Geoffrey's Queen: A Mobious' Quest Novel

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  ∞

  “I have to speak to the prince?” A man would whisper, his indignation disappearing.

  Silently imposing, Girard would take charge of the petitioner at the door to the hearing room and leave to the escort guarde the decision to close the doors ensconcing the petitioner with me or to remain standing at arms with the heavy red wood doors wide allowing a view of the two personal guarde in the antechamber as a warning to me of a hostile visitor.

  Nearly every petitioner—each was granted a private interview, one person per complaint—would grow small and quiet when faced with my sadness.

  “I thought I would just see an elder or a counselor.”

  To each, whether they spoke or not, Girard would simply say, “Geoffrey will hear you,” and offer them a simple wooden chair covered with a plush downy quilt next to my similar seat before a fire in the winter or the breezeway in summer.

  Some sat. Others stood. Some fell silent. Others spoke.

  “My lord, you will...”

  I disquieted all of them by pulling the cover from the low table set between the chairs. I held the cloth, working it through my hands for a moment, folding it neatly in my lap. My guest would see on the table: a sheaf of blank papers; an inkwell and pen; a small metal tray with a thin strip of fabric the right size for a tiny tourniquet; a new, almost square whetstone; and a knife.

  Some would begin their prepared speeches again. Most would not. After folding the cover, I would look up to see the petitioner gazing at either the table or at me.

  “Hi.” I would lean forward and hold out my small hand, “I’m Geoffrey.”

  Most of my visitors that frseason stammered out a greeting of some sort. I would hold their hand if they gave it to me, and look them in the eye.

  “If damage has been done to your property, I will send a guarde with you to assess and repair it where possible. If you have lost family or friends,” their eyes would often lower in sympathy, “you may take one of my fingers.”

  I still have all my fingers. Even those who were angry or cruel enough to demand a finger backed down when I handed them the knife. I don’t know if complaints increased again after Mobious assumed the responsibility of Hearing. I know I heard less distress from the people once I left home. But I had after all, initially gone east—away from dTelfur lands.

  ∞

  At the river, I stood staring at the roiling waters and the ruins surviving Girard’s rage; the stone pillars, a few boards, and one old guide-rope extending from the top of the south pillar to the north pillar on the far side of the river.

  The low river was shimmering on the horizon for twenty minutes before we reached the high embankment. We had shooed away our final escorts from the village only a couple of hours before, protesting our capability to continue a journey we’d begun alone. We stood alone above the swollen Sapproach River, its raging waters muddied with branches. Nanda turned and smiled at me, a giggle bubbling through her eyes.

  “This is it.”

  I glanced sideways at her, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”

  She lowered herself down to sit on the hillside, “Then this must be some raft you, Kem, and Shelagh designed.”

  I stared at the guide-line, hoping it was as strong as we calculated. “This will be far better transportation than a little old raft.”

  “I’m frightened.”

  “Then let us pause for a meal to build the suspense some more.”

  “And give you time to figure out if it’ll work.”

  Nature roared its violent way through the time we wasted on the eastern bank delaying our adventure. The river did not calm as I had hoped and the black clouds continued to gather overhead. Nanda’s hair danced in the increasing wind. Our lunch break extended into the afternoon as we waited for the weather to favor us. The wind died down a little as the tops of the Dormounts began to glow in the lowering sun. When Nanda judged a cup of hot tea worth the effort of building a fire on our soggy bank, I pulled out the carefully written blueprint and began hooking up the pre-made elements of our sky raft.

  The plan was to suspend our supplies in a hammock hung from the old bridge’s remaining guide-line. We would propel it across from a raft below, supported by the water and steadied by the rope. The unexpected height of the river would actually benefit us. The worrisome bit still being that I had to first propel myself across in the hammock to attach our pull ropes to the far pillar.

