by John Brunner
Her voice too was as beautiful and as melancholy as her eyes.
She said, “Welcome, my lady. I fear I cannot offer you the hospitality to which you are accustomed, but I live, as you see, in humble circumstances.”
Sharla said, a little uncertainly, “It is of no consequence, Sabura Mona.”
The other extended a fat hand and indicated one of the wooden chairs. “Be seated, my lady. And—this is Ser Landor?”
Landor nodded, said smoothly, “My lady Sharla asked me to accompany her, since her Argian is worn with long disuse and I speak it to perfection.”
“Really?” Sabura Mona’s eyebrows rose on her forehead. “And in which of the Outland dialects are you most at home?”
“It is of no consequence,” stammered Sharla. “We cannot impose upon you—”
“I speak them all,” said Sabura Mona, and there was a finality in her voice that defied further argument. She spoke next in the dialect of Loudor.
“So you see, Ser Landor, your presence as interpreter is really not required.”
Landor could not avoid the pointed hint, but there was a curious flicker of unreality about the way he turned and withdrew, leaving Sharla very alone and helpless, as if he had been fighting very hard to control himself, doing consciously what he should have done naturally.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Sabura Mona turned her eyes from following him and looked at Sharla with a curious abstracted expression. Sharla noticed that her sole ornament was a tiny gold ear-clip, and strove to remember where she had last seen one like it.
Sabura Mona said, “I called you hither, my lady, in this way, for two reasons. The ostensible one is that here we cannot be overheard or spied upon. The more pressing is that I am growing old, and am anyway a fat and clumsy woman, and I cannot do much walking or attendance at ceremonies.”
Sharla said, “But, Sabura Mona, you should have more exalted quarters than this. If you do prefer to live here, at least let me order you better furnishings—”
“I do not choose to have them,” said Sabura Mona.
“But have you no slaves, no attendants—?”
“I do not choose to have them,” repeated Sabura Mona firmly. “And therefore let us talk no more about them. My comfort or discomfort is a small thing compared to that of the Empire.
“I called you hither to speak of two things—Barkasch of Mercator, and the people of Argus. First—of Barkasch. You would do well to beware of him. He cannot fight the Empire alone, though he would dearly like to, for he is a scheming and ambitious man whom fate has chosen to sit at the head of a trio of the wildest worlds in the galaxy—wild not in terrain but in people.
“His are the fiercest warriors of all. His are the ambitions of a merchant prince magnified a millionfold. It seemed that his alliance with Andra and his seat on the Council of Six would give him the power he sought, but far from that he was made to look a fool before many people, and when his temper cools he will ally himself with Andra’s cause and will not rest until she is in your place. Beware of him. He is crafty. Have your adviser Landor see to it.
“And the second thing. The people of Mercator. They are fickle. They believe like all the peoples of the Empire in prophecy, and though they welcome you now, someone will one day soon realize that no prophecy is current proclaiming you beneficent and just ruler of the Empire, though many run the crowds with the word that the black witch shall bring about the Empire’s ruin. It would be the work of a day, no more, for Andra, your sister, and Barkasch of Mercator to have the crowd howling for your blood on no stronger evidence than that it is not you but your sister who is to ride the Empire to oblivion.”
Sharla said after a long silence, “That is all, Sabura Mona?”
“That is all. There will be more. I have spies, my lady, and I ordered them to warn me of such rumors as might cause your overthrow. I, who planned so much for your father, have no plan now—yet. What is to come remains inscrutable. But rest assured—I have small love for your sister or for Barkasch of Mercator, and shall guide you—with the assistance, doubtless, of your Lord Great Chamberlain, Landor—” (this with the air of an afterthought), “as I did your father.
“I shall see you at the burying tomorrow, my lady. Farewell.”
Feeling a little foolish and disappointed, Sharla rose. She said, “Is there a guard nearby that I may summon to escort me to my apartment?”
“No need, my lady. Walk and be assured.”
Sharla gazed at the immense bulk of the woman before her for a while. Eventually she turned and went away.
