by Dave Duncan
"I do not grudge you happiness, my child," the dragon said. "But happiness always has a price. What price will you pay for it in this case?"
Fool that I was! "Anything! Anything at all!"
"Rash! I do not know the price, Rose-dawn, or I would tell you. I do know that this time it may be very high."
"I will pay it!'' I cried.
That is the only time I thought I heard my god weep. "Fire-hawk also is my child, and I will not cuckold him, much as he deserves it."
"Will you prevent me?"
"No," Kraw said softly. "Listen. There is a man called Omar, a trader of tales. Send your most trustworthy aide to Myto, to the Sign of the Bronze Anchor, and he will find him there. Bring him here. Tell High-honor to offer the man a bribe. It must be princely, for this tale-teller is contemptuous of wealth. Only a fabulous gift will impress him. In return for it, he will so bespell his listeners that the two of you may steal away unseen. Even Fire-hawk cannot resist that man's tongue. But if the king stints on the prize, then all will he lost."
What woman could resist such a challenge? I could require the man I loved to demonstrate how much he valued me. High-honor rose to the challenge, of course. I felt shamed when I saw the jewel he proposed to squander for my sake.
It was not Verl who organized that deception! Verl was home in Uthom. It was Kraw. Who but the king could have offered Master Omar such a jewel? And who would have required such a price but the mistress of the house herself?
There was Omar's lie. He saw who slipped from the portico that night. High-honor would not have seduced his daughter's companion! Never! It was I, but Omar lied to you tonight to save my shame.
I have never spoken of it before, and now I find I glory in it.
I am eternally grateful to the trader of tales for giving me those precious minutes with the man I loved.
Two weeks later, High-honor died. Nine months later, I bore Sweet-rose.
She was the price, and costly she proved to be.
Oh, how I trembled on her naming day! We could not but invite the senior lords and their ladies from all the innumerable branches of Kraw's family, for such was the custom. They all came, the whole clan. The shrine was so crowded that no one could breathe.
Fire-hawk brought in the babe. He was convinced she was not his. No evidence would have convinced him otherwise, nay, even had he kept me locked in a box to which only he had the key. He laid her before the god.
"She is mine," Kraw said. "She is Sweet-rose of Kraw."
"But is she mine?" my husband screamed in front of his assembled guests, a quarter of all the wealth in the kingdom. Oh, the shame of it!
"You," the dragon said, "are a turd!"
The laughter almost brought down the ceiling. Not another word would the god speak and never was Fire-hawk allowed to forget it. I went no more to his bed again, nor any man's, for my love was dead.
A few years later, Just-blade came to rule in his own right and rashly began the Bunia war. Fire-hawk was slain early, and my heart rejoiced to be rid of him. My son succeeded, but he was unmarried. He went off with his brother to fight, and I ruled Still Waters alone. Those were the happiest years of my life! I could not help what I felt. Am I so wicked to admit it?
I had my daughter, Sweet-rose. She was much younger than my sons, and a great joy to me. Even as a babe she was beautiful, and her beauty waxed every day. She was willful and headstrong. We raged at each other, but it was for love. She knew I loved her, even when we fought.
She must have done.
I am sure she did!
And she loved me. We just did not talk of it; we were too much alike in some ways.
Offers of marriage began coming when she was twelve. I postponed all discussion of the matter until she reached fourteen. When that day came, Sweet-rose herself refused to discuss it. Ten years later, the offers were still coming, and she was still refusing them—refusing even to talk about them! She would not marry while the war was on, she insisted, for she had no wish to be an early widow. All very well, but the promising candidates were falling like icicles in springtime. Better a dead husband than no husband at all.
Half the young men of the kingdom came a-calling at Still Waters. Sweet-rose had a horse she called Tester. Most of the young men ended in a bush after trying out Tester—it favored a small monkey-puzzle near the aviary. Those who survived unscathed she would take canoeing in summer or skating in winter. She drowned them, terrified them, or froze them. Any superman who escaped those perils, she would invite to fencing practice. She had a foil with a trick button … One or two almost bled to death. Do you wonder that I was in despair?
