The Rite-Master of Ambrose and current (and reluctant) head of the Royal Legion had entered the council chamber, his arms full of red cloth.
"I beg your pardon-Your Majesty, my Lady Regent. But Councillor Morlock particularly wished me to bring these to the Guardians of the Wardlands-"
The tall, thin, fair-haired Guardian cried out, "Isn"t he a good fellow! Here I was imagining him lolling in a hot tub scrubbing his toes, when he was working away on replacing our cloaks."
Wyrth, who had been unwontedly silent all this while, spoke up almost grudgingly, "It wouldn"t have been so hard. We"ve had the garments roughcut for months. He only needed to fit them to your size."
"Well, mine fits like a glove," the dark woman remarked. She looked more than regal with her red vocate"s cloak across her shoulders, and the King, finding he was staring, forced himself to look away. "And it glows like the dark edge of a rainbow-what talents that man has."
The big brown-haired Guardian rolled his eyes at this and said, "Thanks," briefly, to Kedlidor, swinging the red cloak over his broad back.
"And where is my esteemed brother, Kedlidor?" Ambrosia asked. "I expected him here some time ago."
"He said if you asked, my lady ... I"m sorry but I don"t understand it."
"Perhaps you should quote him exactly."
"He said, "If Ambrosia asks, tell her I"ve gone to get my spider.""
Lathmar couldn"t help it; he burst out in laughter tinged with hysteria. Wyrth muttered a curse and dashed out of the room. On that somewhat chaotic note, the Regency Council broke up.
Supper that night was a formal affair, although the regent wasn"t present. Negotiations with the Protector"s agents had gone into a marathon session, and Ambrosia wanted to see them through.
"But I believe," the King said wryly to his guests from the Wardlands as they gathered in the antechamber, "that I am competent to host a supper."
"You are quite right, Your Majesty-quite right," Kedlidor said approvingly. "The Lady Regent exercises only your judicial, legislative, military, and civil authority. All ceremony remains within your purview."
"Well, with Kedlidor"s blessing we can chew our beef without any dreadful fears that we are being ceremonially incorrect. He has been RiteMaster of Ambrose from time immemorial, as well as the commander of the Royal Legion, from a more recent date."
"That"s an unusual combination of offices, isn"t it?" commented the tall fair-haired vocate they called Jordel.
Kedlidor"s wrinkled face took on a pained expression. "A persistent joke of the Lady Regent"s, I fear," he said sadly. "She does most of the work herself, leaving me with administrative trivia."
"Kedlidor does himself an injustice," the King remarked to the company as a whole. "When the time comes, he can lead troops and fight with them like a lion. And in a war like the one we have in hand, Gr-Ambrosia rightly says that most of the battle lies in knowing whom you can trust. We trust Kedlidor because we"ve seen what he can do."
"A royal "we," Your Majesty?" murmured the dark, gloriously beautiful vocate named Aloe, standing nearby.
He basked for a moment in the hot golden delight of her full regard before he realized that some sort of answer was required. "Yes-but, no, not really. That is, I feel that way, and so does the rest of the Regent"s Council."
She nodded, tactfully not taking notice of his confusion, which confused him even more.
"But you needn"t worry," Kedlidor was saying to Jordel. "Though as Rite-Master my rank is far too low to sit at the King"s table, as Legionary commander I just merit the honor. You won"t lose status by sitting with me."
Jordel"s hazel eyes nearly crossed in his effort to follow Kedlidor"s pedantic line of thought, but then his face cleared and he laughed aloud. "Well, perhaps concern should run the other way. I"m n.o.body in particular without my red cloak, you know. My first job was stealing cowpies."
""Cowpies"?" Now it was Kedlidor"s eyes that were crossing. "In the sense of...?"
"Manure."
"Er ..." Kedlidor did actually look as if he were about to question Jordel"s right to sit at the King"s table.
"I wasn"t aware that cowpies were valuable, Vocate Jordel," the King observed, emphasizing the t.i.tle slightly for Kedlidor"s benefit.
"Well, they aren"t usually. But then, they"re not especially well guarded either. My semi-dad used to pay me a penny for every dozen I brought him. He wanted them as fertilizer for his farm, which didn"t do terribly well, despite my undoubted talents as a coproklept."
