by Dave Duncan
marshal said dryly.
They both knew that direct orders were red
rags to Radgar but he would not go back on his word
when he had given it freely. Take orders from
Wulfwer? He went indoors feeling sicker
than ever.
With the town full to bursting, even the house
assigned to the King must be packed like a fish
barrel. Four rooms and a staircase led off the
lobby. The ground floor would be reserved for the
guards and probably some of the elderly witan.
Probably Uncle Cynewulf, too, because he
hated stairs. So did Radgar at the moment.
Mom and Dad would have one of the rooms on the next
floor, and the rest of it would be reserved
for the queen's ladies-in-waiting and perhaps the
wives of those earls who preferred to sleep in
Stanhof with their house thegns.
Phew, but it was hot! Another flight brought
him up under the roof, servant territory. Here
he had the choice of only two doors. Hearing
his cousin's braying laugh from behind one of them,
Radgar opened it and walked in.
The chamber was surprisingly roomy and not as
breathlessly hot as he had feared, because it ran the
full width of the building and the dormer windows on
either side made a cross draft. It contained
two chairs, two narrow beds, and a straw
pallet, but it also contained Wulfwer, Frecful,
and Hengest, who were lounging on the beds, stripped
down to their breeches. They pretty much filled it
to capacity. Originally it had been larger, but the
far end was closed off by a crude plank wall
with a door in it, and that must lead to the private
quarters Leofric had promised Radgar.
"Don't bother to kneel, lads," he said,
heading purposefully in that direction. Had he not
been feeling so queasy, he might have sensed his
danger in time. As he reached the door, a leather
belt slammed across his shoulders like a kick from a
mule, hurling him forward against the wood. He
yelled with pain and spun around, registering too
late the flushed faces and empty wine
bottles. The one who had struck him was
Wulfwer, still holding his baldric and leering. The
other two rolled on the beds, convulsed with
laughter.
Radgar's only hope was speed. He dived
forward, feinting to the left, then dodged right and
actually won past his much larger opponent, who was
unsteady on his feet. Alas, Hengest stuck out
a foot and sent him sprawling. By the time he
sprang up again it was too late--Wulfwer was
blocking the door. The other two closed in on
their victim from behind, driving him forward.
"Strip!" Frecful said. "We'll start with
twenty lashes from each of us."
"You just dare!" On principle, Radgar never
appealed to his father's authority, but he knew that
this time he had bitten off enough to choke on. "My
Dad sees welts on me, he'll find out you
didn't watch me and I got away!"
"That's true!" Hengest growled.
"Absolutely right. We mustn't put welts
on him, warriors. No bruises,
either."
"Stand aside!" Radgar squealed, wondering
if the guards downstairs would hear a cry for
help.
Wulfwer leered again, revealing a gap in his
teeth. "You're not going anywhere. This won't
leave a bruise."
He swung. Radgar dodged the first blow
successfully and tried to block the second, but the
thegn's brawn knocked his puny hands aside and
slammed a massive fist into his abdomen.
Punch!
Nothing had ever hit him like that before. He would have
gone flat on the floor if Frecful had not
caught him. He hung in the thegn's grip for a
moment, gasping, gagging, too shocked to speak.
Then his temper exploded at the unfairness, and
from somewhere he found the strength to break loose and
swing a killer kick at his smirking cousin. It
very nearly connected, too. Wulfwer snarled and
swung his fist again. Punch!
Frecful caught him again and held him. "Good
one. Try again."
Wulfwer did. Punch!
Hengest said, "My turn," and gave him two
on the chest, right and left, knocking all the air
out of him. Punch! Punch!
Radgar found himself on the floor, knotted up
in a black mist of pain and bewilderment, croaking
in his efforts to breathe. He thought they had finished,
but horny hands hauled him upright for more--it was fun
to straighten him out and then curl him up again.
Punch! Punch! He lost count of the blows.
Punch! Most hit him in the stomach, some on the
chest or back. They stopped only when all the
honey cakes exploded out of him.
"Yuck!" Wulfwer yelled. "You clean that
up right now, brat!"
But Radgar was too far gone to hear--vomiting
and choking, turning purple. He heard voices
shouting, felt hands working on him, all in a
swirling mist. He began to bring up blood.
Suddenly his assailants were far more frightened than
he was. They thumped his back and got him
breathing again, but he continued to vomit bloody
mucus. He heard voices from far away--
"Idiots, you ruptured his spleen, he'll
die!"
"Got to get him to an elementary!"
