Split Heirs

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  And if he did get away, what sort of trouble would that make for the real Prince Arbol?

  Bitterly, he wished that his wizardry included the knowledge of how to send messages over great distances. He desperately wanted to contact Arbol and the queen.

  What must they think of him? He didn’t want to know. Palace rumors traveled faster than palace roaches. By now Queen Artemisia must have concluded that Wulfrith was a treacherous schemer who had waited his chance, then murdered her beloved husband before snatching the crown from her true son and heir. He had to get word to her and explain that it was all an accident. He hoped she’d believe him.

  He hoped even more than Prince Arbol would believe him about not wanting the crown. He and the prince were friends, but he knew Arbol’s attitude about the kingdom: Mine! Mine! Mine! summed it up nicely. Too, Arbol had inherited his father’s temper, and he was better with a sword than Wulfrith was with a spell.

  Wulfrith put his hands protectively around his neck. If the prince found a way to get to him before he got to explain things to the prince, it was going to be ugly.

  There was a knock on the door, followed by a fanfare of trumpets and a peal of silvery bells. A strong tenor voice bleated, “Hail in all humbleness the royal sun where he awaits below the dawn’s horizon! May entry be vouchsafed the servants of his magnificence who loyally attend his pleasure?”

  “Huh?” Wulfrith shouted back.

  The door opened a crack and young Lord Alsike’s needle-sharp nose poked in. “May we come in?” he whispered.

  “I guess so.” Wulfrith waited. No one moved. “What’s the matter? I thought you wanted to come in.”

  “You have to say something like, ‘Enter and be welcome to partake of my grace for howsoever long it please my regal condescension,’” Alsike informed him.

  Wulfrith smiled for the first time in days. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, we are not.” Lord Alsike sounded peeved. “Look, we’ve got to get the coronation rites under way. The sooner you’re crowned king, the sooner we don’t have to eat lunch with Lord Bulmuk any more. So how about it?”

  “I’ll do my best.” Wulfrith took a deep breath and declaimed, “Enter and be welcome to, uh, enter and—”

  “Good enough!” Alsike brightened, then called over his shoulder, “His Majesty in his infinite grace and wisdom has bid us enter. Stop shoving!”

  Before long, Wulfrith found himself surrounded by the entire royal council, several musicians, a host of richly-dressed servants he’d never seen before, and Bulmuk, who looked like he could surround a whole city all by himself. There weren’t anywhere near enough chairs for everyone.

  Lord Alsike began by introducing Wulfrith to the silk-and-satin-clad servants. “These are the Official Royal Hydrangean Keepers of the Coronation Ritual. It is a hereditary post, passed down from father to son.” The Keepers all bowed beautifully.

  Wulfrith noticed that each Keeper was attended by one to three young men, not so nicely dressed. “Who are they?” he asked.

  Lord Alsike explained: “Some of them are the Keepers’ sons, if the man has more than one. If he’s only got one male child, the others attending him are apprentices. The job pays very well, even if the Keeper never has to perform his ceremonial functions even once in his lifetime. However, part of his duties entail passing on the ritual knowledge. The apprentices are kept on in case the Keeper’s son dies or turns out to be too stupid to remember the rites.”

  “What’s so hard about a coronation?” Wulfrith asked. He was soon very, very sorry he had.

  The first Keeper, a tall man wearing too much green satin, hurried forward, sank to his knees before Wulfrith, and pressed the boy’s hands to his lips. It was like having two shucked oysters crawl over your skin.

  “Your Pending Majesty, I am Olk, Principal Keeper of the Coronation Ritual, and this is my son, Oswego.” He made a lovely flourishing gesture of introduction at the empty air to his left.

  “Why is he invisible?” asked Wulfrith.

  Keeper Olk did a double-take that ended when his eyes lit upon his son way over on the other side of the room. The boy was engaged in animated conversation with Bulmuk. He was just saying, “Wow, all the way through a human skull on the downswing?” when his father grabbed him by the collar and yanked him away.

