Five Hundred Years After

by Steven Brust

  "You have given the silver and the letter to the messenger?" asked Aerich when he had quite finished dressing.

  "I have, Venerance. And he rode off as if Kieron the Conqueror were on his heels, which gives me to think that he is being well paid for speed at the other end of his journey."

  "I don't doubt that you are right, Fawnd. You may go and attend to the remainder of your duties."

  Fawnd left to finish the preparations for travel, while Aerich spent the time consulting certain maps and other documents, until, in rather less than the allotted hour, Fawnd returned to inform him that all was ready for their departure. Aerich nodded, rose, and, on sudden thought, opened a plain wooden chest in the corner of the dressing room, from which he brought out silk yarn and a crochet hook, which he gave to his servant along with orders that they be placed in the saddle pockets.

  "Let us go," said Aerich. He led the way through the manor house, to the silent and respectful courtesies of the few servants he kept around him. Five minutes later he and Fawnd were on horseback, setting off down the road toward Daavya County and the Castle Daavya, which overlooked both a village and a river of the same name. After riding for some few minutes, Fawnd said (rather breathlessly, for he was by no means an experienced rider), "I beg your pardon, Your Venerance, but may I be permitted to make an observation?"

  "You may, Fawnd. What is it?"

  "At this rate, will not we fatigue the horses unduly?"

  "No," said Aerich. He could have added, "Speed is everything," and he could also have explained that they would be changing horses upon arriving at Daavya, but Aerich was not accustomed to offering unnecessary explanations to servants—or to anyone else, if the truth were to be told. Fawnd accepted the answer with nothing more than a muted sigh.

  They presently came down the far side of a very long, gently sloping hill, forming the eastern side of the Daavya River valley, and so into sight of Castle Daavya, the largest structure in the Duchy, made of fine stonework and surrounded by a fourteen-foot wall above which could be seen the upper few stories and the single, square tower; over this tower flew the two banners—Arylle on top, Daavya beneath. They crossed the bridge (called, as one would expect, the Daavya Bridge) and made their way to the gate, which stood open.

  Servants in Dzur livery rushed off toward the keep itself. Aerich dismounted gracefully; Fawnd dismounted. They waited beside their horses until a familiar figure appeared: a Teckla dressed in the livery of the House of the Dzur, with the Daavya crest apparent on both jerkin and hat. "Your Venerance!" cried the Teckla. "Welcome, welcome. My master the Baroness will be here in an instant."

  "That is well, Mica," said Aerich giving the servant a smile to indicate that he was glad to see him. Aerich then added, "I observe that you are prepared for a journey."

  "Yes indeed, Your Venerance."

  "Good. But why do you not embrace your friend Fawnd?"

  "Why, I will do so at once, if your Venerance permits."

  Aerich signified that he had no objection to make, and Fawnd and Mica embraced as old friends will, and exchanged a few words of greeting, after which they set to work together to transfer the equipment from the horses on which Aerich and Fawnd had arrived, to the horses on which they were destined to depart. Meanwhile, in response to Mica's imperious command, other servants came forward to make certain that Aerich's horses were fed, watered, groomed, and sent back to his stables.

  As all of this was taking place, the Baroness, Tazendra, appeared, dressed in her black travel garb (as distinct, the reader ought to understand, from her usual black garb, or her black court garb) and with a long sword girt over her shoulder; she at once rushed to embrace Aerich. "Ah, my friend," she cried. "It has been more than two years since I have seen you!"

  "Indeed," said Aerich, returning her embrace with real affection. "And may I say, my friend, that you seem to be in the best of health."

  "Oh, yes, tolerably good health," said Tazendra complacently. "I am entirely recovered from the accident of which you know, and, as you see, I am back at home, which has been repaired in all particulars."

  "So I observe, my dear Daavya, and I present my congratulations."

  "Oh, bah," said Tazendra. "But you—shards and splinters! as our friend Khaavren would say. You seem to be as well as ever. Come, let me look at you."

