“I wish it were that simple.”
“Then I truly will have to think about those dresses. The wife of a chancellor must make statements, set trends, push her people in new directions.” She seemed now to be really thinking.
“I think we’d be best served if this chancellor’s wife draws as little attention as possible.”
“Ah, but you are thinking about this the wrong way.” Eia held his arm as she led him down the hall to the stairs. “The more attention that is placed on my clothes, the less there will be on me and how often I whisper in your ear.”
Chapter 22
The 24th Day of Summer
“The Mother requests you,” Juhn said as soon as Cary cracked the door.
“Excuse me?” he managed to ask as he blinked against the lamp light that filled the hall. The windowless room where he had been sleeping was as black as the Maelstrom’s cold heart. It could have been noon or midnight, and Cary would have had no way to tell. He could have been sleeping for hours or minutes – it felt like minutes. Behind him, the other members of the Liandrin delegation stirred and moaned but made no indications that they would rise. A light sleeper by training, Cary had jumped from his bed when the knock sounded, but that did not mean he was awake.
“Nyel ut Torswauk requests you,” the Morg counselor repeated, more amused than annoyed. “She has asked me to fetch you.”
“What . . . what time is it?” Cary rubbed the shin that he had banged on his way to the door and tried to remember which of the beds Ambassador Chulters had chosen the previous night. He had been so tired by the time they were shown to this simple bunkroom that he had fallen into a bed and been almost instantly asleep.
“The sun rose hours ago,” Juhn offered. “But in these summer months it barely bothers to set. More significantly, the sisters are just now setting the breakfast.”
Cary buried his palms in his eyes and took a deep breath to fend off the yawns that threatened to reveal his tonsils to their host. “Give me a moment to rouse the ambassador.” He looked back into the room. It was pitch black. Every shape looked the same. The rangers were already not fond of him. The last thing he needed was to make enemies. “Do you happen to have a lamp I can borrow?”
Juhn smiled in a way that seemed out of place on a Morg, turned, and lifted an oil lamp from a hook on the wall to his side. He turned the knob to increase the flow of the oil and nearly blinded Cary. “Thank you,” he managed to say through the squinting. He took the lamp and turned to the room.
Men rumbled and cursed as the light found them. They threw arms over their faces and turned from it. The exception was Ambassador Chulters, who was already rising from the bottom bunk of the bed in the farthest corner of the room. Cary had certainly not known that he was there. The room held twenty bunk beds, a dozen chests, and one table big enough for only four chairs. The beds were simply made, but larger than any Cary had ever slept in – he had felt like a child in his – and lined with thick animal furs that made them incredibly comfortable.
“We’ll be ready to accompany you in five minutes,” Ambassador Chulters called from the end of the room that he had taken for himself. None of the beds around his was occupied, and he had moved two of the chests to create a sort of wall to block it from the common portion of the room. He had not said anything the night before, but it had been clear that he was not pleased to have to share a room with the common men in his company. “Cary, please turn down the lamp, place it on the table, and close the door.”
“What did he tell you?” Ambassador Chulters was on Cary almost before the door clicked shut. He kept his voice low, but it was filled with desperation.
“He . . . he said we’d been requested by the . . . the Mother,” Cary stammered, through the shock of a noble clasping the front of his shirt and spitting into his face.
“Hilaal’s balls,” the ambassador gasped. His face went white in the light of the lamp, and he backed away. “I read back through my father’s diaries last night. He never mentioned seeing a Morg woman in all his time here. What could the Mother possible want of us?”
Cary did not bother to answer. He didn’t even know what they were talking about – whose mother was it? He just watched the noble struggle, eyes pivoting, mouth working, face twitching. He looked like a man chased to the street by the ghosts in his mind – crumpled by sleep and mumbling incoherent. “Can we delay her?” he asked himself. “What possible excuse could we have? Why now? Why us?” He continued asking questions, eyes on Cary but clearly not seeing him.