Until one day Tester tested her. I don't know what spooked the brute, but I had warned her for years that she was playing with fire when she rode that devil. Skilled as she was, it ran away with her. She was brought home in a very bruised and subdued condition. She remained subdued. It was a month before I realized that we had not had a fight in all that time and therefore she must be avoiding me.
I soon discovered the reason. Master Omar made him out to be a hero, a romantic daredevil. I saw a penniless foreign adventurer who had almost broken my daughter's neck. I did not like him, his accent, his manners, his account of his background, or his obvious hold on my daughter. I disposed of him quite easily, as you heard. With one ankle broken and the other chained, he was not going to be underfoot for a while.
My daughter and I had a fight that was notable even by our standards. I gave her an ultimatum. If she was not betrothed by spring, I would arrange a marriage for her. By law her brother could force the matter, and would if I insisted. Then I packed her off to court. With my sons away and the land in turmoil, I could not leave Still Waters. I told her to write when she had an acceptable offer.
Her letter arrived one bitter winter day. The king or the crown prince, she said. She had not yet decided between them. The king was an old bore and rumored to be impotent, the prince a degenerate lout, but they were both pursuing her night and day, and didn't they both seem eligible enough?
I don't think she had led them on to spite me. Mad as she was at me, she would not have trailed her coat for either of those two, let alone both. I think it just happened. Whether father or son was first, the hatred between them was enough to provoke their rivalry without Sweet-rose having to do anything at all. I am positive she did not know then why either match was out of the question.
I knew, of course. I screamed for my carriage and was on the road for Uthom within the hour. I told the coachman to leave a trail of dead horses if need be, but to get me to the palace within two days. Even in summer, I had never made that journey in less than five.
In considering my daughter's future, I had overlooked the royal family completely. The crown prince was only a boy, five years younger than she. I had forgot that boys grow up. I knew that the king was likely to remarry. Irrelevant!—or so I assumed, because he was her brother. The crown prince was her nephew. But they didn't know that! Nobody knew that, just the gods and I. Now I must pay the price that Kraw predicted. I was going to be made to seem an adulteress before the entire nation, a slut who slept with men other than her husband. The fact that it was only four times, only four times and only with the king … Well, it didn't happen. I was saved disgrace.
Halfway to Uthom, a courier bound for Still Waters recognized my carriage in passing, ran us down, and delivered a second letter from Sweet-rose. I learned that I was too late.
Star-seeker had accosted my daughter in a corridor of the palace and attempted to fondle her, or worse. Literally fleeing from his unwanted attentions, she took refuge behind a convenient door. It was a room she had never seen before, the royal chapel. I knew it. We children of Kraw always pay our respects to Verl when we visit the palace, although now our descent from White-thorn is too remote for him to acknowledge us.
The door would not have been locked, of course, despite the richness of the furnishings. No one can steal from a chapel in Verlia.
&
nbsp; Sweet-rose knelt and apologized for intruding. Verl replied.
I suppose he began with "You are mine," although all gods have their own liturgy. He told Sweet-rose that he had summoned her. He explained the problem. Both king and prince had already consulted him about her and he had forbidden both matches. He had not said why, because gods never explain. Gods become very angry if their commands are ignored. Sweet-rose was one of his, just as much as the men were.
"If a god guards your nasty secret, Mother," she wrote, "then who am I to expose you?"
I wish I had kept that letter. Some of the things she wrote were unkind, but they were written in haste. She also said … Well, I did not keep it, and I don't remember. She did say she was going to flee the court. She did not say where she was going, but I could guess. She said good-bye.
Fool! She could have kept her penniless foreigner then! She could have blackmailed me into accepting him and the assembled children of Kraw would have rallied to turn aside the king's anger! Why did she not see that? Why give up so much? Why say good-bye?
