by Dave Duncan
I am ship lord of Gray Goose, and that
lets me do anything."
"I am Gerard of Waygarth, Your Grace."
Aeled beamed, displaying many fine large teeth.
"Gerard of Waygarth is a pretty name. Tell
me more about Gerard of Waygarth, Gerard of
Waygarth, because all I know of Gerard of
Waygarth is that he slew my brother."
That last information helped not at all. "I am
twenty-three, unmarried. I have no family,
no estates. I earn my bread as a gentleman
scholar, doing minor tasks for the College of
Heralds."
The tanist laughed. "Gerard of Waygarth, you
are in really serious trouble, you know? Killing one
of my brothers was bad enough. That puts you in
blood feud country, even if he was only a
half brother and I have more of those than I need.
What is really worrisome is that he was one of
my thegns. I usually kill seven men for every one
of mine who falls. You should not have done it, Gerard
of Waygarth, you really shouldn't! Now tell me
what you can do to make it up to me."
Was this a serious negotiation, or was the Bael
just taunting a man he intended to kill in some
especially horrible way?
"Nothing," Gerard croaked. "I mean, what
could possibly console you for a brother's death?"
The coppery eyebrows soared high. "Oh,
lots of things. I told you twelve hundred
gold pieces is a thegn's wergild. I might
settle for tapestries. Bags of jewels.
Or a dozen beautiful virgins. Be inventive!
And quick about it."
"Ransom, you mean?"
"Blood money. If you cannot pay the wergild,
then you will be wite`edeow."
That was no term Gerard had ever met in the
college archives. "Meaning?"
Aeled sighed. "A guilty man sold
into slavery so the money may go to the dead man's
family."
"You are trying to scare me." And succeeding
marvelously.
"I am trying to save you, Gerard. We must
find a way for you to pay off your debt."
"I told you. I'm only a poor
artist-clerk. I can paint portraits for you or
inscribe your family tree in a fair hand."
"Provided I don't burn out your brains
by enthralling you, you mean?"
"I suppose so."
Aeled shook his head. "Not enough, Gerard of
Waygarth. Not nearly enough."
Gerard tried to think.
That was a mistake, because the fact that he
was trying to think implied that he had something to think
about. Spray hissed across his face as
Groeggos lowered her stern and raised her prow
to the next swell.
Aeled turned to look over his crew and then
bellowed, "Steorere? To`edbeorht!" A
man the size of a bull rose on his hind legs
and came to take the oar. The captain showed him where
to keep the shadow of the mast, then laid a hand on
Gerard's shoulder to urge him over to the other side
of the deck. Gerard could no more have resisted that hand
than he could have thrown the steersman overboard.
He gripped the gunwale and waited to discover if
the tanist was about to throw him overboard. He would
not put anything past this soft-spoken, smiling
killer.
"Do not think I do not mourn Waerferh`ed,"
Aeled said. "It was not easy for him, because his mother was
a thrall. The thrall-born are rarely smarter
than jellyfish. But Waerferh`ed had the run
of the palace, and I always liked him and spoke
to him. I helped him. When his beard grew in I
loaned him a heriot--war gear--and found him a
place among my werod. He was trying hard and
learning to be brave. He would have been a good
thegn. You killed him."
Perhaps it was time Gerard learned to be brave.
"What of all the men you killed in Ambleport?"
"What of them?" The pirate's green eyes
widened. "Had they done as they were told they would still
be breathing."
"Given up their children without a fight?"
Aeled shook his head sadly. "It is ours
or theirs. Baelmark is a small, poor land,
Gerard. We cannot raise enough crops to feed our
families, and weeks go by when the fishing fleet
cannot put to sea. We must earn our bread
by trade, and slaves are the most profitable
cargo. Do you think there are no Chivian slavers
in the world? I assure you that there are! It is
true you do not market people openly in Chivial itself
or enthrall them openly, but there are peasants
tied to the land, yes? If you had enough money and
wanted an ever-willing bed partner, some elementary
in Grandon would sell you a pretty thrall,
surely? These captives will be well fed,
highly valued, and they will never worry about anything
ever again. There are worse fates."
To emphasize that point, he laid a hand over
Gerard's on the rail. A rower's hand was
twice the size of an artist's. "You know why I
speak Chivian so well?"
"I suppose your mother was a slave?"
"Ah, you are a clever man, Gerard. Do you
understand how we Baels choose our kings?"