"Semi-dad?" Kedlidor asked, irresistibly attracted by what was apparently a new genealogical term, or perhaps merely afraid to ask for a definition of "coproklept."
"Oh, just someone my mother took up with after my real dad died," Jordel said airily.
"Lom bluthian, kreck hloth,"* said Aloe, quietly but audibly, out of the side of her mouth.
The heavily built brown-haired vocate called Baran grunted. "Watch it. I"m sure the King knows enough of our speech to get by."
Aloe turned back to the King and smiled. He was thunderstruck by the curve of her rosily dark lips, the flash of her teeth like lightning. "Is that true, Your Majesty?" she asked. "I suppose you call it "the secret speech," as most do in the unguarded lands."
"Unguh guh-guh-That is, I know a certain amount." The King was about to go on, but then he realized that it would be impolitic to address the content of Aloe"s muttered comment to her peer. But he was fascinated by it. Neither Morlock nor Wyrth were in the least concerned with status or prestige, as Lathmar had been carefully taught to recognize it, and he had a.s.sumed that people from the Wardlands felt the same way-Jordel"s comments seemed to imply as much. But Aloe seemed to be genuinely, if faintly, embarra.s.sed by Jordel"s reminiscences.
"But, um, this question of status-that is-you know what I mean, Kedlidor?" He was sorry to push the question off on Kedlidor, but he had incautiously met Aloe"s golden eyes again, and he found it difficult to string words together.
But the Rite-Master was up to the challenge. "Yes, indeed, Your Majesty; I thank you very much for raising the matter. The trouble is, vocates, that we have been unable to settle which of your number should sit at the King"s right hand-the place of honor, you see."
Baran grunted. "I"m the oldest. Jordel was made vocate first, but we don"t count that type of seniority as authority in the Wardlands. I suppose we could flip for it."
"Oh, come now Baran, don"t be dense," Jordel said lightly. "Surely Aloe is in charge of our little emba.s.sy. The place of honor is hers."
Baran shrugged. "I don"t see that she"s in charge. But she can sit where she likes, as far as I"m concerned."
Aloe laughed. "Thanks, B." She turned to the King and said, "Subject to your approval, Your Majesty. I"m afraid I don"t have any interesting stories about stealing cowpies."
"Oh, that"s all right," he said, awash in confusion, and offered her his left arm. She lightly placed her right hand on his left forearm, and he simultaneously felt a hundred feet tall and totally inadequate.
They walked together through the doors into the dining hall.
This was not the Great Hall. They were too few by far for that echoing monstrosity; also, there were no windows, which the King insisted on whenever possible. So tonight they supped in the High Hall of the North-atop a long, low tower just above and behind the Thorngate of Ambrose. There were windows on three sides, and the roof as well, and the room was unlit as they entered.
The sun"s last light was long gone from the eastern sky; bright drifts of stars stood out there above the sullen reddish horizon of the city. The greater moon Chariot hovered overhead, mounting up toward culmination. Northward the edge of the blue sky was notched by dark angles: the not-toodistant peaks of the Whitethorn Range. The third moon, Trumpeter, stood fiercely radiant in the west.
Aloe gasped, and the King felt for the first time the peculiar satisfaction of impressing an impressive woman. "Creator, what a view!" she said at last. "It reminds me of some of the high halls under Thrymhaiam. But even those didn"t have more than one rank of windows-much less skylights."
The King indicated to Thoke, the chief servant of the table, that he and his a.s.sistants could light the hall"s lamps. This unfortunately made it difficult to stargaze, but much easier to see what one was stabbing with one"s fork.
"You have been under Thrymhaiam, Vocate Aloe?" the King asked, turning back to Aloe with interest. He had heard so much of the dwarvish stronghold from Wyrth and Morlock that he occasionally had dreams of the place.
She threw a golden glance at him that was difficult to read, but seemed to be in a quandary as to how she would reply.
"We"ve all been there," Jordel remarked from behind. "Aloe, Baran, and myself. Back in the Year of Fire. But I suppose that Aloe went there many a time after that."
