by Bill Fawcett
“That’s not necessary, you know,” the elderly noble assured.
“I know,” Mithmid replied. “I just felt like it.” He paused, then added, “It’s a little imposing.”
“It’s meant to be. But we haven’t time to talk about it now, my young friend. Later, perhaps. I can tell you stories of Bralittar that will curl your fur.”
“I’d like that,” Mithmid admitted. “A promise?”
Berrilund smiled again. “A promise.” With that, he put his hand on Mithmid’s back and guided him through the gate.
When he stepped through the gate, Mithmid blinked as much from surprise as from the brightness. Here was the inner courtyard, where only nobles, royalty, and special messengers were allowed, but it wasn’t that knowledge, or the wide variety of mrem that wandered here, that now awed the young mrem. Rather, it was the supreme decorativeness of the mrem-wide columns that stood every few strides along the walls of the courtyard, and midway between each pair of columns a door led through the wall to some kind of chamber. On these columns were painted scenes of battle, hunts, passion, a coronation—everything, in fact, that was part of the royal life. And the ground here was not ground at all, but was covered in brick, and not the mudbrick of the houses outside but rather the colored baked bricks that only the rich could even dream about. It was so clean that Mithmid wanted to lie down on it and roll from side to side.
Then Mithmid’s eyes lighted on the most impressive sight of all. A pair of columns, taller and thicker than any of the others, flanked a tapestry that hung from the top of the wall down to the brick floor. The columns were pure white, and the tapestry was covered with multicolored dancers against a background of rich, deep green. These dancers were reenacting an ancient scene, posed as they were in the manner of tribesmrem and warriors with ancient stone knives and tiny skin shields. A smaller group of dancers held a walled tower high above their heads, while atop the wall Bralittar the god arched his back in defiance, enormous claws extended to the full. The detail was exquisite, adding to the realism of the imagery.
“The siege of ancient Ar,” Berrilund explained, anticipating Mithmid’s questions. “One of the most famous tapestries in the world. Very fine, isn’t it?”
“That hardly does it justice,” Mithmid mumbled. “That tapestry is the most—well, the most—”
“The most what?” asked Berrilund, a smile on his face.
“Well, you know, the most—, the most—, I can’t really describe it, but it’s—”
The older mrem laughed softly. “Exactly. That’s why I called it ‘very fine.’ It’s about as well as I can do. A better word would be ‘indescribable.’”
Mithmid only nodded.
Berrilund pulled a braided gold chain that hung on the right pillar, and Mithmid heard a soft gong in the distance. In a short time the tapestry parted in the middle and an elderly mrem appeared. He wore no belts, but had on a deep blue flowing robe embroidered in gold thread with the image of the arching Bralittar similar to that on the tapestry. There were two mrem behind him armed with drawn swords. The torchlight glittered off their jeweled handles.
Nodding, Berrilund said, “Hello, Oormet. I would like to see King Andelemarian.”
“Who is your friend?” the old voice quavered.
“He is Mithmid, and he works with me. He is here under my care, and I will answer to the king for all his actions.” Mithmid realized that Berrilund’s answer was as much ritual as fact.
“Then wait here,” answered Oormet. “I will tell the king of your wishes.” He disappeared behind the tapestry, but the guards stayed where they were.
Again Berrilund explained. “Court protocol, of course. I’m well enough known here that the king will see me, and Oormet knows that. But all courts have a similar ritual. If you wanted to trace it, you’d have to go back—”
He was interrupted by Oormet’s reappearance.
“The king will see you both. Immediately.” The old mrem’s words were close to a command. This, too, Berrilund seemed to expect. He stepped through the tapestry, and Mithmid followed.