  I saw Nanda safely occupied with building the fire before I scrambled up the greg and a half tall pillar with the hammock draped over my back to attach the clips to the sopping line. It was strong though and held my weight as I leaned on it to attach the clips beyond the braking knots. Then I took a deep breath and swung my legs out to grab the rope on the far side of the hammock clips. I awkwardly tightened the ropes so that the woven cradle rested against my back, providing me with the illusion of support as I hung from the aging guide rope with my hands and ankles.

  The clips of the hammock slid easily along the rope as it dipped and rose with my creeping weight. It was slow progress with the metal clips whacking alternately into my hands and shins. About halfway across, when the pain was delightfully distracting me from the distance below, I discovered that allowing the hammock to take more of my weight I could keep the clips at the lowest points on the rope. I got across with no further bruising and after attaching the lead lines, I returned to Nanda’s side of the river. I was thrown about on the rope, but Toss’s gifted gloves kept it from cutting my flesh and I hung on. The whole operation took longer that I would have liked and I was soaked to the bone by the horizontal rain lifted from the river by the wind.

  Nanda had a fire roaring under a makeshift lean-to she built from our not completely assembled raft and she bundled me over to it, pulling my wet clothes off and draping me in dry togs from my pack.

  “The wind picked up the instant you started crawling across that line.” She draped my sopping wet shirt on a stick and held it near the fire. “I tried to yell to you, but you couldn’t hear me even a greg out.”

  “Well, I’ve got the lead lines up now, so it should be easy to cross once this wind dies.”

  “Take a look at the clouds, Geoffrey!”

  Black. The sun was completely occluded and the wind that plagued us was not blowing so high that the clouds would move. The potential storm had parked itself over us and was biding its blasted time.

  “Doesn’t look so bad to me.”

  We were hollering over the noise of the wind and the roiling river. The pull-lines were holding on where I had tied them off on the eastern pillars, but I worried that the building storm might rip the guide cord itself down which would lose us the hammock and the western ends of the pull-lines.

  “That wire has hung on for twenty frseason, it’ll survive a few more hours in this little squall.” Nanda squatted by her fire and poured boiling water into two mugs.

  I hunkered down next to her when I finished tying my dry leggings and gratefully took the cup she was offering. From under our dubious shelter, wrapped together in one of Kem’s generously gifted leather tarpaulins, Nanda and I watched the rain begin to fall gently into the reckless wind.

  A spark of lightening shattered the blackness of the sky. It struck from cloud to cloud shunning the open plain of earth surrounding us. I happened to be looking east along that plain when the lightning lit up the darkness for three seconds. And for three seconds I saw five figures running our way. Was my mind playing tricks? A second flash hit the earth, setting the open plain on fire. Five black outlines were clearly traced on the background of flames.

  “They’ve caught us.” Nanda whipped the tarp from our backs.

  She tied it down on our standing raft as the wind threatened to rip it from her hands. I grabbed all the sacs and supplies I could carry and struggled against the pelting rain to the riverside. The empty hammock slapped across my face when I reached for it. Finally I caught an edge and slipped my carrysac and all that
I had collected into it. I ran back to help Nanda pull the raft to the bank’s edge once I had spread our second tarpaulin over the pile shielding our supplies from some of the wet.

  I told Nanda to stay huddled under the raft until I returned and scrambled up the pillar to connect a rope from the hammock to the raft. The clips had slipped away from the pillar so I had to crawl out along the line again in that rain and wind and lightning. Something whizzed past me as I got one clip in my hand and I saw one of the pull-lines fall from its western clip down into the river. Turning to gauge how close the archer was, I saw an arrow thunk deeply into the raft sheltering Nanda. I had no time to shout a warning before another arrow struck me. I felt the sharp pain in my lower back just as I lost all muscle control. The shaft snapped off as I hit the hammock. Then the storm untangled me from the ropes and fabric of our hammock carry-all and I fell screaming to the churning waters.

