by Victor Milán
And why not? His favorite kinsman and personal champion was about to walk through those doors.
That made Melodía smile as well. She held her breath as the new herald belted out, “His Grace—”
What? she thought. Did father make Jaume a Duke and not tell me?
“—Falk, Herzog von Hornberg.”
A figure strode in, tall, wide, and astonishing in gleaming royal-blue plate armor. A black cape hung from impossibly broad shoulders. A black falcon displayed, wings elevated, screamed silent defiance from the silver shield painted on his breastplate. Blue and black plumes nodded from a helmet held in the crook of his arm. The head above all that splendid metal was wide, if no wider than the neck, the strong, square face fringed by black beard. The eyes pierced like naked sunlight through blue glass.
After a breathless moment, the courtiers swirled into excited whispers. Melodía realized she had been holding her own breath. She let it go.
“Von Hornberg?” she heard the Chief Minister exclaim. “Von Hornberg, the rebel?”
The newcomer looked down at Felipe, who sat gazing up at him wide-eyed as a hatchling raptor. He stopped the prescribed three meters from the throne.
“Your Majesty,” he said in a voice like a great bass drum, “I have come to thank you for the most gracious pardon you have seen fit to bestow upon me, and pledge my sword to your service.” He spoke in excellent but abominably Alemán-accented Spañol.
Voices cried out in alarm as he drew blade. The Tyrants behind Felipe’s throne stepped forward, ready to split that huge head like an orange with their halberds.
Falk tossed the meter-long weapon in the air. It turned over once. He caught it by the tip in a gauntleted hand, took two strides forward, and knelt with a tunk of steel kneecap on scarlet carpet, presenting the hilt to his Emperor on his low dais.
Shocked silence ensued, and lingered for many beats of Melodía’s heart.
“Oh, bravo!” Felipe cried. He clapped his hands in delight. He reached out and briefly grasped the proffered silver pommel.
“I accept your service and gladly, my good Duke,” he said. “Rise, and know that you have won my favor.”
The courtiers clapped madly again as Falk rose once more to his imposing height, feeding his arming-sword back into his scabbard as he did so.
Father always was a sucker for cheap melodrama, Melodía thought.
Pages stepped forward to guide Duke Falk to the appropriate place to the Emperor’s right. Mondragón’s gaunt great-nosed face looked even more pinched than usual, as if he smelled someone who’d stepped in fresh horror dung.
From his side Melodía saw the Duke staring frankly at her. She frowned and looked quickly away.
Then she glanced back. Why, he’s so young! she realized with a shock. He can’t be a dozen years older than I am. His outlandish size and presence had masked his youth.
Trumpets skirled again. The herald seemed somehow revived when he stepped forward this time.
“Comes now,” he cried, “the most worshipful Montador Jaume, Comte dels Flors, Knight-Commander of the Order of the Companions of Our Lady of the Mirror.”
A waiting ensemble struck up a tune with brio: “Un Ball per la meva Noia Jove,” “A Dance for My Young Girl.” Melodía felt a flush rise hot up her cheeks: it was she for whom Jaume wrote the tune, years ago when she was a child and he a dashing youth who had already begun to make his name in the professions of both arts and arms.
Jaume entered the Great Hall as if he’d just conquered it, step lively, head high. He was tall, lean, and lithe, yet wide across the shoulders in his cream surcoat with the red Lady’s Mirror emblem of his order on the chest. His dark-orange hair was tied back.
Long turquoise eyes met Melodía’s. Thin lips smiled ever so slightly.
Things had evolved between them, since she was a child and he a lad. She thought now, as she always did, that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Or would see.
His famous longsword, the Lady’s Mirror, rode in a baldric of pale brown strider leather over his right shoulder. It had been a shocking gaffe on someone’s part to allow Falk—a recent rebel as well as a stranger—near the Emperor armed. But to their bodyguards’ despair, it had long been the custom for Emperors to allow those who bore arms in their names to carry them into their presence. What sense, Felipe argued, did it make to have a champion who couldn’t actually defend you in person?
