by John Brunner
“It was pretty bad,” said Finzey sagely, reaching below the counter for a bottle and a mug. “But you know what they say—weather bad, trade good.”
“Trade looks to have been good,” agreed Kelab, glancing around the littered room. He took the mug Finzey filled with the heady potent fuming liquor he laughingly called the water of the Bubbling Spring, sniffed it, and drank a few mouthfuls.
Finzey eased his bulk on to a stool opposite and said eagerly, “Where’ve you been lately, Kelab—hey? You haven’t touched Argus since—must be two years back.”
“And two months,” Kelab nodded. “I’ve been out of the Empire, around the fringe. Picking up new tricks among the mutant worlds till I was broke, and then working my way back towards the big money. But I see the banner’s inverted over the fortress yonder.”
He jerked his head eastwards.
Finzey plucked his lower lip with pudgy fingers. “Ay,” he agreed. “We had a man in around midnight with the news that Andalvar had passed.”
“You have the burying money?” Kelab asked, and Finzey pushed a white pottery bowl towards him. It was more than half full of coins, Imperial and Outland currencies. Kelab shook it reflectively, added another coin to it, pushed it away.
Finzey’s eyes widened, and he touched the coin with his finger to make sure it was real. He said incredulously, “You said you were broke, Kelab!”
The conjurer shrugged. “I was broke. Money given in a good cause, they say, is money gained, and I can earn that again in three days. The poor have need of the burying money of the kings.
“There is another outside who will need burying,” he added, picking up his drink.
Finzey nodded. “I have been told so. She will stay till noon—the burying money is more, so. I will charge myself with her funeral. But, Kelab, you haven’t heard?”
“Heard what, fat one?”
“The sight of the banner was the first news you had of Andalvar’s passing?”
Kelab nodded, and Finzey rushed on, bubbling like his own liquor with excitement. “Then no one has told you how, round three this morning, a flying machine such as none ever saw on Argus came to earth before the castle of the kings where Andalvar lies, bearing, they tell me, a soldier, a counsellor, and the Princess Sharla!”
Kelab’s hand faltered only for the slightest fraction of a second as he took the mug away from his mouth, and his voice was quite steady when he said, “Sharla, fat one? You speak in riddles. Andalvar’s daughter is called Andra.”
“No, you do not understand,” Finzey struggled to explain. “Princess Sharla is the lost princess, the one who was thought dead.”
Thoughtful, Kelab drained his mug, set it down. He said, “I recall stories—but remember, Finzey, I am no Argian, and so much goes on in the Empire that I cannot know all the news. Tell me.”
“Well, as you doubtless know, Andalvar was married late in life, some twenty-odd years ago, and his wife Lora first bore him a daughter, who was named Sharla. Since he was King, he hoped for a son to take his place on the throne in after years, but his wife bore him next another daughter. Andra—her whom they call the black witch, though she’s a beauty and no mistake.”
Kelab’s smoky eyes stared fixedly at the blank screen of the chromograph. He said, “Go on.”
“Then, five years later, she bore him a son at last—Penda, who’s now officially king—and died in childbed. And Andalvar, fearing lest his time be short, made certain of having a good regent for the time before his son came of age by sending Sharla—then some twelve years old, much Penda’s age now, in fact—to study at a school far away from here, where some of the arts of the Golden Age lived on, I’m told.
“After two years she disappeared, and none could be found to trace her. They tore the Empire apart—I’m surprised you heard nothing of it.”
Mechanically Kelab reached for the bottle and refilled his mug, said, “Seven years ago I was out of the Empire. I heard only rumors.”
“I’m amazed, even so. However, she was gone, and ‘tis credibly reported that the loss drove Andalvar a little crazy. In his ruling he was just, as ever, and in his bargaining as shrewd; but he would not tolerate that the others of his children should come to the slightest harm. For instance he would not let Andra be trained for the Regency as Sharla was to be, nor would he suffer his son to be beaten or punished for his transgressions. He kept a slave’s son—one Dolichek—as whipping-post for him, in accordance with a very ancient custom lapsed previously these four hundred years. And they tell me, shorn of the discipline which made Andalvar a firm ruler, Andra has grown spoilt and capricious and self-seeking, and there is no sign in Penda of the quality that will make a good king.”
