by Hugh Cook
Their cowardice haunted them, and so they wanted to forget the past. They did not value Alfric Danbrog for his heroism; rather, they resented his triumph and what that triumph said about their own timidity. Thus the momentum of the movement to put a Danbrog on the throne had been killed entirely. For the Yudonic Knights it was far better (as far as their egos were concerned) that Alfric be known as a murderous fool, an anarchic underminer of stability, a self-serving careerist, an enemy of the State.
Thus Ursula Major’s smooth-voiced logic had a potent appeal for the Knights, and there was no way Alfric could argue effectively against it.
He saw that, now.
All his rhetorical efforts had failed, and had always been doomed to fail.
So.
It had come to this.
He must meet the Yudonic Knights of the hall in combat. One by one he must meet them and kill them. Naturally, if he tried to do any such thing he would surely die himself, on his first duel or his second, or the sixth or the seventh. So he could give up. Now. He could let himself be dragged away by the executioner. He could submit himself to a coward’s death.
Or—
He had another option, yes.
He was a shape-changer, yes, and so he could Change, and once he had Changed he could fight his way out of this place.
In a moment of bloody battle-lust, Alfric longed to do just that and have done with pretence. He would become wolf for real and forever. He would become what he truly was, and would savage any and all who stood in his way as he fought free from Saxo Pall. Nobody would be able to stand against his strength. And once he had fought his way out of Saxo Pall—
Why, then he would flee for the wilds, and live as an outcast ravager, a lawless marauder. He would have done with civilized restraint. He would put an end to his life of lies and deceits. For him, no more the life of studied smiles and careful diplomacy. He would make himself one with the appetites of his blood. He would be a haunter of shadows, a lurching fear which made nightmares come true beneath the moon.
Then, suddenly, Alfric realized that this was exactly what Ursula Major wanted. The Hag was dead, so the state desired a monster. Unless Alfric was badly mistaken, Ursula Major knew what he was and what he could do. She knew he could Change and fight his way free. Ursula Major had said she would reinvent Herself; and she was fast on the way to doing just that.
Alfric steadied himself.
—Whatever I do, it will not be what my aunt wants.
So what options did he have?
Three.
First, to submit to the executioner.
Second, to fight the Knights, one by one, seeking to prove his innocence in trial by combat.
Third, to Change, and fight his way out of Saxo Pall. The first two options would see him die, and the third was nearly as disastrous. So.
What was it the Bank advised?
—When all else fails, seek delay.
Alfric smoothed a smile on to his face. The rage which had almost brought his Change upon him was over. In the aftermath of that rage, his limbs were weak and trembling. But his voice was steady.
‘My lady,’ said Alfric, smoothing honey into his voice. ‘Much is often spoken in haste which is regretted at leisure. You have given me the opportunity of proving my innocence in trial by combat. This I can do, and will do if I must. However ... is it not the custom that I have the opportunity of asking someone to champion me in such combat?’
‘That has happened in the past,’ acknowledged Ursula Major.
‘Then,’ said Alfric, ‘I ask that these proceedings be delayed until tomorrow night, to give me the opportunity of seeking such a champion.’
‘The flower of chivalry is gathered together in this throneroom,’ said Ursula, indicating the Yudonic Knights. ‘If you wish to have a champion, then seek one here.’ Alfric turned to the Yudonic Knights. He knew there was no hope that any of the Knights would volunteer himself as Alfric’s champion, but the gesture at least gave him time in which to think.
But all he could think of was that single word:
—Think!
—Think!
Alfric had exhausted all his ideas, and was close to panic.
Then, as he surveyed the hard-faced Knights, he heard someone say:
‘I will champion him.’
Alfric turned in astonishment.
It was Morgenstem!
How absurd!
Already the Yudonic Knights were laughing. Alfric was furious. Morgenstem must be mad. What did the foolish creature think it was doing? A blubbery ork would not have a hope in the world against the least of the Knights.
But he kept his fury from his face.
Oh well.
That was it, then.
He had no option left to him but to Change.
