by Dave Duncan
He was a withered stick now—pate all leathery and chest hair white, skin draped loose on his arms and swollen purple cords disfiguring his legs. His fingers were twisted and his hips stiff, yet he showed none of the dehumanization that Werists called battle hardening. Age had marred him, but only as it marred other men, which suggested that he had done little fighting. Nevertheless, the old warrior did keep the vicious youngsters of the guard in line, and in the past he had been known to cuff ears when the Cutrath rat pack nibbled too hard at the Celebrian hostage. If he knew of the satrap's son being on a blood hunt today, he would certainly drop a warning, but he just rolled his eyes as he saw Benard help himself to a stick of sausage some guard had left on the table unguarded.
"What's that?" He pointed to the plank.
"Just a sketch. May I ask a question, lord? I don't intend to pry into the mysteries of Weru, but—"
"I wouldn't recommend it."
"Of course not, lord. I got into an argument last night—"
"From the look of you I'm not surprised."
"Er, yes, lord. Someone said that Werists could assume their battleform at will, and someone else insisted that they could do so only on the command of their leader. Is that secret information?" What he wanted to find out was how the newly initiated Cutrath was likely to come after him, but he wasn't going to tell that story unless he had to.
The room had chilled perceptibly. Menace stared through pale eyes.
"I suggest," growled Flankleader Guthlag, "that you mind your own business, artist. Have you ever seen a warbeast?"
"No, lord."
"Pray you never do. It is usually a fatal experience for extrinsics." An audience always made the old rogue surly. On his own he was sometimes good company.
Benard bowed. "Yes, lord."
"Show us your picture. These ignorant brutes need some culture."
The cadets scowled at his humor but wisely said nothing. Benard cleared a corner of the table and laid down the slab, which was blank. "I haven't drawn it yet."
"Glad to hear that. Thought I was going blind." The flankleader tried a suck on his straw and pulled a face. He handed the beaker to a cadet, who took it over to the corner to ladle more beer from the krater. "And a new straw!" Even Guthlag could never drink beer straight from the jar, with all its husks, gritty dregs, and yeasty scum.
Benard went to the hearth and fumbled among the cold ashes until he found a few pieces of charcoal. He came back and studied the wood, while silently reciting the invocation.
"You watch this, now," Guthlag mumbled toothlessly. "If you want t'see the blessing of a god at work."
"Goddess!" corrected the largest cadet. "What sort of man would swear to a female god?"
Benard did not hear more. He was reaching back to the day he first came to Kosord—he had been only eight, but visual memory was part of his lady's blessing. He had been very ill, too, not yet recovered from the hardship of the Edgelands, where he and Orlando had almost died, despite the best efforts of poor Dantio being both father and mother to them. They had descended onto bleak and bitter moors near Tryfors. Orlando had been detained there, screaming piteously. Benard had been brought to the court of Satrap Horold, Dantio taken farther downstream to a fate untold.
But it was not his lost family Benard wanted. Nor yet Ingeld, who had mothered him back to life. He struggled to define the other image, and gradually it took shape as if emerging from a white mist of years. He sent his rogation to holy Anziel and felt Her blessing quicken his fingers—fast strokes to define the hard edge of nose and ear and teeth, softer for the rounded edges of cheekbones and neck. Fingertips to smear the shading ... fainter swirls for the flowing blond curls. Darkest of all the brass collar, and then it was done, a three-quarter profile of a man of about thirty, arrogantly aware of his looks. Unlike most Werists, he was clean-shaven and wore his hair long. The sketch even caught the glint of eyes that in life had been a fierce and most brilliant blue. His nose had been curved, then—not the pruning hook of his brother the bloodlord, but a strong, masculine nose. His teeth had been perfect, which was rare.
"Blood!" Guthlag muttered. "Blood and torment! I'd forgot."
"What's a pretty-boy namby doing wearing a Werist collar?" demanded one of the cadets.
"Is that supposed to be a joke?" snarled another.
"Blood!" Guthlag roared. "Stupid slugs!"
