The Sword of Morning Star

by Richard Meade

  Richard Meade

  The Sword of Morning Star

  FOR OTTO AND JEFFREY HAAS

  CHAPTER I

  Far from the Kingdom of Boorn, beyond the encircling hills of the Frorwald, the old man had anchored his little shallop of animal skins in midstream of the river Jaal and there appeared, on this bright spring morning, to be intent on catching his dinner. But his eyes disregarded the wooden float of his line, nor, with the hook beneath it unbaited, did it need watching. Instead, his gaze shuttled tirelessly along either bank of the wide river, which here deepened and slowed as it approached the sea; but most of all, without seeming to do so, he looked upstream.

  This was wilderness here, and the forest that edged the Jaal was deep and unbroken, rarely pierced by humanity and left to red deer and roebuck, wolf, boar, and bear. There was something wild, too, about the boat’s occupant, as if he himself were as much a creature of the forest. Though the sun was high and hot, he wore no hat, his thick, long mane of iron-gray hair serving in its stead. His single garment, a kirtle of rough-woven cloth, was belted with frayed rope; and he was barefooted. There was, in short, nothing about him to attract especial attention, unless one looked closely at the face half-masked by gray, well-combed beard. There, eyes slanted and lambent as a lynx-cat’s burned like coals beneath gray brows; and the nose set between them was like the beak of a hunting bird, long and curved, with a certain ruthlessness. It was not, however, despite those features, a face totally forbidding. Some saving grace of gentleness and humor had marked a line here and a line there, so that the effect was that of animal and human joined.

  Patiently he sat, and the morning inched by. Soft breezes stirred the leaves of the giant beech trees deep in the forest and riffled the draped blooms of chestnuts. Once, a huge brown bear came ambling out onto a sandbar, grumbling to itself over a matter of its own concern, saw the boatman, and sat for a while on its rump, observing him. But no attention was paid to the animal; what the old man watched for was a bird.

  Presently it came. In the high, blue arch of the sky, there was nothing, not even a cloud. Then a speck no larger than a grain of soot against the glare; then circling down and circling again, in the manner of its kind. The old man, catching sight, straightened a little and raised his left wrist higher. At last the tiercel stopped, dropped nearly straight down, spread wide its wings, poised its fierce talons, and then landed lightly and gently as a snowflake on the old man’s wrist. There it remained for only an instant; then the male hawk flew again, beating back up into the limitless sky, and the old man went into action.

  Swiftly he pulled in anchor, a stone tied to a long rope. Unshipping a paddle, he thrust with astonishing strength against the current, propelling the shallop upstream. Ahead lay a long, slow, gentle bend of the river. Before he reached it, something swept around it, only an insignificant piece of flotsam on the broad, sun-dappled bosom of the water. It could have been a floating log or a piece of mill wheel torn loose by freshet, but it was not. The old man’s whole body tensed. Now he began to paddle furiously, and as he fought upstream and the object floated down, they neared each other rapidly. When they met, quickly and deftly the old man caught the side of the crude wooden dugout, of a sort much favored by the peasants of Boorn, and, with his paddle, leaped into it with grace that belied his age. His face twisted and his mouth worked as he saw what the dugout contained, but for now he wasted no time on it, only lashed his shallop on behind and steered both boats toward the huge sandbar on which the bear, which now had gone, had sat for that interval. The sun was very hot, and perspiration streamed down his face and matted his beard. Only once did he utter a word, and that in a harsh, grating voice. “Wolfsheim,” he said; and then the boats grounded on the sand. The old man sprang out, pulled them up. Then he looked all about, furtively. Something moved in the forest; but it was only the bear. Overhead, the tiercel circled on, lazily, in ever-widening circles; its obligation discharged, it was hunting now.

  Reassured, the old man mopped sweat from his face. Pulling the dugout higher on the bar, he dropped to his knees beside it. The lynx eyes flared and blazed as he put out one hand and touched its burden.

  What he had been waiting for, what the boat contained, was the body of a child. Not above twelve in years, the boy lay unconscious, skin blistered by the sun. Every knob, joint, and rib of his emaciated body was visible: he had been starved. But what made the old man growl deep in his throat was this: the boy’s right hand—his sword hand—had been chopped off brutally at the wrist, the stump sealed with a hot iron and dipped in hot pitch. It was, now, a festering thing that paid full tribute to the festering mind capable of such an act. The old man growled something else; and then, with great gentleness, he lifted the child from the dugout and carried him in his arms up the sandbar and into the cool and shadowy forest depths.

