Mistress of Ambiguities

by J F Rivkin

  She carried on with a few relatively tame verses about Steifann’s prowess at brawling, boasting and drinking, but when he came into the taproom himself, to see what all the commotion was, he heard:

  “From border to border,

  Wherever you fare,

  You’ll not meet the like

  Of the host of the Hare!

  For he’ll swagger and strut

  For each strumpet and slut

  Like a cock among hens,

  Or a stallion in rut!

  His-”

  But much to the disappointment of her audience, Nyctasia’s performance was suddenly cut short at that most interesting point. Amid calls of “Let the lass finish!” and “Give us the rest, girl!” she dashed out the door to the street, two steps ahead of the bellowing Steifann.

  2

  “Corson Brenn Torisk! Upon my word, it could be no other!”

  It took Corson rather longer to recognize her fellow traveler. She reined in the horses and jumped down from the cart to take a closer look at the man who’d hailed her, but though his face was familiar, he might have been any one of a dozen townsmen she’d known. He was handsome enough, she thought, and had a haughty air about him, for all that his clothes were worn and shabby. It was his lofty manner, as well as the pen-case hanging at his belt, that spurred Corson’s memory at last.

  “Surely you can’t have forgotten me?” he was saying reproachfully. “Thankless wretch! I taught you to read, to say nothing of-”

  “To be sure, I remember you, you bastard-Desmalkin brenn Cerrogh, ’Malkin the scholar, ’Malkin the cheat, ’Malkin the toady, who forsakes his friends when he’s grown too fine to be seen with them! I’ve not forgotten that, you’ll find.

  I should wring your neck-”

  “Why, Kitten, it wounds me to hear you speak so,” ’Malkin said placatingly. “And after all I did for you. I tried my best to teach you the rudiments of civilized behavior, but you couldn’t stay out of trouble for two days together. I had my position to think of, after all-a retainer of a noble household has to be careful. I’d have soon lost my place if I’d kept company with you much longer.”

  There was truth in that, Corson had to admit. When she’d first met ’Malkin she’d been just out of the army, aimless and wild, with no friend but her sword. War was all she knew, and she’d seemed to be at war with all the world in those days. She had survived her term in the army through cunning and ferocity and ruthless desperation, and experience had taught her no other way to meet life’s challenges.

  But Corson had since lived a good deal among respectable folk, and spent time at court as well. If her nature was still far from tame, she had nonetheless lost some of her rough edges, and could even display a little polish when occasion demanded. Though she had harbored bitter resentment of ’Malkin for years, she now found that she could better appreciate his point of view. And, after all, it didn’t become a lady to bear a grudge against an inferior… That was what Nyc would say, no doubt.

  “Well, you’re treacherous scum, but let that pass,” she said grandly. “What’s become of your fine position, then? Here I find you tramping the roads like a penniless student again.”

  “Oh, it was insufferably dull, Corson. When all’s said, you know, one is a scholar, not a clerk. I’ve held better places since, but none, alas, that gave proper scope to my learning.”

  Or to your ambition, Corson thought. “You don’t look much better off than you were,” she pointed out, pleasantly aware that she herself did.

  ’Malkin shrugged, as if this were a matter of no consequence. “It doesn’t do for a traveler to appear too prosperous. There are thieves about-”

  “And you never were handy with a sword, as I recall,” Corson put in, grinning,

  “though I did try my best to teach you the rudiments of fighting.”

  “I’ve heard that there’s work worthy of a scholar in Rhostshyl,” ’Malkin continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “That’s why you find me on the road. The Rhaicime has let it be known far and wide that the services of sages are needed at court. They say Her Ladyship’s a cultured woman. If I could attain an audience with her, my fortune would be made.”

  Corson made a half-hearted effort not to gloat, and failed completely. “I could arrange that for you, if you like,” she said offhandedly, “I’m an intimate friend of the Rhaicime, as it happens. The ruffian you disdained has risen to the rank of Desthene while you curried favor with your betters and remained a common scribe. They call me Lady Corisonde at court in Rhostshyl.”