  So saying she stepped back and studied Aerich with an eye that was less discriminating than affectionate. Aerich had, to be sure, aged—but he had done so in the most graceful of ways. His hair was rather longer than he used to keep it, and whether from age or from some other reason, had begun to curl, so that it now fell in rich, brown ringlets from a part of his noble's point all the way to below his ears. His face, though still thin, showed more lines, so that his mouth no longer appeared small. But his eye still had the calm that bespoke a man who was contented with himself, and was, moreover unlikely to remain anything but cool before whatever vicissitudes fate might send his way. He still appeared, in form, the picture of robust good health, and he moved with the grace one would expect of a trained Lyorn warrior who has continued his training for hundreds of years.

  Tazendra, for her part, had in no wise lost the beauty that she had traded on so heavily in days gone by. If her face showed a few more lines, these were nevertheless concentrated around her eyes and mouth, and made her seem more amiable than ever—and amiability, as everyone knows, is one of the hallmarks of beauty. Her form showed the signs of one who rode on horseback every day, and engaged in all manner of exercise besides, and, as what we call beauty is neither more nor less than the attributes of nobility combined with those of a good constitution, the Baroness was still in the full flower of her appearance.

  "I am pleased to see," said Aerich, "that Mica is still in good health—Khaavren asked after him."

  "Oh yes," said Tazendra, smiling fondly at her servant. "He is a good, faithful servant, even when there are no blows to be struck."

  Mica blushed and looked at his boots, while Aerich said, "And, do you miss the blows?"

  "Well, of a certainty, but I perceive we may about to deliver some more."

  "That, and maybe receive a few."

  "Bah," said Tazendra.

  Aerich smiled. "Come," he said. "We have no time to waste."

  "Yes," said Tazendra. "Our old friends, you say, are in danger?"

  "Very much," said Aerich.

  "But, what is this danger?"

  "That, I cannot say, except that it concerns His Highness, the Duke of Eastmanswatch."

  "How, Adron e'Kieron, our old friend?"

  "Daavya, you must break yourself of this habit of referring as friends to those more highly placed than you in the eyes of society. Some would think ill of you for it."

  "Bah, let them. And what of you; are you not a duke and a peer? And yet I do myself the honor to consider you a friend."

  "Oh, that is different, as you well know," said Aerich, with a gentle smile.

  "Well, then," said Tazendra with a shrug. We should point out that she had learned to shrug by watching Aerich, and had become proficient at this delicate art.

  "But yes," said Aerich. "I do indeed refer to His Highness Adron e'Kieron, he who showed us so much courtesy and good will in days gone by. And, moreover, Khaavren is in the middle of it."

  Tazendra shrugged as if to say, "Where else would he be?" Aloud she said, "And Pel?"

  "Pel is, as usual, in the wings, observing, but I believe that the wings are not as stable as they were a hundred years ago."

  "How, not stable?"

  "The foundations have, I believe, shifted, and the wings may collapse before the curtain falls."

  "Well, yes, certainly," said Tazendra, who had, in fact, become confused during the expansion of this metaphor.

  She was rescued from embarrassment by Fawnd, who said, "The saddles have been transferred, Your Venerance, and all is ready."

  "Then," said Aerich to Tazendra. "Have you anything left undone?"

  "Not in t
he least," said the Dzurlord. "Upon reading your message, I turned everything over to my steward, who, I am forced to admit, maintains my holdings and household in any case."

  "Then there is nothing keeping you here?"

  "Nothing at all, my dear Aerich."

  "Well, then, let us set off at once."

  "So late in the evening? It will be dark soon."

  "We will ride through the night," said Aerich.

  "And the horses? Will they ride through the night as well?"

  "We will use the post."

  "Shards!" said Tazendra, in a voice which covered up the nearly inaudible moan that Fawnd permitted to escape from his lips. Tazendra said, "There is, then, no lack of urgency to the affair?"

  "That's my opinion," said Aerich.

  "In that case," she said, "Allow me to give you this," upon which she handed him a pair of flat, grey rocks, smoothed until they were almost polished. "Each of them contains a good, strong charge—I prepared them when I received your letter."

  "Had you time?"