  Helmut, bastard of Sigrieth, who had been King of Boorn and Emperor of the Gray Lands, was aware that the pain in his arm had ceased. Beyond that, he knew naught save for the fever dreams that came and went, gibbering and screaming in his skull, the most dreadful of all being the recollection of what had really happened.

  Vincio, loyal liege man of the dead king and, ever since the child Helmut could remember, both his tutor and his guard, shook him awake. That had been in his private chamber at Marmorburg, for, bastard though he was, from Sigrieth’s loins had he sprung, and he was also prince, though far out of line of inheritance. Like his older half brother Gustav, he had known no life save that of Marmorburg, the ease and beauty of the vast palace and the hard, relentless training that was also a prince’s lot, even one so young. When he wakened, he saw that Vincio’s lined face was grim and that the guardsman was dressed for travel, in cloak and leather, his broadsword belted on. “My lord,” said Vincio, as Helmut groped to consciousness. “By courier, from Wolfsheim, a message from His Majesty and the Lord Regent Albrecht—”

  “What?” Then Helmut remembered: Gustav was at Wolfsheim, hunting with his uncle. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What is it, dear Vincio?”

  “Bearing the King’s seal.” Vincio handed him the rolled parchment. “Which I have taken the liberty of opening, by your leave, ere ever I waked you.” In a different tone, he said: “Helmut, I like it not.”

  Groggily the boy read the inscribed words. “It is our royal pleasure that our brother join us in Wolfsheim without delay, when this message comes to hand. Our barge awaits you at the Marble Steps, and all things are now made ready…”

  The boy swung out of bed. The bearskin rug was warm under his feet. “I don’t understand. Why… in the middle of the night? It is the middle of the night?”

  “Nor I,” said Vincio. “Neither do I understand, and by your leave, my lord, we shall not depart ere daybreak. Two hours away; such wait should not incur displeasure.” He rolled the parchment. “Meanwhile, I’ll raise sufficient men…” He stroked his chin. ‘All things are now made ready for your entertainment…’ A cryptic phrase, that, and reeking strong of Albrecht.”

  “Vincio,” The boy raised his chin. “My lord Albrecht.”

  “Aye,” said Vincio distractedly. Then he sat on the bed beside the boy and took the child’s hands between his own, which were like roughhewn blocks of wood. “Lacking in respect, perhaps. Still, it were not wise, even on the King’s summons, to go to Wolfsheim with a guard too scant. Where men with heads of wolves await, men with heads of men best be wary.” Helmut could smell the breath of mead and leather and good strong soap about him; and it was a good smell; his father had smelled the same. Vincio put an arm about the child and squeezed him hard. “Back under goosedown, princeling, until I raise the guard. We’ll go to Wolfsheim after breakfast, in good light with armed men.�
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  “But that’s to disobey—”

  “Safer, though.” Vincio arose, right hand dropping absently to sword hilt, “For you and Boorn and all the Gray Lands.”

  “I’m too sleepy; I do not understand.”

  “As well, perhaps,” Vincio said quietly. “Only remember this: in all the world, Boorn and the Gray Lands are the most important kingdom, standing against the dark barbarians of North and East. Without strong rule in Boorn, the light and learning of the Southern Kingdoms will soon be overrun, pinched out. To be Emperor of the Gray Lands is to have more power than any other ruler wields; and if he choose to take it, wealth as well. My lord Albrecht, brother of your half-brother’s mother, stands now as Regent of the kingdom, with naught but these—” he held up two fingers, “twixt his head and a crown that fits it. Your royal brother, Gustav—” one finger dropped, “and, my princeling, you.” He let the hand fall to his side. “You two gone, and Albrecht rules as King and Emperor—and perhaps the Southern lights go out.” He shook his head. “But enough of this matter. Two hours have you ’til cockcrow, and I have work enough twixt now and then.” He tucked the comforter under Helmut’s chin. “For nearly all the guards are at Wolfsheim with the King, and I shall have to pry hard to find the men I want and get them out ere we depart.” He turned on his heel. Then he stopped short. “Eero,” he said.