Finally, his mind seemed to come to terms with what was happening. His eyes cleared, spine straightened, and mumbling stopped. “Get dressed, Cary. Your dress uniform as quickly as you can manage. You’re coming with me to meet what may be the most powerful woman in the world.”
#
It took far longer than five minutes for Regis Chulters to get ready. Cary waited by the doors, sitting so that he would not pace. His foot twitched where it was elevated across his knee. His fingers crept time and again to his mouth to chew at his nails – a habit that only gloves seemed capable of curing – and his mind spun. He was going to meet the Mother of a Morg lodge. His only knowledge of Morgs, let alone their reclusive women, were the stories men told around their cups. Most of those had to do with how many men a Morg could kill with his bare hands or how a hundred of them could defeat entire armies. Though the few Morgs he had seen had been imposing, Cary had always taken the stories with a grin. A single stab in the right place would bring down a bull, and the Morgs, for all their grandeur, were no more indestructible than a bull.
The only stories he could muster about Morg women were of men – usually very drunk ones – pondering how they’d ever fuck a woman that was taller and broader than they were. The line of reasoning had always been on the edge of an insult for Cary, who was smaller than most women – and he’d had more women than most of those men with very few complaints, thank you very much. Any man who couldn’t figure out the mechanics of it simply wasn’t using his imagination.
The key to bedding women was to not be picky. Cary had been with women as tall as a man and as short as a child as thin as a reed and big as a cow. He found them in nearly every city and village he visited. Never the pretty girls with boys hanging off them. Not the smart ones or funny ones or rich ones. The broken ones. The ones that the boys made fun of, the ones that didn’t have any friends, the ones whose husbands ignored them. He’d learned from an early age that those were easy targets. All you had to do was show them some attention, make them feel special, and they’d give you anything you wanted. He wondered if Morg women were the same, and his mind wandered to the idea of being the only outsider in history to fuck a Morg. He had to say he liked the idea.
As Cary dreamed, the ambassador prepared as if he were being presented to the very King of Liandria. He must have spent five minutes alone styling his hair. Without a mirror, he kept asking Cary how it looked then ignoring him when he said it was fine, then good, then dashing, then regal. Cary had given up searching for adjectives after that, and the ambassador had given up on asking for them. When he finally declared himself ready, he was wearing a dark grey jacket with a vest and scarf of Liandria’s cobalt blue. His white cotton shirt was buttoned to his neck, scarf pinned with a gold broach in the seal of his house, a silver mountain on a blue background that was lost to the scarf. His shoulder-length brown hair was swept back and greased so that it clung to his head and nearly dripped onto his shoulders. It made his head seem even narrower than it was, his pinched nose even longer, his angular jaw even sharper, his buck teeth even more rat-like. Beyond that, the grease must have had a perfume in it because the ambassador could not have snuck up on a dead man for the sweet musk that proceeded him. It was a shame. In the woods, the ambassador had seemed a capable and ruggedly handsome fellow. Now, he looked like a prissy rat noble who’d get lost in his own garden.
When he approached the door, Cary stood to join him and received a look of dis
approval. The ambassador sighed. “I suppose that is the best you have and no time to make amends.” He clicked his tongue and considered. Cary looked down at his dress uniform. The light grey jacket and slacks were certainly crumpled from being crammed in the bottom of his saddle bags, and it smelled slightly of leather and the cedar he had used to keep the moths away. But it was nearly new. He’d only worn it one time then crammed it in the bottom of a trunk never wanting to see it or think about that day again. Even now, years later, he hated the uniform for bringing it back. Still, it was a handsome uniform. The brass buttons shone. The embroidered seal of the Liandrin Courier Brigade – a running horse done in blue – was well-stitched without a single loose thread. The shirt beneath was clean. His boots, though lacking polish, weren’t muddy or worn. He’d even combed his bowl cut hair, though it made little difference.
