The Last Ringbearer (2011)

by Kirill Yeskov

  June 2, 3019

  The shrimp were excellent. They sat on the tin plate like battle-ready triremes on the dim morning surface of the Barangar Bay: spiky rostrums in the tangle of rigging (feelers) threatening the enemy, oars (feet) hugging the body, just like they should in preparation for boarding. Half a dozen per portion – can’t really handle any more of these genuinely ‘royal’ shrimp that barely fit in the palm; besides, the tangy juice that gave such a charm to the sweetish pink flesh was biting his out-of-practice lips and fingertips. Tangorn glanced at the awaiting tray with large coal-fried oysters: heat had split the large mossy stones a bit along the seam, shyly showing their swarthy contents; the effect was charmingly obscene. Say what you want, but nowhere in the world can they prepare seafood like they can in the small taverns around the Fish Market, not even at the fashionable restaurants on the Three Stars Embankment! Pity the sea slugs are not in season… He sighed and tackled another piquant juicy shrimp, listening absent-mindedly to his companion’s chatter.

  “…surely you can agree, Baron: your countries are just a tiny peninsula on the far northwest of Arda that’s way overestimating its importance. Moreover, it’s inhabited by paranoiacs who have convinced themselves that the rest of the world can think of nothing else but how to conquer and enslave them. Please! Who the hell needs your sickly toadstool-studded copses, your snows that don’t melt for half a year, or that foamy brown sourwater that you drink instead of wine?”

  Not that this dope’s elocutions insulted Tangorn’s patriotic sentiments (especially since most of what he said was true), but such statements sounded very strange coming from a high-placed official of the Foreign Ministry of the Umbar Republic; particularly so considering that their meeting was the official’s idea. The baron was not very surprised when this morning the appropriately obsequious proprietor of the Lucky Anchor hotel where he was staying has handed him an envelope plastered all over with assorted state seals. Well, it has been three days since he had showed up in Umbar, where he had acquired – how shall we put it? – an ambiguous but indisputably colorful reputation; it was quite natural for the Assistant State Secretary Gagano (at the urging of Alkabir, chief of the Northern Countries section) to request a confidential meeting with the guest from Ithilien. As a result, Tangorn has been ‘considering’ this idiot’s rude diatribes for a good quarter of an hour… Stop! he told himself; is he really such an idiot as he pretends to be? Let’s feel him out… try something innocuous.

  “Well, ‘a tiny peninsula that’s way overestimating its importance’ – that’s pretty well said,” the baron acknowledged good-naturedly, “but I have to take issue with the last point of your indictment, regarding ‘brown sourwater.’ Believe it or not, not half a minute ago I was thinking about how nice it’d be to pair a couple of pints of our good old bitter with these shrimp! One that’s black and sour like pitch, with foam thick enough to hold up a small coin…” He smiled dreamily and gestured at the other man with tired condescension.

  “Mister Assistant State Secretary, you simply can’t imagine a real Gondorian bitter. The first, longest swallow leaves a vanishing aftertaste of smoke on your tongue, like what you can smell in a park when they burn last year’s leaves in the spring; not for naught is it called smoked beer…”

  Mister Assistant State Secretary responded to the effect that he knew his beers no worse than the natives, having worked in the Northern Countries division for many years; he was likewise conversant with all kinds of seal blubber so prized by the lossoths inhabiting the banks of the Bay of Forochel. Yeah… many years in the Northern Countries division, right.

  It’s no crime to deeply despise foreigners, but why demonstrate these feelings to them so brazenly? And as for the fact that the archaically top-fermented bitters and stouts have not been brewed outside of Eriador for the last hundred years, and that the famous smoked beer is not even a bitter, but a lager with specially caramelized hops – no, a specialist has no right not to know such things about a country he’s supposed to work with! Say what you want, but the exceedingly smart and cautious Alkabir has strange employees these days.

  So why did they want to meet him? First guess: to get him out of his hotel room in order to check his luggage for messages, letters of introductions, and such. Well, such cheap tricks would be in style for the dumb boy scouts from the Gondorian station, but the Umbarian Secret Service, as far as he could remember, worked in much subtler ways. Second guess: Alkabir is letting him know on behalf of the Foreign Ministry that the Republic has abandoned its age-old practice of temporary alliances balancing opposing forces, and has decided to surrender to the strongest – that’d be Gondor – therefore it is pointedly refusing meaningful contact with the Ithilien emissary (undoubtedly that’s who they think he is).

