A Company of Heroes Book Two: The Fabulist

by Ron Miller

  The trio reach the capital just before noon the following day. Diamandis can be called a city with scarcely more accuracy, but considerably less pretension, than Cosmopolitan City. It is little more than a cluster of shops, markets and houses huddled against the foot of the rocky outcropping that supported the duke’s castle. The town is surrounded by a low, ineffectual-looking wall, which in turn is surrounded by a small river and a canal that together acted as a moat. As they approach Bronwyn notices the complex of locks and dams where the city canal terminates the waterway connecting Diamandis with the nearby seaport of Diamandis Antica.

  They cross the wide unguarded bridge and enter the city gate, which opens onto a busy market. They go directly to the small guardhouse that blocks the winding lane that led to the castle. There Bronwyn and the baron present the letters each had written the night before and embossed with their rings. Knowing there would be some time before their introductions filter to the highest necessary level, the trio retreat to a tavern that commanded a view of the guard station.

  Bronwyn sips at a glass of wine, while the two others have, respectively, a beer and ten beers. Bronwyn notices that the baron seems nervous, his conversation is distracted and he barely acknowledges even her pithiest remarks. His fingers drum nervously on the tabletop and what replies she does receive are in grunted monosyllables .

  It is not long before she sees the guard captain wave from his window.

  They recross the plaza. At the hut the guard requests them to accompany a lackey to the castle.

  “He’ll take you to a waiting room where the duke’ll give you an audience,” says the captain, with no effort to hide his distaste and disapproval. He indicates Thud. “This can wait here, until you return.”

  “He comes with us,” says Bronwyn.

  “I’m sorry. There are only two letters requesting audience, and permission is only granted for those two.”

  “If he doesn’t come with me, I’m not going.”

  “Princess!” urges the baron.

  “That’s your problem,” says the captain. “Suit yourself.”

  “We’ll see whose problem it is,” replies Bronwyn. “Let’s go, Baron.”

  “Bronwyn! Just a moment . . .”

  But the girl has already turned her back and is retreating across the plaza, Thud obediently following. The distressed baron chases after her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not going without Thud.”

  “Why not? He’s only a servant.”

  “He is not!” she growls, turning on the baron. “He’s my friend. He gives his life twice for me, no one else has ever done anything like that. I’m not treating him like a servant any longer, and I won’t allow anyone else to!”

  “I’m sorry, but what’re we going to do? We must see the duke. He’s the only one who can help us.”

  “We’ll just have to think of something else.”

  They are interrupted by the guard captain, who has hurried across the plaza to intercept them. “Pardon me, your Highness, your Excellency!” he puffs, now with abject deference. “I telephoned your reply to the duke and he ordered me to admit all of you, at once!”

  “This man, too?”

  “Of course!”

  “See, Baron?” says Bronwyn. “You worry too much.” They turn to follow the captain back to the gate when Bronwyn suddenly cries out, “Hold it! Baron, look!”

  “What?” he asks, looking in the direction she points, toward the high iron gate. A black carriage is leaving the castle grounds. On its lacquered door is the scarlet double-headed eagle of the House of Tedeschiiy.

  “Who is it?” he asks. Bronwyn draws him into the shade of an awning before answering. The golden color has fallen from her face like a snake’s skin, leaving her as pale as a shelled cashew.

  “Look!” she whispers.

  In the window, just briefly as the carriage turned, is a glimpse of a pale grey sphere. Then the driver urges his team and the carriage rattles out of the plaza at speed.

  “Didn’t you recognize him?”

  “No. Who is it?”

  “General Praxx!”

  “That . . . that’s impossible! Why would he be here?”

  “I don’t know . . . that’s what’s frightening. How could he possibly have known we’d be in Diamandis, and at this very time? I don’t like this at all.”

  “It could be a coincidence. He could be here for some unrelated reason.”

  “No, no. Praxx would never leave Blavek, let alone Tamlaght, except for the most compelling reason. What could be more compelling than we?”

  “That sounds a little conceited, but I’ll have to accept your argument . . .”

