by DeadMan
They had been given a tent near the edge of the Alliance camp. Elsewhere, captains and Kings were trying to adjust to the presence of the Swordbearer and, perhaps, arrogating to themselves decisions concerning his fate.
Gathrid had wanted to storm through camp raising hell because the Alliance hadn’t rescued Gudermuth. Rogala had restrained him, had made him sleep, and now was trying to unravel an international political structure so confusing, so byzantine, that even lifelong participants became bewildered by its complexities. Gathrid’s map demonstrated the schizophrenia of present-day boundaries and loyalties.
“Whenever there’s a wedding, cities and castles and counties are given as dowry, so all over you have these speckles of one King’s territory surrounded by another’s. Somebody is always at war with somebody else. Sometimes it looks like they’re fighting themselves. Almost chaos, but not anarchy. And the Reds and Blues keep stirring the pot for their own reasons, which most of the time nobody can figure out. The Red Magister, Gerdes Mulenex, wants to be Fray Magister, or chief of all the Orders. A Blue has that job now. Klutho Misplaer. I don’t think he’d just give it up.”
“How many of these countries belong to the Alliance?”
“Most of them, directly or indirectly. Like, say, Kimach Faulstich is part, because this is Bilgoraj and he was one of the founding Kings. Even if they’re not here in camp, everybody who’s related to him, or protected by him, will get pulled in whether they want to or not.” Gathrid leaned over, tapped the map. “The really complicated area is west of Bilgoraj and Malmberget. In Gudermuth we missed the worst of it. We minded our own business. Everybody looks west, mostly, toward Sartain. Anderle isn’t what it was, but its capital is still the cultural wellspring of the west.”
Rogala shook his head, muttered what may have been, “A classic case of feudalism gone to seed.” Louder, “Somebody’s coming. Let me do the talking.”
Gathrid listened. Several seconds passed before he caught the metallic rhythm of soldiers in cadence. The tramp-tramp stopped not far from the tent. One man moved closer.
Rogala folded the map. “Just follow my lead,” he said. “Try not to give away how green you are.”
“My Lords?” a voice called. “The Council of Torun has convened. Will you attend?”
“Be arrogant,” Rogala whispered. He threw the tent flap back. Gathrid slipped outside, stared at the knight who had come for them. The man was shaky and pale and avoided his eye. His men-at-arms were just as cowed.
“So let’s go!” Rogala snarled.
“After me, my Lords.”
“Don’t let them bully you, boy,” Rogala told Gathrid as they approached the heart of the camp. “They’ll look at the length of your whiskers and try. Just remember, they’re more scared of you than you are of them.”
The knight glanced back, frowned. Rogala was dragging his heels, forcing the impatient soldiers to pause again and again. “The pressure starts getting you, rest your hand on the Sword. Just rest it. Don’t draw it unless you need to kill somebody.”
Gathrid wondered at Rogala’s game. Why was he stalling? He was not overawed. He had kept company with men far greater than any they would meet today.
“Tell you a secret,” the dwarf said, divining his thoughts. “Always be late. It irritates them. Fogs their thinking. You can get the best of them, long as you keep a clear head yourself. And it works whether you’re dickering over sausages or provinces.”
Gathrid nodded, though he was not really listening. He was awed by the men they were about to face. The most important man he’d ever met was his father’s liege, the Dolvin.
“Whew!” Rogala spat suddenly, halting. “Will you look at that?” They had come in view of the compound of the Kings. Doubtless Rogala had seen greater opulence in ancient Anderle, but hardly amidst a march to war. “These people aren’t serious,” he said. “They’re just making a show. Running a bluff. Better get a grip on the Sword now, boy. They’re going to put us through it.”
Gathrid did grasp Daubendiek’s hilt after adjusting it so it hung crosswise behind his waist instead of down behind his shoulder. Just a light touch on that grim hilt gave him instant confidence.
He wondered if it really were the Sword, or just something in his head.
Comings and goings round the big tent ceased. “Good. Good,” Rogala said. “They’re impressed. Give them another touch. I’ll teach you yet.”
The dwarf surged forward, past the startled knight. He bulled through hangers-on. Gathrid scampered after him.