Oh, I was a madwoman! My carriage would not manage the byways, so I took off on horseback. Even then I was old—in my sixties—but in the next two days I outrode every man of my escort except one boy. Never say I did not love her! I nearly killed myself on that ride. An hour from Zardon, my horse went lame. I ordered my last guard to dismount and I went on alone. Alone!
I could not have missed you by long, Master Omar. Embers still glowed in the grate. The two bodies were not yet cold. Two bodies, and only the prince still held a sword? It did not take much wit to guess that there had been other people there if there was only one sword for two dead men. But the crown prince was slain and all the children of Kraw together could not defend Still Waters against a charge of high treason.
Boats never entered my mind. An open boat across the ocean in winter? Ridiculous! Horses and hiding places were all I considered. The king's officers would be at my door within days, I thought, and I racked my brain to recall all the secret rooms and passages. I tried to calculate when Sweet-rose and her adventurer lover would arrive, and by what road … I was certain she would come home, you see, home to her mother's arms.
I decided I must buy time, muddy the tracks, blur the scent. I dragged the corpses over to the window and let the sea have them. There was too much blood to clean up, so I set the building on fire. Only the roof and the upstairs flooring and the furniture were flammable. The walls remained, and I expect they are there still. The prince's sword was later found among the ashes and identified, but there were no signs of bodies, of course. I never guessed my improvised deception would stand unchallenged for twenty years.
By dawn I was at my manager's door. This was Kraw land, remember, Still Waters land. My men scoured the countryside clean long before the king's ever saw it. We found the horses, Master Tickenpepper! We spirited the old fisherman away, and no one learned of the four fugitives.
Strange how legends grow! Very few people had seen my daughter with Master Omar. More knew of the prince, for he had made himself obnoxious at every stop. The two couples passed by different routes at very similar times. Somehow the reports blended into a myth of two fugitive lovers.
When I learned of the boat, I laughed aloud. I thought it was just a cunning subterfuge to divert pursuit. They would sail along the coast and disembark, would then find fresh horses to bear them to Still Waters. So I thought. I went home, expecting to find them already there. They were not. I waited. As the days passed, I was forced to conclude that they had drowned at sea. My daughter never came back to me. I lost all hope, until earlier this year, when I learned of Hool's oracle.
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24: Interlude
The hoarse old voice ground away into silence, and there was not a damp eye in the room. Even Gwill's seemed to have dried up momentarily.
Eventually the actress squirmed and said, "A poignant tale!"
The rest of us made hasty agreeing noises.
"I have suffered much for love," the dowager murmured.
I interpreted Frieda's expression to mean horrible old bitch! but it may have lost something in the translation. For once the group seemed close to unanimity.
The merchant cleared his throat. "You appear to have a problem, my lady. Your candidate's story does not agree with your own account of events."
We all looked at Rosie, who did not notice.
The dowager pouted. "Innkeeper? It must be near dawn, is it not?"
Fritz scratched his stubbled chin and heaved himself upright, unfolding his bulk like a horse. "It feels like it, my lady." He stalked over to a window. Leaning into the embrasure, he cupped his hands around a spy hole in the shutter and peered. "There is light in the east, ma'am."
"And still thawing?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"If we are to move on this morning, then we should perhaps catch a little sleep. Rosie!"
Rosie jumped as if someone had dropped hot coals down her neck. "M-m-m-my lady?"
"It is time to go to bed."
"B-b-bed, my lad-d-dy?"
"Upstairs. Take Verl with you, and remember to sleep next the wall, so there will be room for me."
The girl sat for a moment, lips moving, working that out. Then she nodded and quickly stuffed the porcelain pigeon and its wrapping inside the casket. She rose, bobbed a curtsey, and hurried to the stairs.
