[Ergoth 01] - A Warrior's Journey
Page 26
“Who shall I say has arrived?” he asked in a light, lisping voice.
“Tol of Juramona,” the captain barked as though speaking to raw troops. “We are expected by His Highness!”
The round little man wasn’t at all impressed. “You will wait. I will announce you,” he said, bowing. He scurried away.
Tol asked who the fellow was, and the captain said, “Graybardo, fifth—or maybe sixth—chamberlain to the prince. Vain little weasel…”
Graybardo came hurrying back, quite red in the face. “This way, this way!” he said. “Hurry, please! The prince doesn’t like to be kept waiting!”
The armed guards remained at the door. Draymon unhitched his sword belt and handed it to his corporal, then he and Tol followed on the anxious Graybardo’s heels. They made an imposing pair, cleaving through the crowd like a couple of wolfhounds through a flock of brightly plumed birds.
Prince Amaltar was concluding a conversation as they arrived. Facing him was a delegation of three richly dressed Tarsans, two men flanking a woman. She was tall and raven-haired, wearing a tunic and trews of sky-blue silk. Her face and figure were at odds with the masculine cut of her clothing. Staring at her seductive profile, Tol had the feeling he’d seen her before.
“Gracious prince, those are the wishes of the Syndics,” she was saying, her voice smooth and rich as honey. “May I convey to them your answer?”
“Lady Hanira, decisions this weighty must be considered at length. My imperial father needs to be told of your proposals, and the Council of Companions must be consulted,” Amaltar replied coolly.
The ambassador from Tarsis bowed like a courtly swain. “I shall remain in Daltigoth four days,” she said. “I pray the gods counsel you to an answer before I must depart for home.”
She turned with a flourish and glided away. Onlookers gasped at the woman’s impertinence, turning her back on the crown prince. Her male comrades departed in the proper fashion, backing away, eyes lowered.
As Hanira swept by, Tol remembered her now from the tent at Caergoth—how she had stared so boldly at him. In passing, she did so again, and Tol thought he saw a flicker of recognition in her honey-colored eyes.
With the Tarsan delegation gone, Amaltar beckoned Draymon and Tol forward. He took a silver goblet from a tray borne by a waiting lackey.
“Draymon. Good, I’m glad you’re here. Welcome, Master Tol.” Amaltar suddenly seemed all kindness, but Tol was not relieved by his reception. Too often he’d seen Odovar or Enkian sentence prisoners to death with a smile and a gentle word. Those who exercised power often learned to put a soft face on their harshest rulings.
“That woman!” Amaltar exclaimed, once he’d drunk from the goblet “She has more”—he checked himself—”more nerve than all the men in the Council of Companions.” He set the empty goblet on the tray. The servant promptly whisked it away. “Do you know, she had the impudence to present an ultimatum! To me, crown prince of the Ergoth Empire! We sent a note to the Syndics of Tarsis, complaining about the high taxes they charge on goods they import from the empire. And what do you think their reply was? They’re doubling the tariff again!”
“Will there be war?” asked Draymon carefully.
“We shall see. Many crave war with Tarsis, if only to cleanse their influence from Hylo and the north.” Shifting his attention, the prince said, “You seem to he healing well, Master Tol. Doing better than the other fellow, eh?” Amaltar leaned forward and adopted a confidential tone. “You know,” he added. “My informants tell me this Crake had killed twenty-four opponents single-handed, including ten city guards. Tell me—how were you able to best him, Master Tol?”
Tol found such numbers impossible to credit, but he kept a calm face. “I was lucky, Your Highness. I lost my sword, but someone threw me another.”
The prince shot a glance at Draymon, noting the captain had colored like a handmaiden.
Amaltar smiled. “You’re just the sort of man I need. Skillful and lucky—an unbeatable combination.” He cast about, and not seeing who he wanted, shouted, “Valdid? Where’s Lord Valdid?”
Valaran’s father shouldered through the crowd behind Tol. “Here, Your Highness! I have the casque. I had to hunt all through the imperial stores to find it.”
Under one arm Valdid carried an old wooden box, the corners of which were reinforced with tarnished bronze medallions. He presented the dusty box to Prince Amaltar, who set it on his lap and raised the lid.
