Emperor and Clown

by Dave Duncan

  "Master Hononin! Set up a table by the door. I have brought money. Buy back the swords — five crowns per blade."

  His jaw dropped. "Five?"

  Boom!

  "Five crowns per blade! Here, Sergeant, give this man the coin."

  Rap snorted, but he held out two huge leather bags. The old man pushed forward grumpily, tried to take one in both hands, and dropped it. It fell with a metallic crash that silenced the returning tumult.

  Boom!

  "All surviving members of my father's council pray attend me!" Inos shouted. "Help him, Rap!" she whispered.

  But Hononin was already snarling orders to recruit assistants, and in a moment the money was heading for the door. Now the important thing was to clear the hall while she still had control.

  She saw another familiar face. "Mistress Meolorne! The girls we rescued are upstairs in the Presence Chamber. Will you please take care of them — see they are clothed and returned to their families?"

  Boom!

  Quietly: "You can stop that accursed bell now, thank you."

  Louder: "Tonight the beer is free! Tell every tavernmaster in town that when you toast your queen tonight, the crown will pick up the tab!"

  The resulting cheer shook the castle, and a whirlpool developed near the door as eager subjects began hurrying off to drink to her health before the supplies ran out — as they surely would, unless Rap chose to intervene.

  Inos paused to consider her next move, rubbing her throat.

  Then she saw a tall man being helped through the crowd toward her, and her heart jumped into her mouth.

  It was the factor, Foronod. His silver helmet of hair was unmistakable, and yet she thought that it was now more white than ash blond. He was ten years older than he had been in the spring. He was stooped, leaning on a cane, and dragging one foot. A patch hid one eye; his nose was misshapen. Who had done this — imp or jotunn?

  The faces closest around her were aging rapidly. The young bloods had been trusted to handle the fighting, but now the elders of the town were arriving to oversee the political consequences. The burghers, the merchants, the senior craftmasters — these men she must win over, and they would be her opponents. All the cheering, blood-splattered, baby-faced smiths in the kingdom would count for nothing compared to the factor or a rich fishmonger. One thing had not changed since the last time. Foronod was still the key.

  "Factor Foronod!" she cried out as he drew near. "You are a sight for sore eyes! No, do not kneel!"

  The single ice-blue eye blinked angrily. Kneeling had likely been the last thing on his mind. Inos held out her hand to be kissed.

  He ignored it. "No Imperial army this time?" he barked. His sufferings had not broken his spirit, obviously, nor improved his manners.

  "The imperor has recognized me as Queen of Krasnegar! I bring a signed treaty of nonaggression between his realm and mine." She saw the imps among them react to that.

  "And Thane Kalkor? What happens when he hears of this?"

  She had been expecting the question and could barely restrain a smile of triumph. She was much better equipped this time than last, when Andor had been newly exposed and her father not yet in his grave.

  "Thane Kalkor is dead. I saw him struck down by the Gods."

  The jotnar recoiled. The imps beamed.

  Foronod recovered quickly. "And who is his successor?"

  Senator Epoxague had put that very question to Ambassador Krushjor for her.

  "That is very uncertain. There will be many claimants, and it may take years for them to kill one another off. Forget the Kalkor line, Factor. I am queen here by right of inheritance — or by right of conquest, if you prefer. I bring peace with our neighbors and peace among ourselves. I demand . . . " Demand what? She could not recall any ceremony of homage or oath of fealty in rustic little Krasnegar. "I require your duty, Master Foronod."

  She watched him wrestle with his heritage. Yet what alternative did he have? He must have been praying every day for months that Kalkor would arrive and turn out to be better than his odious young brother. Vain hope that had been, had the factor only realized! But now she had taken away even that thin chance. Unless he wanted to raise up a local king, such as himself, then she was the only claimant. And the young men were with her.

  Foronod thumped his cane forward one pace. Leaning heavily on it, he reached for her hand and raised it to his dry lips. "I am your Majesty's loyal and obedient servant, and welcome your return with all my heart." Then he straightened and stepped back. "Gods save your Majesty," he added as an afterthought, pouting as if the words hurt.