  "Oh, it doesn't take me as long as it used to."

  "And have you kept any for yourself."

  "I nearly think so," said Tazendra. "And I even have one each for Khaavren and Pel, should they express a desire for such arguments."

  "That's well," said Aerich, putting the stones into his saddle pockets. "Then, as nothing more keeps us here, why, let us set out."

  "To horse," agreed Tazendra, and, suiting action to words, she led her horse to the mounting block, and pulled herself into the saddle with no other assistance. (She was, we should add, so tall that she would not have required even the inanimate assistance of the block, but mounting directly from the ground would have a necessitated a certain struggle, and thus would have imperiled her dignity.) Aerich did not use the block himself, but mounted his horse with the grace that never deserted him under any circumstances. Then the two lackeys took to horse, and they turned toward the gate.

  Tazendra took a last look at the grounds of her home, as if uncertain whether she would ever see them again, then turned her head and her horse's resolutely forward.

  Aerich, looking over the lackeys, said to Mica, "I observe, tied to your saddle, the bar-stool I remember so well, and which you put to such good use."

  "Your Venerance, my master the Baroness gave me to understand the affair might become tolerably warm, and, moreover, Your Venerance has just confirmed it in conversation with my master that I could not help but overhear."

  "Well," said Aerich. "I don't say you are wrong."

  "In that case," said Mica, "I thought to stay with the weapon I know best—although the wood has been replaced, it is the same weapon."

  "And it was well thought," said Aerich.

  "How far is the first post?" said Tazendra.

  "I studied the map while Fawnd was preparing for the journey," said Aerich. "For the first post, we must travel north nearly twenty leagues. After that, we travel for sixteen leagues until we join Undauntra's Highway, where the posts are set every ten leagues."

  "The Imperial posts? But, my dear Aerich, can you use the Imperial posts?"

  "You forget that I am a peer, my dear Baroness. Come, it must be good for something."

  "So it would seem. Well then, there is no need to spare the horses."

  Fawnd moaned again, which sound was obscured by Aerich saying, "Indeed not, though we must not kill them, for then we should be delayed."

  "That is true. When we shall be in Dragaera City?"

  "With luck and good posts, by this time to-morrow."

  "Amazing!"

  "Well, the Empire has learned something from Lord Adron," said Aerich with a smile.

  "Yes, certainly," said Tazendra, on whom this reference was entirely lost, for, although she was well acquainted with magical philosophy, and with the science of defense in all its branches, she knew little of history, politics, or the point where these two phenomena intersect, and which we are pleased to call, "news."

  "And we shall make full use of it," added Aerich.

  "Indeed we shall," said Tazendra. "Only—"

  "Yes?"

  "You set the pace."

  "I will do so."

  "Then I await you."

  "Rather than await, follow me!" said Aerich, and set off at a good canter through the gates of Castle Daavya, to the respectful salutes of Tazendra's vassals, after which the horses turned north beneath the slowly darkening sky.

  Chapter The Tenth

  Which Treats of the Meeting

  Of a Captain with a General,

  And of the Various Suspicions

  Entertained by Each.

  Aliera and Sethra had still not emerged when the hour arrived at which Khaavren was accustomed to go home. He thought about inquiring after their progress, but, recalling a certain lieutenant under whom he had served during a certain action, who had the custom of pestering his subordinates as to the status of every order that was issued to make certain it had been carried out, Khaavren determined to avoid doing anything that resembled harassment (and there was, to be sure, the question of to what degree it was practical to harass Aliera e'Kieron and Sethra Lavode).

  He resolved, at all events, to give them another hour, in case they had something of interest to tell him. When the sixty minutes had nearly expired, he added another thirty minutes onto the top of it, then another ten, after which he decided that, had they learned anything, they would certainly have informed him; and, upon reaching this perhaps dubious conclusion, he shrugged and went out to procure his dinner, which he did quite successfully, albeit at a later time than usual. He finished his journey home at almost the same moment he finished his pastry, and, after exchanging silent greetings with Srahi, he took himself to bed, where he slept prodigiously.