"Quiet, fools, there's women below
us."
"Then mop up that blood before it starts dripping
on them."
"Got to get him to an elementary--gotta
conjure him before he dies."
"No! You want to hang for this? Aeled finds
out he'll hang all three of us whether the brat
lives or dies. ..."
Die it would be ...
Well, not quite. Radgar became aware that he
had been stripped, washed, and wrapped in a
scratchy, smelly blanket. Wulfwer was
kneeling beside him, steadying his shoulders with a thick
arm, offering him a drink of wine. He sipped some
to rinse the awful taste from his mouth.
"You gonna be all right, Radgar?" the big
brute muttered anxiously. "Got a little
carried away there. Played rougher than we meant
to. Men games."
Radgar didn't speak--breath cost too much
pain to waste--but he nodded. He wasn't sure
where he was or how he got there ... must be
hallucinating. Outside the door Hengest was
down on hands and knees as if washing the floor.
Thegns did not wash floors!
Wulfwer lowered him gently to lie on the
pallet. It hurt horribly to straighten and more
to pull his knees up. Everything hurt. He
moaned and rolled on his side and managed to curl
up that way.
"Don't suppose you feel like going to the
feast?" Wulfwer mumbled.
Radgar closed his eyes. He was afraid the
brutes had broken something inside him. It was
all he co
uld do not to weep aloud from the pain as he
continued to retch and cough, but he would not give them that
satisfaction.
"Course you got nothing to wear," Wulfwer
said. "Frecful's rinsing out your things, but I
don't expect they'll dry in time."
Later, as he lay with his face to the wall, he
became aware of Mother arriving in a flurry of
anger that quickly turned to alarm, a cool hand on
his forehead, a tattoo of questions: What had he
been doing? eating? drinking?
Wulfwer's voice came from somewhere high above.
"'Fraid he got into the wine, Aunt. Sneaking
it behind our backs."
"Radgar! How could you! How much did you
drink?"
Nursing the throbbing furnace in his gut,
Radgar just wanted to be left alone to die.
"Too much," he moaned.
He wished Dad had come instead. He didn't
think he could fool Mom. But apparently he
did, because she stood up with a jabber of serves you
rights, and turned her wrath on Wulfwer.
"You, young man, have failed in the task the King
set you. The boy would not have taken up drinking all
of a sudden unless you and those loutish friends of yours
encouraged him. Since he is in no state to go
anywhere tonight, you will stay here and guard him every
minute, is that clear? And if I have any more
trouble with you, Cynewulfing, I'll have you demoted
to ceorl and out of the fyrd so fast your feet won't
touch the ground. If you can't watch a
thirteen-year-old for an afternoon, you aren't fit
to hold a sword. Do you understand? Clean up these
rooms properly. They stink." She stormed off
to go to the banquet.
Wulfwer kicked him. "Now I really want
to break your neck."
"I wish you would," Radgar whimpered.
By morning he realized that he was not going to die
soon, although he feared he might never again be able
to stand up straight. The room Leofric had
assigned to him was probably meant to be a
storage area, a narrow gap boarded off at the
end of the attic. At its best it was less than
four feet wide and only half that in the center,
where it was narrowed by the stonework of chimneys from the
lower floors. The two windows were mere slits and
he remembered Leofric's sneer about them.
He took a long time getting to his feet, every
move a fresh agony. The outer room was a
litter of clothes, bedding, and three snoring,
naked guards. The girls Radgar had heard there
in the night had now gone. He hobbled over to the
door--holding himself almost, if not quite, upright--and
there found dear Cousin Wulfwer spread across his
path. Deliberately, of course.
Radgar kicked him as hard as he could, which
wasn't very. It undoubtedly hurt him more than
Wulfwer. "Wake up!"
The resulting growl would have done
credit to a bear roused from hibernation by an attack
of gout. It began with a What? that became an
agonized scream as daylight burned tender
retinas and tapered away into a murderous whimper
of Gobacktobed! The thegn covered his head with a
blanket.
Radgar kicked again. "No. The first thing my
mother is going to do this morning is come looking for me.
This time I'll tell her what happened." He
wouldn't, of course. He would die first, but
Wulfwer could not count on that.
Radgar used the other foot, harder. "Move!
I need to go pee."
Wulfwer groaned piteously. "Just a
minute. Find my clothes." He had realized
that--today at least--Radgar had him exactly where
he wanted him.