He looked around the throneroom and saw a side-door which was ajar. That was the one he’d make for. When should he Change? Now? No! Wait! Wait for the ork to go into battle. Once combat began, all eyes would be on the fight. That would be the time to start to Change. . .
‘Peace!’ said Guignol Grangalet. ‘Hush down, all of you! We have a champion for Alfric Danbrog. The champion is an Ork. The name of the ork is Cod.’
‘No,’ said Cod.
‘That’s Cod,’ said Morgenstem, pointing. ‘I’m Morgenstem.’
‘My apologies,’ said Grangalet. Then, turning to Ursula Major: ‘My lady, Alfric’s champion is the ork Morgenstem.’
Ursula smiled.
‘This will be interesting,’ said she. ‘Very well, ork. Who do you want to fight first?’
‘You,’ said Morgenstem.
Ursula laughed, and so did the Knights. When the laughter had died away, Ursula spoke:
‘You want to fight me? I’m sorry, Mister Blubber, but I’m not for fighting.’
‘The challenge is against the hall,’ said Morgenstem, with surprising firmness of voice. ‘You said so. That means I can choose to fight against anyone in the hall.’ ‘Poor orky!’ said Ursula. ‘Weren’t you listening, little orky thing? We went through that earlier. I can’t fight you even if I wanted to. Only females can fight females. That’s our law.’
‘But the women of Wen Endex do fight,’ said Morgenstem stubbornly. ‘Both the laws and the traditions of the land say as much. Many are the shield maidens who have fallen in battle for the honour of the Families, and mighty are the legends which surround them.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Ursula, with a touch of impatience. ‘Doubtless such things have happened. However, we are not on a battlefield. ’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Morgenstem, ‘the law is what the law is, and tradition likewise.’
‘Orky thing,’ said Ursula, ‘you’re starting to annoy me. We’ve been through this once, we’ve been through this twice, now we’re going through it thrice. Here, only a woman can fight a woman. Please believe me, Mister Oil-for-brains. What I tell you three times is true. Were you female, I’d have to fight you. But you’re not, so I don’t and won’t. Choose someone else.’ ‘But—’
‘But me no buts,’ said Ursula. ‘Choose a man.’
‘But I’m a woman,’ said Morgenstem.
Ursula gaped. She really did. Her jaw fell. Then she closed it abmptly.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Ursula Major. ‘You cannot possibly be a female. The ethnology texts are very clear. Female orks are small and shy. You’re neither. You’re big and bulky. So you’re a male. The females run around in pleated skirts. I don’t see you in a skirt.’
‘The textbooks,’ said Morgenstem, ‘are wrong.’
Then, in support of this thesis, the ork began to strip. Off came the ork’s heavy woollen shirt. Revealing sluggardly low-slung breasts. Off came the ork’s woollen trousers, revealing—
‘You - you must be a freak,’ said Ursula desperately. ‘Not so,’ said Cod, starting to strip in sympathy. ‘We’re not freaks. We’re females.’
‘That’s right,’ said Morgenstem. ‘We’re not freaks. We’re fact
. Your ethnology texts lie. What is more, you know full well why they lie.’
That loud-voiced accusation rang through the hall. It was received by the Yudonic Knights in utter silence. For both orks were now bare-arse naked, and the proof of their anatomy could not be denied.
And this shocked the Knights to the core.
It was no secret that the wealth of the Families was based on the slaughter of orks. While the ork-killing days were long since over, it was acknowledged that it was wealth won from ork-oil which had made the Families great, and which also made the Flesh Traders’ Financial Association a power to be reckoned with.
Every Knight knew that his family had risen to greatness as a result of the murder of many orks.
But, in Wen Endex it was an article faith that the killers of orks had always, as a chivalrous gesture, spared the females. Now the horrors of the past were revealed in full force. The victims of the orking days had been exclusively female; and those who killed them for fun and profit must have been fully aware of the fact. It was the big, blubbery females who were full of oil, for the timid little males were too small to have commercial potential.
