by Ken Scholes
Rudolfo chuckled. “You do not waste time with pleasantries, do you?”
The two women unloaded the trays onto the small table. One poured a thick, amber-colored syrup into a glass and set it by Rudolfo’s right hand as the other placed bowls of poached salmon mixed with walnuts, apples and onions, loaves of black bread and wheels of strong-smelling cheese. Rudolfo picked up a bit of cheese and nibbled it.
“Pleasantries do not interest me,” the Marsh King said, again glancing to the idol. “Have you listened to my War Sermon?”
Rudolfo shrugged. “You speak the Whymer tongue most nights. It is not a language I’ve kept up on.” But I’ve kept up on this language, he signed, using the house language of Xhum Y’Zir.
The Marsh King’s eyes widened, but he did not sign back. “The world is changing, Lord Rudolfo. I have dreamed it. On the night before the pillar of smoke, I dreamed of fire consuming the Named Lands for the sins of a father that is worshiped yet forgotten.” The Marsh King looked to the idol. “Windwir is just the start of this. But in the end, it will close the Marshfolk’s sojourn in the land of sorrows.” He leaned forward. “And in my dreams, your blade guards the path to our new home.”
Rudolfo picked at the salmon mixture with a small tarnished fork. It had been poached in lemon juice, and tasted surprisingly sweet and sour. He washed it down with a cold brown liquor that turned out to be a thick whiskey. He felt the warmth move through him and he savored it. He looked at the Marsh King. “And because of this you have announced our unexpected kin-clave?”
Rudolfo watched this time, carefully. The eyes always went to the idol before speaking. And after a glance, the words followed. “Your resurrected Pope will save the light by killing it. After, a Gypsy blade will guard that light, and by guarding it, guard our way.”
He felt his eyes narrow. “Tell me about this resurrected Pope.”
Another glance. “You will know of this soon enough.”
“Regardless,” Rudolfo said, watching the idol out of the corner of his eye, “you can imagine how odd it is that after two thousand years of scorning the Named Lands and its obeisance to the Rites of Kin-Clave, suddenly when Windwir falls you are quick to ride south and take a side.”
Then, before the eyes could shift to the idol, Rudolfo signed: You are not the Marsh King.
The man looked to the idol, concern washing his face. He continued the stare at the idol and Rudolfo smiled. Finally, the giant spoke. “Dreams come when they come. I do not bid them.”
Rudolfo nodded. “I understand.” Then his hands moved. You are the Marsh King’s puppet, he signed. You read his hand signs in the mirror.
Now he looked something like a wash between anger, puzzlement and fear. His mouth opened and closed, his heavy breath rustling his beard and mustache.
Rudolfo sipped the whiskey, then put it down. “I know what you’re about,” he said, raising his voice. Tell your puppeteer that Lord Rudolfo has sniffed him out.
But before he could speak, the girl appeared from her place behind the curtain. She smiled at him, and Rudolfo saw it was the girl who had led him here. “Lord Rudolfo, my apologies for this subterfuge,” she said, striding forward and extending her right hand. “You can imagine why it is prudent for the Named Lands to see the Marsh King as something other than what she truly is.”
Rudolfo accepted her hand and forced himself to raise it to his mouth, despite the grime and mud. “I understand completely. As long as kin-clave exists between us, I will honor your trust.”
She nodded. “Thank you. I know you understand what it means to come into power young and alone.”
Rudolfo felt the sting of memory, remembering that first lonely day as the new Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses. Gregoric’s father had been his strength, and not long after brought Gregoric into the position of First Captain so that he could become Rudolfo’s general by proxy. “Yes,” he said. “It is challenging to earn and keep respect.”
She looked at the large man who played her proxy. “My father chose Hanric to play the part of my shadow until I found my own strength. Of course, my people know.”
This surprised Rudolfo. “Really?”
She smiled. “Marshfolk are very different from Named Landers.”
“Aye,” Rudolfo said, chuckling. “As are the Forest Gypsies.”
