THE WANTON OF ARGUS aka THE SPACE-TIME JUGGLER

by John Brunner

  “Sharla, Ser Landor?” said Barkasch incredulously. “The lost daughter of Andalvar? What tale is this?”

  His hand shot out like a striking snake, and Sharla gave a tiny cry of fear as he ripped the black veil from her face. For a long instant he stood there, the shred of cloth held in his strong fingers as in a trap, while he stared at Sharla.

  Eventually he relaxed the sternness of his face and began, very slowly, to smile.

  “Your pardon, my lady of Argus, but I am a direct man. I trust no one’s word who is not known to me of old, and that you should be here to stand in your father’s place is too strange to take unchecked.” His eyes ran over the delicate loveliness of her face, the hair like spun gold that shone beneath her black hood, the curves of her body beneath the mourning robe.

  He said, “Indeed, my lady, it is as if your mother were alive again.”

  Sharla nodded slowly. “Ay, my lord. I have been told I do resemble her.”

  The courtiers rustled and craned to see past Barkasch, and there was a low murmur of surprise. Since custom decreed that the king’s daughters should wear veils in public till the dead ruler was buried, this was the first opportunity many of them had had to see her face, and those who remembered the last Queen of Argus saw the similarity and marveled.

  “And,” said the lord of Mercator after an interval, “I beg to present the bond for honoring three days hence.”

  Someone of Andra’s retinue among the watchers sniggered very briefly as Sharla looked up in amazement. “Bond, my lord?” he said questioningly. “What bond?”

  “This bond,” said Barkasch, sliding a roll of parchment from one of the pouches at his waist. He held it out. “A marriage bond!”

  He stepped back with something that on a less regal face would have been a self-satisfied grin, and Landor whipped open the scroll and began to read. A rustle of amazement and wonder ran among the courtiers, and the member of Andra’s retinue who had sniggered, laughed aloud. Ordovic turned towards him and half drew his sword, his face like thunder. The laughter stopped short.

  Sharla, without taking her eyes from Barkasch’s face, laid one hand on the arm of the throne, and Landor covered it with his own, still scanning the rough, much abbreviated uncial script of the document in his hand. Hastily Sharla rapped out, in the Outland finger-code of the bandits of Hin, “Isn’t it in Andra’s name?”

  Landor rapped back, “Andra’s not mentioned by name, though she must have made it.”

  “What does it say?”

  “I’ll read it,” offered Landor. He nodded to Barkasch, said aloud, “With your permission, I’ll read this out, my lord.”

  Barkasch showed assent, and Landor began to speak in a firm controlled voice, his accent flawless. Sharla had wondered often in the past days how he, who swore he had never been on Argus in his life, had gained that and his intimate knowledge of Argian affairs.

  He read, “Bond of marriage between the lord of Mercator and the Regent of Argus, to be confirmed upon the death of Andalvar and the accession of his daughter as Regent in the stead of Prince Penda, being under the age of ruling, which marriage to be royal union between the thrones and crowns of Argus and Mercator, Mercator to have its place on the Council of Six instead of Lorgis of Phaidona—”

  A roar of rage went up from among the courtiers, and Lorgis himself, a bull of a man from one of the pastoral worlds, one of the three who had voted in favor of Sharla’s election, bounded to his feet. He shouted, “Let them but try to take Phaidona’s place and they shall pay dearly!”

  Landor, who had raised his eyes and waited patiently when Lorgis leapt up, remained silent till he had subsided, muttering threats into his beard, while Barkasch of Mercator looked at him without interest. Then Landor resumed.

  “—And the lordship of the Empire, in the event of Penda’s decease before attaining the age of ruling, or of his death without children, to descend by the joint line of Argus and Mercator.”

  Amid dead silence, he rolled the parchment up again, finished baldly, “It is sealed with the royal seals of Argus and Mercator.”

  Barkasch said, “And so, my lady, after your lamented father’s burying, we shall talk again of this.” He bowed ironically, turned to go.

  A voice said, “Wait.”

