The Redemption of Althalus

by Eddings, Leigh;Eddings, David

  “That’s pure sophistry, Bheid, and you know it. Sin—if that’s what you want to call it—lies in the intent, not in the technicality of just who ran the knife into the victim. Yakhag killed Salkan, and what you did was exactly right. You’re supposed to kill the people who kill your friends.”

  “But I’m a priest.”

  “I noticed that. Which religion, though? You can talk it over with Emmy, but I think she sees the world a bit differently from the way her brother does. This is all beside the point, though. If you don’t open the door to your mind to Leitha, I’ll do exactly the same thing to that door as I did to the one to this room. Your silly wallowing in guilt and self-pity’s destroying Leitha, you blithering idiot. I don’t care how many people you kill, Bheid, but if you hurt Leitha anymore, I’ll reach down your throat and jerk out your heart!”

  “It’s my fault that Salkan was killed.”

  “Yes, it was. So what?”

  Bheid stared at him in horror.

  “You didn’t think I was going to excuse you, did you? If something’s been done, it’s done. There aren’t any punishments or rewards, Bheid—only consequences. You made a mistake; now you have to live with it—on your own. I won’t let you slop your guilt all over the rest of the family. If you’re going to eat your liver, do it on your own time and someplace private.”

  “I’m a murderer,” Bheid declared.

  “Not a very good one, though. Now quit this sniveling and come back to work.” Althalus looked around the cluttered cell. “Clean up this mess and then clean yourself up as well. You and I are going back to Chief Albron’s hall. You have a wedding ceremony to perform.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Oh, yes you can, Brother Bheid, and you will—even if I have to stand behind you with a club. Now, move!”

  The wedding day of Albron and Astarell dawned clear and cold. Because of the season, the decorations in the hall were largely limited to evergreen boughs and bright-colored cloth bows.

  The traditional bachelor party for Chief Albron the previous evening had left the assorted Clan Chiefs, Sergeants, and visiting nobles feeling a bit delicate that morning, and for some reason Chief Twengor found that vastly amusing.

  Alaia had more or less taken charge of the young ladies in the bridal party, whose activities during the week leading up to the wedding had consisted, so far as Althalus could tell, largely of dressmaking and giggling.

  Chief Gweti and the ancient Chief Delur had journeyed to Albron’s hall for the ceremony, since the wedding of a Clan Chief traditionally required the presence of all the Chiefs of Arum. Gweti largely kept to himself during the festivities. Andine’s decision not to loot the city of Kanthon had put the pinch-faced Chief’s nose out of joint, and he obviously found scant reason to celebrate.

  The ceremony was scheduled for noon. Althalus gathered that this was an ancient Arum custom—designed primarily to give the celebrants time to recover from the previous evening’s entertainments, and not to interfere too much with the postceremony celebration. Arums appeared to take their parties very seriously.

  There had been a certain amount of religious controversy about the wedding, since the God of the Arums was the mountain God Bherghos, while the Plakands worshiped Kherdhos, the herd God.

  “Brother Bheid’s going to perform the ceremony,” Althalus announced in a tone that ended the discussion rather abruptly.

  And so it was that as noon approached, Bheid, garbed in his black priestly robe, stood at the front of Albron’s central hall with Chief Albron, Sergeant Khalor, and Chief Kreuter awaiting the entrance of the bride and her attendants, Andine and Leitha.

  Althalus stood with the other guests in the hall to witness the ceremony, and just as the great door at the back of the hall opened for Astarell and her ladies in waiting, he caught a very familiar fragrance. Startled, he turned to look full in the face of Dweia. “What are you doing?” he demanded in a choked voice.

  “It’s all right, love,” she replied. “I’ve been invited.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. I didn’t think you could leave the House in your real form.”

  “Whatever gave you that ridiculous notion?”

  “You never have before. You’ve always changed into Emmy the cat. I thought your real form wasn’t allowed out of the House.”

