by Julian May
SIX
The suite in Boarsden Castle assigned to Somarus Mallburn, Didion’s king, was situated in the huge North Tower at some distance from the rooms set aside for the other dignitaries, so that when His Majesty suffered one of his all-too-frequent drunken tantrums, the rest of the ranking guests attending the ongoing Council of War would not be disturbed.
After prudent questioning of the royal attendants, Kilian Blackhorse, Lord Chancellor of Didion, learned to his relief that tonight for a change Somarus was tranquil as well as wide awake. At the eleventh hour after noontide, when most of the castle had already retired, Kilian was admitted to the royal apartment by Kaligaskus, the Chief Lord of Chamber. Prudently, he waited near the door while being announced, in case he was refused an audience.
The monarch sat at a small table in his bedroom, clad in a nightshirt of white lawn and a shabby old sable-trimmed robe. Rain now hissed drearily on the tower’s leaded windows and the air was rather chilly, but Somarus seemed not to notice, so engrossed was he in the task he’d assigned himself. Candlesticks backed by mirrors gave him bright light in a room otherwise dim. Spread out on the worktable was a collection of small boxes, tools, and other objects, along with a flagon of plum brandy and a golden goblet.
Using tweezers, Somarus lifted a dripping dead insect from a clay dish holding water. After scrutinizing this repugnant thing closely, he set it aside and began to fiddle with a small vice clamped to the table edge.
‘Your Majesty?’ The hushed voice of Kaligaskus caused the king to lift his head.
‘What? Can’t you see I’m busy, man? Go away.’
The attendant bowed. ‘Lord Chancellor Kilian is here to confer with you, sire. He says the matter is urgent, else he would not have disturbed you.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Somarus muttered. He took up a bent piece of thin steel wire – actually a sewing needle that had been daintily modified by Duke Ranwing Boarsden’s blacksmith according to the king’s own instructions – and fitted it into the brass-and-wood vice, tightening the jaws. ‘There!’ he whispered. ‘Ready!’ He quaffed spirits from the goblet and rubbed his hands in anticipation.
‘I bid you good evening, Your Majesty.’ Kilian Blackhorse had crept up with his usual sneakiness, giving the king an unpleasant start.
‘I’m in the midst of something and I don’t intend to set it aside,’ Somarus grumbled, not bothering to look at the court official. ‘And I’ll not share my lifewater with you, either. Ranwing’s cellar is running short, what with all the guests. If you want a drink, ask Kaligaskus.’
The Lord Chancellor snapped his fingers in irritable summons. He was a man spare of flesh and fine-featured, six-and-seventy years of age but still imposing in spite of increasing frailty of body. He had deep-set suspicious eyes and habitually kept his lips tightly shut, as if reluctant to let his thoughts escape his mouth. His will was indomitable and his store of patience huge; even so, King Somarus’s fluctuating moods often tested him sorely.
‘As you please, Majesty. I must say I’m surprised to see you working with your hands, like some common artificer.’
The royal reply was sweetly given. ‘It soothes my mind to do so, my lord. If that makes me common, then sod you and be damned for a friggin’ snot.’
Kilian winced. ‘I beg your pardon. I meant no disparagement. ’
‘No? Well, it doesn’t matter.’ Somarus continued his careful adjustment of the captive piece of wire. His fat fingers were very steady. Unlike many other Didionites, he held his liquor well, even the notorious distillation of plums that was the national cup of cheer.
‘Majesty, I wished to speak to you about the betrothal ceremony tomorrow, and also of the Sovereign’s unexpected announcement at supper tonight.’ Kilian lowered himself onto a chair brought up by the attendant. He accepted a crystal cup of red wine and took moderate sips while Somarus continued his finicky labors.
‘I’ll wager you can’t guess what it is I’m making,’ the king said, sounding like a cagey schoolboy.
Kilian breathed a sigh of longsuffering. ‘Something very ingenious, one presumes.’
‘Damned right. Watch me. You might learn something.’