  It was a fair surrender. "As you were for my . . . our . . . father, so for me you will always be one of our . . . er . . . my most trusted and honored counselors, Factor." A little muddled; she needed practice.

  She recognized one of the senior imps nearby, a merchant whose name she had forgotten. He was something important in the import business, she knew, and had also been a member of the council. She scrambled down and settled herself on the scarlet cushion. Rap reached out and laid a small hassock at her feet.

  Inos glanced expectantly at the merchant.

  He shuffled forward and went down on his knees before her.

  2

  There was almost no daylight in Krasnegar in midwinter, but the full moon rolled all around the sky. Clocks were rare in that easygoing town, and Inos lost all track of time. There was so much to do that she forgot to eat or sleep or even sit down.

  She hardly saw Rap at all, but occasionally he would appear and order her to the table. Then she would gulp down whatever repast was there without noticing it. Even at those moments, the turmoil left her no peace. So many had gone — she was appalled. The bishop, dead of a fit. Mother Unonini, slain by a jotunn while trying to prevent a rape, and Sergeant Thosolin under similar circumstances. Chancellor Yaultari had died in a dungeon, Seneschal Kondoral of a broken heart, they said.

  Mistress Aganimi the housekeeper had survived, though, and she set to work restoring order in the pigpen that the jotnar had made of the castle.

  With her unending supply of gold, Inos hired men and women by the hundreds. There was normally little to do in winter, but she put the idle hands to work. Her money began to surge through the town, and that helped, also. Clothiers and carpenters and tradesmen of all descriptions suddenly found themselves doing business on a scale they had never dreamed of. Prices soared and she had to issue decrees against profiteering.

  She named a new council, expanding it from the eight or so her father had preferred to twenty-four, bringing in some women and even including a few youngsters of her own generation, like Kratharkran, the high-pitched, exuberant smith. The elders scowled at her innovations and she faced them down with the assurance of an adept and with the queenly glamour that Rap eventually admitted having cast on her. Her deadly green stare became legendary, deflecting query or argument like a steel shield.

  She demanded an inventory of food supplies, and the records were found to be in a hopeless muddle.

  That was partly due to Rap, who was quietly going around filling warehouses and storerooms when no one was looking. Foronod was driven almost to distraction, and Inos was very happy to have the old factor distracted; at least he could not then be stirring up trouble. Apparently the beating that had lamed him had been done by the jotnar, not by imps, but he was obviously not the man he had been, and she began to ponder a replacement for him.

  No one knew how many had died, nor how many mouths remained to consume the feedstocks, so she ordered a census taken, the first in the history of Krasnegar.

  Jotnar could always be counted on to let celebrations get out of hand. Inos was delighted to discover that Corporal Oopari had repented of his desertion — or wearied of his fiancée, perhaps — and had returned by ship during the summer. She promoted him to sergeant and put him in charge of the guard and the militia. He moved fast, but the aftermath of a riot was a full jail. King Holindarn had acted as his own chief justic
e. Unable to see herself in that role, Inos appointed an independent judiciary.

  Many houses had been deliberately burned in the Terror, and often the flames had spread to adjoining buildings. Timber was almost nonexistent, because in the past it had always been imported.

  At her first council meeting, the queen pointed out that there was unlimited wood a few days' trek to the south.

  But no way to transport it, Foronod told her snappily.

  Why couldn't we bring it in on sledges?

  Goblins . . . causeway . . . weather . . . horse fodder . . . Objections rolled out from the elders like smoke from wet peat. Inos looked at the grinning younger faces around the table and put the matter to a vote. The council promptly decreed that the Royal Krasnegarian Militia be expanded from eighteen to eighty, armed with Inos's swords, and trained as soon as possible in ways of defending lumberjacks from goblin attacks.

  The expedition would need horses, and moving them across the causeway in winter had never even been attempted before. She ordered it done, and stabling made ready on the mainland.

