The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  “That isn’t the point! Why couldn’t you have asked them to come?”

  “Because they wouldn’t have. What with me being a Dark Lord and all, as they’d say. But look now: we’ll get your rooms redecorated. They’ll go back home and spread tales about the terrible Master of the Mountain and his beautiful and saintly Lady who saved their lives. It’ll do both our reputations a world of good.”

  “But this is all absurd!”

  “Isn’t it? I lie to survive, because people fear and respect a black mask more than an honest face. Life became much simpler once I understood that.”

  “We have not done with this conversation,” she said. He bowed to her. She turned and went out to the Children of the Sun.

  To her irritation it was as he had said: the red men were pathetically eager to please her. A plumber among them immediately unblocked the drain in the officers’ bathhouse on the second level, though he fainted when he saw what had been blocking it and had to be revived with distilled spirits.

  A pair of masons assured her the rock walls throughout the house could be cut clean and finished, and either polished to the gloss of black marble or plastered fine, with molded decorations. A tile setter promised her floors of exquisite inlay work, anywhere she should care to walk. There was a cabinetmaker, and a glazier, and a blacksmith.

  She didn’t understand half of what they said to her and at last called for Thrang. His ears went up when he saw them, his eyes gleamed. Once they understood he would not attack them and could moreover communicate in sign language, they allowed themselves to be led away by him to the places he felt were most in need of work.

  The Saint sat once more at her loom. Thrang returned to her twice during the day, for her approval on certain questions of design and, after having it, her authorization to go into the storerooms below for quantities of building materials. Near the hour of the evening meal he brought her a sheet of paper, containing the estimates for all projected work and materials that needed to be ordered.

  She presented the estimate to Gard that evening, as he sat down across the table from her. He picked it up and read it through. She watched his black brows knit. “This is robbery!”

  “You would know,” she said, calmly dipping a slice of bread in olive oil.

  With respect, sir, this is no more than what the workmen charged my old master to build his treasure house, said Thrang, pouring the wine. And it must be done, sir.

  “Oh, must it?” Gard scowled and reached for his goblet.

  With respect, sir, if Madam is to be expected to raise healthy children in a clean and civilized house, then, yes, it must.

  “I used to live in a cave under some roots,” Gard muttered. He looked at the Saint. “And you used to live in a withy hut under a tree.”

  “That is true, my husband. But I was not then the Lady of a great and fearsome Dark Lord with a reputation to keep.”

  “Fair enough,” said Gard with a sigh.

  He complained again that night, when they retired to the great black bedroom and he found a gaping hole in the wall, over which planking had been set while the glazier and cabinetmaker framed a proper window to go there; but after that he kept his temper and paid the bills.

  The Children of the Sun, for their part, quickly understood his chosen decorative motifs and got to work with enthusiasm, producing crown molding in a pattern of skulls, quaint skeletal grotesques in latches and drawer pulls and other ironmongery, and a splendid frieze of white stags in the dining room. Any rooms chiefly for the Saint’s use, however, were done in white and gold, with floral and bird patterns.

  She was effusive in her thanks to the plasterer, at least until he threw himself at her feet and begged to be allowed five minutes in bed with her. “I’m a quick workman,” he insisted.

  After than Gard forbid her to be alone with the workmen unless Balnshik attended her, and that put an end to importunings of any kind.

  All the while the Saint knew, in her heart, that the improbable idyll could not roll on without consequence.

  She was sitting at her loom, in the bright new well-lit chamber appointed for that purpose, when a pair of the demons came to her and saluted, looking nervous. She looked up at them. They were the big twins with silver eyes.

  “Lady, there is a man coming up the mountain,” said Grattur. “He is one of your people,” said Engrattur.

  “He will not be able to get through the death zone unless we lead him.”

  “So Madam Balnshik sends to you to know, should we let him through?”

  “Where is my lord husband?” The Saint stood.

  They exchanged glances. “He is working on something,” said Grattur. “It’s a surprise,” said Engrattur. “Take me to Balnshik,” said the Saint.

  They led her down through the house, down staircases and ramps, past innumerable pairs of guards who saluted. At last they emerged by a small door onto an open area below the battlements. Balnshik stood there with a platoon of demons, looking out on the field of black and jagged boulders.

  “Is it one of the trevanion?” asked the Saint. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, lady,” said Balnshik. “He would be robed in white and carrying a staff.”

  “No. He carries nothing. He went into the maze five minutes ago; he ought to be well and truly lost by now.”

  “Please,” said the Saint. “Bring him through.”

  Yet even as Balnshik went to the first of the skull markers, a lone man came walking out between the gates: Kdwyr. “Oh,” said the Saint, and ran to him.

  He stopped, staring at her, and went down on his knees. “Child, I have found you again.”

  She took his hands and raised him, tears in her eyes. He looked old and gaunt. “Is Seni with you?”

  “No,” he replied, lowering his eyes. “She went back to the river at Hlinjerith, where the Beloved went away.”

  “How did you get through the maze, may I ask?” said Balnshik.

  “The shadow of the raven led me. I prayed to Blessed Ranwyr, and he went before me like smoke. Now I will bring you back with me, or I will die.”

