Sheri Tepper - Singer From The Sea

by Singer From The Sea(Lit)

  "Meantime," said Lokdren, heading for the showers, "things are gettin' worse at home."

  Ogberd grimaced. What Lokdren said was all too true. Life expectancy dropped every year as more and more people were cut down by the stopping-sickness. None of the men who had received the life stuff from Haven had succumbed, however, which kept their concentration intact. Haven had the substance and seemed to be doing all right, Ares didn't have the substance and was failing. Therefore, obtaining the life stuff was the key to survival.

  Before turning on his machine, Ogberd reasserted this in a confident voice. "We've told the Chief we can conquer the planet tomorrow if we want to, but he doesn't want to invade until we know where the stuff comes from! We've been here better than two years and I'm beginning to doubt His Majesty even knows where he gets the stuff."

  "So, maybe we should make him tell us who does know."

  Ogberd nodded with a grim smile. "You think we haven't considered it? And suppose it isn't even found here? Hmm? Suppose they get it from off-planet? Suppose it's a compound: some stuff from here, some stuff from somewhere else? Then we've blown our cover over nothing!" He started the machine and began to run with great efficiency.

  The others looked at one another with upraised brows. Every man present, including the elder sons of the Chieftain, was serving in anticipation of a just reward, but if they couldn't find out where the reward was, then the past two years plus whatever time they spent in the future could turn out to be a waste of futures that were already threatened.

  "So?" asked someone from a corner of the room.

  "So," Ogberd breathed, "the Chief is going to decide. If we can't find out in a reasonable length of time, he's going to invade."

  "The whole planet?"

  "Havenor here, and Mahahm-qum in Mahahm. That way we're bound to net at least a few of the people who know."

  "And what's a reasonable length of time?" asked the same voice.

  "Not long," panted Ogberd, gritting his teeth. "Not long at all."

  10: The Lord Paramount's Elevator

  Very near the beginning of his reign, Marwell, Lord Paramount of Haven, had had a secret elevator built in a hidden shaft that dropped from his bed chamber behind the throne room into the lowest levels beneath the palace. No one but himself knew of this or even suspected it. The Lord Paramount went to his bed chamber openly each evening, summoning his servants there, and so far as anyone knew, the only access was through one of two doors, the one behind the throne room, which was always guarded, and the one from the servants' hall, which was always observed. Over the decades, Marwell's sleeping chamber had been repeatedly planted with listening devices and recorders by palace servants, bribed to do so by Prince Delganor. The chamber had been, as repeatedly, cleared of all such trifles by the same men, paid by Marwell himself.

  Though the Prince had bribed the Lord Paramount's servants at least twenty times to search the chambers behind the throne room, nothing useful had been found there. The men who had built the shaft and the elevator several centuries before had known all about it, of course, but they had been sequestered while doing the work and had not lived long enough afterward to tell anyone. By this time, the secret elevator held a comfortable chair along with various weapons and items of clothing and equipment, and its corners were stacked ceiling high with Haven's entire supply of P'naki, which it was the Lord Paramount's practice to dole out at need.

  The older the Lord Paramount became, the more lightly he slept, the more often he checked the elevator's contents and mechanical readiness, and the more often he supplied the elevator with small necessities which by now included his second-best crown and an ordinary, anonymous set of clothing and shoes, just in case, he sometimes told himself, he needed to disappear for a while.

  "For a while," was always part of the thought. He never, even in his most suspicious moments, supposed that he would have to disappear permanently.

  11: Various Visitations

  The morning following Genevieve's departure, while the Marshal sat at breakfast, Her Grace the Duchess of Merdune was announced by Halpern. She sailed in around the butler, rather disconcerting the Marshal, who had not heard them coming.

  "Madame," said the Marshal, rising. "You'll be wanting my lazy daughter, who is not yet out of bed."

  "Do sit down, Marshal," she said, going to the sideboard, where an elaborate breakfast was arranged. "Let me join you for a cup of tea, perhaps one of these scones. Ah! Zybod ham left over from last night. Delicious! I must have a slice of that! Actually, it's you I've come to see."

  "Me? Well, Madame, I'm flattered. What can an old war horse do for you?"

  A footman brought her plate from the sideboard as she sat in the chair nearest the Marshal, leaning confidentially toward him. "An old war horse can be understanding, sir. You can be understanding."

  "Of what?" he asked, drawing back suspiciously.

  "Of why Genevieve has left home."

  He snorted. "Left home? Nonsense, woman. She's upstairs in bed."

  "I think not. I'm almost sure she's gone away...."

  The Marshal's eruption interrupted her. He shouted for a footman, telling him to find Delia, Genevieve's maid, and bring her here, at once. The Duchess sighed and concentrated on her breakfast while Delia arrived, was sent away, and returned rather ashen in the face to confirm that Genevieve was indeed gone.

  Angrily, the Marshal dismissed her and demanded of Alicia, "All right, what is this?"

