Melanthrix the Mage

by Robert Reginald

  He finally decided to scratch King Makáry, the pretender, King Ezzö, and Hereditary Prince Kazimir from his list, because any natural son born to these men, al­though he might have been entitled to inherit part of their material estates, yet would have had no legal claim to their thrones or pretensions except after those of any elder le­gitimate brothers, seniority still being a factor in such cases.

  Further investigation in the peerage books cut an­other eleven individuals from his list, reducing it to just thirty-seven. These had been younger sons of the nobility whose elder brothers or their children had survived the war. He could probably trim the list a bit further with a trip down the street to the Church Archives. He would leave such research for another day, however.

  Now for the second problem.

  Arik had stated that he was taken prisoner by Pom­merelian forces at the fall of Borgösha in 1165. As one of the landed gentry, he would have been ransomed. Athana­sios found a volume from that year recording Exchanges of Prisoners, i Kyprianos iii. On page after tedious page were noted the names of hundreds of detainees and their dates of parole. On the 6th day of September was an entry, about a third of the way down the page recording the men ex­changed at the Skopélosz Pass between Borgösha and My­láßgorod, one “Erich Rufím, ætat. xxv.” Fifteen staters had been paid for his release by “Harmon Rufím, domi­nus.”

  So that much at least was confirmed. Arik had also mentioned returning home and subsequently resigning his commission. The question was: where had the resignation taken place, and had a report been filed at military head­quarters outside Paltyrrha? But his efforts here came to naught, for he could find no volumes that specifically recorded terminations of service. Such notations seemed to be scattered throughout the voluminous military Annales, with no easy way of locating a specific record.

  The archpriest then thought to check Arik’s original enlistment papers, and he did find a series of annual vol­umes providing such information. However, they were ar­ranged geographically, and it took an hour’s difficult searching finally to locate what he was seeking. Under the heading of “Örtenburg,” the capital of Nördmark, one “Erik son of Rufím” had enlisted there as a sublieutenant on the 15th (not the 5th!) day of April in the year 1160, aged twenty years.

  It was obvious that some effort had been made to keep these volumes current until the onset of the war in 1163 had overwhelmed the clerks. A number of enlistees, about a third, did have entries marked with “dec.,” “res.,” or “dism.,” plus an accompanying date in most instances. The rest of the records, unfortunately, among them Arik’s, displayed no evidence of the soldier’s ultimate fate, other than a set of abbreviations scribbled onto the final column of the page with some (but not all) of the entries. For Arik Rufímovich, the clerks had noted in several different hands the following groups of letters: “sl, ng, fl, kg, cp, dd.”

  Athanasios studied the volume very carefully, but could make no sense of the code. He hesitated to ask one of the librarians, for fear of drawing unwarranted attention to his quest. He determined to locate the information in some other way.

  He would be unable to discover when Arik joined the Silent Souls of Saint Svyatosláv until he visited Saint Alexios’s House, the church archives. However, he might be able to verify Arik’s statement that he had returned home after being paroled. The personal property tax rolls were arranged by county or barony and then by year, and further subdivided within each book into localities. Athanasios had to look long and hard, but he jumped up and clapped his hands when he spotted the item he was seeking. In the book for Nördmark, in the region called Oberpfitzner, on the 16th day of January in the year 1166, was recorded, with other names:

  “Harmanos Rufímobich, 2 st.

  “Harikos Rufímobich, 25 ob.”

  So Arik had indeed made it home from his two-year ordeal. Just what had prompted him to leave the cozy confines of his family’s estate in the middle of winter? What was so important about the child whom he had brought to Saint Svyatosláv’s?

  These questions and others would have to wait for another day. Now, alas, the archpriest must return to the Scholê for his afternoon class on “The Scrying of Entrails.” Lord, how he hoped that that dunderhead Pókazh would re­strain himself. Last time the room had reeked of vomit for hours thereafter.

  Oh well, he thought, sufficient unto the day are the entrails thereof.