  “The idea! Consorting with barbarous Gorgorians!” Olk fumed. Then he recalled one little detail about His Pending Majesty, the prince, and a sickly smile oozed over his face. “That is—I mean—some barbarous Gorgorians. The rest are perfectly delightful to consort with.”

  Oswego stuck out his lower lip, and it was a doozy. His father gave him a healthy clout in the back of the head. “Now be a good boy and tell His Pending Majesty all that I’ve taught you about the first three days’ schedule.”

  Wulfrith and Oswego hollered “The first three days?” in such perfect unison they might have been practicing.

  “The first three days, did you say?” Wulfrith added.

  “Preliminary rituals of valor and chivalrous address,” Olk replied. “Simple things, really, but the peasants find them entertaining. Go on, Oswego, recite the way Daddy taught you.”

  “I don’t remember,” Oswego said. The lip was out again.

  “But it’s so simple! You remembered all right this morning.”

  “Didn’t wanna be a barbarian this morning,” Oswego informed his father. “Talk about simple; there’s the life! Don’t like how someone’s treating you, whack!” He cut a mighty swath with swordless hands. “There goes his head, bouncing down the breakfast table.” He gave his father a disturbing smile.

  Lord Alsike tapped his foot. “Olk, if your son is unable to recount the rites to His Majesty—”

  “His Pending Majesty,” Olk corrected, letting Oswego have a clandestine thunk in the noggin.

  “—then either do it yourself or let your apprentice handle it.”

  “Can I, sir? Can I? Can I?” Olk’s apprentice was named Clerestory, a bright, eager lad with more get-up-and-go than a nest of insane fox terrier puppies. Without waiting for the go-ahead from Olk, the boy began rattling off, “Day One, dawn: Ritual of the nine cups and a lemon. The king-to-be must inspect nine golden cups and find out which one has the lemon in it. Originally done with three wooden cups upside down and a dried pea hidden beneath one, this rite has evolved to nine cups rightside up and a pretty large fruit. Day One, before breakfast: Ritual of the three virgin kitchen wenches and the tavern slut. The king-to-be must use the virtue of his own spirit to find the one impure woman. Tavern slut is encouraged to dress the part. Day One, breakfast: Ritual of the ox.”

  “We put that one in,” said Bulkmuk, smiling. No one else was. “You gotta kill an ox with your bare hands. Great tradition of the Gorgorian kings. Only tradition of the Gorgorian kings.”

  “At breakfast?” Wulfrith yipped.

  “Whaddaya think you get to eat for breakfast?” Bulmuk countered.

  “It’s all right, Your Pending Majesty,” Alsike whispered. “We’ll drug the beast first, and maybe line up a couple of brawny guardsmen to be the official carvers. Who’s going to notice if they start carving a little before you’re quite done killing the ox bare-handed?”

  Olk’s apprentice leaped in and resumed his recitation of the many small and annoying rituals that would dog Wulfrith through the first three days of the coronation. Some them involved dogs.

  As young Clerestory went on and on about holy swords and enchanted doorknobs, Wulfrith began to feel calm for the first time since that awful night. So much time, so many things to do between the beginning of the coronation rites and the actual moment when the crown was placed on his head! Surely in all that time he must be able to get word to the queen!

  Clerestory ran out of wind and passed the torch to the next Keeper, who informed Wulfrith about the rites awaiting him for the next three days. All in all, what with quests and vigils and receiving homage from almost everyone in the kingdom, the whole business wou
ldn’t be done with for about three weeks. So it was that when the seventh Keeper said, “And then the only rite left before the coronation ceremony itself is the public bath,” Wulfrith did not flinch. This seemed to surprise the Keeper. He cleared his throat and repeated, “The public bath. In public. With people there to see. The king-to-be is entirely naked to the gaze of the populace, that all may know there is no defect of person about their ruler.” In an undertone he added, “You have to take all your clothes off.”

  “Very hard to be naked with them on,” Wulfrith replied cheerfully.

  The Keeper let out a long breath. “I am pleased to hear Your Pending Majesty say so. There have been times in our history—notably during the so-called Short Dynasty—when the king-to-be balked at this ritual.”

  Wulfrith clapped the Keeper on the back. “A king’s gotta do what a king’s gotta do,” he said.