"No." Why did that matter? Gerard did not
dare try to pull his hand free--he was afraid the
other's might tighten and crumple his to paste. The
last three days had left him far too weak
to match wits with this glib monster. He could not
even meet those inhumanly bright green eyes. It
was no help that his last encounter with the thug had left
him unable to stand straight even yet, and nausea still
throbbed in his gut. He felt horribly
vulnerable.
"You Chivians are satisfied to take the first
male in the royal litter. We Baels insist
on a man who is not only cyneboren but also
cynewyr`ede. That means he must be of royal
birth--we have several royal families, not just
one. He must also be cynewyr`ede, worthy to be
king."
"And how is that decided? By this month's civil
war?"
"That is decided by the witan and sometimes
by personal combat."
"Your family is royal, I assume?"
The tanist's hand tightened over Gerard's.
"I am a Cattering! We Catterings are the
most kingly, because we descend from Catter,
discoverer and first king of Baelmark. We have given
Baelmark more kings than any other family.
Times are out of joint when a Cattering does not
rule in Baelmark."
"As now, I assume?"
Aeled smiled. He removed his hand and patted
Gerard on the shoulder as he might have comforted a
horse. "A clever man! You see the problem.
My father fell in the Gevilian War when all his
sons were very young. The witenagemot elected a
Tholing; and the present king is a Nyrping, which is
even worse. To be true to my manhood and my
forefathers, I must w
in the throne back for the
Catterings. You will assist me. This is how you will
pay wergild for poor Waerferh`ed."
"You are crazy! I am a penniless clerk.
How can I possibly help?"
"You will think of a way. I will help you
concentrate." With no visible effort, the ship lord
picked Gerard up and dropped him
overboard.
The world was green agony and icy cold. Gerard
struggled violently and blew bubbles. Moments
before he was about to drown, daylight brightened and he was
slammed face first against the planks of the ship's
side as the water dropped away, leaving him
hanging head downward. He managed to gulp in
air and was plunged again back into bottomless
ocean, battered and rolled along the hull by the
current. The iron band around his right ankle must be
Aeled's fingers.
Four waves later, he was hauled back
aboard--half aboard, because he was left doubled
over the rail, draining water and blood back
into the ocean. His nose would never be the same again,
and the rest of his face seemed to be full of
splinters or barnacles. He had ripped his
hands and arms on the timbers.
The tanist leaned a heavy arm on him to help
expel the water. "I can keep this up all the
way home, Gerard of Waygarth. Can you?"
"My father owns some land," Gerard mumbled, "but
only two hides and a half share in a
watermill."
"Gerard, Gerard! You stay in the best room in
the inn. You wear gentlemen's clothes--or they were
gentlemen's clothes, no one wants them now. You
have been taught the rapier. Your hands are soft as
butter and your skin pale as cream. Your leather
box is full of scrolls in strange scripts
and many colors that must be very potent spells.
Most men in your position would be bragging how rich
they are, not how poor. Think more, Gerard!"
His struggles had no effect whatsoever. Again
he went overboard, dangling there for another dozen
waves. The kid must have an arm like an anchor
chain and probably could keep it up all day, as
he said, for he did not sound at all winded the
next time he let the water drain out of his
victim's ears.
"Any ideas yet, Gerard?"
Gerard croaked, "Two hundred crowns?"
Aeled chuckled appreciatively and ducked
him again, but now he held him lower, so he did not
always get his head out in the troughs, and when he
hauled him up to question he did not even give him
time to stop choking and spewing. "No progress?
Well, keep trying. Concentrate!" Down again.
Gerard realized that the thug was quite prepared
to continue this torture until he got
what he wanted or his victim died, which was
becoming more probable with every ghastly minute. One more
death would be nothing on his conscience and he might be
doing all this just to entertain his crew anyway. No
man could be expected to endure both repeated
drowning and the constant battering. When he was about to be
sent down for the fifth or sixth dunking, Gerard
flailed his hands wildly and managed to make
croaking noises between spasms of vomiting
seawater.
"You have thought of something already?" Aeled inquired.
Gerard nodded vigorously. "Arrrh arrrh
arrrh!" He was left hanging there upside down
to drain, but it was several minutes before he had
coughed enough ocean out of his lungs for him to croak
anything intelligible. "I'm King Taisson's
cousin."
The Bael flipped him inboard and hugged him like
a long-lost brother, drenched though he was.
"Dear Gerard! Why didn't you say so at the
beginning?"
Nothing was too good for the King of Chivial's
cousin. A band of slavers stripped him, toweled
him till he glowed, dressed him in dry wool
garments. A villainous-looking thegn with a
delicate touch packed his battered nose to stop
the bleeding, rubbed salve on his scrapes,
bandaged his hands. The ship lord himself wrapped the
prisoner in soft blankets and emptied half a
bottle of fine brandy into him. That brought the day
to a peaceful close.