“It will have to do.” The ambassador seemed to decide. He looked at Cary as if just realizing that a person was inside the clothing. “Corporal Lanark,” Cary had to look around for the subject of the ambassador’s address – he hadn’t realized that the man even knew his last name, “I don’t suppose you can write?”
Cary was surprised by the question but managed an answer. “I can, sir, but not fast or well. The spellings a problem too, but . . .”
The ambassador held up a hand to signal he should stop. “Won’t do. You’ll just have to be what you are. They can’t have expected me to bring a proper staff. I do not want you to say a word. Even if the Mother asks you directly, you let me answer. Understood?”
“Certainly, my lord.”
“You will watch and listen. You will notice all the little things I miss while focused on the conversation. You will note everything about our host: if a finger moves, if a breath comes too fast, if a fart lingers through the air. Understood?“
Cary doubted very much that he would be able to smell anything lingering in the air over the smell of the ambassador’s pomade – already his eyes were watering – but he nodded. “Certainly, my lord.”
“I cannot imagine why we are being summoned, but this may be the most important moment in either of our lives.” He took a deep breath as if bracing himself. “If you do anything to embarrass me or offend our host, our entire mission may be spoiled. Do you understand?”
“I do, my lord.” For some reason, Cary was not nearly as nervous as he apparently should be. He was excited certainly, anticipating the adventure of being one of the only outsiders in history to meet a Morg Mother, but he was certainly not as terrified as the ambassador seemed to be. Then again, he had spent his entire life around nobility, and the one thing he had learned was that people like him were very nearly invisible to the important people of the world. As Ambassador Chulters had said, all he had to do was blend into the walls and watch. If he did his job properly, the Mother would not even remember he had been there by the end of the day.
Outside the room, Juhn was waiting far more patiently than Cary would have thought possible. His mistress – the queen, by all accounts, of this land – had sent him to fetch people an interminable time gone, and he had not yet returned. In Liandria, even a counselor would be berated for such lassitude.
“This way, please,” he offered and led the two men down a hall with widely spaced doors. Lamps stood between each to light the way – there were no windows. They were in the section of the lodge dedicated to men’s sleeping quarters, and Cary suspected that the other side of each door was exactly the same as the room they had just departed. As the ambassador had said, the Morgs seemed to live a perfectly communal life with nearly absolute division of the sexes. The previous night, they had eaten in an enormous dining hall with tables and benches to hold thousands – Cary had felt incredibly small sitting in that enormous room with its vaulted ceiling and only a dozen other men. Even there, the food was set in a separate room that could be closed to keep the men out while the women were setting the meals. Cary had seen little else of the lodge, but he did not suspect there was much else to see in the men’s quarters. As Ambassador Chulters had suggested, it appeared that the men spent the vast majority of their time outside the lodge, coming here only in pauses in their work and training or when the harsh northern winter required it.
As they exited the sleeping quarters and prepared to enter the dining hall, Cary spared a glance. There were only a few score of men at the tables beyond, but one of them had to be the Imperial negotiator. His bright colors stood out among the half-dozen Morgs that sat with him like a peacock in a pen of turkeys. From Cary’s view, it appeared the man was holding court to a rapt audience. Though he was no ambassador, Cary guessed that was not a good sign.
Juhn pulled them to a stop before they reached the benches and steered them to what looked like a blank section of wall. “Where are we going?” Ambassador Chulters asked, staring at the wall in confusion. With a smile, Juhn flipped a hidden latch. A section of wall swung open to reveal a dark, cramped passage that ran into the shadows.
“We call these the yaruth kalach, ‘order’s passages’ roughly translated,” Juhn explained. “Yaruth plajaa, ‘order keepers’, you’d call us counselors, are the only ones who can move freely anywhere in the lodge. These passages exist in every lodge, running to every section so that we may conduct our duties without the formalities that inflict our fellows.” He produced a candle from the pocket of his robe, lit it on a nearby lamp, and led them into the passage. “Please close the door behind you,” he called from ahead.
