The Peasant

by Scott Michael Decker

  Bubbling Water pulled herself from the bath. A servant began to dry her, and a coiffeuse worked the snarls from her long sopping hair. “I'm Climbing Ivy, Lady Matriarch,” the coiffeuse said in the Southern language. “How would you like your hair?”

  While describing her favorite coiffure, Bubbling Water glanced at Healing Hand. A servant insisted on drying him; he looked uncomfortable with the attention. After that indignity, Healing Hand snatched the loincloth from the servant and put it on. Then he grabbed the small robe from the railing before the servant could. Grudgingly, he accepted the moccasins and comb from the servant. “I can dress myself, thank you.”

  Bubbling Water tried not to giggle. A servant helped her dress in a soft lambskin loincloth, then a silk halter. “Careful with the pyrokinesis, Ivy,” she said in the language of the south. “My hair's more sensitive to heat than what you usually work with.”

  “Yes, Lady, I've noticed,” the Southern coiffeuse replied.

  “If I become a medacor, Lady Water, do I have to learn that awful-sounding language?”

  “To be of service to your liege lord,” Snarling Jaguar replied, “you must discipline your actions, emotions and thoughts. To become a leader, Hand, you must compel people, which requires a knowledge of your language, and perhaps other languages.”

  “Oh,” Healing Hand said. “I guess it's not that awful.”

  Snarling Jaguar chuckled. Fully-dressed, he stepped to the small set of stairs. “I'll be at the entrance to the main tent. Follow at your leisure,” he said, pointing up the hill and leaving.

  Bowing, Bubbling Water frowned at Healing Hand, who hadn't. Have I ever seen him bow? she wondered. While she looked at her reflection in a hand-held mirror, the coiffeuse deftly arranged Healing Hand's hair.

  “What are you doing?!”

  Climbing Ivy sent an image needing no translation.

  “First I have to take a bath,” Healing Hand complained. “Then someone acts like I can't dress. Now this. I'm gonna be sick! Give me the mirror, Lady Water.”

  “You look handsome,” Bubbling Water told him, caressing his chin. Glancing from his reflection to her, he looked at her in disbelief. “You do, Hand! More handsome than the Lord Bear.”

  “Now I know you're fibbing, Lady Water!” Shoving the mirror into her hand, Healing Hand tousled his hair and stepped toward the stairs. “You think the Lord Bear's the most handsome man you know.”

  “True,” Bubbling Water said, uncomfortable that the boy knew so much about her. Sighing in acceptance, she reminded herself that Healing Hand needed to learn discretion.

  Following him down the steps, Bubbling Water strode face first into the cool night air. They began to ascend the steep slope, toward the sprawling tent crowning the crest of hill. Above the tent, the three-headed jaguar banner fluttered in the wind. The light from within framed Snarling Jaguar, talking quietly with Stalking Jaguar.

  Miles to the east, a slumbering city surrounded the edifice of Emparia Castle, glowing bright in the night. Seeing it, Bubbling Water knew now was as good a time as any. Stopping, she put her hand on the boy's shoulder, her fingers wound in his golden locks. “Little Hand,” she said, sighing, “you know how your talent enables you to learn so much about the people you treat?”

  Healing Hand nodded, sensing her reluctance.

  “Already you've learned several secrets that…” Searching for the best approach, Bubbling Water decided that euphemism simply couldn't suffice for truth. “Secrets that could get you killed.”

  “I know,” Healing Hand whispered, head bowed in shame.

  “There's no shame in having a talent like yours. I'd be proud. It's a gift of the Infinite, who meant you to have it and to use it. What you tell others is what concerns me. What you said back there, Hand, was personal to me, and—”

  “You mean about the Lord Bear?”

  “Yes, and—”

  “It's the truth!”

  “Yes, it is true,” she said, smiling and gathering patience. “Sometimes, Little Hand, truths are painful and dangerous. You remember what the Sorcerer did to my daughter? If everyone knew of the deed, what do you think would happen?” She felt his probe. “No, Hand, I want you to find the answer inside you.”

  “People would die?” Staring at her, his eyes larger than moons, Healing Hand whispered, “It's that dangerous? No fibbing?”

  “No fibbing.”

