The Last Ringbearer
Page 33
Right! the bird winked mockingly and flitted into the garden; the vivino was a true Umbarian, stranger to Nordic sentimentality.
Bare feet pattered almost noiselessly, and warm Alviss clung to him from behind, brushing her lips across his shoulder blades.
"What did you see out there?"
"A vivino was singing -- a real vivino in the city, can you imagine?"
"Oh, that's my vivino. He's been here for almost a month."
"I see..." Tangorn drawled, feeling, funnily enough, something like a pang of jealousy.
"And here I thought that he came here for me..."
"Listen, maybe he really is yours? He showed up in my garden the same time you did... Yes, right around the first of the month!"
"In any event, it's the best goodbye one can wish from Umbar... Hey, Aly, look -- there's another goodbye!" he laughed, pointing at a gloomy sleepy policeman stationed across the street beside Chakti-Vari's jewelry shop. "The Secret Service politely reminds me to tread carefully until I leave... All right. Have you changed your mind about going today? Maybe you want to settle your affairs here first?"
"No way!" she responded curtly. "I'm coming with you. That caravan has two available bactrians -- isn't that a sign? My lawyer will have to settle my affairs anyway, it's a job for weeks. I suppose everything should be converted to gold, can't be much of a market for securities up North."
"Nobody there would know what they are," he nodded, watching Alviss dress with a smile.
"Aren't we quite a sight, girl? A bankrupt aristocrat with nothing but a sword and a moth- eaten title is marrying the money of a successful widow of the merchant class..."
"...said widow having made her start by selling her body left and right," Alviss concluded in the same vein. "A total misalliance no matter how you look at it, a gold mine for gossips from both classes."
"That's for sure..." He had a sudden thought and started figuring something. "Listen, I just thought... there's plenty of time until noon. Want to get married right away? Choose any rite."
"Yes, darling, certainly... I don't care which rite, either. Let's go Aritanian -- their temple is nearby."
"Aly, what's the problem? You seem unhappy."
"No, of course not! I just had a real bad premonition when you started talking marriage."
"Nonsense," he said firmly. "Let's get dressed and go. Aritanian is fine. By the way, your stone is sapphire, right?"
"Yes, why?"
"While you pretty up, I'll have enough time to visit the honorable Chakti-Vari across the street and buy a wedding present. It's early, but for this kind of money," he picked up the bag with the remainder of Sharya-Rana's gold, "the old man will fly out of bed like a startled pheasant and..."
He cut himself short at the sight of Alviss' face: she paled and her eyes turned from blue to black with widened pupils.
"No!! Tan, dearest, don't go, I pray you!"
"Baby, what's the matter? Another premonition?" She nodded vigorously, unable to speak.
"There's no danger -- I'm out of the game, nobody wants me." She had already gotten hold of herself. "All right, but let's go together, all right? I'll be ready in five minutes. Promise you won't leave the house without me!"
"Yes, mommy!"
"Good boy!" Alviss pecked him on the cheek and slipped into the corridor; Tangorn could hear her give orders to grumbling Tina. Congratulations, Baron, he thought gruffly, your beloved will walk you over by the hand to provide security, since you're incapable of even that much. You've quit the game beaten -- not exactly conducive to self-esteem -- but if you really do obediently wait for Alviss now, you'll simply lose the right to call yourself a man. And if her premonitions are true, then so much the worse for them. Maybe I'm not worth a copper as a spy, but I'm still the third sword of Gondor. I have the Slumber-maker and the mithril coat, should you guys want to risk it. Let your heads be my consolation prize, I'm quite in the mood for that... Damn! He almost laughed. Looks like I'm beginning to treat female premonitions seriously...
He scanned the empty garden, which was in full view from the second floor, then the empty Jasper street with the DSD man in police uniform. Guard cobras in Chakti-Vari's store -- so what? Feet over the windowsill, he thought fleetingly that he'd better spring clear of the flower bed, lest Alviss chew his head off over her favorite nasturtiums. Alviss was almost ready to go when she caught a movement in the garden in the corner of her eye. Her heart lurched; she sprang to the window and beheld Tangorn on the garden path. Blowing her a kiss, he went towards the door. Whispering a few choice expressions better fitting her port youth than current status, Alviss observed, with some relief, that the baron was armed and that his stance showed caution rather than undue attention to the beauty of the summer morning. He went through the door watchfully, crossed the street, exchanged a few words with the policeman and stretched his hand towards the brass knocker on the jewelry shop door...