  The single word was spoken no louder than one would speak across a table, yet everyone in the hall heard it and turned to see who had said it, and saw, in the arch of the door through which twenty fighting men might pass abreast, a small slender man with dark sleek hair and dusky skin, wearing a tattered suit of brown homespun, high boots, a gaudy silk cloth on his head.

  Ordovic’s sword leapt into his hand and in three steps—tramp-tramp-tramp—the men of the bodyguard had turned to face the doorway, their halberds at the ready. Barkasch of Mercator straightened up and raised his eyebrows quizzically as the slender man walked lightly down the hall.

  He made a strange contrast to Barkasch, who last had done that, for he was small and wiry where Barkasch was broad and muscular, and he wore worn civilian clothes while Barkasch had the outfit of a soldier, and while Barkasch had borne helmet, sword and knife, he had only a battered brown hat and no weapon at all.

  He came up between the leveled halberds of the bodyguard to before the throne and bowed to Sharla with a flourish before he turned to Barkasch and said, “My lord of Mercator!”

  Casually Barkasch looked down his nose at the smaller man. He said, “What is it, impudent one?”

  “My lord, did you not remark upon a mistake that Ser Landor made in the reading of the marriage bond?”

  Sharla felt Landor’s hand tighten over hers on the arm of the throne.

  Barkasch said, his forehead creasing in puzzlement, “Mistake, impudent one? I heard him read it distinctly, as it is written.”

  “Who is this man?” tapped Sharla and felt Landor reply, “I do not know.”

  “Yes, a mistake,” the stranger insisted. “An omission, Ser Landor,” turning, “if it please you, let my lord of Mercator read it out aloud.”

  Numbly, Landor passed the scroll. Barkasch snatched it angrily and spread it with a crackle. He began to read in a voice that burned with impatience.

  “Bond of marriage between Barkasch, lord of Mercator, and Andra, Regent of Argus, to be confirmed upon—”

  He broke off, his face showing most undignified astonishment. He began to scrutinize the writing, while Sharla, who had gasped in amazement when he had read out her sister’s name, exchanged glances with Landor, who looked as completely taken aback as she was, and as relieved.

  “Indeed, you see, my lord,” said the small man, “there was a mistake, an omission. Ser Landor did not read the names of the parties. And since it is specified in the contract that the marriage is between yourself and the Princess Andra, and since the Princess Andra is not Regent of Argus, it is in effect void.”

  Barkasch struggled to speak for a long time, his hands quivering on the scroll. When he finally succeeded, his voice was almost choking with rage. He crumpled the offending parchment into a ball and threw it on the ground, and raised his hand as if to strike the small man, who stepped adroitly out of range.

  Finally he turned to Sharla and forced out, “Your pardon, my lady. It seems I was indeed mistaken. But by the wind that blows over Mercator,” his voice rose to a shout, “Argus has not heard the last of me!”

  He turned on his heel and strode out, and everyone seemed to relax at his going. The herald shouted that there were no more chieftains in attendance, and with a wave of her hand Sharla dismissed the watchers and they filed out.

  But when she looked for the slender man he was nowhere to be seen.

  The bodyguard came to attention as she descended the steps from the throne, but before she hurried out with Landor she said, “Ordovic!”

  “My lady?”

  “Find that man and bring him to my rooms!”

  “My lady,” said Ordovic, clicking his heels.

  He turned to the g
uards, shot out his arm. “Dismiss, and go find the man who was here just now. Report to me with him outside my lady’s quarters. At the double!”

  They broke ranks, piled their halberds against the wall, and left the hall at a trot.

  Most of the courtiers were already at the far end of the hall, and only a few slaves remained nearby, straightening disarrayed hangings after holding them aside for Sharla, but a movement at the corner of his eye caught Ordovic’s attention. He remained perfectly still, as if watching the departing courtiers.

  Someone bending over—picking up something, he could see by straining his eyes to one side. Now he was standing up—

  Ordovic whirled. It was a slave with hot brown skin and twitching eyes, and he was trying to stuff something hastily into a pouch. Ordovic knocked him flying with a blow from a fist that had killed men twice the size of him, stepped up to him as he writhed on the carpet. With ungentle fingers he opened the fist that held whatever he had picked up.

