by Caleb Carr
But then the door closes again, and the screaming becomes stifled, although no less frantic. The sound strikes fear deep into Baster-kin’s heart, particularly when he hears footsteps coming from below: with great speed, he again moves behind one of the marble columns at the gallery’s edge, and peers out to see who approaches. He breathes with no little relief when he spies not Lady Arnem but his most trusted servant and counselor, Radelfer, walking alone to the stairway, having come from the library that opens off the southern side of the building’s great entry hall. Baster-kin walks out to the open area at the top of the staircase and waits for his faithful seneschal, a tall man who still exudes power, even though his shoulder-length hair, his close-clipped beard, and the tone of his skin have all gone quite grey through his many years of service to the Baster-kin family.
“I told that fool Raban to make his doses strong enough, this evening,” Baster-kin says, as the older man falls in beside him and they begin to walk up the hallway of the northern wing. “Has her screaming been audible in the library?”
“Portions of it, my lord, but only if one knew what to listen for,” Radelfer answers. “Which I did. But Lady Arnem took no heed.”
Baster-kin laughs humorlessly. “None that she told you of, at any rate,” he scoffs. “She is far too wise to intrude in such matters, when worries about both her son and her husband have brought her here. I assume those are her reasons for calling?”
“Yes,” Radelfer replies carefully. “Although she has other information to impart—things that she would not tell me. Some business of great importance having to do with the Fifth District.”
“Ah, yes,” Lord Baster-kin answers ambiguously. “Come, come, Radelfer—what business in the Fifth District is ever of great importance?”
“I only convey the message that she related, my lord,” Radelfer says, still watching his former charge carefully as the pair reach the thick door into the bedchamber that has been the source of the evening’s disturbances.
“Is it a ploy, Radelfer, do you think?” Baster-kin asks. “To strengthen the plea she makes concerning her son?”
“I would not say so,” Radelfer answers calmly; all the more calmly, given that he is lying. “She is little changed: guile is no more her art now than it was years ago, and her concern has an unquestionably genuine quality to it.” He affects greater confusion when his master does not immediately reply. “My lord? Are you aware of some matter in the Fifth District that she may have stumbled upon?”
Baster-kin eyes the man. “I, Radelfer? Nothing at all. But tell me—you say she is little changed?”
“So it appears to my eyes, lord,” Radelfer replies. “But remember—I have ever been a poor judge of women.”
Baster-kin laughs. “You had judgment enough to know that both she and her mistress could help me, in my youth, when the rest of Broken’s healers proved useless.”
“Perhaps,” Radelfer replies. “But in my own life, that judgment has been less discerning.”
“Many are the great philosophers who know the world well, yet almost nothing of themselves …,” says the master of the Kastelgerd. Then he weighs the matter at hand silently. “Very well—return to her, Radelfer. Engage her further in conversation, lest she detect our larger purpose. When you are certain all sound from Lady Baster-kin’s chamber has been quieted, bring her to the base of the stairs.”
“Why not keep her safely in the library—?” Radelfer asks.
“I do not have time, now, Radelfer, to explain in greater detail,” Basterkin replies. “Have her there when all is silent—that is my wish.”
Radelfer watches his lord disappear into the bedchamber, arching a brow as he realizes: Yes—have her there, so that when you descend, you may look all the more impressive. You are as you were, Rendulic, at the mere thought of encountering her: a lovesick boy in search of admiration …
The seneschal’s manner changes only when he has descended the grand stairway once more, and is alone; or, rather, presumes he is alone. A whispering voice calls from the shadows beneath the stairs, startling him: “Radelfer …?”
The seneschal turns and sees a black-robed man step out from the darkest shadows in the great hall. “Klauqvest!” Radelfer whispers in surprise. “You should not be here—you risk discovery. There is much activity in the Kastelgerd tonight.”
“Well do I know it,” Klauqvest answers, “but Lord Baster-kin bade me issue several private commands to Healer Raban, which I have just done.”