“My role is more spiritual than directive,” she continued. “Most of my life is spent writing my dreams, both the waking and the dreaming. I also write out my glossolalia.”
Rudolfo pondered this. “These are the War Sermons we hear.”
She nodded. “They are. I’ve written these down for as long as I can remember. My Whymer Seers catalog them and assign them numbers, weaving my dreams into the matrix of dreams from the Marsh Kings that have gone before. My father chose Hanric as my shadow partly for his strength as a warrior, but also because, like me, he remembers everything he reads. He has spent his life preparing for the War of Androfrancine Sin, reading the dreams.” She looked to Hanric now. “I will draw numbers tonight and determine their sequence at random. And the Marsh King’s War Sermon will continue.”
Rudolfo laughed now. “I think we lead our houses very differently.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “We do.”
Rudolfo’s hand crept up to stroke his beard. “I must admit that this is not what I expected for my parley with you.”
“But you saw through my subterfuge soon enough.”
The Gypsy King shrugged. “I’ve had a life of statecraft and intrigue. Until now, I would imagine you spent your life away from that.”
“I have,” she said. “Though I had an Androfrancine tutor.”
Rudolfo raised his eyebrows. “That is quite curious given the history.”
“Yes.” She looked at Hanric. “I will come for you soon, Hanric.”
He bowed and quickly left the cave.
When he left she looked at Rudolfo, and for just a moment her hard eyes became soft. The Oeca was a certain prettiness beneath the dirt, and a coltish, awkward strength in her bearing. As young as she was, Rudolfo sensed that she already exhibited the trappings of formidability. “Now,” she said, “let’s talk strategy for this war of ours.”
Rudolfo smiled and reached for the bottle of whiskey.
Petronus
Petronus sat amid the rubble and ash and thought about the past.
He’d waited for Neb to return or for Gregoric to bring some word, but neither had happened, and eventually he’d wandered into the city. In addition to the boy’s disappearance, the work worried him. By his estimates they’d buried nearly a third of the dead, but it was obvious now that the winter was upon them, and their workforce dwindled with each day that the armies waited.
He’d often found that walking helped. One of the things he’d hated about being Pope was that he could no longer simply go for a walk. Gray Guard or archbishops or aides surrounded him everywhere he went, though from time to time he’d managed to slip past them. On those days or nights, he wandered a circuit of streets, always the same streets, head low and hands clasped behind his back, dressed in the simplest robes he could borrow.
Now he had done the same thing, his feet picking out a path that carried him along the backside of the crater where the great library had stood. Before he knew it, he was where the Garden of Coronation and Consecration had once been, where as a younger man he’d taken the scepter and the ring offered to him and had been proclaimed Pope Petronus.
He sat down, thinking about what it meant then to be Pope, contrasting it to what it meant now.
Tonight, Rudolfo would raid the Entrolusian camp. Petronus had his doubts about the success of the operation, but rebuilding the library would be a popular cause in light of the Desolation of Windwir. And it was sound strategy to move the library north. The only unsound part of the strategy was the Androfrancines’ continued care of the light. Given their weakness now-from over a hundred thousand souls to maybe a thousand-there was no wa
y they could keep the secrets of the Old World and even the First World safe from men like Sethbert.
You know what you need to do, old man, he told himself. You’ve known since you learned it was Sethbert. You’ve known since that clerk proclaimed himself Pope.
Petronus sighed. It was easier then, with the trumpets and the shouting and the crowds. Because on the surface of it, there was nothing to be done. Nothing to be responsible for, not really. Archbishops and Gray Guard and scholars and lawyers shielded him from any silent moment of accountability. The closest he’d come to it was the Marsher village, and only that because he’d commanded that captain to take him.
He heard movement behind him and turned. Neb made his way towards him, walking slowly. Petronus climbed to his feet and went to the boy. “You’re back,” he said, opening his arms.
Neb walked cautiously into the embrace, and pulled away quickly. Petronus saw that he had his hand in his pocket, fumbling with something.