All three jerked to attention and parroted "My lord is kind!" in unison.
"Don't you know him?"
One by one they recognized the likeness and muttered oaths. The man Benard had recalled was not the creature who had been whirling around his satrapy in a chariot last sixday, celebrating his youngest son's initiation. Perhaps these three apprentice monsters had not fully appreciated what battle hardening could do—and would eventually do to them if they fought enough. This was the first summer Benard could remember when Horold had not been away campaigning. Werists could survive incredible wounds, but every healing left them less and less human. This was their corban.
"He really look like that?"
"That he did," Guthlag snarled. "What'ch goin' do with that, boy?"
"Show it to him," Benard said. "It's an excuse to ask a favor, is all."
"You're out of your mind!"
"Why?"
The flankleader shook his head in disbelief. "You think he wants to be reminded?"
Benard thought about it. "Why not?"
The old Werist growled low in his throat, like a true watchdog. "Better you than me, lad. And in court?"
"Court? Today?" If the satrap would be holding assize and giving audience, Benard must catch him first, or there would be no chance of a private chat before Cutrath found him.
In the distance, horns blew.
"Oh, gods!" Benard grabbed up his sketch and raced out the door.
♦
The great court of the palace was pentagonal, with a covered balcony all around and a center open to the heavens. The walls were formed of panels of brightly glazed tiles depicting people and gods in red, black, white, and green, separated by massive steles inscribed with the laws of holy Demern. Benard had once been friendly with a member of the scribes' guild who had tried to explain to him all the complications of writing: signs that stood for names, signs that meant grammatical elements, signs that meant sounds, and signs indicating how to interpret other signs. It had given him terrible headaches. Add to that, the oldest tongue was so obscure that the meaning of the written law could be deciphered only by Speakers of Demern, who knew it all by divine inspiration anyway.
Until the coming of Stralg, Kosord had been ruled by the consort of the hereditary dynast, who was always a pyromancer—a Daughter of Veslih. The state consort had always been chosen from among the Speakers of Demern, but Horold had banished the cult from his satrapy because a Speaker would automatically denounce him as a usurper. Consequently, although only Speakers were supposed to make legal rulings, Horold acted as his own judge, holding an assize every first-day he was in the city. After distributing justice, he would receive petitions—merchants seeking contracts, landowners wanting to register titles, citizens with disputes to be arbitrated, officeholders aspiring to promotion, and a swarm of miscellanies—until his patience ran out. Humble folk might return every sixday for half a year before he found time to hear their pleas.
Benard reached the door as the second horn call was sounded, meaning the satrap was on his way. With the courtyard so crowded, his chances of receiving a hearing today were remote, and his quarrel with Cutrath could not be presented in public anyway. However, this was the last place Cutrath would think of looking for him, and not even he would dare to commit murder here.
Benard stepped boldly up to the scribes at their high desk to give his name and rank and show his seal. He knew most of the people around the palace, but the chief scribe was new since his day. He was portly, sumptuously robed, piggy head shaved hairless. He waited expectantly, mawkish professional smile slowly fading toward co
ntempt.
"Er..." Benard said. No one would ever be allowed to see the satrap without offering a bribe or two, and he had nothing to offer. "Um. A sketch of your beautiful children? Or your lovely wife?"
A couple of the lesser flunkies were seized by coughing fits. The fat man scowled and colored. "I hardly think so," he said in a shrill soprano. "Wait upstairs."
Benard scurried off, shuddering at his own clumsiness. How could he have been so inept as not to see that? Obviously the gods would die of old age before his name was called now. Tonight he would ask Ingeld to arrange a private audience. Up in the balcony, he located an unoccupied pillar, leaned plank and self against it, and prepared to endure the rest of the day. His hangover deserved to be set in glazed bricks, immortalized in the chronicles of Vigaelia.
As the final blare of horns died in echoes, priests in garishly tinted robes trooped in, chanting psalms. Benard could participate in public rituals like this, which were very different from the carnal sacrifice Hiddi had expected in the temple of Eriander. Even now the slightest thought of Hiddi was enough to send quivers through his groin. He wondered hopefully if he might have been too strict in his interpretation of the rules and made a note to ask Odok, who was head of his lodge and the light of Anziel on Kosord.