Rogala shot into a huge tent. Immediately inside lay a curtained receiving room where guards and worktables formed a barrier between world and council. The guards moved to intercept Rogala. They froze at a frown from Gathrid. They hadn’t the nerve to stop him.
How good that felt!
The knight yapped at his heels like a worried pup. Gathrid glowered over his shoulder, won some silence. This was his first taste of power. He savored it even though he knew he was being seduced by the Sword.
He and Rogala shoved into the heart of the tent.
Men were shouting at one another there. Fists shook. Threats filled the air. Kings cursed one another for being hardheaded or stupid.
A chamberlain intercepted them and babbled in their faces. His face was bleak with terror. Rogala shoved him inside. Someone in authority bellowed, “Guards, seize those two.” Gathrid located the speaker and locked gazes. The man went pale and began to stammer. The guards ignored his instructions.
Gathrid caressed Daubendiek’s hilt.
“Got them,” Rogala chuckled softly. Into the sudden silence he bellowed, “The Swordbearer. The Chosen Instrument of Suchara. All rise.”
Several men did so, sank back angrily.
Gathrid scanned the gathering, keeping his fingers near the hilt of the Sword. Never had he felt so young and clumsy and out of place. Only in wild daydreams had he ever pictured a moment like this. In the dense human press of that tent he saw seven crowned heads. He saw four Brotherhood Magisters, the heads of every Order but the Blue. Dukes and barons attended the great ones.... Again and again his fingers went to Daubendiek’s hilt.
One spare, grizzled old man caught Gathrid’s eye. His uniform marked him as a high officer of the Anderlean Empire’s army. He seemed amused by the interruption. Only he met Gathrid’s gaze without flinching. Here, the youth thought, is a man of substance, of character. Who is he? What is he doing here, treated as an equal by the others? For them contempt of the Empire was as fashionable as it was false. Had the Ventimiglian threat made them admit that Anderle was still the spiritual and cultural axis of the west?
Without knowing quite why, Gathrid nodded to the Imperial officer. And it was to the Imperial he addressed himself when his feelings burst forth.
“We have lately come from the environs of Katich, in Gudermuth, capital of a kingdom shielded by Articles of Alliance pledged at the Council of Torun last autumn, and recently reaffirmed in the Treaty of Beovingloh. Perhaps our eyes deceived us. We are young and inexperienced. Perhaps we did not see what we thought we saw. Perhaps in our youthful bemusement we only imagined that a foreign army stands leagued round Katich’s walls, and is wasting the countryside, while beyond Bilgoraj’s border Gudermuth’s sworn allies bivouac and disport themselves with sweet wine and silk-clad courtesans. We are, we admit, inexperienced in these matters and possibly easily deceived. Kimach Faulstich, you great King, where are you? Where is the sworn protector of my homeland?”
No one admitted to being Kimach Faulstich, though that King and his Bilgoraji entourage were amply in evidence.
Gathrid was surprised at the depth and strength of his voice and emotions. He had felt very tentative, launching into the Old Petralian. Plauen had taught the language with dedication, but with despair because his students mangled it so.
Old Petralian was the language of the Anderlean Empire of olden times, of the Imperium of the age of the Immortal Twins. Today it was a highly formalized an
d formularized tongue reserved for occasions when the vulgate was considered either gauche or insufficiently precise. For Gathrid to have elected its usage before his betters had chosen to do so could, in diplomatic terms, be construed as mildly insulting.
“In Gudermuth the wine has soured. The silks have been torn asunder. The beautiful women weep at the feet of the conqueror. And their men wonder what became of the brothers who pledged them succor at Torun. What became of the swords and lances so boldly rattled then? The wise men, the old warriors, who fought for other Kings in other wars in other lands, and who know the ways of alliances, tell them it takes time. It takes patience. They tell them that they need but hold a while longer.
“But even they have begun to wonder.” Gathrid turned slowly, sweeping his gaze round the gathering. His anger disturbed them, but they were thinking he was only a man, even armed with the Sword. Their attitudes were clearly cast on their faces.
Springing from his subconscious, like a leaping dolphin, came the realization that he was not speaking his own words. These were borrowed. He had translated and adapted them, but the originals had been voiced long ago by Obers Lek, before a similar council in another age.