Though the passages were dark and bare and cold, somehow she felt no apprehension at walking along them alone after Sabura Mona’s words.
When she re-entered her own rooms, Landor was waiting. He greeted her and said, “First, with regard to what you said earlier—Dolichek’s father is dead.”
Sharla brushed it aside, and suddenly weary, sat down on the couch beside him. She said, “I have seen Sabura Mona.”
Landor nodded. He said, “She is a strange woman, is she not? I am intrigued to have met her. She impressed me with an air of power.” He shifted to face her. “Tell me, what did she say?”
Sharla told him, in outline. When she came to the part about the prophecies, he snorted. “Faugh! I have no faith in prophecies. The bad guesswork of a few old women, and they follow it because they think it a prophecy, and point to it when they have followed it as true foresight. Go on.”
She finished her tale, and he said, “All? It seems little enough, in faith, to insist on conveying in private.”
Sharla said, yawning, “Landor, yours is the statesman’s brain, not mine. I am weary and would sleep. In the morning, if Ordovic has found this conjurer, we will see him, and find out more from him. Till then, Landor.”
Landor rose without speaking and withdrew.
Senchan Var looked gloomily from the narrow slitted window without benefit of a drape, westward over the Low City. He could see the lights along the Street of the Morning and hear the clamor of the city playing.
He said, “Andalvar of Argus dead at the sundown before last, and they still drink and sing in the Low City. A rootless stock—craven and unworthy of Argus.”
“While the burying money grows, Senchan,” said Andra.
Senchan Var turned angrily on her. “Burying money or no, my lady, it is an insult to the memory of Andalvar, your father, and I am all but ashamed for you, my lady, that you do not take it seriously.”
Andra’s composure was fraying visibly. She sat on a couch covered with badly cured katalabs pelts, and the floor was hard and cold and the walls bare, for the fortress on the Hill of Kings was a fortress first and a palace after, and though it was the focus of Imperial government and state-owned trading it was still a soldiers’ barracks rather than a home.
Across the room her ape whined and chattered fretfully.
She snapped, “Senchan, there is no need to lose your temper with me simply because my minx of a sister dismissed Dolichek from whipping-post and told the whipmaster to break his whip and come to me again, and you happen to agree with her. She did it out of sentiment and no anxiety for the strength of Penda’s moral fiber. Further, she is a weakling and neither she nor the fool whom she put in your place is acquainted with the veriest elements of intrigue.”
“No?” said Senchan Var. “It seems to me, my lady, that she is strong and self-possessed, as witness the way she disposed of Barkasch of Mercator and the marriage bond.”
Andra spat. “According to Samsar’s story? Not at all. Only this conjurer and his fantastic trick saved her. And there is one thing more—”
A soldier of the fortress company entered and saluted. He said in harshly accented Argian, “A slave below, my lady, demands entrance. Female slave called Valley.”
Andra shot a triumphant glance at Senchan Var and said, “Fetch me her, and also the slave Samsar, the wizard Kteunophimi and the black Leontine slave who came hither from the castle of the
kings this evening.”
The soldier saluted again and went out. Andra said, “See, Senchan? Can anyone be skilled in intrigue who does not have wit enough to chase away spying slaves? She took them all from me, trustingly, and her idiot of an adviser, Landor, knew too little to warn her. I tell you, Senchan, a week and we shall have torn this sister of mine to shreds. Ay, and scattered the shreds to the eight winds of Argus.”
The door opened again, and the same soldier ushered in Valley, swathed in a thick cloak from head to ankles, but her brown feet were bare, the great black slave who had been whipmaster to Dolichek, Samsar of the hot brown skin and twitching eyes, and a small, nervous man with a withered face like an old apple and a mirthless grin that displayed toothless gums. The soldier himself turned to go out again, but Andra stopped him with a gesture.
“Stay, soldier,” she commanded. “There may be need of you.”
He closed the door obediently and stood with his back to it.
“Now,” said Andra, a gleam in her cat’s eyes, leaning forward on the pile of skins that formed her resting-place. “You, Samsar!”
