One for the Morning Glory (13 page)

"But I buried her!" Boniface cried. "Cedric saw her into her tomb—"

"Who can say what you would find if you opened it now? And therefore better not to open it," the Twisted Man said. "And who can say, more than that, how it happened that your son was able to taste the Wine of the Gods, which should have been impossible? If there is nothing without a point in a story like this, then most surely there was a point to that, and what is it that makes you think that it is for your benefit, or for his, or for anyone's?

"In time to come, when the magic is draining so far out of the world that a vampire can be banished by crossed sticks and a sprinkle of water, when all that we do and say here will be spoken of in the brightest daylight or the darkest, wildest night without fear of bringing anything to pass, wise men will debate why there is any pain or suffering at all, and will say many foolish things and a few wise ones about it, but is it not enough for us to say 'pain has come this way,' and let it be? We do not yet belong to the gray, dull generations, or to times without meaning, or to times when meaning drains even from stories.

"We came from different places, and to be Companions, but not all of us are Companions for the same purpose. Do not ask me mine, for I do not know; or Psyche's, for it would break my heart to tell you; or Golias's or Morris's, for now whatever it was is accomplished. But understand that they are not necessarily what you would wish them to be, and that they are not for anyone's benefit, though they may be, or they may work to someone's benefit.

"Let us strike off her head, fill her mouth with garlic, and dispose of her properly, for whoever she really is, and whether Mortis merely wore the shape of your dead Queen, or was she come back, or whether both of them were two faces of the same thing—she died as a vampire and we must see for the sake of the Kingdom that she does not rise again."

"You are solicitous of Amatus's welfare, for one who will not say that he came for his benefit," Cedric observed, as he moved to help the Twisted Man. King Boniface went to the balcony doors, opened one slightly, and stared out at the starry sky, and they did not trouble him for his help.

"I cannot say that I did not, either. I have duties to fulfill. But you know that when he was young he was often frightened of me, and I have heard you yourself mutter when I have tormented some monster or some enemy before killing it that you hope Amatus will never learn such things."

Cedric raised Mortis's—or the Queen's—head by the hair and carefully stretched out the neck for the Twisted Man's stroke. "I did not know you had heard that. I hope I have not hurt your feelings."

"I have none that can be hurt by any such comment." He pulled out his huge ax; Cedric pulled the head back by the hair, so that the neck was fully extended, and shrugged his traveling cloak around himself, for he expected a spray of blood.

There was none. The ax whistled, there was an odd tug against his arms and then a release, and her head was hanging by the hair in his hands. He turned to get the garlic—

They all, even the Twisted Man, shouted, for the body on the bed, which had brought forth no blood at all except for what had already welled up and dried around the stake, was folding and collapsing like an apple in the sun, but many times faster, so that shortly there was a bare husk there. The Prime Minister gaped as the head he held by the hair rapidly aged, dried, decayed, and crumbled to dust at his feet, leaving him holding a hank of hair.

"Well," said the Twisted Man, after a long pause, "I suppose we should fold up the sheet with what's left in it, sweep the rest off the floor, and then burn it all. We will have to apologize to Lady Calliope for burning the sheet."

They did, without talking further. As the last bits went blazing up the chimney, the Twisted Man stood and silently took King Boniface by the arm, and the two of them walked out the door.

Cedric did not follow, but the next day his discreet inquiries revealed that many people working late at night or early in the morning—dairymen, vegetable sellers, harlots, drunkards, poets, and the like—had seen the King and the Captain of the Guard walking through the darkened city, deep in conversation with each other, sometimes close together and the King laughing as if they were the best of old friends, at other times turned away and talking from the corners of their mouths as if they could barely bear to be near each other. No one had overheard a word of it.

So what they talked of, or why they returned to the castle only as sunlight first touched its top, must remain outside the story.