Though he did not yet believe it, did not yet feel it, in a sense he was becoming superhuman. He possessed a vast experiential reservoir. He simply had to learn to tap the memories of the men he had slain.
Kimach Faulstich, the Bilgoraji King, upon whom Gathrid was prepared to lay the blame for Gudermuth’s demise, chaired the convention both because its army had assembled in his dominion and because he was one of the Alliance’s founders. He rose, awaited a lull in the outraged chatter, then answered Gathrid. He, too, spoke Old Petralian. “Who are you, that you dare come among us uninvited, questioning the acts of Kings?”
Kimach had regained his composure quickly. His counter-burst calmed the others. They turned hard eyes on Gathrid. One fat Magister eyed Daubendiek with a lust almost obscene.
“The Esquire speaks for me,” Gathrid purred. His gaze dared the Magister.
Thus it had been for Tureck Aarant. His closest allies had lusted after the Great Sword. He had endured and survived countless attempts to steal it. He had dared turn his back on no man but Rogala, and even that had proven fatal in the end.
Rogala answered Kimach with an arrogant snort. The Bilgoraji was wasting time. He strolled to a low table facing the lustful-eyed Magister of the Red Order. He kicked a woman aside, dropped to his hams, seized and began gnawing a piece of roast fowl.
The Magister turned as red as his clothing.
With preternatural accuracy the dwarf had chosen a victim sure to be offended. This Magister was the infamous Gerdes Mulenex, the most violently storied member of the Brotherhood.
Mulenex’s reputation had run by whisper and innuendo throughout the west. His arrogance and viciousness were legend. His enemies within his own Order, who had tried to thwart his rise, had come to cruel and lingering ends. In his way he was as nasty and ambitious as the Ventimiglian Mindak, though he was a weaker, less imaginative man. He could not endure the sacrifices necessary for one who would seize powers matching those attained by Ahlert. He was limited in his own mastery of the sorceries. He inveigled more competent, less ambitious men into performing his thaumaturgies for him. He was not above stealing their credit.
There was just one upward step Mulenex could take within the Brotherhood, the Fray Magistery or crown of mastery, over all five Orders. No one, and the present Fray Magister, Klutho Misplaer, least, doubted that he meant to try taking that step.
Emperor Elgar, of the Anderlean Imperium, was a friend and political ally of Klutho Misplaer. Both resided in Sartain, capital of the Empire since prehistoric times. The seat and symbol of Brotherhood Power was a grand old palace called the Raftery. The Imperial Palace and the Raftery both had long been braced for a Mulenex intrigue.
Mulenex had confounded everyone by appearing to remain content with his present status, devoting himself to profligate living and hurling scorn at the objects of his ambitions.
Theis Rogala seized a knife. He stabbed a particularly succulent morsel off Mulenex’s own plate. Mulenex reached for his own knife.
Rogala stabbed the tabletop between the Red Magister’s fingers. “Don’t overreach yourself.”
Not a whisper could be heard.
Gathrid grinned. The dwarf had done his bullying smoothly.
The officer in Imperial uniform laughed. He nodded amiably when Gathrid glanced his way. There was no love lost between Mulenex and Emperor Elgar XIV. Rumor said Mulenex had eyes for the Imperial Palace.
The dream of Empire had not perished in Sartain. There the true believers went on, ever certain that someday the Golden Age would return. In fact, the dream was not far from the hearts of many of the western ruling class. There were endless intrigues aimed at usurping the Imperial throne, in hopes of founding a rising dynasty.
Gathrid drew a deep breath and thundered, “Where are the allies who spoke so loud and bold?” Politics, he thought in youthful naiveté, could be set aside before the threat of a common enemy.
The Emperor’s man replied, “Two cohorts of the Guards Oldani are in Katich now, Lord.” He smiled at the puzzled, surprised, angry looks he received from his companions in council.
The Guards Oldani, so called because in olden times they had consisted of barbarian mercenaries, were the Anderlean Emperor’s praetorian troops, the cream of the Imperial army. Their ferocity was legend. Their professionalism was respected everywhere. Enfeebled though the Empire might be, neighboring kingdoms seldom warred with it.
The Blue Magister’s representative added, “With the Guards are four cabali of the Blue, Lord. Little enough, I grant you. But their captain is Honsa Eldracher himself.”