“I see,” said Kelab reflectively. “Tell me more—who are considered to be the powers at court?”
Finzey was growing expansive. The spacemen behind Kelab went on making their whispered bets, and the curious blue chips changed hands with a soft click-clack. Finzey said, “Why, Andra herself, of course, and Senchan Var, a man they call the Lord Great Chamberlain. They say he has the Council of Six in his pocket—that’s the council of the rulers of the vassal worlds, you know?”
Kelab nodded. There were six worlds in the Empire that had nominally equal rights with Argus in ruling the straggling remnants of a union which had once spanned half a galaxy, but they were powerless singly whereas Argus was not, and their wealth, in these days when wealth was measured in ships and fighting men, only balanced Argus’s when they stood together. Apart, they were negligible.
“What kind of a man is this Senchan Var?”
“Noble,” said Finzey. “Of good descent. And honest too—but, if I’m any judge, in love with the black witch. He holds, they say, that Andalvar was more than just in his dealings with his subjects—generous, rather—and would sooner the iron-harsh rule our ancestors knew, saying openly that leniency courts revolution. But he is admired for his feats in war when young. His swordsmanship was all but legendary. The people would follow him, I think.”
“Why add that, fat one?” Kelab demanded.
Finzey shrugged elephantine shoulders. “No reason, but that you asked me who were the powers at court. He is the greatest after Andra—except perhaps for Sabura Mona. No one knows much of her.”
“And who is Sabura Mona?”
“That’s one I can’t answer. She is a woman, fat—fatter than I by far, which is no mean size. There are rumors—but rumors only. They say she has a spoon in every stew cooked in the Empire, that Andalvar trusted her implicitly, that she advised him. But she is very seldom seen in public, she does not appear at palace functions, and if she is served by the castle servants or indeed any servants at all, they do not speak of her.”
“Enigmatic,” commented Kelab.
“In very truth,” agreed Finzey emphatically. “And I know no more about her than I’ve told you, so you don’t need to sit there looking as if anquar wouldn’t fizz in your mouth.”
Kelab grinned like a boy, flashing white teeth in his dusky face, and swept a lean brown hand through his black sleek hair, knotted behind with a gaudy cloth. There was a tiny gold disk in his left ear-lobe that caught the light from the lamps beyond. He said, “All right, Finzey, but you’re the first man I’ve spoken to on Argus since two years ago, and things change in two years. And the voice of the people—what’s it saying now?”
Finzey said shrewdly, “Do you mean the big voice or the small voice?”
“The small voice,” said Kelab. He swirled the liquor around the bottom of his mug. “The voice that matters.”
Finzey glanced past him at the group of spacemen. Nothing seemed to have changed at first glance, but there was suddenly an abstracted look in their eyes, and they made their bids in a whisper, and the chips shuffled from hand to hand instead of click-clacking as before. He got down from the stool noisily and began busily swabbing the bar.
Kelab smiled very faintly, and a blue shimmer drifted like smoke between the bar and
the spacemen at their game. It curled and writhed like a live thing, and remained, a curtain hanging on nothing, a web stirred by intangible winds—and a barrier that no sound would pass. He said, “Finzey, what does the small voice say?”
Cautiously the fat bartender leaned across the bar and nodded at the blue veil. “I’d forgotten that one,” he said. “They don’t call you The Conjurer for nothing. But you cannot tell these days who is not seeking money as an informer—”
“Speak,” said Kelab impatiently.
“They say there have been prophecies. At times of doom there are always prophecies. When Sharla disappeared and again last night the voice of the seers was heard. Last night, they say, the word was spoken before the castle of the kings itself. Black days for Argus, my friend, and the Empire dust and forgotten—and the black witch is the cause. Princess Andra. There are those who say her regency could itself end the Empire.”
