by Glenda Larke
“No, I didn’t.” He hadn’t seen her since their university days. She’d read law while he studied Va-Faith, but they’d conducted a passionate affair when they’d both been seventeen or so. It had flamed brightly, then burned out just as fast as it had flared.
The tapboy passed by bearing ale, and she snagged a couple of brimming mugs from his tray. “I’m not paying for this,” she growled at the hapless lad. “Fat lot of help you were when those giddy hedgepigs attacked me.” She pushed a mug over to Saker as the boy flushed and fled.
“The Pontifect sent you – a Lowmian – to deal with that lot?” he asked, disbelieving.
“Not exactly. I was in Twite to solve a legal matter, but her reverence suggested I sound out the Primordials if I came across any on the way back. It was just my luck to meet one who thought any woman not dressed like a farmer’s wife offensive.” She grimaced. “You’re from around here somewhere, aren’t you? No wonder you skedaddled young! Was that one of your loving family there?”
“Huh? Who?”
“The youngster of the three stavemen. His name’s Rampion too. Gromwell Rampion.”
“Fobbing damn. That’s my half-brother.”
“And you didn’t recognise him?”
“Haven’t seen him in eight years. He was just a boy in a smock when I left.”
“If you’re going to see your family, you might try to straighten him out. Primordials worry the Pontifect.”
“Probably because Prime Valerian Fox might hang them for apostasy. They’re misguided idiots, not evil men.”
She looked at him over the rim of her mug as she sipped the ale. “Is it family that brought you back here?”
“I’m on my way to Throssel to tutor the King’s offspring.”
“Sounds hideously boring.” She was silent for several moments, fiddling with her mug handle. “Saker, you know me. About as imaginative as a hunk of wood, right? Remember how I used to fall asleep at university theatricals?”
He nodded. “You said you couldn’t think of the actors as being anyone other than your fellow students.”
“That’s me. So when I tell you there’s something nasty going on in the Va-cherished Hemisphere, you’ll know I’m not seeing things that don’t exist.”
“Like what?”
She didn’t answer directly. “People are suddenly anxious about the future. People talk to us lawyers when they’re scrambling to secure their money, or their property.”
“What’s making them anxious?”
“Well, that’s just it. With one man it might be fear of this Primordial resurgence. With another, it’s fear of war with Lowmeer. Over in Lowmeer, it’s the Horned Death, or evil twins. Rumours, gossip, superstition. It’s coming from twenty different directions, and yet…”
He waited, not prompting her.
In the end she just shrugged. “Forget it. Maybe I am finally fanciful after all.”
“You think it has a common origin.” A’Va?
“Ridiculous, huh?”
“Perhaps. Haven’t folk always worried?”
“Yes. But not like this. This – this intensity, it’s new.” She made no attempt to hide her anxiety.
He resisted a sudden desire to put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I did hear strange whispers about twins in Lowmeer recently,” he admitted.
“Sweet Va, you too?” Words came tumbling out, rushed, as if she didn’t want to give him time to think about them. “You know it was Lowmian law a couple of hundred years ago that twins were killed at birth, along with their mothers? They’re supposed to be evil. They call them devil-kin. I’ve heard it still goes on, drowning them at birth, like unwanted puppies.”
“Codswaddle, that’s – that’s sick!” He stared at her, appalled.
“What did you hear, Saker?”
“People linking twins to the Horned Death.”
“The devil is supposed to have horns, isn’t he? Devil-kin. A’Va, the devil, always trying to bring Va low.”
“It’s the victims who have the horns, not twins. All superstitious nonsense anyway.” But nauseating nonetheless.
“If twin murder continues, it’s hidden and illegal,” she said. “What worries the Pontifect is the lack of overt condemnation on the part of Regal Vilmar Vollendorn. By all reports, he’s a pragmatic ruler, not a superstitious one. Yet on this matter, he and his royal guards appear to turn a blind eye to murder.”
“I’m glad it’s not an Ardronese problem. Killing babies? I don’t remember hearing anyone doing that when we were students in Lowmeer. Do you?”