Mulenex roared in outrage. He leapt to his feet. His great jowls wobbled as he thundered, “My Lords! What woe and deceit have we here?” His arms flapped like the wings of a flightless bird. Rogala backed toward Gathrid. He wore an expression of bemused awe. Mulenex was a showman, sure. The man launched a long-winded, vigorous, extemporaneous denunciation of the Emperor and Blues for having intervened unilaterally.
Gathrid whispered to Rogala, “The Fray Magister is from the Blue Order. Honsa Eldracher is his daughter’s husband and his stand-in as Blue Magister. This explains why the Blue Magister isn’t here.”
Rogala nodded. “Would you say the Emperor and Misplaer are trying to embarrass the fat man?”
Gathrid shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. When a Red says black, a Blue usually says white.”
Rogala grinned at Mulenex. “He does go on, doesn’t he? Taking it personal, too.”
“Honsa Eldracher is the Brotherhood’s crown prince. He takes over if anything happens to Misplaer. Mulenex doesn’t like it, but there isn’t anything he can do. Eldracher is supposed to be the greatest thaumaturge ever produced by the Brotherhood. He won’t want to lock horns.”
Rogala nodded thoughtfully. He didn’t waste much attention on the pyrotechnic Red Magister. He scanned the faces of the audience instead. Gathrid wondered what he read there.
“Politics have fettered this army,” the youth muttered. He made the word “politics” a curse. “They’re going to sit here till Ahlert stomps them like bugs. And they’ll die squabbling and intriguing.”
Rogala asked, “You under the impression Katich would be in friendly hands if it weren’t for politics?”
“No. What gets me is, nobody cares what happens in Gudermuth. It’s just an excuse to grind their own axes.”
“That’s what it’s all about, son.”
“And Ahlert is going to take advantage.”
“He’d be a fool if he didn’t.” The dwarf sneered. “He’ll sit over there, scrupulous about respecting frontiers, and laugh his tail off while these clowns use Gudermuth as a counter in a power struggle that may tear their Alliance to shreds. And when the moment ripens, he’ll jump all over them. I’m beginning to find human greed, duplici
ty, weakness and dearth of imagination boringly predictable.”
“You shouldn’t play games with human lives.”
Rogala gave him a strange look. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really are as naive as you put on. You’re really offended.”
“Of course I am!” Gathrid glared at the dwarf. “Enough!” he shouted, breaking in on Mulenex. “A compact was made. If Gerdes Mulenex and his toadies want to renounce it so they can forward their personal ambitions, let them say so. If the rest of you want to use an ally as a piece on a political chessboard, say so. Stop the hypocrisy. Show your true colors. Repudiate the Treaty of Beovingloh. And be accursed by the dying while Ventimiglian brigades trample your fools’ dreams.”
Rogala threw him a series of savage looks. He was being too forthright. He was not supposed to make enemies, he was supposed to goad these men into accepting a will not their own. Of course, Gathrid did not know that. Suchara did not confide in her Swordbearer.
The dwarf did not care a fig for Gudermuth, except insofar as its fate could be used to twist someone’s arm in accordance with Suchara’s desires.
Gathrid’s speech drew scattered applause. Kargus Scanga, King of Malmberget, responded. “Your shaft strikes near the mark, Swordbearer, though I find your phrasing too bold and your companion boorish.”
“Boorish?” Rogala squealed, stamping his feet. He grinned as attention focused on him again. “I’m not a great man, I admit. Nor do I stand as tall as some. Yet I ask you, is boorishness strictly a province of class? Are the high and the mighty above common courtesy? Is gentility a cruel fiction foisted on the masses by monsters such as this?” He indicated Mulenex with a thumb jab.
“That’s entirely possible,” Scanga replied. His grin was as broad as the dwarf’s. “When I see him in these councils I certainly think so. To the matter at hand. I think we’d all agree we made a mistake at Torun. Not in hammering out an Alliance, but in forging it in such unwieldy form. Swordbearer, it’s unfortunate, but we agreed unanimity was a prerequisite for armed action. Naturally, that leaves the decision-making process at the mercy of opportunists.” His scowl transfixed Mulenex. There could be no doubt that his accusation was specific.