by K. J. Parker
“Leave it here,” someone said; a short, bald man with a gold chain round his neck, some kind of steward. “More to come?”
Ziani nodded. “Five more,” he replied. The steward nodded, as if to say he’d feared as much. “No, you stay there,” he added, as Ziani turned to go back out the way he’d just come. “I’ll send a couple of the men to get them. You sit down, I’ll get someone to fetch you a drink.”
He went away (hospitality, service, disdain; the Ducas for you). Cantacusene sat down on the nearest bench, but Ziani strolled across the floor to get a better look at some of the trophies. Closest to him was a group of roebuck skulls, and he noticed that their antlers were all malformed; one horn normal, the other looking as if it had been melted, squashed or worn away. King Fashion had prepared him for that; abnormals, the King called them, and they were far more highly prized as trophies than larger, regular specimens. The Ducas clearly had an outstanding collection; every conceivable irregularity, deformation and variation from the orthodox was represented, from great splayed fans of horn to pathetic little needles. He grinned in spite of himself, because here (honored and treasured in death) was a glorious gallery of abominations, enough to make the whole Compliance directorate die of revulsion. It reminded him of the fairy-stories about lovely women pursued by amorous gods, rescued and set among the stars as constellations; just as dead as any other mortal, but on show forever, trophies of the hunt. That in turn made him think of Miel Ducas (a great chaser of women in his day, according to what he’d heard).
He owed that mental leap, he knew, to King Fashion’s insufferably arch consort, Queen Reason, whose job it was to point up each of the King’s pithy hints with a parallel from the world of courtly love. To Queen Reason, the fleeing doe was the coy maiden, glancing back over her shoulder as she fled, no doubt, and the hunter was the amorous youth, armed with sighs and tears and vows everlasting, his nets and snares and arrows. Ziani had skipped most of her side of the dialogue, on the grounds that life was too short, but occasionally the Queen had succeeded in ambushing him; the hunter lying in wait in bow-and-stable is the young lover lurking in the rose arbor, sonnet properly braced, its blade smeared with honey; the boar at bay among the hounds is the nymph beset by eligible suitors (reaching somewhat there, he felt); the partridge circling to avoid the swooping goshawk is the minx playing hard to get; and so on, interminably, while her husband the King politely ignores her and lectures earnestly on the shape of droppings. The only explanation Ziani could think of was that Reason was a mistranslation of the wretched woman’s name.
Sullen-looking men lugged in the other barrels, and there was no longer any reason for Ziani to stay. He stood up — the drink had never arrived, but he hadn’t been expecting it to; in a week’s time, he imagined, a footman would approach the bench with two cups on a tray, and find nobody there to take them — and nodded to Cantacusene to follow him like a dog.
“So,” he said, as they got back into the cart, “what did you make of it?”
“What?”
Ziani frowned. “Jarnac’s house. Was it as magnificent as you’d imagined?”
Cantacusene shrugged. “It was very nice,” he said.
He dropped Cantacusene off on the way, and drove home alone; he was starting to get the hang of managing horses, and luckily they knew the way. He managed to get the harness off them without drawing blood, threw them some hay, and went back to his cellar. He didn’t feel so tired now. Maybe it was the fresh air, or the melodrama of the lesser Ducas. The steel bow was leaning against the wall where he’d left it, and he practiced for over an hour, until the scars on his fingers were raw again. Then he climbed the stairs to the tower and put in a session with The Mirror of the Chase, which was slightly less turgid than King Fashion, but which also had a love interest. It put him to sleep until just before first light. He woke up with a crick in his neck, and went down the stairs to look at the scorpions.
A day and a half, and the first batch would be finished. They were drawn up in rows, like vines in a vineyard, and he walked up and down between them. All that was left was basic assembly and fitting, and although he hated them for being crude, he loved them for being there at all, against the odds; like a farmer who’s raised a thin crop in dry stony soil where by rights nothing should grow at all.