  “Nobody tells me what I can or can’t do, you ninny. I thought you knew that.” Then she pursed her perfect lips. “I’ll admit that I don’t do it very often,” she conceded. “I seem to attract a lot of attention in my real form.”

  “I wonder why,” he murmured.

  “Be nice, Althalus.” Then she paused. “Have you recovered from the peeves yet?”

  “Peeves?”

  “You seemed a bit grouchy the last time you came by the House.”

  “I took my peeves out on Bheid.”

  “You didn’t really slam him against the wall, did you?”

  “Not too hard, no. Here comes Astarell.”

  Astarell was radiant as she marched to the front of the central hall, and Chief Albron’s expression was one of vapid adoration.

  “Give me your handkerchief, Althalus,” Dweia said, sniffling slightly.

  He looked at her sharply. “Are you crying, Em?” he asked in a startled voice.

  “I always cry at weddings, Althalus. Don’t you?”

  “I haven’t really attended all that many weddings, Em,” he confessed.

  “You’d probably better get used to them, pet. In my view of the world, weddings are very important. Now just be quiet and give me your handkerchief.”

  “Yes, dear,” he replied.

  C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - S E V E N

  Do you really have to leave, Althalus?” Chief Albron said two days later.

  “I’m afraid so, Albron,” Althalus replied, leaning back in his chair in one of the upper rooms in Albron’s hall. “There’s trouble brewing in Perquaine, and I don’t want it getting out of hand. If it’s all right—and probably even if it’s not—I’m going to keep Sergeant Khalor. I might need him on down the line, and I may not have time to come back and fetch him.”

  “It’s all right with me, Althalus. It might go a little ways toward paying what I owe you.”

  “Do you owe me for something?”

  “Don’t be coy, Althalus. You had a very large hand in arranging my marriage to Astarell.”

  “It solved a number of problems.” Althalus replied, shrugging.

  “What’s really going on in Perquaine?”

  “A peasant rebellion—at least on the surface.”

  Albron shook his head mournfully. “The lowlanders just don’t understand ordinary people, do they?”

  “They haven’t got a clue. The aristocrats spend so much time admiring themselves in their mirrors that they don’t pay much attention to the commoners. From what I’ve heard, these rebellions break out every ten years or so. You’d think that after five or six times, the aristocrats might start to realize that they’re doing something wrong.”

  “I certainly hope not. If the lowlanders start behaving like rational human beings, the clans of Arum are going to be out of work.”

  “I’ve got another favor I’d like to ask of you, Albron.”

  “All you have to do is ask.”

  “Could you keep Andine and Leitha here for a while?”

  “Of course, but why? They’d be safe in the House, wouldn’t they?”

  “I’d like to keep Leitha away from Brother Bheid for right now. He’s going through a crisis of sorts, and I think it might be best if he suffered his way through it on his own. Leitha doesn’t really need to get involved. Bheid and I—along with Eliar and Sergeant Khalor—are going to be passing through the House fairly often, so it might be best if the young ladies are somewhere else for a while.”

  “Gher, too?” Albron asked.

  “No, I think I’ll keep Gher with me. Every so often he comes up with some very interesting ideas.”

&
nbsp; “Doesn’t he?” Albron smiled. “Oh, one other thing. If trouble breaks out in Perquaine, send Eliar here. I’ll have an army in the hallways of Dweia’s House before you can blink twice.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Chief Albron,” Althalus said, rising to his feet. “You’d better get your men to working on the corrals, though. As soon as Kreuter gets back to Plakand, he’s going to start herding Astarell’s dowry here. You’ll be overrun with horses before too long.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Albron said in a flat tone.

  “Don’t mention it, mighty Chief.” Althalus was chuckling as he left the room.

  “The Perquaines are basically an outgrowth of the Treboreans,” Dweia told Althalus and the others that evening in the tower. “The Osthos sent ships to the west to establish new colonies and open new land for farming early in the eighth millennium, and the Kanthons went overland to set up their colonies. The more-or-less perpetual war between Kanthon and Osthos didn’t really mean all that much to the Perquaines, so they stayed clear of it and concentrated on tending their crops and getting rich. The turmoil in Treborea relaxed certain social restrictions, so the Treborean peasantry has quite a bit more freedom than the peasants of Perquaine do. The Perquaine peasantry aren’t quite serfs, but they come very close.”

