In the Lion's Mouth

by Michael Flynn

  “We’ll have dinner presently,” she says gruffly. “Have ye any preferences?”

  “I’m not hungry,” her daughter tells her. But the soft notes that drift from her harp hunger nonetheless.

  “Something light,” says Graceful Bintsaif in a hesitant voice. “A tomato sandwich perhaps.”

  “Ooh, what is the dish that the Beastie boys favor?” the Confederal Shadow asks. “Since at loong last I am oon Dangchao, I may as well savor it.”

  “It’s called ‘fry-pan,’” Méarana tells her. “It’s pretty much anything to hand—potatoes, sausage, onions, beef ends, peppers—fried up in an iron skillet and mixed with egg and flour into a casserole of sorts.”

  “It soonds delicious.”

  Bridget ban smiles without humor and turns from her contemplation of the empty and darkling prairie. “Did you hear, Mr. Wladislaw?”

  “Aye, mum,” a voice replies. “And yourself?”

  “A Crenshaw Salad, I think. Addleberry dressing.” Then, arms folded across her chest, she faces the Shadow. “You have not come all this way to tell us nothing, Ravn Olafsdottr. How came you to awake in Gidula’s ship?”

  The Shadow bends forward over arms resting on knees. She looks to the floor as if searching for something lost in the carpet. “Gidula,” she says in a low voice. Then, more loudly, “He monitor battle from afar; and when he see Geshler fight the Long Tall One, he knew himself betrayed. A heroic Geshler heroically returned was not at all to his taste. And so he intervened.” She looks up and catches Bridget ban by the eyes. “Gidula told me that Geshler had been defeated, but I know he lies for no better reason than the practice. He scattered the fighters from the air—both sides—and only Geshler, Ekadrina, and my unconscious form remained when he landed. He told Ekadrina to withdraw and salve her wounds and, as she was no fool, she did as he bade. Then Gidula took Geshler and me aboard his shuttle. This I know from what he told me and what he failed to tell me.”

  Bridget ban nods. She glances at her daughter, who has essayed a small geantraí on her harp: a happy, triumphant tune that is more premature than she realizes. “And what did Gidula tell you?”

  “That he had rescued us from death at Ekadrina’s hand. But I knew where matters stood with him and, more importantly, he knew that I knew. We had collaborated to bring a lackwit Geshler back. Even had he died fighting Ekadrina, he would have inspired the rebel cause. Gidula could allow neither victory nor defeat, and so he deprived him of both. For the same reason, he could not slay Geshler and leave him for Oschous to find. Oschous would have used him to inspire the others. And so he put me to kaowèn.” She looks up. “Yes. That why he need me hale. But kaowèn for question only, never punishment.” She laughs without humor. “One more tradition lost.”

  Méarana sucks in her breath and Bridget ban glances at her sharply. “Could you have expected anything less?” she asks the Shadow.

  “From time we fight Frog Prince together,” Olafsdottr answers, “I see no other end but that.”

  “And yet you brought him back regardless,” says Méarana. Then she stops and her mouth rounds out. “No, he brought you back.”

  “Yes,” Ravn says in clear Gaelactic. “Just how clever is Donovan buigh? He knew that those fetching him had only Billy Chins’s initial report that his mind was still shattered and he was an ineffectual old drunkard. To whose benefit was it to bring such a man into the fray? To no friend of the Revolution, I think. Perhaps that was his first betrayal. That he knew and said nothing. Perhaps he always meant to join the Revolution, for his vengeance; but at his own time and on his own terms.”

  “No,” says Bridget ban almost to herself, “that was not his first betrayal.”

  “By your own account,” Graceful Bintsaif says, “you fought well in the defense of the warehouse. You even fought in Padaborn’s colors. Sharp work for Gidula’s man.”

  “What? I should break cover? I fought well because to fight less than well was suicide. Who in battle space ask opponent polite, ‘Be you dooble agent?’ And beside…” She stops and shakes her head in annoyance.

  “And beside,” Méarana finishes for her with a little laugh, “you had come to like them. Oschous, and Domino, and the rest.”