Cary looked around at the narrow hall and the simple door that gave them access to it. His mind was already struggling with all the wonders these passages presented. Leading to every section of the lodge, the possibilities were endless and so was the trouble it would cause if he pursued them. Nonetheless, he made sure that he understood the working of the latch before he closed the door behind them.
The hall was low and narrow. Juhn, who was the shortest Morg Cary had ever seen, could barely stand. His shoulders nearly brushed the walls. A proper Morg warrior would have a hard time fitting through, but there was plenty of room for Cary, who was only a few inches over five feet.
“Positions in Morg society are determined primarily by size,” Juhn was saying from somewhere in the gloom ahead. Cary quickly caught up and paid careful attention to their path as they made a turn to the left. “We’re much like the big horn sheep in the mountains. The men fight to show their prowess and the women select them based on their size and ability. Those of us that are not good enough to be chosen typically seek a life in the South. Those of us who are not even big enough to try end up married to the only woman that will take us, the Order. Because we are sworn to celibacy and not worth bedding in the first place, we are allowed access to the women’s sections of the lodge, but like everything here, the passages must be small enough to restrict any regular man from using them. You’d think the women fear some sort of invasion.” Juhn laughed, continuing to show that he was an entirely different sort of Morg than the ones they had seen prior to this.
At the next intersection, he turned right – Cary guessed that they were skirting the outside of the dining hall – and continued his commentary. “The vast majority of the lodge is reserved for the women. The men only really have the sleeping quarters, the dining hall, the bathes, a few workshops, and common areas. But they are only here a few months of the year. Those you see now are mostly too old to venture out. They maintain the lodge until the Order calls them. Women seldom if ever leave the lodge, so everything they need is here.”
“What about the children?” Cary asked before he could stop himself. He realized that for all the talk of Morg women, he had also never seen a Morg child.
Ambassador Chulters made a sharp inhalation and turned to reprimand his subordinate, but Juhn answered before he could do anything more than stare balefully. “Excellent question, my young horseman. The children remain with their mothers until they have seen six winters, then the boys go with their fathers to learn their ways. The girls stay
with their mothers, of course. The boys can visit their mothers until they make their first seed, then they, like their fathers, must be explicitly invited to a woman’s chambers.”
Juhn turned another corner – heading into the middle of the lodge, Cary calculated. “Do you know why we are being summoned?” Ambassador Chulters asked, trying to sound casual.
Their guide looked back at them but caught Cary’s eye rather than the ambassador’s. “It is not my place to say. But you should know that the Mother of Torswauk Lodge has not met with an outsider since the time of the Empire. For her to summon you can only mean that the need is dire. You can be sure that she knows about the invaders and fears them far more than her husband does.”
“I am sorry to have to ask this,” the ambassador started, “but what role does the Mother play in the hiring of the lodges?”
They arrived at what appeared to be a blank wall with passages branching off to their sides. Cary mentally mapped the dark maze – he had an almost perfect sense of direction and ability to remember the layout of passages in a building or roads outside it. He anticipated a turn to the left, leading deeper into the lodge, but Juhn stepped forward instead and clasped the first rung of a ladder that had been hidden in the shadows. When he was sure that his wards had seen, he extinguished the candle, casting them into perfect darkness. Cary could tell only by the rustling that he was climbing. Ambassador Chulters then Cary followed up and up and up. Counting the rungs, Cary guessed that they climbed fifty feet until firm hands guided him from the ladder to a landing where he was packed between the ambassador and the rough logs of a wall.
“We have arrived,” Juhn whispered, voice like a phantom in the darkness. “But I will answer your question first. The Mother has almost no direct control over what men do outside of the lodge, including fighting outsider or invaders or each other.” Cary could almost feel Ambassador Chulters deflate at his side. “However, she has almost unlimited power to persuade the men who do control such things. She is as formidable a woman as exists in this world. You would do well to remember that and not underestimate her ability to influence even those events that are outside her direct control.”
The False Martyr Page 26