Whether or not anyone knew exactly how the "curse" on the Prince worked—and there were many who thought they did, and would loudly explain it to anyone willing to part with coin in a taboret or a stupor and to keep listening to the explanation—there was no feeling that it was an ill thing for the Kingdom. If anything, they rather liked it; those who had had a chance to hear the Prince speak, before guilds, civic groups, fraternal societies, and the occasional cult, delighted in trying to describe how there was just half of him there, except that two parts of the half that wasn't, his left boot and left eye, were there, but with nothing in between.

It was hard to picture it in the mind, and thus the description was never like the actual effect, and no two descriptions ever quite alike, so it made for an endless subject of discussion as long as there were people about who had never seen him. Moreover, when they did—for he did not keep himself particularly secret—they always disagreed with the descriptions they had heard to date, and rushed back to their friends to argue, and that too made for long discussions in the little corners of the city, as the seasons turned and everything grew older.

Prince Amatus—the right side of him, anyway—lost some of the look of a boy, and learned to do administrative work and bother about taxes, armories, roads, and bridges, to avoid saying anything that might upset anyone pious and to always look solemn in the presence of the Hand and Book flag. King Boniface grew grayer, but seemed to become more shrewd and more jolly each year, so that there were arguments about whether, in the chronicles, he ought to be called the Merry, the Cunning, or (the most popular) the Good.

In summers the Vulgarians sat at their ease at the tables outside their stupors, having one cupola after another of the dark brown tea they brewed in silver sampans, and squabbled loudly about the Prince's missing left side.

In autumn the hunters came down from the northern and western hills, freshly killed and dressed gazebo upon their shoulders. The air was fragrant with the roasting and curing of the meat, and as the hunters ate dripping slabs of roast haunch, and drank the foaming autumn Pilaster, they talked of how the good Prince could be a whole man any time he wanted, but he must lose his Companions to gain back each part of himself and he was too decent a fellow to shorten Psyche's or the Twisted Man's days.

Winter blanketed the town with snow and made all the many colors of the bricks and cobbles shine wet in its bright light, and in every little taboret in the Hektarian Quarter, they drank the deep red Gravamen that cheered their hearts, and sang the version of "Penna Pike" which had at last been finished by the Prince, and told stories of dark nights and bright courage about him, though in truth he had done nothing more dangerous or exciting than could be found on the practice field or in the hunt for a long time.

And when spring came and the gypsies, layabouts, and troupials returned to the city and set up their trestle stages in every square, many of the little plays and stories referred to the Royal house and the connections between it and the Wine of the Gods.

Because Cedric was still Prime Minister, as well as General of All the Armies, and as efficient and vigorous as ever, his many agents saw to it that there was much untruth mixed in what was said, and no one knew the whole truth of anything in the city. So when Waldo the Usurper, who every year grew more bitter and evil as he sucked the neighboring Kingdom of Overhill dry, sent forth spies to come and listen in the city, they went back bearing tales of the sort of peace and prosperity that Waldo longed to end, but they also told tales of magical protections and mighty invisible powers. When they described a people given over to the business of living and enjoying, they mentioned hideous curses and pacts with dark beings, made by the Royal family in times long gone for the protection of the Kingdom.

Most importantly, when the spies discussed the succession, they talked of many princesses turned back by the Prince, of his refusal to go courting, and of his fondness for the Lady Calliope obstructing a sensible political marriage and thus working to Waldo's advantage—and the rumors that Calliope herself might be of royal blood, when they came to Waldo's attention, were no more believable than any other rumors which came to the cold citadel at Oppidum Optimum, which stank from abuse and lack of cleaning, where the bones of Calliope's family continued to dry in the upper chambers. It seemed most likely to Waldo that Calliope was what she appeared to be, the rather attractive daughter of minor nobility with whom the Prince had become infatuated. After all, her name was a common one.