  But ’Malkin only laughed. “Why I’m delighted to hear it, Kitten. No doubt you can use your influence with the Rhaicime to have me made Palace Chancellor.”

  For answer, Corson wrenched open one of the crates on the cart and pulled out an ornately tooled and gilded leatherbound volume, “Have a look at this, then, if you think it’s all a lie. I’m bringing these books to the Lady Nyctasia, and she wouldn’t trust them to anyone but me.”

  He took it from her and examined it curiously, then suddenly gasped,

  “Hraestlind’s Elaborations. Is it possible?” Reverently he turned over a few of the thick vellum pages. “And it looks to be genuine-Corson, this work is priceless! I don’t know of a complete copy outside of YuVoes. What else do you have there, in the vahn’s name?”

  “Only some wine. And a lot of other rare and valuable books-for the Rhaicime’s library, you see,” Corson said smugly. “That’s what she needs you scholars for, to help her take stock of the wretched things.” She held out her hand for The Elaborations of Hraestlind.

  ’Malkin surrendered it reluctantly. “I don’t doubt that they belong to Her Ladyship, but all the same, Corson, it won’t do to go about claiming that you know the ruler of the city just because you’ve been hired to deliver these books to her. I know you mean no harm by it, but you could get in trouble in Rhostshyl for talk like that.”

  Corson could afford to bide her time. “Oh, don’t worry about me,” she said, with a smile which Nyctasia would have recognized as dangerous, “Climb in, why don’t you? You can ride in the cart-just don’t try to make off with any of those books, so I warn you.”

  ’Malkin was not surprised that Corson was admitted to the palace without challenge. Evidently she undertook important commissions for the court and was known to the guards, who joked with her as she passed, asking, “Eh, Lady Corson, is that your squire or your latest conquest?”

  “Him? He’s no one at all,” said Corson, “Just another scribbler for Her Ladyship’s collection.”

  But when Corson led him to a luxuriously appointed chamber among the private apartments, and claimed it as her own, ’Malkin felt that she was carrying the game too far, in her desire to impress him. “Corson, let’s go,” he began worriedly. “If we’re found here-”

  When the door was flung open, he immediately started to invent plausible reasons for their presence there, but explanations proved unnecessary. The woman who raced into the room was alone, except for a huge hound, and both were plainly quite pleased to find Corson there.

  Nyctasia had left orders that she was to be informed straightway of Corson’s arrival, and she came at once to seek her out and assure herself that the books had been delivered safely. She threw her arms around Corson, and the dog leaped up to lick her face in welcome. Laughing, Corson picked up Nyctasia and kissed her.

  She couldn’t be anyone of authority, ’Malkin saw with relief. She was dressed in worn breeches and an old tunic, her hands and face were grimy, and straw clung to her clothes and her close-cropped hair. Still, she was remarkably pretty, for all that…

  “Corson, my love!” Nyctasia was exclaiming. “I see your arm’s quite healed. And you met with no mishap on the road?”

  “Oh, Milady’s beloved books are all here, don’t worry. I gave them over to Ioras. But what have you been playing at, you unkempt sloven? You’re not fit to be seen.”

  “There’s mange in the kennels again. I’ve be
en dosing the dogs, and this time I mean to-”

  ’Malkin felt that he’d been a bystander at this reunion for quite long enough.

  “Corson, present me to this dainty wench,” he broke in, slapping Nyctasia affably on the thigh.

  She whirled around to stare at him in astonishment, the dog growled a warning, and Corson gave a shout of laughter. “’Malkin, you rutting dolt, this is the Rhaicime, not a common tart! It’s most likely high treason to take liberties with her.”

  Nyctasia quickly recovered her equanimity. “Never mind, Corson, I’d not expect a friend of yours to have manners. But I must go bathe and dress now-I’ll see you at dinner.” She dashed out as unceremoniously as she’d appeared, the great dog at her heels.