Next day Gerard was one raw bruise from
knees to ears, but the pirates treated him like a
valued senile invalid, a rich grandfather who had
not yet made his will. They kept him aft, under a
canopy far from the other prisoners, and pampered
him as much as was possible in the middle of the ocean.
A freckle-faced talkative youngster named
Brimbearn tended him all day long, changing his
dressings, swilling beer into him, feeding him
by popping morsels of hard bread and pickled fish
in his mouth.
"I goodly speak Chivian," Brimbearn
explained, "because my mother was Chivian.
Never she was thrall-made. Thrall-wrought?
Enthralled! Thank you. Likewise not was Aeled
Tanist's mother. Thrall mothers raise stupid
childs." He leered. "I like woman with fight in
her."
That was probably just an innocent joke, but
Gerard dared not ask for details. He wondered
what Charlotte would think if she could see him
now.
Young Brimbearn went on to claim that he,
too, was a Cattering, although from a minor branch
of the family that had produced no kings for so long
that it could no longer be considered royal. He
worshiped Aeled as a paragon of thegnhood who
gathered more loot with fewer losses than any other
raider currently active. He also shared it
fairly, worked as hard as anyone, avoided
fights when he could but fought like a hurricane when
he must. He was already being compared to legendary
heroes like Wulfstan, Smeawine, or even
Bearskinboots. He had won his place as
tanist the previous fall and was sure to challenge
for the earldom itself very shortly. "Not good is,"
Brimbearn admitted, "when earl and tanist from
same family not sprung."
"I can see that," Gerard remarked. However
perilous his own present state, it probably
compared favorably to that of an earl with a
designated successor like Aeled waiting in the
shadows. The constant scratch of knives being
sharpened must grow hard on the nerves eventually.
His efforts to learn more about the election of kings
foundered on Brimbearn's lack of interest. The
kid was not stupid. Despite his youth, he had
visited half the countries of Eurania and many
far-off lands Gerard had never even heard of. He
spoke with apparent truth of brown people and yellow
people, of seeing palaces of ivory, whales longer
than Groeggos, single stone buildings bigger
than all Ambleport, monstrous land animals with
tusks and humps. He obviously had a very
shrewd knowledge of trade go
ods and markets. When it
came to politics, though, his only concern was
to back Aeled Fyrlafing to the hilt, whether
figuratively or otherwise.
He spoke eagerly enough about the ship lord himself.
Although Aeled had mentioned having many half
brothers, it seemed that they were all thrall-born,
like the late Waerferh`ed, and such men were regarded
with contempt. They could never be considered
throne-worthy, so the political ambitions of the
Cattering family depended on Aeled and his one
full brother, Cynewulf, surviving sons of the
late King Fyrlaf by a Chivian captive who
had not been enthralled. That made her a loet,
a slave--well above thralls, but below ceorl
commoners.
"Aeled is king-worthy?" Gerard could not
imagine anyone better qualified to rule a
nation of gangsters and brigands.
"Aeled is especially throne-worthy,"
Brimbearn agreed. "Fyrlaf King married was
when he was born. A fine lady, Maud
Queen, much honored still. You go her see in
Waro`edburh. Most throne-worthy! Men fight
to join Aeled's werod and win booty and
honor."
"So Aeled is legitimate, but he has an
older brother who isn't. Must a man be born
in wedlock to be throne-worthy?"
Brimbearn looked puzzled. "That is no
matter," he muttered. "It is Cynewulf
himself that ..." He glanced around uneasily to see
who might be listening, then changed the subject.
Several times the tanist came and sat beside his
prisoner. Like his crew, he seemed to spend most
of his off-duty time talking and combing out his hair.
He offered his captive more of the excellent brandy
but took no offense when it was refused. He
chatted pleasantly, apologizing when his
Chivian failed him, which was rarely. No topic
seemed to be off limits.
"There are more than a thousand islands in
Baelmark," he explained. "Most are only
rocks awash at high tide or stacks the
gulls and terns use. About two score are
inhabited. Fyrsieg is the largest. Three
shires share Fyrsieg--Catterstow,
Eastrice, and Graetears. Catterstow is the
richest of all shires in Baelmark and
Waro`edburh the biggest town."
"And who is earl of Catterstow these days?"
"Ceolmund Ceollafing." Aeled smiled
without explaining what was funny.
"Not a Cattering?"
"His family is not even royal!" The
scorn would have melted bronze.
"Am I right in assuming, Your Highness,