Kelab nodded. His eyes glowed somber-bright, like a lantern behind a horn shade. “From what you say of her I can well believe it. And the small voice—does it say ‘Ay’?”
“It roars like a caged lion,” said Finzey flatly.
“Of the coming of Sharla it says—what?”
“As yet, nothing. But there are high hopes…”
“I see,” said Kelab slowly. “And the burying of Andalvar will be—when and where?”
“On the third day after the passing, as the custom is, at the castle of the kings. The chieftains and the lords attending will be here tomorrow or the next day and will be received by the Princess Sharla, I assume—if she is in truth Sharla.”
Kelab halted his mug halfway to his lips and said slowly, “Of course. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Decision rests with the Council of Six as to the Regency, of course, but traditionally the eldest daughter of a dead king is chosen Regent if one is needful. But it could be otherwise, in theory.”
Kelab tossed down the rest of his drink and said, “How much do I owe you?”
Caught by surprise, Finzey blinked. He said, “So soon? But why? I wanted to hear of your marvelous travels since last we met. Why must you go?”
Kelab grinned, jerked a thumb at the thousand-circle coin he had left in the burying money bowl, while with the other hand he rolled up the blue veil and squeezed it into nothing. “I have to earn my bread. How much?”
“A gift, Kelab,” said Finzey, spreading his fat hands. “Call it my share in that coin. But pickings for entertainers will be small until the mourning days are over.”
“I’ll take that risk,” said Kelab the Conjurer.
He went out of the bar, away from the drunken girls and the spacemen playing shen fu and the smell of stale liquor, and he walked for many hours in the Low City, his heels clicking on the paving and his head bent in thought.
Senchan Var said furiously, “This is the sort of thing that should not happen!”
Andra seemed quite composed about it all. She sat blandly picking fruit from the silver bowl, as undisturbed as the black ape curled up and snoring very softly against the wall, one paw still clutching the stripped bone. The noon sun shone yellow through the slit windows. Inconsequentially she said, “This is the sort of thing that the common people will take as an omen, I feel—the storm clearing at her arrival, I mean. There is, I take it, small doubt that she is indeed my sister Sharla?”
Senchan Var said bitterly, “None, my lady. You would not know it, my lady, but she looks as did your mother at her age down to the finest detail. And if she is as tender as she looks outside we may say goodby to the Empire.”
Andra laughed. “My dear faithful Senchan, she may prove to be the very leader the Empire needs to hold it together. What does Sabura Mona think?”
Senchan Var whirled on her and said, “My lady, where is Sabura Mona? She came to the bedside of your father but she did not stay and watch with us.”
“No more did I, Senchan. It is a woman’s weakness.”
Senchan Var snorted. “In you I am prepared to forgive it, for you are young, my lady, but that Sabura Mona is tougher than a thousand men I could name. She has the heart of a Thanis bull—”
“But the looks of a demon,” supplied Andra quietly. “And does it matter who saves the Empire?”
“By the winds of Argus, yes!” said Senchan, driving fist into palm with an explosive slap. “One thing can save the Empire from the downhill path, and one only. A firm hand at the controls! What can this upstart Sharla do? She’s been away from the Empire nine years, while you’ve been here at the heart of affairs. What is to be done must be done now! But the common people already know she is here, and their voice says she is the one to save Argus!”
Andra shrugged. “What care I for the common people? What do they know of statecraft? We have the support of the people who matter, Senchan—the rich men and the nobles. How do we stand on the Council of Six?”
“They may vote together or they may split three and three. Lorgis, Draco and Bunagar have little love for you, being from the poor pastoral worlds, and may be willing to stake all on a new deal, but Heena, Dolon and Mesa should stay true.”
“They better had,” said Andra ominously. “I made them all three, and what I made I can break. But, Senchan, there is one thing you have forgotten.”
