Tales of King's Blades 02 - Lord of The Fire Lands

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Tales of King's Blades 02 - Lord of The Fire Lands Page 10

by Dave Duncan


  glittered with gems, weapons far too showy ever

  to be used in combat. When Aeled took the steering

  oar for the landing, he was dressed as befitted a

  triumphant warrior prince, with golden

  embroidery on his smock, a fortune in jewels

  on his belt and baldric, gold trim on his

  helmet.

  Groeggos rounded yet another bend and entered

  a land-locked bay a league across, silver water

  so smooth that it mirrored Cwicnoll's towering

  complex of glaciers and black rock in the

  background. Trailing ripples, the four ships

  headed for long beaches where land and water met and a

  settlement spread over gentle meadowed slopes

  --not the squalid pirates' lair Gerard had

  expected but a shining city.

  "The trouble with homecomings," Aeled said as

  Groeggos neared the strand, "is that the men all

  want to rush home and tell the kids to go play

  outside for a while. I will be busy. You wait

  on the beach and if anyone asks tell them you are

  my prisoner. Say, Ic eom Aeldes

  hoeftniedling. I'll send someone to take you

  to the elementary." His eyes twinkled green as he

  saw Gerard's alarm. "For a healing."

  So Gerard found himself standing on the shore in

  bandages and borrowed clothes, trying to adjust to the

  idea of being a slave. He had no

  possessions, no rights. His own garments had been

  thrown overboard; his rapier and document case

  confiscated; and his body belonged to Aeled, who could

  still steal his soul with conjury if he wished.

  One battered-looking prisoner was of no

  interest to the multitude that had come rushing down to the

  sea to welcome the returning heroes--wives,

  children, parents. Their joy and excitement when they

  heard the details of Aeled's foering showed

  how great a triumph it was. Despite his

  jest, the sailors did not hurry off home. The

  captives were herded ashore, the cargo unloaded,

  and then the gratings were raised to reveal even more

  booty down among the ballast--bags of coins and

  bars of gold that must be ransom paid by the

  Isilondian towns for the privilege of not being

  burned and looted, plus whatever the hijacked

  Gevilian ships and their cargo had

  fetched when traded off in one of the little coastal

  states. Spirits alone knew what the waiting

  slaves were worth, but the material wealth heaped

  on the black sand would have bought an earldom in

  Chivial. And this was a little more than a month's work

  for two hundred men and an admittedly talented

  leader! Piracy paid well for those who survived.

  "Gerard?" The speaker was a shortish, plump,

  and--what else?--red-haired man clad in

  outstanding finery, a smock of green lawn reaching

  to his knees and gathered at the waist by a jeweled

  belt, a fur-trimmed cloak of velvet. A

  gold-hilted sword hung at his side, his

  leggings were cross-gartered with golden ribbons,

  golden buckles shone on his boots. The soft

  pinkness of his face was very different from the weathered

  roughness of the sailors'. Four lesser Baels

  stood at his back, one of them leading a horse and

  another a shaggy pony on which sat a boy of

  five or six. The boy stared curiously at

  Gerard's battered face.

  Gerard bowed. "Ealdor?"

  "Atheling Cynewulf. The tanist did a good

  job on you, didn't he?" Cynewulf was

  probably ten years older than his brother and where

  Aeled was blocky, brawny, and pugnacious,

  he was fleshy, florid, and supercilious.

  How was Gerard expected to respond--as a

  slave or a captive gentleman? Better

  to aim high and be struck down than to surrender

  without a fight. "His arguments convinced me

  eventually, ealdor."

  At that moment a great outburst of cheering

  distracted both of them. The applause was coming

  mostly from the werod, but also partly from the landlubber

  spectators, and the object of their approval

  seemed to be Aeled.

  "May I inquire ...?"

  Cynewulf scowled. "My spendthrift

  brother has just waived his right to a third of a

  third. Unnecessary extravagance! He has no

  need to buy their loyalty, for he already has it."

  But others would hear of the gesture and choose

  to support a generous leader. Even a Chivian

  could see that. Gerard remembered Brimbearn

  praising Aeled as a giver of treasure, and also

  his odd and unexplained dismissal of his older

  brother. "May I ask what they are doing now,

  ealdor?"

  Obviously Aeled was supervising the

  division of the booty into three roughly equal parts

  --three heaps of bullion and three groups of

  prisoners--but the loot had also attracted men

  who seemed to be important, in that they sported

  helmets and mail shirts as well as swords.

  They were busily peering into sacks, looking over the

  captives, and generally inspecting the take.

  Cynewulf had a lip quick to sneer. "I am

  a thegn, not a trainer of slaves, loet."

  "Pardon my presumption, noble atheling. Your

  brother hoped to gain some profit from me and I cannot

  advise him without knowing the customs of the country."

  The pudgy little man considered the prisoner with

  calculated distaste. "Yes, he mentioned that.