“We’ve worried about you,” Petronus said. “Our Gypsy friends said they would inquire-I’ve been waiting for word.” He smiled, patting the boy’s back. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Neb nodded. “Lord Rudolfo approached to parley as I left.”
Petronus sat and pointed to the blackened piece of masonry nearby. As Neb sat, Petronus said, “The kings all met for parley this morning.”
Neb looked at him, and Petronus saw concern on his face. “What will you do?”
Petronus blinked, surprised at the boy’s sudden directness. He wondered what had happened to him in the Marsher camp, and would have asked, but Neb’s tone commanded honesty and attention. “I do not know what I will do,” he said.
Neb nodded. “The Marsh King talked about a resurrected Pope. He said that the end of the light is the end of their time in this land-that there is a new home for them.”
Petronus cocked his head. “Marsher mysticism and nothing more.”
Neb shrugged but didn’t speak.
“Something else happened,” Petronus said. It wasn’t a question.
Neb looked up, then looked away, his face awash with conflicting emotion. He doesn’t want to tell me, Petronus thought. “There was a girl,” he finally said.
Petronus chuckled. “This is the age it starts,” he said.
Neb looked away, and Petronus noticed that his hand was still buried in the pocket of his robes. “Do you believe that dreams are true?”
“Of course,” Petronus said. “The Francines teach us that the dreams are how parts of our mind work out the stimuli of our waking experience.”
Neb shook his head. “I mean-can they tell the future?”
Petronus sat back. “It must be possible sometimes. You dreamed that the Marsh King and his army rode south to Windwir, and he did.”
Neb’s eyes met Petronus’s. “That’s not all I dreamed that night.”
Petronus waited.
Finally, Neb continued. “In my dream, Brother Hebda told me I would proclaim you Pope in the Garden of Coronation and Consecration.”
Petronus felt the color drain from his face. Now the boy reached into his pocket, withdrawing something small that glistened dully in the gray winter sunlight. Petronus squinted at it and gasped.
The Papal signet lay in the palm of Neb’s hand.
The boy stretched his hand out to Petronus, and it shook slightly.
At first, he did not take the ring. He just stared at it, feeling the fear of it course through him. After what seemed hours, he picked it up and weighed it in his hands.
“You are Petronus,” Neb said, “the Missing King of Windwir and the Lost Pope of the Holy See of the Androfrancine Order.” Petronus saw the line of tears cutting tracks of white down Neb’s cheeks. He felt tears building in his own eyes.
“I am Petronus,” he said slowly. Holding his breath, he slipped the ring onto the second finger of his right hand.
Neb stood and drew a vial from his pocket, unstopping the lid. He raised it to his lips, and Petronus shook his head, standing.
“No,” he said, taking the vial away. “You’ve done enough, Nebios. Let me proclaim myself.”
Neb let out his held breath, and Petronus took the vial from his shaking hand.
Raising it to his lips, he felt the power of it course through him. Blood magick from its taste, spiced with powders from things grown in dark places. He drank it down and cleared his voice, feeling the wave of sound rumble out from him like thunder.
Then Petronus drew himself up to his full height and shouted at the sky. “I am Petronus,” he said. “I am the coronate King of Windwir and consecrated Pope of the Holy See of the Androfrancine Order.”
The words blasted out from him, marching for league upon league. Petronus intended to stop with that, but as his eyes took in the blasted city around him, he felt all of the anger he’d kept buried these last few months, and iOw m tot demanded release.
Pacing the holy ground of his consecration and coronation, Petronus spent the rest of that afternoon delivering a War Sermon of his very own.
Sethbert
Sethbert heard the voice outside and stood from his luncheon table. Over the weeks he’d grown accustomed to the Marsh King’s midnight ranting, but they’d been easy to ignore, being in what was for all practical purposes a dead language. He’d had the first few nights translated by an old man he’d kept on for just that sort of thing, but once he’d seen that it least a third of it was unintelligible, another third was disjointed bits of scripture, and the rest a smattering of references from something called the Book of the Dreaming Kings, Sethbert had put the old man onto other work and put the Marsh King’s War Sermons out of his mind.