  Eyes narrowing, he scrutinized it. He spoke Argian badly and read it worse, but he knew this could be only one thing—the marriage contract between Andra and Barkasch. What would a slave want with it?

  He said in atrocious Argian, “What’s your name, slave?”

  “Samsar,” said the slave sullenly.

  “Why did you pick this up for?” Ordovic continued, shaking the parchment before Samsar’s face.

  “It is my duty,” said the slave, still rubbing his jaw. “It is my duty not to leave litter to make the castle untidy.”

  “That was not why you tried to hide this,” insisted Ordovic. He picked up Samsar as if he had been a child, put him on his feet and held him there by one shoulder. “A document bearing seals is not litter.” He shook Samsar till his teeth rattled, and lapsing thankfully into thieves’ argot, which he spoke far better than Argian, and which, if he was any judge of slaves, this man would also understand, he added a phrase descriptive of a very elaborate and uncomfortable form of torture which few people who did not frequent the Low City and talk with thieves would know. Samsar, however, must have understood, for he blanched under his brownness, tore himself away and ran unsteadily from the hall.

  IV

  When Ordovic reached Sharla’s apartments the guard on duty outside saluted him casually, and his eyes flashed fire. “Do that again,” he ordered crisply, his Argian accent even worse than usual.

  The guard did it again, more smartly.

  Ordovic looked him over. “That’s better. Has any of my lady’s bodyguard who was on duty in the Hall of State come here yet?”

  “No, sir,” said the guard.

  “If one of them does, send him in.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the guard. Ordovic nodded, rapped on the door with bunched knuckles.

  After an instant, a slender girl-slave opened it, and at the same time he heard Sharla’s voice from within inquire faintly, “Who is it?”

  The slave spoke over her shoulder through a red velvet drape. “The captain of the bodyguard, my lady.”

  “Let him in,” Sharla commanded, and the slave stepped aside, bowing.

  Ordovic thrust the hangings apart, took one step through them, and stopped. He tilted his helmet back as he gazed around the room, and finally whistled in amazement as he took in the lavish fittings.

  Landor, leaning against the wall opposite the door, laughed briefly. “My lady Andra has elaborate tastes, has she not?”

  “Indeed yes,” said Ordovic feelingly. His eyes took in the red and yellow velvet drapes, the yellow silk couches and cushions and the silver bowls—some of them containing fruit, some cakes—the candelabra in carved crystal, worth a king’s ransom, the white fleeces on the floor, the tapestries and paintings on the wall.

  Finally he stepped across to the couch where Andra had sat the previous evening, sat down and helped himself to some fruit. Landor elbowed himself away from the wall and jerked a thumb at a heavy iron staple across the room. “See that? I’m told Andra keeps a Sirian ape—as a pet!”

  “Wildcat,” grunted Ordovic. He reached into his pouch for the folded parchment he had put there. “Where’s my lady, Ser Landor?”

  “Her attendants are readying her for dinner,” Landor answered. “There is a ceremonial meal, I believe.” He came over and took a Sirenian plum from the bowl in front of the couch.

  Ordovic held out the parchment between two fingers, said, “Here’s the bond of marriage or whatever. I caught little of the drift of that scene, but I guessed most of it, so when I spotted a slave named Samsar trying to sneak it away, I knocked him flying and threatened him with—” again the phrase descriptive of a certain protracted torture. He grinned like a boy.

  Landor chuckled without mirth, examined the scroll carefully. After a pause he said, “Ordovic, I don’t understand. When I read this the first time it was as I read it and named no names—yet here they stand both, the names of Andra and Barkasch, clear as day.”

  Ordovic stopped another fruit on the way to his lips and said incredulously, “It’s magic, Ser Landor.”

  “It looks like it,” nodded Landor.

  “Who was the man who came in?” demanded Ordovic, and Landor shrugged.

  “Whoever he was, he worked a miracle and saved much trouble. Why? If we knew who he was, we might guess his motive for aiding us.”

  The slender girl-slave pushed aside the curtains, and Landor said, “What is it, Valley?”