  “I’m almost afraid to see the duke, now.”

  “You think it could be a trap?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, if it was, why did Praxx leave? Why didn’t he wait for us?”

  “That’s true. The duke had gotten the message that we are waiting to see him. If he’d told Praxx, the general would certainly have waited to arrest us.”

  “We should go on in?”

  “What’ve we got to lose?”

  Following the puzzled yet still obsequious guard to the gate, they are transferred to the care of a subordinate who leads them along a narrow path that ends at a doorway cut into the rock immediately below the ramparts of the castle. They walk down a short tunnel lined with white and green tiles and lit by small electric bulbs. The young officer ushers the three into a small paneled room barely more voluminous than a large closet, with Thud included there is scarcely enough room to breathe. Bronwyn becomes uneasy and not a little frightened: the only door in or out of the little room is the one through which they have just passed. What could the purpose possibly be in crowding them in like this? Is Praxx’s trap sprung this soon and this easily? Bronwyn’s doubts decrease, if her puzzlement did not, when the officer joins them and shuts the door. Immediately upon its closing, there is a distant clang and a prolonged whine. The floor gives a jerk and Bronwyn convulsively clings to the baron’s arm.

  “What is it?” she whispers to him. “The whole room feels like it’s moving! Is it an elevator, like back in Toth?”

  “It is.”

  Before she can say anything else, the room jolts to a stop, nearly lifting the princess from her feet. The door opens and she hurries out, stopping so abruptly that the baron, who is just behind her, bumps into her back, and Thud, who is just behind him, nearly does them all a grave injury. What brings the princess to a halt is the startling appearance of the large room that has replaced the narrow corridor. Instead of a tiled tunnel with slightly curved walls is a spacious salon with tall windows and tapestries hanging on its paneled walls.

  “Is it really the Princess Bronwyn?” comes a voice, echoing slightly in spite of the heavy draperies.

  “Yes?” she answers cautiously.

  “Duke Strelsau!” cries the baron. “What a great pleasure to see you again!”

  “The surprise is all mine!” replies the duke, rising from the deep chair in which he had been engulfed.

  Bronwyn had devoted few thoughts during the last week to what awaited her in Diamandis: it was simply a place to get to, a destination and goal. She had felt a growing distance and disinterest in the forces and motives that had driven her from home, family and, nearly, her life. She had gone from jeopardy to jeopardy, seldom in control, almost always, she felt, victimized by circumstances that, no matter how hard she tried, were always just beyond her grasp. The idyll of the past week was the rennet that congealed a resolve that had been curdling since her betrayal in Toth. That idea was to take advantage of the fact that no one knows where she is, or even if she is still alive for that matter. She is now on foreign soil fourteen hundred miles in a straight line from Blavek, in a rural, agricultural duchy where, by the simple expedient of adopting a new name she could begin a life of bucolic peace. Her mental image of this ideal existence depends a great de
al, of course, on her assumption that Thud would as a matter of course remain with her. The people here know the value of privacy . . . though as close-knit as any small community, they know where the line is drawn. A person’s history is a closed and unimportant book . . . what is past is past, what had been done is done. She would be certainly safe in Lesser Piotr; there would never be any danger of betrayal from its people, no matter what they suspected of her origins or identity. Given, of course, that none of her enemies ever learned otherwise.

  What had begun as virtually a lark, an act of defiance as much as of revenge or a sense of justice, has escalated into a series of difficulties far beyond anything she had imagined possible. In fact, although it had been nearly a year since she had first threatened Payne Roelt and her brother with the exposure of the damning letters, not one of her efforts to defeat their villainous schemes has succeeded. Far from succeeding, in fact, her efforts have only served to bring death or imprisonment to many, and have transformed a crusading princess into a fugitive and an exile.

