Treachery of Kings

by Neal Barrett Jr

  “I believe that simpering fool Llowenkeef will like it,” the Prince told Finn. “Fellow's daft about clocks. They say he's got clocks everywhere. Eats with clocks, goes to bed with clocks. At any rate, it's his bloody birthday, can't forget that.”

  The Prince frowned. “How does the thing work, how does it go?”

  “One sets the tail in motion, sire. It acts as a pendulum, swinging back and forth. Upon the hour, the jeweled eyes roll about, the snout opens, and it makes a, ah— crackly sort of sound. If Your Grace will allow—”

  “No, do nothing of the sort. I abhor things that move or make any kind of sound.

  “I will say, Finn, it's a pleasure to see you making a rather decent-looking lidert these days”

  “Lizard, sire.”

  “Yes, what I said. Not at all like that nasty creature you carry about. The one, you'll recall, that tried to bite my leg. I am still displeased about that.”

  Finn showed no expression at all. Julia Jessica Slagg had, indeed, reacted to the Prince in much the same manner as nonmechanical creatures. In other words, she loathed His Grace on sight, and somewhat lost control. Finn had managed to stop her in time, and, thus, likely preserved his head.

  “It was the most regrettable moment of my life, sire. A tiny mote of dust where none should be. It would never happen again in a hundred lifetimes, I hope Your Grace understands that.”

  “Better not happen again,” the Prince muttered. “Best you confine yourself to liderts that do something useful, Finn. Like swabbing out muskets, grinding trash and such. Making things that tell the time, right?”

  “I could not agree more, sire.”

  “Good, good,” the Prince said, shaking his head so the plumes atop his hat swayed in the breeze. “One thing more, Finn, and I'll see you on your way. A thing of great import, a duty to your Prince. A—What, what the devil do you want, Count,” the Prince said, scowling at VanDork, “I'm quite busy here.”

  “Your pardon, sire, indeed.” VanDork leaned close to the Prince's ear. In an instant, the Prince broke into a merry smile, stood up straight and threw his hands in the air.

  “Here, all of you, come see. They're going to mush old Baffleton-Kreed!”

  SIX

  A VOLLEY OF CHEERS ROSE FROM THE ROYAL sycophants. If Lord Gherick had not appeared at that moment, Finn was sure he and Letitia would have been trampled beneath the crowd.

  “Quickly,” Gherick said, drawing the pair aside. “You'll be safe over here.”

  “Safe from what?” Letitia asked, bewildered by the sudden turmoil in the hall.

  Gherick didn't answer, but urged them on until they were up against the far wall.

  Finn drew in a breath. In an instant, the great room was empty, for everyone there had followed the Prince to the gallery that overlooked the courtyard below.

  “Can't we see too?” Letitia complained. “I didn't understand, dear. What is it they're going to do?”

  “If I'm not mistaken,” Finn said, “it's something you very much want to miss.”

  Gherick's expression told him he was right. The Prince's brother glanced at the ceiling with a sigh.

  “They're executing His Grace's Keeper of the Mead,” Gherick said. “Aghen's been out of sorts with the fellow for some time, though I can't see why. Nothing wrong with his ale, near as I can tell.”

  “Oh. Oh, my,” Letitia said.

  “Chopping Day is a strain on everyone, Miss. My brother will have it on SpringFair, though. Says it keeps the people on their toes, and I suppose it's so.”

  “I'm not sure it's worth it,” Finn said, “just for crackle pie and cheese. Letitia makes it better than anyone here.”

  “How kind of you to say so, Finn.”

  “It's quite true. And the tarts are doughy here as well—”

  Finn's voice was lost as a terrible, desperate wail arose from the courtyard below. A cry of such pain, agony and torment the hair nearly stood straight up on Finn's head.

  “I'm going to be ill, Finn.”

  “Don't,” Gherick said. “You mustn't do that here. Aghen doesn't like that sort of thing at all.” “I'll be fine,” Letitia said.

  “Please do. If I'm anywhere around, he's inclined to blame me.”

  “Why should he do that?”

  “Why not? Why do you think I stay out of town?”

  “Good reason, I suppose,” Finn said.