  Looking toward the castle, he sat heavily on the ground. A sparkling tear slid down his cheek. Sitting beside him, Bubbling Water gathered him to her. A telepathic whisper touched her mind. Looking toward the two men above them, Bubbling Water caught the portable shield Stalking Jaguar had thrown. Activating it, she felt the barrier enclose herself and the boy.

  When he could speak, Healing Hand wiped his face clear of sorrow. “I don't want to know what I know.”

  Hesitant before to have the memory erased, Bubbling Water considered letting him keep it. The seed could grow into the dense foliage of discretion an Imperial Medacor needed. With just his talents, Healing Hand would learn many secrets as dangerous. No time was too soon for the seed to be sown.

  Although he'd listened in upon her thoughts, Healing Hand wished to be rid of the knowledge still. Despite his years, he was wise enough to recognize the need for the painful lesson.

  Emitting gentle support, Bubbling Water waited, the decision his alone.

  “Lady Water, I think I'll learn—” he lifted the word from her mind “—discretion.”

  Bubbling Water chuckled, hugging him. “I knew you'd decide wisely. What might help, Little Hand, is to think about the effects of your telling on others. When you can balance your needs against those of others, then your disclosures will be discreet.”

  He thought about that one. “It's not easy to learn, eh?”

  “No, it isn't.” Picking up the spherical shield, Bubbling Water switched it off and stood. Helping the boy to his feet, she put her arm around his shoulder. They began to climb the hill, wrapped in thought.

  “Thank you, Lord Heir,” she said as they approached the two men.

  “A small kindness for a lady far more kind.” Stalking Jaguar caught the thrown shield.

  “Infinite bless your gilded tongue. Lord Emperor, can you get a message into Emparia City?”

  “What message and where, Lady Water?”

  “To Healing Hand's mother at her clinic in the southwestern quarter, that he's in my care.” She tousled the boy's hair affectionately.

  “I already sent such a message, Lady Matriarch,” Stalking Jaguar replied.

  “Oh, why thank you, Lord Heir.” Bubbling Water smiled gratefully at him.

  Snarling Jaguar gestured them inside, his hand on the boy's shoulder. Stalking Jaguar led the way and Snarling Jaguar took up the rear. Inside the large tent was a maze of tapestry. Each shimmering wall embroidered with a pattern or scene, the corridors unfolded before them, the tapestry ahead as intricate and beautiful as the ones to the sides and behind. The labyrinth reminded Bubbling Water of Emparia Castle itself, with its countless stairwells, cavernous amphitheaters and convoluted construction.

  Stalking Jaguar stopped, stepped to one side, knelt and bowed. The tapestry was of a large, ferocious jaguar face, its fangs long and dripping saliva, its eyes fierce and viciously feline. Bubbling Water knelt opposite the Southern Heir. Healing Hand looked at them, puzzled. Snarling Jaguar stepped around him and lowered himself to a velvet cushion, his back to the image. Bubbling Water nudged the boy toward the ground with a whisper of talent. Turning red, Healing Hand knelt and bowed.

  Snarling Jaguar nodded to acknowledge their obeisances. The other three straightened. “No one is to disturb us,” he said, addressing empty air. From beyond the flimsy walls, the creak of leather and susurrus of silk receded. They were alone now. Bubbling Water guessed that ever-present guards had shadowed the group.

  “Why do you have all that gold and stuff on your hands, Lord Emperor?” Healing Hand asked, reaching to tou
ch metalled hands.

  “The purpose of the jewelry, Hand, has little to do with the ornamental value.” Snarling Jaguar held out his left fist at arm's length. “Lady Water, would you measure the weight?”

  Nodding, she applied her telekinesis, lifting only the metal and not the flesh. “About seventy pounds, Lord.”

  “I've lost some baubles,” the Emperor said in mock distress. “They usually weigh seventy-five pounds.” He dropped his arm; it crashed with a metallic clash to his knee. “Like all parts of the body, a person must exercise the hands and arms frequently to maintain their strength. Too often I'm so busy with the Empire, I grow lazy. I could use hunks of lead, but silver, gold and platinum are much prettier, Hand. Don't you think, Lady Water?”

  “Much prettier, Lord.”

  “My turn, Little Hand. You've applied for apprenticeship under the Imperial Medacor, eh? I saw how you sickened the guard I sent to investigate. Can you make anyone sick to the degree you can make them healthy?”