Jaume knelt before his sovereign. No nonsense about him juggling his blade, Melodía noted with a spiteful glance at Falk.
Beaming, Felipe stood. “Arise, mi Campeón Imperial,” he said, “and let me embrace my beloved nephew.”
This time the hall rang with applause as Felipe hugged Jaume. Melodía knew most of it was unfeigned. As the foremost poet of the day, and perhaps its greatest knight, Jaume was popular throughout Nuevaropa, and nowhere more than here in the South.
Of course, there were a few less admiring looks turned his way as well. She chose not to notice them.
“You have brought me a great victory,” Felipe said, stepping back with a last fond pat on Jaume’s shoulder and resuming his seat.
“With respect, your Majesty, I had little enough to do with winning it. The Princes’ War was almost over by the time my Companions and I arrived.”
His eyes flicked left to Falk. Melodía thought he was a bit surprised to see his recent foeman standing there ahead of him.
“Your reports were admirably complete,” Felipe said. “I hope to hear the whole story from your lips as soon as may be.”
“At your service, Majesty.”
He bowed again and turned to his right. Bowing once more, gravely, he said, “Infanta Montserrat. You’ve gotten taller since I saw you last.”
“You don’t need to bow to me, Jaume,” she said. “You’re my friend.”
“Always, Infanta. But we’re at court, now, where other concerns take precedence.”
“How can anything be more important than being friends?” Montserrat piped. One of her minders stepped forward to shush her.
“How, indeed?” Jaume murmured, smiling. He turned a few degrees more.
“Alteza,” he said. “My lady Melodía. You’ve grown so beautiful I fear it surpasses my gifts to describe.”
“I doubt that,” she said.
She thought she saw a shadow flit behind his eyes and regretted teasing him. Almost. But she knew that if anything was bothering her friend and lover, it certainly wasn’t that. They’d been teasing each other since almost the day they met.
She took his hands. As always their wiry strength thrilled her.
“I never flatter, Highness,” he said. “You of all people should know that.”
She blushed, feeling utterly naked in her gold-and-jewel encrustation of state. Although to be fair, it left a lot of her bare, as was common on formal occasions. Jaume raised her hands toward his lips.
Metal clashed on metal. Startled, Melodía and Jaume turned to look at the great door. A palace steward stood beyond Tyrant halberds crossed to bar his entry.
“Your Majesty!” he cried, face flushed and sweat-shiny in amber lamplight. “An intruder has been found in your apartments.”
“He’s been taken into custody, I trust,” Felipe said.
“No, señor,” the steward said. “He’s been murdered!”
Chapter 7
Pájaro carraca, Carrack-bird—Hesperornis. A common type of flightless aquatic bird with a toothed lower beak; 1.5 meters long, 8 kilograms. Eats mostly fish, but also small amphibians and other animals. Elegant in water, clumsy on land; prone to truculence.
—THE BOOK OF TRUE NAMES
“Hold up there, mute,” said one of the three. Their backs were to Rob. They showed no awareness he was in the alley behind them. They carried clubs. “We want a word with you.”
“If he can hear it,” a second said.
Evidently the busker could. He stopped and turned. By a yellow gleam straying out of wind
ow shutters Rob saw his face. It looked composed, almost serene.
Rob wondered at his sanity.
“We represent the Bonnechance County Entertainer’s Guild,” the first man said. He was long and lean, with a prominent Adam’s apple. “You’ve been performing publicly without a Guild license.”
The man Rob believed—hoped, anyway—to be Karyl Bogomirskiy canted his head right. His brow was lightly furrowed as if in thought. Rob could see, even under his cloak, that his shoulders stayed relaxed.
“You’re depriving good Guild members of pay! We can’t have that. Our families will starve.”
“Can we hit him now?” asked the second Guildsman. He was even slighter than Karyl and no taller. He cradled his arm-long truncheon as if it were a baby. Rob reckoned him much more interested in inflicting pain than alleviating that of starving Guild families.
The third man was a bulwark of shadow. Though he hadn’t said anything, a slight sway betrayed uncertainty. Indeed, none of the three struck Rob as overly confident. The leader covered hesitancy with bravado, the second man with viciousness. Did they suspect their victim’s identity?
