The Conqueror (15 page)

Then there were the times when his
thoughts turned to Eleanora. There was the sovereign, and then
there was the person. There was the question of which way she would
jump.

After consulting with all and sundry,
it was believed that the Queen of Windermere was about thirty-two,
certainly no more than thirty-five years of age. The vanity of
women being what it was, and the vanity of queens being what that
was, no one was really sure and no one had ever come up with a
really good way of asking. It was a kind of state secret, he
thought with a grin, not that he didn’t like her all the more for
it.

After seeing her in the flesh, Lowren
figured she was two or three years older than he, no more than
that. It was an odd thought, but brides had been offered to Lowren
before and he had always disengaged himself from such negotiations
as inoffensively as he possibly could. He just wasn’t ready,
perhaps.

Or perhaps not!

Eleanora had the most disturbing
eyes—one look and you knew you had met your equal. Not that that
really changed anything.

If only.

Even kings had their forlorn dreams of
a sort.

***

The bard, clad in faded and baggy,
weather-beaten finery that had seen better days, with the dust of
the road still on his shoes, strummed his lute and sang forlornly
for his supper.

With deadly malice and unerring aim

The slender bolt, its point touched with flame

Into the thatch, so carelessly flown

The hand is revealed, the face still unknown

And the raging flames by the strong winds are
blown

Out of the smoke, straight through the pyre

An apparition, he steps from the fire

His armour bright, the blade strong and
bright...

Lo and behold, from his ashes and his dust

The
Conqueror arises, as surely one must—

Surely he knows thee, and the flavour of your mind

For you always come back, and when it is time

He will make sh
ort work, of you and your kind.

“
Yeah!” One or two of them were indulging in a liquid
lunch.

A small
grin stole over his face. He was just warming them up for a longer
show later in the day.

He broke
off and bobbed his head at a few polite murmurs from the few
loungers in the room.

The bard
cleared his throat in modest fashion before speaking.

“
Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much.”

“
Where’s Bibbs?” Lowren
strode into the hall, where a few loungers and tankards and the
smell of ale attested to their fairly simple plans for the days
ahead.

He nodded at one or two
newcomers.

“
Ah, sire. I believe he’s
off with some of the lads.”

Lowren nodded at the unfamiliar young
face. Another spoke up, a pudgy beardless fellow. It really wasn’t
necessary to get up when Lowren entered the room, and as if sensing
that, the fellow froze for a second and then lowered himself back
into the seat from what was looking like an awkward
position.

“
They’re following the
tracks of some wild cattle. At least that’s what they said,
sire.”

Lowren nodded and sought out Garvin,
having heard his voice and a snippet of talk from the storerooms at
the rear of the hall, where the back of the main hearth dominated
the kitchen and washing areas.

“
Garvin. We shall have to
leave Bibbs and the others a note.”

“
Absolutely,
sire.”

Lowren made up his mind quickly in some
situations, and took much time at others.

This was one of those times when the
decision to leave, having eaten at him all day, must be acted upon
at once. In truth, the capture of some stray cows would be good
work and almost a kind of military exercise. Bibbs could learn
about command and handling kids, and the young men could be alone,
out of sight of both their own nominal serjeants and their
hopefully not-so-nominal sovereign.

“
Are we going somewhere,
sire?”

“
Yes. We’ll need good
horses. Four or five men will be plenty.” There were one or two
dogs lying about, but they were content enough.

There was a small contingent of
household servants to look after them—and Bibbs and the other men
if it came right down to it.

Lowren grinned, gnawing at a lip. Odds
were they’d have an impromptu and slightly-guilty little party as
soon as the reality of their abandonment sank in. Couldn’t blame
them, really. He might have done the same thing in their
place.

The young men, all ears around the
king, possibly the very troopers in question, looked at each other
and back to the conversation. They put their mugs and cups down
with solid thunks.

“
I’ll just go pack your
things, sire.” Garvin stared at a trooper, one in particular, and
the lad stepped right up from the bench and came over.

“
Sire.”

Lowren glanced at him, nodded, and then
strode out the door.

“
Come with me, and I sure
hope your hands are all nice and clean.” Garvin was only
half-kidding.

Lowren’s hunting garb was as humble as
the next man’s and about as grubby, after a week of riding
tall-grass prairie, bordering on dry scrub-steppe, and then there
was the muck and heavy brush up in the hills, over in the back and
beyond.

He practically slid to a halt on his
heels. He turned and gave the others a serious look. He picked them
off, one by one with a pointed finger.

“
You. You. You...and You.
Pack your things. If I know Lowren, we’ll be gone within a half an
hour.”

That left enough manpower to look after
things.

A thin, lonely hand went up. The boy
was pale and a bit narrow in the shoulders. Quite tall, they were
sort of wondering when he’d begin to fill out.

“
Uh...sir?”

“
Ah, yeah. Stott. You
too.”

Stott leapt to his feet, looking
relieved and slightly-apprehensive at the same time.

Other than that, there had to be some
paper, a bloody quill and some ink around the place somewhere. It
was a royal residence, after all.

Now, what would Garvin put in a note to
Bibbs, other than the obvious. He strode from the room with his new
side-kick right at his heels.