Stanhof was bigger than Cynehof, although not so
high, and its walls were of stone as its name
implied. It displayed no awesome array of
battle honors, but for some reason voices were
easier to hear in it, and its sheer size turned a
witenagemot into an imposing spectacle.
Stools and benches had been set out in a
triangle. Northern earls would sit on one
side, southern on the other, with the moot reeve
presiding on a throne at the apex. The witan
proper--mostly elderly deposed earls and a
couple of former kings--would sit along the base of the
triangle. Today some stools had been placed in
the center for the Chivian emissaries. Dad
rarely acted as his own moot reeve. If there was
anything serious to be discussed, he would appoint
someone else to keep order while he took his
place among the other earls. They liked that, he
said, and since he was now the longest-reigning of the
northern group, his seniority put him next to the
throne anyway. Cnihtas and pages trotted
around the outside, carrying messages. Tanists,
wives, sons, and other spectators sat or
stood wherever they could find room at the far side
of the hearths.
It took a long time for everyone to assemble and
find correct places. There were open mutters of
disapproval when Uncle Cynewulf took the
throne. Dad's most frequent choice for moot
reeve was Chancellor Ceolmund, his
predecessor as earl. Although the old man's
back was so bent now that small boys
followed him in the streets shouting insults, his
wits and honesty were widely respected. Perhaps
Dad thought Ceolmund would have enough to do in the
negotiating to come, or perhaps he was showing his
support for his tanist. Uncle Cynewulf was
little respected, because he had only gone on one
foering in his whole life; now his age and
potbelly and bulging red nose did not fit the
picture of a Baelish thegn. His only
qualification was being the earl's brother. Wulfwer
looked mightily pleased to see his father take the
chair, because there was open talk around Waro`edburh
that it was time to find a new tanist. The most
talked-about alternative was Brimbearn
Eadricing, who was probably the best ship lord of
them all--after Dad, of course--and also a
Cattering, albeit on a very minor branch, one
not considered royal. Radgar liked Brimbearn
and would not mind him holding the office until he was
ready to take it over himself.
He had managed to avoid close contact with
Mom, merely waving to her from the far side of the
hall so she would know he was alive. The rest of the
time his bad-tempered, bloodshot bodyguard
clustered around to keep him from public view lest
anyone report back to the Queen that her son was
a walking corpse. He wanted only to go back
and die quietly in his bed, but they found him a
stool and closed in on him like battlements. He
settled for that, leaning against Hengest's bulk and
paying very little attention to the proceedings.
A herald called for silence and eventually got
it.
The moot reeve informed His Majesty that the
witenagemot of Baelmark had answered his
summons, as if he were blind and could not see that for
himself.
Dad rose and explained to the assembly that the
King of Chivial, having realized that his nation had
lost the war, was humbly suing for peace and he,
King Aeled, being ever mindful of the advice and
counsel of the noble earls, wished to hear their views
on the terms he should impose on the warmongers.
There was much cheering. A herald then read out the
text of the safe-conduct that had been granted the
Chivian suppliants. This was really a list of
Baelmark's terms for peace, and if it did not
require the delegates to bring with them the head of
King Ambrose pickled in vinegar, it hinted that
this might be a good idea. Wulfwer and his
friends were bored already, while Radgar just wished he
felt well enough to follow what was going on.
The Chivian criminals having then been
summoned, half a dozen very grandly dressed
delegates followed Ambassador Lord
Candlefen in and took their places in the center of the
triangle. Radgar, rousing himself to see how
Uncle Rodney was doing, was amused to notice
that the stools provided for the honored delegates
were considerably lower than anyone else's, leaving
the honorable gentlemen sitting almost on the
floor.
Lord Candlefen, having been given permission
to address the throne, announced that His Glorious
Majesty King Ambrose IV of Chivial had
responded to the pleas of the defeated Baelish
pirates by extending them most lenient terms. A
herald read out the Chivian counterproposals in
both languages. It was obvious that the two
sides were a long way apart, but Dad had warned
Radgar that this would be the case.
When Uncle Rodney sagged back down on
his absurdly low stool, Uncle Cynewulf
rose from his chair and pointed out that the two opposing
lists of terms, although differing widely in
detail, did follow the same subject order
and hence he would make that the agenda. He suggested
that the meeting begin at the beginning and called for
discussion of the Preamble. Several earls sprang
up, but one of them was Earl Aeled of Catterstow,
who was recognized at once.
"Honored ambassadors and colleagues,"
Dad said. "Is it not obvious that the issues that
have been addressed first in the exchange of notes
are the most contentious? Reasonably so, of