by Wilf Jones
Nothing happened for some minutes. Seama declined to call out. Then abruptly there was movement, there were voices. Seama listened more carefully than the owners of those voices could have expected.
‘Come on Cam, wake up, you’ve got company.’
‘Wa.. whadya say?’
‘Come on, get with it. Alaric’ll have you on latrines if he catches you sleeping. It’s him. Get it sorted while I get over to the Palace. Come on, move it!’
‘All right, all right, keep your hair on.’
More noises: chair legs scraping on a stone floor, a leathern cup knocked off a table and bouncing on the flags, the drawing of bolts on a door.
Cam’s voice called out from the shadows on the right of the gateway.
‘Over here, please, Lord… er Seama.’
He looked like a ruffian. His clothes were worn, torn, unwashed; he had not shaved for days, and despite the ‘please’ his words were spoken with such laziness and disregard Seama was angry.
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
Seama decided that Cam was a dullard. He was about to explain what he meant, as simply as possible, when the man walked out of the shadows. The shabby clothes were familiar.
‘The King’s Colours?’
‘Sorry, My Lord?’
‘You are wearing the Colours of ‘Mador’s Guard.’
‘I am a Guardsman, I wear the Colours.’
‘Really?’ Seama couldn’t believe him. Mador was very particular about his personal guard and this man was not fit to clean the stables. ‘I asked why I should enter by the postern gate.’
‘Because the iron’s down.’
‘I can see that. Can it not be lifted?’
‘Not without the order.’
‘Who’s order?’
‘Captain Goss, I suppose.’
‘And where is Alaric?’
‘I uh… not sure. Saw him at breakfast but er…’
‘Enough! We’’ll use the gate.’
‘This way then. Oh, you’d better dismount, the door isn’t very tall.’
‘You surprise me.’
Through the gate, Seama clanking and Bellus snorting at the indignity of being squeezed through a passage designed only for men, the pair parted company for a while. The wizard let them lead Bellus away to stabling but only after clear warnings about the consequences of neglect, and then strode off, ahead of his own escort, towards a drab, untidy palace.
This was not the reception he had expected.
DISORDERLY BEHAVIOUR
Castle Ayer 3057.7.18
Mador had all his retainers down in the central courtyard; he was itching to give them a roasting.
‘Well hurry up, damn you!’ he yelled at the latecomers. He paced starkly before them as they hurried into line. Why, they had gone too far! He would not accept such… mutiny. Yes, mutiny indeed to ignore the upkeep of this castle, a castle that was so much more than stones and mortar, that was the emblem of all that Pars and the monarchy stood for.
‘Well, what have you to say for yourselves?’ he demanded, thrusting the question like a gaff into their midst. Some of the servants actually backed away from it. The King did not wait for an answer. ‘I have never seen Ayer in such a disgusting condition. Just look at it!’ he raged, prodding a pointing finger at the roof where tiles had slipped, ‘And that!’ at the broken windows, ‘And that!’ at the refuse wind-blown into the corners of the yard.
Aghast, Mador’s servants gazed at the decay thus revealed.
‘And it’s not just outside, it’s even worse indoors. Have you no pride? Are you all blind? Wherever I look, wherever I have not been this past month, it looks as though a storm has passed through! What’s the meaning of it? Well? Are you dumb?’
Though their eyes were open they seemed half asleep. Mador had to shout just to get through to them. He couldn’t understand it, these were his best, most trusted servants. In the past they had run the castle with energy and pride and skill; now look at them: all they could do was fidget and stare at the cracks in the flagstones and the weeds that grew in them as though they were seeing these things for the first time.
