The Legend of Broken (67 page)

But Baster-kin is already shaking his head, effectively disguising his own peculiar sense of revulsion at this latest offer. “There will be time enough, as I say, for servants such as myself to take our ease and our pleasure, Eminence,” he replies. “For now, duty must be our master.”

The Layzin sighs and smiles, surrendering his argument as he offers his pale blue ring for the Merchant Lord to kiss. Baster-kin does so, trying hard, now, to keep his eyes from the young priestess; then he turns to finally leave the Sacristy, moving as quickly and forcefully as is his seemingly eternal habit.

Not until an attendant has closed the Sacristy door tightly after the Merchant Lord departs does the Layzin speak again. Apparently without guests, now, he dismisses the young priestess, who vanishes back through the curtain at the rear of the dais, and then leans back against his sofa, tilting his head toward that same drapery.

“You heard all, Majesty?” the Layzin asks.

The voice that responds is filled with a languor to make the Layzin’s own seem energetic, by comparison. Yet there is pride in the voice, too, and an easy tone of authority:

“I heard all,” the voice states, not without comprehension of Baster-kin’s loyalty and self-denial, but without any apparent admiration for either. “And I recall a saying of my mad ancestor’s: ‘Easy lies the master whose hounds’ teeth are sharp, and their bellies empty …’”

“Saylal,”
the Layzin says in toying admonishment. “You must not call his lordship a
hound,
O Brother of God …”

“Must I not?” the voice replies.

“No,” the Layzin replies. “You must not. Even if his manner does, at times, suggest something of the sort. But his ideas on how to protect you, Gracious Saylal, have almost a profundity to them …”

“You misunderstand me, Most Loyal of the Loyal—I have known clever dogs, in my life. Very clever dogs. As has Alandra, of course …”

“Alandra
makes
her dogs clever, Sire,” the Layzin adds. “Though not so clever as her cats. But the comparison with a mortal is unfair.”

“Hmm,” the voice behind the curtain grunts. “Well, I know this—even the cleverest of dogs would not refuse such beautiful young creatures as the two you have sent me. And I would have them both
now,
before my regal sister returns from the Wood and tries to snatch them away to be her own playthings.”

“It is fortunate, then,” the Layzin replies, “that I was able to rely on Baster-kin’s unending sense of duty and self-denial to make certain the pair would be intact. But we owed him at least the offer of such flesh. Yet, Saylal, now that we
have
the girl intact, I beg you, if not for the dynasty, then as a boon to ease my mind, fix your energies first upon her.” The Layzin’s face and voice suddenly grow more solemn. “But are you truly ready, Holy Majesty, for another attempt?”

“These gifts from my Divine Brother Kafra
make
me ready, I believe.”

“I see …” The Layzin claps his hands twice, at which another attendant in a black robe edged in red appears from one of the side doors of the chamber. “Summon the Sacristan,” the leader of the Kafran faith calls out, making sure that the curtain behind him is fully closed. “Have him open the vestry and prepare my robes of fertility, and his own.”

“Of course, Eminence,” the attendant replies.

“And you may see to the honing and polishing of the thinnest and smallest of the sacred blades yourself, before he blesses them—quickly! The organs must be harvested while the blood is hot, and before the opium has begun to lose its effect. I shall speak the prayer of succession myself, as we begin …” Leaning toward the curtain once more, the Layzin asks, “How long will you require, Majesty?”

“Not long,” struggles the reply. “If, that is, you assist me, old friend …”

“Yes, Divinity,” the Layzin answers; and then, to the attendant, he calls urgently: “Be quick, and get the Sacristan!”

“Eminence!” the attendant says in compliance, rushing from the room; and only then does the Layzin himself hurriedly disappear behind the curtain.