The minstrel shivered. He stretched, yawning widely. "I think I, too, may …"
I caught his eye and shook my head. I suspected I was going to need Gwill quite shortly. Surprised but always willing, he sank back on the bench without another word, staring at me doubtfully and dabbing at his nose with his sleeve.
"What ever do you mean, Burgomaster?" the dowager said sharply, picking up the earlier conversation.
The merchant screwed down his thick brows. "You saw Star-seeker dead, you say. Yet Rosie claims to be his child."
"Posthumous, perhaps?"
"And when did that happen? No, no, ma'am! Her father was a mercenary, who died at the siege of Hagenvarch. Possibly the girl's mother may have romanticized, or the girl herself may, but you quote her as quoting Verl. Your story does not match the god's."
"It really does not matter who her father was. She is High-honor's granddaughter. That is why Hool has proclaimed her child to be rightful ruler—not because of Star-seeker at all."
The fat man's face bulged. "When and where did Star-seeker die? At Zardon or at Hagenvarch? You cannot have it both ways."
The dowager clenched her lips in silence. She was the sort of person who often did have it both ways, many ways, believing whatever she chose to believe. Even yet she would not face the consequences of her adultery. She wanted the world to believe her daughter had eloped with Star-seeker, although she knew he had died. But then she sighed.
"You have a point. I admit there are discrepancies in Rosie's tale. The soldier father sounds more like that Zig boy than Star-seeker. There are also truths! She knew my name, the name of Sweet-rose's mother. That was not public knowledge. She knew the year of her mother's birth. Other things. Perhaps Hool will explain."
The merchant grunted scornfully.
I did not like the way Fritz was hovering in the background, where I could not see what he was up to. I did not like the yawns going around.
"It is not unknown for young women to hear voices," I suggested.
"She is a half-wit!" Johein said, agreeing with me for the first time that night. "She could imagine anything. But how could the voices speak truths?" He glowered at me with a totally unwarranted suspicion.
"Perhaps that pigeon of hers is a demon? If you believe in gods, you must believe in devils, or evil gods."
The audience stirred uneasily at the thought of a demon in the house.
"Just a thought," I added. "She has a terrible stutter, doesn't she?"
"You have another explanation, Master Omar?" the soldier demanded.
My conscience growled at me a
nd I paused to consider the matter. On purely artistic grounds, I was convinced that Rosie was an irrelevancy. She had wandered into the wrong story. The gods may be cruel or capricious, but they usually do have style. Rosie did not belong in the affairs of Verlia. She was a leaf caught up by a storm and blown out to sea.
"I do not think the girl is lying to you, my lady," I said. "But I do not think she is your granddaughter. If I say anything to shake your belief in that, you will not abandon her?"
The old crone crunched up her wrinkles in a scowl. She was unaccustomed to restraint, unwilling to commit herself to anything, even to bind herself with a promise. "Rosie is a great help to me. She is biddable. I need a handmaid to help me dress. My last absconded in Gilderburg with a dairyman."
When no more came, I said, "Then you will certainly take her back to Still Waters with you, whether she is your granddaughter or not? And even if she is only the deluded simpleton she seems to be, you will see that she finds an honorable living?"
I thought Lady Rose-dawn was about to tell me to mind my own business, but curiosity won out, as it usually does.
"You need have no fear on that score, Master Omar. I look after my retainers, and always have." She probably believed that. "Talk away! We may as well see the sunup now. It is your turn to tell us a tale, anyway."
"I will not presume to try to match your own heartrending story, my lady! But I do have a parable that may be relevant. You may judge it on its own merits, if you wish."
The merchant groaned and turned his head to inspect his young wife. She smiled at him unconvincingly. Then he seemed to decide against whatever he had been thinking, and he, too, settled into his chair.
"Go on. What flimflam is coming now?"
"The Tale of Agwash the Horsetrader, of course."
Nobody reacted except Gwill the minstrel. He blinked at me in surprise and then smiled wanly.
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25: The Tale of Agwash the Horsetrader