“In truth?” Radelfer takes a moment to turn to the ever-troubling matter of relations between Rendulic Baster-kin and Klauqvest: If my lord wishes so passionately that this pitiable young man remain hidden, the seneschal asks himself, then why does he also insist upon employing him in ways that risk further discovery of his existence? Dispensing with such unanswerable queries, Radelfer asks aloud, “And are you on your way back to the cellars, then?”
“Not quite,” Klauqvest replies.
“I should reconsider that statement, lad, and get below at once, if I were you. Best to be safe, whatever your—” Radelfer pauses to choose his words carefully. “Whatever your lord and master’s willful ignorance of the risk.”
“I shall,” Klauqvest says quickly, “but as Raban is already here, I wondered if you could not—coax some of his medicines out of him, for I failed in the attempt. I do not seek them for myself, but for Loreleh.”
“Your sister?” Radelfer draws closer still to the bandaged face. “Is she ill?”
“Less ill than in pain,” Klauqvest says. “But ask her yourself.”
A third timid voice, that of a young maiden, now joins the discussion from a spot even further back in the shadows beneath the stairs. “Hello, Radelfer.”
“Loreleh?” Radelfer moves further into the shadows, and as his eyes become accustomed to the darkness, he finally discerns the form of a girl whom he knows to be fifteen years old. Her face and most of her form are lovely: pale skin, wide, dark eyes, and luxuriant tresses of dark hair lightly tinted with red, all atop a fine form. The only suggestion of imperfection in this beauteous image is a rough-hewn cane that Loreleh carries in her left hand, which directs the observer’s eye to the awkward angle at which the foot on that side of her body is articulated at the end of the leg, and to the heavy, specially cobbled boot that covers that extremity: the girl is clubfooted.
“Are you both mad, then?” Radelfer continues. “To be out of the cellars when so much activity consumes this household?”
“I am sorry, Radelfer,” Loreleh replies. “And please, do not blame my brother. I forced him to bring me.”
Radelfer smiles through his alarm and skepticism. “Forgive my saying that I doubt if such coercion was either necessary or used.”
“Oh, but it was,” Loreleh replies naely, as Radelfer and Klauqvest exchange a knowing glance. The maiden then smiles at them both as she drags the clubbed foot a few steps closer to the seneschal. “But do not suppose that I make this request for medicine for myself, alone: Klauqvest has been suffering too, due to how many tasks our—that his lordship has demanded he undertake, these last few days.”
“Loreleh, I’ve told you, I am well enough,” Klauqvest protests, in an exhausted, weakening voice that belies his words. “We must address your pain first—”
“Just as you always do,” Radelfer says, as he kneels to examine Loreleh’s left foot, which is yet covered by the unique boot. Finding nothing, he begins to delicately undo the boot’s buckles and laces. “Loreleh, did you fall or twist the foot in some way?”
“No,” Loreleh answers quickly; but her brother puts one of his bandaged, claw-like hands atop her head.
“Loreleh,” he admonishes gently. “It will defeat our purpose if you insist upon bending facts simply to preserve your foolish pride …”
Loreleh submits. “Very well, brother,” she murmurs. “I did trip and fall,” she continues, to Radelfer. “Two days ago. And so, when we heard that Raban would be coming on another errand …”
“Yes, I see,” Radelfer replies, by now studying the denuded foot. It is horrifically misshapen and turned inward, certain parts having grown too large for the shortened shin above it; in addition to which, it bears the deep crimson and plum shades of recently acquired bruises. “It must pain you badly. With its additional bones, there is far more to break and to bruise than in your right foot …” The considerate manner in which Radelfer utters this last statement almost makes the ugly mockery of a woman’s delicate foot that is in his hands sound less a source of shame than an object demanding compassion, an attitude for which Klauqvest and Loreleh are clearly grateful, as they have been throughout their lives, during all of which Radelfer has been more benefactor than servant.
“I will offer you a bargain,” Radelfer says, standing. “If you will get back to the cellars as quickly as is possible, the pair of you, I shall secure generous amounts of Healer Raban’s medicines, before he departs, and bring them to you as soon as I am able. Fair?”