  “Kdwyr, I can’t go back,” said the Saint. “I’m married to Gard now. I bear his child. I have bargained to stay here. Didn’t you get the letter I sent?”

  “We got your letter, yes. But we got his letter too, his wedding announcement, bidding us celebrate his conquest. It was a very rude letter. Your people are afraid, Child.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Balnshik.

  “Many young men have gone to the Mowers. They talk about coming up here to die for you. Lendreth has called the trevanion together and they want to make a Song to bring you back.”

  “I don’t want this!” said the Saint.

  “I didn’t think you would,” said Kdwyr. “But they didn’t listen to me. So I came here. How are you, Child?”

  When Gard came storming into his house, the Saint was pouring a cup of water for Kdwyr. Gard threw open the door to the weaving room. The Saint spoke first.

  “And this is my lord husband,” she said composedly. “Gard, this is Kdwyr, who found me in the place where I came into the world. I have just been telling him how you are a kind and loving husband and not at all the monster my people have taken you to be.”

  Gard looked black lightnings at Kdwyr, but said only, “Is that so?”

  “Yes. This despite the wedding announcement you sent, without my knowledge.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I have explained to him that I am happy to live with you here and bear your child, and am not returning to the world below. Haven’t I, Kdwyr?”

  “You have, Child.”

  “And it might interest you to know, my lord husband, that some of my people interpreted your wedding announcement to mean that I was in fact a prisoner here, and now there is talk of mounting a rescue party.”

  “Which would fail,” said Gard.

  “Of course it would. How are we best to prevent such a misunderstanding, my lord husband?”

  �
�I could write them another letter, I suppose.”

  “I don’t think so,” said the Saint, allowing a slight edge to come into her voice. “I think rather it would be best if I were to send Kdwyr back to my people with the news that henceforth my disciples must be free to come and go on this mountain as they wish, so they may see I am truly no prisoner here.”

  “May I speak with you alone a moment?” said Gard.

  “Certainly.” The Saint rose and left the room with him. Kdwyr sat alone, looking around him in wonder at the fine-painted walls. After a while he heard raised voices, but, being a polite man, thought it would be rude to try to make out what they were saying. In any case, he was not curious. He had expected to die today. Since that possibility now seemed remote, and he had seen the Child with his own eyes, he was ready to accept with a calm heart whatever else fate had in store for him.

  After a long while, the Saint reentered the room, with Gard following close behind her.

  “It shall be as I have said,” the Saint told Kdwyr. “Would you be willing to carry a letter down to my people?”

  “I would, Child.”

  “Then I will write one.” The Saint went to a cabinet and took out paper and ink, and a pen.

  Gard cleared his throat. “Come and walk with me, disciple.”

  Kdwyr looked hesitantly at the Saint, who was kneeling to write. “You will come to no harm whatsoever. Will he, my Lord Husband?”

  “No, Wife, he will not.”

  Whereat Kdwyr followed Gard from the room, and out through long corridors where fearful-looking creatures stood to attention, leering at him as he passed.

  “So you are the one who found her, when she was a baby?” said Gard.

  “I am,” said Kdwyr.

  “And I suppose you were one of the Star’s disciples?”

  “No. I was only a slave. One day my chains fell away and I escaped. I went up the mountain and I found her, newborn, lying in a big flower.”

  “Was she crying?”

  “No. Sound asleep.”

  “Was she alone? Was anyone nearby?”

  “We were alone. I didn’t know what to do. I picked her up and carried her, looking for a woman to take care of her. We came up out of the fog into the sunlight and there was the Star, with all his people.”

  “Convenient.” Gard eyed Kdwyr, as they came out on the wall that circled the mountaintop. In the bright harsh light Gard saw clearly Kdwyr’s stooped shoulders, old scars of shackles. “How long were you a slave?”

  Kdwyr shrugged. “Always. I remember the night the Riders came. I was a boy. We were on the dancing green.”

  “So was I. I remember that night.”

  “I think I ran. I think they caught me. I don’t remember. I was a slave a long time. They worked me hard, but I didn’t die.”

  Kdwyr said it without pride or anger. Gard, watching him, wondered whether Ranwyr would have looked like this now, so worn and old.

  Kdwyr looked back at Gard. “You seem young, to have seen that night.”

  “I am a demon, and Changeless. What do you want, Kdwyr who found my wife?”

  “Only to know she is safe and happy. Only to do her will, as long as she has something for me to do.”

  “You don’t want to rescue her from Cursed Gard?”

  “How can you be cursed?” Kdwyr looked at him in surprise. “She has taken you for her own. Green vines grow over white bones.”

  Gard gave a brief laugh. “Do they? I’ll show you something.” He led Kdwyr to the edge of the wall and pointed out at a wide empty area, sun-blasted, full of shattered rock. Someone had been digging there, sculpting the bare earth, clearing the stones and piling them. A few yellowed bushes had died where they had been planted.

  “I promised her a garden, to make her happy. I can shape the mountain, but I can’t make a garden grow. If I let you go back to her people, if I let you bring them here, would you plant this place and make it beautiful for her?”