  The whole thing has gotten far and away out of control. When Bronwyn steps from the elevator into the gleaming salon, her reaction to the unaccustomed device embarrasses her, and now she is standing in a high-ceilinged room, its paneled walls enameled an icy white with gold-framed mirrors inset; tall, narrow windows framed by deep blue drapery; elaborately brocaded furniture in the style of Shahalzin Pordka XXI; scattered, rare carpets on the glossy parquet floor; yet all of this is made ordinary by the elegant duke, who stands greeting them, in a white linen suit perfectly designed to complement his olive face, a smile like a plateful of ice cubes, broad, level shoulders and long legs, the sum total making Bronwyn feel tawdry and buffoonish as she stands there awkwardly in her peasant costume and dirty shoes.

  This is the finish. It’s the end. It’s not worth this.

  “Princess Bronwyn,” the duke is saying, approaching with a hand outstretched, “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to see you again!”

  This is hell. For some reason I just never thought about who this “duke” would be. The baron had always spoken of him as just “the duke” and for some perverse reason she had failed to make the connection between the Duke of Lesser Piotr and the Duke Mathias Strelsau she had met at the reception for Bugarach. Oh, Musrum, I must look like the filthiest peasant-girl. I hate this. I hope that Payne and my brother are flayed alive with tweezers by the Weedking for ten thousand years for doing this to me!

  She holds her hand out; the duke takes it and gives it no less a kiss than he would have given that of the most immaculate woman.

  Bronwyn fails to detect even a flicker of insincerity in the man’s expression yet, nevertheless thought, in rapid succession, if not simultaneously: he’s laughing, he’s disgusted, he’s disappointed, he’s merely courteous, he’s hypocritical, he’s curious, he’s fascinated, he’s amused, he’s uncritical, he’ll obviously kiss anything. The word “fascinated” raises its hopeful head briefly in that litany and is immediately beaten down and overwhelmed by its surly neighbors. If it occurs to Bronwyn that the duke might not have even taken particular notice of the dusty, windblown hair, sun-browned face, or rude clothing, but is rather seeing the lovely princess he had once met altogether too briefly, it is not a serious consideration.

  Bronwyn is too occupied by her own miserable situation to recall accurately her own initial response to the handsome duke; at the moment his suave manner and impeccable appearance only serve to further depress her own self-image. She cannot look at him, yet, objectively.

  “It’s such a great pleasure and surprise to see the both of you again,” he is saying. “And this, um, gentleman?”

  Bronwyn doesn’t realize immediately who the subject of that question is, then: “Oh. Excuse me. Duke Mathias, I would like for you to meet my very good friend and companion, Mr. Thud Mollockle. Thud, this is the Duke Mathias Strelsau.”

  “Hello,” says Thud.

  “I’m delighted to meet any friend of our charming Princess.”

  I am not charming, I am dumbfounded: is the duke simple-minded? It is one thing to overlook her own dishevelment, but no one in her experience has ever, until now, managed to see and treat Thud as anything less than wholly unnatural. Mathias doesn’t even seem surprised at his appearance.

  “Pardon me,” says the duke, “but all of you must’ve had a long journey”, so he did notice!, “and must be tired. I’m eager to learn why I’ve been honored by your visit, but I can’t put my impatience and curiosity ahead of my guests’ comfort. A servant will show you where you can refresh yourselves and, as I insist on your being my guests at the castle, I will in the meantime have rooms prepared. Shall we meet again, say, in an hour?”

  “That would be fine,” answers the baron.

  “Very good!” The duke presses a button at the edge of a table and almost instantly a pair of servants, male and female, appear. At Mathias’s instructions, they lead the trio through a door at the end of the big room. Bronwyn is taken by the female servant in one direction, Thud and the baron in another.

  She follows the maid down a long, irregularly angled corridor and up steps that evidently lead into one of the corner towers of the castle. Here she is presented a largish room lined entirely with spotless white tiles, relieved only by repetitions of the ducal seal in mosaic. Broad, diamond-paned windows flooded the room with light that reverberates from the immaculate walls. Bronwyn finds a shower-bath and lavatory, soaps, oils, powders and piles of thick towels. Left to herself, she gratefully strips away her dusty clothing, climbs into the shower and allows water as hot as she can bear to pummel her from all directions from a battery of strategically placed copper nozzles (once she finally puzzled out the operation of the more than half-dozen valves). Sufficiently reddened, she turns off the water and lathered herself luxuriously, from scalp to toes, rinses, lathers and rinses again. Stepping into the steam-filled room, she towels herself dry, rubs a finely-scented oil into her glowing skin and powders all over with a feather brush. She discovers that while she had been bathing, a dress, stockings and underthings had been left hanging on the inside of the door.