  Third guess, the most likely one: Alkabir is letting him know that while the Republic had indeed abandoned the said age-old practice, there are powerful forces that disagree with this decision, and the ‘Ithilien emissary’ should deal with them, rather than with the Foreign Ministry and other official channels, which the pompous ass Gagano is supposed to personify. The main thing is that regardless of which of these guesses is correct, it’s not the right time to go to the Blue Palace waving his diplomatic papers (had he actually had any).

  Here Tangorn had to laugh: so I don’t believe that Alkabir sent Gagano without his choice being a hidden message, while Alkabir doesn’t believe that I’m really retired and not Faramir’s fully empowered representative, however unofficial. Both of these pictures, though resting as they do on fairly tenuous assumptions, are internally consistent, so it’s not entirely clear which facts might convince either one of us otherwise…

  “What’s so funny, Baron?” the Assistant State Secretary inquired haughtily.

  “Nothing much, just an amusing thought… Anyway, we’ve gone on talking for a bit too long, you’re probably expected back at the office. A simple traveler such as myself shouldn’t distract such an important person for so long. Thank you so much for the edifying conversation. And, if it’s not too much trouble, please convey the following to dearest Alkabir – literally, please, with nothing added – I have fully appreciated his decision to appoint specifically Assistant State Secretary Gagano to conduct talks with me, but I’m afraid that the guys at 12 Shore Street are too simple-minded to appreciate such subtleties…”

  Tangorn cut himself off because at the mention of the Gondorian embassy his interlocutor glanced around furtively (as if expecting to find a couple of His Majesty’s Secret Guards in full parade black uniforms at the nearest table, their torture instruments arranged right there on the tablecloth) and dashed for the exit, mumbling excuses. A solitary merchant-looking gentleman thoughtfully consuming sea urchin eggs at a nearby table looked up at the baron, his face an appropriate mixture of confusion, uncertainty, and fear. Tangorn smiled back, pointed at the receding State Secretary and quite sincerely shrugged and sadly twirled a finger next to his temple. Then he pulled the cooling oyster plate close (why waste good food?), expertly pulled the mollusk from its apparently impregnable fortress, and lost himself in thought.

  The grand building on Shore Street that now housed the Reunited Kingdom’s embassy (although it would have been more appropriate to label it the Umbar branch of the Secret Guard) deservedly had the most ominous reputation among the citizenry. Minas Tirith considered the imminent annexation of Umbar a done deal, calling it nothing but ‘a pirate haven on the ancestral lands of South Gondor.’ The ambassador was readying himself to become the governor without much ado, while the people of the spy station already behaved like they owned the place. They called themselves ‘spies’ although in reality they were nothing but a band of thugs; looking at them, Tangorn felt like a noble bandit of the classic school next to a gang of underage punks. People disappearing and torture-disfigured corpses surfacing in the canals were now commonplace; until recently the Umbarians could console themselves that the victims were mostly Mordorian immigrants,
but a recent attempt on the famous Admiral Carnero dispelled those illusions.

  In other words, Aragorn’s embassy was a formidable institution, no doubt about that, but that its mere mention would so scare a high-ranking official during performance of his duties… no, something’s off here. Unless… unless this dude works for the Gondorians!

  Aha! So he thought that I’ve figured him out and would turn him in. Man, that was a propitious joke, pure fool’s luck! But Aragorn’s men’s nerves are in bad shape for some reason. I wonder where I could actually turn in a traitor in this city, where the police is either solidly bought or else scared spitless, while the Gondorian embassy could issue direct orders to administration officials if it so wished? Of course, there’s also the local secret service and the military, but amazingly those, too, are behaving as if nothing going on has anything to do with them… Whatever, to hell with this Gagano, I have quite a few of my own problems now! That my modest person is now of interest to the Gondorian spies is bad enough.