She shook her head, smiling faintly. “But then we had other things on our minds.”
“They were good times, that year we spent in Grundorp.”
“They were indeed.”
“Tomorrow we go our separate ways. Tonight, though – are you up for some nostalgic revisiting of the past?”
“They say it’s a mistake to go back.” But she was still smiling as she added, “I have a room upstairs.”
An hour later, sated and relaxed with Gerelda curled into his side, he remarked, “You’ve learned a lot since we last did this.” He traced a finger idly over her breast to her thigh, appreciating the hardness of her muscles as much as he admired the femininity of her curves.
She laughed softly. “So have you.”
“And I don’t remember you being as … um, so strong. Do lawyers always carry swords?”
“I don’t recall you having all those muscles, either. Would you be more than just a witan, by any chance?”
They exchanged a glance and said as one, “Fritillary Reedling.”
“She employs the damnedest people,” Gerelda said. “Be careful in Throssel, Saker. The Ardronese Prime makes my fingers curl and my skin crawl. I met him when Fritillary sent me to solve some legal problems about religious taxes. He was as polite as can be, yet…” She shrugged. “He won’t like your strong adherence to the Way of the Oak.”
“His family is Shenat, surely? He has an oak-and-field name.”
She propped herself up on one elbow. “Being from a Shenat family doesn’t guarantee love of the Way of the Oak. His father was Harrier Fox, Ardronese Ambassador to Lowmeer, and his mother was Lowmian, so he was brought up in Ustgrind. At court. I doubt he’s ever been to the Shenat Hills.”
“Didn’t I hear his mother committed suicide when he was young?”
“Yes, but his father stayed on in Lowmeer. He’s dead now too, leaving Prime Valerian Fox huge estates in every country of the Hemisphere, a rich man who favours chapels over shrines.”
“And who prefers chapel clerics over shrine-keepers. Perhaps because a three-hundred-year-old shrine-keeper can be remarkably recalcitrant.” He respected shrine-keepers, but had no illusions about them. He began to trace out patterns around her nipple.
“Last week in Twite,” she continued, “I was told he’s been raising money from merchants and landsmen to build chapels. Not, mind you, in towns, but in places where previously everyone went to the local shrine.”
“Va above!” He was genuinely shocked. Shrines and their unseen guardians and keepers were the protection for waters and things wild, for fields and forests, for crops and livestock. It was one thing to have stone chapels in towns, quite another to replace age-old shrines in the countryside. “The Pontifect knows this?”
“Not yet.”
“Why would the King appoint such a man to be Prime?”
She had no answer to that. “Just be careful,” she warned. “I wouldn’t like to make an enemy of Fox.”
“I’m not likely to do that. I’m just a lowly tutor, after all.”
She snorted in disbelief, sounding much like Fritillary Reedling. “You? If there’s a beehive, you’d kick it just to see what’ll happen.” Leaning into him once more, she asked, “Shall we try for another bout of nostalgia?”
When he woke the next morning, she’d packed and gone, leaving behind a note written on the linen paper she used for legal do
cuments. If that extravagance was supposed to impress him with the importance of the words, it succeeded.
Not a mistake after all, was it? Thank you for the nostalgia. But beware, Saker. I fear the menace that threatens is greater than us all.
He destroyed the note, but coming from her, it left him with a sick anxiety in his gut, made worse by how nebulous it was. How could he be wary of something no one could even put a name to?
By noon he was riding up to the farmhouse where he’d been born. The double-storeyed stone house was shabbier than he remembered, the vegetable garden more unkempt, the flower garden dead. The once busy farmyard drooped in the midday heat. Even the hens seemed unkempt and cowed. The prosperous farm had fallen on hard times.
His father emerged from the stables when he rode up. Even he seemed smaller, less imposing than the tall, handsome man Saker remembered. His growth of whiskers was greying and untrimmed. There was no sign of anyone else about, although Saker could see several men working in one of the distant fields. His half-brothers?
“Hello, Father,” he said.