  “You still not oonderstand, young harper. I admired them all. Ekadrina and Oschous, both. Domino Tight had been my brother in the Abattoir. Epri had been my teacher. Dawshoo and Gidula were legends whose exploits I had long studied. I betrayed my own master for love of Donovan buigh; but it was only in that battle, when the Names intervened on both sides, that I came to see that they must be overthrown.”

  “‘For love of Donovan buigh,’” Bridget ban quotes her.

  But the Shadow shrugs. “He is many enough that more than one may love him.”

  “He joined the fight only when you fell fighting as him,” the Hound points out. “I think he fought for love of you.”

  “Think what you wish, Red Hound. Little enough do you know of such things.”

  Méarana laughs and the others all turn to her. “I told you,” she says with a pluck at her harp stings. “It was they who finally joined him. He put on the colors of Geshler Padaborn only after Ravn fought truly for the Revolution. Tell me, Dark One, though I think I already know, why you came here this night to tell us this tale; for I see it has no end to it.”

  The Ravn shows white teeth. “Is it not oobvious? Gidula has Donovan buigh and has taken him to his citadel. He left me behind when he passed through Delpaff. I was no more use to him, but for sake of my former use he did not ‘retire’ me. Sentimental old fool! What mere planetary prison can hold the likes of me? A throat cut here; a palm crossed there … Steel and silver won me free. The Delpaffonis do not even know I have escaped.” She hugs herself. “Ooh, I am soo clayver!”

  Bridget ban returns to her chair and sits. “And you desire what of me, O so clever one?”

  “You know. You have known this while. To free Donovan from Gidula’s citadel, of course. I am very good, but I cannot do that alone.”

  Bridget ban barks an involuntary laugh. “But the two of us might? What are the chances of two snowballs in hell?”

  “Very good, I think. On the Groom’s Britches, our legends say Hel is froozen.”

  “Would your friends nae help?” Méarana asks the Shadow. “What of the other rebels?”

  “Domino Tight would help, for old times’ sake. Perhaps Big Jacques, simply for the challenge. And he might persuade Little Jacques. They are old collaborators. But of Dawshoo and Oschous and the others, I am unsure. Dawshoo would not believe in Gidula’s treachery; and Oschous, who I believe has deduced much already, may see Padaborn as a potential rival. But for me … This is for me to do. Donovan and I are gozhiinyaw. How do you say it in Gaelactic? ‘Brothers-because-they-have-spilt-blood-for-each-other.’”

  “Blood brothers,” Méarana tells her.

  “Ah, so. Blood brothers.” She looks to Bridget ban through lowered eyes. “A close relationship, and one he shares of old with others. It makes, I think, you and I blood-sisters-in-law.”

  The Red Hound smiles crookedly. “I hae ne’er heard of such a law. Where is Gidula’s citadel?”

  “On Terra.”

  Méarana stops playing. Bridget ban tosses her head back. “And so he receives the gift he has always wanted. He makes his hajj to Terra, after all! Tell me. Why would he wish to be freed, or if freed ever to leave that place?”

  “Ooh, I can think of a reason, maybe even two.”

  Bridget ban crosses her arms, flings one leg over the other. “’Tis nae possible. Terra lies in the Triangles, in the heart of the Confederation, no more than a day or two from Dao Chetty, New Vraddy, Old 82 … No, he may as well be held in the Perseus Arm.”

  “Mother!”

  “Nae, wean. We lost him long ago. If he were anywhere here in the Periphery … If he were even in the Wild, as I was … If he were even in the Confederal borderlands … If I even thought yon Ravn has told us the whole truth … I�
��d owe him that much to fish him out. But not to the Triangles, darling. Not to the Triangles. Only three Hounds have ever gone there—and but two ever returned, and only one hale.”

  “But you should…”

  “If he is half the man he once was, he is more likely to come to us than that we should go to him. He has escaped more tight places than most men have e’er squeezed into. Friend Ravn glossed over her escape from a Delpaffoni prison as if it were no great thing; but Delpaff is one of the oldest colony worlds, barely younger than Dao Chetty herself. It was no ramshackle frontier stockade our Ravn claims to have slipped from. And what she could accomplish, Donovan could accomplish nine times over.”

  “Do not be soo sure, Hound. Gidula’s citadel staffs three Shadows and over a hundred couriers and magpies.”