  “Whack!” Oswego yelled, only this time Bulmuk had loaned the boy his sword. Something bounced across the chamber floor.

  There was a field promotion for Clerestory on the spot, and drinks ordered in afterwards. All in all, by the time the delegation left him in peace, Wulfrith was feeling rather optimistic about what awaited him.

  His wizardry didn’t include how to read the future, either.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “So tell us again about your green sheep,” Ochovar called through the twilight gloom.

  Dunwin let out a sigh; he was sitting with his back to a tree and his feet to a campfire, letting his supper settle. He didn’t really want to answer any more silly questions.

  But if he didn’t, the others would hound him all night.

  “Her name’s Bernice,” he said wearily. “She’s about fifteen feet tall and thirty feet long, I guess, with great big claws, and shiny green scales, and a long pointy tail.”

  “How do you get wool off her, if she’s scaly?” someone asked; Dunwin didn’t see who spoke.

  “If she gives green wool, it’d save some dying, anyway,” the Purple Possum remarked from across the fire, where he was repairing a lute.

  “She doesn’t have wool any more,” Dunwin explained. “She used to, when she was really a sheep.”

  The Possum looked up from the tuning peg he was whittling. “How’s that?” he asked. “Isn’t she a sheep any more?”

  Dunwin stared at him in angry astonishment. “Of course not,” he said. “Whoever heard of a green sheep?”

  The Possum smiled wryly. “Up until we met you,” he said, “not a one of us here ever had.”

  “Well, of course not,” Dunwin said. “There’s no such thing as a green sheep, not that I ever heard of. Bernice was white, when she was a sheep.”

  The Possum put down the peg and whittling knife. “Then what is she now?” he asked.

  “Well, what else is scaly and green and thirty feet long?” Dunwin asked, amazed. “She’s a dragon, of course. That wizard turned her into a dragon.”

  “Wizard?” several voices said.

  “Dragon?” several others said simultaneously.

  The Purple Possum leaned forward and said, “Dunwin, I don’t think you’ve ever told us the whole story. Would you care to explain what you’re talking about?”

  “It’s simple enough,” Dunwin said, puzzled by this sudden interest. He had been trying to tell the Bold Bush-dwellers all about it ever since he had arrived at the camp, but up until now all they had wanted to hear were descriptions of the dragon Bernice had become—descriptions that usually produced great merriment and much giggling.

  The merriment had never, after the first day, taken the form of attacks on his person, however; a few broken bones had settled that, and once he started his sword lessons…

  But he had never managed to tell the entire story before.

  “I got into an argument with a wizard,” he said. “I don’t remember all of it, but it had something to do with his apprentice. And he got mad at me, and turned my favorite sheep, Bernice, into a dragon. And she flew away, and I followed after, looking for her. And that’s what I was doing when you people found me.”

  “You were chasing a dragon?” Ochovar asked.

  Dunwin nodded.

  “What would you have done if you found her?” Wennedel asked.

  “Talked to her,” Dunwin said. “She’s still Bernice, after all—she’s still my best friend, that I brought up from a lamb. I’d ask her to come home with me.”

  “You think she’d have come?” the Purple Possum asked, intensely interested, and unaware of the figure standing in the shadows behind him.

  “Of course!” Dunwin said, startled that anyone would even think to ask. “She’s Bernice!”

  “What would you do with a dragon, once you got her home?” Ochovar asked.

  Dunwin shrugged.

  “The question is, my Bold Bush-dwellers,” the Black Weasel said suddenly, stepping from the shadows, “what could we do with a tame dragon? Dunwin, my lad, do you love your country?”

  Dunwin blinked. “It’s okay,” he said.

  “Would you put yourself and your beloved pet at the service of your people, the true lords of Old Hydrangea?”

  “I dunno.”

  “This dragon, this Bernice—does she breathe fire?”

  “I dunno.”

  “She can fly?”

  “Yeah, I saw her do that.”

  “She has claws?”

  “Great big ones.”

  “And teeth?”

  “Big as my fingers.”

  The Possum cast an involuntary glance at Dunwin’s huge hands and shuddered.