Samsar stepped forward sullenly.
“Your tale again, Samsar. Not that part about the entry of Kelab nor the departure of Barkasch, but that about the fate of the bond itself.”
“Why—why, my lady, did I not make it clear?” stammered Samsar, his jaw working stiffly, for there was a vast black bruise all across his cheek where Ordovic had hit him.
“I would have recovered it for you and preserved it, but Ordovic, the captain of the royal bodyguard, picked it up while it would still have been but foolish to attempt to steal it under the eye of the courtiers.”
“Enough!” said Andra, holding up her hand. “Step back. Kteunophimi!”
The withered man came forward, mumbling.
“Work the miracle of full memory on the slave Valley,” she commanded. Mumbling from the aged wizard.
“Do not waste time in vain attempts to speak!” said Andra. “But a few simple movements are all you need, Kteunophimi.”
The wizard turned to face Valley, who stood very straight with her big eyes bright and limpid and the hood of her cloak thrown back on her shoulders, and began to move his hands in a complicated pattern. After a few seconds he stepped hastily aside, and Valley, her eyes wide open but unseeing, walked unhurriedly forward to face Andra.
“Well, Valley? You have heard all that passed in the apartment my sister took from me?”
The slender slave nodded.
“Tell me of what was said concerning Barkasch and the marriage bond,” Andra commanded, and sat back on her pile of skins.
Valley began to speak as a machine would speak. In flatly unimaginative terms she described the reactions of Sharla and Landor, and the entry of Ordovic. Senchan Var listened, a frown on his face, marveling at the way Valley copied the very accents of the speakers. Landor and Sharla had talked in Argian, but with the arrival of Ordovic switched to their Outland tongue, and since Valley did not herself understand the meaning of what she had heard, but could only repeat it parrotwise, Andra called for an interpreter and heard the talk with interest. Samsar stood in the background, a faint beading of sweat on his brow.
When Valley repeated Ordovic’s version of Samsar’s clumsy attempt to steal the marriage bond, Andra raised an imperious hand. “Enough!” she said. “Samsar, step forward.”
Samsar did not budge.
“Soldier—” said Andra, and the soldier before the door caught Samsar’s arms and frog-marched him in front of the couch.
There was a gleam in Andra’s yellow eyes that was not all due to the torches. She said softly, caressingly, “Samsar, you lied to me.”
“My lady—!” stammered the slave, his eyes twitching. “I did my utmost—”
“Utmost or not,” cut in Senchan Var, “you lied to my lady Andra! I should rip your false tongue from your throat!”
Andra was regaining her self-confidence and poise. She said, “Hold, Senchan. I have it how this may turn to our advantage even now. What was the meaning of the threat Ordovic used to this man, interpreter?”
Samsar’s eyes filled with abject terror, and his mouth trembled, but he could not speak. The interpreter shook his head.
“I know not, my lady. Tis not of their dialect, nor of Argian.”
With a casual glance at the wretched Samsar, Andra turned. “Senchan, explain its meaning.”
The old man blanched. He said, “It is—it is—” Then he turned his back sharply and said with an air of finality, “It is not seemly for you to know, my lady.”
“Fool, Senchan! Will none of you tell me? Then I demand it of a common soldier! You before the door! Explain!”
Woodenly, his eyes focused on empty air, the soldier explained.
When he finished, Andra nodded, her lips drawn back from her teeth like a cat’s. She said slowly, bright-eyed, “Slave!”
The Leontine giant stepped forward.
“Take this Samsar and do to him as you have heard—and stop him wailing!”
A broad hand clapped across Samsar’s mouth and he fell to moaning faintly. “Then go into the Low City and spread it abroad that Ordovic threatened this. Let Samsar be found on the streets later—about dawn?”
The giant said, “I hear and obey,” and picked up Samsar casually under one arm and went out. Senchan Var turned to Andra with an expression of despair on his face, and would have spoken, but Andra cut him short.
