A Company of Heroes Book Two: The Fabulist

by Ron Miller

  “Only in that I don’t believe I have any reason for feeling that I owe you an explanation . . .”

  “But . . . ?”

  “Why not? We have some time ahead of us before your cruise is finished, and it’s as good a topic of conversation as any. Would you join me in the salon? I think we’d be more comfortable.”

  Bronwyn follows Bugarach into the deckhouse, the interior of which has been decorated richly and furnished elegantly. The walls are ornamented with an ominous collection of edged weapons: antique and modern, exotic and familiar. She finds a comfortable-looking wing chair and sits in it, legs and arms crossed.

  “To tell you the truth,” she says, “I don’t know that you’ll be able to tell me anything that I either don’t know or haven’t guessed.”

  “You’re probably right. Would you care for some sherry? I have an excellent Wrawwroke here I think you’d appreciate.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Bugarach shrugs his shoulders and pours himself a dram of the purple liquid. He turns and leans against the cabinet of sparkling decanters. He takes an appreciative sip. “There’s really no reason for you to be like this, Bronwyn . . .”

  “You’ve no right to use my name familiarly.”

  He shrugs again and says with a small smile, “Princess Bronwyn, then. There are discussions of providing a far more permanent fate for you. Both Payne Roelt and General Praxx are all for simple elimination. In fact, I wouldn’t expect any really severe reprimand should I violate my orders to the extent of dropping you overboard, suitably ballasted, anytime before reaching our destination. It is only by the narrowest margin that it is deemed wiser to instead take you where you’re now going.”

  “Am I supposed to feel grateful?”

  “Did I imply that? This isn’t being done for your benefit, I assure you . . . believe me, you’ll have nothing to feel grateful for.”

  “You’re a traitor to your class, Bugarach.”

  “Lord Bugarach.”

  “Bugarach. I judge by this boat that you don’t sell yourself cheaply. Or do your perverse hobbies have handsome prizes?”

  “You’re not going to irritate me, just in case you want to save the effort.”

  “It’s no effort.”

  “Well, you’re wrong on one count at least, if you think that I’ve been paid in coin.”

  “No low merchant you, is that it?”

  “Not at all. I is simply made a better offer.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You.”

  Bronwyn’s eyes slit as though two shutters have just slammed shut. Emerald glints through them like green rays from a prism. She doesn’t say anything.

  “You haven’t asks yet where you’re going.”

  “All right: where?”

  “The court of the Badaud Alcatode in Spondula.”

  “What?” Bronwyn can’t disguise the surprise that shows in her voice and face.

  “I thought that would crack the ice a little,” he smirks.

  It has indeed. Bronwyn has heard stories about Ibraila since she was a little girl, almost all of them designed to either disgust or frighten her. The excesses of the Ibrailan court were used as the most evil possible examples of what constituted the absolute antithesis of Musrumic and Tamlaghtan conservatism. The Ibrailans are barbarians of an almost definitive order and their Badaud is the example they all looked to for inspiration.

  Bronwyn has little doubt that Bugarach has the infamous harem of the Badaud Alcatode in mind. That would certainly, if everything she has been told and has read is even remotely true, be a fate worse than being dropped over the side of the ship just behind a few hundred pounds of scrap iron.

  “Do you see the beauty of it, your Highness? Simply having you destroyed would not have a certain, um, how shall I put it? A certain finesse, an artfulness, if you will. If I are to have returned to Blavek and reported that you’d been neatly and promptly disposed of, it would’ve been too simple, don’t you see? There would be nothing for the mind to linger over during those odd moments. Just a mental image of a dead body, that’s all. How boring. Oh, perhaps there might be a few moments of terror or pain to savor, but that would be all. Not much return for all of the trouble you’ve put my superiors to.”

  Bronwyn is looking at the suave, handsome man, who is gesturing dreamily with his sherry glass, completely lost in his speculations, trying to decide which are stronger: her feelings of revulsion or horror.