They walked down a short hallway, the walls here painted with scene after scene of Ar-lore. Some of the scenes Mithmid recognized, or thought he did, but for the most part they were even more puzzling than the depictions on the columns and the tapestries outside. In all too short a time they left the scenes and stepped through an open doorway into a long, rectangular room. Inside several mrem stood talking to one another, drinking every few seconds from ornate cups. On the far wall a raised dais supported a huge throne of pure white marble, and above the throne a bejeweled statue of a white Bralittar looked sternly and hungrily out over the entire room. The dais itself was covered with depictions of war, the forces of Ar in every case victorious beyond doubt, and the bottom third of the chamber’s walls were crowded with prisoners of Ar’s former wars. To a noble from another city, Mithmid understood, the scenes would be sobering.
“Wait here,” ordered Berrilund. He walked quickly away from Mithmid across the room, then returned a few moments later. He handed the younger mrem a cup that had been made with dazzling artistry, and Mithmid held it as tightly as he could without breaking it. All he could think of was dropping it and watching it shatter all over the gleaming floor.
For a short while, Berrilund stood beside him and talked to other nobles who approached him, introducing Mithmid as the occasion demanded. Then the king stepped onto the dais and announced that he was shortly to retire. Oormet, at the foot of the dais, spoke for the king, thanking his guests for their irreplaceable company. With that, the elegantly attired mrem began to leave, and Mithmid turned with them.
Berrilund grabbed his arm.
“Hold on,” he whispered to the younger mrem. “We’re not going yet.”
Finally, only the king, Berrilund, and Mithmid remained. Berrilund introduced Mithmid to the king, and Mithmid performed a reasonably competent bow. When he looked up, the king was staring into his eyes.
The king of Ar, Mithmid saw, had fur of pure white, and eyes of the deep green of spring. He was beautiful, even in the approach of old age, and his eyes were filled with more wisdom than Mithmid had ever seen before. The bards had sung of the king’s adventures when a prince. They now sang of the justice of his reign, but like all tales, Mithmid had thought them exaggerated, tampered with, dressed up to suit the needs of the teller. But now he saw that the poets might well have been accurate: the king of Ar was a mrem who had seen a long life filled with exploits of greatness.
Still, the king was old. His whiskers sagged and were spotted with gray. One otherwise alert-looking eye was red and rheumy.
“Tell me, Berrilund,” the king questioned the secret police leader. “What is so urgent that the H’satie attend my court?”
Berrilund hesitated for a moment, as if weighing his words. “Mithmid has discovered something you will find extremely interesting.”
Interesting? thought Mithmid. The death of his daughter is merely interesting! For a moment he feared for his comrade, feared that the king would find disrespect in Berrilund’s attitude and punish him for it.
“And what is that, young Mithmid?” Mithmid was shocked at the sound of his name.
“Excuse me, Your Highness?” stammered the young mrem.
The king merely stared at him. “If you have discovered something of interest to me, I would hear it from you. Berrilund could give me but a second-hand account, and I wish to hear it from the source.”
Mithmid saw Berrilund about to protest, but the older mrem’s look of surprise turned quickly to a gentle smile. Mithmid felt like trying to drill his head through the smooth, hard floor bricks in an attempt to hide.
“But please hurry, my young mrem,” the king resumed. “I am busy, and I am tired.”
And so it came to this. Mithmid, an unknown in the city of Ar, was about to tell his king of the d
eath of Sruss. Suddenly he wished he had never met Berrilund, had never employed Jremm, had never known Draldren, had never even been born. But the king had commanded, and he must obey.
“The news, Your Highness, I fear you will not like.” And he told the king of Jremm, and of the meeting of Draldren and Reswen outside the doors of Arbunda’s Rest, and of the conversation about Sruss’s death. When he said this he looked to the ground, but when he looked again at the king he had not even flinched. My god, thought Mithmid, can even a king be this cold?
“It went well,” announced the king at last. And then he laughed. Berrilund laughed with him, and Mithmid held his breath. Were they ruled by a madman, or one who had had his daughter killed?
“What interests me most about your story,” the king continued, “was the part about Draldren. I must admit, I had never even suspected him of being involved. But I must inform you—with all confidence that you’ll never speak of it, Mithmid—that my daughter is not truly dead.”