  He sometimes has strange fancies, not always

  to be taken seriously. What you are seeing is

  tax collection. Aeled divides the take

  into what he considers three equal shares. The

  King's shire reeve gets first choice. Then the

  house thegns pick one for Earl Ceolmund."

  "And me?" Gerard asked nervously.

  "You and all your heriot are excluded. You are

  wergild for our brother."

  Curiously, it was a relief to know that he still

  belonged to Aeled, who at least considered him

  valuable. "So the men who risked their lives

  to collect that booty share only the last third?"

  Obviously, and it would normally be two ninths

  without the ship lord's cut. "But I believe I

  now comprehend, ealdor, why your King finds it

  so difficult to suppress piracy."

  Aeled's smiles were shared mirth, but his

  brother's were private amusement. "Do the

  tanist's ambitions make more sense to you now,

  Chivian?"

  "And those men?" Gerard asked in horror. A

  gang of porters had come shuffling forward to load the

  booty on their shoulders. They wore only rags

  and their hair was not red. Even at a distance he could

  see the strangeness of their gait and the inhuman

  blankness of their faces.

  "Thralls, of course. Don't worry about

  them, loet. The men are long dead. Their

  bodies have been preserved as biddable tools,

  nothing more. You will see when we arrive at the

  elementary." Cynewulf beckoned for his horse

  to be brought. He
frowned at the boy on the

  pony. "Sit up straight, Wulfwer."

  The shore was a long, buzzing market of ships

  being loaded and unloaded, others being built,

  slave stockades and warehouses, fish-drying

  racks and heaps of lobster pots; but the atheling led

  the way inland. Hobbling along behind his horse,

  Gerard trod roads paved with hexagonal stone

  tiles and thronged with pedestrians, horse

  wagons, and thrall-drawn carts. Chivian

  cities were stinking, verminous firetraps because they

  were cramped inside high walls. Only Grandon

  itself had spread out beyond its ancient fortifications;

  and even Grandon's streets were dark tracks

  carpeted with refuse, winding between houses many

  stories high. Waro`edburh spurned walls,

  sprawling like a thistle patch in the sunlight with

  all its buildings safely separated by wide

  streets and even by herb or vegetable gardens and

  tree-filled parks. He saw numerous water

  troughs and women filling their jugs. He also saw

  inexplicable clouds of steam, but the atheling's route

  did not go close to any of them.

  The buildings were the greatest wonder of all, for

  every surface was carved with fantastic monster

  images and brightly colored; even the shingles on

  the roofs sparkled with rainbow tints like dew on a

  sunny morning. Although none stood more than one

  story high, the larger edifices were as extensive

  as minor palaces; and yet they were obviously

  family residences, with children and washing in view.

  Some included workshops or displayed wares for

  sale. In Chivial only very prosperous

  families occupied more than two rooms, no

  matter how great their burden of children, but this was

  clearly not the case in Waro`edburh. Aeled's

  protestations that Baelmark was a poor land were about

  as reliable as one should expect from a pirate.

  Gerard would have liked to linger and look. Even more,

  he would have liked to have walked slowly, for

  Cynewulf was setting much too brisk a pace

  for him. His crotch felt ready to burst

  into flames.

  "Loet!" Cynewulf waved him forward

  to walk alongside his stirrup, then peered down

  at him suspiciously. "Assuming my madcap

  young brother does not miscalculate and land himself

  in an impossible duel to the death, and assuming also

  that he then persists with his insane ambitions to win the

  throne, just how do you imagine you can assist him?"

  Gerard had no intention of revealing that, not

  to Aeled nor this disdainful brother. "I

  don't know, ealdor. I fear he is making

  too much of my family connections, although I have

  assured him I am not of royal birth."

  Green eyes stared down distrustfully. "You

  killed Waerferh`ed. I would have made an

  example of you. If Aeled dies I still may."

  He rode on for a while without speaking and then,

  surprisingly, laughed. "Do you know what his name

  means--Aeled? It means "firebrand"!"

  "Appropriate, ealdor."

  "Q. No wonder he is headstrong. A few

  months ago he gambled by challenging the tanist,

  who had grown too cautious for the younger thegns. The

  fyrd sided narrowly with Aeled, and the tanist

  yielded without even a token fight. In other

  words, my brother was very lucky. He now

  assumes that this same brashness will carry him to the

  earldom itself, and that is another matter altogether. You

  understand how it works? Any thegn may challenge the

  tanist, but only the tanist may challenge the

  earl. Ceolmund is well regarded, a wise

  and cautious ruler. I am afraid that Aeled

  is in for a very nasty and possibly fatal

  surprise." His lip settled into its customary

  sneer.

  Curious! Atheling Cynewulf would have been

  head of the family until his younger brother won

  promotion. Now he must be outranked. Was he

  merely jealous of Aeled's success, or did

  he have legitimate worries about reprisals

  if Aeled's insurrection failed?

