by Dave Duncan
reached it, Ceolmund caught hold of his cloak
and pulled his head down.
"You are related to both contenders. You are not
strictly a thegn. You don't have to attend."
He was wrong. Radgar had been away for
years. If he shunned this contest, the fyrd would
lose all interest in him. "No, I must go."
"Then support Wulfwer. If he wins the
siding, your uncle will retire. Your cousin will
become earl and appoint you tanist, his closest
relative."
"No!" Leofric clutched Radgar's other
arm. "You must support your uncle. You are his
obvious successor. Wulfwer is thrall-born
and useless. He has guessed you will replace him
and is making a desperate last stand. Cynewulf
will have Big Edgar or someone make fillets of
him and then you can become tanist."
Radgar smiled thanks at each man in turn
and gently pulled free. He climbed up on the
bucket. So much conflicting advice swirled
inside his head that he did not know what he was going
to say.
He looked around at the expectant faces--
well over a hundred of them. Of course his new
Faro`edhengest brothers would support him to the
last drop of blood--theirs or anyone else's
--but there were many other werodu represented. He
could not ask any man to support Cynewulf, that
slimy villain. Nor Wulfwer, who had also
tried to kill him.
He must shout, because the great dome had been
designed to swallow sound, not echo it.
"Ealdras, thegns ... friends ... I thank you
dearly. If I hesitate and stumble, it is because
I am truly at a loss for words, more touched
by your support than I can say. I know many of you
came here to honor the memory of my
father, and for that I am truly grateful. I can offer
you no more wisdom than you have heard already and I will
not presume to steer you in your decision. I am
royally born, yes. I will fight any man who
says otherwise, but I do not consider myself
throne-worthy. Not yet. Someday I hope to win
your respect, but I cannot claim it now."
A cloud shadow of dismay darkened the elementary.
Modesty? What sort of a man doubted his own
manhood? Glances were exchanged, comments
whispered. ... They had not expected that. From
portly landowning elders to horny-handed,
rollicking sailor boys, they all wanted him
to be his father returned to them. If it didn't work
and he died, well it had been a good idea. ...
Too late he saw that his refusal betrayed
those who had already risked everything by backing him--
Leofric, Ceolmund, Aylwin, his new
shipmates. He had blundered. His Ironhall
training had let him down, for he had responded
as a dutiful courtier or royal bodyguard
might, not as a braggart Baelish atheling. Like
Wasp, he had not been ready for this world.
But even as he floundered for some way to repair
his blunder, a young man pushed forward through the
spectators. His mail shirt and helmet marked
him as a house thegn and he must be proud of his
status, for he would have been a cniht until very
recently. He stopped some distance from Radgar and
called to him in a voice as thin and arrogant as his
orange mustache.
"Atheling, your king summons you."
A premonitory shiver ran up Radgar's
backbone. He would sooner drop in on a
moray eel in its crevice than answer that
invitation. But the spirits of chance had offered him a
way out of his error.
"Cynewulf cannot summon me, for he stands under
challenge. I have other business to attend to. Go
tell my uncle that I will wait upon him tomorrow and will
settle then all matters outstanding between us."
The youth stared at him in horrified disbelief,
but a deafening whoop of relieved laughter from the
crowd drowned out anything he might have tried
to say. The laughter swelled to applause and
applause exploded into cheers. That was more the sort
of talk they wanted to hear.
Spirits! Did they expect him to seize the
throne by force? He certainly had less than a
tenth of the fyrd here, and already he could see
men on the outskirts melting away from a group that
had suddenly become dangerous company. Anything
less than half must fail. He shouted for
silence.
"Friends! Brothers! Baels! I believe my
father was murdered and his brother had a hand in that
crime, but I lack the proof I need to swear
blood feud. I am certain that his son, my
cousin, tried to murder me that same night. Neither
is fit for the office he holds. They are of my
blood but I cannot in good conscience side with either.
At the thegn moot I shall stand apart."
A plague on both their houses! That was not
a solution anyone had proposed in all the hours
of arguing. It was not in the rule book, but Dad
had spurned rule books, too. Radgar had
only just thought of it himself and saw at once that it was
horrible folly, because it must make enemies of
both factions. But it was a way out of his
dilemma. A roar of approval greeted it.
In his strange, soft-spoken way, the young atheling
was proclaiming revolution, so perhaps there was a
streak of his old dad in him after all. They would
follow him--for now.