No, Rob decided. They’ve no way of knowing that. They’re simply bullies. Their victim’s failure to show deference or fear unnerves them.
“Nothing to say for yourself?” the leader demanded. He squeezed out a brassy laugh. “But I forgot. You’re mute!”
The cloaked man turned away. The volcano muttered evilly to itself. Brimstone spiked the warm, heavy air.
The chief bravo grabbed the busker’s left shoulder and spun him around. As if by accident the cloaked man’s staff rapped the bravo’s left knee.
The Guildsman yelped and danced back, clutching his leg. The second bravo, the eager one, shouted “Hey!” and lunged.
The leader stumbled over a strew of junk and sat down hard. The busker leaned forward as if concerned. His stick pivoted over his thigh to jut to his right.
Before he could stop, the second Guildsman ran his groin right onto it. He doubled over with a bellows wheeze.
“Bastard!” the lead bravo shouted. He scrambled up and swung his club.
The busker had straightened and stood holding the top of his staff. He wheeled away from the cudgel-stroke. His staff swung out. It tripped the Guildsman, who fell onto his doubled-over companion. Both went down.
The leader squawked like a wet vexer as the two rolled in alley muck reeking of mildew and decay. As if reluctantly the third man advanced on the busker. A cauldron belly overhung his strider-leather loincloth. Rob could make out little of his face, but it looked oddly shaped. Rob wondered just exactly what sort of public entertainment this one provided.
Taking hold of his staff again, the busker kicked its lower end. It pivoted quickly up to crack the other beneath a lantern jaw.
Dropping his cudgel, the bravo fell to his knees and began to weep, clutching a split and bleeding chin.
“I’ve had enough of you!” the lead Guild bravo yelled. He had disentangled himself from his cohort and regained his feet. A short sword glinted in yellow alley light.
He charged. The cloaked man leaned away, avoiding a forehand slash guided more by rage than skill. As he did he whipped his staff down and away from himself. Something flew away to land clattering in impenetrable dark.
The bravo had overbalanced. As he fought to recover, the busker stepped past his right side with his own right leg. Light scurried like a handroach along a meter of bright metal.
Rob heard a sound like tearing silk.
The bravo fell to his knees. Black spray fanned from his neck.
The busker turned to face the other Guildsmen. He had lost his hat. Where he had held a stick before, now he held a single-edged sword.
The surviving bravos had found their feet, and short swords of their own. They rushed their foe with desperate fervor.
Like a living shadow, the cloaked man slid left, toward the smaller attacker. Rob thought he had never seen a man move as quickly. Yet he didn’t seem to hurry. Impossibly, there seemed an air of deliberation about his movements, as if each were planned carefully in advance and exactly executed.
The little bravo raised his short sword for an overhand hack. His opponent whipped past him, slicing open the belly thus exposed.
Gobbling a cry more of surprise than pain, the bravo tripped in slimily gleaming loops of his own intestines and pitched forward. As he went down, the cloaked man slashed him diagonally across the back of the neck. His piteous gurgles ended.
The lead bravo flopped on his face, bled dead.
Wheezing like a frightened morion, the big man rushed the busker. His opponent spun clockwise out of the way of a clumsy but powerful downward cut.
The short sword swept past a cloaked left shoulder. As he faced away from his opponent, the busker reversed grip on his own weapon. He laid his left forearm on its butt and thrust straight back beneath his right arm.
Rob saw the big bravo’s eyes go wide as the sword-tip crunched through his sternum. He uttered a child’s wail of pain.
The busker yanked his sword free as the last man fell.
Then he stabbed with it, straight down. The bravo kicked at foul-smelling mud and went still.
“You want to make sure your victims die?” Rob asked. Somehow his voice had grown hoarse in the last handful of seconds.
“He was dying anyway,” the busker said. “He didn’t need to suffer.”
He glanced up and down the alley for further foes. Rob’s announcement of his own presence made no visible impression.
