“That’s what we’d like to know,” Pentstemon replied.
Before Arbol could reply, a soft, sweet voice came purring out of the shadows. “Now, now, boys, we can’t have you fighting down here. It upsets the cooks. When they’re upset, they make mistakes; untasty mistakes. You do know how our beloved king hates untasty mistakes. And you know what he does to the cooks who make them. Good help is so hard to keep, these days, especially when it’s been minced into very small pieces.”
A dark, voluptuous woman in Gorgorian ceremonial dress emerged from the archway leading to the banquet-hall stairs. Around her neck she wore the heavy gold seal of the King’s Foreteller, the only office of high responsibility that the Gorgorians allowed a woman to hold. (Gorgorian men might disdain magic as a weak and silly woman’s plaything, but it was handy to have one of the ladies around who could accurately tell the king what he’d be getting for his dinner a few days in advance, so he knew what to kill—the wild game or the cook.)
Pentstemon felt his mouth go dry. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that this woman had affected all of the other Companions in the same way. Even Prince Arbol was licking slightly parted lips in a nervous manner. Those Companions who were older than the prince knew just why the lady’s presence was making them sweat. Those of an age with the prince, or younger, didn’t know why, but they surely did think it would be fun to find out.
The Gorgorian woman drifted across the kitchen floor like a cloud of musky smoke. Her eye lit upon the prince and she smiled. “Ah, there you are, Your Highness,” she breathed. “I’ve been hoping to find you alone.”
“But I’m not…” The prince swallowed his own words of protest as she leaned forward just enough to tilt her low-cut neckline to an attractive angle. “Oo,” said the prince.
The lady’s smile widened for a moment, then snapped into a bud of annoyance. “I said I was hoping to find him alone.” Her cool gaze swept the circle of lip-licking Companions. It was a very meaningful gaze. All of a sudden, Pentstemon seemed to recall wild rumors about how Gorgorian women were supposed to be able to perform magic—not just fortune-telling. He was too young to remember the Old Hydrangean wizards and their showy, useless spells. All he knew about magic was what he’d read in tale books, and in these the magic was always used to turn people into things. Green things. Slimy things. Things that went “Kneedeep! Kneedeep!” in bogs.
“We were just going, Lady Ubri,” he said hastily. Apparently his fellow-Comapnions had read the same books as Pentstemon, because they all fled the kitchen at once.
Lady Ubri’s smile returned as she watched them scamper. It was amusing to toy with these pathetic Hydrangean puppies. Unfortunately it was almost too easy to do. Ubri always enjoyed a challenge—but she was a very poor loser. When she looked back down to where Prince Arbol still sat on the kitchen floor, where he’d remained ever since Salix’s remarkable recovery, she was painfully reminded of her biggest—and only—loss.
Damn! How could Gudge have been such a fool as to marry that prissy, petal-soft Hydrangean princess when he could have had her? Ubri did not understand much about politics and dynastic marriages, but she knew what she didn’t like.
She didn’t like Artemisia.
She did like power.
It was a bitter memory indeed, learning that Gudge preferred the pale, golden doll-queen. More bitter, because he’d told her all about it by yanking the sheet out from under her and saying, “You’d better get out of here, uh, what’syourname, Uka? I’m getting married in the morning. Come back day after tomorrow.”
Well, she hadn’t come back, not in that capacity. She remained in the palace, hoping Gudge would come to his senses. After awhile she understood that Gudge had no senses to come to. By this time, Artemisia had given birth to the royal heir, Prince Arbol. As day followed day and Ubri jealously watched her rival’s child grow up, Ubri’s rage grew too.
Then one day, it stopped. For the first time in years, the Gorgorian noblewoman smiled.
The prince was growing up! And a grown-up prince will some day be a king. And a king needs…
“A queen,” she whispered to her self. “Arbol’s queen, if not Gudge’s.” She glanced at her reflection in one of the palace mirrors. She might be old enough to be Arbol’s mother, but you couldn’t guess it by looking at her. The years had been very good to Ubri. Stay-at-home Hydrangean customs were so much kinder to the skin than the old Gorgorian way of tramping across mountains, rivers, steppes and such, all with the merciless sun beating down and ruining a girl’s complexion. Ubri’s face was dark, but not leathery, her black hair still silky, her generous curves enhanced by the healthier diet available to her since the conquest and settlement of Hydrangea.