Then too, though Waldo had fearsome force at his command, perhaps he hesitated because he knew the Kingdom was wide and strong and rich and thus could afford a considerable army, and that Cedric, by dint of stretching and wise use of resources, had managed to make the Kingdom get much more army than it paid for.

Waldo may even have hesitated knowing that the giant, swaddled, distorted shadow that seemed always to be there at the least hint of danger to the Prince had come to the Prince as one of his Companions, and thus as some bit of personal magic. But if he feared the Twisted Man, we can hardly say whether it was because of his great strength, or his obscure origins, or because four times, when Waldo had sent assassins forth, they had not come back, nor had his spies been able to learn what had happened to them, for the spies had been found in various of the back ways of the city, some punctured by the pongee of Duke Wassant, some pockholed by a precisely placed pismire ball that spoke of Sir John Slitgizzard, and a few with their heads turned backward—which could only be the work of the Twisted Man himself.

Nor did Waldo have much hope of treason. Though Amatus was generous and saw to it that his friends grew rich in his service, and he grew more indebted to them for their hunting down the perils of the city night, the deep mutual obligation was not permitted to weigh down their friendship. The Prince remained on the best of terms with them, just as if they were old friends with nothing but friendship between them.

Thus they sat out one bright spring day, over the ruins of lunch, sipping warm Gravamen that was a gift from the proprietor of the Gray Weasel, on the High Terrace, facing the west, so that there was a fine view out over the city—and beyond it to the hills, which eventually rose to mountains, beyond which, to the west and south, lay the lands usurped by Waldo.

Duke Wassant was there, stouter than ever but still strong and quick, with his wits all the keener. Sir John sat at his ease, his boots up on the broad, low wall that enclosed the balcony, letting the warm rays of the sun bake out a slightly sore shoulder and ankle, brought on by his vigor in his pursuit ot spies and gazebo. Had he been a reflective man, he might have been reflecting that a life as active as his was the sort that informed one, well before anyone more sedentary might notice, that age was creeping up.

Next to Amatus, and leaning against him, her eyes dreaming of other things, sat Calliope, just at the fullness of her beauty. And with all of them, sunning himself and letting his old bones enjoy the feel of peace and safety, was Cedric, his bushy beard and hair all gone quite white now, who had found it unusually hard to talk to Boniface that morning about threats to the Kingdom's security and so had come up here just in case anyone might wish to spoil a fine afternoon by discussing danger and fear.

"Does it not seem strange, in the sort of tale our lives are becoming, to have evil come out of the West?" the Duke asked idly, for like Amatus, he had acquired a passion for learning, and particularlv for learning the old tales, since in the Kingdom there was a pronounced tendency for what would be to be like what had been.

Cedric stirred slightly, without opening his eyes, like an old dog dreaming of a rabbit, and Sir John, with a wink and a smile, pointed to this.

But Amatus's answer was serious. "It is true that in many tales the East is wicked, but they are tales of Kingdoms other than this one. One reason the tales are so obscure to us is that we are near the beginning. Time enough for geography to sort itself out into oceans and continents, but that is not what we are about."

There was much more that might have been asked then, but no one to do the asking. For Cedric history and geography were merely guides to where the forts ought to be, for Duke Wassant geography was a matter of property and family lines, and for Sir John Slitgizzard, as long as he knew who his friends and enemies were, and how to deal with each, there was no point at all in knowing anything else.

Calliope might have asked, had there been anything she wanted to know and did not know already, but she knew geography as well as Amatus did, and history rather better, and thus was not disposed to. And besides, the day was extraordinarily fine.

After a long pause, during which they did almost nothing but sip the Gravamen and look out at the sunlit landscape, Cedric decided to broach the subject further. "Since we have privacy here to discuss it, you do understand, all of you, that whatever clash there is to be with Waldo must come fairly soon?"

Amatus stretched, enjoying the sun and the breeze, and said, "I've had that in my mind for a year or so, and I know several of the reasons why it should be so, but none that wholly convince me."