“Senchan, we cannot afford to be squeamish. We are playing for the glory of an Empire, and one man—or ten thousand—cannot be permitted to stand in the way of it. You’re a soldier, Senchan—not a ninny! Kteunophimi, take that soldier and make him forget what he has seen, believing it to be Ordovic’s work.”
The aged hypnotist nodded and led the soldier into a far corner. After a while the latter departed like a walking doll, and Andra turned to Valley, still standing motionless before the couch.
“Continue,” she commanded.
They listened in jubilant silence when she came to the scene between Ordovic and Sharla, and Andra said, “So my precious sister was a woman of the streets in her long absence. How much capital could we make of that, Senchan?”
All the old man’s puritanically moral upbringing rose in revolt at that. He said, “That a woman without honor should come to stain the throne of Argus! ‘Tis the most shameful thing I ever heard!”
“Agreed,” said Andra. “It will be common knowledge three days from now. Continue, Valley.”
When she finished her recital, he said, “She is visiting Sabura Mona; that is dangerous, my lady. Sabura Mona is unpredictable and very, very shrewd.”
Andra frowned. “Indeed, I do not know whether she will stand to our side or to Sharla’s.”
“Is there a way to spy on her?”
“None. The walls of her room are stone as thick as you are tall, and she has no slaves to be bribed and never leaves the castle of the kings.”
“Then she is too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
“True. Kteunophimi!”
The wizard came forward.
“Take away your pupil Valley, send her again to attend my sister. You will then send up my black Leontine slave when he has dealt with Samsar, the liar.”
The old man bowed and left the room unsteadily, leaning on Valley’s arm. After a while Senchan Var said, “Word from Barkasch?”
“None. He went off-world in a huff at sundown. I expect his messenger some time. He will not accept being made a fool of lightly.”
The door opened. Another soldier stood there, saluted.
He said, “There is a man craving audience who will give no name but is come in connection with the marriage bond of Barkasch of Mercator—my lady,” he added hastily.
Andra and Senchan Var exchanged glances.
Andra raised her eyebrows as if to say, “What did I tell you?” and ordered the soldier, “Let him enter.”
The soldier stepped aside a
nd a man came from behind him, and both Andra and Senchan Var tensed and began to flush with rage.
Kelab the Conjurer.
VII
“Ser Landor! Ser Landor!” A patter of feet, panting, shouting in high feminine voices. Landor struggled from sleep and found a gray rain-washed sky shedding dull light through the windows. His door burst open and Valley came in, her face tear-stained.
“Ser Landor! My lady Sharla has disappeared!”
Instantly Landor tossed the covers off and reached for his clothes. He said, “How? When?”
Valley said, “It must have been early today, Ser Landor. When she went to see Sabura Mona, as you know, she dismissed us and I for my part went into Oppidum. This morning, when we went to awaken her, she was gone from her bed, and there were signs of struggle.”
Landor buckled his sword-belt and forced his feet into sandals. He said, “Call out the guard! Find Captain Ordovic! Let him see that none leaves the castle!”
Valley bowed and vanished, and Landor, his face like thunder, went striding down the passage to Sharla’s rooms. Here he found Mershil and Lena, her other personal slaves, weeping and wringing their hands. The door to the bedroom was open, and the bed visible beyond was disarranged, as if by a struggle. He ordered harshly, “Peace, you! No one is blaming you—you were dismissed and all is in order. Let me pass!”
He pushed between them and went into the bedroom. They followed, howling, and he rounded on them. “Has anyone touched this bed since it was found so?”
“None,” Lena assured him eagerly through her tears.
“Then keep silence. I have a little skill in divination.” He turned to the bed, while the slaves ceased their sobbing and watched with interest. He laid his hands caressingly on the covers, his eyes blurring and his fingers seeming to melt and run into the fabric as Kelab’s had on the beggar’s cup.
At last he shook his head and turned away, as there came a clatter of feet and a jingle of metal, and Ordovic burst into the room, closely followed by Tampore.
He said, “The slave Valley came with a wild tale of Sharla vanishing.”
