be alone, refusing to play with other children. Baralis was his only friend.

  Kylock approached her now, lips curved in an ironic smile. “Good evening, Mother.” His low, seductive tone reminded her of another’s, but she could not remember whose.

  “Good evening to you, Kylock.” Her son looked at her, and she could think of nothing else to say to him.

  “What have you there?” He motioned to the bot
tle she carried.

  “It is medicine for your father.”

  “Really. Do you suppose it will do him any good?” The queen was troubled by his nonchalant tone.

  “Lord Baralis has prepared it for him.”

  “Well, in that case it is bound to do something.”

  The queen could not make out what her son meant by the ambiguous comment. She regretted mentioning that the medicine was from Baralis. Her son had that effect on her: he either robbed her of speech entirely or impelled her to speak unwisely, as she had done now. She looked up to say something else, but he had gone.

  She found herself wishing that she had never been queen—she had little joy in it. Of late, she had been king in everything but name. She would have liked to give it up, take her sick husband away to their castle in the Northlands and live a peaceful and quiet life. Something stopped her, though. It was partly her pride, but there was also something in her that balked at the idea of her son as king.

  She had never loved him properly, not with a mother’s true affection. She remembered the day he was born, when he was handed to her—pale and silent and smelling of cloves. There had been no surge of warmth in her breast, no pull of emotion. The midwife nodded her head wisely and told her love would come. And it had in a way, for she loved her son with an almost jealous frenzy, but she felt no tenderness, no affection.

  It upset her to think of the many years she had been childless. The years of longing for a baby, the countless disappointments, the unceasing humiliations. She had been married to the king for ten long years before she had conceived.

  For the first few years the king had been full of gentle encouragements and considerations. “No matter, my love,” he would say as her blood flowed anew each month. “There is time aplenty. You are young and fertile; the Gods choose to make us wait until they are ready.” He would smile and squeeze her hand and invite her to bed to try again.

  The pressures of sovereignty had eventually taken their toll, and the king became desperate for a son—an heir was essential to the stability and continuity of the country. Sly whispers assailed the king’s ears:

  “A country without an heir is an invitation to war.”

  “It is your sacred duty to provide an heir for the kingdom.”

  “The queen is not fertile.”

  “Strike the marriage asunder.”

  “Replace the queen with a breeder.”

  The king had loved her dearly and could bear no talk of setting her aside. But the fulsome urgings of the court had their effect upon him. She could hardly blame him—they were right, the country did need an heir.

  She had been desperate to conceive. She tried everything from scalding poultices to arcane ceremonies . . . all to no avail. Of course there was no mention that the king could be infertile. The very thought was preposterous. He was the king: symbol of life, renewal, and continuity. Even the queen dared not harbor that treasonous thought, and she resigned herself to her barrenness.

  The king had not once spoken to her about annulling the marriage, even though he was legally entitled to do so as she had been proven barren. Instead he brought other women to his bed, hoping to father a child and later legitimize any issue resulting from the union. He’d tried to be discreet, but servants whispered and courtiers talked. The queen shuddered at the memory of the shame—surely no other queen in all the histories had ever had to bear such humiliation—to carry on at court each day as if nothing was wrong, to appear regal and composed while her husband dallied with numerous women.

  The strange thing was that none of those women had borne him sons. The few women who did conceive gave birth to daughters, and a daughter was of no value in male-dominated Harvell. The king had sent the women and babes away, caring little for their fate.

  Eventually, he gave up his attempts to conceive a son and they both became resigned to remaining childless.

  Then, one chill winter month, nearly eighteen summers ago, her blood had failed to flow. She hardly dared hope: ten years without a child was proof beyond doubt that she was barren. A second month had passed and then a third; her body swelled and her breasts grew tender. She was with child. The king and court were jubilant. There were parades and dances and feasts in her honor, and she had duly given birth to a son.

  She’d counted back nine months from her son’s birth. Kylock had been conceived in mid-winter and the queen had no memory of the king visiting her bed at that time. Of course, she could not be certain, and she did remember one occasion when she’d drunk so unwisely that she had no memory of the night before. She recalled waking in the morning and feeling the familiar soreness of lovemaking. Her husband must have taken her while she was drunk. A disturbing thought.

  The queen raised a finger to her lips and bit softly upon the fleshy tip. The sting of pain brought her back to the present and she was glad; there were too many unanswered questions in the past, too much sorrow, too much lost.

  She made haste along the lofty corridors, eager to try the medicine upon the king.