The night before the hunt, after he’d tried on the leather armor made by the foreigner, looked in on the kennels and the stables, given a final briefing to the huntsmen, heard the most recent reports from the harborers concerning the last known movements of the quarry, Jarnac Ducas left the main hall by a small door in the top left corner of the room, climbed a long circular stair, walked down a narrow corridor and eventually came out on the rampart of the castle wall. When he was a boy, he’d loved the thrill of this genuine secret passage (only male Ducas over the age of twelve knew about it) that linked the house with the castle itself. He’d imagined himself escaping down it while savage enemies looted below, fighting every step of the way until he reached the narrow sally-port and safety. He must’ve killed a dozen imaginary goblins or Vadani for every yard. Now he was older and the house belonged to him, he valued it as a means of getting some air, peace and quiet without the risk of meeting anybody.
The sentry on duty knew him by sight, of course. Officially the passage wasn’t there, so the soldier looked straight through him, as though he didn’t exist either. At this time of night, he knew he’d have this stretch of rampart to himself. It was a valuable privilege, one of many, and naturally he knew better than to abuse it by overuse. He turned his back on the castle, leaned his forearms on the battlements and stared out over the city toward the mountains. All he could see of them was a ridge of shadow against the paler darkness of the night sky, but he knew they were there.
He heard someone behind him; a boot-heel scuffing the stone. Whoever it was seemed not to have noticed him, standing still in the dark. The steps moved away, then stopped. Not the sentry, then. He stepped away from the battlement.
“Jarnac?”
The voice was easily recognized. Duke Orsea had always had a tendency to be a little high-pitched when he was surprised or nervous. Understandable that he should be slightly apprehensive, coming across someone lurking in the shadows on a wall where nobody was supposed to be. Of course he knew about the nonexistent secret passage; he’d been led down it when he was an unimportant boy, a tag-along, allowed to join in because he was cousin Miel’s friend. Now, however, Jarnac considered protocol. “My lord” would be inappropriate here, since they were alone and Orsea had greeted him by his private name.
“Hello, Orsea,” he replied. “Sorry, did I make you jump?”
Orsea came a step closer; still wary, like a dog approaching an unidentified object. When he was close enough for his face to be visible, Jarnac saw the worried frown relax, though not completely.
“Came up for a breath of air,” Jarnac explained. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.” Orsea had never been more than a moderately competent liar at best. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting anybody to be up here, that’s all.”
“Me too,” Jarnac replied with a grin. “So, looking forward to tomorrow?”
Orsea smiled. “I expect you’ve got something special lined up.”
“You can’t line up wild animals,” Jarnac replied. “All you can do is hope they’ll be there. No promises, but we’ll see.”
Orsea nodded gravely. “Thanks for arranging it all,” he said. “Veatriz has been keeping on about me needing a day in the fresh air.”
“Quite right,” Jarnac said. “You’re looking a bit peaky. Too many council meetings and state receptions and not enough healthy exercise.” He saw Orsea stiffen slightly, and remembered that he’d always been quick to take offense. Probably, too, he was thinking about a certain occasion fifteen years ago when Jarnac and Juifrez Phocas had pushed him into the old disused cesspit behind the Lesser Phocas stables. Offhand Jarnac couldn’t recall the rea
son, but he was sure there’d been one.
“That’s right,” Orsea said, maintaining his smile with a degree of effort. “It’s what comes of getting mixed up in politics, you know.”
Jarnac nodded. “Glad I stayed clear of it, then,” he said. “Always struck me as a mug’s game. Glad to leave it to you and cousin Miel. He’s coming tomorrow, isn’t he? Only I hadn’t heard back from him.”
“Oh yes, he’s coming.” Orsea reinforced the statement with a brisk nod, just to clear up any ambiguity. “And Ferens Bardanes and your cousin Erec, apparently. I haven’t seen either of them for ages.”
Now Orsea mentioned it, Ferens had also been present during the cesspit incident. Not Erec, though; he’d been off snogging with Sospiria Miletas out behind the old lime-kilns. Orsea had been rather keen on Sospiria round about that time, he fancied; wasting his time, of course.
