The Beggar King

by Michelle Barker

  “Goodness, feirhart, I meant the holy tree. It didn’t burn. Where were ye all night?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.” The girl was deranged. It wasn’t possible that the tree hadn’t burned. “Tell me, Trina,” he spoke with deliberate calm, “where has Master Balbadoris gone?”

  But she just kept shaking her head. “One of the keepers’s been murdered. Mind how ye go, Sarmillion. Don’t let ‘em catch you.”

  Sarmillion grasped Trina’s small cold hands. “Tell me, did this all happen before or after Balbadoris crossed the Bridge of No Return?” Sure, that was it. The old man had decided to spend the night in Omar with the keeper and some of the others, though Sarmillion could hardly imagine stuffy Balbadoris with his long white hair, tapping his yellow toenails to a raucous tavern song from the Rubber Band.

  Trina pulled away from the undercat. “No, feirhart, I told ye, the tree didn’t burn. There weren’t no crossing of the bridge. Master Balbadoris weren’t dressed up like the Beggar King.

  He was wearing his feast robes when they took him. Master Sarmillion, yer wasting precious time. Get yer belongings and go.”

  With that, Trina hurried off, her small quick footsteps fading down the hall as Sarmillion retreated into the study and shut the door.

  “But what about the banquet?” He scratched at his furry head. “Who carved the mutton roast? Who got to stomp on the sherry glass this year?”

  He stared at Balbadoris’s desk and for the first time noticed that the scholar’s long blue sasapher pipe was sitting there — and on the floor lay his walking stick. Balbadoris never went anywhere without either.

  Clearly someone had been looking for something in here. But what? It would take too long to sort that out. Sarmillion picked up his canvas parchment bag and began gathering his work from the floor, and then stopped and sank into an armchair. This was his life. He couldn’t just leave it behind. Where would he go? What would he do? He was a scribe, for crying out loud. He hadn’t a single marketable skill besides the magic he made with ink and parchment.

  Sarmillion knew he should get up, pack the parchments he cared most about, salvage Balbadoris’s pipe — but instead he watched specks of dust drift in the sunlight that shone between the heavy velvet drapes.

  “Which great scholar would use his walking stick as a perch for songbirds?” he remembered Balbadoris asking him. Sarmillion rarely knew the answers to these sorts of questions.

  They would come randomly, without any seeming purpose, though Sarmillion understood what the scholar was up to — he wanted to make sure the undercat was keeping up with his work, not hanging about in taverns or cavorting with women.

  “Master Wickellhelm,” Sarmillion murmured into the silent room. That was who would set his walking stick across the benches of the Common for the birds to sit upon. Sarmillion had done an illustration of the scene in a parchment for children.

  There was a knock at the door. As if he’d been expecting it all along, Sarmillion answered it. Before him stood two tall men dressed entirely in black, with berets upon their heads and daggers at their belts.

  “The emperor will see you now,” one of them said, speaking Cirran with a heavy tongue.

  “Who?” croaked the undercat, as the soldiers grabbed him by the arms and led him away.

  Three

  A MURDER OF CROWS

  NEITHER JORDAN NOR HIS FATHER COULD eat breakfast. They sat together in the reading room, shutters closed to the light, staring at the cold grate in the fireplace. Both still wore the rumpled clothes of the night before.

  Elliott stood. “I must do something. I’m going to the palace.”

  Jordan rose, too. “I’m coming with you.”

  “You’ll stay right here. We have no idea what’s happened. I won’t put you in danger.” He exchanged his feast robes for the dark brown robes of a carver and strapped on his tool belt.

  “You plan on carving a serving bowl along the way?” asked Jordan.

  “Don’t be a fool,” said his father and Jordan straightened in surprise. Elliott never spoke to him that way. “I’ll send feirhaven Merralee to watch over you until I get back.”

  “I don’t need a guardian,” Jordan snapped, but Elliott had already walked out the door.