  It did not occur to ’Malkin for a moment that Corson had been telling him the truth.

  Nyctasia thought no more of the matter, but Corson resolved to take full advantage of ’Malkin’s grave offense against propriety. “Now you’re in the stew, and no mistake, my lad,” she said ominously. “The Lady Nyctasia may act like a stable-lass when she chooses, but she doesn’t stand for familiarity like that from a stranger. I’ll try to excuse your boorish behavior to her, but you’ll be lucky to get out of this scrape with a flogging, I fear. She didn’t say much, but she was angry, I can tell.”

  “Corson, if you’ve quite finished spinning your fancies, we’d best be on our way before someone else discovers that you keep your trysts here.”

  “Very well, if you insist,” said Corson. “Come along.” She made no further attempt to convince him of her own or Nyctasia’s standing at court, but merely turned him over to a page, with instructions to find him lodgings and a place at table among the students and other rabble.

  It was not a place of distinction. Educated folk of every description had been flocking to Rhostshyl since word of the Cymvelan library had been heralded abroad, and ’Malkin found himself one of a motley crowd of scholars and scribes, all hoping to turn their learning to profit. He had to squint across nearly the whole length of the great dining hall to get a glimpse of the personages at the higher tables. He was at too great a distance to recognize Nyctasia when she first entered, though had he been nearer he might well have failed to see in her the sprightly grime-stained waif of an hour before. She now wore a graceful pearl-grey tunic of the finest linen, and hose of silver-grey silk which had surely never been worn within a kennel. It was not her elegant clothes which transformed her, however, so much as the air of nobility and dignity with which she made her entrance, bowing to right and left as she graciously acknowledged the greetings of the court.

  Everyone rose, and there were murmurs, at ’Malkin’s table, of “There’s the Rhaicime… the small one with the dark hair.”

  “Are you sure? I thought she was older.”

  “Look how she wears her chain of office, fool-round her head, not round her neck like the rest.”

  “Never mind her-what I want to know is, who’s the tall one? Vahn, what a beauty!”

  Corson had changed her travel-worn garments for a gown of fawn-colored silk, with a close-fitting bodice cut fashionably low, a full, flowing skirt, and loose sleeves slashed open and gathered at the wrist with a golden band. Her long hair had been woven into three plaits, braided together and entwined with strands of small gold beads. She looked even more stately than Nyctasia, and

  ’Malkin might not have known either of them had they not been followed into the hall by a very large and all too familiar-looking hound.

  ’Malkin suddenly felt faint.

  “That’s the Desthene Corisonde,” someone was saying. “She used to be Lady Nyctasia’s bodyguard, as I hear it, but they say she’s more than that to Her Ladyship now…”

  Now that Nyctasia had arrived, the meal could commence. When she took her place at the head of the highest table, the rest resumed their seats, and food was soon placed before the company. But ’Malkin had completely lost his appetite.

  3

  “so this friend of yours is a scholar?” said Nyctasia.

  “Well, so he says. I’m no judge of such things.”

  Dinner was long over, and Corson and Nyctasia had withdrawn to Nyctasia’s private rooms to escape the court formalities and have a long talk in comfort.

  Palace etiquette had always been second nature to Nyctasia, but since her return to Rhostshyl she had begun to find it tedious and irksome. As she and Corson exchanged their news, she busied herself unpacking and examining some of the new shipment of books.

  Corson had kicked off her tight, gold-tooled shoes and sat lounging on a couch, drinking some of the new shipment of wine. The dog, Greymantle, lay sprawled at her feet in great contentment as she idly scratched his belly with one bare foot, “Still, I think he must be a true scholar like you, Nyc,” she said pensively. “He does nothing but talk and never says a sensible word, he doesn’t know anything useful, and he’s never done a day’s work in his life.”

  Nyctasia did not look up from her task. “You surprise me, Corson. I thought your old friends were all brigands and cutthroats. How do you come to know someone reputable?”

  “Reputable! I met him in prison! He was only a mangy, vagabond student then.”

