Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic)

by Phoebe Matthews

  “He and his men will be up all night celebrating.”

  Drinking. Right. Okay, some male rituals are the same in every land, I guess.

  “Does he inherit his father's position?”

  Their politics were vague, not to them, but definitely to me. They didn't seem to follow any pattern familiar to me, not that I was ever much good at history. I did know Tarvik and Nance had the titles of prince and princess by Kovat's decree, and Alakar, descended from the same line, was not a princess because Kovat hadn't declared her one. And Kovat had been a warlord and hadn't used the title of king, so nothing I'd read or seen in films quite matched the situation.

  “Tarvik now rules his father's lands. To rule over others, he will have to defeat enough of them to cause them to accept him as their leader.”

  “Then why the crown?”

  “That's his crown as heir. The first son of the line of Kovat always has the title of Garnet Prince. He wears the crown for high ceremonies. Kovat's crown is much more grand.”

  “Is that how Kovat controlled the other warlords, by defeating them? Oh. Guess that's why he was called Kovat the Slayer.”

  “Perhaps the next great ruler will be Tarvik the Terrible,” Nance said and giggled. “Tarvik designed his crown himself and Kovat had it made for him.”

  “I remember it. He wore it at the banquet after the games.”

  Another skill, designing patterns for metalwork. If Tarvik could give up his destructive hobbies and keep the creative ones, and I could find a transporter to swish us magically back to Seattle, we'd have nothing to argue about, I thought. I'd gladly let him keep his warrior training for one day so I could watch him march into the Decko house swinging his broadsword around. Okay, nice dream.

  “Tarvik loves garnets,” she said. “His dress robes are always that color.”

  Right, he wore a velvet tunic, dark red in the fireglow, the night he taught me the country dances.

  The next afternoon, with the sun a pale ghost behind the gray overcast in the southern sky, Tarvik sent for me.

  “Am I to come also?” Nance asked the guard who stood outside our gate.

  “The prince has requested only the templekeeper called Stargazer.”

  After they escorted me to the castle gate where Tarvik waited, he dismissed his guards and walked ahead of me outside the wall, tersely commanding me to follow.

  No explanation. Just, “Come along.”

  Where was the boy who had washed my skinned elbows with mead, then hugged and kissed and comforted me? I'd had my share of guys who chased until they got close, then backed off with lame excuses, the old, “I'll call you,” and never did thing. Somehow I thought the tarbaby and I had gone past that point, that we were friends.

  We crossed the outer courtyard and circled the wall, our feet slipping on melting frost. I was surprised to see workmen drawing lines in the frozen ground on the far side of the castle.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “What I promised you. Building you a castle of your own.”

  I stood speechless, memory deserting me.

  Tarvik stopped and turned to face me, his yellow hair lifting in the wind and catching in the fur collar on his cape. His eyes narrowed, with laugh lines at their edges, and the corners of his mouth turned upward.

  “Have you forgotten so quickly, Stargazer? I told you once if you served me well, I would build you a castle. You have saved me and my whole city. Without you, Ober would have stolen my mind. I might have ruled as Erlan's slave or I might have died. The wisdom of your stars exceeds the magic of Ober and even the guidance of the Daughter. You will be the most important person in my land and will advise me in all things.”

  I let out my breath slowly. It formed a cloud in the cold air and disappeared. My own castle? That sounded way too permanent. I was hoping when the confusion settled, I could convince Tarvik to take me back to the stream where we met to see if I could find the way out.

  My outdoor skills were nil. Without his help, I would never find the exact area, hey, one patch of forest looks just like another patch of forest which is probably why hikers are always getting lost. The entry had to be somewhere near the place where I had first seen him.

  Tarvik folded his hand around mine, lifted my hand, turned it over and put a small leather pouch in my palm. It was closed with knotted leather strings.

  “What's this?”

  “Something I put together for you.”

  The strings that closed the pouch were tightly knotted.