"Ta-a-a-a-n!!!" Her desperate scream shattered the silence. Too late.
The policeman raised a hand to his mouth, and the next moment the baron sagged to the ground, clutching his throat convulsively.
When she ran into the street the `policeman' was long gone, and Tangorn was living the last seconds of his life. The poisoned thorn spat from an ulshitan -- a small tube used by Far Harad pygmies -- struck him in the neck, a finger's width above the mithril mail; the third sword of Gondor had no time to even draw the Slumber-maker. Alviss tried to lift him; the baron clutched her arms in a death grip and breathed hoarsely: "Tell... Faramir... un... done..."; he tried to say something else, but lacked the air to do it: the alkaloids of the anchar tree on which the pygmies' poison is based paralyze the respiratory muscles. The baron failed both to complete his mission and to let his friends know about it; he died with that thought.
A man nicknamed Ferryman, a `clean-up man' from Elandar's organization, observed the scene from a nearby attic through a cobwebbed hole in the roof. He put his crossbow down, at a loss to figure out who beat him to it so neatly. DSD? Too tidy for 12 Shore Street... What if this is another of the baron's tricks? Maybe he should plink him with a bolt, just to be sure?
By that time Mongoose had already shed his police uniform, becoming once again a duly accredited ambassador of His Majesty the Sultan Sagul the Fifth the Pious, the mighty ruler of non-existent Florissant Islands. He was moving briskly but without undue haste towards the port, where a previously chartered felucca named Trepang was waiting for him. The battle of the two lieutenants had ended the way it had to end, because a professional differs from an amateur in that he plays not until he has scored a beautiful goal or until he has a psychological crisis, but rather until the sixtieth second of the last minute of the game. By the way, that sixtieth second occurred at the port, where Mongoose had another chance to demonstrate his high degree of professionalism. He himself probably would have been unable to say exactly what it was about the Trepang's crew that alerted him, but he turned to the skipper as the man stepped on the ramp after him, as if to ask a question, hit him in the throat with the edge of his palm and jumped into the rusty, oily water between the pier and the ship. The two seconds he gained thereby were enough to get a little green pill from behind his collar and swallow it, so Jacuzzi's operatives only captured another unidentified corpse (the fourth that day). The game that the special command from Task Force F Noanor played with the Umbarian Secret Service ended in a draw, nil-nil.
... Petrified with grief, Alviss held dying Tangorn in her arms. He would never find out the most important part: it was his death at the hands of the Secret Guard that settled Elandar's last doubts, so that same evening his package started north, to L rien, via routes unknown to any man. Nor was he to know that Alviss heard his last choking whisper as "tell Faramir: done!" and would do everything properly... And the certain Someone tirelessly knitting a gorgeous tapestry we call History out of invisible coincidences and rather visible human weaknesses immediately put the entire episode out of His mind:
a gambit is a gambit, sacrifice a piece to win the game, and that's all there is to it...
PART IV -- Ransom for a Shadow
Over and over the story, ending as he began:
"Make ye no truce with Adam-zad -- the Bear that walks like a Man!"
Rudyard Kipling
Chapter 55
Mirkwood, near Dol-Guldur
June 5, 3019
"That's a fresh print, very fresh..." Runcorn mumbled under his breath. He dropped to one knee and, without looking back, signaled Haladdin who was walking some fifteen yards behind to get off the path. Tzerlag, who brought up the rear, overtook the obediently yielding doctor, and now both sergeants were engaged in an elaborate scout ritual by a small spot of wet clay, trading quiet phrases in Common. Haladdin's opinion did not interest the rangers at all, of course; not even the Orocuen's thoughts counted for much in that discussion: the scouts have already worked out a pecking order. The erstwhile enemies -- the Ithilien ranger and the platoon leader of the Cirith Ungol Rangers -- treated each other with exaggerated respect (like, for example, a master goldsmith and a master swordsmith might), but the desert is the desert, and the forest is the forest. Both professionals knew the limits of their expertise very well. The Ithilien ranger had spent his entire life in these forests.