Unable to stand on the toes of her feet and reach Radelfer’s cheek, Loreleh contents herself with taking his one hand in her two and kissing it: an action that plainly embarrasses the seneschal. “Now, now—none of that,” he says quickly.
“But we are once more in your debt,” Klauqvest whispers. “You go beyond the bounds of service, as you have ever done for us. And so we ask only that you yourself take care, Radelfer, on so dangerous a night.”
Attempting to shrug off such sentiments, Radelfer motions in the direction of a hidden door beneath the grand stairway. “Go, I beseech you. Lest we all be exiled to Davon Wood …”
And, as he says these last words, he hears but does not quite see the stairway portal in the shadows open, then close again. When he is sure all is safe, he turns and directs his steps toward the thick door to the Kastelgerd’s library, on the opposite side of the great hall. Striding across the hall’s marble floor purposefully, he shakes his head, recalling Klauqvest’s words in a whisper:
“ ‘So dangerous a night …’ ” And then he muses silently: A dangerous night, indeed. And may the gods let it pass quickly—for tonight the Moon throws shadows of an equally dangerous past ever longer across this great house …
{iv:}
WITHIN THE BEDCHAMBER in the north wing of the Kastelgerd, meanwhile, Rendulic Baster-kin has entered. He quietly closes the door behind him, yet remains close to the doorway, trying to take in the scene before him as if it were new; but all elements within are as they have been for the last few days, as well as during crises of similar intensity and duration that have struck every few Moons over the last several years: the upward arching of his wife’s body with the worsening of her fits; the desperate restraining efforts of Lady Baster-kin’s own marauder maidservant; the maidservant’s obvious discomfort with so freely laying hands upon her mistress, even if it is required; the vapors that rise from the infusions and tinctures of Healer Raban’s treatments as they are mixed and brewed and fill the chamber with strange aromas; and, finally, the various and increasingly sharp scents of Lady Baster-kin’s body, which bring to any visitor’s nose the biting tinge of bitter pain, as well as of deep confusion and fear.
Lord Baster-kin cannot keep his thoughts from journeying back to the early and happy days of his marriage to the marauder princess called Chen-lun, an event that he had dreaded, until his father had returned from the East, the princess and her small retinue riding beside him. Chen-lun could sit a mount as well as any Broken cavalryman, and the treaties that Rendulic’s father carried in his personal coffers would benefit not only Broken, but the Baster-kin family; and, while Chen-lun could not have been less like the one maiden ever to have captured Rendulic’s heart (the lowborn, golden-haired healer’s apprentice from the Fifth District called Isadora), the scion of the Baster-kins—fresh from his panther hunt in Davon Wood—had soon found that this made no difference. The eastern princess was well versed in such amorous skills as would make any young man’s head swim. And—although Rendulic’s father had succumbed to his pox soon after his return to Broken, without ever speaking another word to his son—the new Lord Baster-kin had only become more deeply enamored of his young bride, all the while. He quickly got the wife his father had selected for him with child, before even the dying man had made his journey to Kafra’s paradise …
Remaining by the bedchamber door for several moments more, and calling to the fat-faced, richly robed Raban, Baster-kin informs the healer that he himself will approach the bed only when the patient has in fact been calmed. The healer nods obsequiously, and then returns by reverse steps to a table by the bed. He quickly prepares and administers to the tormented woman before him a powerful, crude mixture of several of his drugs: opium, Cannabis indica, and, finally, ground and properly brewed wild hops from the mountainside. The effect of this combination is swift: within moments, Lady Baster-kin’s pain and seeming madness finally begin to subside, although, in her face, there is no greater apprehension of the events about her than there had been moments before.
A quieted chamber and household is what Rendulic Baster-kin has repeatedly demanded of Raban this evening. Only when the Merchant Lord is sure the effect is not temporary does he slowly approach his wife’s bed. He orders Raban and the healer’s apprentice out of the room, but exempts Chen-lun’s personal servant from this command: he has learned over the years of his marriage and especially of his lady’s illness that even attempting to order the ever-silent attendant from her mistress’s presence, particularly during such crises as this one, has no effect, and indeed can lead to unspoken yet dangerous confrontations. The woman, who is called simply Ju, has been Lady Baster-kin’s shadow since long before the striking, black-eyed princess came to Broken. A dark, silent form, lithe of shape and movement (just as was her mistress, before illness struck and began laying long siege to her body), Ju seems ever to keep one hand on the pommel of a large dagger, its scabbard stitched into a belt drawn round her waist.