He looked around Lowren’s sparsely
furnished bedroom, big enough and with wide, heavily-shuttered
windows and its own big fireplace.

“
All right, bag it all up.
Carefully—”

“
Right, serjeant.” The
fellow was willing enough, anyways, and if he was lacking in skill,
that could be rectified by a little coaching.

“
Fold it, fold it
lad.”

Garvin found what he was looking for in
Lowren’s small desk, a relic from the past and looking distinctly
shabby, sitting there rather forlornly, tilting slightly back
towards the wall, with the bottoms of the back legs soft and a bit
shorter now from the dry-rot.

“
Ah, yes.” He sat down,
pulled out a sheet of paper and inked a quill that didn’t look like
it needed sharpening too badly.

It took a moment and then he had it.
The surface rocked slightly under the weight of his elbows. Lowren
really ought to do something about that, he thought.

Dear Trooper
Bibbs,

You are in charge of the
men here and the old woman has charge of the kitchen and household.
Don’t mess with her. Don’t screw it up and don’t let any of these
younger fellows kill themselves. Come home when you run out of
food...or ale, or stories or whatever.

No, that wouldn’t do. He crumpled it
up.

He looked at the blushing trooper as
the boy packed Lowren’s spare tunic, a loose flowing cotton shirt,
and one or two slightly more intimate items of clothing. Here he
was, putting the king’s hose and underclothes in a bag that smelled
distinctly like it belonged to any regular, everyday, mortal human
being. The kid had this awed look on his face and Garvin bit back
unnecessary comment.

“
What in the hell am I
supposed to tell Bibbs?”

The boy just shook his head, which was
just as well perhaps.

“
Tell him we went
home?”

Garvin raised an eyebrow.

It just might do.

The boy’s eyes slid around.

“
Brevity is
king.”

Garvin laughed aloud.

Gods. If he knew their King, the man
probably had half their horses saddled for them already and a bag
of oats slung across the pommel of each.

He had yet to find one or two things,
including that damned dispatch case.

Chapter Eleven

Summer was over. The nights were
getting colder and longer with every passing day. So far there had
been no frost, but the harvest was over and people were looking
forward to the midwinter festival.

Fires blazed in the hearths at each end
of the Great Hall. Traditionally, the master of the house, the king
in this case, sat with his most honored guests on one side of a
long table set upon a dais. In the case of Lowren, it was only set
up about a foot or so from the main level. For one thing, it was a
relatively small hall, only seating a limited number of guests. It
took more than enough wood to keep the place heated, and they only
had so many men to chop it…

For another, Lowren had always despised
the stiff and formal household organizations, which he had really
only heard about, of certain other sovereigns. It just seemed
unmanly. He knew they had a different culture, with different
traditions, but even so, he was glad not to have to do it. Greater
power and perhaps even legitimacy—the Empire of the South went back
a thousand years, might dictate a higher degree of ritual and
separation of the crown and the governed. Lowren hoped such things
would never come to pass in his own little kingdom. So far he
didn’t have an heir or successor, and how his kingdom might be
ruled after his passing was a question he didn’t much like
sometimes.

That would be someone else’s
problem—the best answer a man could give sometimes.

He might have been kidding himself, but
the men, and their women, and their children, growing more numerous
every day it seemed sometimes, were his friends. They were not so
much subjects as loyal followers. There was little to hold them
here except a kind of love. Any one of them, any family or band, at
any time, could simply pack their few simple belongings. They could
mount their horses and ride off. In many cases the mount or mounts
would represent a gift from Lowren, for once freely given it could
never be taken back.

It took more than a horse, a robe, a
badge to hold a man. It took more than a handful of gold and a
badge of honor and service. They had their wives and children to
think of as well. He had never kidded himself that they had things
any easier or that their lives were any more simple than his own.
Life held its little complications for every person who had ever
been born.

“
Lowren.”

He looked up from his cup, to see Kann
with darts in his hand.

“
Ah, no thank
you.”

“
All right, someone else
then?” Kann looked around hopefully.

There were no takers, for Kann was a
good player and a thirsty one. The younger ones were perhaps
getting a little tired of losing a penny a game and walking away
with sore heads and an empty purse after yet another marathon
session.

Kann turned away reluctantly, and so
did Lowren, but not before catching a quick glance exchanged
between Kann and his mother.

Yes, his friends, and his mother, could
sense his mood. They could leave him alone, or try to engage his
interest, without feeling that they had to bend and scrape and fawn
over him. His mother had the good sense not to fuss over him too
publicly, and he recalled with some mixed feelings just how that
had been achieved. But his father had died when he was only
fourteen and his brother Normanric had been just twelve. In order
to achieve manhood, he had had to work very hard before he could
achieve some mastery of self.

His father had achieved the rarest of
fates for a barbarian chief, to have died at home, and in his own
bed, surrounded by those he cared most about.

Lowren had to admit that there had been
many good times in that hall, and not too many really sad ones. His
father’s passing, and then when the news came about Normanric.
Everything else tended to fade away into insignificance, especially
over time.

There were times when it was best to be
grateful, and not worry too much about the future.

This was not one of them.