  She wanted a special service of thanksgiving, and there must be funerals for the eight men who had died in the ephemeral war of liberation. Her former tutor, dull old Master Poraganu, was horrified when she appointed him acting bishop. She knew he was conscientious and would do a good job, but she wondered guiltily how much she was spiting him for uncounted hours of boredom.

  Almost every woman of bearing years in Krasnegar was pregnant, either by an imp legionary or a jotunn raider, and many were near their time. The medical facilities were hopelessly inadequate, so Inos ordered a whole wing of the castle converted to a maternity ward. That led her thoughts to a midwifery school and also a public child care organization for the summer, when the women would be needed to work.

  Half the fishing fleet had fled during the troubles, so she had to think about boat building and manpower.

  All these things pretty well took care of the first three days of her reign.

  3

  "And now you're going to go and have a good night's rest," Mistress Aganimi said firmly.

  "Oh, I'd love to, but —"

  "No buts. Your bedroom's ready at least, and I've had a good fire going in there to take the chill off. Off with you now! Can't have our dear queen working herself to death . . ."

  As a child, Inos had disliked the bleak old housekeeper, who had often stolen her friends away to put them to work, while laying down laws that came from no statute book Inos had ever discovered. These last three days, though, the formidable Aganimi had been almost as indispensable as Rap.

  She tried to find some better arguments in her fatigue-softened head, and saw that there weren't any. Gods, if the kingdom couldn't last a night without her, what good was it?

  Was this really bedtime? The sky was a bright smear above the hills to the south, and that meant either sunrise or sunset, but noon for certain. There was enough light dribbling in the windows that she didn't even need a lantern, for once.

  As she began dragging her feet up the stairs from the Throne Room, she wondered if she had the strength even to reach her bed. The kings of Krasnegar had always slept at the top of Inisso's Tower. That was holy writ, although no one had known that the reason was to guard the other chamber, above the bedroom. Well, everyone must know about that now.

  She crossed the Presence Chamber, smiling at the boys there trying to bow to her while encumbered with shovels and buckets. The cleaning up was going well now.

  She crossed the Robing Room, and here girls were working with mops and rags. Why would Aganimi have kept boys and girls apart? Efficiency, probably. Less fun, though. Remember to change it.

  She crossed the empty Antechamber. Timber needed sledges and sledges needed runners and runners needed iron; so she had been informed. Iron was in short supply. To melt down dwarvish steel swords for such a purpose was unthinkable, the smiths had told her. Don't think, then, just do it, she had replied.

  She crossed the Withdrawing Room, also barren now. If they could build boats, they ought to be able to make furniture that didn't look as if it had been thrown away by trolls. Of course she could always slip down to Kinford through Rap's magic portal, then order what she wanted shipped north in the spring.

  She crossed the Dressing Room; slowly, puffing hard. She could steal timber from the goblins, but nails didn't grow on trees. Rap could make nails, but she would rather not ask Rap for help, except when she had to. It felt like cheating. She wondered how many nails she could smuggle in through the magic portal before people became suspicious, and why that didn't feel like cheating.

  She dragged herself up the last stair and into her bedroom, and shot the bolt. Peace!

  As the housekeeper had said, there was a cheerful fire glowing in the grate. The temperature was almost comfortable close to the fireplace. The only furnishings were a faded old rug and a small bed that Inos had not seen before. It was piled high with furs and quilts and Rap.

  He was lying on top with his hands behind his head, watching her without expression. He was still wearing the same garments as before, but he was clean and fresh shaven and his goblin tattoos had disappeared. She wondered when that had happened.

  She went over to him, and he raised eyebrows in welcome.

  "Not tonight, I'm too tired," she said.

  He pulled a face at such off-color humor.

  "Of course you could fix that," she added hopefully.

  "I want to show you something — upstairs."

  Inos shook her head quickly. "No! Not now!" She was so tired that even the thought of . . .

  Rap nodded. "Good, it works!"

  "What does?"