“I really owe a lot to these people,” she mused. “When I am their queen, I shall try not to slaughter too many of them right away.”
Now that she was a woman with a plan, Ubri was happy. “The way to a prince’s heart is through his stomach…and points south,” she said. She set out to put that plan into action right away, by cozying up to the prince every chance she got. It wasn’t easy. He wasn’t often alone, and when he was, he just didn’t seem interested. Arbol was always charging around the palace, scattering guardsmen left and right, or else romping through his military lessons. Ubri knew you can’t seduce what you can’t catch.
There was the time he’d gone off to war with his royal father and no one had seen him for months. Ubri figured on taking advantage of that trip. She’d disguised herself as a man, hoping snag the prince on the march. He’d be alone, homesick, maybe a little frightened. She’d be the only woman for miles around—the minor army of camp-followers didn’t count, as far as she was concerned. She would reveal herself to him and let Nature take care of the rest. If Arbol had a single drop of Gudge’s blood in him, he’d do her job for her.
It was a lovely plan and Ubri was sure it would’ve worked, except for some reason the prince had his very own tent and allowed no one else to enter, not even his page. Something to do with royal Hydrangean modesty, rumor claimed. When Arbol did emerge, Ubri managed to sidle up and whisper, “Your Highness, I am in truth a woman in man’s disguise. I have done this dangerous thing—following you into the teeth of battle—for love of you.”
“You’re a girl?” the prince responded, eyeing her from top to toes. He laughed. “A girl disguised as a man! That’s funny. What a great game, dressing up like the opposite sex. I’m going to have to tell the Companions all about it. We’ve got to try it ourselves, some day, and see if we can get away with it. Will you lend me a dress when we get home?” He tipped her three silver Gorgorian gexos and went off to kill some more enemies. Ubri was fit to be tied.
Which was why she was so pleasantly surprised now. Arbol was staring at her. She knew that breed of stare; she’d gotten it many times over the years, from many men. It was better than central heating. (The Gorgorians might be barbarians, but they understood central heating. You conquered a city and set fire to the biggest building in the center of it.)
Ubri sank down to the floor beside Arbol. “It’s such a nice change to find you by yourself, Your Highness,” she murmured in his ear. The kitchen servants milling about were just as invisible to her as the camp-followers. “If you’re not loitering with those silly Companions you’re dawdling around that fusty old book room with your new food taster. Why do you waste so much time with him? He’s only a servant.”
“Oh, he’s all right,” the prince said rather uneasily.
“You know, if he becomes too great a pest, I could always prepare him a little... snack, Gorgorian style.” Her smile was as bright as a bear-trap.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” the prince replied. “We’re…we’re rather attached to him.”
“Well, if that’s what you want, my liege. I’ll be only too happy to do anything you want. Anything.” She edged closer, her gown hissing over the kitchen slabs. “Now, where were we?”
“The library!” cried the prince, f
or no earthly reason Ubri could see. He sprang to his feet. “I forgot about the library! I was supposed to be there to meet…I have to go. Good-bye. See you later.” He sprinted off, leaving Ubri on the floor, growling native Gorgorian curses.
He didn’t stop running until he reached the library. Once inside, he shot the bolt and leaned back, panting.
“Well, did it work?” came the question. Queen Artemisia looked up from her place at one of the tables.
He just nodded. “No one saw anything different.”
“Good.” She reached into her sleeve and drew out the food taster’s mask. “Then put this back on. We’ll play again tomorrow, and this time we’ll let Arbol wear the mask and see if people think he’s you at the same time you’re pretending to be him.”
As Wulfrith tugged the mask back on, he wondered whether he ought to tell the queen about the very friendly Gorgorian lady he’d met down in the kitchens.