  “Yes.”

  The Saint’s epistle was long, full of reproaches and exhortations, and by the time she finished it night had fallen; so a bed was made up for Kdwyr in the weaving room, and the Saint bid him come sit at the table and dine with her, at the evening meal. The dinner was lavish, served on gold plates. Kdwyr gave polite thanks and ate in silence, watching Gard and the Saint as Thrang waited on them. Gard drank rather more than had been his habit and was scowling by the time he went to bed.

  The Saint did not refuse his touch when Gard put his arms around her, but neither did she respond with her full attention. His arms tightened. “Stop thinking about them,” he told her, with the suggestion of a growl.

  She looked up at him, startled; then anger shone in her eyes, like white suns. “What did you say?”

  “I said, stop thinking about them. You’ve done enough for your people. I will let them come into my house for your sake, but I’m damned if I’ll let them in my bed.”

  “I will think as I please. You’re in a foul mood tonight. Are you that jealous of poor Kdwyr?”

  “No! He’s all right. I don’t mind him. It’s all those damned … yendri. They’ll pull you back, if they can. All those bully boys in their green cloaks.”

  “Do you really think I’d break my wedding vows to go back to them? You don’t know me, then. Not at all. But I have duties, all the same. I am their mother and their daughter.”

  “No,” said Gard thickly. “You’re my son’s mother. And as for whose daughter you are …”

  The pause went on too long, with too much implied. Her eyes widened, their expression was painful, and yet he had never wanted to kiss her more than in that moment. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “Don’t you? You must have suspected. Didn’t your children gossip? They did when I knew them. For a people who spent all their time cowering under rocks, they did an amazing amount of gossiping.”

  She was silent, staring at him, and he blundered on angrily, “There was a man once. He was a fraud. Maybe he didn’t know he was a fraud, but he presented himself as a miracle man when he was only a second-rate mage. And the poor stupid people thought he was a god, even when he slept with their daughters. Comforter of Widows, they called him! I’ll leave it to you to imagine how he comforted them.

  “I saw through him. Nobody else did. Not my brother, not my sister, not my mother. I lost them to him, one by one. All of them believed him when he said, ‘Bow your neck to the Riders! Don’t fight them! Be patient,’ he told them. ‘A Holy Child is coming to save you all!’

  “And the people must have begun to get impatient for her, and he must have wondered what he was going to do. And then, surprise! A miracle baby was produced from somewhere. Lucky for him. Funny, isn’t it, that her eyes looked so much like his? …

  “So I ask you, now: why shouldn’t I take his daughter for my wife? Don’t you think that man owes me a family?”

  She spoke with white ice. “You are drunk, and you are being deliberately insulting to your wife.”

  “I’m not insulting you! What’s insulting about the truth? You never speak anything but the truth, so why should your life have been founded on a lie? You aren’t theirs, you’re mine. You led them out of slavery. Good for you! But that was twenty years ago and they don’t need you anymore. I need you! Where are you going?”

  “To sleep on the floor. I had rather sleep there than beside you, tonight.”

  “No!” Gard caught her wrist. “You think I’m a monster? You think I’m going to let the mother of my child sleep on the floor? Stay in the damned bed! I’ll go somewhere else.” He rolled out of bed and fell to the floor with a crash. Cursing, he staggered upright, grabbing a blanket and throwing it around himself. He went stumbling out into the hall, slamming the door.

  Alone, the Saint closed her eyes. The temptation to cry was too great to resist. She buried her face in her pillow and stifled the sobs, and a part of herself watched in amazement. I am alone in bed, weeping after a quarrel with
my husband. It seemed such a pathetic thing to be doing.

  She thought of the women who had come to her, weeping, complaining, begging for counsel. Nothing I do pleases him…. He has been jealous and cold to me ever since the baby came…. He cries and says I am cruel to him, and I was only teasing…. I didn’t mean to laugh at him, but he won’t forgive me…. He said I did it on purpose, but I didn’t…. He comes in from the fields tired, and if his meal isn’t ready, he speaks harshly to me….

  And she would look into their eyes and see the truth, whatever it might be, and find a tactful way to tell them what they must do, or must not do, and speak words of general comfort.

  Stop crying. Wash your face. Turn the pillow over. Get some rest. Don’t think about this again until morning.

  Gard strode down the corridor, ignoring the pairs of guards who saluted and inquired, cautiously, if they might be of assistance. On through his great dark house he went, slower at last, shivering, for the night was cold and he had got into the parts where the hypocaust wasn’t working very well.

  He went down into the guardroom, looking for company, but no one was there with whom to drink; the shift that had gone off duty were all in their beds. He turned his steps at last to the handsomely appointed chamber in which Balnshik slept, and knocked.

  There was no answer. He tried the doorknob.

  “The door’s locked, darling,” a sleepy voice called from within.

  “Let me in.” There was a thump, and a bright steel blade-point poked through the door.

  “The door is locked.”

  “I just wanted to talk.”

  “Very well; you’ve been an idiot. Go back to your bedroom, make up a bed on the floor, and go to sleep. In the morning, apologize. Don’t go to bed drunk again.”