  Bridget ban cocks her head at her prisoner. “You have a strange way of persuading me to attack it.”

  “But Mother…!”

  Bridget ban slaps the arm of her chair. “Don’t be such a fool, Méarana! While ye’ve been a-playing that harp, yon Shadow has been playing you. What if the whole purpose of this farrago has been to lure a Hound of the Ardry to stick her haid in the Lion’s Mouth? What chance then that it remain attached to her shoulders?”

  Ravn speaks quietly. “I give you my woord.”

  “Oh, there’s hard currency for you.”

  Olafsdottr sighs and her eyes retreat and look inward. “I have failed, then. Will you at least allow me to leave this place? My honor demands that I make the effort, even if it is doomed.”

  “Is blood, then, thicker than oaths?” Bridget ban asks.

  “Thick enough. Gidula dissolved my oath to him when he abused kaowèn to punish me. He made a most grievous error.”

  Bridget ban nods. “I can see he did.”

  “What was the error?” Méarana asks.

  Graceful Bintsaif tells her. “Never do your foe a small injury.”

  Olafsdottr grins. “That which does not kill me,” she says, “has made a grave tactical error.”

  Bridget ban nods as if to herself, then glances at her protégé. “Yes,” she says finally to Olafsdottr. “There are some few points we still need to discuss; but after that … Yes, you may leave with my blessing.”

  The Shadow laughs out loud. “Yayss. One more faction added to that stewpot of a Revolution cannot help but advantage the League. Well, it cannot help but advantage the enemies of the Names, wherever they may dwell. But please, Mistress Hound, do not confuse enmity for the Names with a disloyalty to the Confederation.”

  “You know which matters want discussion, of course.”

  The Shadow flips her hand. “Oh, ‘vestiges,’ one supposes. But I know no more about them than what Domino Tight downloaded to my shenmat.”

  “But that is so much more than we have ever heard of them that I cannae but suppose there may be one or two other details that we would find interesting.”

  “I will tell you what is mete for you to know. Does the League too practice kaowèn?”

  Bridget ban stiffens. “Only in restricted cases; not with the gay abandon of the Confederation.”

  “Ooh. You are oonly a wee bit pregnant, then?”

  The door opens then to admit Mr. Wladislaw and another man wearing the red-and-yellow livery of Clan Thompson, although in his case the colors are muted to tawny and break his silhouette with camouflage patterns. It is difficult to see him straight. He and Bridget ban lock eyes for a moment and he shakes his head very briefly and waits orders.

  The Ravn chuckles. “Is my flier missing? Perhaps I walked.”

  “Ignore her jibes, Mr. Tenbottles. She is overimpressed with her own cleverness.”

  “Are ye quite sure, Frannie-ban, that she is o’er-impressed?”

  “Ne’er ye mind that, Hang. Resume your duties.”

  “Before we eat,” suggests Méarana, “can we nae take a rest break?” As they rise, she says to Ravn Olafsdottr, “I have been wanting to ask you about the poetic form you have been using to chant the story. ’Tis very different from what we use in the League. It teeters on the verge of prose but ne’er quite topples in.”

  Bridget ban and Graceful Bintsaif follow them to the rest room just outside the sitting room and, the other two women entering engaged deep in discussion of poetic forms, they take stations just outside the door.

  “You don’t fear that she will take her hostage, do you?” Graceful Bintsaif asks with a nod at the closed door.

  “No, Méarana has more sense than to try that.” Then she laughs at the junior Hound’s look. “To what end would she do so? We’ve promised to release her.”

  “Aye, when we’ve wrung her dry. Do you think she trusts that promise?”

  “Shadows are not like Hounds. They have a peculiar code of brotherhood, a convoluted notion of honor.”

  “Peculiar, I would say! They send them out in pairs, with the second tasked to kill the first should he fail in his assignment. What sort of brotherhood is that?”

  “A close one, I would think. Their lives are ever in each other’s hands. And their sense of honor leads them to acts that we would regard as rank foolishness.”

  “Such as a single-handed assault on Gidula’s fortress?”

  “Very much like that. What are they talking about in there?”

  Graceful Bintsaif listens at the door. “The Dark One says that the style is called the Old Northern Saga.”