The King of Didion was a year younger than the Sovereign, and once had been a man of striking, leonine appearance and hardy build, a celebrated fighting leader who owned a temper to match his once-fiery (now faded ginger) hair and beard. But he had not aged well and had grown corpulent and florid from excesses of meat and drink. Not a man of high intelligence, he was nevertheless both canny and alert, and at his best had a manner that was affable, generous, and leavened with bonhomie. At his worst, he was subject to bibulous rages and fits of melancholy. These had become more numerous since the painful death of his beloved wife Queen Thylla, who had succumbed to a breast canker four years earlier.
As a second son, he had come to his throne unexpectedly after the slaughter of his elder brother Honigalus, together with all of that unfortunate man’s family who might have inherited the crown of Didion. The late royals had been atrociously done to death by Salka monsters, and many believed that the fierce amphibians had been abetted in some inexplicable way by Somarus himself, perhaps with the help of the Mossland sorcerer Beynor…and Kilian Blackhorse.
Whether this rumor was true or not, it soon became plain to certain powerful peers of Didion that while Somarus might once have been a successful warlord, defying his late brother by preying upon Wold Road caravans, he was a lamentably inexpert king – and no match at all for his brilliant liege, Conrig Wincantor. Factions in the Didion Grand Council who opposed Somarus would have long since pulled him down had it not been for Kilian’s skill in rebuffing them, as the king himself grudgingly admitted. Somarus needed Kilian, and Kilian also needed Somarus.
At least for the time being…
The insidious chancellor was a powerful wizard as well as a consummate politician, and had a murky past. Although of royal Cathran blood, he could never legitimately rule that nation because of his magical talent and had been compelled to join the Zeth Brethren when still a boy. Kilian had served the Sovereign’s predecessor, King Olmigon Wincantor, as Royal Alchymist and chief adviser – until ambition led him to overstep himself. He was caught plotting against his nephew Conrig, then Cathra’s Prince Heritor, and was convicted of high treason for his pains. Kilian only escaped beheading after a plea for mercy by his sister, Queen Cataldis.
Locked up in Zeth Abbey to repent his sins, he audaciously decided to mend his shattered fortunes by organizing the theft of a collection of inactive moonstone sigils known as the Trove of Darasilo, which he and Beynor of Moss planned to share. Unfortunately, the purloined stones appeared to have been lost by Kilian’s accomplices as they fled from the High King’s agents.
Unfazed by this disaster, the one-time Royal Alchymist escaped to Didion with several other criminal associates, where he took advantage of the tragic demise of King Honigalus to insinuate himself into the court of his successor, Somarus. Within a short time Kilian made himself indispensable to the unsophisticated new monarch and was appointed Lord Chancellor.
Now, after sixteen years, he was firmly entrenched in Didion’s quarrelsome Grand Council, rather like a tenacious mat of ivy whose tendrils hold together an unstable castle wall that might otherwise totter and collapse. Even Conrig Ironcrown unwillingly conceded his maternal uncle’s expertise in statecraft – while forgetting nothing of the chancellor’s earlier treachery.
Kilian Blackhorse was a shrewd political realist; he championed Didion’s vassal status in the Sovereignty because only a united Blenholme could hold off the threat posed by the Salka monsters, while still allowing lucrative trade with the Continent.
But King Somarus Mallburn eventually rejected this point of logic. As years passed, he yearned to rule independently as his forebears had, without being subject to an overlord. It mattered not to the stubborn, fiercely patriotic king that Didion was better off within the Sovereignty, as Kilian maintained. Somar
us clung to a more simple principle in his bluff warrior’s heart: For nearly a thousand years, his nation’s forests and heaths and boglands had been free…and now they were not.
Because Kilian was so adroit in smoothing the bumps and pitfalls of his uneasy kingship, Somarus had long since pretended not to notice the wizard’s more blatant manipulations of him – the latest being the betrothal of his daughter Princess Hyndry to Prince Orrion. But one day, when fate smiled, Somarus vowed he would rid himself of both his irksome Lord Chancellor and the yoke of Ironcrown’s Sovereignty. Until then he intended to bide his time, calming the towering resentment aflame within his bowels by means of the wonderful and soothing new pastime recently introduced to him by a congenial Tarnian visitor.
It was called ‘angling’.
