A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess (27 page)

DÉNOUEMENT

Perhaps if Bronwyn had any idea of the barons’ resources, or the extent and depth of their hatred for the prince and his chamberlain, she may not have given them such an unencumbered injunction. She might not have been as offhand or facetious. Then again, perhaps she may have. Be that as it may, she is sickened and depressed at the outcome of her offhand order; her poor, simple brother, perhaps the unadorned fact that he
is
her brother elicited a gram of pity from the barons, will be spending the rest of his life in a cell of Kaposvar, in the likelihood that he’ll never realize where he is, being well supplied with dime novels, crossword puzzles, cigarettes and wax fruit, but even her primal, bloodthirsty reptile recoils, a little, at Payne Roelt’s terrible fate.

She is sitting at a window of her apartment, gazing morosely into the plaza below, its cobblestones dark and glossy from the first rain in months, even though it is little more than a drifting mist that blurs the grey, unappealing city like the background of an amateur watercolor. In the weeks since her return, much of the damage of Mathias’s siege has been repaired or cleaned up, but there are still craters in the open area and scores of broken windows that leave blank, black rectangles in the dingy walls. The débris of the barricade has been removed; the Guards had created it from Payne’s treasure wagons, dumping their contents haphazardly onto the cobblestones. This, too, has been removed, what remains of Payne Roelt’s ambitions, that which had not been destroyed in the Kobolds’ artificial volcano, is now safely back in the treasury. The Privy Council is even now debating what to do with it; the Church has already recovered enough of its composure to put in a claim for its share.

The plaza is as bleakly monochromatic as a tintype, and empty now except for the curious structure that stands in its very center. The big wagon wheel that had been mounted horizontally atop the vertical beam no longer attracts more than a few curious people, unlike the crowds of a few days ago. The limp figure whose arms and legs are threaded in and out of the spokes now only looks sad and alone.

During the weeks that Payne Roelt had been imprisoned in the fortress of Kaposvar, he had paced his cell with metronomic regularity; always in the same direction, Bronwyn had been told, but oddly enough not parallel to the stone walls. Instead he traveled the same canted diagonal, southeast to northwest, over and over again, and when he would reach the northwest corner he would stop against it, as though surprised to find his way blocked, and he would shake his fist angrily. Then he would retreat, pace the distance once more and repeat the furious gesture, his progress frustrated by the impenetrable wall.

Bronwyn had thought about this strange behavior for a long time, before realizing, with a frisson of horror, that Payne Roelt was still trying to return to Strabane and his treasure.

When he was told of his fate by the Privy Council, his only response had been to mutter, to the court’s astonishment, “Fifty-one million six thousand eight hundred and two.”

She had refused to witness the execution, and all of the arguments and pressure brought to bear upon her by the Council and the barons failed to sway her. Nevertheless, since the sentence was carried out publicly, in the midst of the plaza, it was difficult for her to escape it. With a face as white as plaster, and teeth clenched so tightly that they drew blood from the gums, she tried to shut out the screams as Payne’s legs and arms were systematically pounded with an iron bar, pulverizing the bones so that the limbs could be threaded through the spokes of the big wheel, which was then attached to the end of the beam and raised above the heads of the oddly silent crowd. He had been left there for three days, alive but uncomprehending, before he was put to death. Once again the princess unsuccessfully tried to shut out the low, animal moans as the condemned man’s bowels were burnt out with red-hot irons.

Looking out over the plaza now, she notices with something of an uncanny thrill that the wheel has spun so that Payne’s head points compass-like toward Strabane.

There is a discreet knock at her door, which she answers with a disinterested and desultory grunt.

“Princess? Bronwyn? Am I disturbing you?”

“Oh. No, Rykkla. I’m sorry, come in, please.”

The tall, dark girl comes in quietly, shutting the heavy door behind her. Bronwyn notices, with a kind of depressed pang, that Rykkla is extraordinarily and unexpectedly beautiful, glowing smokily like a candle-lit citrine or topaz. She is wearing a dress that Bronwyn had given her, since both girls are of a size. It is a deep red that the princess had always hated, but which makes Rykkla look even more sultry and exotic; Bronwyn envies her dark velocities.