  Jordan was left standing in the silent, darkened room alone. Was his father scared? His tools were the only things he owned that resembled weapons.

  Jordan put on his sandals and went upstairs to the roof. There was no time to waste; the widow Merralee would be here any minute and she’d want to give Jordan at least three rambling accounts of the night’s events. He took the neighbouring roof in one leap, and then scurried down a set of stairs that led into an alley. The cries of the previous night still rang in his head — Brinnians and barracks on fire, talk of Landguards in black. His mother might be in danger. It would be a cool day in Ut before he sat around and did nothing about it.

  The main street was so clogged with travelers returning to their hometowns after the feast day that Jordan almost went back up to the roofs, but he wanted to hear what people in the streets were saying. Nervous chatter passed him like cold currents of air. Everything was wrong. The Beggar King had not been chased across the Bridge of No Return this year. The holy tree hadn’t burned. No one had seen Commander Theophen anywhere.

  Jordan tried not to think about his mother’s round freckled face or her easy smile, or of how she couldn’t scold him without laughing. The morning was already warm and sweat trickled down his neck. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice the clop-clop of footsteps in unison until he was almost run down by a group of marching men. They were dressed in black uniforms, complete with tall black boots. In their belts they carried short sheathed daggers; in their hands, long black batons.

  He pressed himself into a doorway until they had passed, and then stood staring after them.

  “Landguards,” said an older man who had appeared by his side.

  “Those weren’t Commander Theophen’s guards,” said Jordan.

  “No, indeed,” said the man. “Haven’t you heard? Most of the palace guard was slain. The ones who survived were taken away. Arrabel, too.” The man’s eyes were wide and kept flitting up and down the road. “The streets are no place for a boy today.” He lowered his voice. “Those guards are itchin’ for trouble. You should get yourself home.”

  Jordan had no intention of going home but he didn’t want to meet up with those black boots again. Arrabel and her people had been taken away? Where? By whom? Jordan couldn’t imagine anyone forcing Theophen to act against his will. But maybe Theophen was dead. He looked around for a staircase, some way up onto the roofs.

  It took over a dozen roofs and staircases (not to mention shimmying up two sturdy drainpipes) to reach the flattened palace roads at the top. He rested for a minute at one of the fountains, his breathing hard. Up here the air smelled even more strongly of ash and he could see in the distance where the ruins of the barracks were still smouldering. He made his way carefully towards the palace grounds. His sandals had scarcely moved from cobblestone to grass when he noticed something odd about the holy tree. It took his brain a second to catch up to his eyes, but when it did his mouth went dry.

  The tree was still surrounded by flowers and coloured with ribbons, but now something else was there, too. A rope, tied to one of its majestic branches, with a lifeless body hanging from it.

  A man’s body.

  He wore the robes of a mystery keeper, but Jordan couldn’t stomach a closer examination to figure out who it was. A murder of crows was gathering on the branches where yesterday the three yellow finches had perched. It was only a matter of time before they would peck at the body.

  “You! Boy!”

  Jordan startled at the harsh tone. A man in black strode towards him. His black shield bore the Brinnian coat of arms: the hawk, its wings outstretched, carrying a red battle-axe in its beak.

  “What are you doing here?” the guard bellowed in an un
familiar drawl. “Go home.”

  “But . . . ” Jordan stammered.

  “Now!”

  “My mother,” he said, his voice trembling. “She works in the kitchen.”

  “Then she’s gone,” the man answered, and rapped his long stick on the mosaic stone path near the tree. “Leave now, or I’ll have to arrest you.”

  Jordan ran towards one of the roads that led away from the palace, but as soon as the guard was out of sight he circled into an alley that he knew from experience would lead him back to the golden building. It was the way he took whenever he snuck into the kitchens to visit his mother and beg a snack from her.