  She beckoned him to lean close to her, softly whispering into his ear, "I found a note at my door this morning, from your daughter. Last night, during dinner, Yugh Delganor spoke of marriage to Genevieve."

  "Did he indeed?" said the Marshal, eyebrows rising, eyes gleaming. "Well, I'd said as much to-"

  The Duchess's hand across his mouth silenced him. She shook her head, motioning at the room around him, then whispering again:

  "Genevieve went into a panic, sir. I believe she is in love with someone else."

  "She what!" He turned an ugly red and rose with such force that his chair went crashing behind him. "She had no business being in love with anyone!" he cried, stalking away from the table, his napkin flapping on his chest.

  She got up to take him by the arm, shush him, tug him back into his chair, and pat him on the knee as she murmured, "I don't think it's a business at all, sir. Businesses we control. Love, we cannot. At any rate, she was gravely upset by last night's dinner, so upset that she has run away."

  She drew him close again, putting her lips within an inch of his ear. "She thought, quite rightly I believe, that since the Prince had not actually spoken to you or proposed to her, and since she had not given him any encouragement whatsoever, no promises could be considered broken."

  "And who is she in love with?" snarled the Marshal.

  "She didn't say she was in love with anyone, but I think from my own observation it is probably Colonel Leys."

  The Marshal shouted, "I'll have the bastard shot! So he went with her, did he?"

  The Duchess gave up any attempt at silence. So long as the Marshal stayed away from the subject of the Prince's possible proposal, he might rave as he liked. "I'd be surprised if he even knew about it, much less went with her."

  "So you say!" He summoned a footman and demanded that Colonel Leys be summoned, without delay. Then he turned on the Duchess once more, saying sneeringly:

  "So why are you here, Your Grace? Come to beg forgiveness for her?"

  "Not at all, sir. I merely read her note, and since I knew you would be upset to find her gone, I came to tell you what had happened."

  "After it happened," he shouted.

  The Duchess said frostily, "I suggest you moderate your battlefield bellow, Marshal. We are equal in rank, and I do not take it kindly. Besides, you do not want this overheard..." again she gestured at the room around them, "... by every servant in the house. Neither my butler nor I check the door for messages during the night hours, nor have you any right to assume so.
"

  He said through clenched teeth, "Well, I'll let her know what to expect. I'll have her run down by nightfall, I assure you, and all your good offices will not win my forgiveness. She may well have upset some long-considered plan of the Lord Paramount. She may have been brought here for this particular reason. I don't suppose that occurred to you?"

  He glared at her, barely noticing how her expression hardened, how her lips thinned into an angry line. She rose, went to the tall windows opening on the terrace and flung one of them wide, sailing out through it. The Marshal followed her into the open air, steam rising from his forehead.

  The Duchess turned to confront him. "Tell me, Marshal, does your daughter have a mind?"

  "Of course she has a mind. I would have thought until now, a rather good one."

  "But she is forbidden to use it, is that it?"

  "She is certainly not allowed to use it to disobey me!"

  "Oh. Had you forbidden her to fall in love with Aufors Leys? I had thought it was you who introduced them."

  Fuming, the Marshal leaned across the stone baluster and spoke into the air. "Madam, you are serpent worded. Your sentences fairly slither. You know full well what I mean, and you know more than that. You know this... defection may have set my own life at risk."

  "You curse Genevieve where you shouldn't and deny her credit she has earned," she murmured, bringing her lips close to him once more. "Her going has not harmed you, but her staying here might well have! If you value your life, Marshal, you will attend to what I say! I heard the exchange at dinner last night, every word of it. So long as you remember that Yugh Delganor had not actually asked you for your daughter's hand, no matter how he may have hinted at or alluded to or implied an interest, so long as you did not certainly know what he intended, so long as you had not agreed to any such intention, so long as you had not told Genevieve of his intentions, you are not at fault, nor is she."

  He stared at her, chewing on his lower lip, his face only very gradually losing its flush as his icy lizard's mind disengaged from its choleric tantrum to survey the battlefield.

  "On the other hand," she went on icily, "if she had stayed here, and if you had promised her to Yugh Delganor, and if she had been physically or mentally unable to fulfil that promise, then your life might well have been at risk."

  "She would not have been unable," he snarled.

  "Marshal, you may command men into battle. You cannot command them not to die in battle. The same is true here. She might well have died of it."

  He frowned. "This is hysteria!"

  "Am I to infer you wish to see her dead?"

  He made a gesture of disdain. "Bah, they're fragile things, women. Few of them live long. One or two children, they fade like flowers, which is why we give them their youth. We never wish to see them dead, and yet they die. It's their nature."

  She drew herself up, like a tower. "Don't talk foolishness, sir. I deny your judgment of women. The village women I meet are often in their eighties or nineties, outliving their husbands by many years. They are not fragile. They do not fade. Why is it not their nature?"

  He fumed, chewing at the inside of his cheek as at a cud. "We're inbred, I suppose. We of the nobility."

