Emperor and Clown (14 page)

Virgorek
pulled and pulled and soon began to feel hot. He had been letting himself get
soft-palms, and arms ... He did not slack the pace he had set. “How far?” he
panted.

“Far
enough.”

With
his free hand, the stranger opened the pouch. He took out each roll in turn,
staring hard at the seals and inscriptions as if he could read them. Almost
certainly he would be faking ... he wasn’t even moving his lips! Very few
jotnar ever learned to read, because their eyes were not good at close work.

But
then he returned the safe conduct to the bag and tossed the imperor’s letter
overboard unopened. Virgorek considered a protest and then thought better.

Then
the third scroll, the letter from the ambassador, followed the second. That was
too much. “Hey!” Virgorek said, lifting his oars from the water. The vellum
would float, and the ink might not wash out if it were recovered quickly.

“Hey
what?” the stranger said, unwinking. “That’s important!”

“No
it isn’t. It would merely warn Kalkor that the Impire plans to set a trap for
him. He knows that.”

Suddenly
the raider smiled.

Virgorek
dipped his oars again quickly. He didn’t like that smile. A few years among
imps made a man feel tough, but now he wondered if he was any more important
than those discarded scrolls. That sort of thinking untoughened a man awfully
fast.

“Why
is he doing this?”

“Doing
what?” The blue eyes widened; the smile widened.

“Going
to Hub! Putting himself in the Impire’s clutches! They’ll never let him escape!”

Still
smiling. . . “Who knows? I’ve never met anyone brave enough to question him.”

Oars
creaked. Water hissed by the planks. The pace was telling on Virgorek now, and
he regretted his initial enthusiasm.

The
raider leaned slightly on his steering oar and the dory veered, and yet nothing
showed in the ubiquitous white fog.

“Why
don’t you ask him?” he said. “When we get to the ship?”

Virgorek
wondered if he had ever known real fear in his life before. “No! I don’t think
I will.”

“Then
you may even see land again,” Thane Kalkor said pleasantly, “but only if you
row much faster than this.”

Autumn
rains always brought on Ekka’s rheumatics, and this year they were especially
painful. Ominously bad. Reluctantly she had taken to her bed, and she lay there
now, buttressed by warm bricks wrapped in flannel, sprawled back on a heap of
pillows, and wishing she had not demanded to see her face in a mirror that
morning. A gray complexion definitely did not go with her amber teeth.

And
just as a final, unbearable irritation, here was her idiot son, fatter and more
incompetent than ever, shifting from shoe to shining shoe at the foot of her
bed and tugging his pendulous lip. An impeccably dressed nincompoop! The
thought of Angilki ever trying to manage Kinvale without her was enough to make
a God blaspheme.

“It’s
from the imperor!” he wailed again.

“I
can see that, dolt!” Even her old eyes knew that imposing seal, and she could
make out enough of the crabbed scribe’s hand.

“He
wants me to come to Hub!”

“So?”

“So
what?”

“So,
what are you waiting for? Or are you planning to refuse?”

Angilki’s
already sallow face turned even paler. Perhaps he had hoped she would write a
note to excuse him? He had never been more than two day’s ride from home in his
life.

“But
why? Why me?”

Because
the imperor had recently granted his gracious leave for this lumpkin to style
himself King of Krasnegar, that was why, and now the bureaucrats had found some
law or reason-the two were rarely compatible-requiring the pawn to move to the
center of the board. The purpose might be as trivial as a public homage or as
terminal as attainder for high treason. The only certainty was that Angilki was
now involved in. Imperial politics and must do as he was told.

She
could not face the thought of trying to explain all that to him. The less he
knew the happier he would be.

When
she did not speak, he added, “And the foundations for the new west portico . .
.”

“God
of Worms!” she muttered. “Give me strength! Go and pack your bags and saddle a
horse. And you’d better take a lunch.”

“One
lunch? It’ll take me weeks and weeks!”

Ekka
shut her eyes and waited impatiently for the sound of the door closing.

Far
to the east of Zark, below the hazy white of a maritime sky, Unvanquished
dipped her bowsprit in salute to an advancing green mountain. The wind was
boisterous, just right for sailing.