  The back routes to the palace were overgrown with mellowreed and sasapher. A few chickens pecked at the plants, and the tall sunflowers he passed hummed with bees. In fifteen minutes he was standing before the unshuttered windows of the enormous kitchen. No smells wafted through the air, no spoons clanged upon giant pots. Jordan climbed through and landed easily on the shining tile floor. It was a morning for surprises, for there, at the stove, stood Ophira in a white dress and embroidered slippers with a tall silver bottle in her hand. They stared at each other for a moment, and then they both smiled with relief.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked her. “Where are your grandmothers?”

  Ophira glanced at the bottle in her hand and seemed unable to make her mouth work. “They were here. When the tree didn’t burn last night they were worried, and then Mama Appollonia had a terrible vision with her glass eye, so they all insisted on coming to the palace to find out what’s going on.”

  On the counters were pots with meals half-cooked, vegetables still uncut, and a leg of mutton sitting bloody on a baking dish.

  Jordan spied a small plate with squares of sasapher cakes upon it, the edges crimped in the pattern his mother liked to use, and held onto the counter to steady himself.

  “Jordan, these people are dangerous,” said Ophira. “You should go home.”

  He blew out a lantern that must have been left burning all night. “People are saying it’s the Brinnians.”

  “All I know is, there’s trouble.”

  “Have you seen my mother, Phi?”

  Ophira shook her head. “Anyone who was in the palace last night has been taken away, but we don’t know exactly who was there, and we don’t know where they’re being kept.”

  Jordan’s father had made the wooden tool his mother used for her cake edges. It was sitting on the counter. Jordan picked it up, laid it back down. “Why would they have been taken?”

  “I don’t know any more than that. That’s why the grandmas came up here. You know how Mama Petsane gets.”

  Jordan nodded, remembering how she’d waved her stew spoon at him yesterday.

  “The whole lot of them — except Grandma Willa, of course — shuffled up the road this morning and tried to force their way into the Meditary. They figured no decent man would harm a bunch of old ladies. But these aren’t decent men. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the grandmas back down.”

  “So they made you sneak into the palace, instead.”

  “They’re a little too old to climb through windows, Jordan.”

  He studied the silver bottle in her hand. “What do the grandmas expect you to do with that?” The words were scarcely out of his mouth when from outside they both heard the pronounced sound of boots upon stone.

  “Now we’re in for it,” Ophira whispered. She grabbed Jordan’s arm, led him out of the kitchen and down a long hallway of cupboards and storerooms. They climbed a short staircase and headed left along a hall lined with tapestries, then left again down another where the coat of arms of every land in Katir-Cir was displayed on the walls. The sounds of conversations drifted from open windows and beneath closed doors — strange inflections of speech, and foreign words.

  “How do you know your way?” Jordan asked in amazement.

  “I’ve been here before,” she said.

  Ophira didn’t go to school like other children their age. She didn’t do anything the way other people did, which was somewhat understandable, given her family circumstances. When you were raised by seven spinster sisters who liked to shine the edges of the future on their saffron robes, your life was bound to be different. Though they weren’t seven anymore; a family feud had seen to that. Jordan glanced at the graceful curve of Ophira’s neck, and quickly looked away.

  As the halls grew quieter, they slowed their pace. Jordan knew Ophira was up to something — the grandmas wouldn’t have sent her into such danger without good reason — but he also knew she wouldn’t tell him what it was until she was ready.

  “Have you ever heard of someone disappearing?” he asked.

  “People slip away sometimes, Jordan. Usually there’s something shady behind it, a secret lover or some bad business.

  But your mother hasn’t disappeared. She’s been taken away. There’s a difference.”

  “I’m not talking about my mother, and I don’t mean slipping away. I mean disappearing. You know — now you’re here, now you’re not.”

  She stopped walking. “Jordan,” she said. “People don’t disappear.”

  “I’ve heard they do.” He thought of that sickly man and the feather he’d left behind. Jordan hadn’t imagined it, he was sure he hadn’t.

  “Who told you that?” Ophira challenged.

