Hour of the Octopus

by Joel Rosenberg

  But there was fuzz around the edge of my brain. And I hurt, badly.

  “Best to be sure,” the slimmer man said. Tebol pushed the end of a long straight rod into the ground next to me; it looked more like a spear than anything else. He knelt on the grass and tied the tops of two canvas sacks, each large enough for a body, to a long, thin board, then lifted the board into the air, the bags dangling below.

  They clicked and clattered, like dice. Or bones.

  “Bones,” I said. It hurt to talk. It hurt not to talk.

  “Be silent,” Narantir said. “And don’t move. If you move nothing wrong, you’ll hurt nothing more; if you say nothing, you’ll say nothing stupid.”

  “Minch? The others?”

  Narantir sniffed. “All gone. They saw no need to stay around and watch after a damaged bourgeois, not that I blame them.”

  “Narantir…” Tebol raised a finger. “A bit of fairness, a touch of honesty, a trace of truthfulness would go well. Arefai wanted to remain to see after you, but Narantir and I told him it wasn’t necessary. You took quite a clobbering, and were muttering things. You could have said something that he might have had to take exception to.” The slim wizard pulled rolls of wires from his magician’s bag, and talked while he worked. “Nice bit of inference on the arrow, by the way. Clever of you. Almost as clever of Minch, though.”

  “Demick,” Narantir put in. “Minch doesn’t have the wit.”

  Tebol shrugged. “So it would seem. But someone has enough wit to see that trying to get Arefai to dishonor himself is the best chance at stopping the wedding, and Minch was, at least, the one who put his neck in the way. Rather nicely done, whoever had the idea in the first place.”

  I snorted. It hurt to snort. What sort of worm tries to trick another into making a true-but-disprovable accusation?

  Narantir’s snort was louder than mine. “Don’t be so quick to despise Minch. By the standards of the nobility, he hasn’t done anything dishonorable—he’s just ridden himself hard near the thin edge of dishonor, trying to lure Toshtai or Arefai to jump after him, miss, and disgrace himself. But lie still and let Tebol work.” Not ungentle fingers pushed my head back. “Are you ready to test the bones?” Narantir asked.

  “Just a moment… there. Ready.”

  Bones, I thought.

  I knew how this worked; I had been through this before with Narantir. Law of Similarity. One bag contained a skeleton, its bones intact; another contained a skeleton with each bone carefully broken. They would connect each of my possibly broken bones to the corresponding bones of the skeletons with bright wires that terminated in sharp, painful needles that Narantir would stick into my flesh until it touched the bone.

  They then would apply the Law of Similarity; like to like. Phlogiston—whatever that was—would flow from unbroken bone to unbroken, or from broken to broken. A few hundred stabs with needles, and they would know just what was and wasn’t broken. And I’d be spotted with hundreds of tiny sores that would heal indecently slowly. Therapeutic magic is never for the comfort of the patient.

  I was surprised when Tebol balanced the beam holding the bags on the spearpoint. It bowed a trifle, then started to slip off until Tebol adjusted the center.

  His magician’s bag provided a covered ramekin, a clean brush, and a pair of silver scissors; he uncovered the ramekin, revealing a dark goo, then dipped the brush and touched it to each of the ten pulse points, first cutting through the clothing over my elbows, armpits, and crotch.

  The goo was green and somewhat translucent. I tried to hold my breath against the stench I was certain it gave off, but finally had to breathe in. It really didn’t smell bad. The odor was thick and sickly sweet, to be sure, but held overtones of perook, patchouli, and eucalyptus that would have been very agreeable under other circumstances, and were even kind of pleasant now. Maybe even a bit of mint?

  Tebol muttered a few words I didn’t quite catch, and made a gesture with his long, aristocratic fingers that looked more like somebody flicking away a fly than anything else. The goo flashed momentarily, painlessly into a silent green flame and the balanced bags pivoted neatly on the spearpoint, one swinging toward me, one away.

  “Amazing,” Narantir said. “Nothing broken.”