Bronwyn has always have a dislike, which is a secret even from herself, for women who are as tall or taller than she. Without thinking, she rises from the window seat to stand by the mantel, fiddling with a blown-glass sailing ship, drawing herself unconsciously to her full height.

“I’ve been concerned,” says Rykkla, “and worried. We all have. We haven’t seen you in days and anyone who
has
seen you has only told us things that have worried us all the more.”

“I know. But there’s no need for anyone to concern themselves. I’m fine.”

“That’s what
you
say. You didn’t specifically tell anyone that you wanted to be left alone, but it isn’t very hard to figure out. We are going to wait until you called us, but it’s been so long now that I took a chance.”

“Who’s this ‘we’ you keep talking about?”

“You know. Us. Me, Thud, the professor and . . . ah . . . Gyven. That’s who I really wanted to talk to you about. Gyven. He doesn’t know I’m here, but you’ve got to know that Gyven is going crazy with anxiety. He doesn’t know what to do.”

“Neither do I, Rykkla.”

“What happened out there has bothered you a lot, hasn’t it?” she says, gesturing toward the window and the plaza beyond.

“Of course it has. The last couple of years have bothered me a lot.”

“Why? He got what he deserved, didn’t he?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He have gone mad. He didn’t even understand what is happening to him. His death is just a senseless, barbaric butchery. Nothing but a vengeance killing.”

“Well, even if he didn’t deserve what he got, didn’t the people at least deserve to
do
it?”

“But it makes us no better than he is, perhaps even worse.”

“He had to die anyway, there’s no getting around that. He was too dangerous to allow to live. As long as he was going to die anyway, why not in a way that allowed the people some satisfaction? And if he was too mad to understand what was happening, perhaps it was just as well.”

“I don’t know. I’m confused, Rykkla. For two years I’d looked forward to this . . . this homecoming. I even admit to having fantasized worse things happening to Ferenc and Payne than what really did happen. Then, suddenly, it means nothing to me. And I don’t know why. It’s not so much that their fates are that much worse being concrete than abstract. It’s just that somehow I feel as though I wasted all of that time and energy, and all of those people and their time and their lives. I don’t mean my brother or Payne, of course, but everyone else. Think of them, Rykkla! There are people who gave up their lives for me, literally and figuratively. How can I deal with that? How can I even understand it?
Why
would they do that? I feel as though they trusted me and I gave them nothing in return. Yet why should I feel this guilt, this sense of obligation, of failure? I never asked anyone to trust me. I never asked anyone to subjugate their lives to mine. Look at you and Thud and Gyven, just for example, or Basseliniden or Professor Wittenoom. Or . . . or . . . the baron. You’ve been wrenched from the lives you’d been happily living and I’m not really sure why any of you did it. What’s worse than the guilt is the sense that I’m
resenting
what everyone did, and that adds confusion to my discomfort.”

“Bronwyn, I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, and don’t you think Thud is, too? My stars and little fishes, haven’t you looked at him lately?” She says this with a kind of breathless and distracted intonation at which Bronwyn only just prevents herself from gaping. “Without you,” Rykkla continued, “Thud would’ve lived out what little life he had left pounding on stones at Pooticker and Spleen or whatever it was. Would you have condemned him to that? With you, he’s
become
something.”

“Yes, so I’ve noticed.”
But what?
her mind footnots.

“Did you hear that we’re going into business together?”

“What? Who?”

“Me and Thud. We’re putting together a traveling show, based on the act we did in my uncle’s circus. We’d practically perfected it while on the road to meet you. He’s really good, you know, Thud is, and even better than ever now. ‘Mollockle and Woxen’, that’s my last name, you know, though I hardly ever use it. ‘Rykkla Woxen’ sounds like some kind of medicinal plant. It sounds pretty good with ‘Mollockle,’ though, I think. We’ll be ready in just a week or thereabouts. Got a new wagon and everything; your friend Mathias kindly gave us one before he left.”

“He’s a good man; I once thought I loved him, you know.” Bronwyn sighs. “I wish he hadn’t gone back to the duchy so abruptly. There was a lot I wanted to tell him.”