The cloaked man flicked his blade. It shed dark droplets like a carrack-bird’s back. Kneeling, he wiped the sword on the back of the lead bravo’s vest. Then he walked to where the rest of the blackwood staff lay. He inserted the sword-tip in the scabbard mouth, angled it up, thrust it until it clicked home.
Rob applauded softly. And only half sardonically.
“This is a bad thing,” the busker said, shaking his head. Though the night was warm, as most nights were, Rob couldn’t make out the faintest sheen of sweat on his pale forehead. “If only they hadn’t drawn blade.…”
He picked up his bag of props, which he had dropped when the Guild bravos braced him. Then he walked on his way.
“Why were you acting mute?” called Rob, who could barely imagine voluntarily not talking.
“To avoid misunderstanding,” the other said. He neither paused nor turned his head.
Rob glanced at the bodies. “Hard to misunderstand this,” he said to himself.
As dogged as a matador trailing a wounded thunder-titan, he followed.
* * *
The busker’s hovel slumped at the village outskirts. Beyond it, fields of ripe grain and bean frames stretched pale to the ever-waiting woods. Apparently built for storage, the shack was a jumble of black lava rocks, with a plank and cycad-frond roof thrown on to keep out the frequent rains. At which it met indifferent success, Rob noticed, watching residual drips from an afternoon shower fall to the tramped-earth floor.
Surprisingly, it didn’t stink inside. The busker kept body and clothing clean, anyway. He didn’t object when Rob, having followed him here, followed him inside.
“You are Karyl Bogomirskiy, aren’t you?” Rob asked.
The man was sorting through his few possessions by faint volcanic light through the open door. He stuffed even fewer of them into an oiled-canvas rucksack. He didn’t answer.
“Be kind, man,” Rob said, speaking Spañol now. “My name’s Rob Korrigan. I have a proposition for you.”
“The answer’s no.” The other’s Spañol was excellent, as befitted the highly educated man Rob knew the former Voyvod of the Misty March to be.
“Ah, but I can’t hear that,” Rob said, digging in an ear with a fingertip. “I’m only looking after your interests, amigo. You’ll see.”
Karyl looked up with eyebrow hooked. “If you’re so solicitous of my welfare, why didn’t you lend a hand back there?”
“You were doing quite well for yourself. I’ve seldom seen a man lay out three foes so slickly. Never, to put none too fine a point on it.”
Bearded lips twitched. “If you’d helped, I wouldn’t have had to kill any of them.”
“That troubles you?”
“Taking life’s a serious thing, because it’s irrevocable.”
He straightened, experimentally slinging a strap over one shoulder. For all his hatred of nobles, it pained Rob to see this one reduced to such a state.
“You balk at killing?” Rob asked.
“I kill when I must. I don’t enjoy it.”
“Why do it, then?”
“Because though my life’s a small and miserable thing, it is my own, and not to be stolen from me by the likes of them.”
He stood a moment, frowning pensively at Rob by weak pink light. Out beyond the hills and woods, Vieux Charlot rumbled like a treetopper’s gizzard stones. He sighed.
“Obviously I have to leave town now,” he said. “So I may as well hear your proposition.”
Chapter 8
Gancho, Hook-horn—Einiosaurus procurvicornis. A hornface (ceratopsian dinosaur) of Anglaterra, where they are a popular dray beast, quadrupedal and herbivorous; 6 meters long, 2 meters high, 2 tonnes. Named for their massive forward-hooking nasal armament. Two longer, thinner horns project from the tops of their neck-frills. Placid unless provoked.
—THE BOOK OF TRUE NAMES
“You’re a terrible musician,” Rob Korrigan said. He led his companion across Pot de Feu by alley—briskly, because he was nervous about Entertainers Guild spies.
Karyl, as Rob had decided to think of him, followed silently. After his spirited display of defensive skill, he had lapsed into silent apathy.
To Rob’s surprise his gibe brought a response: “I know.”
“You do? Then why d’you play?”
“I needed accompaniment. Since I didn’t speak, I found that music—even bad music—brought me larger audiences, and excited them more.”