  “Damned if it isn't. Pardon my language, Miss.”

  “No offense. You are most kind, sir… “

  Finn looked up to see the Prince returning from the gallery, the crowd all a-chatter at his back. Count VanDork whispered something in his ear, and the Prince broke out in a hearty laugh. More than a chuckle or a snort, close to a guffaw.

  “Exhilarating, marvelous! Make a note, VanDork, we must have another mushing quite soon. Next week, no later than that.”

  “Wonderful idea, Your Grace. I'll see to it.”

  “Finn, should have had you out there, something a fellow doesn't see every day. You should stay for the show tonight. We're roasting old Bechidal, my worthless seer. Fellow can't cast a simple spell anymore.”

  “You're too kind, sire.”

  “True. I am indeed. Now… Oh, back to you, then. One more thing and we'll have you out of here. VanDork, that what's-his-name. The, uh—Damn your hide, do I have to do everything myself? Get him in here!”

  VanDork disappeared. Finn could see the Prince was clearly on the edge of irritation. Gherick had told him more than once—and everyone else appeared to know— that Aghen Aghenfleck could not pursue the same subject more than a moment and a half. If he did, sweat began to form on his brow and dangerous thoughts popped into his head. As His Grace turned on Finn, it looked as if that might be happening now.

  “Do you see what I have to put up with, Finn? I have to do everything myself. None of these—worthless louts can lift a finger if I'm not—not—You see? Nothing's happening, everyone's just standing there, waiting to see what I'mgoing to do. Why can't I have a simple trade like yours, Finn? Why? Why—can't—I—ever—be—me!”

  The Prince pounded out his words on the arm of his chair. Gherick muttered something that Finn couldn't hear.

  Then, as quickly as this murderous mood had struck, it was just as quickly gone, as something new appeared before the Prince's eyes.

  A collective sigh swept through the crowd. From an anteroom behind the Prince's chair, a giant, a pillar, a mountain of a creature came into view. Save for the monstrous Grizz, the Bullie was the largest of the Newlies, the nine beings changed from the animals they'd been before.

  And, like all of the Newlies, the Bullie kind retained some reminders of their past. This fellow was tall, hulking, broad-shouldered, immense across the chest. His neck was thick and his eyes were the color of muddy glass. Short, stumpy horns were nearly lost in his braided hair. His great arms were covered with lewd tattoos, and he wore a golden ring in his nose, some rite from ages gone.

  “Ah, here's the one, Finn. Enormous brute, is he not? What's your name again, I can't tell you fellows apart.”

  “Bucerius, sire.”

  His voice seemed to come from some great hollow in his chest. It was clear from his expression that he didn't like the Prince at all, and didn't care if anyone knew.

  “You hear him, Finn? His name's Bucerius. I expect you can remember that.”

  “Why, yes, Your Grace,” Finn said, puzzled at the question. “I'm certain that I can.”

  “Good. Yes. Well, I—believe that's all, is it not? You may leave now, Master Finn. I have much to do and— Damn you, VanDork, now what?”

  “I would merely remind Your Grace…”said the Count, bending close to the Prince's ear.

  “Ah, yes. Well. Here's the thing, Finn. You and what's-his-name here, you will deliver this timepiece gadget of yours to King Llowenkeef-Grymm, in Heldessia Land. Personally, mind you, no nattering dolts and hanger-on types like VanDork here. Right into that miserable person's hands.”
/>
  Finn stared. “Heldessia? Sire, we're at war with Heldessia. How could I possibly do that?”

  “Of course there's a war, Finn. There's always a war. You telling me I can't send a birthday present to that damned oaf because there's a war on? Are you daft, or what?”

  “Sire, how could I possibly get to the King's court? I mean, if you were truly serious, and this wasn't a magnificent bit of humor on Your Grace's part?”

  “Easy, friend,” Lord Gherick said, so softly no one else might hear.

  “Why, the same way everyone gets there. By balloon, of course. Master Finn, I fear you're not listening to me.”

  Indeed, at that moment, Finn could hear nothing at all. Nothing, it seemed, but the terrible silence where his heartbeat used to be

  SEVEN

  slice ‘im up

  cut ‘im up

  rippity-split!

  crack ‘im up

  rack ‘im up

  chop ‘im up a bit!