  “Northern? North of what?”

  “The Ravn does not know. Oh, now Méarana is singing something. I cannot make it out. Your daughter really has a fine voice. Wait, I recognize it. It is a passage from her Dancer Cycle. ‘The Call to Hounds.’ That was the meeting my old master called on Hot Gates. You came, and Gwillgi, and Grimpen. I was na Fir Li’s second Pup, but he had sent Greystroke off on a mission. Oh, those bass notes capture Grimpen very well.”

  “Bass notes…” Bridget ban steps into the hallway and calls, “Mr. Wladislaw, is Méarana’s harp still in the sitting room?”

  “No, mum.”

  “Please alert Mr. Tenbottles. Graceful Bintsaif, would you open the door, please?”

  The junior Hound tries the hoígh plate, but the door does not respond. “It’s locked, Cu.”

  “Did I ask ye whether it be locked or nae; or did I tell ye to open it?”

  “Cu!” Graceful Bintsaif pulls a device from her belt pouch and places it against the door plate. The light on it turns from red to green and the door slides open in its accustomed manner.

  The lavatory is empty, of course. On the vanity a voice synthesizer cracks on about abstruse modalities in poetry and song. Bridget ban picks it up and studies it, finds a button, and silences the faux voices. How, she wonders, did Olafsdottr smuggle the device in with her? Surely, they had searched her every cavity! But then she remembers that the intruder had taken a little longer than needful to make her way from the yards to the sitting room. She had paused to stage this here. Oh, that was coolly done, and argued that she had always foreseen the need to employ it.

  “They escaped through the ventilation,” Graceful Bintsaif says, and she points to higher on the wall, where a cover screen dangles from a single fastener.

  “How clichéd of our Ravn,” murmurs the Red Hound. “I would have thought better of her.” Then she curses. “No, the ventilator is where she hid her devices and weapons before she entered the sitting room. She brought a Cloak with her. Two Cloaks. And when we walked in, they walked out, as cool as you please.”

  “Then … your daughter went with her willingly?”

  “I don’t doubt she broached the whole notion. Or that she thought it wholly her own. But that scheming skald of a Shadow led her to it by her pert little nose. Presenting herself as a poet and storyteller; claiming a love for Donovan buigh. The lying little…”

  “What! Was none of it true what she told us?”

  “Oh, all of it was true. That is the best kind of lie.”

  “What now?” The junior Hound spre
ads her hands helplessly.

  Bridget ban nods to the voice synthesizer. “Olafsdottr came to fetch me, not my fool of a daughter. And since I would not go and help her free Donovan, she took Méarana.”

  “But what sort of aid could a harper provide…? Aah. But, Cu, all of the reasons you gave for not going to Donovan’s rescue apply to…”

  “Graceful Bintsaif, probabilities do not matter in this case. No, we will do as Méarana asked.” She nods deference to the voice synthesizer. “We will call to Hounds.”

  NOTES FOR THE CURIOUS

  It’s a big Spiral Arm and the technology of thousands of years from now is about as imaginable as airliners would be to Assyrians. It helps that there were intervening dark ages, lost technologies, and deliberate suppression of innovation. That lets us get away with over-the-horizon science and technology of here and now. Take some stuff that we maybe almost know how to do, and then suppose that we can do it really well. The list below can be thought of as the acorns from which the oaks of some Spiral Arm technology have grown.

  1. “Subway tunnels” through space. Just a gleam in the physicists’ eyes, for now: http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw86.html

  2. Meat vats. Dr. Vladimir Mironov of the Medical University of South Carolina, as well as researchers in the Netherlands, are presently working on the growth of “in-vitro” or cultured meat: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110130/sc_nm/us_food_meat_laboratory_feature

  3. Gravity grids. Depend on antigravity. Recent citings found here: http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw83.html

  4. Domino Tight’s exoskeleton. We’re already making their precursors: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=2174

  5. Invisibility cloaks. We can’t make them yet, but see here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/16/space.time.cloak/index.html?hpt=T2

  6. Self-assembly and self-repair of shenmats, equipment, and systems. Self-healing polymer mixtures from Oak Ridge National Lab and the University of Tennessee: http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v42_3_09/article15.shtml