  “Have we had an argument?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Then why the gift?”

  I stopped working on the strings and looked at him until he finally met my gaze.

  “Yes, all right,” he said and took back the pouch and unknotted the strings and returned it to me. “I don't like you angry with me.”

  “I'm not angry. And I don't need gifts every time we disagree.”

  “Stargazer! Open it. It isn't an apology. Just something I thought you could use.”

  Use? Now I was curious. I could feel small tumbling items in the pouch and cupped my hand below the opening and poured them out. They caught the daylight, sparkled, stunned me.

  Speechless, I pushed them around with my fingertip. They were jewels, each as clear as water and as brilliant as a star and each was a different color. Jewel mines in the Olympics? Not that I had ever heard of. Whatever they were, gemstone or crystal, each was cut and faceted to reflect light.

  Slowly I sorted them out, touching each one as I whispered its color and name. “Yellow Mercury, red Mars, green Saturn, lavender Neptune, blue Jupiter, and oh my god is this a diamond for Venus? And this.” I touched a stone that was a soft copper-gold and sparkled with little gold flecks. “My grandmother had earrings of this. She called it sandstone. Perfect for Uranus.”

  “Do you like them?”

  I could hardly breathe. “You remembered all the colors I painted on the pebbles.”

  Two more pieces slid into my hand, two round flat bits the size of coins, a silver moon and a gold sun.

  “Does that mean you like them?”

  I think I managed to say thank you. I slid the jewels back into the pouch and put it in my pocket before he could change his mind. I had never had jewels to wear and never thought about wanting them, but markers made of jewels? It was as though I held stars in my hand and it frightened me a little to covet anything so much.

  “The castle could take a while to build. I thought you might like to have the markers now.”

  “But I don't need a separate castle. I'm fine in the temple with Nance.” I didn't add that I wasn't planning to stay around that long.

  “The temple will be closed.” Tarvik turned away.

  “Why?” I caught at his arm to turn him to face me.

  This time he wouldn't meet my gaze.

  He said softly, “The Daughter saved my father once, but now she has forgotten him. She no longer looks after the line of Kovat. I will seal the temple and leave it as a memorial to him.”

  “But I don't understand! I'm the one who advised Kovat to go to battle before the full moon.”

  “You said if he did, he and his army would be victorious, and so they were, Stargazer. They defeated a powerful warlord and captured his treasure hoard. That is why he gave a victory banquet for his army and his brother's army. But you told him then, and I heard you say it, that you saw only the success of his army, not his own fate. You saw correctly, Stargazer. The Daughter deserted him.”

  “But what about Nance?”

  She took her role as templekeeper seriously. This was going to be a huge shock for her, losing her temple, but maybe we could set up something in the main castle to keep her busy. I'd have to think about that. Oh God, now I was going to be a career counselor to barbarians. In horoscopes back home, where I knew job categories, I gave a lot of career advice, but here? Even if I had her birth date and could draw her horoscope, what sorts of jobs were availab
le for a warlord's niece?

  He pressed his lips together and stared past me.

  “I don't need a separate castle. If you have to close the temple, Nance and I can share a room in your castle.” I could not read his thoughts on his face because he was trying to hide them from me, not a good sign.

  “There is a city beyond the mountain's shadow ruled by a cousin of my father. He sent his messenger last summer to ask for Nance in marriage. Kovat promised the Daughter that Nance would remain in the temple, and he told me then that he would not break that promise. But now the promises to the Daughter don't matter. She deserted my father. It would be a good marriage for Nance. I need this man as an ally.”

  “Nance is not a gold bracelet! You can't give her away like some trinket!”

  He frowned and I saw in his smooth face the twisted scowl of Kovat. “Of course I can. I rule this city.”

  “But Nance is your friend! Your cousin! Practically like a sister to you!”

  “Nance will have her own castle. She should be pleased with that.”

  “But you will ask her,” I insisted. “It's up to her.”