Mithmid gasped.
“Reswen is not an assassin, my young friend,” Berrilund explained. “He is rough, and he is fearsome, but he is trusted in this court, if only by a few. Fortunately, the king is one of those few, and Reswen has repaid his trust many times over. I can’t explain it all to you, but Sruss’s ‘death’ has to do with a suspected usurpation attempt by—” He stopped and looked at the king.
“It does not matter whom,” the king cut in. “It matters only that Mithmid has found this out. The assassination was faked, and my daughter is by now far from here, as safe as she can be in these times. But I must caution you, Berrilund and Mithmid both, that none of this must ever be spoken of again. As far as you both know, the princess is indeed dead. Officially, I will mourn, and you must as well. And I caution you too that Draldren is to be watched closely. Assign your Jremm to him, Mithmid, for as long as this thing lasts.
“And now, my friends, I have much to do. And I am tired.” He walked to his throne and tapped on a silver gong, and Oormet came and led the two mrem away.
Having seen the two H’satie to the gate, the aging chancellor didn’t return to the inner palace. As he strolled back it suddenly struck him that he was hungry. In fact, ravenous with hunger. The councilor turned aside and hurried toward the palace kitchen. He had a friend there, a fat cook, who would fry him some fish. As he entered the smoky room, Oormet recalled he had been snacking a lot lately. Then the scent of the fish his friend was already frying reinforced his newfound appetite.
“THE KING WANTS an heir,” Berrilund explained, once past the outer gates of the palace. “He is afraid of dying before he has one.”
Mithmid nodded, but he was still puzzled.
“That is why Gerianan wants Sruss dead.”
Gerianan! The king’s brother! Mithmid had heard tales of some shady dealings, which the king had publicly defended and privately denounced, but Mithmid had never suspected Gerianan of anything as base as....
“The king will not marry again, and even if he did, there is no guarantee of an heir. He is old, Mithmid, even though he does not often show it. But I have seen him when he relaxes his guard, and even when he has slept. His hands shake, and his flesh quivers. He will not be with us much longer.”
Mithmid knew this, although he didn’t want to admit it. Andelemarian was already being called “The Great,” in the tradition of four kings of Ar before him, and throughout the last two decades of his reign Ar had known no hardship. No war, no drought, no pestilence. All Ar-mrem, even the most skeptical, knew by now that Bralittar smiled upon their king. And they all feared the change they knew must shortly come.
“But why,” Mithmid asked, “does the death of Sruss matter so much? And especially to Gerianan?” It was well known in Ar that Sruss’s uncle had doted on her when she was a child, that she would follow him wherever he went (whenever she could), that the two of them could often be seen walking hand in hand in the fields outside the city, followed by their guards at a distance. Gerianan would be pointing to the sky and to the grain and to the merchants, and bending down to whisper things in the child’s ear. For him to conspire in her death seemed impossible.
“Think, Mithmid!” Berrilund as much as shouted. “How is succession determined?”
“Through the mother...” He paused. “Of course.” The king’s heir was always the eldest son of his wife, unless the wife had no eldest sons. In that case, the heir was the eldest son of her eldest daughter. Andelemarian’s first wife had produced three sets of male twins, but all had died, three at birth, two in childhood, one in a duel with another noble over some unimportant, silly possession claim. The king had remarried ten years later (as was the custom), and his new wife had brought with her the infant Sruss.
No other children came. Then the queen had died of a fever. Sruss, as the king’s wife’s eldest daughter, was now responsible for the royal succession. If she produced a son, he would be heir to the throne. If she produced only daughters, the eldest would in turn be responsible for giving Ar an heir. Of course, Andelemarian would be dead by that time, and a regent would be appointed. By tradition, that regent would be Sruss herself, because females could be regent even if they could not be king. But if no daughters or sons survived, if the king’s entire bloodline were gone, then the kingship would fall to the nearest male relative. Andelemarian’s nearest male relative was his brother, Gerianan. The only brother he had.