  "The aversion spell. I restored it."

  Inos looked at the sinister, forbidding door. "I don't care. I'm not going up there right now. Maybe tomorrow, when I'm not so tired."

  "Use the same password."

  "Holindarn? Oh . . . see what you mean." Her apprehension and dislike vanished, being replaced by normal curiosity as to what a sorcerer might have to show.

  Rap swung his legs down from the bed. "Come on! I've also repaired the shielding round the castle, so no one can spy on you from outside except when you're in the topmost chamber." He opened the door for her and she began dragging her feet up yet another narrow staircase.

  His voice echoed behind her. "I've even raised the causeway a little — I think it's subsided since Inisso's time. And now it's goblin repellent, just in case. And I've restored the inattention spell on the whole kingdom. I made it as strong as I dared. Any stronger, and the ships would forget to come."

  "You've been busy."

  "You haven't exactly been lazing around yourself."

  Then she had reached the chamber of puissance. It was astonishingly warm. Rap's doing, no doubt. It had been cleaned out. Again, Rap's doing — only sorcery could have removed every trace of dust like this, and even put a shine on the floor.

  Southward, the magic portal was a darkness where the magic casement had been, flanked by windows in the two smaller side arches. Sunrise or sunset was streaming in through those.

  The only furniture was a massive chest, so that must be what she had been brought to see. She crossed to it and tried the lid.

  "Different password," Rap said. "Shandie."

  "Why Shandie?" The lid came free in her hand.

  "Just easy to remember, hard to guess."

  She looked at the contents — hundreds of wash-leather bags.

  "Gold," Rap said at her elbow. "Never knew a woman go through money like you do, but that lot ought to keep you in pins for a while. The big bag there is your crown. I can't find the original, so I expect the imps took it, but that's an exact duplicate."

  Crown? Who cared? She dropped the heavy lid and turned to him with tears starting in her eyes. "Rap, if this means —"

  "Yes, it does. Now come along." He put an arm around her waist and led her over to the portal. He said, "Holindarn!" and opened it and they both reco
iled at the bright afternoon sunshine in Kade's private parlor. Smoke puffed from the fireplace, but not so vigorously as last time.

  And Kade, who had been sitting reading a book, jumped to her feet in alarm.

  "She's all right," Rap said. "Just about out on her feet though. She's hardly slept."

  "Everything's fine," Inos said. Sharp guilt pangs reminded her that she had not been keeping Kade informed.

  "Yes, dear, I know," Kade said. "Well done! Now sit here."

  Between them, they guided Inos to a rose-patterned chair. Old age was really making her legs shaky these days. Her joints had forgotten how to bend. Someone put her feet up on a footstool, and someone else tucked a pillow behind her.

  "She just ate," Rap said. "A hot bath and about ten hours in bed should do it. No one will go looking for her in the castle, but she'll relax better here."

  Inos stared up with bleary, resentful eyes while Kade went hurrying out to organize and Rap perched on the back of a chair, one foot on the floor, one dangling. No tattoos now. Hair a bird's nest. Stupid face with wistful expression. That was her man and he was leaving her.

  "I'm going, Inos."

  "I can tell." She was too weary to argue, and that was why he had chosen this moment. Arguing with Rap was never productive, anyway. Pigheaded idiot!

  "You'll do all right," he said. "You've been doing all right."

  "I couldn't have done anything without you."

  It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair!

  "That's true, but I've haven't done much since the first night except throw out money. I gave you no advice, you know — none! You knew what to do by instinct. I'll keep an eye on you . . ."

  "I love you. You love me. But you're going away."

  "And you want to know why. And I can't tell you. Oh, Inos, dearest, I'd tell you if I could!" He stared at her in dismay. "Listen — the words are more than just words, obviously. They may be the names of demons or elementals. I don't know that, but it seems reasonable. The elemental is bound by its name and must serve whoever knows it. Makes sense, sort of. Then when you share a word of power, you give the poor old elemental one more person to serve, so its power is . . . Well, you get the idea."