by Caleb Carr
The then-obscure Healer Raban had stepped forward to suggest to young Lord Baster-kin—who every day grew more desperate for an explanation that would remove not only some part of the revulsion engendered by merely gazing at the child, but the terrible sense of guilt he felt when he remembered his own sickly youth, and then gazed upon this fruit of his loins—that the child might not be a Baster-kin at all; that, much as his lord- and ladyship may have passed every night together, throughout the period during which the monstrous child was thought to have been conceived, there were nonetheless alps living in the forests of Broken’s slopes who could make themselves undetectable to men of true virtue. Worse still, there were stronger and more artful such creatures inhabiting Davon Wood: enemies of Broken that might well have made the journey across the Cat’s Paw and up the mountain, if they were certain that a member of a Broken noble house had taken to wife a woman who was, by both blood and nature, less innately virtuous than a daughter of the Kafran kingdom would have been …
At first, this notion enraged Rendulic Baster-kin, causing him to seize Raban by the throat and then use the flat of his short-sword to drive the healer from the Kastelgerd. Mysterious as the origins of the infant’s vile condition might be, Baster-kin was by now determined to discover them—for he was a man who had had some experience of the strange and painful paths down which it was sometimes necessary to walk, in order to find true cures for seemingly magical or divine ailments. And he had an advisor who was well practiced at traveling such paths with him, at this moment as at an earlier point in his life: the man he had made seneschal of his household shortly after taking the rank of Merchant Lord, Radelfer. In all the years since the seeming end of his preoccupation with Gisa’s young apprentice from the Fifth District, Rendulic Baster-kin had never asked his old friend and guardian to find either the maiden or the crone; but now, the young lord did beseech Radelfer to undertake that journey, in the interests, not of his earlier infatuation, but of both his wife and his second child. It was, after all, a near-certainty that he would wish to father more children; and if Chen-lun was, for reasons of this world or any other, unfit to allow him to do so successfully, it was necessary that Baster-kin know.
Radelfer disliked the notion, without question; but he understood the importance of the matter, both to his former charge and to the clan he served. It was never wise for a house of such importance to rest all its hopes upon one heir alone; and so, departing alone at nightfall of the next day, Radelfer ventured into the Fifth District.
Not very far down the Path of Shame, as it happened, Radelfer encountered a fellow veteran of the Talons, and learned that Gisa was in fact living, not in the small house near the southwestern city wall in which she had tutored and raised the orphan Isadora, but in the latter’s very fine home nearby. Isadora, it seemed, had become a bride, herself, only a few years earlier, marrying one of the most promising young officers in the Talons, a man that Radelfer had only met once or twice during his years of service: Sixt Arnem.
Finding that Arnem was on guard duty atop the city walls that night, but that Gisa and Isadora were at home and willing to receive him, Radelfer next learned that his luck would not carry him very much farther: both women were adamantly unwilling to involve themselves again in the affairs of the illustrious Baster-kin family. However, Gisa did suggest a solution that seemed, as Radelfer made his way back to the Kastelgerd, ever more adequate to Rendulic’s dilemma.
Gisa knew of only one healer in Broken whose knowledge rivaled or surpassed her own; and, now that her former patient had become Rendulic, Lord Baster-kin, he had every right to call upon that illustrious figure’s talents and resources. She was referring, of course, to the Second Minister of the realm, the foreign-born scholar called Caliphestros. Provided the God-King Izairn was amenable, Caliphestros could hardly refuse the appeal for assistance; indeed, everything that Gisa knew of the man suggested that such a request would appeal to his scholar’s vanity. With this seemingly sound plan formulated (and truly relieved that there would be no risk of Rendulic ever crossing the path of the crone’s former apprentice again, having seen that the maiden Isadora had by now grown into a truly beautiful woman who had thus far mothered no fewer than three irrepressibly healthy children), Radelfer reentered the Kastelgerd in fine spirits, and relayed the substance of Gisa’s suggestion to a very curious young lord.