  “What’s a serf, Emmy?” Gher asked in a puzzled tone.

  “They’re chattel, Gher—a part of the land itself. When someone buys a tract of land in a country where serfdom’s a part of the social structure, he comes into possession of the people who live there as well.”

  “They’re slaves, then?” Eliar asked.

  “Not quite,” Dweia replied. “They’re part of the land, that’s all. A serf’s slightly better off than a slave, but not very much.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t put up with something like that,” Gher said. “I’d be across the mountains before anybody knew that I’d left.”

  “That does happen every so often,” Dweia agreed.

  “Is it all one country?” Sergeant Khalor asked. “Or are there all those baronies and duchies and the like? What I’m getting at is whether or not there’s a central government.”

  “In theory, Maghu’s the capital city,” she replied, “but nobody pays very much attention to that. Most of the power in Perquaine lies in the hands of the clergy.”

  “Yes,” Bheid agreed, “and the clergy of Perquaine’s the worst of the lot. The Brown Robes are dominant there, and the Brown Robe order is far more interested in wealth and privilege than it is in the well-being of the lower classes. The Black Robes—my order—have a presence there, and so do the White Robes, but we’re fairly minimal in the overall social structure. Over the centuries the three orders have developed a sort of tacit agreement that we won’t poach on each other’s territory.”

  “I visited a thieves’ tavern in Maghu a while back,” Althalus told them, “and the thieves there were discussing the situation in southern Perquaine. Evidently, Ghend’s taking advantage of the plight of the Perquaine peasantry. There’s a group of self-ordained priests in the seacoast cities preaching revolution and stirring up the peasants.”

  “Self-ordained?” Bheid asked sharply.

  “The thieves were fairly certain that these troublemakers weren’t really priests. They wear scarlet robes, and they deliver sermons about social justice, greedy aristocrats, and corrupt clergy. Unfortunately, most of what they’re saying is true—particularly in Perquaine. The peasants aren’t treated very well, and the Brown Robe priests do support the aristocracy in grinding the poor.”

  Bheid scoffed, “There’s no such thing as a Red Robe order.”

  “Oh, yes there is, Brother Bheid,” Dweia disagreed. “The priests of Nekweros wear scarlet robes. My brother’s always been fond of bright colors.”

  “Are you saying that the peasants of Perquaine are being converted to the worship of the Demon Daeva?”

  “Probably not,” she replied with a shrug. “Not yet, at least. That might be the ultimate goal, but for right now the Red Robes in southern Perquaine seem to be concentrating on social change. There are many injustices in a system based on an aristocracy—probably because aristocrats view the peasants as subhuman. Revolutions have broken out many times in the past, and they’ve never really worked, largely because the leaders of those revolutions were only interested in gaining the positions and privileges of the nobles they denounce. The only thing a revolution ever really changes is the terminology.”

  Althalus considered it. “Who’s the headman of the Brown Robes, Bheid?” he asked.

  “Exarch Aleikon,” Bheid told him. “The Brown Robes’ main temple used to be in Deika over in Equero, but after the fall of the Deikan Empire, they set up shop in Maghu. Their temple’s quite splendid.”

  “Thank you,” Dweia said with a faint smile.

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” Bheid confessed with a puzzled look.

  “It’s my temple, Bheid. The Brown Robes usurped it a few thousand years ago.”

  “I hadn’t heard about that,” Bheid admitted.

  “The Brown Robes don’t like to admit it. The notion of a Goddess seems to upset them, for some reason.”

  “Are things really that bad for the peasants?” Sergeant Khalor asked. “There are always malcontents who spend their time grumbling, but that’s usually brought on by greed and envy.”

  “The window’s right there, Sergeant,” Dweia told him. “Go look for yourself.”