And, before another day has passed, the often foul yet seemingly mystical stream of water beneath the southwestern wall of the Fifth District will run a little higher, a little faster—and its stench will carry a little farther than it did on the night before …

{
xii
:}

The original purpose of Broken’s Stadium, promulgated by one of Oxmontrot’s more thoughtful descendants, had been to demonstrate that those who piously followed the tenets of the Kafran faith would be rewarded not only with wealth, but with health and vigor, as well. Yet over the years a change has taken place at the northern extremity of the city: the two worlds, Temple and Stadium, have grown apart. The Kafran faithful say that this separation is the result of a rebirth of the consuming taste for gaming that was so dominant among the tribes that made up Broken’s first citizens. Others more quietly assert that the capture of many of the fiercest, most impressive beasts in Davon Wood—panthers, bears, wolves, and wildcats—and their repeated torment by the athletes of the Stadium has angered the old gods of Broken, who are punishing the city as a whole and thus calling into question Kafra’s long-asserted supremacy. Certainly Oxmontrot himself, a worshipper of the old gods, never intended for such noble creatures to be trapped, safely secured by heavy chains to concrete posts rising out of the sands of the arena, and made to serve as opponents that can do little or no harm to the children of Broken’s merchant nobility; and in this Lord Baster-kin shares the Mad King’s feelings. But his disdain cannot stem the rising popularity of such displays among the future heads of the kingdom’s ruling clans: in ever-increasing numbers they come, day and night, not only to display their prowess in the arena, but to indulge in what are, to the Merchant Lord, the even more mindless and loathsome activities that take place in the endless rows of benches and private stalls that surround that sandy stage: gambling, of course, but also drinking to excess, as well as fornication that has no bearing on the arrangement of marriages or the strengthening and preservation of clans.

All of these would together represent cause enough for Baster-kin’s hatred of the Stadium. But, as always, there is a personal sentiment hidden behind his purely moral objections: for among the young men most active in the Stadium’s amusements is his lordship’s own eldest son (and his sole acknowledged child), Adelwülf. Indeed, had Adelwülf never shown any interest in the amusements that take place inside the thick, elaborately carved walls of the Stadium, Baster-kin would likely never have set foot inside it; but, given his son’s persistence, his lordship must occasionally visit the place, if only to chide the athletes and audiences, and remind them all—Adelwülf most of all—of the damage they are doing to Broken’s future by thus squandering their lives.

These occasional descents by his father are more than a mere embarrassment for Adelwülf: over the last several years especially, the Stadium has become a place in which the handsome young man’s unquenchable appetites for besting others in wrestling matches and battles of wooden or blunt-edged steel swords, facing the many chained beasts that are on offer in the cells below the sands, and finally drinking and fornicating in the stalls above the arena have grown to equal his distaste for going home to his own clan’s
Kastelgerd.
When he sees his father enter the Stadium, therefore, he considers it a violation, of sorts, of the only place in Broken that he thinks of as
his
home. For the sake of gaining stature with his associates, Adelwülf usually attempts to laugh off his father’s intrusions and patriotic rants, confidently and caustically: for he knows well the story of Rendulic Baster-kin’s famous panther hunt, undertaken when his lordship was Adelwülf’s own age, and he cannot help but find a good deal of hypocrisy in his father’s indictments. And indeed, Baster-kin has never, in his storied life, come closer to a battlefield than that single instance of blood sport; yet that one exposure was a world away from what he now views …

And, if truth be spoken, Adelwülf, this golden-haired, finely sculpted paragon of Kafran virtue, actually burns less with sarcasm, at his father’s arrival, than with shame: shame and hatred, the latter a passion born out of his enduring resentment for his father’s having driven his mother mad (or so it seems to the youth) and his sister Loreleh into exile. Adelwülf had known Loreleh only too briefly; yet during that time he had come to think of her as the only sibling he had ever known or was ever likely to know, since all awareness of Klauqvest had ever been kept from him; and a life alone in the great
Kastelgerd
with a lunatic mother and so arch a father had become no life at all. Loreleh had been his temporary respite; and the reasons cited for her removal had never seemed any more sound or just to Adelwülf than they had to his mother.