{v:}
RADELFER DETERMINED, when making his report that night to his master, to deny ever having seen any member of the Arnem family; and he was quickly given reason to be glad that he had taken such a decision, when Rendulic Baster-kin made it apparent, through a succession of ill-disguised questions, that he had used a series of disreputable spies from what was now his Personal Guard to discover just whom Isadora had married and when, just where she was currently living, and even that Gisa was a part of the Arnem household: all facts that, if the young lord’s soul had been truly healed, he could have told Radelfer before the latter’s departure.
Such considerations, however, were quickly set aside, that the delicate arrangement of a visit from the Second Minister of Broken to the Merchant Lord’s Kastelgerd might be arranged. From the first, and despite the advice of his trusted old advisor and friend, Rendulic Baster-kin proved resentful, even combative, concerning the entire affair: never mind the fact that it was he who was requesting a service of the Second Lord, under conditions of secrecy so strict that most of the household staff, as well as Chen-lun’s healers, were successfully kept unaware of the proceedings. It gradually became clear that the success or failure of the meeting depended on the reactions that these two men—now the two highest secular officials of the kingdom—would have to one another. Both possessed pronounced characters and the same strong unwillingness to suffer argument from any person they dubbed a fool. Radelfer steadily lost his early enthusiasm for the meeting, the more he considered the idea, realizing that, while there was a chance that Caliphestros’s visit to the Kastelgerd Baster-kin would offer the young lord and his wife a way out of the present dilemma, it was at least as likely that the meeting would end in most calamitous failure.
Radelfer’s concerns ultimately proved well grounded. A most discreet, late-night visit from the Second Minister of the realm was soon arranged; and on the appointed night, at the appointed hour, a plain litter appeared at the Kastelgerd’s lowest and most hidden entrance. Scorning the protection of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, Lord Caliphestros arrived with no more significant protection than his litter bearers, men who were less servants than acolytes, it seemed to Radelfer. Humbly introducing himself to the Second Minister—whose long beard, scholar’s black skullcap, and silver and black robes of state did not disguise the fact that, while of an age that matched Radelfer’s own, this Caliphestros was also in nearly as vigorous health—Radelfer remarked that, while he could see that the two bearers had good sword arms and fine blades at their sides, they nonetheless seemed a very limited party of protection with which to go abroad in the city at night. To this, Caliphestros replied that, having calculated from the Merchant Lord’s petition that the fewer persons—particularly servants—that knew of the meeting, the better for all involved, he had brought only two of his stronger assistants. Radelfer could find no flaw in his reasoning and, ushering the litter bearers into the gardens that led up to the Kastelgerd Baster-kin’s somewhat overawing main entrance, the seneschal asked the men to wait there, among the tastefully arranged fruit trees, flowers, and few pieces of statuary, promising that food and wine would be brought to them. The two men expressed thanks, after which Radelfer led Caliphestros, not further up the terraced grounds to the main entrance to the Kastelgerd, but down, through a long tunnel that eventually ended in one of the building’s more remote cellars.
As the builders of the Kastelgerd had spared no effort or expense in either the design or execution of the building, so the cellars that they had constructed beneath the palatial home were wondrous and extensive creations in their own right. There were ma
ny long-since-forgotten chambers and hallways below the residence of Broken’s most powerful merchant clan, places unknown even to the Kastelgerd’s servants, Radelfer explained: some were even outside the ken of the present master of the house, since so many generations of secretive lords (such as Rendulic Baster-kin’s own father) had needed discreet places in which to conduct their less than noble personal affairs, and had destroyed all records of their locations.