Arianna Foxton, Mador’s chief butler, oppressed by the collective silence and goaded by duty began to stammer her way towards some sort of mitigation. She wanted to explain all the difficulties of the last month. She told him of how busy they had been, how they could find no time for all the mundane repairs. She told him how when anything was broken they would have to put off the mending till the day after and by then it was forgotten. The strange thing was she could not recall what it was they had all been so busy doing. The worst problem, she said, was that all sorts of things seemed to break with the least provocation: a plate or two would crack in the washing bowl; a flagstone would crumble underfoot; the new paint would peel from the walls if you just leaned against it. The castle seemed deep in dust and every day there was more no matter how hard they tried to clear it up. She supposed that in the end they had ceased to bother. With no one to draw attention to the mess, she said, they hadn’t realized the extent of the problem. She concluded by suggesting that with the King in his chambers and the armies all gone ‘there seemed little cause to keep the castle tidy.’ A foolish thing to say.
‘Little cause!’ Mador bawled. ‘I’ll give you little cause! In some places, ‘Rian, your head might depend upon such ‘little cause’ – I cannot believe you would ever say such a thing. What has happened to you all?’
‘I do not know, Majesty,’ she replied, ‘I really do not know.’
At a loss for words Mador looked about him at the squalor. As if he didn’t have enough troubles! And as he allowed his eyes to wander, he saw a door open and there was the wizard, Seama Beltomé, looking cross and ill at ease with his cumbersome armour, and that was something at least, wholly expected but not completely welcome.
‘It’s about time you turned up!’ Mador more or less shouted at him.
Perhaps a little startled at the King’s aggressive tone, the wizard’s escort accidentally slammed the door behind them. The percussion produced a rattling, skithering noise. From up above one of the loose slates slid off the edge of the half-roof and smashed into a hundred pieces at Seama’s feet. Mador’s reaction and cry of warning came far too late.
‘Seama, are you hurt?’ Mador turned to his butler with a snarl. ‘Cause enough ‘Rian?’
As the butler bowed her head in shame, the wizard, unperturbed, bent to study the many slivers and shards on the ground before him. He grunted in a dissatisfied and yet satisfied manner and then stepped forward to meet Mador in the bright sunshine bathing the centre of the yard. His armour glowed in the sun.
‘Well Mador, I agree, it is about time I turned up. You were expecting me?’
‘I’ve been waiting all morning. I came down to get this lot organised to give you a proper greeting, a bit of entertainment, a feast, that sort of thing… well, things got in the way. But yes, you were expected.’
‘How is that? I sent no word.’
Mador snorted, incredulous. ‘I make it my business to know what is going on in the world, Seama, and most especially on my doorstep. One of my men rode day and night to say he’d seen you in a couch house at Barrasford. I presumed you were headed this way.’
It was small consolation, maybe, to gain the upper hand but the irritation on Seama’s face made Mador feel so much better. Mador was very much aware that Seama preferred to keep his comings and goings to himself.
‘You shouldn’t be so famous, Seama,’ Mador advised, and cheerfully enough, but the wizard’s reply was uncharacteristically cold.
‘No Mador, I am perfectly happy you knew I was coming. I’m just annoyed I didn’t mark your man.’
Mador wondered what Seama would have done if he
had ‘marked his man’ – kept him quiet somehow? ‘Perhaps you’re out of practice. Anyway, as you can see, I’m a little busy right now. You won’t mind wait…’
Seama didn’t give him time to finish.
‘Mador Bhadrada! I have travelled two hundred and seventy miles, sixty of those out of my way, just to see you. I arrive to find your castle in disarray, your guard insolent, your servants incompetent, and you labouring under some strange delusion that shouting at people till your lungs burst will somehow make things better. And on top of all that you’re threatening to invade Gothery! I have to ask Mador, are you in your right senses?’
There was a pause of only a few seconds but in that time many of the servants ducked away, hands on heads as though they expected bricks to rain from the sky. And in that time Mador’s anger finally came to the boil.
‘Right senses?’
‘That’s what I said. Your actions seem incredible to me.
‘My actions?’ Mador wanted to strike the face before him, wanted to rid it of that look of unforgiveable superiority. ‘How dare you question me!’