“Come forward, Tol of Juramona.”
Tol glanced at Draymon for elucidation. The captain of the guard was staring straight ahead and said nothing. Tol took a step closer to the prince, and was commanded to kneel. He sank to one knee.
Amaltar handed the box to Valdid and rose to his feet. When the crown prince stood, all conversation in the hall died. Tol felt several hundred pairs of curious eyes fixed on the back of his head.
“For outstanding service to the throne of Ergoth, by exposing Silvanesti plots in the Great Green and the capturing the chief of the Dom-shu tribe; for the defeat and death in single combat of the traitor Morthur Dermount, and for ending the career of the arch-criminal known as Crake, I, Amaltar Vorjurn Ackal Ergot, first-born son of His Imperial Majesty Pakin III, do hereby bequeath upon Tol of Juramona the Order of the Silver Saber!”
From the box, Amaltar lifted a heavy silver chain from which hung a thick silver disk. He draped this around Tol’s bowed head.
“I meant to give this to you at the great banquet,” the prince whispered, “but you were having too much fun in the courtyard to attend, eh?” Too stunned to reply, Tol gazed at the heavy silver medallion resting on the breast of his borrowed finery.
Amaltar stood back, and Lord Valdid indicated to Tol he should stand and face the throng. He did, and they broke out in applause.
Lord Draymon stepped forward and offered his hand. They clasped arms like old comrades.
“I thought I was going to be punished!” Tol said over the cheering.
“Just wait,” Draymon said wryly. “You have been!”
Amaltar sat down and called for a commission in the city Horse Guards. A blank parchment was found. Tol’s name was about to be filled in when Valdid stopped the scribe.
“Your Highness,” he said. “Master Tol is of common birth.”
“So? Every bull has the horns his father leaves him.”
“Of course, mighty prince, but the law enacted by Ackal II Dermount states no person of common birth may enter the Horse Guards.”
“Such laws do not apply to me!” Prince Amaltar declared. Valdid maintained his long face.
“They do, gracious Highness. Only the emperor is above the law.”
Murmured commentary among the onlookers increased, much to the crown prince’s annoyance. He stood. “Ridiculous!” he said. “Am I not my father’s co-ruler? Still, if they want the emperor’s hand on this act, they shall have it! Come, Master Tol!”
Above the crown prince’s throne, hanging from gilded ropes, were a series of curtains and tapestries which walled off the rear half of the massive hall from view. Dragging Tol along, and with a frantic Valdid in close pursuit, Amaltar charged through the hanging curtains, swatting them aside.
“Wait, Your Highness! Please, wait!” Valdid called in vain.
Amaltar perused the nest of cords and poles over head, then commanded, “This way!”
Baffled but obedient, Tol stuck close behind him. He found himself in a maze of rising platforms, each no more than a pace deep and separated from its neighbor by a shifting, soft fabric wall. As they climbed layer after layer, the curtains became progressively lighter, more sheer, until finally they were as filmy as clouds.
Tol looked at the ceiling. Below, it had been a good twenty paces away. Now that they had climbed up innumerable platforms inside the maze of hanging curtains, the roof was only half as distant The layers of curtains deadened the noise from the hall below, lending the high platform an eerie, isolated feeling.
“Father?” said the crown prince. “Father, it is I.”
Seated in the tallest chair at the end of the table, his back to Amaltar and Tol, was Emperor Pakin III. Tol went to his knees.
“Father?” said Amaltar, gently nudging the figure nodding in the chair. Pakin III stirred.
Tol stole a look. He could hardly credit that the gray-faced old man he saw was the vigorous ruler who’d received the adulation of the crowd in the palace courtyard just days before. His beard was whiter than Tol remembered, his face dry and colorless. He was still a large man, but in the courtyard had seemed powerful and strong. Up close he looked bowed by years and the weight of command.
“What is it?” Pakin said. Amaltar said a few words in the emperor’s ear. Pakin III nodded.
“Come here, boy.”
Tol came round the side of the great table and knelt again.