  Seven

  Tawl slipped into the shaded alleyway. Although it was daylight, it was almost dark between the tall buildings, their overhanging eaves serving to prevent the light from reaching the ground. He was on his way to see a man recommended by Megan for being able to arrange passages on ships, no questions asked. He had no money to pay for such a passage, though, and Megan’s small savings were down to the last few coppers. He decided he would talk to the man first and see if he could persuade him to do business. He would come up with a way to find the passage fee later.

  Like so many districts with bad reputations, the whoring quarter of Rorn had its good and bad areas. A good area was considered to be one where whores and touts felt free to ply their trade, where pickpockets slunk amidst the crowded streets, places where people said, “At least it’s not as bad as Sharlett Street.”

  Sharlett Street was in fact much more than a street—it was a small district within the whoring quarter. There were no half-dressed prostitutes on these streets. No amiable pickpockets, no hopeful con artists, no one in fact who valued their life. Sharlett Street was for those who didn’t value their lives, those so tortured by disease, or their own dark consciences, that they didn’t care if they ever saw another day.

  It was more than the pestilence and the filth that kept people off Sharlett’s bleak streets. There was a feeling of corruption in the very air, an atmosphere that held promise of ill deeds and decay.

  It was to this place that Tawl was headed. He noticed the gradual changes that took place in his surroundings: fewer people on the streets, rats scurrying through the slop of human refuse, failing to observe the usual after-dark hours of their kind.

  As he walked, picking a careful path through the filth, Tawl considered the tale the old man in the tavern had told him. He shuddered to think of the helpless seers leashed to the rock for the length of their lives. Tawl knew what it was to be bound. He’d felt the snag of rope upon his flesh. He wondered at the nature of the powers who would do such an inhuman thing. And he bitterly wished that he did not have need of their services.

  To go to Larn and consult with the seers was condoning what was done there, when he, as a knight of Valdis, should be striving to free them from their captivity. The knights were founded upon one basic principle: to help their fellow men. For over four hundred years the order had striven to alleviate human suffering. Their greatest triumph was the campaign against slavery in the east. Thanks to their actions, cities such as Marls and Rorn could no longer trade in flesh from the far south. Even today the knights still manned the eastern harbors, checking the hulls of merchant ships.

  Tawl uncovered the double circle on his arm. He had hoped, many winters ago, that he would gain the third and final ring. That was why Tyren had sent him to Bevlin in the first place. To attain the final circle and become a ranking knight, a novice was expected to go out in the world and not return until he had “achieved merit in the eyes of God.”

&
nbsp; The first circle was for physical excellence, the second for learning, and the third for achievement. What constituted merit in the eyes of God was hard to judge, and many knights spent many years in search of a glorious, but often elusive, cause. Most chose to go on missions. The year Tawl had been conferred, two knights went to the northwest to mediate in the dispute over the River Nestor; a few sailed down the Silbur in pursuit of river pirates; and his friends had traveled to the far south in search of lost treasures—Tawl didn’t know what had become of them.

  At the end of it all, when the knights thought they were ready, they presented themselves at Valdis to be judged. Four men heard the testimony and then acting upon their recommendation, the leader, Tyren, either conferred the knight with his final circle, or sent him out to begin again. It brought great shame to a knight if he presented himself and was found unworthy. To avoid this humiliation, many knights spent years, even decades, away from Valdis. Some never returned.

  Tawl couldn’t imagine a time when he’d be ready for judgment. He’d been set a nearly impossible task, and until it was completed he couldn’t show his face at Valdis. It seemed many years since the head of the order had sent him on his way. He still remembered Tyren’s words: “Go visit with the wiseman Bevlin. You will find him in the north. I have faith that you will do what he asks.” It had been a difficult time; he’d come close to giving it all up. The feeling that he was needed, and—if he were honest—the promise of glory, was all that kept him going.

  The reality was so much different than the dream. He had spent all save one of the last years in a fruitless search: he’d traveled through much of the Known Lands asking people if they knew of a boy who was different in some way from others.

  He had been told of boys with six fingers, boys with yellow eyes, boys with madness eating away at their brains. These and countless others Tawl had sought out, only to know in his deepest soul that none of them were the one.

  Eventually he had come to Rorn, his spirits low, his task appearing hopeless. He’d made the mistake of asking in the wrong place and had been picked up by the authorities. It was a risk one took being a knight of Valdis, for the knights were no longer in favor. They were used as scapegoats for any problem a particular city had—if crops failed in Lanholt, it was the knights who willed it; if trade was down in Rorn, it was the knights who slowed it. Tawl sighed heavily. He had heard all the rumors about how the knights were building up stockpiles of cash, of religious fanaticism and greed for political power. If the knights were corrupt, then so was their leader, and Tawl would hear nothing malicious said about Tyren.