‘I dare,’ the wizard threw back with danger flaring in his eyes, ‘Just Like That!’ And at the snap of his fingers the ground beneath their feet quivered and in windows nearby diamonds of glass fell from their leads. The captive servants moaned in terror, wanting to run, fearing to move. But the King, on his own ground, was undaunted.
‘Do you think to threaten me, wizard?’
‘Hah! I have no need of threats.’
‘You have need of respect! You have need of humility! You have need to remember where you are!’
‘What?’ the wizard scoffed, ‘face to face with a fool? A potentate blessed with no more sense than farmboy?’
Mador felt himself quivering with rage.
‘You, wizard,’ he bawled, ‘are in my country, in my castle. I am the King around here and you are subject to my word!’
Seama took a step back, but not because Mador’s face was so close up and menacing. It was the sudden realization that hit him, that staggered him: it wasn’t only the material of the castle that was affected but the people inside it too! And even he, the great Lord Wizard Seama Beltomé, was not immune. An astonishing thought! An incredible spell! He wondered what he should say next. Mador was very close to calling up his guard. It could all become very ugly. But should he try to explain? Or was it best to postpone? The King would have to know sometime soon.
‘Mador,’ he said, as calmly as he could he could manage, twitching with the struggle of it, ‘I must beg your pardon. That was… not what I intended. I… we need to talk. Quietly and reasonably.’
Mador was glaring at him still, weighing up no doubt how easy or difficult it might be to have his guest thrown into prison.
‘Really Mador, there is much more here than me being grumpy and you defensive. Has Tregar said nothing about this? Mador?’
Tregar MacNabaer was Mador’s court wizard. The King looked away as if embarrassed. He began to walk and gestured for Seama to follow. The fight it seemed was over, for now.
‘Mador, what have you done?’
‘He’s not here,’ the King said, sure they were now out of earshot, ‘Not in the castle anyway. Look Seama, we had an argument, quite a shouting match in fact. It was unseemly. He went too far and well…’ the King sighed, plainly regretful, ‘I told him to leave.’
‘Leave?’
‘I do not employ a wizard to shout at me, Seama – or to make my decisions for me. Much like you, he overstepped the mark. I told him he was dismissed. He left.’
Seama was not actually surprised. Tregar’s relationship with the King was fiery at the quietest of times.
‘So where is he now?’
‘How should I know?’
Seama couldn’t help smiling at the petulance. And oddly enough that brief smile seemed to push some of the ill feeling further away. Perhaps that would be part of the solution. ‘But Mador,’ he said, ‘I thought you made it your business to know everything.’
Mador looked at him, and the sulkiness shifted to a sheepish grin.
‘Ha! You’re right, yes I do. Always.’
‘And Tregar?’
The grin fell away. ‘I’m told he’s been making a nuisance of himself in the old Dog’s Breath. Taken up residency; drinking himself into a stupor.’
Seama pursed his lips. That was bad news. ‘It’s been a while now, hasn’t it?’
‘Three years, Seama. I did not mean to be so… I never thought he’d go down that path again, but he was blazing when he left. Looks like he took it all to heart.’
‘So what did you argue about? Gothery?’
By now they were a good twenty yards from the assembled servants and facing away from them. And that was just as well for the question provoked an incredible change in the King. What had been a moment before a man of strength and decision, a man of confidence and courage, was transformed in an instant into something wretched and cowering and defeated. Mador’s face crumpled like a frightened two-year-old’s.
‘She’s gone, Seama,’ he whimpered, ‘Gone. And I don’t know what to do.’
It was coming at them in waves. That must be it. Overrunning diligence, bludgeoning self control and destroying courage quite as easily as it wore away at the physical integrity of the castle. Seama, shocked and swayed himself by the power of the spell, struggled to keep his voice level and matter of fact.
‘You’re talking about Xandra?’
‘Yes, yes. My daughter is missing. I don’t know…’
The King could not continue and reached out a hand to find some support on the nearest wall, causing a cascade of yellow dust to drift to the floor. Seama could hardly believe it. Bereft of the anger, the fight, and the fire that ruled him, King Mador Bhadrada was all uncertainty and impotent fear. Seama shook his head furiously. They couldn’t let this happen.