“Amaltar tells me he wants to give you the Order of the Silver Saber.” Tol held up the heavy medal for the emperor to see. “It is a rare honor. No one has been awarded it since the reign of Ergothas III.”
“I’m really not worthy—” Tol tried to say. Pakin HI cut him off.
“Tosh, boy. I’ve heard about you. Thanks to you, I was able to send the insufferable ambassador from Silvanost home with a flea in his ear. That alone was worth the Silver Saber.” A laugh rumbled deep within the emperor’s chest. “Better still, you settled Morthur for us. You’ve already done more for this throne than most of the noble warriors in Daltigoth.
“Amaltar needs a man like you. He’s a thinker, but he’s no warrior. Be his champion. Defend him from the wolves who circle the throne every day, seeking to snatch him from his seat. Will you do that?”
“I will do whatever Your Majesty commands,” Tol said fervently.
“Don’t give yourself too readily, boy. They are plenty of people in this land who will gladly take from you until nothing’s left but skin and bones!”
Pakin III settled back in his chair and folded his hands across his belly. He sighed, a gusty sound of great tiredness.
“To placate Valdid and the snobs in court, I’ll create you a lord of the realm. What is your full name?” the emperor asked.
“Just Tol, Your Majesty.”
“A sound name, but not enough for the velvet-robed nitwits around here.” The emperor closed his red-rimmed eyes briefly. “My ancestor, Ackal Ergot, was a savage who drank blood from the skulls of his enemies. Did you know that?”
Tol shook his head. The emperor laughed, saying, “Now they call him Ackal the Great. He was great, a great savage. It took a ferocious warrior to carve out an empire, and it takes new generations of cunning and bloodthirsty warriors to keep it going. If we don’t defend the empire, someone else will tear it from our hands, a worse savage than I or my son.”
“Father,” Amaltar said, trying to keep the emperor’s mind on his task.
“Yes, yes.” Pakin III extended a hand scarred by many a battle. “There was a warrior, one of Ackal Ergot’s boon companions. Your name starts out like his, so I’ll give you the rest of it.”
Clearing his throat, he said, “Arise, Tolandruth, Lord of the Realm, commander of the Horse Guards, champion of the House of Ackal.”
Tol stood, slowed by his aching leg, and by the full burden of a new name and weighty titles.
“Father,” Amaltar said, “didn’t Ackal the Great cut off Tolandruth’s head?”
“He cut off all his friends’ heads, eventually,” murmured Pakin III. In moments he was asleep again, snoring softly.
Amaltar and Tol departed. They found Valdid lurking outside the innermost ring of curtains. The crown prince relayed the news of Tol’s elevation.
“His Majesty’s will be done,” replied the chamberlain, bowing his head. “But it may not go well for Master Tol—that is, for Lord Tolandruth. The nobles of the empire are proud, Highness. They may not accept a newly made peer born of peasant stock.” Valdid nodded to Tol. “No offense, my lord.”
Tol blinked at the title, but said automatically, “No offense taken.”
The fact was, his head was swimming from his sudden change of fortune. He’d wakened this morning believing it might be his last day of life, and instead he’d been raised to nobility by the hand of the emperor himself, awarded an honor shared by the greatest warriors in the empire’s history, and named to command a prestigious body of fighters. He could scarcely take it all in.
Crown Prince Amaltar presented him to the crowd in the audience hall as Lord Tolandruth, commander of the city Horse Guards. The assembled courtiers and favor-seekers cheered, as was their wont, but Tol wasn’t fooled by their enthusiasm.
There were a few who didn’t bother applauding. Most of the silent ones clustered around Prince Nazramin, Amaltar’s younger brother, loafing at the far end of the hall. Since seeing Prince Nazramin abuse Valdid in the back halls of the palace, Tol had heard many stories of the prince’s monstrous pride and cruelty. The stony silence of Nazramin and his cronies seemed louder than the cheers of the crowd. Valdid’s prediction of Tol’s poor reception was already coming true.
* * * * *
Lord Enkian was thunderstruck. Gone was the eighteen-year-old foot soldier he knew, and in his place stood the new commander of the city’s mounted garrison, wearing the ancient Order of the Silver Saber, and Enkian’s own equal, Lord Tolandruth.