Dusky male Florengians, prisoners of war with the cropped ears of slaves, were carrying in baskets of tablets, placing them behind the throne. The pyromancer who brought in the sacred flame was another Florengian, a hostage named Sansya, a few years younger than Benard. He recalled her as a terrified child, arriving at court very shortly before he went off to Odok; now she was a striking young woman, drawing every man's eyes. In Benard's opinion, the flame-colored robes suited her nut-brown skin better than it did the Vigaelians' pink. The jet hair he remembered had turned a rich auburn, but that was a result of her initiation into the Daughters of Veslih. If Ingeld had chosen to stay away and delegate today's augury to a deputy, then no important business was scheduled.
The priests fell silent. Sansya had stopped at the hearth, where logs of fragrant honeywood were stacked ready. She spoke the invocation to Veslih, then knelt to tip the coals from her firepan onto the pyre. Flame and oily smoke spouted up so suddenly that she recoiled and almost overbalanced. A universal wail of surprise dwindled into a worried buzz.
The outburst was fortunately timed, for it muffled Benard's yelp of pain as the point of a dirk jabbed into his left buttock. He spun around to face Cutrath. He should have realized that the first thing the satrap's cub would do would be to ask Guthlag if the hostage had reported in yet today. A major war could not have produced as much blood as there was in young Horoldson's eye, but then, his hangover was working around a badly swollen jaw and no doubt a pounding lump on the back of his skull. Although no one else seemed to notice the confrontation, the space around them expanded as spectators wandered away to greet more distant friends.
"I am going to kill you before the day is out, turd."
"My lord is kind." That wonderful phrase could mean anything, or nothing. "The noble lord understands that his slave was wretchedly drunk."
Useless. Apology was a display of weakness and no apology could excuse an offense as enormous as Benard's.
"I will break every joint in your body, ending with your neck."
He probably could. Benard was beefier, but he lacked the training and the bloodlust. Even if he won at rough-housing, the kid would just battleform or call for help. "My lord is kind."
"No." Cutrath shook his head and winced at the result. "As unkind as possible. Enjoy your last morning, vermin. I'll be waiting outside to begin." He kicked Benard's ankle and stalked away.
Benard sagged back against the pillar again. He had survived the first encounter. The worst danger had always been that Cutrath would come after him in battleform; one warbeast could massacre a whole platoon of extrinsic swordsmen, let alone a solitary sculptor.
The satrap was standing in front of his throne, almost directly below Benard. From that angle Horold did not appear too grotesque, only very large and hairy. An ominous hush had fallen over the court, for Sansya was still kneeling at the fire. It seemed to Benard's untutored eye to be blazing normally now. Someone had primed it with too much oil—that was all, surely?
Horold lost patience. His voice was hoarse and violent, like a bull roar. "I ask you again, Veslihan! Does our holy guardian bless this meeting?"
Reluctantly she rose, still staring uncertainly into the flames. "I don't ... I think ..." Then she gabbled out the required oracle: "My lord holy Veslih blesses this house and welcomes all who draw near in Her name praise the goddess amen." She spun on her heel and fled the hall with red-gold robes rippling, auburn hair streaming. Without question she was on her way to inform Ingeld of whatever she had seen. Nevertheless, she had pronounced the blessing and there was no need for wholesale sacrifice or public penance. Matters could proceed.
"Amen!" shouted the congregation. The satrap took his seat. The scribes settled cross-legged in back of him; the two nearest the throne poised ready with stylus in hand and freshly rolled layers of clay ready on their boards.
"Begin!" roared the bull.
The herald called out the name of the noble Huntleader Darag Kwirarlson—the satrap's men would always be given precedence, even ahead of criminal matters. Darag petitioned his dread lord for a monopoly on pepper imported into Kosord and its purlieus for the next twelve years, free of all taxation or royalty. He gave no reason why he should profit in this way, and Horold did not ask for discussion.