  “Dunwin,” the Black Weasel said, “this beast of yours might be just what we need to strike utter terror into the craven hearts of the barbaric Gorgorians! In their simple, primitive minds, a dragon must surely look like a demon incarnate, wouldn’t you say?”

  Dunwin scratched under one ear, considering the question.

  “And what about the wizard, sir?” the Possum asked. “If there’s a wizard out there who can turn a sheep into a dragon, maybe he can do other useful things as well.”

  “A good thought, Tadwyl,” the Weasel agreed. “Hard to believe a wizard could ever be of any use, though.”

  “So if we had this dragon and that wizard,” someone said, “could we please attack the capital and get it over with?”

  “Maybe,” the Weasel replied, “maybe. All in good time. Wouldn’t do to rush anything.”

  “My lord,” the same voice said, “I’ve been out here in the merry and festering, musty, damp greenwood with you for fourteen years now. I don’t think we’re rushing.”

  “Is that you, Spurge?” the Possum called. “Can’t see a thing in the dark.”

  “Yes, it’s me,” Spurge replied.

  “Well, then, Spurge,” the Black Weasel said, “if you’re so eager as all that, then on the morrow, you and a few men of your choice will see if you can’t find this poor boy’s little lost sheep. You can start looking in those old dragon-caves in the South Cliffs. Would that suit you?”

  “Not really,” Spurge said, “but I’ll do it.” He sneezed. “Anything to get out of this damp.” He hesitated, then added, “At least, anything that hasn’t got wolverines in it.”

  “About the wizard…” the Purple Possum began.

  “Ah, yes, the wizard,” the Black Weasel said. “We’ll send someone after this wizard, too—Dunwin can give directions, I’m sure. You, Pelwyn—I mean, Green Mole—you take care of it. Take along a couple of the others if you like.”

  “Yes, sir,” said a voice from a nearby tree. “In the morning?”

  “Right.”

  “Shall we get some sleep, then?”

  Despite a consensus in favor of retirement, the conversation dragged on for some time before finally fading out. Dunwin lay on his blanket, staring up at the stars that peeked through the leaves above, and smiling.

  They were finally seriously going to try to find Bernice!

  It was very late when he finally
dozed off; consequently, he slept much later than he had intended, and was awakened by a great commotion. Voices were shouting, equipment banging about; Dunwin sat up and looked wildly about, trying to figure out what was happening.

  Everyone seemed to be gathering at the King Tree, the big beech; Dunwin picked up his blanket, drapped it across his shoulders to keep out the morning chill, and headed in that direction.

  He stepped into the little clearing from one side just as the Black Weasel himself, looking rather the worse for wear and none too pleased to be awake, entered from the other. In between, most of the Bold Bush-dwellers were milling about.

  And in their midst stood a rather exhausted-looking fellow in very fancy, if somewhat tattered, clothing.

  “All right, all right,” the Black Weasel bellowed. “What’s going on here?”

  “It’s a messenger!”

  “From the capital!”

  “It’s the king!”

  “It’s our chance! Now’s the time to strike!”

  “Shut up, all of you!” the Black Weasel shouted. He shoved his way through the crowd and took his place in the battered throne.

  “Now,” he said, “I see we have a messenger, despite the earliness of the hour.”

  “Yes, oh, brave and dashing Black Weasel, leader of the Bold Bush-dwellers in the fight for freedom from the foul invader!” the messenger proclaimed.

  “That’s not quite right, is it?” The Black Weasel frowned, then waved it away. “Never mind. What’s the message?”

  “I have come here from the Palace of Divinely Tranquil Thoughts at the express urgings of Her Majesty Artemisia, Queen of Hydrangea!”

  “Yes, of course. Get on with it.”

  “Without stopping, I have made my way across the mountains to come here, traveling day and night…”

  “Get on with it!”

  “I bring momentous news! Such is the news I bring that your hearts will sing with…”

  The Black Weasel stood up and drew his rapier; moving slowly and gracefully, he placed the tip of the sword on the messenger’s Adam’s apple and growled, “Shut up and tell me what you’re doing here.”