  Healing Hand frowned. “Yes, Lord Emperor, but I don't like to. I really didn't make the guard very sick, either.”

  “Hearing that pleases me, Little Hand.” The Emperor pulled from his sleeve a small device with many buttons. He punched several, and Bubbling Water felt the tent's electrical shields change. A hole opened on the side toward the castle. “Do you see that archer, there on the city wall?”

  He found the archer with his trace sectathonic sight and nodded.

  “Give him a rash, Hand.”

  The Arrow Archer tore at his clothes to scratch the inflammations breaking out all over his body. As suddenly, the rash disappeared, leaving the archer baffled.

  Chuckling, the Emperor pressed a few buttons and repaired the hole in the shields, then tucked the shield-control panel into his robes. “Well done, Little Hand.”

  “That was nothing, Lord Emperor,” Healing Hand said.

  “I hear no false humility in your voice or manner,” Snarling Jaguar said. “Have you done that at greater distances, Hand?”

  “Thirty miles, Lord.”

  “Infinite help us,” Bubbling Water said. No one could send farther than twenty-five miles without help such as the focus in the Imperial Sword. “Are you training in the arts of war, Little Hand?”

  Healing Hand shook his head.

  “From what I've seen, you might also become a psychological Wizard.” Another Wizard-medacor, she thought, remembering her old friend Easing Comfort—a blond haired man with blue eyes and large hands. Panic gripped her. She began to glance at Healing Hand, then shut her mind and looked away. She knew the resemblance was no coincidence.

  “The Infinite has given you great gifts, child.” Snarling Jaguar glanced at Bubbling Water. “I hope you find the guidance to use them wisely.”

  “Yes, Lord Emperor.” Looking torn by internal shame, Healing Hand didn't see Bubbling Water's reaction.

  “Have you seen the unwise use already?”

  “Yes, Lord Emperor,” the boy said, glancing at the Matriarch.

  She reassured him with a smile, relieved she could dissemble her shock into the conversation.

  “Let that be an example of what not to do, then,” Snarling Jaguar admonished. “Of course, to learn truly, a person needs exemplary models as well.”

  “I agree, Lord Emperor,” Bubbling Water said. “I'll find him good examples, and not worry about the others. Despicable acts aren't uncommon.”

  “Not uncommon enough, Lady Water. Are you hungry, Hand? My son, take Hand to the scullery and find him food. Have something sent here for the Lady Water and me also.”

  “Yes, Father.” Bowing, Stalking Jaguar stood. “I'll wager we can find a ton of pastries and sweetmeats, Hand.”

  The boy looked at the Matriarch, who nodded. Smiling, Healing Hand bowed and rose to follow the Heir. Watching them go, she felt sad that a boy so young had to mature so fast. Like him, she'd had little time to be just a child.

  Bubbling Water turned her head to find Snarling Jaguar staring at her. He'd shed his Imperial skin. He was, after all, a man her own age.

  Chapter 19

  The veil of time shrouds the legend of the Medacor Sword. Somewhere in the Northern Empire during Lofty Lion's reign, the Eastern Imperial Medacor and the Northern Sorcerer forged a talisman. They decided to install the circuits into a sword—probably as a perverse joke, since a medacor has little use for the taking of life. As the two men completed the talisman, the Emperor Lofty Lion struck, blasting the place apart with the Imperial Sword, killing the Medacor and Sorcerer. Everyone thought the blast had destroyed the Medacor Sword, since no one found it in the wreckage.—Legends Before the Fall, by Grim Teller.

  * * *

  “May I partake of thy bubbling water, beautiful lady?” Snarling Jaguar asked, grinning.

  Returning his smile, she knew she would, desiring him. The price for her wasn't as great as for him, she only a Matriarch, he an Emperor. “Yes,” she said simply. Bubbling Water was past the age at which she'd have wanted him to persuade her. Not that she disliked romance, merely that the time they spent romancing they might spend in better ways, such as discussing affairs of state. Of course, we do have to discuss our affair of state, she thought.

  “Have you no desire for the chase?” he asked.

  “Are you one to whom the chase is more pleasure than the capture?”

  Snarling Jaguar laughed, then grew suddenly sober. “What disturbed you so much when you told Healing Hand that he might become a Wizard?”