...Back then he still walked upright and with shoulders squared (the right one was not yet higher than the left one), while his face was yet free of a badly healed purple scar; he was handsome, brave, and lucky, with his bottle-green Royal Forester uniform fitting him like a glove -- in other words, a serious threat to womankind. The local peasants disliked him, which he considered normal: villeins only like accommodating foresters, whereas Runcorn took his service with all the seriousness of youth. Being a King's man, he could disregard the local landlords; he quickly put their courts, which used to visit the royal forests like their own larder under his predecessor, in their place. Everybody knew the story of Eggy the Chicken Hawk's band that had wandered into their country once -- Runcorn did away with those guys all by himself, not deigning to wait for the sheriff's men to pry their behinds off the benches of the Three Pint Tavern. To sum it up, the neighbors treated the young forester with cautious respect but not much sympathy, which he did not care much for anyway. He was used to being by himself since he was a child, and socialized with the Forest way more than with his peers. The Forest was everything to him: playmate, interlocutor, mentor, eventually becoming his Home. Some people even claimed that he had in him the blood of the woodwoses -- forest demons from the ominous Druadan Dell. Well, people in remote forest villages say all sorts of things during chilly fall evenings, when only the feeble light of a splinter keeps the ancient evils from getting out of the dark corners... To top it all off, at one point Runcorn stopped showing up at village festivities (to acute disappointment of all eligible maidens in the vicinity) and instead hung out at a tumbledown shack at the edge of Druadan, where an old medicine woman from the far north (maybe as far as Angmar) had settled some time before with her granddaughter Lianica. Manwe only knows what such an eligible bachelor saw in that puny freckled girl; many supposed that witchcraft was involved -- the old woman certainly knew some spells and could heal with herbs and laying of hands, which was her livelihood. Lianica was known to talk to birds and beasts in their language and could have a ferret and a mouse sit together in the palm of her hand. This rumor may have owed to the fact that she avoided people (as opposed to forest animals) so much that she was originally thought to be dumb. The local beauties, when someone would mention the forester's strange choice, only snorted: "Whatever. Maybe they'll make a good couple."
It did look like they would have, but it was not to be. One day the girl ran into the young landlord, out with his company to hunt and `improve the serfs' blood line a bit;' those exploits of his have even caused some of his neighboring landlords to grumble: "Really, young sir, this propensity of yours to screw everything that moves..." It was a routine matter, nothing to get excited about, really. Who'd've thought that the fool girl would drown herself, as if something precious had been taken away from her? No, guys, it really is true that all northerners are nuts.
Runcorn buried Lianica alone -- the old woman could not bear the loss of her granddaughter and passed away two days later without regaining consciousness. The neighbors came to the cemetery mostly to check whether the forester would put a black-feathered arrow on the grave, signifying an oath of vengeance. But no, he did not risk that. Nor was that a surprise; sure, he's the King's man, but the King is far, while the landlord's company (eighteen thugs, gallows material all) is right here. Still, the guy turned out to be weaker than we first thought... So did those villagers who bet on Runcorn's vengeance (two- or even three-to- one) grumble in the Three Pint Tavern, sourly counting out the coins they have lost onto the sticky tables.
However, the young lord was of a different opinion -- he was exceedingly prudent in all matters that did not involve his passion for `pink meat.' The forester did not strike him as a man who would either let such a thing pass or go to court and write petitions (which amounted to the same thing). That sprightly peasant girl upon whom he bestowed his favor in the forest despite her objections (damn, the bitten finger still hurts)... To be honest, had he known that a man such as Runcorn was courting her, he would've simply passed by, especially seeing as the girl turned out to be nothing much. But what's done is done. Comparing his impressions with those of the company leader, the landlord knew that the absence of a black arrow meant only that Runcorn was not one for theatrical gestures and cared little for the gawkers' opinions. A serious man who needed to be dealt with seriously... That same night the forester's house was set afire from all four sides. The arsonists propped the door shut with a large beam; when a man's shadow appeared in the fire-lit attic window, arrows flew from the darkness below; after that, no one tried to escape the burning hut.