As the Knights were absorbing this shock, Morgenstem spoke:
‘Come to me, Ursy-thing. Come here, prattle-head. Bring me your perfumed lips, the pink of your underwear. Come to me, Ursy-thing. I want to strangle you.’
‘We - we fight with swords here,’ said Ursula Major unsteadily.
‘My champion is free to opt for unarmed combat if my champion so wishes it,’ said Alfric loudly. ‘That is the law, and you know it.’
Ursula Major looked on him with hatred.
There was no way Ursula Major could best an ork in combat, and she knew it. Ursula Major was a clothes horse, not a woman warrior in the shield maiden tradition. If Morgenstem insisted on unarmed combat, then Morgenstem must necessarily win, for the ork was at least twice the weight of the human female.
‘So,’ said Ursula. ‘So, they are females. The orks are females. Very well. Then let it be so written. Alfric Danbrog was championed by a woman. Thus he lived.’
Then the Yudonic Knights began to laugh, for of course it was a great joke to think of Alfric being saved by an ork, and a female ork at that. As the Knights collapsed in paroxysms of backslapping and kneeslapping, Alfric realized his public humiliation was complete. Lower than this he could not go.
When the laughter at last died down, the throneseated Ursula Major said:
‘Your doom is withdrawn. You are free to go.’ Then, to her Chief of Protocol: ‘Show our guest out.’ Whereupon Guignol Grangalet invited Alfric to leave. He agreed that he would leave. There was, after all, nothing he could win by staying.
‘We’ll come with you,’ said Morgenstem, who was in the process of getting dressed again.
‘No,’ said Ursula Major. ‘I command you to attend a banquet to celebrate your victory today. You and your friend. Both the orks.’
A half-dressed Morgenstem looked at Alfric.
‘I’ll be all right,’ said Alfric, who felt so miserable and humiliated that all he wanted was to escape from Saxo Pall.
‘Good speed,’ said Cod.
‘Thank you,’ said Alfric. ‘Thank you.’
Then he bowed to the orks, bowed to the Knights, bowed to Ursula Major herself, then allowed the Chief of Protocol to lead him away.
Through halls and corridors went Alfric Danbrog and Guignol Grangalet, down echoing stairwells and then through tunnelling dark. Alfric realized Grangalet was taking him into an unfamiliar part of the castle. Alfric meant to ask about this, but—
When he looked around, Grangalet had vanished.
‘My lord?’ said Alfric, uncertainly.
He was sure the man had been behind him but a dozen footsteps previously.
Cautiously, Alfric retraced his steps. Slipped through an archway. And—
And there was Nappy, and for Alfric there was no time to retreat, no time to run, and certainly no time to Change, for he would be dead before he could do any such thing.
‘Good evening, sir,’ said Nappy.
Nappy’s happy brown eyes held no hint of menace, but the stiletto in his hands was living a life of its own, the quicksilver blade flickering as it danced by the light of an overhead lantern, its agility confirming what Alfric knew already. If Alfric were to Change, he would be dead before the first shadows had possessed his flesh. If he were to draw his sword, he would fall with that needle of steel buried in his heart. He could not run, he could not dodge or duck, he could not - would not - beg for mercy.
He was a dead man.
But he managed manners sufficient to say:
‘A good evening indeed. And how would you be on this night of nights?’
‘Very well, thank you sir,’ said Nappy. ‘May I invite you to step this way?’
‘By all means,’ said Alfric.
And, commanded by a negligent gesture, Alfric Danbrog walked in front of Nappy. Waiting as he walked. Waiting for the knife. Between the vertebrae, doubtless. One blow to paralyse, another to kill. Or would it be in the back of the neck? Then one single strike would suffice to make death certain.
Wherever the blow fell, this much was certain:
Alfric Danbrog was a dead man.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘Something wrong with your legs, sir?’
‘No,’ said Alfric, who had been deliberately slowing his pace to try to delay his arrival at his place of execution, wherever that might be. ‘No, not at all, nothing wrong, nothing.’
And he lengthened his pace exceedingly.