  Valley said, “There is a guard outside who would speak with Ser Captain Ordovic.”

  Ordovic rose to his feet, swallowing his fruit in haste. He said, “That’ll be one of my men, Ser Landor. I sent the bodyguard after the stranger on my lady’s orders, and I expect one of them is reporting.”

  He strode to the curtains and disappeared through them.

  A moment later Sharla came from an inner room, her hair fluffy and shining, her face freshly made up, and wearing a blue robe which had certainly not been in her exiguous baggage when she arrived.

  Landor looked her over, said finally, “Sharla, I never saw you look lovelier. Where did you get the robe?”

  She sat down on one of the couches, frowning. “Thank you, Landor. I’m told it belonged to my mother. But there’s a certain amount of business to see to. Did I not hear Ordovic?”

  “One of the men he sent after the stranger is reporting. He’ll be in in a moment. How did your interview with Penda go? What do you make of him?”

  “Of course, he’s completely changed since last I saw him. He’s no child now, but a youth, and he’d have a tremendous physique if he were less soft. But soft he is, and he made little impression on me. He’ll need schooling to be a king, Landor.”

  Landor nodded soberly. He said, “As I expected. Where is he?”

  “In his own apartments. The death of our father has hit him hard, and he said he would not be out till the time of burying.”

  Landor nodded again, held out the scroll he held in his hand. “Here’s the bond Barkasch threw down,” he said. “Ordovic caught a slave by the name of Samsar trying to sneak it away—he doesn’t know why. And the amazing part of it is—but read it for yourself, remembering how I read it at first.”

  Sharla ran her eyes down it, studying it for signs of an alteration. Finally she folded it and laid it on her lap, stared fixedly ahead, shivering.

  “It’s magic,” she said finally. “How else could that man have changed it?”

  Before Landor could reply, Ordovic pushed through the drapes and halted on seeing Sharla. He bowed, came on.

  Landor said, “Well? What did your man report? Who was it?”

  “They call him Kelab the Conjurer,” said Ordovic. “The sergeant of the guard came to me with a wild tale of him—‘tis reported, they say, that there is a man whom no bars will hold, who comes and goes where he will, and who has strange powers that surpass the human.”

  “The last I believe,” said Landor grimly. “No human agency changed these words on the parchment.”

  �
��I inquired what sort of man he is, and learned that he is an entertainer—a conjurer for display as well as for such strange purposes as the changing of the marriage bond, but the sergeant of the guard insisted with such vehemence that no ordinary hunt would find him that I resolved to let him wander.”

  Sharla said suddenly, “By the winds of Argus, I recall him now. I have heard of a man named Kelab, and I saw him once perform, doing things that a human never could. He was held in repute as a mutant, and feared, even in the Outlands, which was where I saw him.”

  At the mention of the Outlands Ordovic’s eyes lifted to her face for an instant and as quickly looked away. Landor said musingly, “But you know of no reason for this action?”

  “Not any at all,” said Sharla.

  “And you never met face to face?”

  “Never. But if half the stories current are true, no ordinary spies will trip him, and he will come only if it suits him.”

  Ordovic said, “By the winds of Argus, my lady—!”

  Sharla motioned him silent. She said, “Let that wait. There are two matters that concern us more—Penda, my brother, and Sabura Mona.”

  “Sabura Mona! Sabura Mona!” said Ordovic fiercely. “Am I never to hear more of Sabura Mona than her name? Who is she or what is she? Does no one know?”

  “Sit down, Ordovic,” invited Sharla. She indicated a place beside her, and Ordovic, after a moment’s hesitation, took it.

  “Sabura Mona was my father’s chief adviser and confidant,” said Sharla softly. “He used to say of her, I’m told, that she knew everything, from the smallest whisper of the beggars on the Street of the Morning to the cry of the mutants beyond the Empire, and that she was never wrong save once—when she advised him to send me away to learn the craft of ruling, and it seems now that she was less wrong than he believed. ‘Tis said she planned his dealings with the Outlands and the mutants more than he did himself.”

  “But you have not met her?” Landor said.

  “I recall her vaguely when I was a child,” Sharla answered.