The
crew were cheerful, not realizing how far from land they really were, and Rap
was moderately content-no sorcerer was likely to detect his cautious
experiments this far out in the Spring Sea, or wish to investigate if he did.
He was learning. He could even adjust the weather_ now, within limits, and
without rippling the ambience very much. Since his injuries had completed their
healing, he had almost caught up on his sleep. He still had nightmares, though,
and probably always would.

If
Jalon and Gathmor had been his only companions, he would have taken the warlock’s
boat for this trip north, but he could never ask the princess to ride in that.
It might be booby-trapped, anyway, so that the warlock could follow its
progress, or even call it to him. Lith’rian was sneaky, perhaps the least
trustworthy of all the Four. Olybino was said to be stupid and the other two
were just plain crazy. The elf was a trickster, and treacherous.

A
gust of spray blew over the bows and did not touch Rap. He took hold of the
rail as Unvanquished tipped her bow skyward. His jotunn blood thrilled to the
creak of rope and spar, to the green gleam of light through the glassy edge of
the wave ahead, and the swoop of the albatross astern, wheeling its wings
against the sky. Fish swirled, myriads of them down in the main, and sometimes
he sensed great somber shapes that might be whales, deeper in the cold dark.
Most happily would he sail on forever. Landfall was going to bring back his
troubles, and danger-and responsibility.

Captain
Migritt dozed in his cabin, the cook cooked in the galley. Within a labyrinth
of tackle stowed in the glory hole, Pooh was stalking a rat. The gnarled little
gnome was about the most entertaining person aboard--Rap had already spent
hours with him, hearing his yarns, chuckling at his ribaldry. No one ever talked
to gnomes, and yet they were friendly, easygoing folk once you got past their
odd customs and their stench, and once they got over their surprise and
suspicion. He liked Pooh.

And
there were voices, all over the ship ... He could muffle them. and ignore them,
if they did not talk about him. But some of those voices did talk about him,
often, and then the conversations were as hard to ignore as if they were right
at his back.

Now,
down in the princess’s cabin, all three of them were on about him again.

Gathmor,
gruffly: “Yes, he’s changed. Do you think any man could suffer as he did and
not change?” Sagorn, supercilious: “It was not that. When he first recovered he
was not like this. It was whatever he saw in his vision that did this to him.”

Princess
Kadolan, concerned: “Then we must try to find out what he saw and see if we can
help.”

Then
both men together, saying that they had tried. Godsl-how they had tried,
Gathmor and all of the five by turns! Cursed mundane busybodies.

He
had never asked to be a mage. Had the princess given him a choice, and had he
been in fit state to think, he’d have refused the third word of power in the
dungeon. He had really wanted to die then. He had never wanted occult power at
all, except that he’d thought he could help Inos. So he’d trapped Sagorn with a
dragon and become an adept. That was not a memory he cherished. Serve him
right-see what it had brought him! Inos had a kingdom now. She had a royal and
handsome husband, at least in name. Maybe she would be content with that? No,
not Inos. She was too much a real woman not to want to have a real marriage,
with children and ... and a real husband. Gods! Why did a man have to fall in
love? He drummed his fists on the rail. Why must a churl fall in love with a
queen, and then not have the wit to know it and tell her so at once, so she
could laugh and thank him politely and lay the whole matter to rest right away?

Then
he’d have stayed in Krasnegar and been a wagon driver.

Then
she’d have married Andor. What business of his if she had?

What
could he do now? Cure her burns, yes. Easy. That would be no harder than
smuggling her aunt out of Arakkaran, which he had accomplished with no trouble
at all. He couldn’t remove her husband’s curse, nor win back her kingdom-a mere
mage could not take on the Four, no one could. Anyway, he wasn’t going to be
around much longer and she must have resigned herself to losing Krasnegar when
she married that big barbarian ... chain a man down and mash his bones? Inos
had not known about that, her aunt said, and her aunt never seemed to tell a
lie. She bypassed the truth when it was bothersome, but he had not seen her
lie.

And
here she came now, swaddled in wool and leather, a rolypoly figure staggering
along the deck to speak to him. Her white hair was blowing like a flag and her
cheeks were rosy as sunsets already. So now it must be her turn to try and
comfort the moping faun.