  His question dampened the fire in her loins. A part of her welcomed this, another protested it. Ah, well, she thought, we'll get to that when the time is right. “Does that cushion have room for me?” Smiling, Snarling Jaguar moved aside. Joining him, Bubbling Water snuggled into his embrace.

  “Did you ever meet Easing Comfort, son of the Imperial Medacor Assuaging Comfort?” she asked. “I thought not. Assuaging Comfort and his assistant, Soothing Spirit, went north and met with the Northern Sorcerer Skulking Hawk. They built a talisman to aid the Wizard-Medacor in his profession. At the moment they finished the talisman, Lofty Lion blasted the place apart with the Imperial Sword, killing them both. Soothing Spirit was far enough away that he survived with only bad scars. Since Assuaging Comfort didn't tell him why they were there, Smoking Arrow exonerated him. The Medacor Apprentice Easing Comfort, his father's successor, avoided the executioner's blade somehow. Smoking Arrow denied him the position of Imperial Medacor because of his father's criminal behavior. He became a Tiger Patriarchy retainer—the wrong choice, as we now know. Anyway, Easing Comfort's also a Wizard-medacor, like his father. He has blond hair and blue eyes and large hands, like my young charge Healing Hand.”

  Snarling Jaguar nodded, but said nothing.

  “Healing Hand also bears his matronym, not his patronym. The father doesn't live with the mother. The maternal link is so strong I doubt Healing Hand even knows his father.”

  “You don't know the father's name, then?”

  Bubbling Water shook her head.

  “You think Easing Comfort's the father?”

  She nodded. “Yes—and that bothers me.”

  “That would bother me as well, but not for the reasons you might think. I don't believe that a father passes defects onto the son. What worries me about Healing Hand's paternity is how he'll react when he learns his father's identity. Does the father have contact with the family? Are there siblings?”

  “Yes, a sister, an infant sister.”

  Snarling Jaguar nodded. “The same father?”

  “I don't know. Since Healing Hand's only seven, I'd say yes.” The two of them exchanged a glance. “If he hasn't become bitter, like so many expatriates, Easing Comfort won't harm him. I pray he hasn't abandoned his gentle ways. Infinite knows what a disillusioned expatriate Wizard-medacor would do to his own son.” Frowning, Bubbling Water looked at him. “Something baffles me, Lord. A few days before the negotiations, I envisioned Healing Hand would become the Imperi
al Medacor—and serve my son the Lord Emperor.”

  “You must be wrong, especially with the Succession Assured, eh?”

  “I may misunderstand the visions, Lord, but my prescience hasn't ever been wrong. Even so, I don't know how both could be accurate.”

  “Prophecy is a gift of the Infinite and inscrutable to mere humans, eh? Don't let it trouble you, Lady; you'll see resolution.”

  Someone scratched at a tapestry to their immediate right. A tray slid underneath; food had arrived. Pulling the tray toward them, Snarling Jaguar lifted the lid. “Ah, Infinite bless that boy—my favorite!” On a plate was a pile of meat and cheese cubes, beside it two goblets of sheep's milk.

  “I'll gain twenty pounds if I eat that,” Bubbling Water muttered.

  Snarling Jaguar looked offended. “A little weight will do you good, woman!”

  “You just want to fatten me up—as you do all your concubines.”

  “Eh? Who's your spy? I'll have to have everyone examined again, and then I'll only catch the spy you wanted me to catch.”

  “Of course,” she said slyly, picking up what looked like a frog leg. “Sparkling Stream's chosen the Lord Stalking Jaguar. How valuable is a concubine for the Lord Heir?”

  Snarling Jaguar nibbled on a piece of cheese. “Shall we negotiate the length of her service?”

  “That would be one item on our agenda, yes.” She smiled seductively.

  He laughed aloud. “What other items might we have, eh?”

  “You summoned me, Lord, enticing me with a proposition for my ears only.” The Eastern word “proposition” implied mutually consensual sex, but not the Southern word, which Bubbling Water had used.

  “Well, I suppose I'll proposition you then,” Snarling Jaguar said, using the Eastern word. “Later, though. I think Flying Arrow will decide he wants the Traitress. While she's in my possession, he won't do anything. Once I give her to you, he'll renege on his bargain.”

  “Forgive me, Lord, your concern's unwarranted.”

  “I disagree, Lady. The Lord General asked you to acquire the Traitress, didn't he? Did he give a reason?”