Duke Wassant grunted. "He is sending a better sort, smarter and tougher, as his spies, and he sends them in greater number. Our spies tell me, also, that his army grows stronger and more ready, though his land grows poorer and bleaker. If he does not move soon he may never be able to, for an army like that cannot be borne on the back of commoners like those for long."

"I have felt that way, now and again—not what Wassant says, but just that war will come some year soon—for some time," Sir John said.

Calliope was silent, but she moved to the wall, resting her hands upon it, and stared into the distance. Cedric and Amatus, who knew, realized she was thinking of the family of whom she had no memory, of the bones of two older sisters, three brothers, and her parents, who all lay, decayed and dry, in the stone corridors of the citadel of Oppidum Optimum. Travelers who had bribed guards to show them said the skeletons were untouched: her father and oldest brother lay on the stairway where they had fought to keep Waldo's men back. Her oldest sister had been slain at the door. Another brother had been beheaded in the nursery, his dead mother's arms still around him. And below the blood-drenched family tapestry, tracing the Kingdom of Overhill from its foundation a thousand years before to the reign of Calliope's father, lay the crumbled and broken bones of the year-old twins, boy and girl, whom Waldo himself had swung by the heels against that wall until they came apart.

But Sir John and the Duke had no idea of this, and so to them it seemed that she looked out toward where the Winding River met the Long River near the horizon, and that her thoughts must be going up the road from there to the fort that Boniface had erected in the Isought Gap just after Waldo's first invasion had been thrown back at Bell Tower Beach, the year after Amatus had been born, and thinking of the number of young men who would die to hold it, who would perish so that the Kingdom might not be sucked dry as Overhill had been. Though they were wrong in the particular, in general they were right, for whenever Calliope thought of Waldo her blood surged and she thought of war.

She had never for a moment doubted that some day Amatus and an army would burst through the Isought Gap, or sneak through Ironic Gap in the north, retake the citadel, and hang Waldo from the famous Spirit Spire. So as she thought of her murdered family, she naturally also thought of the roar of culverts and the rattle of omnibuses and festoons.

Yet today, because it was warm . . . or the air smelled of spring . . . or perhaps she had had too much Gravamen . . . she found herself wishing, sadly, that no one had to die.

Except Waldo. She could hardly help wanting that.

It had been a long pause, for the conversation before had been pleasant and it was clear that the one to follow would not be.

At last Amatus said, "Will we be ready for the war, then, if it comes this spring?"

Cedric sighed. "More than we were last spring, less than we shall be if he holds off a year, and I am sure he knows this as well, which makes me think he will be coming soon, Highness."

"But will we be ready?"

"One never knows that for sure until it happens. Then either we win, in which case we were ready enough, though we probably could have been readier; or we lose, in which case we were not ready enough. We are as ready as I can get us. I think we will prevail, and I have done my utmost to make sure we will, but I can promise nothing, Highness. If war comes, matters are in the hands of the gods—and as you know, we know little of the gods."

"What remains that we could do?"

"Most of it is done. Our best scout, old Euripides, skied through the pass some weeks ago; he should be back long before their army can move, and if they are preparing they cannot conceal it from him. As for the rest, well, we have suitable arms for every man we can put in the field, and powder and shot enough to fight all summer. We've food enough if we don't have to stand a siege, and if we can keep the road open to the eastern provinces until midsummer, the early crops there will fill up the city's larder for a year. The army could do with more wagons, but if the wheelwrights step up their pace, it will be noticed by Waldo's spies—"

"Have them step up the pace. And had you not planned to sweep for his spies?"

"That was my suggestion. But no sweep is perfect. Highness, and though we have many of his spies left in place, and long lists of their suspected accomplices, we do not have all of them, I am sure, and some of them are bound to evade us and make their way west. And even if the wheelwrights' activity, or that of the forges or the powder mills, does not alert them, then I think you may fairly assume that the slaughter of all their other spies will."