  “This way, however, Payne, Praxx or your brother can lie awake for a few minutes every night, aware that you are no doubt still alive, and wistfully drop off to sleep knowing that you wish you aren’t. I doubt, though, that their imaginations would really be able to compare with the reality of your situation. Praxx’s might, on second thought, though he seems to me to be a particularly sexless item. Since that will be the major theme of your, um, punishment, Praxx may have some difficulties with the more bizarre nuances. I see a flicker of disgust on your face.”

  “If you do, it’s devoted entirely to you.”

  “Do I disgust you? I really haven’t given you any reason yet.”

  “Do I detect a threat?”

  “Threat? Well, I suppose that from your point of view you might find the Immediate future threatening . . . I’m looking forward to It, myself.”

  “You seem altogether too sure of yourself, Bugarach.”

  “I have every reason to be, I assure you.”

  “There’s no way you’ll get away with this.”

  “Why not? You’re only being trite, now, Princess. No one knows where you’ve gone, no one knows where you are now . . . at least no one who matters to you, at any rate. And the only place I’ll be soon is back among the very people whose sole interest is in your continued absence. So why shouldn’t I get away with it?

  “And don’t think for a minute that anyone on board the Limnoria will lift a finger to help you. I’m sailing with a skeleton crew which has been carefully hand-picked. . . “

  , like a scab, mutters Bronwyn.

  “. . .There’s nothing you could offer them that they know perfectly well that I could not only outmatch but can actually produce. So far as you’re concerned, they’re blind, deaf and mute. And, in any case, they’ve just been given strict orders to remain below no matter what they hear.”

  “We’ll see what happens when I get to Spondula . . . I assume that’s where you’re taking me?”

  “Oh, I could have you picked up at any one of a dozen deserted coves, but there’s no necessity for that, and it would be something of a hardship for me. No, you’re quite right, we’re bound for Spondula. We should arrive late tomorrow, in fact.”

  “As I says, we’ll see what happens then.”

  “You don’t seem to realize that it’s not really very important, at least not as important to you as the next few hours might be.”

  “The threat again?”

  “Here’s my reasoning: we both know, at least by reputation, what the harem of the Badaud Alcatode is like, and even if we didn’t our knowledge of the Ibrailan character would give us a clue. In any case, I’m sure that you’ve deduced by now that the Badaud’s harem is your eventual and imminent destination; a bottomless pit from which you’ll have no hope of emerging. The Badaud’ll be deaf to your protests and entreaties, he’s heard them all before, and why should he care more about your own than any other? No one outside’ll know that you’re there, and there’ll be no one in all of Ibraila who would help you even if they dared.

  “The Badaud’s only interest will be in the fact that I’ll have delivered to him an extraordinarily lovely and even exotic new plaything, I don’t know when he last had a certifiably royal princess among his women, or even a woman who could read for that matter, he’ll reimburse me and I’ll be on my way. Who you are or who you claim to be will be of no influence on him at all, at least nothing positive from your point of view. To repeat myself, it’ll be exactly as though I’d dropped you into a bottomless
sand pit; there’s no escape and the more you struggle, the faster you’ll sink. In fact, the more you struggle, the more the Badaud’ll like it. It’s the kind of thing he enjoys.”

  “Now I see no reason not to deliver merchandise that’s already been, ah, utilized. After all, you’re no longer a virgin, I assume, so that little thrill is already denied my client.”

  “I thought you’d be getting around to that. You really are a feeble little coward, aren’t you?”

  “Probably. To tell you the truth, the idea of physically forcing you to submit to me is rather exciting. When’ve you ever allowed yourself to be subjugated by a man? Taken against your will? I can see by the expression on your face what you think of that. Well, I think that it’s about time, then.”

  “You’re afraid of me, then, aren’t you?”

  “Afraid of you? Whyever would I be?”

  “What a miserable little victory you plan for yourself. What had you in mind? Beating me into submission, then raping me?”

  “No, not exactly. The former, certainly, but I is rather hoping that you’d soon arrive at a point where you’d beg me to take you.”

  “And something as pathetic as that excites you?”

  “It’s not as easy a thrill to come by as you might think. Women like you are altogether too rare, believe me.”