  "Instruct me, I pray you, ealdor. If

  the thegn moot sides with your brother, then the earl

  must accept the challenge and fight, yes? What

  happens if the thegns vote the other way?"

  Cynewulf laughed contemptuously. "Then

  Ceolmund remains earl and names a champion,

  which means he hires the best fighter in the fyrd

  to render justice. Aeled is good, but far from

  invincible. Even if by some miracle he

  survived, he would have incurred blood debt and

  gained nothing. The odds are staked in favor of the

  incumbent, naturally."

  "Naturally. The rules for challenging the king

  are similar?"

  "More or less. Only an earl may

  challenge, and the witenagemot decides whether the

  king must fight in person."

  "Witenagemot? The witan are the king's

  chosen counselors?"

  Again the sneer. "Yes, but they just talk. The

  only ones who vote are the earls, rulers of the

  twenty-one shires."

  Which was much as Gerard had expected. "I do not

  know how your brother expects me to aid him,

  ealdor, but the Catterings have always given

  Baelmark its strongest kings. As a loyal

  subject of King Taisson, I can do nothing

  to restore that state of affairs. It is in

  Chivial's interests that the present ineffective

  rule continue."

  The Prince gave Gerard another long stare and

  then smiled narrowly. "That assurance might be

  worth a ticket home, loet."

  "You are most gracious, ealdor."

  If Cynewulf would betray his own brother so

  readily, then any ticket he provided Gerard

  would buy only a one-way trip to the lobster

  beds. Forced to trust one of the two sons of

  Fyrlaf, Gerard would choose the raider every time.

  At that point they were overtaken by a line of

  trotting children and adolescents, at least forty of

  them, all wearing metal collars attached to a

  long rusty chain. Guards on ponies rode

  alongside, urging them on with sticks. The youngest

  captives were gasping from the effort of keeping up,

  being helped along by larger neighbors. Gerard

  recognized some of his former shipmates and knew that

  this was part of the human loot from Ambleport. He

  assumed that their drivers were professional

  slavers. The gruesome procession went past and

  disappeared into a cluster of buildings just ahead.

  Moments later he drew close enough to make out

  faint sounds of chanting, and his gut knotted as he

  realized that he had arrived at the elementary. There

  were at least half a dozen buildings in the

  complex, most of them circular and low for their

  width, all extravagantly inlaid with

  mother-of-pearl and brightly colored stones. The

  central dome was enormous, and the last of the

  captives were
being driven in through its wide doors

  like cattle to the slaughter. Flunkies came

  hurrying over to greet the new arrivals.

  Cynewulf dismounted gracelessly. Tossing his

  reins to one of his own men, he went to the boy on the

  pony. "Wast @thu hwoet @this hus is,

  Wulfwer? Woere @thu her beforan nu?"

  He spoke in the plodding tones used to the very young

  or very stupid, so Gerard could understand:

  "Know you what this building is, Wulfwer? Have you

  been here before?"

  The youngster gave him a surly look. "Na,

  ealdor."

  Cynewulf backhanded him across the face, almost

  knocking him out of the saddle. "Hwoet

  geclipast @thu me?"--"What do you call

  me?"

  "Foeder." The boy blinked back tears.

  The tip of his tongue crept out to lick his bleeding

  lip.

  "When you behave like a slave you are whipped like

  a slave. Now listen. This is the Haligdom.

  Here spirits are conjured. What is it called?"

  "The Haligdom, where spirits are conjured ...

  Father."

  "Again?"

  "The Haligdom, where spirits are conjured."

  "Correct. Come inside and watch. And try

  to learn." He turned away, making no effort

  to help his son dismount.

  Gerard limped along behind. The Haligdom was

  larger than any elementary he had ever heard of,

  echoing with the doglike howls of the prisoners. Its

  domed roof was supported by an elaborate

  system of trusses, a further example of the

  magnificent Baelish woodworking skills.

  Most of the floor was occupied by the largest

  octogram he had ever seen, tiled in many

  colors and obviously intended for mass

  processing slaves, for it contained a ring of eight

  head-high posts, to which the Ambleport captives were

  now being secured.

  A tubby, bald man in flowing black garments

  reacted with exaggeratedly amazed delight upon

  seeing the newcomer. He waddled forward, bowed

  repeatedly, and gabbled greetings. Although his

  exact words escaped Gerard, the meaning was clear

  enough: profuse welcomes to the noble atheling and how

  might he be served? Cynewulf obviously was

  demanding an enchantment for the prisoner his thumb was

  pointing at. The conjurer then tried to lead the

  honored lord off to one of the smaller elementaries and

  Cynewulf refused, wanting to witness the

  enthrallment ritual they were about to perform on the

  prisoners. Bowing and fawning again, the bald man

 

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