  “No bones,” Tebol corrected, running the little finger of his left hand up the side of my calf. It twitched, as though from palsy. “But there’s torn muscle and tendon in here,” he said, dipping a finger into an inkpot and touching it lightly to my flesh in two places. “And… here.”

  Narantir’s brow furrowed. “How?”

  “Eh?”

  “You know. How did you determine that? I see nothing there to resonate with torn muscle or tendon.”

  Tebol smiled. “Ah. You like it?”

  Narantir’s mouth twisted. “Please.”

  Tebol’s smile broadened. “I shouldn’t, but… since it’s you—I cut a tiny bit of muscle and tendon in here,” he said, raising his left little finger, “and slid a small piece of squid quill into the cut so that it can’t rejoin. It resonates to cut muscle and torn tendon, yes? Like to like, no?”

  “And to squid,” Narantir said, with a low grumble.

  Tebol shrugged. “I don’t think that’s what we have here.” He pulled what looked like a bowstring from his bag. “A simple matter, really,” he said, turning back to me. “We substitute a bit of calf tendon for your own, and just let the muscles heal naturally. First, we have to persuade the tendon that it really belongs to you, and to do that we make you similar to a calf for a few hours.”

  Narantir smiled. “We’ll have you crawl about on all fours and graze on the grass. Three or four hours of that, and you’ll be more than sufficiently similar.”

  “You do insist on him doing things the hard way, eh, old friend?”

  “You’ve invented a better way?”

  Tebol produced a wide-mouthed clay bottle from his bag. He handed it to me; it was cold to the touch, dew beading its sides. “Drink this,” he said, uncorking it with a twist.

  The bottle held some sort of white, milky fluid.

  “What is it?”

  Tebol shrugged, as though to dismiss an obviously stupid question. “Milk.”

  Chapter 10

  Dining, a missed party, and another surprise.

  When she knocked on the door, I was resting in my room, lying stretched out on a pile of blankets next to the low window, my back propped up against the same sort of soft cushions that elevated my healing leg. A small salver of food slivers sat at my left hand; a large mug of milk at my right.

  I was getting awfully tired of milk.

  Below, in the courtyard, the evening’s party was well into its second hour. Beneath flickering smoky torches, a full hundred of our beloved ruling class exchanged insincere compliments and heavily coded insults, while servitors passed among them with trays of fruits and sweetmeats, bottles of cold juices and heated essences.

  The knock was somehow both peremptory and tentative; before I could answer, the door swung open, and she stood framed in the light from the hall lamp. Wisps of her hair had broken free from the knot at the back of her neck; their silken ends touched at her cheek and chin.

  “Lady ViKay,” I said, starting to rise. Pain is merely inconvenient; failing to show respect for a member of our beloved ruling class can easily be worse. Much worse.

  “Please, Kami Dan’Shir,” she said, closing the door behind her as I started to rise, “be still.”

  She had dressed for the evening in only vaguely formal robes that closed on her right side, loose at the rise of her bosom, pulled in tight at her slim waist, joined with a tie over her right hip, leaving her right leg bare almost to the hip. A daring style, but noble women may be daring without risking anything.

  Particularly in front of a damaged bourgeois.

  In contrast to the complex hairstyle of the morning, her long black hair, shiny as teak, had been twisted into a simple knot, secured only with a piece of red silk that da
ngled at the nape of her neck.

  She knelt next to me, her head cocked to one side. “I came to thank you for what you did today,” she said, taking her time before selecting a sliver of jellied liver from the tray between us. “Lord Arefai is sometimes too… brash.” The sliver vanished behind sharp white teeth.

  Lord Arefai is an idiot who would throw his head at an enemy’s spearpoint, I didn’t say.

  “You’re welcome, of course, Lady,” I did say.

  She gestured at the tray. “You were eating. Please don’t stop because of me.” Her smile seemed warm. “It wouldn’t be gracious for me to stop you doing anything, and I hope you have found and will find us quite gracious here in Glen Derenai.” She tucked her robes in around her legs, perhaps accidentally revealing more long smooth thigh than intended.