  What the devil! he thought, sipping suddenly tasteless wine. Why do they all think that I’m here with the mandate of an ambassador plenipotentiary of the Princedom of Ithilien sewn into my pants, and an offer of a defense treaty? All right, suppose that my countrymen are merely giving me a gentle warning not to contact the Republic’s authorities officially. I’m willing to abide by this warning religiously, seeing as how it doesn’t impede my actual plans. Damn, wouldn’t it be lovely to let them all know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: guys, I really am not interested in getting involved in the Gondor-Umbar mess! I have a totally different job: to establish real contact with the Elvish clandestine structures here in under three weeks, knowing nothing but a single name we got from Eloar’s letter – Elandar…

  Tangorn finished his wine, tossed his last Umbarian silver coin with Castamir’s haughty profile on the table (Sharya-Rana gave them the locations of several secret money caches, but he avoided paying with golden dungans of Mordor) and headed for the exit, limping slightly. The sea urchin connoisseur at the nearby table has also finished his meal and unhurriedly wiped first his fingers and then his lips (thin and slightly puckered with a multitude of tiny scars around them) with a handkerchief – attention! Three sailors were concentrating on their clam chowder at the table right next to the door; one of them casually moved an open bottle of Barangar red to the edge of the table – ready! Tangorn would reach the tavern door in six or seven seconds, which was all the time that lieutenant Mongoose of the Secret Guard had to decide whether to improvise and capture the baron right now or stick to the original carefully worked out plan. Who would have thought that his agent Gagano would blow it so stupidly?

  All he had to do was hint to Tangorn in the name of the Foreign Ministry that his official accreditation would be untimely (the lieutenant had absolutely no desire to abduct a diplomat of a foreign and nominally allied state); the assistant state secretary managed that quite well. Unfortunately, he was cowardly (even his recruitment was accomplished with blackmail over really trivial matters), so Mongoose’s demand that he keep this assignment secret from his case officer at the station plunged the Umbarian into utter dread. He knew very well that at 12 Shore Street they would judge such ‘forgetfulness’ as double-dealing, with all proper consequences. Gagano shuddered with fear at the mere thought of either of his Gondorian masters, and so fell apart after Tangorn’s shot in the dark.

  No, Mongoose said to himself, don’t jump at it. Nothing terrible has happened yet. Yes, the baron had surely figured out that his interlocutor is connected to Gondorian spies, but most likely he will interpret that as Minas Tirith’s desire to curtail Emyn Arnen’s diplomatic activity… All right, we’ll let him go and stick to the original plan. The lieutenant put the handkerchief back in his pocket – rather than dropping it on the table – and Tangorn went by the sailors at the door without a hindrance. He mixed with the street crowds and unhurriedly headed to the waterfront; he checked for surveillance twice but saw none.

  Indeed, there was none: Mongoose took the sane view that right then it was most important not to spook their quarry. In just a few hours they will be fully ready for the operation, when they receive two genuine Umbar police uniforms. This very evening a police detail will visit the Lucky Anchor hotel, present a properly executed warrant and ask him to come to the local station to testify… and they will not let the baron die before he tells them everything he knows about the Ithilienian intelligence service’s accomplishments in the hunt for Mordorian technology.

  CHAPTER 37

  Probably no one will ever know when people started settling on this long mountainous peninsula and the flat swampy islands of the bay it encloses. In any event, while the inhabitants of the Reunited Kingdom do not utter the word ‘Númenor’ without a reverential sigh, a gaze at the sky, and an upraised index finger, the Umbarians sincerely scratch their heads: “Númenorians? Man, who can remember all those barbarians! Have you any idea how many of them we’ve seen here?” Two circumstances have determined Umbar’s fate as a great sea power: an excellent enclosed harbor and the fact that the highest point on the peninsula is 5,356 feet above sea level; these are the only real mountains on the entire coast south of Anduin. In these arid latitudes ‘mountains’ spell ‘forests,’ ‘forests’ spell ‘ships,’ and ‘ships’ spell ‘sea trade,’ which organically blends with privateering and – let’s be honest– plain piracy. Add to that a fantastically advantageous location in the middle of everything: it is a true World’s crossroads, an ideal transit point for trade, and the terminus of the caravan routes from the Eastern countries.