  “It’s just what I heard.” What would Ophira say if he told her the truth? She would laugh, that was what. She would think he was a fool. She began walking again and Jordan followed her down more twisting corridors until he was convinced they were walking in circles.

  “Disappearing is not common magic,” she said. “It’s not magic at all.”

  “What do you mean? What is it, then? A gift?”

  Now the halls were getting darker and colder. “Don’t you know your old tales?” Ophira didn’t wait for Jordan’s hesitant yeah, because she knew he skipped more school than he attended. “It was only during the years of the undermagic that people used to disappear, but that would have just been the tip of an undermagician’s skills. They did a lot of things they shouldn’t have, before the undermagic was put to rest once and for all. No one has disappeared since then, Jordan, and no one ever will.”

  “Why? What’s so bad about disappearing?” It didn’t sound dangerous to Jordan in the least. In fact it seemed a rather convenient skill to possess.

  “It puts you on the wrong side of the world. The dead side.” She tilted her head and looked at him. “You’re keeping a secret. What is it?”

  “Oh, and you with your silver bottle,” Jordan sputtered.

  “You’re not keeping any?”

  “There are things I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not? I thought we were friends.”

  “We are. Best friends.”

  More than friends, he thought.

  They walked until they reached a place where the hallway branched into several different directions, like an overgrown tree. Ophira hesitated, counting archways, when once again there came the hollow sound of boot steps. She pointed to the darkest of the halls and said, “That one leads out.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Jordan. He didn’t relish the idea of getting lost down here.

  “Yes. Only . . . ” She shifted uneasily. “It’s forbidden to go that way. You mustn’t tell anyone I brought you here. High Priestess Arrabel would be furious. Walk until you find a wooden door with a stubby handle. It’s the back door of the library archives. No one uses it. It shouldn’t be locked . . . I don’t think.”

  Great.

  “Once you’re inside, go through to the very end. You’ll find a narrow window that leads onto an out-of-the-way courtyard.”

  “Wait, can’t you come with me?”

  She gazed down the hallway in the direction they’d come. “I . . . have to go. Don’t come back to the palace,” she said as she backed away from him. “Promise me.”

  “But my mother . . . ”

  �
�I’ll see what I can find out. Go, now, before the Brinnians find you.”

  Before Jordan could ask any more questions Ophira had skittered out of sight, and he was alone. The sound of boots was coming closer. He took a breath and stepped into the dark, empty hall that Ophira had indicated.

  There were few torches and no signs of life. Jordan half-wondered if this was the way to the burial chambers. A wooden door with a stubby handle — that was what he had to find. But he saw now that every door he passed was wooden and stubby-handled. There must have been fifty of them down this long hallway. Ophira hadn’t said how far he should walk. He would have to try all of the doors. He began checking the handles, only to discover that every single door was locked.

  The hallway ended at a piece of brass set into the stone wall. This, at least, could not be a door, for it came only to his waist and had no handle. He considered his surroundings. He couldn’t imagine why it was forbidden to come this way; he did, however, understand why a person might not want to come here. The floor and walls were covered in a thin sheen of frost, and it was unnaturally quiet, as if everything nearby had died.

  He pressed his hands against the brass plate to see if it might give way. With a start he realized it was warm. He could feel engravings beneath his fingertips, and knelt to study them. They were unfamiliar shapes. He thought of his father, who had a fondness for ancient script — he might be able to read the runes upon this door, but Jordan couldn’t. Elliott . . . he would be home by now. The widow Merralee would have told him she hadn’t seen Jordan. He would be worried. Blast it anyway, he should never have come up here.

  Jordan traced the script with his fingertips, as if somehow these shapes might have an answer to his predicament. Slowly, slowly, his eyes closed and his breathing calmed. From somewhere came a shadow, perhaps of a man, though he couldn’t be sure. The shadow was calling to him in a strange language, an old language. Jordan seemed to know the words to respond and as they came out of his mouth, something opened. He could not have explained what it was — not a door or even a window. More like a passageway, or a possibility.