Only the most warlike marauders, of the regions to the east and northeast of Broken, carry such blades; and the weapon is not merely ornamental, especially in one such as Ju’s hands. Upon those few occasions when Baster-kin has seen her wield it, she has demonstrated admirable skill at the close quarters for which it was designed. He therefore treats the woman with far more respect than he would any common Broken noblewoman’s handmaiden, just as Ju plainly appreciates the fact that, difficult as her mistress’s long illness has been for Baster-kin, his lordship has neither ignored his wife, nor failed to allow whatever healers she desires to treat her, doubt though he may their abilities. Then, too, this strongest Merchant Lord in the history of the Baster-kin family has never lost his temper when Chen-lun, in the grip of fever and pain, has assaulted her husband with maddened fantasies, uttering indictments that Ju knows are often more than unfair.
But finally, and most importantly, Baster-kin and Ju share one terrible secret: the reason that their lady lies so grievously ill upon the bed between them. Ju knows that, in truth, her lady has been truly fortunate to have been tied to so unexpectedly decent a husband, whatever his occasional manifestations of pained disgust at the sickness that long ago destroyed the intimate world that once gave the pair not only pleasure, but unexpected solace, and which now separates them, both physically and as true man and wife, forever …
Chen-lun, too, knows how hard her husband struggles to relieve her pain and cure her disease without revealing the secret of its cause and destroying her name in the kingdom she adopted as her home upon their marriage. Indeed, if the full facts were known, they would likely ruin her even among her own people; and the knowledge of her lordship’s faith inspires the initially happy (if still feverish) attitude that she takes toward him, once she is indeed certain that her perception of his tall form emerging from the shadowy entryway to the bedchamber is more than the mere effect of illness or drugs.
“Rendulic,” she whispers, attempting a smile and some sense of composure; but her face and body offer livin
g testament to the torment she has endured during the hours leading to this meeting.
For his part, Baster-kin does what he can to disguise the various forms of despair, masked by disappointment, that the progression of her disease causes deep in his soul. He tries to concentrate his attention upon her black eyes, which once shone in enchanting harmony with the long sheets of her utterly straight black hair as it fell across her skin and his own during the short time that they found joyous pleasure in each other’s embrace. That all too short a time …
The wedding of the newly invested Rendulic, Lord Baster-kin, to the exotic Chen-lun had seemed an entirely brilliant occasion. Only weeks after the ceremony—weeks during which the upper floors of the Kastelgerd were often heard to echo with the sounds of swordplay, in addition to bursting crockery destroyed by flying arrows, as Chen-lun (raised to be a most capable warrior, it should be recalled, in her own tribe) and Rendulic punctuated their long bouts of lovemaking with athletics of a wholly different order—the new lady of the Kastelgerd was declared by the family’s healers to be unquestionably with child; and a mere seven Moons later, the couple’s first son, a golden-haired boy that they agreed to call Adelwf, was born. The new scion appeared to be nothing if not a confirmation that Kafra had approved the match of an eastern princess and a loyal new leader of the kingdom over which the golden god had long ago elected to shower his radiance—
And then had come, almost as quickly, another son …
Later pressed by the family’s healers to recall his wife’s physical condition at the time of this child’s conception, Rendulic Baster-kin had replied that if some sign of disease or divine disfavor had in fact been present, he had not detected it. Certainly, the conception had taken place very soon after Adelwf’s birth, perhaps unwisely soon; but Chen-lun had not experienced any signs of illness until the later stages of her carrying of the creature—and those had not seemed sufficient to explain the thoroughly misshapen condition of the boy; the mass of pustules and ill-formed bones that seemed to mar every part of his skin and body, and worse, to grow only more numerous and offensive during its first weeks and months of life.