  He gathered together his notes, carefully filed the volumes back where he had found them, and quietly de­parted, brushing the dust from his cassock. None of the clerks noticed that he had left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “YOU’LL DO JUST FINE”

  That evening the Princess Arrhiána and her stepson dined with her brother, Prince Arkády, and his family in his luxurious, well-appointed apartments in the palace. The adults ate on the enclosed balcony that overlooked the lights of the city, while the children were fed separately in a small alcove near the main dining room, and then packed off to bed, protesting sleepily.

  “But I want to stay up and talk to the grownups!” wailed Rÿna to her governess. “Especially Auntie Rhie. She’s my favorite! I never get to see her and cousin Val!”

  “Hush, little princess,” said Márissa, tucking a stray lock back under her white lace caplet, and wiping her hands on the snowy apron covering her plain gray frock. She was the middle-aged widow of a former soldier from the provinces. Impoverished and reduced near to beggary after her husband’s premature death, she had been brought to court through the offices of the hereditary prince. Her partial predecessor, the overworked and overwrought Kat­rina, had, after the incident with the orts, “taken the va­pors” and departed for Grüninsel, where, so she said, there were far better orts to be had than those available in the palace.

  “Don’t want no one touchin’ mine orts,” she said loudly to Princess Dúra. “Mine orts! Mine, mine, mine! You can’t share any of them!”

  “Whatever is she talking about?” Arkády asked.

  “I have no idea,” his wife said.

  But they both agreed that Márissa was an excellent replacement, and a better disciplinarian than Katrina had ever been.

  “Don’t encourage your brother,” the governess told Princess Grigorÿna, hoping to appeal to her charge’s better nature. “You know how he hurts the next day when he plays too much.”

  “Oh, all right, Márissa,” said Rÿna grumpily. “But I do want to see Auntie soon.”

  And with that she flounced off to her bedchamber, eyes flashing, curls bouncing, and Louisa clutched tightly to her chest. Once Rÿna had capitulated, Márissa had no problem in getting the other children off to bed. Ari went almost eagerly, for he was already beginning to feel the cost of his day of excitement.

  Márissa shook her head sadly as she watched him hobble away.

  Poor young master, she thought. Such a terrible affliction.

  Meanwhile, the adults were enjoying a sumptuous meal, the winter evening providing a pleasant backdrop to the tantalizing aromas rising from the varied dishes put be­fore them: tender peppered lamb, juicy game hens, and crisp vegetables, all delicately seasoned and cooked to per­fection, plus sweet, candied fruits and honeyed pastries loaded with dates and raisins, all washed down with flagons of Fontana’s best, followed by tiny delicate cups of the thick, dark, sirrupy beverage known as café in Araby.

  Arkády had requested Valentín’s presence at the “adult” table on this night of nights, since the young man had reached his majority earlier that day; but for the same reason, he intended to keep the conversation light and in­substantial.

  The view of Paltyrrha from the overhang was stun­ning. By the reddish glow of the setting sun they could see Saint-Basile’s Quai interrupting the broad, slow-moving ex­panse of the great waterway. The Paltyrrh River was filled with ships and barges coming and going in both directions. In the distance the River Argus, which branched from the main stream just south of the city, snaked its way east to­wards the coun
ty of Arrhénë.

  “It’s good to be back,” said Arrhiána, after the last empty dish had been cleared from the table, and Arkády’s servants had retired to a position where they could see and anticipate their master’s wishes, but not overhear any private conversation.

  “It’s one thing to visit now and then,” she went on, leaning back on the comfortable, padded banquette, sipping her café, “but it’s quite another to settle back into my old haunts. I’ve missed you so. Aszkán is pleasant enough, I suppose, but it’s still the provinces, and we feel terribly isolated during the winter months, portal or no.”

  Dúra laughed. “Yes, Rhie, you have been stuck out in the nether­lands, haven’t you? As soon as we can shed our mourning clothes, I’ll have my seamstress measure us for com­pletely new wardrobes, including court dresses and gowns!”

  “Kásha!” Dúra suddenly said, as an idea oc­curred to her.

  She turned to her husband, who had been yawning his boredom while gazing thoughtfully out over the city.