‘Mador, we are better than this,’ he insisted, ‘You are better than this. I know you are not a coward. You must be calm. Whatever may have happened, there will be an answer. Now, what do you mean? Has she been taken?’
‘She’s with Sands, with Jaspar but… I don’t know what’s happened, Seama, I just don’t know. They’ve disappeared: the whole damned army! That’s why we argued, Tregar and me. I am King of Pars, Seama, King of Pars! Not just a father. My duty is to the people, the biggest threat they face is from the West. Well, isn’t it? Isn’t it? But Tregar told me I was a fool. Said I should look after my own, forget the rest.’ Wavering as he stood, Mador bowed his head, putting his palms together before his face as if in prayer. ‘Oh, I wish to the Gods I had listened to him.’
Seama scowled. He was filled with sudden frustration and even anger at the King’s weakness. ‘I still don’t understand, Mador. This is ridiculous. Where have they gone? Sands was the only house left at Ayer – where’ve you sent them?’
Mador took deep breaths. Seama wondered if the King might faint. He fought hard to control his rising irritation but it must have shown in his face.
‘Look, Seama,’ the King said, raising his palms as if to push away the wizard’s temper, his voice gruff but broken, ‘This is all too much for me now. I am not myself.’ The King looked over at Arianna and the others all doing their best to study the earth at their feet. ‘Look at them,’ he said, ‘Wilting as they stand. But they should not be seeing me like this. They deserve better.’
Seama, clawing his own way through the clouds of confusion that enveloped them, found he could agree on that at least and the anger began to abate once more. ‘Yes Mador. We need to end it for now. You do know this is all wrong? Yes? Good; and I will have an explanation for you, but, as you say, it must wait – at least until I have spoken to Tregar.’
The King nodded grimly.
‘Find him for me, Seam
a. Tell him… if you can, explain that I did not want this. I’ll… well, I’ll just finish up here. When he’s sober, Seama, I’ll see you both in the Presence. Do you understand?’
‘The Presence? Oh, of course,’ Seama nodded, ‘Good idea.’
‘Yes it is. Ha! Apparently I am not yet completely useless. I’ll be more able. We all will. And then we can decide what to do.’
Seama wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to act immediately, he had never seen the King in such a state; he himself had never been in such a state. But Mador it seemed had decided their course and that was that. And what would he have done anyway? They both needed respite; Seama knew he needed to be free of the spell to even begin to think clearly. In some respects Mador was proving the more resilient.
A brief touch on Seama’s shoulder, a nod of sympathy, and then the King, determinedly, pulled himself erect.
‘There’s work to do Seama,’ he said. ‘So let’s get on, shall we?’
‘Seen him? Course I’ve bloody seen him. He’s got his arse parked in my parlour, fartin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ swearin’ an’ I’m just about fed up with it!’
Seama didn’t know Aldo Rodber particularly well but he could tell the man was at the end of his tether. Landlord of The Dog’s Last Breath, Aldo generally tried to maintain an air of propriety and the words arse and bloody were reserved for his most unruly guests. He had his standards.
‘I take it you’ve been letting him drink too much?’
The landlord was quick to his own defence.
‘Letting him? Think I’d say no to him in that mood, do you?’
Seama nodded in sympathy.
‘He’s a little hard to handle sometimes, I suppose.’
‘Well you suppose right. He came in last Tuesday afternoon with a face like thunder; din’t tell no-one what he was so het up about and none dared ask. Most just got out of his way, to tell the truth. Settles himself in a big chair next the fire, yells at me to bring him two quart of beer and a bottle of that whisky he’s so fond of; drank ‘em down until they ran out, ordered up the same again and carried on until he passed out. Slept until noon next day and then started all over again. Been the same routine ever’day since. I think he’s only been out of the chair t’have a pee – a decency for which I suppose we must be grateful.’