  A simple summery frock with white stockings: it is obviously a young woman’s dress. Bronwyn wonders who it belonged to and rather hopes it is some sister or cousin of the duke’s. No one has yet mentioned the existence of a duchess. The costume’s very simplicity and youth serve Bronwyn well, as it only emphasizes and complements her maturing beauty. She allows her hair to go unbound and it frames her face and shoulders in thick, russet waves. Her skin had acquired a gilding from the sun and set within the golden face are beryl eyes, of exactly that shade that radiates from deep within the ice of an ancient glacier. The fine fabric and simple lines of the dress emphasize her great height, its waist the length of her legs and slimness of her torso, the decorative yoke the breadth of her shoulders.

  Looking in the still-foggy mirror, she is not altogether displeased.

  Opening the door, she discovers the maid patiently waiting for her, sitting in a wooden chair, absorbed in reading (to Bronwyn’s vast amusement) one of the baron’s dime novels. What would she do if she learned that the fabulous baron himself is a guest in the castle? The girl carefully folds her book into one of her apron pockets and quietly leads the princess back to the salon. She never once said a word.

  Neither Thud nor the baron are there; only the duke, who leaps to his feet at her entrance.

  “Ah! Princess! Well! You look lovely!”

  “Well, thank you,” she murmurs, not knowing how to honestly respond to something she really did not believe.

  “Did you find everything you needed? I don’t always get such charming company . . .”

  “Everything is fine. I feel quite refreshed, thank you. You’re very kind.”

  “Not at all: the pleasure is really mine. Please,” he says, gesturing toward a chair, “would you care to sit? Some wine or sherry? Piotran vineyards are unequalled, if you’ll allow me to speak for
our chamber of commerce, of which I am director-general.”

  “Thank you. Actually, I have much experience with your wines, and your description is not even remotely hyperbolic.”

  “You’re too kind! Now, my impatience cannot be further restrained: I must ask: to what am I indebted for this charming visit?”

  “I wanted to ask about that. You didn’t know we are coming?”

  “No, not really.”

  “What does ‘not really’ mean?”

  “I didn’t even suspect you are in my duchy until an hour before you arrived.”

  “You didn’t get the baron’s letters until then?”

  “Letters? No, I’ve gotten no letters from the baron. No, it is . . . someone told me that I’d be expecting you sooner or later this week.”

  “General Praxx?”

  “Why, yes. You knew?”

  “I saw him leave as we are coming in. May I ask you something that may sound impertinent?”

  “You may ask me anything.”

  “Did you tell the general we’d be here this afternoon? We’d left introductions with your guard captain this morning, so I imagine you knew we are in the city at the time the general is here.”

  “True, but I didn’t feel I is under any obligation to supply him with that information.”

  “What did he want?”

  “The general? He seemed pretty certain that you’d be showing up here sometime. . .”

  “How did he know that?”

  “I’ve no idea. He wanted me to contact him immediately upon your arrival.”

  “Have you?”

  “Of course not. Who’d trust him?”

  “You know him, then?”

  “I know of him, which is quite sufficient. Let me tell you something that might answer your questions and put you at ease. Lesser Piotr is a semiautonomous state of Londeac. Our ties, however, are strictly political and traditional. Economically we are and always have been independent; we are, for all practical purposes, an island nation, attached to the mainland by only the slightest of isthmuses. Although we’re virtually independent and have a policy of isolationism and neutrality, Lesser Piotr is, perhaps just for those very reasons, very interested in and aware of what’s going on in Tamlaght. Although I’ve not met the man before, I’m perfectly aware of Praxx’s function and reputation. In fact, I suspect I know a great deal more concerning your own recent history than you may imagine.”