Robin Rampion stared, frowning, before his eyes finally widened in recognition. “Saker? What’re you doing here? Never thought I’d see you again.”
“Just passing through. Don’t worry, I’ve no intention of staying, or asserting any rights I might have.” He dismounted, but kept his hold on the reins.
“You’ve no rights here.”
“Debatable. But I want nothing from you except information. I want to know more about my mother.”
A tiny pause stayed him, then he growled, “She was a whore. What else is there to know?”
“She was my mother. I have a right to know about her, and her family, and how she died. Where was she from? Who were the Sedges?”
“Who cares? Though if names are so important to you, I’ll tell you this. I’ve always doubted you had a right to mine.”
He digested that. It made sense. If his father had suspicions about his first wife’s fidelity, it was no wonder he’d refused to allow her name to be mentioned. “I see. Well, I wouldn’t regard the loss of your name as any great tragedy.”
His father shrugged. “You think I care?”
“What’s the secret? Why won’t you tell me about her?”
His father glared at him in silence.
“What was her relationship to Arbiter, now Pontifect, Fritillary Reedling?”
“Ah, so that’s it, is it?” He grinned, revealing several missing teeth. “Now you’re a cleric wearing your pretty medallion, you want to know how cosy you can get with the Pontifect on the top of the heap, eh?”
“Don’t bother to tell me lies.”
“Oh, I’ll not do that. She’d have my guts on her platter if I told you what I know.”
“She? Fritillary Reedling?”
“Bitch made me swear I’d never utter a word. Not to you, nor anyone else. And that’s the way it’s going to be. You don’t mess with the bull in the herd, and she’s the snorting bull in this case, for all that she lacks a pizzle. Forget it, Saker. You’re never going to find out about your dam from me.”
Fritillary had forced his father’s silence, not the other way around? He stared, trying to decide who to believe. Fritillary, of course. When was your da ever honest with you?
Before he could say anything, his father added, “Your ma left you, you know. Ran off and left you here with me. That’s how much she cared. And then word came she was dead.” He laughed.
Saker drew in a sharp breath. “Blister your lying tongue, Da. I don’t believe it!”
“Believe what you will, you ninny. She didn’t care enough to stay, or to take her mewling son with her. I didn’t want you, but she left you anyway.”
Just then, the door of the house opened and his stepmother came out, carrying a pail. She stopped dead when she saw him. “My, the brat is back again. What the hog’s piddle do you want?” She put down the pail, placed her hands on her hips and thrust her chin out in his direction.
Va-less damn, he thought. They have come down in the world. There’d been a time when she would never have lugged a pail. They’d had servants to do that.
“Naught to do with you,” his father said to her. “Go back in the house and mind your hearth.”
For a moment, Saker thought she might defy her husband, but in the end she shrugged and went inside. His father turned to him, saying, “Get going, you botch of nature. Clear out, and don’t come here again. You’ll learn naught from me. You want the truth, go talk to that Pontifect of yours. She’s the one who knows and she’s the one who’ll feed me to the pigs if I utter a word she don’t approve of.” With that remark, he stomped away across the yard.
Saker hesitated, wondering if there was anything else he could say that would make a difference. In the end he decided there wasn’t. His mother wouldn’t have left him. His father was lying, of course he was.
On his way back to the village road, he crossed the stone bridge over the stream where he’d learned to swim. The rushes still grew along the bank and the ducks still dabbled there. He led his horse down to drink, his mind drifting back to his boyhood. His favourite game had been to hide under the water, breathing through a hollow rush stalk, until his young half-brothers had been scared out of their wits thinking him dead.
… the corpse and the bit o’ wood bobbing alongside…
Not floating, flat on top of the water, but bobbing, like a floating bottle. He stood still, mouth falling open. Sweet Va, that bloody lascar.
Bambu was hollow. Ardhi was no more drowned than he himself had been as a boy.