  Corson chuckled. “But I took him for the fount of all learning, I confess. I traveled about with him for a few months when I was just out of the army. I didn’t know my left hand from my right in those days.”

  “I can’t imagine how you lasted a week in the army,” Nyctasia said absently, blowing dust from a fragile, faded old volume, “with your insolent tongue and your savage temper. I know little enough about it, but I’d always supposed that a soldier had to observe a certain degree of discipline and obedience. I don’t believe that you could be civil to the Empress herself for long.”

  “Oh, they beat the nonsense out of me soon enough,” Corson said grimly. “I learn quickly, you know, and I learned first of all that there were worse things than following orders.” She poured herself more wine and downed it at once. “I learned other lessons too-not just weaponry and strategy-I learned that real power is something you can’t fight with your fists. Where I came from I could get by because I was bigger and stronger than most-I could bully anyone who was in my way. But we were all of us poor and powerless. It was in the army I found out that the wide world was different from a little swamp village. If you don’t humble yourself before the powerful, you’ll be crushed, no matter how big and strong you are. That’s a lesson you couldn’t learn from those books of yours, or from all the books ever penned by scholars.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” said Nyctasia, who was now listening attentively. Corson had rarely spoken of her years in the Imperial Army. “Only experience can teach such wisdom as that. There are many things that one doesn’t learn from books, and humility is among them.”

  “Well, I never learned to like it,” Corson brooded. “I hated the army and all its lessons. I swore I’d go my own way as soon as my term was over-if I lived that long-and that I’d never re-enlist, no matter how desperate I might be. And I kept to that, too, but I’d not have survived a season on my own if I hadn’t first learned how to serve. I was lucky to have been a soldier, in truth. Asye knows what would have become of me if I hadn’t been sold into the army.”

  “Sold! Were your people slaves, then?”

  “No, we were free folk-free to starve or scratch a living out of scrub forest and swampland. Only the strongest could hope to be taken on by the army. The others envied me the chance.”

  “But, Corson, how could you be sold?”

  “How not? If I’d been on my own I could have had the recruitment fee for myself, but I was still under my family’s roof, so they got the money for enlisting me.

  That was fair enough, I suppose, though I grudged it to them at the time, They’d raised and fed me as best they could, after all. They were entitled to some recompense.”

  “But to make a soldier of you against your will-!”

  “It wasn’t
against my will,” said Corson, surprised. “All the young folk of Torisk hoped the recruiters would take them. We knew that the army fed you well and put clothes on your back. And it was the only way for folk like us to learn a trade-don’t you know that?”

  “That too,” Nyctasia said seriously, “one doesn’t learn from books. How old were you when you were… sold?”

  “Now how would I know? We didn’t have the means to keep records. Someone once told me, ‘You were born the summer that lightning burned three cottages,’ but that didn’t mean much to me-or to the imperial recruiters. They aren’t supposed to take a child under fifteen years, but they’re not choosy if one is big enough, as I was. They don’t ask, ‘How old is this child?’ but just ‘Is this child of an age to be enlisted?’ And folk have learned to say just ‘Yes.’ No one asks more questions, and no one can prove that a recruit is underage.”

  “Then you don’t know how old you are now?” Nyctasia asked, incredulous.

  Corson shrugged. “Not to put a number to it. What difference does it make?”

  Nyctasia was dumbfounded. Such numbers were of immense significance for those of her station, for only upon coming of age did one assume the full responsibilities and privileges of one’s rank. Precise records of kinship were necessary to determine the inheritance of titles and property. What with the many twins in the Edonaris line, mere minutes of life might mean a great deal.

  Nyctasia could hardly imagine being unaware of, much less indifferent to, her own exact age, or even the ages of her kin.

  “So I can’t blame them for selling me, you see,” Corson was saying. “There wasn’t food enough to go around, and I ate more than my share. I don’t know what you’re so vexed at-when children are apprenticed to a trade, no one consults their wishes.”