He
steadied her a little-not so much that she would notice-but he did not turn.
When she arrived at his side and grabbed at the rail, he glanced around as if
he had not been watching.

“Ma’am!”

“Master
Rap!” She was beaming. She obviously enjoyed sailing. “This is wonderful
weather! Is this your doing?”

“A
little of it. Not much.”

A
gust of cold spray came over the side and he deflected it from both of them.
She noticed and laughed shakily.

“Oh!
Oh, that’s splendid! You are a very helpful traveling companion!”

“I
won’t be much use ashore, I’m afraid. I shan’t dare exert power there.
Especially when we get near to Hub.”

“Of
course, I quite understand. I am so excited! All my life I, have wanted to
visit Hub. I never thought a mage would turn up to escort me-it’s quite like a
poet’s romance!”

She
smiled at him with faded blue eyes, the worry and inquiry quite obvious behind
the feigned cheerfulness.

He
would not think about Hub. Silence fell.

“I
had a long chat with Captain Migritt at dinner last night,” the princess said. “About
Shimlundok. That’s the eastern province of the Impire. Even after we reach
Ollion, you know we still have to cross the whole width of Shimlundok Province,
more than a thousand leagues!”

Rap
had eaten dinner with Pooh, down in the cable locker, but he had heard most of
the conversation anyway. “What’d he tell you, ma’am?”

“Well,
he suggested that we start by sailing up the Winnipango. It’s navigable for a
very long way now, he says, since the new locks were put in. Well, they’re not
really new, because they were built by the Impress Abnila . . .” The captain
had also admitted that it was a very roundabout way to travel, slow at the best
of times, and impassable when the military had need of it and cleared civilian
traffic out of the way. “But then Doctor Sagorn pointed out that the Winnipango
is a very winding ...”

Small
wonder the sorcerous rarely made friends with mundanes.

It
was a shame that Lith’rian’s boat had been left behind in Arakkaran-to sail up
a long, long river in that might be fun. Of course the shifting winds would
snarl all the other travelers, and the magic might attract the notice of the
warlock of the east. Even a much lesser sorcerer would be dangerous to a mere
mage. The boat was gone anyway. Rap discarded a vain dream.

The
princess finished repeating what she had learned about the Winnipango. “So
Doctor Sagorn suggests that we should purchase a traveling coach and proceed
overland. He thought you would probably be able . . . consent to drive it for
us.”

“It
would be a real pleasure, ma’am. I’d like that.”

“Oh,
that’s good! Do you suppose Master Gathmor will wish to remain in
our-your-company?” Nothing was going to detach Gathmor from Rap now, although
his craving for revenge on Kalkor was sucking him into waters deadlier than he
could imagine.

“He
might just agree to dye his hair and face,” Rap said, “and if Darad could hold
him still for long enough, I could remove his mustache.”

“Oh!”
Then she realized that he had actually made a joke, and laughed a little too
hard.

“He
can be our footman, then.” She smiled, hesitated. “Master Rap, would you
forgive me a personal question?”

“Of
course, ma’am.”

“Those
marks-the tattoos around your eyes. I understand that those were put there
without your consent. . .”

He
removed the tattoos and she blinked, and then laughed again, nervously.

“If
I may say so, you are much better-looking without them.”

He
would never be better-looking than almost anyone else except a troll, so why
did it matter? She was trying to imagine him sitting beside Inos on a throne
for two, and that wasn’t going to happen.

“I
can’t make them go away, really away,” he explained. “They’ll reappear as soon
as I forget about them, or go to sleep. And a sorcerer might notice the
magic-in a way I’m more conspicuous without them than I am with them.
Conspicuous to people who matter.”

She
nodded and apologized, but he left the tattoos invisible for now.

“I
used to wonder,” she said hastily, “why Sultana Rasha did not just make herself
young and beautiful and leave it at that.”

He
hated talking about sorcery now. “I’m sure she could have. I wondered the same
about Bright Water. I’m sure she could make herself younger with a sorcery, and
it probably wouldn’t be very noticeable to another sorcerer, not as detectable
as magic. But suppose sometimes she wants to look herself again, or chooses to
look like someone else entirely? Then she’d have to cast another sorcery on top
of the first. Pretty soon they’d pile up like overcoats.”