  HAND IN HAND THE CHILDREN DANCED, DANCED in dizzy circles, danced around their fires, danced in the shadow of the great high towers, danced in the gloom of the fast-approaching night. Happy little urchins, cheery little waifs, raggedy-muffs with runny noses and bright shiny eyes. They danced and they sang and they circled about in the empty courtyard, round and round and round and round about…

  And, when the story was done, they all fell down, screamed and wailed and thrashed about. Choked, croaked, stuck their tongues out in horrid parodies of death. Laughed till they cried, shrieked with great delight. Got up and started all over again. …

  • • •

  FINN SCARCELY NOTED THIS GRIM EVENT, WAS hardly aware of the empty stalls and tents, the clutter and the waste, the foul and odorous remains of Spring Fair and the Chopping of May.

  His mind was so numbed, so fuddled and stunned, he was greatly surprised to see they were very nearly home, back in Garpenny Street.

  Indeed, he had been so angry and distressed, he'd forgotten to retrieve Julia Jessica Slagg from the niche outside the Royal Hall. It was Letitia, then, who had no choice but to still her own fears, who stopped to retrieve the lizard herself—the lizard, and that damnable clock, which had cast a dark shadow over all their lives.

  Farther from the castle, Letitia let Julia down to scuttle along by herself. The lizard croaked and complained about that, for as quick and agile as she surely might be when such a need arose, Julia knew that walking was not her most graceful attitude.

  “You mustn't be upset,” Letitia said, determined to break the silence Finn wore like a cloak about himself. “He can't make you do this, Finn, you don't have to go.”

  Finn stopped, shaken, for a moment, from his dark and desolate thoughts.

  “He can't? What on earth gave you an idea like that?”

  “There are laws, you know. Laws and rules and regulations of every sort. You're a citizen and a—a human, Finn. You have certain rights like everyone else.”

  “That's partially true.”

  “You can be heard. You can declare a grief.”

  “A grievance.”

  “I just said that, didn't I?”

  “Yes, and I believe you chose the better word, not I.”

  “Well, then. It will be all right, I'm sure. They certainly can't send you somewhere in an awful balloon. I know you. You'd be scared out of your wits up there.”

  “I'm scared out of my wits right now, and I'm standing in Garpenny Street on solid cobblestone. Letitia, love, do you recall our conversation, as we were approaching the Royal Hall?”

  “Of course I do. Why would I forget what we talked about, my dear?”

  “We discussed how Count VanDork was a despicable person, and that the reason he is, is that he mirrors the equally despicable character of his master, the Prince. The Prince, with the help of a veritable horde of vermin like VanDork, makes the laws and rules and regulations. These laws do not apply to them. They do apply to us.”

  “But Finn…”Letitia bit her lip, her voice no longer firm, no longer bold. Doubt, now, seemed to slip in and push resolution aside.

  “You're not a vagrant, you know. You're not of common folk. You're a—a master of your craft is what you are. You know people of quality like Lord Gherick, brother of the Prince.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Well, then?”

  “I don't like to say it, but we can't be sure Gherick didn't know about this.”

  “Surely not. He's such a nice man, Finn.”

  “He made himself absent as soon as Aghenfleck gave us the news. I turned around and he was gone.”

  “They're not really close, are they?”

  “Aghen Aghenfleck isn't close to anyone, as far as I know.”

  “He certainly wasn't close to that other relation of his. That… oh, dear, Finn.”

  “His cousin, Baffleton-Kreed. They grew up together. Inseparable, I understand.”

  Letitia looked up at Finn. In the near end of the day, her eyes seemed enormous pools of liquid night. And in those pools, he saw a reflection of himself, an image blurred by a tear, which Letitia quickly wiped away.

  “I'm not being rational, am I,” she said, turning from him then. “I'm making up pretty endings in my head.”

  “Somewhat, yes. But there's nothing greatly wrong with that.”