On this night, however, there will be no exhortations by the elder Baster-kin, and no typical complaints from the younger: for, as his lordship arrives at the Stadium gate and begins to hear the sounds made by the crowd within, he realizes that he truly needs to convince any of the young men amid that throng who possess a genuine talent for violence that they have no choice save to march alongside his Guardsmen into Davon Wood, and to participate—in commanding roles, if possible—in the final destruction of the Bane. And he believes, too, that he has finally conceived of an action that will be striking and decisive enough to shock such play warriors into becoming true soldiers. It is an action, not surprisingly, that will also play a crucial role in bringing his plans concerning Isadora Arnem to full fruition; yet despite the very real advantages it may garner, it is a measure of this the plan’s extremity that even Baster-kin himself wonders if, when the moment comes, he will possess the steadiness of purpose to carry it out …

He does not wonder for very long. As he passes under the Stadium gate and stands at the edge of the arena, his eyes and ears are assaulted by sights and sounds that are as wildly intoxicating as ever to those young men and women who either participate in or observe them. The combat that takes place in the arena is, to all present, a most splendid display of the ideals of Broken youth, power, and beauty, all the more arousing for the knowledge that it will never result in the death of a human being, but risks only the lives of those powerful woodland beasts that are brought up from the dungeon-like cells in chains. So extreme is the activity at this late hour, both in the arena and in the rows of seats that stretch into the sky about Baster-kin, that he feels his hatred begin to surge anew, and his momentary qualms to subside. Radelfer, who has followed his lord into the arena, can detect as much: he has seen this man, both as a youth and in his present middle years, with death stalking his features, and he sees as much again when Rendulic studies the Stadium crowd this night.

“My lord?” Radelfer says, the concern he felt for his master’s soundness of mind when they departed the Fifth District still very alive. “Are you well? It has already been a long night of difficult undertakings—should we not return to the
Kastelgerd
? You can leave the chastising of your son for tomorrow.”

“Concerning that matter, you could not be more mistaken, Radelfer,” his lordship answers. “These people must finally learn their duty, and understand the consequences of ignoring it; and they must be taught such lessons
tonight.
”

As soon as the crowd in the Stadium begins to take as much notice of him as he already has of it, Baster-kin is appalled to see the usual wave of petitioners moving toward him, each looking for some favor that will allow him to serve in civil government without having to undertake precisely the sort of military service for which the Merchant Lord has already selected him. At the same time, as good fortune would have it, Baster-kin sees that Radelfer has taken the precaution of ordering some eight or ten members of his household guard to report from the
Kastelgerd
to the Stadium, likely by runner while his lordship was in council with the Layzin. The men are arriving now—yet the only thanks Baster-kin offers his seneschal is to say:

“Have your men keep those people away from me tonight, Radelfer. My business is far too important.” He pauses, searching the various combatants in the ring before adding, “In every way imaginable …” Glancing at the supposèd acts of bravery upon the sands ever more keenly, Baster-kin at last determines: “I do not see my son exercising his talents out there—but find him, Radelfer. Bring him to me. For he has always trusted you more than he has his father. I shall await you—” Baster-kin continues to eye the arena. “There.” He points to one concrete pillar near the center of the sandy oval, to which is anchored a chain that restricts the movements of a large Broken brown bear, preventing the confused, enraged animal from injuring any of the several young men who are proving their “courage” by tormenting him with spears and swords, evidently to the crowd’s satisfaction.

As Baster-kin makes his way to the concrete pillar he has indicated and is recognized by ever more of the crowd, a strange hush falls over those participating in the various activities in the arena as well those among the audience. It is not a hush inspired by affection, of course, although it certainly contains a large measure of respect. When he nears the concrete pillar to which the brown bear is chained, Baster-kin takes aside one of the enormous, scarred Stadium attendants—the men who do the inglorious work of moving animals and racks of weapons from the arena to the scarcely lit iron cages and storage rooms below—and orders the man and his fellow workers to remove all the animals to their cages, and disarm all combatants. It is a command that would draw jeers, were it issued by any other official: but now, no voice among the assembled athletes and spectators is brave enough to express the disapproval that all feel. Such is the effect of the hard glare that the Merchant Lord moves from face to face about and above him; such is the effect he has long cultivated.