Kilian leaned forward and broke the drawn-out silence with some impatience.
‘Majesty, earlier today I was reproached once again by the Duke of Dennech-Cuva, your bosom friend, for promoting the marriage of Princess Hyndry and the Cathran Crown Prince. Some of the duke’s stated objections bordered on treason against the Sovereignty. You should caution him. I realize he’s disappointed that the Princess Royal will not marry his own son –’
‘Azarick Cuva is my staunchest supporter. He’s free to voice his opinion. Anyhow, why shouldn’t my daughter wed Count Egonus? They’d make a fine couple. Both widowed and childless, both randy as minks!’
The chancellor spoke patiently, as if repeating a lesson point to a dullard pupil. ‘A second Didionite marriage tie with Cathra, in addition to that of your sister Queen Risalla, Conrig’s wife, strengthens the bond of solidarity between the two nations and quenches dissension and animosity amongst the common people. We must think of the future.’
The king took a smallish brass bead from a box and held it to the light. ‘Do you know what I think, my lord? I think you envision Didion and Cathra becoming one single kingdom after my demise. And you the Prime Minister over all. If my son, Crown Prince Valardus, should perish through misadventure, Hyndry would ascend the throne of Didion.’
‘What an appalling thing to say!’ Kilian cried.
‘Such melancholy things have happened before, as we both know.’ Somarus took a spoon holding black stuff and warmed it in a flame. ‘Here is spruce gum mixed with charcoal, very sticky and waterproof. I dab the least possible portion upon that part of the wire closest to the loop held in the vice’s jaws. Then I slip this bead onto the wire so it meets the glue. It will become the shiny head of an artificial insect, just so.’
Kilian’s autocratic features twisted in bafflement. ‘Insect?’
‘That is what I am making, my lord.’ Somarus nodded at the dead thing floating in the dish of water. ‘A simulation of that creature.’
The chancellor rolled his eyes and drank a bit of wine, then leaned forward to try again to engage the royal attention. ‘Well, the betrothal is settled to the Sovereign’s satisfaction. In time, both you and the duke will no doubt see the wisdom of it. Now, to change the subject: You know I have absented myself from meals at Boarsden’s high table whilst His Sovereign Grace and the military leaders have dined with you. I did this so as not to excite the ire of the High King…who is, as you are aware, no good friend of mine. But I’ve just been told that His Grace announced startling news this night – the Salka invaders are supposedly in retreat. Is this report true?’
‘So it would seem.’ Somarus took another generous pull of brandy.
‘And?’ Kilian prompted.
The king’s smile was glassy. Kilian began to suspect that he was already very drunk. ‘High and mighty Ironcrown revealed something else that was interesting, too. Only Sernin Donorvale and I yet know of it. I wonder if I should tell you about the dr –’ He caught himself and grinned. ‘Maybe not!’
Chuckling playfully, Somarus picked up a piece of rabbitskin. He used tweezers to pull out both stiff guardhairs and fluffy undercoat fur from the leather, making two separate small piles.
‘The Sovereign related news of something other than the Salka retreat?’ Kilian was taken aback. His secret high-table informant had mentioned no other item of significance. ‘Please share the news with me, sire.’
Somarus’s countenance tightened obstinately. He took up a bobbin of fine silk thread and began to wind the filament round and round the steel wire, covering it evenly to the point where the shaft made a wide bend.
The chancellor assumed a more wheedling tone. ‘I only wish to be able to advise you properly, Majesty. I beg you to trust me with whatever information of import you may have learned.’
‘I don’t mind telling you more about the Salka retreat. The tidings came from that young blade Dyfrig Beorbrook. It seems he didn’t simply confine himself to questioning the usual backwoods sources about Salka activities up north, as he’d been expected to do. Instead, he personally undertook a perilous secret spying expedition deep into the Green Morass! Plucky little whoreson, eh? His windscryer oversaw the monster horde withdrawing from its encampment at Beacon Lake. The buggers are streaming north to the sea. Abandoning their invasion.’
‘But, that’s wonderful news!’ the chancellor exclaimed. ‘Did Prince Dyfrig discover why this is happening?’