7
A Witan at Court
When Saker entered the Prime’s office in the Ardronese royal city of Throssel for the first time, Valerian Fox was seated behind a table at the far end of the room. As he approached, trying to soften the noise of his footsteps on the wooden floor, Fox said, without prior greeting, “I fail to understand what sort of service you’ll be providing the Prince and Princess that they don’t already receive.”
How in all Va’s world am I supposed to answer that? He decided not to say anything.
He’d expected to see someone of fifty or sixty, and was surprised to find Fox couldn’t have been much past forty. His habit was unadorned, but it was fine velvet; gold buckles shone on his shoes and the lace of his undershirt frilled at his wrists and neck. Two fingers on either hand were decorated with ornate rings. His Va medallion was gem-studded.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at Saker. “You’re not old enough to have suitable experience or maturity, and your family is of modest origin, yet you presume to be the spiritual adviser of the man who will one day be king?”
Oh, sweet swill in a trough. I think I loathe him already. “I don’t presume anything, your eminence. Least of all to question the orders of her reverence the Pontifect.” He tried to sound respectful. “If I had to guess why she chose me over others more polished, I’d assume it is because of my university learning.”
Fox picked up a letter from the table and scanned it with a frown. The lascar’s dagger chose that moment to wriggle in the pocket of Saker’s robe. Surreptitiously he clamped a hand over it, jamming it against his thigh. Pox on the damned thing!
“Yes,” Fox said, mercifully oblivious to his squirming, “she has listed your credentials here.” He shrugged and laid the letter back down. Then, with a charming smile, he added, “And of course you’re correct: neither of us should question the decisions of the Pontifect. A woman is entitled to her little foibles, is she not? Welcome to Throssel, Witan Rampion. My secretary has arranged your accommodation in Throssel Palace, rather than here in Faith House with my clerics and administrative staff, so you can be closer to your charges. You’ll report to me in person once a week, and supply a written report for the Pontifect once a month.”
The next half-hour was a tedious lecture on how to behave at court, covering everything from what was appropriate for him to discuss with the royal offspring, t
o the depth of his bow to the various levels of courtiers. The Prime remained seated while he had to stand uncomfortably, his stance made awkward by the need to press the dagger flat against his leg.
By the time he made his escape, he knew two things for sure: the Prime was a condescending pizzle of a man, and he – Saker – was going to buy a thicker leather sheath for that fobbing lascar blade.
As he looked about the crowded hall of Throssel Castle at his first official function, Saker felt a chill of isolation. He was surrounded by people, yet couldn’t see anyone he knew, not even the Prime. Valerian Fox had departed for the north, saying the Shenat Primordial heresy needed his attention, which had left Saker regretting he hadn’t told his father to discourage his half-brother from mixing with those muckle-headed zealots.
King Edwayn was present, sitting up on the dais with several of his councillors and courtiers while the remains of the meal were being cleared to make way for the entertainment, a troupe of itinerant tumblers.
I feel I’m dressed for a funeral while everyone else wants to look like a Pashali parrot, Saker thought as his gaze swept the crowd of courtiers and liveried servants. Loathsome, confining garb.
He was obliged to wear a cleric’s sombre dark green gown and matching velvet hat. The robe buttoned under his chin fell to precisely a thumb’s length above the floor, as dictated by the office of the Prime. The only adornment a witan was permitted was the silver medallion, so the whole ensemble was definitely funereal, in stark contrast to the courtiers surrounding him. The array of colour and glitter within shouting distance would have cast even Pashali parrots into gloom, and left him with the feeling that the court of the King of Ardrone was more alien to him than the docks of Ustgrind. Among the women, feathers seemed to be in fashion, and each elaborate hairdo was decorated with shimmering plumes.
“Tell me, what is a witan doing at a licentious revelry such as this?”
The voice behind him did not belong to anyone he knew, but he didn’t need a name to realise he was being mocked. He turned, and found himself looking up into the tanned features of a lean but well-muscled man who was taller than him by a hand span, and older by ten years or so. He was definitely dressed like a parrot, with a heavily embroidered doublet, sleeves trimmed with lace cuffs, velvet pantaloons, and numerous items of ostentatious jewellery scattered about his person.