  As I hit, I felt a second burning sting in my back. The river bobbed and tossed me, knocking me down each time I neared the surface. I was cut by a hundred tiny stings but those great thick gloves helped me protect my eyes and throat. Though my high boots were no aid in kicking to the surface, they protected my feet and legs from the branches and stones swirling in the water. But nothing guarded my back and I felt carnivorous fish following the warm blood-stream up to gnaw at my wound. My lungs burned and longed to choke up the water I had swallowed on entry so I ignored the pain in my back and kicked and fought and begged my way to the surface. I broke into air gasping and coughing and so disoriented that I stayed up only long enough to see Nanda falling from the cliffside with an arrow in her back. Before she reached the water, a log hit me and I blacked out.

  Fifteen

  ∞Nanda Junior’s journal∞

  West of the Sapproach River, Kaveg

  The morning after our dragon sighting, Geoffrey and I left Toss to his leisurely breakfast and set off on what we hoped would be the last leg of our journey to Sapproach. It was Toss’ habit to lag behind us, as it was Krt’s to scout ahead, although Toss usually caught up with us each night and Krt never met us in that month.

  We were well on our way, the sun’s shadows shortening before Geoffrey dared to speak. “How’re you feeling this morning?”

  “Fat.”

  I hadn’t read his letter yet, his addition to this journal. I was still angry.

  Our shadows shortened to nearly proportional before he spoke again to call a rest-halt. We pulled some milk out of the coldsac and he swigged from our rapidly emptying water jug.

  He stared off to the Dormounts for a few moments. The sky was clear above them, a beautiful day to the west, clear and sunny and welcoming with none of yesterday’s ominous signs clouding the view.

  “Tell me about your ancestors.”

  I pulled one of my braids over my shoulder and replaited the end. “ I don’t have any.”

  “Grandparents?”

  “My mother was abandoned. My father was orphaned.” I twisted a frayed piece of ribbon into the braid. “Eva and I just had Mama and Daddy. Don’t know where we’re from. We don’t even really look African or Italian or Native like everyone usually suggests. So who knows. ” I looked up and caught him staring at me. “Let’s keep walking.”

  We made good time that morning, knowing we’d likely reach company by nightfall. During our cold lunch of salted meats and dried fruit, a distant dust cloud clarified into a riotous traveling party. I don’t mean a party as in a group of people, as in Geoffrey and I were a party of two; I mean a party as in music and dancing and laughter and food with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever.

  Poor quiet little Krt was propelled at the front of this revelry. He’d found Girard in Sapproach and alerted him to our imminent arrival. An elder, Elitzabenn, present on Girard’s porch when Krt arrived, alerted the populace that visitors were headed their way and in no time at all had organized a group that traveled all morning to welcome us to their city.

  They greeted us like long lost cousins. Our barely touched meal of journey rations was snatched from our mouths and tossed to the toddlers. We were given hot sandwiches of fresh ham and aged cheese stuffed in newly baked bread. Steam still dampened the clean white cloths that clung lightly to the sandwiches as we unwrapped them. A variety of ales were passed around. Geoffrey politely tasted each and every different variety. Apple juice, which I discovered meant earth apples not tree apples, was also passed around. The children crowded around me to imitate their elders’ highfalutin reviews of the drink.

  When we were finished, stuffed to the gills with good food and wonderfully worthless snacks, we were treated to an entertaining debate. Half the party was for waiting there for Toss to catch up. Half insisted we travel slowly towards the village in hopes his greater speed would catch us.

  “What kind of greeting party would we be to be walking away from our guest?”

  Geoffrey, using great reserves of strength to focus through the brew-haze, ended the discussion by announcing that those who wanted to wait, should and those who wanted to lag ahead, should.

  Krt, though he hadn’t seen his bond since they’d rendezvoused after Tyurae to discuss our change of plans, decided to stay with whichever group Geoffrey and I chose to go (or stay) with. Geoffrey suggested we split up to test his loyalties, but I had no doubt that Krt’s oath was to his prince and there would be no choice to make. Also, I didn’t want to be stranded by myself in a crowd of genuinely friendly and social people after months of being pretty much isolated with one quiet man. So we went together, walking towards the village.