  Or perhaps not. Teasing the animals is a habit women of our beloved ruling class can safely acquire. Her bare thigh was only a handsbreadth away from my left hand, close enough that I could almost feel the warmth of her flesh. I could have reached out and parted her robes, if I was overwhelmingly interested in too closely witnessing an execution in Glen Derenai.

  Below, pairs of noblemen and their ladies had squared off to dance on the wooden tiles scattered across the grass in a pattern something like the squares of a single-bone draughts board, but with some squares missing. I often think of our beloved ruling class as having a few squares missing.

  I bit into a slice of beef. It wasn’t gristly, but it was tough and flavorful, cut from the rump or round, not the loin that was the portion of the nobility.

  “You tear into that like…”

  “Like a peasant, Lady?” I tried.

  “I was going to say like someone who has not eaten for days. Please take no offense.”

  She still didn’t quite know how to take what I’d said, so I forced a smile. “No offense taken; I’ve been an acrobat most of my life, and we all know that acrobats are part of the peasant class.”

  “Oh…” She picked up my mug, took a sip, made a face, and quickly set it down. I guess she had been expecting some white essence, not milk. “I’ve always thought that a silly classification,” she said. “But the ways of the Scion are His own, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  She reached behind the nape of her neck with both hands, perhaps unintentionally emphasizing the swell of her breasts as she unfastened the red silk from her hair. She tossed her head to let her long hair fall about her shoulders. Unrolled, the red silk was filmy and diaphanous.

  “This was promised to the most successful of the hunters,” she said, laying its cool softness across my hand. “It seems that you, Kami Dan’Shir, brought back the dignity of Minch.”

  “And a bit of Demick’s, as well,” I said, then instantly regretted it. A dan’shir doesn’t always have to drop truths all over the floor like a beginning juggler.

  She arched a fine eyebrow.

  I folded the silk neatly and set it aside. “I thank you for this, Lady.” Her eyebrow was still arched. Well, there wasn’t a way around it. “The assault on Lord Arefai’s reputation was both subtle and clever.”

  “Not as clever as the defense,” she said, one side of her mouth lifting.

  I waved it away. That wasn’t the point. “But Minch isn’t either, not at that level. Demick is both.” I shrugged. “I’m sure that Lord Toshtai took it that way—”

  “He said as much?” She leaned forward.

  Lady, if Lord Toshtai were to start sharing confidences with me, I’d hardly be indiscreet with them, no matter how much of your lovely breast you’re willing to show me.

  I raised a finger. “Just this once, Lady, I will tell you: no. Lord Toshtai and I haven’t spoken since my… accident this afternoon,” I said, hoping she didn’t notice the catch in my voice. I wasn’t at all sure that the fall was accidental. It wouldn’t have taken much to distract my horse at the critical moment, and Demick was the sort who could easily look far enough ahead at the advantages of holding a sharp throwing stone concealed in his palm.

  It was likely Demick who was behind both my fall and Arefai’s close call. It was likely Demick, but not necessarily Demick; the difference was important. I could think of four others with a motivation to embarrass Arefai (which is what the afternoon had threatened), others with reasons to humiliate Minch (which is what happened, after all), and even one with a cause to make me look clever.

  Two of the latter, if I included myself. I mean, I hadn’t had anything to do with setting up Minch, but I would have been willing to do far more than humiliate somebody I didn’t even like in return for such warm brown eyes resting on mine. They were wide, filled with something; admiration, perhaps? Or something warmer and more personal.

  It didn’t matter.

  Yes, surely I would have, I could have kicked a vicious dog in return for that look, whatever it meant.

  I shook my head to clear it. Her eyes had a way of fogging my mind. This was getting dangerous and I needed it clear as she leaned toward me, face raised to be kissed. Her hair smelled of lemon and sunshine, of sweet roses and peppery morningsuns. Her eyes, still resting on mine, were wide open.

  There was only one reasonable thing to do, after all. I couldn’t afford offending her. Soon she would be Arefai’s wife, and it would be far too dangerous for me to have my protector’s new wife angry with me. In the shorter run, if she were to raise an outcry, it would be me who would be the one in sudden, serious, fatal trouble, and never mind that I was still badly battered, barely able to stand, incapable of attacking her.