  He clenched his fists and said in his low voice that was so much more frightening than a shout, “Stargazer, you drive me to fury! I am building you a castle. I will give you slaves and power. But you are not the ruler. I am.”

  I, too, could clench my fists and scowl, and you bet that's what I did.

  “I don't want a castle or slaves or power or anything else from you. Listen up, little boy. I want you to promise me that Nance is free to make her own choices.”

  “That is not possible.”

  He would not meet my stare. Instead, he swung around on his heel and marched away from me, leaving me alone on the windy hillside.

  “Well enough,” I shouted after him. “Close me up in this prison you're building for me, but you can't make me tell your fortune! You're on your own, fella!”

  And so it ended, as did all our fights, with both of us furious, neither of us willing to give an inch. This time it was Nance's inch and I'd fight to keep it for her. When I returned to the temple, I asked Nance about this cousin of Kovat, hoping she would tell me he was some great guy she'd always had a thing for.

  “A horrible old man with breath like swamp water,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Tarvik mentioned him.” I was too cowardly to tell her the rest of it.

  The pouch of jewels burned in my pocket. I would throw it back in his face, I decided, unless he changed his mind about Nance.

  CHAPTER 21

  Four days of silence was Tarvik's limit. He sent me a gold ring with odd carvings as an apology, asking me to meet him at the castle.

  I didn't want more gifts or apologies. During those days I had thought over what he wanted of me and what I must have from him. It didn't sound as if he would ever help me find my way out. So what were my choices? If ever there was a time when I needed accurate charts to guide me, it was now. But there were too many planets missing in his horoscope.

  Once more, hoping to find I had erred, misread, or was dead wrong, I drew his horoscope on the table top, entered the sun and the slower of the planets. And then I pulled the jewel markers from my pocket and set them outside the circle. I had spent the last few nights in the courtyard, thinking perhaps he would come talk to me. He was unreasonable because he was scared, right? Because he didn't know how he was going to live up to what he had to do.

  While I waited, I studied the skies and knew quite well where the planets were now and where their paths would take them in the next three or four years, but there were still gaps in his natal chart.

  All I knew for fact was that he would rule, and if he followed his father's path, he would be remembered as a great warlord. His fate drove him straight into battle, betrayal, and blood everywhere, including his own.

  Was there a chance of changing the direction of his stubborn mind? Fate is choices. Unfortunately, he seemed determined to make the wrong ones. At best I could only hope to bend him slightly toward gentler ambitions than constant warfare.

  Perhaps I should butt out and let the barbarians follow their own destinies. Perhaps they had gods who guided them, chose their fates, and had plans different than what I saw. Maybe those gods had a reason for creating this hidden world and how would I know about that? My knowledge of astrology applied to my world. Maybe these people were part of a different universe, only existing within this bubble, turning to mist if they went beyond its boundaries.

  Maybe I was losing my mind.

  If Tarvik was mist, I was moonshine. I put my palm over the sun in his chart and closed my eyes. The heat of his energy blew through me like a firestorm and I bit my lip to keep from howling. It was there, his choice, with so much conflict between his natal chart and the current placements of the planets, I saw a glittering web of danger and death weaving around him.

  The beating of his heart pounded in my head, as though I could hear his life's blood throbbing. He ran an impossible path of choices, death stalked him, and if he made one wrong decision, death would catch him within the next three years. He would never reach Kovat's thirty-nine.

  Tarvik had no future.

  This touching of a chart and seeing so much more, I hated it. It did not make me wiser or stronger, and it certainly didn't give me answers. It did not show me a better direction for him to follow. Isn't that what my skills were supposed to do? This knowledge gave me nothing but grief.

  Again I pressed my palm over his sun, his heart, his life-force. And I felt his heartbeat and then a quick flicker, some small promise, something else.

  Opening my eyes, I stared closer at his chart and saw the weak aspect between his natal sun and Jupiter, not enough to save him. Searching the outer rim, I realized the diamond Venus in its current location was at a positive aspect with those other two, not strong enough to prevent disaster, but still. It might deflect his fate and leave him a chance.