  “It is, yes. If it holds no truth at all. Oh, Finn…”

  He held her, then, and in a moment she simply turned and walked quickly across the street and opened the latch with her key. She appeared for an instant, before the dim lantern in the hall, and then she was gone. A moment later, Julia squeezed through the portal and followed Letitia inside. There, but a few steps from the door of his house, Finn felt as if he'd never been so utterly, completely alone

  EIGHT

  WITH DARKNESS CAME THE USUAL SOUNDS of night, the boots of a pair of guardsmen on Greenberry Street up the hill, the rattle of a blade against a studded belt. A shout from a fisherman, working on his nets, perhaps, on the river below.

  And, at the end of Garpenny Street, a drift of wispy figures, disembodied souls, phantoms in ragged disarray. One might run out of ale in Ulster-East, Finn reflected, or sacks of wheat meal, but there was never any shortage of the dear departed in town. Foul deeds, pestilence—and, of course, the war—took care of that. The pale and spectral lights of Coldtown were a grim reminder that death was truly an alternate way of life.

  Someone down the street, likely the Wheelcrafter's wife, had left food out for the Coldies that night. For though the dead no longer fed in the ordinary way, they ever hungered for the savor, the essence, the joyous scents of suppers past.

  Letitia might have remembered to leave them something herself, especially on SpringFair, had the day not lingered so long and ended on such an unpleasant note.

  A WARM EVENING WIND MADE ITS WAY DOWN the hill, past Wesser and Doob and Winkerdown Square, on into Garpenny Street. The sign above Finn's head began to creak, and he knew he ought to grease the thing and give the carven lizard a coat of green and gold. Such thoughts had occurred a dozen times before, and somehow the work was never done.

  Truly, it was a task worth his time, for it was the symbol of his trade, and folk judged a craftsman by what they saw outside his shop, not what was done within.

  It was not a fair appraisal, of course, for many of the signs on the street that pictured swords, pies, ale and mead and spells, did not reflect the quality of goods and services offered inside.

  Take Bickershank the Booter, for one. A man would do better to walk unshod on broken glass, than to trust his feet to the torturous wares of Master Bickershank. Once, Finn had caught a glimpse of the fellow's own bare feet, and he had never passed the shop again

  He paused, then, cocked his head and listened, certain he had heard a sound that didn't belong to the ordinary noises of the night. A shuffle and a scrape, a rattle and a shake, something such as that.

  Still, after a moment, when it didn't come again, he decided he was simply
out of sorts from the misadventures of the day.

  And what would be so strange about that? Who wouldn't feel adrift after what I've been through?

  And, worse still, the fear, the awful trepidation, the lurch in his belly, the knowledge that tomorrow would be a hundred times worse than today.

  As much as Finn loathed Aghen Aghenfleck, he found it hard to work up righteous anger at the Prince. In the face of such unthinking folly, such total unreason, it was like getting mad at a solid stone wall. You could kick it, curse it till you were blue in the face, and the damned thing still didn't know you were there.

  Millions of men had died, and death would claim un told numbers more in the brutal, senseless war between Fyxedia and Heldessia Land that had dragged on more than seven hundred years. Finn had no idea what they were fighting for, and had never found anyone who did.

  Yet, in spite of the carnage and destruction, the maimed, the mutilated and the dead, Prince Aghen Aghenfleck found the time to send a gift—a birthday present, mind you—a golden lizard with a clock in its belly, to the horrid, despised King of Heldessia, Llowenkeef-Grymm himself.

  “Why?” he said aloud, and answered himself at once. Easy enough, as the words were his own, loosed not long before. “Because neither law nor reason applies to princes and kings. They do as they will, and damn the rest of us poor bloody souls!

  “And, if a craftsman should tell a prince he does not wish to waste his precious time making lizards with clocks in their bellies, he might find himself some fine holiday on the Grapnel and the Snip.

  “Or,” he added, “a mushing, whatever sort of horror that may be”

  “Someone told me once, that he who talks to himself is conversing with a fool. I suppose there's truth in that.”

  Finn didn't bother to turn around. “I told you that, as you know. I have also said that every adage, every saw, every chestnut of advice, contains its own exception to the rule.”

  Julia Jessica Slagg gave a rusty cackle and waddled into sight.