  "If you do not wish to consider Genevieve, consider this," she murmured icily. "Though a royal wife may spread ephemeral favor among her relatives, once she is dead, the favor rots with her."

  He stared. "Nonsense."

  "I do not argue nonsense," she said. "You may check for yourself. Find out what has happened to previously favored families of royal or noble wives who are now dead! If you are more concerned for yourself than for your daughter, then consider yourself." She lowered her voice once more. "Those close to the Prince do not last long, nor do their kin. Your best future will be found in service to the Lord Paramount; your best chance at survival will be to keep the Prince at arm's length."

  "He'll ask for her. The Lord Paramount. Or the Prince."

  "Until one of them does, you wouldn't think her departure important enough to concern either of them, would you? You certainly wouldn't lend it importance by bringing the matter to their attention."

  He stared, glared, shook his head. "Suppose not, no. Though His Majesty did ask me to bring her here."

  "But you wouldn't trouble His Majesty if she were indisposed, or if she went home to Langmarsh for a few weeks. She hasn't taken up her duties yet, and after all, we don't know where she went or when she may return, so you have no real information to give them. If they ask you about her, why then you tell them what happened. The silly girl was frightened by something that happened at dinner last night, and she ran away, leaving a note with her friend, the Duchess."

  "When I brought Delganor to her, back at school, she didn't mention to me she was in love."

  "I doubt she was, then."

  Behind them, in the dining room, the door opened and Aufors Leys came in. Hearing this, the Marshal and the Duchess reentered the room, closing the tall window behind them.

  Aufors's eyes widened when he saw the Duchess. He bowed. "Sir, you sent for me?"

  The Marshal's eyebrows went up. "So you're here, eh?"

  "Of course, sir. I have several days' leave planned, as you know, but I didn't intend to depart until this evening."

  "Never mind, never mind. I had the impression you might have gone away somewhere."

  "No, sir," said Aufors, managing to look extremely puzzled. "Though I did oversleep this morning."

  "And where are you going for your leave, Colonel?" asked the Duchess.

  "An old friend of mine is being married in Reusel-on-Mere, and he's asked me to stand up for him."

  "Right," snarled the Marshal. "You told me, weeks ago. Well, well, go shave yourself. You look disorderly. We'll talk later."

  "Yes, sir." And Aufors Leys departed, taking note in passing of the Duchess's quietly triumphant expression.

  She would have been less pleased if she had heard the Marshal's commands to an aide, given soon after she departed. All roads out of Havenor were to be scoured for a runaway daughter. If found, she was to be brought home to him, at once. An intelligent women herself, the Duchess had overestimated the Marshal's intelligence. Not an ambitious women, she had underestimated his ambition. So are many misread by other's lights. The Marshal did not for one moment believe that a family alliance to Prince Delganor could bring him, the Marshal, anything but good. The Duchess was obviously a woman to whom the covenants meant nothing. Her warnings were ridiculous, the result of pique or jealousy or female connivance. Women were always warning you against this or that. Genevieve's mother had been full of such warnings. No doubt the Duchess would have preferred the Prince for one of her own daughters. Perhaps she still did.

  Having assumed this, the Marshal rested on the assumption as on a rock, without bothering to turn it over to see what lived beneath it. He particularly did not ask whether the Duchess had a marriageable daughter, for he preferred not to know that she did not.

  While all this scurry went on in the house of the Marshal, the Lord Paramount of Haven, guarded as always by two Aresians, sat down to a late breakfast, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Yugh Delganor, who seemed in an unusual state of annoyance.

  "The girl's run off," the Prince said, with an angry grimace.

  With well-feigned innocence, His Majesty looked up from his imported quail, served on a bed of Farsabian rice. "What girl?"

  "The one we planned for me. Langmarsh's daughter. My listener heard the Duchess of Merdune telling the Marshal about it earlier this morning. Seemingly, I frightened her rather badly at dinner last night."

  The Lord Paramount had known this for hours, but he did not say so. "Ah. Well! Does this upset your plans for her?"

  The Prince snarled. "It could well do. Though I doubt she'll be hard to find. Her father's already sent people after her, as have I."

  "Who did she elope with? That young man, the equerry, what's his name?"

  "Colonel Leys? No."
He barked laughter. "I wouldn't have minded if she'd eloped with someone. That would have been easy enough to fix. One of my men tells me that someone bought passage for a young woman on the Reusel packet, the someone much resembling Colonel Leys, so she's probably prevailed upon him to help her run off home to Langmarsh House."

  The Lord Paramount mused, "Your business is scheduled for later this year, Delganor."

  The Prince shrugged. "There's more than one way to crack a craylet, Your Majesty. So she's run off home. We'll give her a little time to calm down. Either her father will round her up, or you'll discover that she's displeased you by leaving without permission, and my men will find her for you. Under threat of royal displeasure, our subjects are usually biddable enough."