“If Miel’s coming we’ll be a field of thirty,” Jarnac said. “No, scrub that, thirty-one. I invited that Mezentine, the blacksmith. He kept dropping hints, so I thought, why not?”
Orsea shrugged.
“I believe you’ve met him,” Jarnac went on.
“A couple of times, yes.”
“Strange man,” Jarnac said. “Very much the oily tradesman one minute, cold as a snake the next. That’s Mezentines for you, I suppose. How’s Veatriz?”
“What? Oh, she’s fine.”
“Is she coming?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think she would be,” Jarnac said. “Not really her thing. I remember, she did come out with us once, years ago.” That would be when everybody expected her to marry Miel, of course; not long after she came back from playing hostage with the Vadani.
“Oh,” Orsea said.
“She didn’t like it much,” Jarnac said. “Well, it was a foul day, lashed down with rain; we didn’t find all morning, lunch went to the wrong place so she didn’t get anything to eat, and then we had a long, hard chase in the afternoon, and I think she was with the party that went the wrong way. Don’t blame her for thinking it’s an over-rated pastime, really.”
Orsea laughed, a sound like the last drops gurgling out of a bottle. “She thought about coming, actually,” he said. “But she decided she’d rather stay at home and catch up with writing letters or something.” He looked away. Something bothering him, Jarnac thought. Just for a split second, he caught himself remembering Veatriz Sirupati as she’d been when she was sixteen; definitely worth stopping to look at back then, though in his opinion she’d gone off quite a bit since she married Orsea. Not that he’d ever looked too closely, since she’d always been earmarked for Miel. They’d have gone well together, he’d always thought, Miel and Veatriz Sirupati, if it hadn’t been for the politics.
He decided it’d be a good idea to change the subject. “So,” he said, “do you think there’s going to be a war?”
Orsea looked at him as though he’d let slip a deadly secret. “I hope not,” he said. “We’re still picking up the pieces after the last one. And the one before that.”
Jarnac shrugged. “Some of us were talking about it the other day,” he said. “About Duke Valens just happening to be there on his side of the Butter Pass when you were on your way back from Mezentia. Bit of a coincidence, we thought.”
For a moment, Orsea looked like he didn’t follow, and Jarnac realized he’d misunderstood; he’d been thinking about a possible war right enough, but not against the Vadani. Well, that was interesting in itself. “I think that’s all it was,” Orsea said, sounding a little bit awkward. “And very lucky for us, the way things turned out.”
“Oh, quite right. And they helped us out, no question about it.” Jarnac paused. Probably not a good idea to be harping on about the disastrous Mezentia expedition, given that he hadn’t been there. The stupid part of it was, he’d really wanted to go, he’d been furious about missing it. But people got funny about that sort of thing, after a disaster. “Well, I’m glad to hear you don’t think there’s a danger,” Jarnac said. “We could do without any major excitements for a while.”
“I think I’ll go and get some sleep,” Orsea said, “if I’m getting up early in the morning. First light, I think Miel said, in the stable yard.”
“A bit before, if you can manage it,” Jarnac corrected him. “I want to be up on the mountain while the dew’s still on the grass.”
“Right,” Orsea said, with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. “Bright and early. I’ll say goodnight, then.”
“Sleep well,” Jarnac replied. “Wish I could. But I get a bit wound up before a big day.”
Back down the secret passage into the long corridor; halfway down the circular stair, Jarnac remembered that it hadn’t been Sospiria Miletas that Erec was with that time, but Sospiria Poliorcetes. Not that it made any odds; Orsea had fancied her, too.
He didn’t bother going to bed; instead, he called for a lamp and sat alone in the great hall, under Uncle Dara’s record wolf, with a big cup of hot milk and cinnamon and a copy of Isoitz’s The Complete Record of the Hunt, where there was something about mid-season three-year-old boars and how you could track them on stony ground, except that he couldn’t recall offhand where it came in the book. He found what he was looking for two hours before dawn, when the first light blue stain was starting to soak through, but it was just the same old stuff out of Varrano rehashed. He stood up, yawned and stretched. It was tomorrow already, and his big day had begun.