The only reason Wasp could not just lie down and
die was that there was nowhere comfortable to try it. His world
was a bed of nails, a universe of razor
edges. He had fashioned his baldric into a
tourniquet to stop the bleeding from his crushed hand,
and the rest of his injuries seemed to be only
bruises, from sole to scalp. Desperately
thirsty, he could hear a slow drip of water not very
far away. For some reason that sound drove him
to rage rather than hope or despair--surely no
master torturer had ever subjected his victims
to anything worse than this! The lack of a draft was
not necessarily fatal, he told himself. It
proved that the tunnel was blocked in one
direction, not necessarily both. A Blade
couldn't give up. He could burst his heart and
drop dead, but he could never give up.
Having no idea of direction, he must just head
for the drip. He used Nothing as a probe
to establish where the rocks were and were not, and he began
to move. Once or twice he found himself in a
large open space where he could find no walls,
no roof; at other times he had
to wriggle through narrow burrows full of broken
glass--that was how they felt, anyway. The drip
seemed to be slowing down, and he was tormented by the
thought that it might stop altogether. He even began
to wonder if it was retreating as he advanced, a
phantasm created by some evil spirit to torment
him.
He seemed to crawl through the nightmare for days, and
he never did find the drip. Before he reached it,
he saw a glimmer of daylight on the roof
ahead.
The Weargahlaew end of the tunnel had been
almost blocked by a landslide. A puddle of water
had collected there and he was able to slake his
thirst. There was even a heap of natural
porridge where the meal sack had burst; he forced
himself to swallow some of the muck just to make his belly
stop feeling so empty. His broken hand throbbed
with a savage beat, pain echoing all the way through
him. Without that he might have curled up and slept
away the rest of his life, but there was no way he
would ever find comfort again.
He clambered over the debris that had fallen
from the cliffs and peered out at Weargahlaew. He
could see very little. Storm and eruption between them had
turned day to night, but he judged that if the sun
had not set it must be about to, because the ruddy glow
within the crater itself was brighter than the clouds
overhead. He could hear crackling and smell
smoke in the stench of sulfur. For the forest to be
burning was hardly surprising. A strong wind
gusted the muddy rain around--air, water, earth, and
fire--all four manifest elements were present
in abundance, and that thought reminded him of
Healfwer.
Obviously he could never find the conjurer in this
mad murk--and it would do no good to do so at this
stage anyway--but he had nothing better to try and
could think of no better reason for coming here. He
scrambled painfully down to the crater floor and
limped wearily into the trees.
Radgar must know that Healfwer had been
Fyrlaf, but only once had he called the old
cripple eald foeder--grandfather--in
Wasp's hearing. He would brag about great-grandfather
Cu`edblaese and father Aeled, but Fyrlaf was
rarely mentioned, as if the shame of what the former
king had done to the Gevilians still lingered.
Cu`edblaese had died fighting a drake.
Aeled had lured his to the sea and quenched
it. Healfwer-Fyrlaf had driven his monster
against the invaders, and only after it had destroyed the
Gevilians had he plunged it into the healing
sea. How? And what had happened after that? He
had mumbled something about the water not being deep enough.
If he had fallen on his left side and the
drake went over him ...
Mad and hopelessly crippled, he had been
exiled to Weargahlaew and publicly written
off as dead. Why so much shame? Was it possible that
he had not merely directed the firedrake but had
actually summoned it, much as he had summoned
Yorick's ghost? Firedrakes were supposed
to be something that just happened, like thunderstorms; but a
skilled conjurer might be able to create one,
especially during a volcanic eruption, when
fire elementals swarmed. That would be a terrible
crime, invaders or not. And last night the
madman had heard how one of his sons had
murdered the other. How much crazier could a man
become?
Something had summoned Wasp, drawing him here.
He paused at the edge of a steaming lake whose far
shore was hidden in the trees. He would have to wade
that and hope he did not get boiled on the way.
... Something in Weargahlaew was a mortal
threat to Radgar.
AELEDING
IX
From the Haligdom to Cynehof in a downpour was
far enough to soak a man to the marrow of his bones.
Cowering under his cloak, Radgar paused on the
edge of the square to glance back at his followers:
Leofric; Ceolmund; and better than two
hundred thegns, ranging from striplings like Wasp--
and where was poor Wasp?--to elders so ancient they
could barely totter along on the arms of brawny
grandsons. He had lost his Blade and gained a
retinue. Satisfied that it had not melted away
yet, he uncovered his head, squared his shoulders,
and led the way toward the gaping porch.