The king paid no attention to Kilian’s question. He spoke slowly and with precision. ‘Now keep a close eye on me, wizard. I take a sparse clump of the stiffer rabbit guardhair, hold it in place against the wire just at its bend, and wind thread about the hair to fasten it in place. Behold! The artificial insect now has a wispy tail as well as a head.’
In spite of himself, Kilian peered at the king’s handiwork. ‘What the dev – what exactly is it that you are making, sire?’
‘Didn’t I just tell you, you clodpate? I am dressing this angle to become a mock bug: a simulacrum of the dead creature here in the dish, which late was crammed into the belly of a huge brown trout, along with several score of its deceased kin.’ The king poured more spirits into his goblet and took a satisfied swig.
‘You’re dressing what?’
‘This bent wire, called an angle, is in truth a fish hook. No wonder you are surprised, for it hardly resembles the crude things made of bone customarily used by our simple fisherfolk. A large steel needle is heated red-hot in charcoal, then the eye is nipped and tweaked to form a barb. The needle’s pointed end is turned into a loop where the fishline may be attached, and the entire thing then curved round a tiny anvil, again while red-hot, into the proper hook shape.’
‘But…why make such a thing, when bone hooks work well enough and are so much cheaper? Our people have used such from time immemorial.’
‘Fool,’ growled Somarus. ‘Bone hooks and gorges do not work well! Ask any village lad who sits all day on a river bank, only to glean a stringer of panfish – mere tiddlers. He has hardly any chance at all of capturing an enormous brown trout or a salmon using impaled maggot or worm or grasshopper. The noblest freshwater fish, unlike those in the sea, will almost always craftily nibble off bits of bait rather than swallowing it whole along with the unnatural-appearing bone hook.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘You’re a clever man, Kilian. But perhaps not so clever as you think. An angled steel, dressed to look like the trout’s natural food and played artfully in the water in imitation of a bug’s movement, is far more effective than sharpened bone with bait, dangling limply from a bobber. Even better, such play makes fishing a sport as challenging as hunting the stag or grouse! This novel pastime was demonstrated to me some weeks ago by Sealord Yons Stormchild. It is all the rage in Tarn, and some of the younger Cathran nobility also now esteem it.’
‘Very interesting, Majesty. But if we may return to more important matters –’
‘I deem this important.’ The king’s tone was smooth and faintly menacing. ‘Fashioning an artificial bug and scheming how I might outwit some venerable finny patriarch is immensely soothing to the troubled soul.’
‘Mmm…just so. I’m sorry you suffer
disquietude, sire.’
The king unfolded a bit of parchment and drew from it a strand of glittering golden tinsel. ‘If you studied the dead thing in the dish intently, you would see that it has a metallic sheen. I propose to add such to my creation, first fixing the end of this short length of gold to the hook shank with additional turns of thread and letting it hang loose.’
‘If the Salka are truly retreating,’ Kilian persisted, ‘it means we can disband the standing armies, at least for the winter. Get the Tarnian and Cathran troops out of Didion, You know they’ve been eating us out of house and home.’
Somarus shot a meaningful look at the chancellor. ‘Once the Salka are gone, and Ironcrown and his arrogant gang are quit of my country, I mean to concentrate all my energies on getting rid of her. The Wold Wraith. I want you to put your mind to the best way of doing it.’
‘Her. You mean the shadowy lass who calls herself Queen Casabarela? But sire, this deluded chit is no true threat to your throne. How can she possibly prove her claim?’
‘She need not do so, my lord. Nay – she need only exist, and act as a magnet for the discontented of my realm! We must find her before Conrig Ironcrown does.’ Somarus’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘And kill her…Now let’s fatten the insect’s body.’
The king took up fuzz from the heap of rabbit undercoat and spun it deftly around the still-attached thread by twirling, until the once-fine strand resembled yarn. ‘See? I coat a length of unbroken thread with fur, then wind this fluffy bit round and round the hook shank to simulate the body of the insect. More fur on the thread nearest the head for a fat thorax. Lower on the shank, a more meager winding to simulate the thinner abdomen. In water, it will seem alive.’