  The man who stood in the chamber’s doorway was not a man, not more than half a one, at least. Tall as Vincio, but leaner, with pointed ears, a black muzzle gray-furred, and, most dismaying to a real man, the habit of the tongue lolling, long and red, from a fanged mouth. His eyes were slanted, and their pupils were vertical slits, like those of the wolf he resembled. A broadsword was slung round his waist, and the hand that rested on its hilt was claw-nailed and hairy. “Aye, Vincio,” he said. “You have the message?”

  “We have it,” said Vincio. “Indeed, we depart at first dawning.”

  Eero shook his head. He wore the black leather and black satin of Albrecht of Wolfsheim and the insignia of a captain in the Duke’s—the Regent’s—guard.

  “Not soon enough,” said he. “The royal command was ‘at once.’ Ought of delay will have my master wroth, and His Majesty as well. The barge is at the marble steps e’en now.”

  “Can wait,” Vincio answered. “Full responsibility take I for all delay.”

  For a moment, the half-wolf, Eero, looked at Vincio with his wolf’s eyes. Then he nodded. “As you please,” said he, and turned on his heel. Passing through the rich hangings of the doorway, he disappeared; yet somehow his rank animal smell seemed to linger in the room.

  Vincio let out a long breath. “Half-wolves,” he said softly. “And yet there was a day, they say, some thousands of years gone, when no such existed. Before The Fire came, and then the darkness. But by the gods, their smell! A stench in mankind’s nostrils.” He turned to Helmut. “To sleep; I will come again.”

  But the boy had thrown back the cover. “Hand me my jerkin, please, good Vincio.”

  The man stared. “Did you not hear me?”

  Helmut pointed at the jerkin where Vincio had tucked the message. “And did you not read the King’s summons? We are summoned to Wolfsheim, and that at once… Has not my father said again and again that no summons from the King can brook delay?”

  “When your father was King, it was one thing; your brother is something else. A boy of seventeen. Nor half as apt as you, even with the extra years, at horsemanship or swordplay or the learning which befits a king, nor, for that matter, mere sound judgment. To be summoned in the night—”

  But the boy, Helmut, was already dressing. “Such words against our King, Vincio, I’ll not hear. Do you think my brother, who, mind you, is also my father’s son, would treat me falsely? Now: your guard, go find them while I prepare myself.”

  The man, middle-aged, muscular, and battle-scarred, shook his head. “My lord—”

  “The message bears the King’s seal,” Helmut said, in a tone of finality. “If I have learned anything as you say, it is that the King’s seal may not be, with impunity, disregarded. Go, Vincio.”

  There was silence for a moment; then the man yielded to the boy. “Aye, my lord,” he said. Oddly, a faint smile played over his face. “You are surely your father’s spit and image,” he said, and he stalked out.

  In the royal barge, surrounded by the dozen of the palace guard Vincio had raised, their numbers nearly offset by the half-wolf captain Eero and his contingent of nine more of his reeking kind, they went downstream and came to Wolfsheim not long after sunrise. As they rounded a bend of the great river Jaal, suddenly came to view a chain of hills, not quite so high as mountains, still very rugged, and forested thickly and darkly: the Frorwald. Where the highest of these shouldered out to the river, Albrecht’s castle sat atop a steep crag, the sides of which were slick, protective rock, rising full fifty meters above the surface of the water. It was an ancient place, dating, so they said, even from before the Worldfire, rebuilt and then rebuilt again. Its towers, turrets, and its walls rose starkly; and its pennons bore the wolf’s head device that had been the Wolfsheim mark for centuries. Below, at the landing, half-wolves waited to receive the barge, drawn up in ceremonial rank, as befitted the arrival of a princeling. Beside Helmut, who, having breakfasted well en route, was full of talk, Vincio seemed to relax. “All appears to be in order,” he murmured. “Except that—” He turned to Eero, who sat nearby, tongue lolling. “There,” he said, pointing to the ranks drawn up at the riverside. “Why is not the Palace Guard represented? So many came down to Wolfsheim with His Majesty that I was hard put to find this handful. Do they not also welcome their prince?”

