The King's Blood (22 page)
Authors: S. E. Zbasnik,Sabrina Zbasnik
And to make matters worse the Baron had set himself at Marciano's right hand and his wife, a pickled woman who seemed far more interested in the wine cask than her husband, at his left. Every man he could actually converse with, or wished to, was seated tables down and hidden behind hair pieces stuffed with sea shells, quartz, and feathers. By the panicked chirping coming from one woman's head, he feared some of the feathers were still attached to the previous owner.
Everyone outfitted themselves in their finest, which would have amounted to street clothes in Aravingion. Silk was in short supply so it was used in limited quantities to make small roses on bodices, or sashes for gentlemen who kept their guts pulled in the entire night. The soup course made for some entertainment as each local tried to figure out how to swallow and not breathe at the same time.
One woman took it upon herself to stitch silken panels with wool, leaving entire gaps in her dress see through. Marciano shook his head sadly and kept his eyes trained upon the poor beleaguered bird trying to make a break for it, but his men seemed to be enjoying the show, especially when she bent over to retrieve a lost spoon.
"Send in the entertainment!" the Baron clapped his hands loudly.
Argur, take him!
Marciano cursed in the back of his throat; the chances of the locals surviving the night grew less and less likely. At least the mead was palatable and the roast venison actually quite tender. Perhaps they could convince the chef to go with them. He'd have to fight off an urge to burn the rest of the castle to the ground behind them then.
A set of men, thin as pikes and hobbling, walked into the great hall. Their beards, carefully cultivated over what looked a few lifetimes, hung so low each carried it like a woman would her train. They approached the ring of tables surrounded by both the lords and ladies that could make their lives miserable, and the traveling soldiers who already were.
They both bowed deeply to the guest of honor. Marciano waved his hand at them, wishing he had the power or the vocabulary to dismiss them.
Rising, the first grabbed a hold of the second's beard and pulled. The second man yelped, jumping up as the first held up his hands displaying the beard hairs ripped out of their cozy home. Marciano shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the second proceeded to do the exact same to the first, also showing his treasure proudly in his fist.
The soldiers looked to each other, trying to make sense of this madness of men slowly ripping hair off each other when the real show began. Each man grabbed the others beard and began to spin, the centripetal forces increasing as their feet flew like a pair of children spinning until they fell down or vomited. Soon they were both at the far edge of their extravagant beards, twirling in a circle, gaining in speed.
The locals clapped in time with the feet, speeding up with each man as they leaned closer in their chairs. Conversely, the soldiers leaned back, grasping delicately to their own chins, some of which had barely begun to sprout hair.
Then, one of the men -- it was hard to tell which at this point -- jumped up. His feet bounced at first a few inches into the air, then a foot, then a few feet, until finally the man went completely airborne. He began to hum, as did the other one upon the ground, still spinning faster than a dust devil.
A hum broke from the flying man to the assembled crowd, the lords and ladies banging their hands on the table in a metronome beat. Even a few of the soldiers got swept up in the spectacle of a man suspended only by the whiskers on his face. It was electrifying; the low beat surging up everyone's spine out through the fingers and into the chin.
As they watched the man, still flying freely, his humming growing louder, each spectator could feel not just his pain but his exhilaration. To be as free as a bird spun about by its chin.
Then, as the humming reached a crescendo, the beard slipped from one man's fingers and the flying one tore free from his bonds. He tried to sail over the tops of the guests, catching one of the wigs with a tiny house on his boot and spectacularly met the wall with his face.
Dead silence washed over the crowd as they breathlessly watched the old man's body now crumpled in the corner. Time slowed as he twitched a bit, testing his arms and legs, then rose slowly before turning to face the crowd. A dribble of blood coursed from his mouth and a large gash on his eyebrow but he seemed no worse for his defeat and then reacquaintance with gravity.
As he bowed deeply along with his partner, the nobility exploded into applause. Marciano cocked an eyebrow at the bowing forms, noticing that their beards seemed a bit longer after that display. The old men raised their hands once more and, tenderly taking their beards into their hands, scurried back out the talent and servants' door.
The Baron was clapping and braying like a mule stuck in the mud, believing it had one-upped its owner somehow. Marciano tried to suppress an eye roll as his host called for the next entertainer.
A small man, dressed all in black entered more hobbled than the ancient beards moving aside. An oversized cloak masked his features and most of his form. Only a small white hand was visible as the specter inched towards the makeshift stage, each step reverberating over the silencing crowd.
The hush grew near deafening as the dark shadow unfolded itself and rose to its full height towering over the assembled guests who at that point were a bit too inebriated to realize they were all sitting. They saw a grim vision of eternal blackness rising to eight feet in front of them when it was really more a six-foot guy in cheap black bleaching itself brown from overuse.
A single white hand curled like a withering flower in winter and pointed out into the crowd. Each face it touched dodged and weaved out of the way, trying to flee from whatever powers this invading specter cast.
As the shadow came upon the Baron, the finger paused. Slowly the hand turned upwards until the finger extended towards their lord. The guests waited for the menacing digit to pull the soul out of their host, but instead the entire hand fell open and curled around something invisible in its palm.
A second hand as pale as the first, lunged forward grabbing onto the invisible force in front of it and pulled itself forward, the cloak wafting in the breeze. The first hand reached ahead, inching the specter closer and closer to the Baron. The Lord stood, his terror replaced by what he thought leadership looked like, and raised his two fingers like a pair of scissors. While the specter held tightly to whatever life threads attached him to the Baron, the man smiled and brought his fingers down upon the line.
The specter flew back, as the invisible physics sent his form tumbling to the ground. All the guests could spot peering around their goblets was a cloak piled upon the floor. Then, as quickly as he'd fallen, the shadow rose, the blackness falling away from him to reveal...a mime.