This gave the King a great deal to think about. The Year of Fire-unless Lathmar was misremembering his stories (and he didn"t think he was) was centuries ago, when dragons had invaded the Northhold of the Wardlands. He was stunned to think that Aloe was so old-or Jordel, for that matter. They both seemed young people just out of adolescence. At least physically. Now that he thought of it, it would be unlikely for people so very young to be bearing the responsibilities that Jordel and Aloe did. Baran"s age didn"t seem much older, but rather indeterminate, something like Morlock"s. No one who saw Morlock act or talk could doubt his vigor; no one who looked in his eyes would doubt his age.
But they were as old as Morlock if they remembered the Year of Fire- Lathmar remembered Wyrth saying that Morlock himself was only a young man then. His ancestor Uthar the Great hadn"t even been born!
Morlock must have known them. Why did he never talk of them?
With a cold shock, Lathmar remembered Grandmother saying of Morlock, He was married to a woman he loved-the only one he has ever loved (may she be d.a.m.ned for a poisonous b.i.t.c.h)....
Aloe? It would explain why she knew Thrymhaiam, the land of Morlock"s dwarvish foster parents. It would explain the rather arch tone in Jordel"s voice when he mentioned the fact.
It pained Lathmar inexpressibly to imagine Morlock married to Aloe. He wasn"t sure why-when he thought about it, Morlock was the most remarkable man he"d ever known, and Aloe might well be the most remarkable woman. Some would call it a fitting match. But that wasn"t how he felt about it.
His feelings were running riot-that he knew. But what bothered him most was the fact that Aloe must know it-that she was counting on it. He had noticed how Jordel and Aloe had maneuvered to have her sit beside him. Because it amused them? Because they thought it would be to their advantage? Because he might let slip something, in his confusion, that he should not have said? The Wardlands were not hostile to the Ontilian Empire, but neither were they allied to it-they had no allies.
By now they were seated at a long table of gleaming, beautifully grained kattra wood. The King had rather absentmindedly a.s.sisted his guest of honor in sitting and had gestured to the servants to begin pouring the wine and serving the food. They were eating in high style, he reflected grimly, when compared to crunching bread that the bakers had thrown out as too stale for the Protector and his men. But this was a very small party compared to the dinners Lathmar remembered from during his father"s reign-each person at table had but one servant behind him, for instance.
Aloe"s cool, firm voice broke into his reverie. "You"re deep in thought, Your Majesty."
He met her eyes and was thrilled to discover that they were as alarmingly beautiful as ever. But now he could speak as they crossed glances.
"I was thinking about a story I once heard," he said thoughtfully, "about a hero named Jordel who walked with his companions against the Dark Seven of Kaen. I was wondering if your companion was named after this hero."
Jordel was not so far away that he couldn"t hear this. He laughed and said, "Someone"s been lying to you, L-Your Majesty. Baran, don"t punch me in the ribs when I"m talking."
"Eh. If I kept that rule when would I ever get to punch you in the ribs?"
"You must ask me sometime when I seem inclined to give a rat"s a.s.s; we"ll debate the whole question then, I a.s.sure you. No, Your Majesty, I"m quite sure there was no hero named Jordel who walked against the Dark Seven, for I was a member of that harebrained expedition myself-the hareiest member, if not the brainiest. G.o.d Sustainer, what a nightmare that was!"
Through the first two courses Jordel entertained them with obviously distorted recollections of his adventures in Kaen as the thain-attendant of the vocates Illion and Noree. He gave his audience to understand that his prudence and restraint had saved the group time and again from the disasters caused by his companions" intellectual brilliance and heroic couragedangerous qualities, of which Jordel boasted he had not the slightest trace, not the faintest whiff or suggestion of a trace.
From time to time the King glanced over at Aloe, and once he found her looking at him with unguarded approval.
"That was well done, my friend," she whispered to him. "We thought we had you cornered, and then you turned our weakness against us."
"Your weakness is not as weak as he pretends," he murmured in reply.
"Naturally not. If there were a real threat, Jordel would be as reasonable as anybody. But in the absence of one he can rarely resist the temptation to listen to his own voice."
Having utterly debunked the defeat of the Dark Seven, Jordel was pa.s.sing on to tell of his misadventures in the Year of Fire, when he personally had saved the Wardlands from the courage and intelligence of a more numerous cast of even more heroic persons. But he took a few moments to denounce these poisonous qualities again-particularly courage, which he described (in the words of some ancient poet, whom Jordel seemed to have made up on the spot), as the "unconquerable waster of worlds!"