  Eero shrugged. “Ask His Majesty,” he growled, in the half-wolf’s voice, a sound unlike any of which man was capable. “Or my master. All night have I traveled to and fro with the message and with you; I know not of these arrangements.”

  “All the same,” Vincio said. “There is too much black there and not enough of the King’s gold and purple.”

  But they landed, and on waiting horses they made the long and circuitous ride that brought them across the great ditch that protected Wolfsheim from the rear. It was a ride that took them through the Frorwald, a forest of great age, where massive trees had fallen and were overgrown with briared vines, where sunlight was shut off and darkness seemed to reign perpetual. As always, these woods had a smell of their own: rank, animal, as if they so teemed with game that its odors overpowered more wholesome scents of greenery. Or perhaps that was only the guard of half-wolves accompanying them.

  The bridge came down, the portcullis up, they entered the great stone walls that rose about them until it was as if they were at the bottom of a well; and Vincio, stirrup to stirrup with Helmut, rarely took hand from sword hilt. Behind them, then, the gate clanged down with an iron thunder, a metallic finality. Helmut jumped a bit, and the horse beneath him snorted, and Vincio reined around. Suddenly the guard that had escorted them, the half-wolves, were drawing sword. “By the Gods!” Vincio screamed. “Betrayed, exactly as I thought!” and he unsheathed his blade. “Draw steel!” he shouted at his handful of men, but that was unnecessary; horses plunged and blade rang on blade as, in the courtyard, men and half-wolves fought.

  Helmut, astounded, gaped for an instant. Then he drew his own short sword, but there was nothing on which to use it, for the guard had ringed him about and fought savagely to keep the black-clad wolfmen at a distance.

  But it was too many against too few: the real men were outnumbered four to one. Helmut saw Eero, fangs shining, charge in with readied blade at Vincio. The marshal of the guard reined around to meet him. Little there was that could stand against the sword arm of Vincio of Southtaal, and with a blow he knocked Eero from the saddle, but unhurt. The wolfman rolled over, jumped to his feet, retrieved the sword that had caught the brunt of Vincio’s blow, and, two-handed, thrust it into the belly of the guard’s horse, which reared. Vincio fell, landing hard, and the
n the wolfman was upon him, the two of them fighting hand-to-hand there in the dust, rolling among the shifting hooves of horses, Eero’s blade trapped in the belly of Vincio’s dying mount, Vincio’s lost in the fall. But this was known: in unarmed combat between man and half-wolf, no man had a real chance; and before Helmut’s horrified eyes, the half-wolf sprang to his feet with a muzzle that dripped red. He threw back his head, let out a howl of triumph, then sprang for Helmut. The boy raised his sword, but Eero had his leg and pulled him from the mount before he could strike. Then he was hugged against that dripping animal rankness, as the sounds of combat died; and for a moment, then, he must have fainted…

  Albrecht of Wolfsheim was a man of handsome, pleasant, open countenance. In his early thirties, his prowess at war was undisputed, as was his courage. Though married, he still played at ducks and drakes among the women of the court, who found him vastly attractive. Nor could he be faulted, for that matter, for keeping around him the half-wolves who comprised his guard and army: that was tradition, begun long before Albrecht ever strode the earth. A man, all man, and well liked by his brother-in-law Sigrieth, in whose will he had been given the Regency until Gustav, successor to the throne, came eighteen years of age. But Vincio had never liked nor trusted this handsome paragon, and now Helmut saw that, of all the court, Vincio’s instincts had been the soundest.

  In the Knight’s Hall of the castle, Albrecht sat now, casually, at a table, elegant legs in black satin hose crossed negligently, long, strong fingers dipping from time to time into a bowl of shelled nuts. “And so,” he said to the young man beside him, “we have nipped treason in the bud.”

  The young King looked tired and overfull of horror. “Had you not presented such certain proofs, never would I have given such a matter belief.”

  “But there—” Albrecht gestured to Helmut, who stood bound before them, “there is the instrument that Vincio planned cleverly to use. A bastard, true, but favored of your father, and that known far and wide in the Empire of the Gray Lands. An accident to you, then had he been enthroned, with Vincio to guide him, and who to say him nay but loyal Wolfsheim? So we moved quickly, when word of the plot was first come; so foul a wound must be cleaned roughly with dispatch, lest infection spread.”