Caliphestros followed as Radelfer, having lit a small torch, led the way up narrow, winding stone steps that opened out into a shadowy remove below what proved the main staircase of the reception hall. Radelfer held his dim torch close enough to the illustrious visitor that he might read the Second Minister’s reaction, when he saw the great hall for the first time, lit by the Moonlight that streamed through high windows in the western wall that faced the gardens of the Way of the Faithful. What he saw in those aging features was less awe than fascination, of a type that the seneschal found pleasing. Wandering into the center of the hall, Caliphestros glanced about as if to make certain that no witnesses were anywhere nearby; and Radelfer, assessing the older man’s expression, quietly announced:
“This night, I have instructed all servants to remain within their quarters, Minister, unless called for, using Lady Baster-kin’s distress as my ploy. Meanwhile, members of my own household guard are stationed at various positions throughout the Kastelgerd, to make certain that the orders are obeyed, discretion is ensured, and no miscreants can take advantage of the lack of general activity to attempt any crime or mayhem.”
Caliphestros smiled, amiably and knowingly. “Yes, Radelfer—I have heard talk of your ‘household guard,’ as have the God-King and the Grand Layzin. Veteran soldiers, assembled quietly from the moment you became seneschal of the Kastelgerd? It almost seems you oppose, even distrust, the activities of the Personal Guard of the Merchant Lord … But fear not. We all—Izairn, the Layzin, and I—share your disdain for that force’s increasingly troublesome behavior. Indeed, I have yet to meet a soldier or veteran of the regular army who does approve of those effeminate, violent louts—and rightly so.”
As soon as Caliphestros had satisfied himself that there were indeed no ordinary servants stirring in the great residence, he placed his hands upon his hips, and nodded: less, again, impressed than he was interested. “I have heard stories of the interior of this greatest of all the Kastelgerde—yet only being here can make one understand the endless gossip.” He glanced about the hall once more. “It is truly a structure worthy of kings …”
“I am glad to hear you say so, Minister,” came the unexpected voice of Rendulic Baster-kin in reply; and Radelfer realized with some distress that his master must have been listening from the gallery above, for he was now midway down the great stairs. “And to dismiss such idle talk with such excellent dispatch,” Lord Baster-kin continued, slowly descending the steps to the hall below—a carefully arranged bit of theatrics, Radelfer silently observed, one that would become habitual, in future years. “It gives me all the more pleasure in welcoming you into my home—and thanking you for coming under such … unusual circumstances.”
“Unusual, but understandable,” Caliphestros replied, bowing slightly—although not nearly so deeply, Radelfer knew, as Rendulic Baster-kin would have preferred. “If your wife’s and your son’s conditions are indeed as critical as I have been led to believe, it is of great doubt that Broken’s own healers would be equal to the task of diagnosing and determining any true cure that might exist. Except, of course, for the truly capable Gisa—who recommended my services, I understand, as a consequence of having had some past business with your lordship …?”
“How very knowledgeable you are, Minister Caliphestros,” the Merchant Lord replied. “Which is as well, for the situation seems now to worsen by the day. And so I trust that you will take no offense if I forgo further niceties by asking you to cast your no doubt expert eyes on the troubled members of my family at once?”
He held what appeared to be an inviting hand out toward the stairs: but the gesture was in truth less welcoming than redolent of his intention to demonstrate his greater status and his supreme power in his own household and kingdom. Second Minister Caliphestros seemed incapable of being cowed, however, especially by one so young, and only smiled, joining Rendulic Baster-kin on the stairs and walking with him up and toward the bedchamber then still shared by the master and mistress of the Kastelgerd. Radelfer followed some few steps behind: where, he knew, the increasingly confident and bold young man had also expected Caliphestros to walk. Sensing the onrush of some unidentifiable crisis, just as he had once been able to smell the coming of battle during his years as a Talon, the seneschal prepared for it by reaching instinctively for the hilt of a fine raiding sword that had for all his career as a soldier been at his side, but was now gone: in its place, he found only a small jeweled dagger that had become his sole weapon of defense when he became a glorified domestic servant …
Shown first into the chamber where Lady Chen-lun lay, Caliphestros had needed even less time than Gisa would have, Radelfer observed, to reach some unspoken conclusion concerning her condition, one that even so experienced a healer and scholar had found shocking. And, once his examination had been completed, he asked to see the stricken child immediately, and was taken to a distant, cramped nursery.