"We gladly grant this petition of the valiant son of Kwirarl."
The scribes' styli jabbed rapidly at the clay. The keeper of seals came forward to mutter over their chicken tracks and approve them. The tablets were then removed to be baked and more were brought.
After Darag came two other Werists, appealing for amendments to the records of certain lands they had somehow acquired. Horold did ask for objections this time, but no one was foolish enough to raise any. The effect of the change seemed to be that the free peasants currently dwelling on those lands were henceforth bound to remain there as serfs, they and their descendants forever. The tablets were approved.
Horold's seal was much like Benard's, a stone cylinder about the size of a finger joint with a hole bored through the length of it for a thong and a picture carved on the outside. Rolled over wet clay, seals recorded their distinctive images. Benard's was made of agate and showed a hawk in flight, a symbol of his goddess; the satrap's would be of more valuable stone—onyx or chalcedony—with images of a wild boar. Horold's carried a lot more power.
Next came a footpad, a youth who had bludgeoned a traveler to death for the sake of his purse. He denied the charge; the Witness testified that he was guilty. Horold did not even call for the appropriate law to be read, because everyone knew the penalty was impalement. When the deadly little cylinder had sealed his fate, the boy was led away weeping.
So it went. The satrap never demanded to hear the relevant decrees of holy Demern, probably in case the scribes would not be able to read the appropriate panel, or even find it. More often he asked for precedents, and then they would consult the tablets in their baskets and mutter among themselves before advising him what penalty his predecessors had imposed in similar cases. Benard, when not struggling to stay awake, was impressed. The bloody-handed tyrant was doing a fair job of maintaining law without divine guidance. Ominously, evidence that a brawl had been begun by a gang of Werists was ruled irrelevant, but any man would favor his cult brothers over extrinsics. Apart from that bias, the satrap accepted the seer's evidence, listened to the accused's excuses or explanations, then decreed no more than the legal penalty, sometimes less: once when he sentenced a debtor to slavery, he let the man's wife and children return to her family instead of being sold, too.
At times he even displayed the cruel humor Benard so well remembered. A young cobbler was convicted of rape, for which the standard penalty was castration. His wife and
parents entered a plea for clemency on the grounds that he was an only child and still lacked an heir to carry on the family. The victim had suffered no permanent harm or pregnancy and her husband had accepted her back to his bed. Horold inquired about precedents. Tablets were clattered and a scribe reported that State Consort Nars had never reduced or postponed sentence in rape cases.
"But were any of them cobblers?" the satrap inquired. "Cobblers work sitting down. Cut off his feet instead. He won't catch any more victims then. May holy Eriander bless his marriage. Next."
♦
Flankleader Guthlag said "Come!" and peeled Benard off his pillar. "I had a word with the chancellor. You're next!" He pushed Benard's shoulder with a gnarled hand.
"But ..." But he didn't want ... But, but, but ... Clutching his sketch, Benard went downstairs with Guthlag.
Satrap Horold cut off the current defendant in mid-whine. "Forty lashes. Next?"
"A petition, lord," the herald said uneasily. "The hostage Benard Celebre."
"Hostage?" the satrap repeated in disbelief. He scowled with bestial little eyes at the supplicant creeping forward on hands and knees. "Little Bena! You may rise." That meant Benard could sit back on his heels instead of keeping his face on the floor.
"My lord is kind."
"You have grown."
So had he. He had always been big, but now he was as gross as an ox, spread out in all directions, although what he had added seemed to be more bone and brawn than fat. His purple pall concealed most of his torso, but all visible parts of him bristled with coarse yellow hair, like ripe barley, and this shrubbery almost covered his Werist brass collar and the numerous bands of gold wrapped around his bulging limbs. Even his eyebrows had spread up his forehead. His boots obviously did not contain human feet; the proudly curved nose Benard had sketched had vanished into a snout, the lower half of his face protruding between two jutting tusks.
The monster sighed. "The years pass! Master artist? Sworn to Anziel? This was well done."