Marciano audibly groaned at the man in stripes whose makeup was so smudged in his pratfall he looked like an eternally confused silent destroyer of hope and dreams. He spotted his lieutenants rising and unsheathing their swords, but he waved them away.
The Empire had long ago outlawed mimes, and death awaited any man caught pretending to be trapped inside a box or crawling along an invisible rope. Even a man pretending to go downstairs to poorly entertain children was looking at a night in the scorpion pits.
This was considered the best contribution to modern society the Empire had ever offered. But Marciano waved his fellows off anyway. Let the Barbarians have their fun, mimes only had a 5-10 year lifespan anyway.
The man did the box, he did the ladder, he even tried to flirt with a countess who looked like she'd been around for the Old Empire. But the locals sensed the growing discomfort from the soldiers shifting in their seats, trying to not look directly at the man capering around as if he were on a horse, the way one would politely ignore the uncle with underpants on his head standing on top of the roast chicken during family dinners.
The mime's last act, pretending he was spinning plates
As the hulk turned back to his fellow diners, the hall erupted into applause. He wiped his hands once and smiled wide. Marciano held back the reprimand on his tongue in front of the others, but there were going to be some serious discussions with his men later. He'll probably have to break out the hand puppets again, the only way he could get through to some of the discount "Knights."
The Baron shifted in his royal robes, not expecting the mime to get such a frosty reception or such an airborne exit. To cover his mistakes he stood and raised a glass.
Dear Argur, no
, thought Marciano. Anything but that.
"A toast!"
"Here, here!" the townies shouted, raising their sloshed glasses up.
Marciano gritted his teeth and turned to look at the man beside him, getting a good eye full of a belly poking overtop a gold belt that probably never fit.
"To the Empire!" the Baron said.
"The Empire!" the locals responded in exhilaration.
The soldiers glanced at each other but mumbled back "the Empire?" For them it was like toasting the air they breathed, or the water they drank. Sure, you could, but then you could also spend your days sitting quietly at home not stabbing people. Where was the fun in that?
"And to the great General Marciano who has graced our table and lands with his presence."
The General smiled weakly upon the others hoping this would be the end of it and began to raise his glass to his lips. A small cough, tuned to just the right frequency to overcome the loudest of cacophonies, paused his hand.
"And to the grace of our Argur, without whom we would not be here to greet this day," the voice was clipped and strained, like staccato on a cello. Everyone turned to the man in the gold and ivory robe sitting pristinely between two large knights who never said a word to anyone.
The Bishop took every opportunity to remind the world that he was here, he was speaking for a deity that could wipe them out with a single thought, and the Argur's Men Chorus could sure use new cummerbunds. If the army wished to demoralize a town hell bent on treason to the Empire, they'd simply send the man in ivory strolling calmly into town asking when they last tithed to keep their sorry asses out of damnation. Worked every time.
The downside was that meant they had to travel with the Bishop, who made certain every knight under Marciano's command was being judged not just by their commanding officer but a man who had the ear of a god. The general was surprised there weren't more freak-outs, especially when the Bishop would sneak up behind someone and do that little cough of his.
"Of course, and to Argur," the Baron said, trying to keep the momentum going.
"Who said unto us, 'Take not more than you can give, but give not more than you can take. For the true blessed are those that can survive without assistance.'"
"Um, yes. Do that," the Baron continued, his mind straining to think of a verse to respond with that didn't begin "Beans, Beans, the magical fruit."
But the Bishop wasn't finished, having found a captive but not bound and bleeding audience he was going to milk it for all it was worth, "'For a man who relies upon magic is no man at all. And what is the kindness of a stranger, but the magic of the heart...'"
Marciano sensed where this was heading and, as the priest took a breath, shouted out, "Yay, god," and took a drink.
Everyone else, free from their religious bonds did the same while the Bishop glared upon the guest of honor, entire verses about screwing over your neighbor dying upon his lips. His two bodyguards looked down upon the man in the gold skullcap. "Drink, you lummoxes," he muttered as he put a small splash of sherry to pale lips.
"Well, this has been quite a party, Baron," Marciano said, "I thank you tremendously as do my men." Visions of turning in to an actual warm bed for the night tempted the General away from the political dinner table.
Tears of joy brimmed in the Baron's eyes, as he set down his cup, "Thank you, my Lord. And there is no better way to end this night than with a full tale from a set of traveling bards!" he said proudly.
Argur take that man and drop him into something boiling,
Marciano thought. The only thing more long winded than a bishop with a poor audience was a bard with a rich one. And he couldn't be silenced with no less than cutting his head off.
The doors once again opened, and an entire troupe of people bounded in. One was older, his hair the dirty white of an Aravian snow, but that didn't stop him from being shirtless and strangely greased up like a pig about to be roasted. The second was a man, around the same age as Gian, with a perfectly sculpted beard. He reminded Marciano of some of the third or fourth sons of nobles who find themselves in the army: all nobility, no skill. This man was dressed in ancient armor, which was also missing the back of the cuirass and the greaves. Instead, someone painted a pair of pants and the back of the man grey and hoped no one would notice in an audience of real soldiers.
Behind those two stepped a lad, a walking staff in his hands. His hair was jet black and solid as stone, as though someone dipped the entire head in paint, and he wore a strange string concoction across his face, tying a pair of wooden pointy ears overtop what must have been his real ones.
The final form to cross through the door caught everyone by surprise, a woman with skin as black as night and those same wooden ears trussing up her nose like a chicken on Rest day. As everyone muttered amongst themselves about the curious sight of a Dunner here the players took their marks.