A few score sword-girt men lingered at the
base of the steps, some of them huddled under
thrall-held umbrellas. These must be the
cautious ones, waiting until they could back a
clear winner. Around the edges of the plaza, a forest
of hats, hoods, and umbrellas covered
ceorls and loetu and also many women and children, no
doubt families of thegns. None of them had any
say in a change of earl--and the result of the vote
would make no difference to their drab lives
anyway--but they probably enjoyed watching the
atheling lead in his army. Could they tell that he was
an illusion and it was really led by the ghost of King
Aeled? His followers were not following him, they were
pushing. He had never dreamed that he might win
acceptance solely on his father's reputation.
He strode up the three steps, and for the second
time that day surrendered Yorick's sword to the
house thegns. Many feet tramped up behind him.
The big hall was dim and clammy on this dismal
evening and at first glance seemed almost empty, because
the occupants were packed in along the walls.
Although the scents of generations of feasting still hung in
the air, tonight the hearths in the center were cold. Beside
them stood three elderly witan in heralds'
tabards, adjudicators acceptable to both
candidates. Two men who had preceded Radgar
into the hall went to them, bowed in unison, and then
parted, going to stand on opposite sides of the hall
--most likely brothers, prudently dividing the
family vote.
Honored guests had been arrayed on benches
on the dais at the far end: earls,
wives, mothers, grandmothers, a few children close
to adolescence. At the extreme left of the
platform Cynewulf slouched on his throne,
crowned and sumptuously robed in crimson, but
scowling. Queen Charlotte sat very erect on
an ornate chair of narwhal ivory at his
side. Behind them stood grim Ro`edercraeft,
watching as his armed minions kept order in the
assembly.
Wulfwer stood on the extreme right, ignoring
the low milking stool that his father had generously
provided for him. With massive arms folded, he
was glowering brutishly at the unfolding drama.
He had done much better than Leofric and
Ceolmund had predicted he would. More than a
quarter--perhaps almost a third--of the thegns had
assembled on his side of the hall.
Every eye fastened on Radgar as he approached
the witan, for it must seem that he could decide the
fate of the kingdom. If he took his retinue
to Wulfwer, he might tip the balance in the
tanist's favor, or at least make it very
close to even. This was another illusion. His
supporters were following him only because he had
promised to take no side. Before reaching the
waiting elders he stopped and folded his arms like
big cousin Wulfwer. He did not attempt the
scowl, but smiled instead at the three old men.
His followers bunched up at his back, and the hall
stilled into a puzzled silence.
It did not last long. The rafters creaked
first, then the walls. The floor lurched under his
feet and kept on lurching, so he staggered
wildly. Everywhere men tripped and stumbled, the
woodwork screamed in every joint, and all noises
seemed to merge in a single monstrous roar as the
world danced. It was the worst quake he had ever
experienced. Dust poured down from the roof and
swirled up from the hearths. After an
excruciatingly long time, the motion faded and then
stopped.
He hurried forward to assist the three witan,
who had landed on their backs. Dust settled and
fallen men climbed sheepishly to their feet, but
neither Cynehof nor its occupants seemed to have
taken any serious harm. The siding would continue,
because no red-blooded, redheaded Bael would ever
accord a mere earth tremor any more respect
than he would spare for a rough sea. They made their
buildings to survive and so would they.
As he returned to his place, one of the
witan came shuffling after him. "Ealdras! You
must go to one side or the other." He lacked about
a dozen teeth for true clarity of speech.
"We take our lead from Atheling Radgar,"
Leofric said.
"Aeleding!" roared the men at his back.
The old man looked to the upstart, frowning
angrily under bushy white brows. "You must
choose sides."
"I will take no side, and my companions are
of like mind."
"That is not allowed."
"I cannot choose between those two offal
buckets."
"So leave, if you shun your duty!" Outrage
made him shrill.
"I will not leave."
"Ealdor Ceolmund! Ealdor
Leofric! You know that this is improper."
"Unorthodox," Leofric admitted.
The wita's slurred complaints grew shrill.
"You are breaking the customs and abusing our
ancient rights. You must decide between the two men.
If you do not like the result you can challenge again.
Dividing the fyrd into more than two factions
risks standoff and open warfare."