  “Couldn’t we organize a court ball to welcome Rhie back to Paltyrrha? These past few years, with the king at home....”

  She chattered on, not giving Arkády a chance to an­swer.

  “...It’s much more lively now!”

  “How is Papá?” Arrhiána asked, lines of con­cern etched on her normally smooth face. “He looked a little worn today, not at all the way that I remember him.”

  Dúra started to reply, but Arkády shook his head “no.”

  “Later,” he said, at the same time sending a silent message to his sister: I’ll discuss this with you privately.

  Changing the subject, he turned to his young cousin, who had been politely but somewhat impatiently listening to the conversation of his elders.

  “Count Valentín,” the prince said, “tell us of your plans for the next year. What changes will you be making now that you’re in charge?”

  “Well, sir,” the young man said, eager to talk about himself for a change. “The War Council has asked me to call up the Arrhénë levies by April, and that’s going to be my priority for a while. We have a long march to the west before we can join your expeditionary force. Our hilly terrain and numerous rivers will make it difficult for us to assemble our troops very quickly after the snows melt. We’ll do what we can to speed things up, but as you know, things just can’t be moved very fast.”

  He paused to finish the dregs of his wine, and belched slightly.

  “I’ll need to hold some reserves back to deal with any problems on our own borders. The king was most in­sistent that I remain in Aszkán as Commander of the East­ern Marches. So I guess I’m going to miss all the fun out west,” he said wistfully. “I really wanted to go along, too, but Uncle Sándor will be commanding the Ar­rhéni Lancers and the Guards.”

  “You’ll do just fine, Val,” Arkády said, clapping the lad on his shoulder. “Never forget, it’s only been a few years since the barbarian threat was crushed. They could always return, especially if they hear we’re at war somewhere else; and if they arrive while we’re in Pommerelia, you’ll have the only forces capable of stop­ping them. You’re our first line of defense, and that’s a very important task.”

  “Yes, I know, but...,” Valentín said, clearly disappointed.

  “Arkásha,” Arrhiána interrupted her foster son, “I wonder if I could ask a favor of you. It’s been a year or more since I’ve seen our sister, and even longer since I’ve visited Granny Brisquayne. I’d like to arrange a meeting with them both in Kórynthály tomorrow, and it would please me so very much to have you as my escort, if you can ar­range the time, of course.”

  She simultaneously signaled the message: I also need to talk with you!

  The prince paused a moment.

  “I have a staff meeting in the morning,” he said, “but I would be honored to accompany you in the after­noon, if that suits your schedule.”

  “It does,” she said, “very well indeed. Let’s go by way of the river, Kásha. We haven’t done that for such a long time. I think the weather will hold, don’t you? And now, even though I could enjoy the splendid view and the good company all evening, it’s been a very long day for everyone. I still have much to do to get settled in my old apartments, and Val must transit to Aszkán this evening. Will you excuse us?”

  After Arrhiána and Valentín had been sent on their separate ways, and the servants dismissed, Dúra turned to her husband.

  “I wonder if she’ll ever remarry?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Arkády said, wholly uninter­ested in his sister’s personal life. “If she does, I hope it’ll be for love this time.”

  “We haven’t done so badly,” his wife said, twirling a lock of his light brown hair ’round her finger.

  “We were lucky,” Arkády said, embracing her soundly. “Or at least I was!”

  Her response was smothered by his kisses, and gradually degenerated into a short series of giggles, which very quickly became a set of long and short sighs.

  “Out here?!” she finally managed to gasp.

  “Ah, madame, we take our joy wherever we can find it,” he said. “And we probably shouldn’t delay overmuch.”

  “I hear thee and obey, oh prince.”

  “Oh Drúsha!”

  “Oh Kásha! Oh my!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “A HUNDRED-WEIGHT LIFTED FROM MY SHOULDERS”

  On the following afternoon, Prince Arkády and his sister took sail for Kórynthály. Despite the chill of the day, the sun was bright and the sky a brilliant, robin’s-egg blue. Warmly cloaked against the breeze, they embarked at Saint-Basile’s Quai on the royal caïque, a large, white barge dec­orated in silver and green and black, and topped by a raised canopy of scarlet velvet embroidered with Tighrishi tigers and fringed with golden tassels as their tails.