  Toss and the rest of the crew caught up with us just before sunset. He was as shell-shocked as us by then and the four of us hung back with the elders who’d grown tired of the nonsense and simply wanted some news of the land. We satisfied them as best we could. Quiet Krt, having the most news as he was the one of us who had been stopping in towns, was forced to speak at length.

  Elaborate cottages appeared on the horizon shortly after dark had fallen and families with little ones and or old ones began peeling away from our crowd. The elders led us to a two-story, many sided cottage at the leading edge of the central village. A man sat rocking in a wooden chair at the edge of four steps that led up to the wide, covered porch surrounding the house. He had a shock of stiff black hair cropped close to his head. His square jaw and the sharp, aquiline features of his face frightened me until he saw Geoffrey and his stern look melted into wrinkles. All the harsh lines softened and his blue-grey eyes shone.

  “Hello Girard.” Geoffrey strode forward from where he had been in deep conversation about Kavegan politics with Toss and the elders at the back of the small crowd.

  Girard stood up to greet him. The man is a mountain. He dwarfed the little chair he had been rocking in. My tall Geoffrey came only up to his nose and I could look him straight in the nipples. Geoffrey took the four steps in two bounds and ran at Girard. They squeezed each other, then Girard pushed him away and held him at arms length to look him up and down.

  The elder who had been chatting with me about music was confused by this display of affection, “How do you already know our local Guarde, Healer?”

  I suspected then that the rest of the elders were in no way fooled by Geoffrey’s disguise, for each one of them turned, not subtly, to stare at Shend, the man beside me. They seemed uncertain of how to respond. Confusion flickered in their eyes as they shuffled their feet, trying to decide if it were better they respect their prince’s attempted subterfuge or rebuke their fellow’s nescience.

  Geoffrey, who had also turned to stare at Shend, relieved them all by handling the situation himself, “Shall we continue our reunion inside, Girard?”

  Girard stepped back and gestured for Geoffrey to precede him through the open doorway and the crowd of elders converged to follow him. But the edling of Kaveg turned and crossed down the steps to Shend and I. He put one comradely arm around the old man and offered the other to me. And so, walking with us and bending down
to the old man’s ear, he brought Shend into the light and me into the blessed starless darkness of Girard’s little home.

  I left the discussion early that night. Girard, apparently the unofficial Elder of the town despite his youth, saw me comfortably tucked in the most wonderful chair before seating the men and women of the town’s elders who remained to talk late into the night with Geoffrey. There was a fire crackling in the low stone hearth in the middle of the conversation room and I saw our sacs carried in and directed through the room to the back of the house. I remember none of the discussion. I was lulled to sleep by the sound of Geoffrey’s voice describing the path that had brought us to this, the end of civilization.

  In the morning I woke to find myself in a soft pile of pillows with a puffy duvet tucked up over my head and I screamed.

  I had been moved in the night to a room in the back of the house, but I thought I had returned to Chicago. I always slept there surrounded by pillows or stuffed animals with the blanket up over my head. In the summertime I would wake up swimming in sweat, but I only felt safe if I were tunneled under the sheets, hidden. Geoffrey was the first thing in my mind but I thought, in that waking instant, that he was just a dream, a tequila creation.

  Geoffrey burst into the room with one hand holding up his sleep skirt, the ties hanging loose. His other hand held his minni at the ready. What is it when you have two emotions at the same time? Whatever, I broke down. I must have looked quite the psycho. All alone, screaming and then laughing my head off with tears streaming down my cheeks. Geoffrey was ready for a fight. He’d been up nearly all night, and my scream in the room next to his woke him from a sound sleep. His face was a mask of confusion, his eyes still darting around the room looking for the danger.