If the great scholar’s expression on examining Lady Chen-lun had been one of shock, his countenance on studying the infant was overwhelming sadness. The child had not yet been named; but the latest Lord Baster-kin had already and bitterly taken to calling him “Klauqvest” (with a cruelty, it seemed to Radelfer, which all too closely resembled that of Rendulic’s own father) because of the child’s fingers and toes, the bones of which had appeared malformed at birth, and were quickly growing ever more fused, like some crawling, shelled sea beast. Asking only a few questions as he examined the boy—whose pain was the true cause of his unending wailing, explained Caliphestros, rather than any fault of character or desire to irritate his parents—the Second Minister next inquired as to how the child was receiving sustenance: for his mother certainly neither wished nor was in any condition to nurse him. Rendulic Baster-kin explained that he had attempted to find a decent wet nurse, but that all such had been too terrified by the prospect. Finally, a drunken hag from the Fifth District had been discovered, who would take on the task, provided she was liberally paid and constantly supplied with wine. When Rendulic Baster-kin had asked Caliphestros if such was a fatal mistake, and in any way the cause for the child’s worsening condition, the Second Minister had replied that, while never a particularly sound notion, the use of a drunken hag as a wet nurse, in this particular case, was unlikely to make a dramatic difference: if she at least provided milk, that was preferable to slow starvation—although the latter might, ultimately, have been the more merciful course.
These words caused the Merchant Lord to stiffen noticeably. “And what does the minister mean by such a statement? Are the tales I have heard true, then, and is this—this child the result of unnatural relations between my wife and some spirit, some alp from Davon Wood?”
Caliphestros could only laugh weakly, as well as grimly. “Yes, such a tale is what the Kafran healers would doubtless have arrived at, sooner or later. Absurd as it is, it would be better than the truth, which they would be too unnerved to tell you …”
Rendulic Baster-kin had been standing by the small window in that small chamber in which there were few comforts, as far from the crib of his infant son as it was possible for him to position himself; but when this statement by the great scholar Caliphestros caused him to turn, Radelfer needed no more than little light to see that his face was already filling with, at once, greater sorrow, rage, and malice than he had ever seen the young man exhibit.
“ ‘The truth’?” Lord Baster-kin softly murmured. “You claim to know the truth, Minister—the same claim for which you mock Broken’s own healers?”
“My lord,” Caliphe
stros replied; and there was now genuine emotion, true sympathy, in what had before been the face and voice of an impassive man of science. “We can none of us declare, with absolute certainty, that we know ‘the truth.’ But I must tell you: never, in all of the thousands of afflicted souls that I have observed, have I ever heard a plausible argument made for the interference of magical or divine forces so childish and petty as elves and alps, demons and marehs, unless the sufferers’ healers themselves were too terrified or too ignorant—or, as in most such cases, both—to admit that they did not know the true cause of the illness, and required some inexplicably persecutory intervention by such creatures behind which to hide their ignorance.” Caliphestros could see that his words were causing the Merchant Lord’s rage only to rise. “It gives me no pleasure to say this, but—”
Rendulic Baster-kin looked up, his eyes having become deep-set, malevolent weapons of their own. Caliphestros took a deep, steadying breath. “My lord—your father, I have heard from certain healers, was a victim of the pox. Is that so?”
Rendulic nodded quickly; Caliphestros had just given voice to the very nightmare that, of late and near every night, woke the Merchant Lord in sweats both hot and cold. “It is so …”
“Then,” the Second Minister continued, “it is necessary that I tell you that both your wife and this child may well be displaying signs of the pox, as well: your wife, only intermittently, but your son … The disease, I suspect, has cast the very form of his being. And it will only become worse as the years go on—although with care he may live, even if both you and he will wonder from time to time if such has truly been a blessing.”