  All of that occurred to me, even then, but it didn’t matter.

  What did matter was that her eyes were warm and alive, and she smelled of lemon and sunshine, of lush sweet roses and peppery morningsuns, that her tongue was warm and wet and alive in my mouth, tasting of both sweet laughter and bitter tears, that beneath her robes, surprisingly strong muscles played under her silken skin, that later, the first time that her breathing went ragged and her husky whispers hoarse, her legs locked tightly about my waist until the world went all vague and dreamy for me too.

  That was all that mattered. Then.

  When I woke, she was gone.

  Interlude:

  The Hour Of The Lion

  There was no point in wondering why his father had summoned him, Arefai decided for the hundred-thousandth time. Matching wits with Lord Toshtai was a contest he couldn’t win.

  As Aunt Estrer would often say—in private, thankfully—“Your fool neck always rests on his chopping block, so you might as well let the emphasis be on rest instead of chop.” It wasn’t just that Father was the lord, and therefore the final arbiter. That was part of it, but only part of it. More of it was that Father was smarter than Arefai was, perhaps cleverer even than Aunt Estrer, almost as clever as Edelfaule thought himself, and that was that.

  Arefai would wait; he was patient. He settled himself more firmly into the cushion of the dark room that Toshtai had selected for himself.

  That was another of the many things that Arefai didn’t understand about his father. Most people preferred their rooms bright and airy, white walls almost glowing in the light of the sun or a well-placed lantern. The walls of the room Toshtai had chosen were black as coal dust, soaking up every splash of light from the single lantern set on the knee-height table that separated him from Estrer and Arefai. When Arefai squinted just right, it looked as though the three of them were seated on a splash of bright carpet in an endless sea of night.

  “I’ve always liked Snow Blood at this time of the evening,” Aunt Estrer said, tossing back a thumb-sized earthenware flask of the precious white essence as though it were the heated milk that Arefai and she often drank before bedtime. The old woman’s hair, a thin gray that denied it had ever been raven black, was pulled back even more tightly than usual, as though to proclaim her control and discipline.

  Lord Toshtai took the pointed hint and manipulated the filigreed silver serving tongs to take the heating flask f
rom its simmering water bath and refill her drinking flask. “I’m so glad it is to your taste. As I trust it is to yours, my son?”

  Arefai took a tiny sip. Snow Blood was too cloyingly sweet for him, something his father knew; in any case, when dealing with Lord Toshtai, Arefai wanted his head clear. As clear as possible; Toshtai had the sleight of making Arefai’s brain feel it was coated in thick wool.

  “Of course, Father,” he said.

  Toshtai turned to Estrer.

  “It’s a surprise that you can join us this evening,” Toshtai said.

  Even Arefai understood the implication. It was both unwise and unsafe to surprise Toshtai without delighting him, and the presence of a sharp-tongued old woman at a private conference with his son was unlikely to delight him.

  “I should hope so.” She didn’t quaver under implied reproach. “You’ve so rarely called upon me for advice that I’m dumbfounded you recognize this withered face.” She settled back into her cushions, smoothing one gnarled hand down the front of her faded robes. Once they had shown a flock of bright, and fiery redbirds perched on the limb of an oak in full autumn colors: the red of fresh blood and the orange of sunfire contrasting with the warm but restrained browns of the tree bark. But the years had faded them all into muted pastels that somehow still held a hint of their former fire and passion.

  “There are few other pleasures available to me in the last years of my life,” she said. “This old body is one constant ache, and of no interest to anyone other than me, and to me only as an inconvenience. I can barely taste the finest of food, and have to swill cod liver oil in order to be able to pass it without pain. I doubt that I’ll have to put up with this much longer, sick old woman that I am.”

  The corners of Toshtai’s lips turned up slightly. “I have heard this before,” he said.

  She sniffed. “Then I beg that you order one of your swaggering bullyboy warriors to execute me, Lord, if you think I’m senile and useless.” She tugged the top of her robes open, revealing her thin neck, its folds of flesh hanging loose. “But have it be one of the less clumsy, if it please you. This is my neck; it is not a tree trunk to require a dozen crude chops.”