But this afternoon’s voice was clear, speaking in the formal language reserved for matters of high ceremony. Sethbert exited the tent and saw he wasn’t alone. Soldiers, servants, war-whores, aides and cooks had all stopped, looked up, and went outside to listen.
Sethbert waved over a young lieutenant. “I missed the first part. What did he say?”
“He said he was the King of Windwir and the Pope of the Androfrancine Order,” the young lieutenant answered.
Sethbert snorted. “The King of Windwir and the Pope of the Androfrancine Order is at the Summer Papal Palace.” He opened his mouth to say more, but swallowed his words when he heard his own name mentioned in the angry outpouring. He felt eyes on him, and at the same time he felt his anger rise. The voice was making charges-true charges, Sethbert realized-and spelling out the consequences for Sethbert’s transgressions.
He kept listening, hearing much of the same language he’d read in the written proclamation. Of course, the written proclamation had been kept away from his military at General Lysias’s insistence.
He looked now at the listening faces around him, his eyes measuring them. Lysias had protested his handling of the desertions, but they’d dropped off substantially when word spread through the camp of how Sethbert dealt with those who spurned their oath to the Delta City States. He wondered now what this news would mean for his army.
I could tell them the truth. They would hail me as a hero. But Sethbert would not tell them the truth simply because he knew that he shouldn’t have to. “Some are kings and some are not and there’s a reason for that,” his father had told him. Sethbert believed it.
And the longer he kept knowledge to himself, the better control he had over what that knowledge could do. Something he’d actually learned Otua Nefrom the Androfrancines.
Sethbert listened to the War Sermon, listened to the rallying call of this Pope, and for a moment he thought the voice and words seemed familiar. It sounded like someone he’d known.
He saw Lysias walking quickly toward him, a perplexed look on his face. Like an Androfrancine clock, Sethbert thought, perfectly on time.
“This does not bode well,” Lysias said. “I’ve a bird back from the front lines. It’s coming from the center of the city. Scouts have been dispatched.”
Sethbert nodded. “
Do we know who it is?”
Lysias shrugged. “Not with any certainty. But…” He started the sentence, then paused.
Sethbert sighed. “But what, General? Who is it?”
Lysias set his jaw. “He claims to be Petronus,” he said.
Sethbert dropped the wineglass he’d forgotten he still carried. It shattered on the ground. He felt his stomach lurch, and he closed his eyes against it.
The wily old gravedigger and his Androfrancine laws, he thought.
I should have recognized him.
Then Sethbert screamed for his horse and sword.
Chapter 23
Rudolfo
Rudolfo reached the old man first, racing low in the saddle across the wasted land. Behind him, his scouts magicked themselves and ran, sending their horses back to camp with a whistle.
The old man looked at Rudolfo, and their eyes met. Rudolfo saw anger and despair in those blue eyes, cold as winter stars and sharp as moonshine blades. The force of the stare was enough that he grunted and pulled up his horse. He whistled, and his men, already fading as the magicks took hold and bent light around them, scattered to take up positions around the old man.
Rudolfo saw a boy standing next to the old man. The grandson, he realized. Gregoric had told him about the boy and even pointed him out when they’d seen him leaving the Marsher camp with the girl he later learned was the true Marsh King.
He slipped from the saddle, landing on his feet with ease. He approached, one hand brushing the hilt of his narrow sword. The old man stopped speaking as Rudolfo slowly knelt before him. “You claim to be Petronus,” Rudolfo said in a whisper. “What proof do you bear?”
When Petronus replied, it was the voice of many waters. “I watched you with your father at my funeral, Rudolfo. You wore a red turban and you did not cry.”
Rudolfo nodded. “It is as you say.”
Petronus inclined his head.
Rudolfo drew his sword and laid it at the old man’s feet. Then, he kissed the old man’s ring.