“Like what? You told him enough, whether or not you think you did. Love, as I imagine you’ve discovered by now, oftentimes just isn’t enough all by itself. Even if you had any idea what it actually means to love someone, which I suspect you don’t. And speaking of good men while at the same time changing the subject, or getting back to the original one, there’s Gyven. Forgive me, Bronwyn, but are you out of your mind?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The man’s absolutely in love with you, don’t you know that?”

“Of course I do! We’ve . . . ah . . . been together,” she mumbles, defiantly and blushingly at the same time. Embarrassed that she feels embarrassed.

Rykkla laughs. “Bronwyn, my friend, what does
that
mean? Chickens and frogs have sex. What’ve you ever done besides moon at him like a puppy?”

“I don’t understand what you mean. I’ve never ‘mooned,’ as you put it, at anyone.”

“I take it you’ve ‘been’ with Mathias. Do you love
him
?”

“I said I thought I did. And who told you . . . ?”

“Have you ever told Gyven that you love him?” Rykkla continued.

“Well, no . . . I mean, I’ve never been certain . . . it never seemed necessary; but he’s never told
me
, either.”

“And he’s not likely to. The man worships the ground you walk on. He thinks that every pebble under your feet is personally blessed; he’d collect them like relics, if it ever occurs to him. He honestly believes that when you shit you leave behind only the faint scent of roses. How can anyone that infatuated tell you that he loves you? He wouldn’t dare; it’d seem blasphemous to him.”

“Oh, come on!”

“It’s true.”

“But Rykkla, I don’t know. There’s something inside me that gets angry at how Gyven feels. I don’t know if I
want
to be worshipped. I’d much rather be
liked
.”

“Well, there’s a lot truth to that. He acts like you’re Musrum’s own sister.”

Bronwyn’s eyes suddenly narrow. “Not Kiskelim?”

“No, the other one. Gyven’s like Thud, I guess. Do you have any idea where he’d be today if it hadn’t been for you? Try to imagine it . . . Horrible! He’d just be a beautiful vegetable, a kind of god-like turnip. Anyway, Gyven would rather suffer his love in silence than sully your precious ears with his affections. He’s an unreformed Romantic.”

“So am I!”

“No you’re not. You’re just sentimental. Don’t confuse the two.”

“But how can he make love to me and at the same time be afraid to tell me that he loves me? And if he loves me as much as you say, why hasn’t he been to see me?”

“
Because
he loves you so much, idiot, and because you’ve as much as shut him out, as you do everyone about everything. I suspect that you’ve never been able to see much beyond your own troubles; if you do, it’s only to unfavorably compare the depth of someone else’s worries with your own. You’re the most empathy-less human I’ve ever met. I doubt that it’s even
occurred
to you to imagine what Gyven must be feeling, or anyone else for that matter, you’re so wrapped up in your own self-importance. You’re just going to have to take the initiative with him, that’s all I can tell you.”

“Oh, Rykkla. I wish it were that easy. But before I can take an initiative, I have to decide if I really, truly want the man. I don’t even know for sure if I want to be in love with
anyone
.”

“It
is
that easy, Bronwyn. Instead of worrying about how things might turn out, jump in and find out. That’s one of your biggest problems: you always want an ironclad guarantee of how things are going to turn out before you even start. If you’ve learned anything at all, I’d have thought that you would have figured out that you can’t do that. Come on with me, you’ve been moping around this room for long enough.”

“I’ll be down later, I promise.”

“You’ll come on now. Professor Wittenoom wants to see you.”

“Wittenoom? What does he want?”

“How would I know? And even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. You’ll just have to come along and find out.”

Wittenoom is waiting in one of the palace’s libraries, browsing through a shelf of books, when Bronwyn comes in. Rykkla leaves her there, closing the doors behind her. The man is dressed all in black, with a scissor-tailed coat and high, stiff collar, and looks entirely professorial.

“What an extraordinary collection,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“These,” he replies, gesturing toward a bookcase that is filled with scores of large, handsomely bound volumes.

“Oh, those. Those are my brother’s.”

“Extraordinary. If it were my field, I’m sure there’d be a paper in it.”

“Rykkla told me that you wanted to see me.”

“Yes I did, indeed. I’m only waiting for . . . ah! Here he is.”