"That"s a fine way for a rokhlan to talk," remarked a sardonic voice from the doorway.*
The King looked up from Aloe"s eyes to Morlock"s, who was standing at the far end of the table. Wyrth was just coming into the room behind him as he spoke.
"Your pardon, Majesty," said Morlock formally. "We had some tasks to perform."
"More sewing, Morlock?" said Jordel cheerfully.
"Nothing so uplifting," Wyrth said, stumping up to the table. "No, we were settling the ruffled feelings of a horse."
"I didn"t know feelings had ruffles," Jordel observed.
"Only the finer feelings, Vocate Jordel, so your ignorance does not surprise me. I suppose you"ve told them your dung-stealing story by now?"
General laughter at Jordel"s expense ensued, during which Morlock seated himself and gestured for Wyrth to sit beside him. Wyrth seemed to demur. Morlock spoke firmly in response; the King only heard, "... I require it."
Lathmar wondered if Wyrth might still be embarra.s.sed about his behavior in the presence of the corpse-golems. But then he saw the searing glare of hatred that Wyrth shot toward Aloe as he sat down.
"Master Morlock"s horse is jealous of his spider," Wyrth said in a voice that belied his expression. "We rode down to the hills east of the city where we left it-you remember, Your Majesty-and our plan was that I would ride Velox back-"
"Is Velox the spider or the horse?" Aloe asked.
"The horse, madam," the dwarf said coldly.
"I could see you sooner astride a spider, Wyrth."
Wyrth looked down at the table and smiled a little, evidently against his will. "Velox is no ordinary horse," he said. "And that was the problem. He became terribly upset when Morlock entered the spider-"
Bewilderment was so general at the table (neither the vocates from the Wardlands nor Kedlidor had any idea of what Wyrth was driving at) that Lathmar felt compelled to explain about Morlock"s bizarre craft.
"Anyway," Wyrth resumed, "that was our plan-we would ride Velox down to the spider, Morlock would direct the spider back, and I would ride Velox. But Velox became extremely upset whenever Morlock made to enter the spider. So we had to coax the horse into the compartment, to show him there was no danger in there."
"Sustainer," said the King wonderingly. "All three of you in that s.p.a.ce? It must have-"
"It smelled dreadful, Your Majesty," Wyrth interrupted. "In fact, you can be grateful that we"re so far down the table-we both schmeck of nervous horse, or I"m much mistaken."
"We"ll take your word for it, Councillor," Lathmar said. "But you"ll be hungry and thirsty. Thoke," he said to the servant standing behind his chair, "see to the needs of Councillors Morlock and Wyrth."
"I don"t-" Wyrth began to say, and broke off when Morlock glanced at him. Impatiently he turned to Jordel and said, "Notate Jordel, could you give me a piece of bread from your plate? Do you mind if I dip it in your wine?"
He ate the wine-tinged bread and turned to Morlock, spreading his hands. "There. Can I do more?" He turned up the table and called to Aloe, "What do you say, vocate? Are we quits?"
"I"ve no claim against you, Wyrth," Aloe said composedly.
"There. Master Morlock, I take your point, but you know as well as I do how much work we have in hand that only you or I can do. If you"ll permit-"
Morlock nodded. "I"ll see you later."
"No doubt. With your leave, Your Majesty. .
His Majesty had forgotten he had any say in the matter and had taken a mouthful of ragout. He waved dismissal in a gesture so casual that it made Wyrth grin and Kedlidor gasp. The dwarf waved back and dashed away through the door.
"You inspire strong feelings in your dependents, Morlock," Aloe remarked. "Dwarven, equine, corvine ..."
"I have no dependents," Morlock replied. "Wyrth hates you because his father taught him to do so. Dwarves can be very loyal to that sort of feeling."
Aloe was now distinctly annoyed. The King watched her face in open fascination, and when she noticed this, she smiled slowly.
"At least he only had one father-that must make things less confusing for him," she purred. "Wouldn"t you say, Your Majesty?"
The King swallowed, reflected, and answered, "Under no circ.u.mstances would I say so, Vocate Aloe, even if I thought it. Councillor Morlock, what do you think of the ragout?"