Mithmid remembered learning all this in school, and he had often been boggled by it. What he wondered now, as he had during many private moments of thinking, was what might have happened if the king’s earlier sons hadn’t died. By tradition, they would no longer be heirs once the king remarried, because they weren’t the new wife’s sons, but he couldn’t imagine this happening. As far as he knew, it hadn’t yet in the entire history of Ar.
Besides all this, Sruss was almost certainly the king’s natural daughter. He and his queen had often been seen in one another’s company during the year before they married. And Sruss’s fur was white like Andelemarian’s.
By getting rid of Sruss before she could produce a child, Gerianan would assume the throne as soon as Andelemarian died. And if he wasn’t afraid to get rid of Sruss, the favorite of all of Ar, he would certainly find a way to get rid of the king. Andelemarian, after all, was already close to his grave.
“Where is Sruss now?” Mithmid asked.
“Reswen has hidden her somewhere,” the older mrem replied softly. “I don’t know where, and I’m not sure even the king does. He wanted to make sure Gerianan couldn’t torture the information out of anybody. Perhaps not even out of himself.” Berrilund sighed, then resumed, his voice weary and drawn. “In any case, she is safe. Reswen will make sure of that. You can’t always go by appearances. He is, despite all you may have heard, a very, very trustworthy mrem.”
•
“Down there.” There was authority in the voice.
The mrem spun to see it belonged to Arklier, their prince. The noble pointed, his bright green cape draping itself over his right arm. The wind pressed his heavy, tartan kilt against his heavy breeches. Beside him, Bodder crouched and followed the arm to its target. He too wore a kilt made of the same tartan fabric. Far below, through the early morning mist that still hugged the sides of the mountain, a small procession of mrem, wagons, and uxen made its way through the pass.
Bodder shook his head. For the past hour he had been on guard while the others slept, but search though he might he had seen nothing. Arklier had only to walk over to him, look once, and point out the caravan. Three years he had been absent from the clan, but the ClanSon had lost none of his natural instincts. Next to the ClanMrem himself, Arklier was still the best warrior, raider, and leader of them all.
Better by far, thought Bodder, then Crethok. Seven times during those three years Arklier’s brother had led Bodder on a raid, and twice into battle. All seven adventures had been victori
es, but Crethok’s successes had always exacted a high price. Too often the price had been the lives of those mrem who had followed him. Some had been Bodder’s most trusted companions. He would not forgive.
“We will go north as quickly and as quietly as we can. The pass narrows there, and we can reach it before they do. When they come, we trap them.” Arklier smiled at his own words.
Bodder hurried to the other clansmrem. Immediately they readied themselves, pulling on their waist-length tartan tunics, their wool pants, boots of soft leather, and their dark green woolen capes. They drank in the cold morning air, then splashed clear water from a nearby stream over weary faces. It dripped from their whiskers. The night had been short, and it had been cold. Sleep had not come easily.
But in moments they were ready, each mrem armed with a greatsword and javelins or a spear. Few of the villagers carried bows, disdaining them as cowards’ weapons in a hunt. The bow was a weapon of war; only another mrem or the dreaded liskash were suitable targets. In war, archers were highly valued, but in a hunt they carried spears and were the last to strike.
Arklier gave the command to move, and the thirty-three clansmrem followed their leader along a narrow ledge toward the narrows in the north. Effortlessly they picked their way among the rocks and small shrubs that cluttered the narrow, rarely used path, avoiding almost by instinct the loose stones that could so easily throw them over the side. These were mrem of the mountains, and they needed no help in negotiating the rocks they had been raised among. It was the plains they hated, the vast seas of formless grasses crowded with lowlanders. To them the plain was hell, and those who lived on it were fools.
Some of those fools were about to learn that mountains do not have shortcuts.