  “Life must be a real burden for you sometimes.”

  “Ennui is the only real hell there is,” he sighs as he places his empty sherry glass on the sideboard and rubs his palms together. They make a dry sound, like two sheets of paper. “I’ve been looking forward to this day for weeks.”

  “Then how much more awful your disappointment will be.”

  “It begins?”

  “It does,” Bronwyn replies, vaulting over the back of her chair. Two long steps and she snatches one of the slim blades from the wall. “Except for one thing,” she adds.

  “Whatever could that be?” asks Bugarach, still advancing as casually as though he really was entertaining a guest, though his face is pale and glistening.

  “I think that I want you!”

  “What?”

  “I said that I think that I want you!”

  “No, no. No. You can’t do that,” he chides, stopping in the middle of the salon.

  “Come on, Lord Bugarach,” she says, advancing a step or two, twirling the end of the sword in small circles, “be a sport!”

  “This is no joke, Bronwyn! Put that down!”

  “No.”

  “You’ll regret this, Bronwyn . . .”

  “Stop calling me that. I’ve told you before, it’s ‘your Highness’ to you.”

  “Your Highness,” he sneers. “What I’d planned for you is merciful compared to what I must do now.”

  “And what terribly melodramatic thing might that be?” she enquires calmly, advancing another two or three steps. Bugarach holds his ground until the fourth.

  “You’re not going to deliver damaged goods to your friend the Badaud, are you?” she asks.

  “Put that down; you’re going to hurt someone.”

  “Probably. I wonder who? Not me, I’m on the blunt end.”

  She makes a sudden lunge at Bugarach, not a serious thrust, she is still too far away, but just enough to see what will happen. The man leaps backward with a squeal and falls over a hassock. He scrambles to his feet and places a chair between himself and the still-advancing girl.

  “All right, Bronwyn, Princess Bronwyn, your Highness, you may go back to your cabin,” he says, his voice shaking. “I’ll leave you alone until we get to Spondula. All right? Agreed?”

  “No. Come on, Bugarach, I’d really like to see what you can do.”

  “You’re joking.”

  She makes another sudden leap, and two or three slashes with her blade send horsehair flying from the lacerated chair only a fraction of an inch from the man’s fingertips. Bugarach squeals again, snatching his hands back. Bronwyn carefully keeps between the sniveling man and the outside door. She herds him around the room as though he is a sheep. She begins to enjoy this exercise and refines her control, seeing how easily and accurately she can dictate his movements.

  Bugarach is perspiring so freely it drips from his nose and his black hair is plastered to his forehead.

  “You are excited,” she says. “I like that. But you look overheated. Why don’t you take your jacket off?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Take the jacket off, please.” It flies across the room. He has removed it without even waiting to unbutton it.

  “That’s better now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now I think the shirt should go.”

  “No!”

  Bronwyn has carelessly allowed Bugarach to place himself behind a light chair and as he says the above word, he suddenly throws it at her, bolting for the door at the same time. The chair strikes her painfully across the shins but she is after him almost instantly. She lashes out with her sword and its tip slices across the retreating buttocks like a whip. He screams in a high-pitched wail, stumbles and falls.

  “Help!” he shrieks, abandoning all pretense of suavity. “Help!”

  He scrambles crab-like on the carpet, which has left an enormous red abrasion on one cheek from his collision with it, as Bronwyn advances above him.

  “You must pay your crew well; they’re very obedient.”

  “Help!” he whimpers.

  “Come on! Come on!” she urges, whacking his legs with the flat of her sword. “Let’s get that shirt off!”

  “Please, no.”

  The sword point whicks past his face so closely he can feel it brush his eyebrows. He begins tearing at the shirt’s fine linen. Buttons bounce around the princess’s feet. Bugarach balls the fabric in his hands, then suddenly throws it into Bronwyn’s face. She instinctively ducks and Bugarach springs from the floor. He crashes into her stomach and, the wind knocked from her, she falls back, nearly stumbling to the floor. Bugarach, meantime, continues on past her, again toward the door. She lunges, slashes and misses. Bugarach, forgetting that the doors swung outwards, is pulling on them frantically when Bronwyn’s charge plummets her into his back. Both go tumbling onto the deck beyond.