Ziani rolled off his mattress, got up and ate the crust of the stale bread. Not, he decided, a civilized hour of the morning. But he’d feel stronger once he’d washed his face and put on a fresh shirt.
He hadn’t slept well. Partly nerves; partly because a bad dream had woken him up in the small hours, and he’d found it hard to get back to sleep again; or he’d been afraid to, because he always reacted badly to nightmares.
It wasn’t a new dream, by any means. Originally, it had been his grandfather’s fault, because the old fool was one of those people who believed that children enjoy being scared out of their wits. Accordingly, when Ziani was six or seven, he’d told him the legend of the storm-hunt, and the horrible thing had lodged in the back of his mind ever since. Easy enough to guess why it had come back out of the shadows tonight, when his mind was stuffed with King Fashion and the Mirror and similar garbage, all that stuff about hounds and lymers and brachets, the baying of the pack and the horn-calls. In Grandad’s story, of course, the hounds were red-eyed and black as coal, the horns were blown by dead men riding on dead horses, and the hunt was led by King Utan the Terrible, who’d rode away to hounds five hundred years before and never came back, except on dark nights, when the wind was high and the wild geese were flying low. Ever since then, in his dream, King Utan had worn a deep black hood and ridden a huge black horse; and sometimes Ziani had been running away from him, and sometimes he’d been riding beside him, so close that the cloak’s hem flicked his face, and he could smell the rain-soaked cloth. The end was always the same: horns blowing wildly, rain stinging in his eyes, the hounds pressing round in a circle over something lying on the ground, while the King reached up with his old, swollen hands and started to lift the cowl away from his face.
16
The Ducas rides to the hunt on a white palfrey. He wears a quilted pourpoint of white or gray silk over a white linen shirt, cord breeches and arming boots with points for his sabatons; the only weapon he carries is a slightly curved, single-edged hanger as long as his arm from shoulder to fingertips. He may wear a hat if rain is actually falling. He is followed by four huntsmen on barbs or jennets, who carry his armor, his great spear, his light spears, his bow and his close sword, which can be either a falchion or a tuck, depending on the likely quarry. A page on an ambler or a mule follows with the wet-weather gear — a hooded mantle, a surcoat, chaps and spats — and the horn.
On arriving at the meet, the Ducas dismounts, and is accomplished for the hunt in the following order, which differs slightly from the pr
oper order for war: first the sabatons, laced tightly at the toes and under the instep; next the greaves, followed by the leg-harness of demi-greaves, poleyns and cuisses (gamboised cuisses are considered excessive except where the quarry is exclusively bear or wolf) — these are secured by points to the hem of the pourpoint, and the usual straps and buckles around the thigh, the calf and the inside of the knee. Since the cuirass and placket are not worn for the hunt, the upper points are secured to the kidney-belt, after which the faulds are added to protect the buttocks, thighs and groin. The arm-harness is fitted next; in the hunting harness, the vambraces close on the outside of the forearm with buckles, and the half-rerebrace is worn, secured at the shoulder with a single point. Spaudlers are preferred to pauldrons for the protection of the shoulder, and a simple one-lame gorget suffices for the neck. Finally, the Ducas puts on his gauntlets (the finger type is preferred to the clamshell or mitten varieties) and his baldric, from which hang his close sword and his horn. He carries his great spear in his right hand. The four huntsmen carry the rest of the gear between them; the page stays behind at the meet to hold the horses.
Miel couldn’t stop yawning. He’d gone to bed early and slept well; in spite of which, he’d woken up with a slight headache (in his temples, just behind his eyes). If it hadn’t been for the fact that this was Orsea’s special treat and Veatriz had asked him to go, he’d have stayed in bed.
The sky was black with a few silver cracks and he could smell rain in the air. The Ducas never takes any notice of the weather, in the same way as a king can decline to recognize a government of which he doesn’t approve; accordingly, he was bare-headed, and the damp made his head throb. A day or so before, Jarnac had muttered something about working down the high pastures in the hope of flushing a good boar in the open; that meant a lot of walking, most of it uphill. What joy.