He decided he wouldn’t. This game Queen Artemisia had devised was lots more fun than anything he’d ever done with old Clootie. He didn’t want to spoil it for anyone.
Especially not if that nice Gorgorian lady wanted to play.
Chapter Eighteen
“What ho, lad!”
Dunwin looked up, mildly startled, as a large young man in leafy-green forester’s garb (with clashing sky-blue lapels) plunged out of a tree onto the roadway in front of him.
“Hello,” Dunwin said, as the other landed on the path and fell to his knees, only keeping himself from flattening out completely by throwing out a hand at the last moment.
The fellow in green got quickly to his feet, brushing dirt from his hose with one hand, and shaking the other to restore circulation; Dunwin could see that the palm was bright red from the force of the impact.
“Ho, lad! Stand where you are!” the man called, squinting down at his knees and deciding that they would do.
“I am standing where I am,” Dunwin pointed out. “How could I stand anywhere else?”
The young man looked up. “Here, now, none of that! We don’t take kindly to those tricksy word games around here! We’re simple, straightforward men of the greenwood, we are!”
“Jumping out of trees doesn’t seem like a very simple, straightforward thing to do,” Dunwin pointed out.
“Ah, but that was to get the drop on you, so that you’d have no time to call your men or draw your sword!”
Dunwin blinked. He turned and looked back down the highway, then peered down at his empty belt.
“I don’t have a sword,” he said. “Nor any men.”
“I can see that,” the other said, a bit rattled. “But if you had, I mean. We couldn’t tell from up there whether you had any men with you. Or swords.”
“Oh.” Dunwin looked up, and saw two other men in brown and green tunics sitting in the same giant oak that the one had jumped from. He waved a polite greeting; the two waved back.
“Terrible view from up there,” the leaper explained, “with the leaves in the way and everything, but it’s got such nice branches for dropping out of, and it’s sort of traditional.”
“I see,” Dunwin said politely.
For a moment the two of them stood there, facing each other; then Dunwin said, “Well, if that’s all, I’ll be going on, then. I’ve got a lost ewe to find. A sheep.” He took a step forward.
“Not so fast!” The man in green held up a hand. “Don’t you know where you are, and who we are?”
Dunwin scratched an ear, dislodging three or four fleas. “I’m in the eastern hills,” he said, “and you’re some stranger dressed in a silly costume who’s just fallen out of a tree for no very good reason that I can see. I don’t see how either of these has anything to do with me or Bernice.”
“Ha ha!” The man did not laugh, he simply said, very loudly, “Ha ha!” Dunwin thought this a very odd thing to do. “You are in the domain of the Black Weasel, and we before you are his Bold Bush-dwellers, come to exact his toll!”
“I don’t have any money,” Dunwin said. “Can I go on now?” He took another step.
“Not so fast! You’re a likely-looking young fellow; if you’ve no coin, then you’ll pay with a year’s service!”
Dunwin shook his head. “Look, I’m very sorry, but I don’t have time for that. I’ve got to find Bernice.” He took another step.
The Bold Bush-dweller braced his feet apart and thrust out a hand, catching Dunwin’s chest. “You shall not pass!” he proclaimed.
Dunwin reached up and removed the hand from his chest. The Bold Bush-dweller tried to prevent this, and Dunwin was forced to use pressure.
The man in green managed not to scream as his wrist was squeezed and pushed aside. It felt as if the bones were scraping against each other, squashing the flesh out from between them like soft cheese.
When Dunwin let go, the Bold Bush-dweller stared at his hand for a moment, watching the color gradually return to normal, and glorying in the pain he felt; he had been very much afraid that that hand might never feel anything again. The shepherd was stronger than he looked, and he didn’t exactly look like any nine-stone weakling to begin with.
The sensible thing to do would obviously be to let him go on looking for his sheep. Unfortunately, the Black Weasel’s orders were very definite and very emphatic, and as every Bush-dweller knew, the Black Weasel was not a sensible man. Every traveler had to be stopped.
By the time he could work all his fingers again, the shepherd had walked on past; the Bush-dweller turned and ran after him, grabbing the back of his tunic with both hands.