“I am bewitched,” Enkian said. “How can this be?”
“If it’s witchcraft, my lord, then the emperor cast the spell,” Tol replied. He was giddy with the ability to bandy words with his once forbidding liege.
The rest of Enkian’s entourage from Juramona stood by, likewise dumbfounded. Relfas asked, “So, you’ll not be coming back with us?”
Tol shook his head, grinning foolishly.
“Fantastic,” said Enkian. “Egrin will not believe it.”
Mention of Tol’s old mentor deflated his elation. What about Egrin? Would he never see him again? He thought fast.
“I have two requests for you, my lord,” he said to Enkian. “I’d like to send a letter to Egrin—will you see he gets it?” The marshal nodded, and Tol added, “I also want to keep some of the Juramona footmen here with me—as many as ten, if that’s all right.”
Enkian shrugged. “Keep them all, if you want,” he said, and Tol ignored the slight against his men.
The Juramona delegation was due to depart in two days. Tol would not begin his duties as commander of the Horse Guards- until the following day. In the short interim, he rounded up the foot soldiers from the canal quarter and told them his news. To his surprise, they already knew.
“The whole city rings with your name,” Narren said. “They say you were ennobled by the emperor’s own hand. Is it true?” Tol admitted it was.
He told them of his plan to keep ten men in Daltigoth as his personal retainers. To a man, they all volunteered. Tol chose Narren, then picked nine more based on special skills or talents they had. Tarthan, Allacath, Wellax, and Frez he chose as the four best spearmen in Juramona; Darpo and Lestan were the bravest and steadiest of the footmen; Fellen, son of a builder, was a skillful field engineer. Valvorn and Sanksa, formerly of the Karad-shu tribe, were gifted scouts and trackers. Only Frez and Tarthan were older than thirty, and all the men were fine warriors.
To the rest of the soldiers he was obliged to bid farewell. “Wherever service to the emperor takes me, I shall always be Tol of Juramona, a foot soldier of the Household Guard.”
The cheers raised for this declaration echoed from the blackened rafters of The Bargeman’s Rest.
After sending Narren off with money to find lodgings for his new retinue, Tol returned to the Inner City. He crossed the open courtyard, pausing before the Riders’ Hall. On a whim, he tur
ned away from the hall and entered the wizards’ garden. It was growing dark among the elms and yew as he made his way to the Font of the Blue Phoenix.
She was there, curled up on the pool ledge. Tol moved silently up behind her, thinking a little scare would do Valaran good.
“Grown men shouldn’t tiptoe. You look silly,” she said, raising her head.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“No. Reading.” The light was so poor she had had her nose pressed to the parchment. “The Confessions of Milgas Kadwar. What nonsense! No one can reach Luin by ladder!” she scoffed.
He didn’t know what she was talking about, and didn’t care. He took her in his arms, lifting her bodily from the low marble wall. Valaran did not resist, nor did she return his ardor.
“You always have one thing on your mind,” she said.
“You inspire me,” he replied. He entwined his fingers in her thick brown hair and tried to kiss her, but she dodged him.
“We must be careful, Tol,” she chided, pulling back. “I’m to wed the crown prince in seven days.”
The words were cold water thrown in his face. “You don’t have to remind me!”
“You must be a man about this.” Valaran tucked her legs underneath and smoothed her robe.
He looked away at the fireflies glittering around them. “If I were a man, I wouldn’t let anyone take you away from me, not even a prince!”
“You’re a noble now, Lord Tolandruth, so start thinking like one. Poor people marry for love; nobles marry for advantage. Don’t confuse the two.”
Even as she said the harshly practical words, she laid her head on his shoulder, and his sullenness vanished. He stroked her smooth cheek.
“I will take a house in the city,” he whispered. “My men will be quartered there. Will you come and see me now and then?”
“What of your wives, the forest women?”
“You know,” he said earnestly, “they’re not really my wives. I’ve never touched them. They’re hostages to the good behavior of the Dom-shu tribe.” Realizing his words made Kiya and Miya sound unimportant, he added, “They’re like sisters to me, big, tough sisters. They take care of me in their own rough way, and they’ll take care of you, too.”