Senchan Var frowned doubtfully. He said, “That the union with Mercator is enough to rescue the Empire? But you forget, my lady—a royal union is effective only when the woman is a ruler in her own right, else she must swear allegiance to her husband and deny her own people. As regent you would have secured a valid union—though really a back marriage would have been required to cement it when Penda came of age—”
Andra said lazily, “No, I didn’t mean that. Think, Senchan. You and I know that is the best course for the Empire—new strength grafted on the old stock. There is an easy test of whether Sharla does too. Think over the wording of that contract we made.”
Puzzled, Senchan began to recite it under his breath, from memory. After awhile he understood.
Slowly, he began to smile.
III
“That’s the dangerous one,” whispered Landor.
Sharla, Regent since twenty hours ago on a split vote of the Council of Six, tradition having the deciding say, nodded imperceptibly. She sat, black-robed and veiled, on a black-draped throne at the end of the Hall of State, waiting to receive the lords and chieftains who had come to honor her father at his burying, Landor beside her where Senchan Var had stood to her father in the office of Lord Great Chamberlain, Ordovic stiffly uncomfortable in formal uniform as Captain of the royal bodyguard. Andra was not present. Ostensibly, she wished to attend to the ordering of her father’s affairs in the city, but in effect she had ceded her rooms in the castle to Sharla and snubbed her by walking out, and Sharla was much distressed at her attitude.
But it worried Landor not at all.
Immediately after the Council of Six had split their votes three and three, and the precedent of other occasions had decided the course to be followed, Senchan Var had tendered his resignation, and Sharla had promptly appointed Landor in his place, for Landor seemed to have the notables and the history of Argus at his fingers’ ends. And certain people were muttering, displeased.
Far down the hall the black-robed trumpeter made the rafters ring behind a man framed in the vast open doorway of the hall, a tall, insolent-faced man with black hair and fiery eyes, polished helm under his left arm, its plume nodding as he turned casually from side to side surveying the rows of courtiers lining the hall, his right hand on his sword-hilt. He wore the brass and leather of a fighting man.
The trumpeter put down his silver horn, and the nomenclator announced, “Barkasch of Mercator, come to pay tribute to Andalvar of Argus!”
The tall man ceased his survey of the hall and began to walk up it with an easy, swinging stride, his sandals padding on the carpeted floor and his accoutrements making the ghost of a jingling rhythm as he went.
In silence he pause
d before the throne and faced the black-veiled Regent.
Finally he bowed, and in a voice that the shouting of orders had made like a brazen gong said, “Greeting, my lady of Argus.”
Ordovic signaled to the company of the bodyguard without taking his eyes from Barkasch, and they stood easy, their shields crashing in unison between their shoulderblades. He was glad that there was still precision and efficiency here, among the soldiers.
“Greeting, my lord of Mercator,” said Sharla, and her voice was firm and musical, but she shaped strangely the words of a tongue she had not spoken save with an Outland accent for seven years.
Barkasch straightened from his bow slowly, and his eyes rested for a moment on the veil before her face. He said, “My lady, I know not that voice! Yet I know well the voice of my lady Andra. Ho! Trickery!” He flung back his head and his voice went rolling among the rafters, while Sharla looked up in dismay. Of course—to be here so soon he must have left Mercator before more than the first news of Andalvar’s passing had gone out.
“Let me handle this,” whispered Landor, and she nodded.
Stepping forward, he rapped the ground with his staff of office. The courtiers along the hall had shifted like waves breaking when Barkasch had shouted, and a small murmur of resentment had gone up. Now it rose again at Landor’s movement, for there were those present who held that Senchan Var had been unjustly displaced, more who had coveted his post for themselves, and some even who held Sharla as all but an imposter.
Now Barkasch, hand on hilt of sword, drew his blade to half its length from the scabbard and let it drop back, ringing. He said with a hint of contempt, “And who may you be?”
“I am Landor, Lord Great Chamberlain of Argus, and this is no trickery.”
“No trickery?” Barkasch’s eyes searched Landor’s unlined face suspiciously. “Yet I know that voice is not the voice of my lady Andra.”
“Indeed it is not,” said Landor composedly. “ ‘Tis that of my lady Sharla.”