“Not so fast there…” he began.
He did not finish the sentence, as he was distracted by the novel sensation of traveling through the air horizontally. It felt surprisingly different from the familiar vertical drop out of the tree.
Then he abruptly stopped traveling at all, having arrived in a large thornbush. Any concerns about the Black Weasel’s orders were put aside until he had dealt with the rather more immediate problems posed by several hundred inch-long, needle-sharp thorns and the accompanying leaves and woodwork.
He did hear the sound of two large objects thudding onto the road, and assumed that his companions were following instructions and had dropped from the tree to subdue the reluctant shepherd boy. He supposed they would have no trouble. The lad had to be a bit winded after heaving a fifteen-stone man into a thornbush that stood a good five yards from the roadway, and the other two Bush-dwellers knew that their target was not the harmless oaf he had first appeared.
He concentrated on disentangling himself while retaining a maximum amount of unpunctured skin.
He did not really pay attention to the voices exchanging words, or the thumps as they exchanged something a little heavier than words, or the clatter as the Bush-dwellers took up their staves and the shepherd boy snatched up a fallen treelimb to defend himself.
Eventually, though, he was able to stand upright on his own two feet without any direct contact with sharp objects. He brushed himself off, lightly touched the innumerable scratches on his cheeks, shuddered at the discovery of how close some had come to his eyes, and then turned to look at the others.
He was astonished to find the battle still raging. Ochovar—his official nickname of Off-White Chipmunk had failed to stick, as had many of the later coinages—was swinging his staff wildly, warding off the shepherd boy’s attack; the other Bush-dweller, Wennedel, sat on the ground nearby, clearly dazed, his staff in pieces beside him.
“Hey!” the former resident of the thornbush called. “You can’t do that!”
“Why not?” Dunwin asked, startled. He turned an inquiring glance toward the speaker, and promptly received a solid whack across the back of his head from Ochovar’s weapon. He staggered.
“Because there are three of us, all highly trained in every form of combat, and only one of you, and you’re just a poor ignorant shepherd boy,” the Bush-dweller explained, as Ochovar drew back for another swing.
“Oh,” Dun
win said. Ochovar hesitated. His companion nodded; humanity was all very well, but there was no point in taking stupid chances.
Ochovar put everything he had into it, coming up from the knees, his whole weight in the swing; even so, Dunwin managed to roll with it somewhat.
He still went down, face first. Ochovar promptly sat on him, staff held ready for another whack.
Wennedel, moving stiffly, joined Ochovar. The third Bush-dweller approached cautiously, then sat down cross-legged in front of Dunwin’s face. He waited, picking thorns from his hose, and studied the shepherd’s face.
There was something rather familiar about it.
When the boy’s eyes showed signs of focusing, the Bush-dweller said, “As I was saying, lad, you show promise, but you clearly don’t stand a chance against the likes of us. I like you, though, so I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll take you to meet our leader, the mighty Black Weasel himself, and we’ll let him decide what to do with you. You tell him about your lost sheep, and maybe he’ll even help you find her.”
Dunwin blinked. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” he asked. He got to his feet, sending Ochovar and Wennedel tumbling, and picked up his fallen tree branch. “Let’s go,” he said.
Ochovar looked at the spokesman; Wennedel looked at Ochovar. “How hard did you hit him?” Wennedel whispered.
“As hard as I bloody well could, of course!” Ochovar hissed back. “What do you think?”
“I think maybe you knocked the brains right out of him, only he hasn’t noticed yet,” Wennedel replied.
The spokesman shook his head. “No, I think he was always like that,” he said quietly. “I mean, who’d be chasing a lost sheep here in the forest?” Aloud, he asked, “What’s your name, lad?”
“Dunwin,” Dunwin said. “After my uncle that got himself hanged.”
“That figures,” the spokesman muttered. Aloud, he said, “Good to meet you, Dunwin. I’m called the Purple Possum.” He held out a hand to shake, but Dunwin didn’t notice it, and after a moment it was withdrawn. The Possum frowned slightly.
Split Heirs Page 16