  Not much I could do for Tarvik. But maybe I could find a way to save Nance. I wished now that Lor had taken her to his home village and never returned.

  Tarvik waited for me at the castle, slouched in his raised chair, his fingers plucking at his fur cuffs, his head bent. His guard, Artur, stood behind him, leaning against the wall, his streaked hair falling forward over the sides of his face. He glanced up at me, so the light caught his eyes, and gave me a small smile. I could never tell what Artur was thinking. Was Nance right? Did Artur believe I had saved his life?

  The dog was back, stretched out beside the chair, its sleepy eyes glancing at me, then closing. I don't know why it pleased me to see the dog had survived the journey, but it did. I had never had much to do with dogs. I always had cats as pets, but never a dog. The old dog looked a bit lonely and I wondered if it missed Kovat.

  “I do not wish to battle with you, Stargazer,” Tarvik muttered.

  “If you still want me to be your advisor, you have to pay attention to my advice,” I said, knowing he never would.

  “I will tell you the matters on which I choose to hear your answers from the stars. Those opinions that come only from your own mind are to be left unsaid.”

  Kovat had once said something similar to me. I kept silent with Kovat, for good reason, but I was not about to back down with Tarvik. “So you’re telling me I am now a slave.”

  He looked up at me, surprised. “No. You know you are not.”

  “This is how you treat a slave.”

  He shook his head and tried to smile, but we both knew neither of us would give in on this one.

  “My responsibilities are not easy. I must find ways to increase my power. Yet when I carefully think through and choose a plan to build an alliance that will aid me, you oppose me.”

  “I am trying to understand you, Tarvik. I know your position is difficult. But you can't trade people for what you want. You can trade goods or land or animals or treasure with this cousin for his allegiance, but not people.”

  Tarvik remained s
ilent for a long moment, then said, “Nance is mine to give as I please, but I will offer you a choice in this.”

  Okay, simmer down, be reasonable, hear him out. “What is my choice?”

  “I will give you Nance to keep as your companion for as long as you wish if you - if you will agree to wed me.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath and glanced up to meet the startled gaze of Artur. I think we had both forgotten he was there. By the time Tarvik turned his head to look at him, Artur had smoothed his face and lowered his eyes.

  “Leave us,” Tarvik said, and waited, while Artur walked silently past us and out the door.

  I was grateful for the delay. Pressure in my chest had stopped my breathing. I could not believe what he had said. Sure he was young and passionate, I understood all that, and the opposites attract thing probably made me seem glamorous. If he wanted me as a lover, sure, that request wouldn't have surprised me.

  But marry me? Me, an outsider, a stranger, a woman with the status in his land maybe three notches above slave? If I hadn't had skills that gained Kovat's respect, I would either be dead or in a prison cell now. No surprise the suggestion shocked Artur. I could add nothing to Tarvik's rule, no land, no alliances, no followers, no wealth.

  Our relationship up to now had been entertaining, a little beyond flirting but way short of a roll in the hay, and who'd be dumb enough to do that, anyway? Hay is hard and prickly.

  Okay, we never got to sex, even if I knew it was part of his long-range game plan, but wow, marriage? Bad for him. Impossible for me. There was no way I'd marry into a medieval society, a life of outdated weird, where I'd be considered a possession or who knew what else? I didn't want to guess at their customs. Oh right, he thought he owned his cousin and could give her away, so what value would he put on a wife?

  “Why not command me to marry you?” I sputtered, when I regained my voice. “Why ask at all! I'm just another possession, right?”

  “No!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet and jumping down from the platform.

  He reached out toward me, touched my hair with his fingertips, then brushed his hands slowly down my arms until he caught my hands in his. I hated it when he did that. His touch was so light it sent shivers through me and raised a whole lot of reactions I wasn't about to share with him.