  Bronwyn is cushioned by Bugarach while Bugarach’s face crunches onto the polished teak. She somersaults on over him, coming to a rest nearly upside down against the coaming. Bugarach is up almost instantly, leaving behind a bloody imprint of his face and runs toward the bow. Bronwyn is up almost as quickly and follows.

  Bugarach, again shrieking for help as loudly as he can, can not keep his eyes off his pursuer with the necessary result that he falls over a chain on the deck. By the time he has skidded to a halt, Bronwyn is once again over him.

  “You’re doing fine so far,” she pants, “but now you’ve made a mess of those nice white trousers. I think that you’d better get them off, too.”

  “Please, Princess, I apologize! I’ll do whatever you want!”

  “Good! That’s just what I wanted to here. Take your pants off!”

  “I can’t!”

  “Certainly you can,” she says, emphasizing her words with slashes from her sword, each stroke making a neat incision in the front of Bugarach’s trousers. “You got into them, didn’t you? I’m getting a little tired now; I don’t know how long I can remain this level of accuracy.”

  “All right! All right!” he sobs. “I’ll do it! You’re a monster!”

  “If you say so. Wouldn’t that be easier if you took your shoes off first?”

  Bronwyn laughs at the calisthenic convolutions the harried man achieves in the course of the simple act of removing his pants. This only makes Bugarach all the more angry and flustered. He finally stands there clad only in his silken underdrawers. He seems to be trying to fold into himself, like a paper puzzle.

  “Baby blue!” she cries. “Isn’t that pretty? Who would have thought?”

  “You’ve really gone too far, Princess. This is enough. Wh
at exactly do you want from me?”

  “No more than you wanted from me, dear Bugarach.”

  “But this is too much. I didn’t actually do anything!”

  “No?” She touches his bare stomach with the tip of her sword. The muscles tried to retreat from the sharp point. She raises it slowly, watching with fascination the little dimple of cringing tissue follow the tip. The man is as white as lard everywhere except his face, which is turning blue from hyperventilation.

  “This is it, Bugarach. You know what I want. You are anxious enough half an hour ago to give it to me. Why won’t you let me take it now?”

  “You’re being obscene! This is unspeakable! What are you? What’s happened to you?”

  “You and your friends ought to know that well enough. This is no joke, Bugarach,” she says with a sudden, chilling seriousness. “Take those off or I’ll cut them off!”.

  “Oh, holy Musrum! I can’t!” he whimpers, tears flooding his cheeks.

  “If you won’t, I will,” she says, sliding the blade under the drawstring.

  Without warning there is a sudden, high-pitched whistling shriek over their heads and almost simultaneously with the distant sharp boom of a cannon is an exploding geyser of water beyond the bow. In her surprise, Bronwyn flings the point of her sword up, cutting the drawstring of Bugarach’s underdrawers. He leaps out of them as slickly as a watermelon seed and runs up a nearby ladder touching only every third rung. After her initial surprise, Bronwyn sets off in pursuit of the now naked man.

  She gains the roof of the deckhouse in time to see Bugarach disappearing behind the tall, slanted smokestack. At the same moment there is another gunshot, followed by an “Ahoy there! Limnoria!”

  She glances toward the port side and is astonished to see what looks like a huge, black, humpback whale wallowing not more than fifty yards away. She shades her eyes against the brilliant sunlight and is even more astonished to see men on the whale’s back. My stars! It’s a submarine boat!

  What shows above the waves is a smoothly curved surface of overlapping iron plates, perhaps twenty or thirty feet long. In the center, at the highest point of the hump, is a squat cylindrical tower, about four feet tall and four in diameter. Small round lenses are spaced evenly around it and on top is an open hatch. Two men stand precariously on the curved hull manning a small swivel gun, while the body of a third man protrudes from the open hatch. Since he is holding a megaphone, it obviously is he who has hailed the yacht.