  A solid line of defensive works on the Chevelgar isthmus joining the peninsula to the mainland plus a superior navy to guard against enemy landings made Umbar unassailable, which makes its being constantly conquered by all and sundry very puzzling. To be more precise, every time an attack loomed the Umbarians averted action by acknowledging the sovereignty of whatever continental power it was and paying tribute, quite sanely figuring that a war, even a victorious one, would cost their trade republic a lot more in all respects.

  Their attitude can be likened to that of a businessman who pays ‘protection money’ to a racketeer, with neither pleasure nor undue upset, building this expense into his prices; he cares nota whit which criminal cartel his ‘partners’ belong to, but only that they do not stage gunfights next to his store.

  On the mainland long sieges followed awesome battles; storied kings (ever concerned with winning new lands rather than wisely governing those they already had) were tempted time and again to order their finance ministers beheaded for daring to interrupt the grandiose flights of royal fancy with their pedestrian: “The treasury is empty, sire, and the army hasn’t been paid since last September!” – in other words, life went on. In the meantime, behind the Chevelgar fortifications the Umbarians kept beautifying their swampy islands, joining them with dams and bridges and splitting them with canals. The mega polis that rose from the azure waters of the lagoon was rightly considered the most beautiful city in all Middle Earth: its merchants and bankers swam in money, so for four centuries and counting the best architects and sculptors have labored here dawn to dusk.

  In the last three hundred years or so Umbar got powerful enough to eschew paying tribute to anyone. An absolute sea power, it turned instead to a tactic of temporary defensive alliances – now with Mordor against Gondor, then with Gondor against Mordor, then again with Khand against both of the above. Last year, though, the situation changed drastically: Mordor sank into oblivion (not without Umbar helping by supplying Aragorn with a landing fleet at the crucial moment, so as to get rid of a caravan trade competitor for good), Khand was being torn apart by a religious civil war and had no influence in the seashore regions, while a new threat arose in the South, one with which there was no negotiation – the Haradrim. As a result, the Republic faced a Hobson’s choice between southern savages and northern barbarians. The Senate chose the latter, hopin
g to hide from the Haradi invasion behind Aragorn’s swords, although it was crystal clear that this time the protection price would be direct occupation of the tiny country by its ‘great northern neighbor.’ No few citizens were of the opinion that Umbarian independence and civil liberties were quite worthy of defending with their lives.

  Most denizens of the city, though, never dwelled on these sad matters, or at least tried hard not to. Happy cosmopolitan Umbar with its gauche and intimately corrupt authorities led its usual life of the World’s Crossroads. It had active temples of all three major and scores of minor religions, while a merchant from anywhere could celebrate a deal in a restaurant of his national cuisine. Here, information was gathered, traded, and stolen by diplomats and spies from countries no one in the Reunited Kingdom had ever heard of, and who in their turn cared nothing for the snowy outback beyond the Anduin. Here one could find any merchandise ever produced by the Arda’s soil, water, or mines, or created by the minds and hands of its inhabitants: from exotic fruits to rarest medicines and drugs, from a magnificent platinum tiara encrusted with famous Vendotenian emeralds to a Mordorian scimitar that can split stone and then be wrapped around your waist like a belt, from oversized fossilized teeth (supposedly dragon’s and magical) to manuscripts in dead languages. (Consider the popular joke: “Does the Ring of Power really exist? No, else it could have been bought in an Umbar market.”) And how did blood mix here, what fantastic beauties surfaced regularly from this universal melting pot! In any case, on his way from the Fish Market to the Three Stars Embankment Tangorn had counted at least half a dozen such irresistible lovelies.

  He stopped by a familiar dugout bar to drink some of his favorite Golden Muscat. Its sweetness and tartness balance each other so perfectly that the taste seems to disappear altogether and the wine turns into materialized aroma, seemingly simple and even somewhat crude, but in reality weaved from a multitude of shades – multiple meanings and hints. Let some of it linger on your tongue, and you will see the topaz berries warm with the afternoon sun, slightly sprinkled with limestone dust, and the blindingly white path through the vineyard, and then the enthralling Umbarian six-line verses – takatos – will begin creating themselves right out of the noon haze…