A King's forester burned alive was no stinking serf that managed to get run over by a landlord's horse; no cover-up was possible. Although...
"Everybody here thinks it was the poachers, sir. The late forester, gods rest his soul, was real hard on them, so they struck back. A really sad story... More wine?" The young landlord addressed those words to the court's magister from Harlond, who had stopped at his hospitable manor.
"Yes, please! A wonderful claret, haven't had its like for a while," the magister, a dumpy sleepy old man with a nimbus of silver hair around a pink bald spot, nodded courtly. For a long time he admired the flames in the fireplace through the wine in a thin Umbarian glass, and then raised his faded blue eyes -- piercing icicles, not sleepy at all -- at his host.
"By the way, that drowned girl -- one of your serfs?"
"What drowned girl?"
"Why, do they drown themselves every other day here?"
"Oh, that one... No, she was from the north somewhere. Is it important?"
"Maybe, maybe not." The magister again raised the glass to eye level and said thoughtfully:
"Your estate, young sir, is very well-kept -- an example for all landlords in this area. I figure at least two and a half hundred marks in annual rents, right?"
"A hundred fifty," the landlord lied smoothly and caught his breath: praise Eru, the conversation is turning to real business. "About a half goes to taxes, plus there're the mortgages..."
Poachers, you say? All right, poachers it is. A suitable candidate was soon found; after some time on a rack above a censer the man made the appropriate confession and was duly impaled on a stake, as a lesson to the other serfs. The court magister departed to town, tenderly hugging to his side a money bag with a hundred eighty silver marks... All set? Right!..
From the very beginning the landlord was troubled by the absence of any bones in the rubble of Runcorn's house. The company leader, who had personally commanded that operation, tried to calm his boss down: the house was large, with a wooden rather than earthen floor, the fire had burned for more than an hour, so the corpse must have bur
ned to cinders, this does happen often. However, the young lord, being (as already mentioned) prudent beyond his years in nearly all matters, ordered his men to examine the location once again. His worst suspicions came true: the forester, who had had his share of surprises, was prudent, too, with a thirty-yard tunnel leading from the basement outside. There were a few fresh blood spots on the tunnel floor -- one of the arrows had found its mark that night.
"Find him!" the young lord ordered -- quietly, but in a tone of voice that made his hastily assembled henchmen break out in goose bumps. "It's us or him, no going back. So far, Orom be praised, he's licking his wounds somewhere in the forest. If he escapes, I'm a dead man, but you will all die before me, I promise."
The landlord took personal charge of the hunt, declaring that he would not rest until he sees Runcorn's corpse with his own eyes. The fugitive's tracks led inside the forest and were clearly readable throughout the day; the man had not bothered to conceal them, apparently assuming that he was believed dead. Closer to evening the company leader found a cocked crossbow hidden in the bushes by the path; more precisely, the crossbow was found later, after its bolt had already buried itself in the leader's gut. While the henchmen bickered around the wounded man, another arrow whistled in from somewhere, taking a man in the neck. Runcorn gave himself away thereby -- his silhouette showed briefly between the trees some thirty yards away down the dale, and they all chased him down a narrow clearing between the bushes. That was the idea: to get them all to run without looking down. As a result, three men wound up in the pit, more than he expected. Eggy the Chicken Hawk's bandits have crafted it with skill and care: eight feet deep with sharp stakes at the bottom, smeared with rotten meat to guarantee a blood poisoning at the very least. Twilight fell, and the gloom deepened. The landlord's men were very cautious now, moving along in pairs; when they finally spotted Runcorn in the bushes, they showered him with arrows from twenty yards away. Alas, when they approached (right in the path of a five- hundred-pound log that dropped from a nearby tree), they found only a roll of bark dressed in some rags. Only then did the landlord realize that even just getting away from Eggy's forest stronghold where this damned wos had so expertly lured them would be very difficult: the night forest around them was chock-full of deadly traps, and their four wounded (not to mention two dead) have robbed their company of mobility. Another thing he understood now was that their overwhelming numerical superiority was of no consequence in this situation and the role of prey was theirs at least until dawn.