  Princess Arrhiána sat back on the puffy cushions, her fine blonde tresses flowing free and glinting in the sun. She was eight-and-twenty years of age, with fair skin and a creamy complexion. The angles of her high cheekbones could have been sculpted from the palest shade of pink Carollan marble. In her blue eyes was the faintest hint of amusement as she regarded her eldest brother.

  “I feel as if a hundred-weight had been lifted from my shoulders,” she said, stretching luxuriously, like a satisfied cat who has just finished licking its cream.

  The constant sweep of the massive oars and the light beat of the master’s drum provided a hypnotic backdrop to the barge’s sensuous glide upriver. The brown waters of the River Paltyrrh flowed by in slow counterpoint, occa­sionally rippling and whitening in the breeze. Nearby, a large, silver fish splashed as it leapt for a rare winter fly.

  “That lazy, eh?” Arkády said, smiling. “Perhaps I should suggest to Papá that you be married off to some fat eastern potentate with a big belly and fifteen other wives. You could spend the rest of your days in a place like Umm az-Zakkár, consorting with the camels. Dúra is already wondering about the possibilities.”

  She poked him goodnaturedly in the ribs.

  “Don’t even joke about it, Kásha,” she said. “Remember what happened last time?” She paused, then added a little sadly, “I was young, far too young. And poor Avrelián was always sick.”

  “You know that people are already talking,” the prince said. “You don’t have anyone in mind, do you?”

  Arrhiána turned a pale pink, or perhaps her fair skin had taken on its raw glow from the rays of bright sun glancing off the bow of the caïque.

  “Let them talk,” she said, to Arkády’s amuse­ment. “I’ll choose my own husband next time, thank you, and with no help from you, if I choose any at all!”

  Her brother looked her up and down very deliber­ately.

  “Hmm. Not so sure anyone would want you,” he quipped. “Too plump here”—he touched her waist—“too short there”—he pointed to her head, which barely met his chin—“and entirely too independent to suit any man.”

 
She smiled wickedly.

  “At least I don’t sport all those lines around my eyes like you,” she said. “Honestly, Arkády, I think you were born old.”

  He raised his hands in surrender.

  “Touché. I give up,” he said. “You know I’m no match for you verbally.”

  “Then tell me this, brother.” She turned suddenly serious. “What’s wrong with Papá these days? He looks terribly tired, and the entire court acts like it’s walking on stilts, very precariously balanced over a pit of poison-tipped stakes. I know I’ve been away for a while, but not that long.”

  Arkády got up and went to the rail, where he watched an erne diving for fish, perhaps even the fish that had just snagged the fly. He wondered idly if the bird ever gave a thought about the life it was taking for its own sus­tenance.

  He turned back to Arrhiána, his eyes mirroring her concern.

  “You’re right, of course: the mood at court has de­clined markedly since the new year. And father’s ability to rule seems to be falling at even a faster rate, Rhie.

  “I think...no, I believe that someone or some group is trying to destroy our house, and possibly even our state. I don’t know why and I don’t know who, but in my own mind I have no doubt that we’re being deliberately manipulated by an unseen and very clever hand or hands. Alas, though, that there are just too many questions still unanswered, and not enough answers to make any determi­nations. If I only knew a little bit more, perhaps....

  “Thus, I’m now forced into my most difficult role, sister, of waiting for developments, of playing the patient, deliberate statesman, when in my heart I just want to take action, any action, to solve this crisis. But I can’t do much else at this juncture, not if I’m going to save Kórynthia and its king.”

  “I look at Papá,” Arrhiána said, “and I see a man eaten away by his cares. I’m very concerned for him, Kásha, and for you too. And what on earth is that horrid old specter, Melanthrix, doing here? I spotted him lurking at the back of the hall today. I thought he’d left for good years ago. He follows Papá around like his pet lap­dog, licking his hand and waiting for the crumbs to drop. He gives me the shudders.”