  “I think maybe I will,” Khalor replied. “I’d like to know what we’re really up against.”

  The vista beyond the south window blurred and gradually grew lighter to reveal a wintry field overlooking a grey, angry sea. “Southern Perquaine,” Dweia identified the location, “not far from the seaport at Egni.”

  “Why is it still daytime there when it’s nighttime here?” Gher asked curiously.

  “We’re farther north,” Dweia replied.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” the boy asked.

  “Althalus can explain it,” she told him with a faint smile.

  “You’re wrong, Em,” Althalus disagreed. “I can tell him that it happens every year, but I still don’t know exactly why.”

  “I explained it all to you a long time ago, pet.”

  “I know. I still don’t understand, though.”

  “You told me that you did.”

  He shrugged. “I lied. It was easier than listening to you explain it for the third time.”

  “I’m ashamed of you,” she chided.

  “It seems to be late afternoon,” Sergeant Khalor observed, squinting at the western horizon. “What are those peasants doing out in the fields in the winter?”

  “Nothing very meaningful,” Dweia replied. “The nobleman who owns that field likes to keep his peasants busy, that’s all.”

  The peasants were garbed in burlap rags tied together with bits of string, and they were gaunt and dirty. They were hacking wearily at the frozen earth with crude mattocks under the watchful eye of a mounted overseer with a grim face and a whip.

  Then a richly dressed nobleman rode up to the overseer. “Is that as far as they’ve gotten today?” he demanded.

  “The ground’s frozen, my Lord,” the overseer explained. “This is just a waste of time, you know.”

  “Their time is mine,” the nobleman declared. “If I order them to dig, they’ll dig. They don’t need to know why.”

  “I understand that, my Lord,” the overseer replied, “but it might help if I knew why.”

  “There are agitators out there, Alkos,” the noble said. “We’re going to keep our peasants so busy that they don’t have time to listen to speeches.”

  “Ah,” the overseer said. “I guess that makes sense. You’re going to have to feed them a little more, though. I’ve had a dozen of them collapse today.”

  “Nonsense.” The nobleman snorted. “They’re playacting. That’s what your whip’s for, Alkos. Keep them moving until dark. The
n let them go eat. Tell them to come back at first light tomorrow.”

  “My Lord,” the overseer objected, “they don’t have anything to eat. Most of them are eating grass.”

  “That’s what cattle do, Alkos. Stay on top of them. I have to get back to my manor house. It’s almost suppertime, and I’m absolutely famished.”

  You just made that up, didn’t you, Em? Althalus silently accused.

  No, pet, she replied sadly. I didn’t have to. It’s really happening—and it gets worse.

  ———

  The region beyond the window blurred again, and Althalus and the others found themselves looking into an opulent room where a pouchy-eyed nobleman was lounging on a padded bench, absently toying with a gilt-handled dagger.

  There was a knock at the door, and a burly soldier entered. “He said ‘no,’ my Lord,” the soldier reported.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” the nobleman exclaimed.

  “He’s very stubborn, my Lord, and he seems to be very attached to his daughter.”

  “Kill him, then! I want that girl here in my chamber before nightfall!”

  “The High Sheriff says we can’t kill the peasants anymore, my Lord,” the soldier said. “Those troublemaker priests grab up every incidental killing and use it to keep the rest of the peasants stirred up.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “I know, but the High Sheriff will be pounding on your door before morning if I kill that stubborn old fool.” Then the soldier’s eyes narrowed. “There’s another way, my Lord,” he said. “The girl’s father’s a cripple. A plow horse kicked him and broke his leg last year. He can’t work, and he’s got eight other children besides that pretty daughter.”

  “So?”

  “Why don’t I just tell him that you’ll evict him from that stick-and-wattle hut of his unless he hands his daughter over to you? It’s winter now, and his whole family will starve—or freeze to death—without shelter or food. I think he’ll come around.”

  “Brilliant!” The nobleman smirked. “Go ahead, Sergeant. Tell him to start packing. If his daughter isn’t here by nightfall, he leaves at first light tomorrow.”