‘That’s enough, sir.’
‘What?’
‘I mean, sir, we’re here.’
Alfric stopped still. Trembling. He waited. For the bite of the blade, the shrill agony, the murder-strike.
‘On your right, sir. The door on your right. Open it, if you would.’
Alfric looked to his right. There was a door. An old, immensely heavy door made of polished oak. He could smell the polish. He even recognized the odour as that of Brondlord’s Furniture Polish, which was based on the oil of riverworms caught in the Riga Rimur. Viola Vanaleta used to use it regularly on all wooden furniture in Alfric’s house in Vamvelten Street.
‘The door, please. Open it, if you would.’
There was a heavy iron ring set in the door. It was jet black, not from age but because it had been painted that colour. Reluctantly, Alfric’s fingers closed on the iron ring. It was cold, cold, cold as death and as heavy. What was beyond this door?
Suddenly, Alfric knew.
A psychic intuition told him.
Never before had he had such a vivid premonition. But, under the stresses of the moment, unexpected powers were coming to life. He knew, then, that he could see the future. He could see what lay beyond that door, and what was going to happen to him. On the other side of the door there was a sickening drop to a pit full of slicing knives. And, as soon as Alfric opened the door, Nappy would kick him in the small of the back and precipitate him into that pit.
Alfric felt sick.
He urged himself to turn, to turn and fight, to die in combat, to die like a man.
—But I cannot.
—It is the future. I have seen it. Therefore it is fated. It is fixed. I cannot alter the future.
So thinking, Alfric turned the heavy iron ring and pushed open the door. It screamed on its hinges. And revealed:
A small room, lit by three lamps.
A very warm, cosy room, heated by a small charcoal brazier.
There was a faded red carpet on the floor; a truckle bed on the right side of the room, neatly made up with a featherdown duvet; there were two armchairs, each upholstered with a shaggy brown animal skin which might have been that of a yak; there was a small liquor-table sitting between the armchairs; and there were any number of oddments and knick-knacks on the wooden shelves affixed to the walls with skewering iron.
‘Take a seat, sir,’ said Nappy genially.
<
br /> Alfric stumbled into the room. As he did so, something flew up from the floor. He started, then saw it was only an untunchilamon, fleeing from a saucer of milk. Did Nappy put down milk especially for dragons? For a moment Alfric thought so, then saw the kitten curled up on the bed. He found his way to one of the chairs and sat down. The door screamed on its hinges as Nappy closed it.
‘I thought you might like a drink before you go,’ said Nappy, seating himself in the other armchair.
Before you go? What did that mean. Doubtless it was a new euphemism for dying. But, even so, a drink would not be out of place.
‘Yes,’ said Alfric. ‘Yes.’
Gladly accepting Nappy’s hospitality.
Nappy poured liquor into two thimble-skulls, and passed one of them to Alfric. He swallowed the contents at a gulp.
‘Would you like another one, sir?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
While Nappy poured Alfric a second drink, an untunchilamon (maybe the very one Alfric had scared away from the saucer of milk) alighted on the liquor-table. Indulgently, Nappy poured the thing a thimble-skull of strong drink all for its very own. Alfric watched, fascinated, as the fingerlength dragon plunged its entire head into the thimble-skull. It stayed under for quite some time, while the level of liquor steadily sank.
Then the dragon’s head emerged from the drink. Liquor gleamed wet and slick against its scales. The untunchilamon burped. Unfortunately, this action conjured forth a single spark of dragonfire. The dragon-spark ignited the liquor. Next moment, the little beast was wreathed in writhing fire.
Instantly, Alfric saw that the dragon was doomed to be burnt alive, or at least badly injured. For, while dragons are firebreathers, they cannot live amidst fire, any more than can the human firebreather who performs at village festivals. So Alfric knew at once that the untunchilamon was in big trouble.
Then the dragon was gone.
Nappy had snatched the thing away and had plunged it into a pitcher of milk, reacting so swiftly to the unexpected that the thing was done even before Alfric had time to gape in dismay.