  The next morning found him once more in his accustomed place, escorting His Majesty on his rounds, after which he repaired to his quarters within the Palace and sent to see if Sethra Lavode could be found. According to the previous watch's log—insofar as Khaavren could make out the nearly illegible scrawl—she and Aliera had emerged in the small hours of the morning and left the sub-wing, which was not sufficient information upon which to base a search or risk a conclusion; wherefore Khaavren, slightly but not unduly annoyed, returned to his customary duty, when nothing else was pressing, of attending personally upon His Majesty. He did, however, make certain that those under his command understood that he was to be informed at once should either Sethra or Aliera be seen.

  The court was quiet, as if the excitement of the last few days—assassinations, attempted assassinations, the arrival of Adron, the introduction of Aliera, and the appearance of Sethra Lavode—had proved to be too much for the normally stately progression of events, and a breathing spell was therefore required. This gave Khaavren time to contemplate his introduction to and conversations with Sethra—events which had at the time appeared so fabulous that he had refused to consider them.

  "Come then, Khaavren," he told himself as he observed the peaceful comings and goings of the court and His Majesty's formal greetings of the Deputies and Heirs who arrived in preparation for the Meeting of the Principalities. "You did not, if truth be known, fare too badly. It is not every day that a figure from legend appears in the flesh and presents herself before one, and a little confusion is not, therefore, to be held too strongly against one. She is, after all, powerful, mysterious, beautiful, and sinister; if these are not grounds for a certain confusion, then what could be? And if I held to my duty, and did nothing of which I ought to be ashamed, then what matters a bit of trembling in the knee, so admirably concealed by these light blue breeks, and a thumping of the heart, equally well hidden by this blouse?

  "There can be no doubt, at any rate, that I concealed my feelings better than Jurabin—who, if he is not a Captain of the Guard, is at least a Prime Minister—concealed his reaction to Aliera. My word! It is a wonder that he did not tear grooves in the arm of His Majesty's chair, the way his fingers were clut
ching it!

  "Ah, but that was a rare sight—to see Jurabin, who is normally so collected, in such a state! And over what? A pair of pretty eyes that are blue or green or some nameless shade that is neither one nor the other. Is it worth twisting one's baldric for? Not if one is Khaavren, it isn't. And look at him now, standing at His Majesty's elbow, yet staring above the heads of the courtiers—I'll be starred if his thoughts aren't upon her now.

  "So, we have the Prime Minister, whose mind is taken up with a woman who—I should stake a year's pay on it—he'll never touch, and we have His Majesty, who cannot keep a thought in his head long enough for it to generate offspring. And they wonder at the state of the Empire! Cha! If I were the Dragon Heir, I should take it as a sign the cycle had turned, and march into the city with—"

  He frowned and his soliloquy abruptly ended, as his thoughts continued for some few moments in a direction that he did not wish to express even under his breath. After these reflections had taken their course, during which time his face grew sterner and sterner, he made a signal to one of the guardsmen, who, being trained to respond to the least sign from his chief, approached directly.

  "Yes, Captain?"

  "My good Naabrin," said Khaavren, "please bring Thack here directly."

  "At once, Captain."

  Naabrin departed at a good, martial speed, and in a few moments, the guardsman Khaavren had designated arrived and inquired as to the Captain's wishes.

  "You will take over my duties here, Corporal, for I am called away most urgently."

  "Very well, Captain," he said, and stood at once to Khaavren's post, behind His Majesty, in a position where he could survey the court.

  Khaavren, for his part, using the prerogative that was his right as Captain, interrupted the conversation in progress between His Majesty and the Lyorn Sir Vintner.

  "Yes?" said the Emperor.

  "Sire, I find I am called away. Thack, my most trusted corporal, will attend to my duties until I return."

  His Majesty nodded and dismissed Khaavren with a wave of his hand. The Tiassa wasted no time in quitting the Imperial presence and making his way back to his own sub-wing, where he called for a horse to be prepared and brought to him. As this was done, he required one of his guardsmen to discover where the Duke of Eastmanswatch had encamped, and desired of another to learn if His Highness intended any public appearances.