The Merchant Emperor (23 page)

In the time it took to make it from Yarim to the upper reaches of the mountainous Firbolg realm, they did not see a single caravan, or even an itinerant traveler. As a result, they were able to pass in secret through the Bakhran Pass, slipping by the Bolg regiment on guard there at a respectful distance, and on into the high peaks of the northern Teeth without being discovered.

Dranth was pleased.

He had no idea how close he was, how dangerously proximate they all were, to the resting place of an injured wyrm that lay, in the pain-filled haze of torpor, beneath the cold red sand as they traveled past, above her, just beyond the range of her senses, where she waited.

Dreaming herself of vengeance.

18

Anborn awoke to the smell of fresh greenery and sweet spices.

For a moment he thought he was still dreaming, hazy, storyless dreams that had been without form but decidedly happy. The bed on which he had been sleeping was firm but soft on the surface, infused with an aroma that reminded him a little of Rhapsody. The crisp sheets and heavy comforter held in the warmth of the bed, even though he innately knew the air of the room was somewhat cold with the chill he remembered at the arrival of morning in the mountain all those centuries ago.

He rolled carefully out of bed, stretched, and made use of the washroom, a technological advance left over from Gwylliam’s day but filled with dried aromatic plants, pleasant soaps and emollients. Back in the bedchamber he dressed, pulled on his boots, packed his belongings and put on the base of his armor, his black ring mailshirt anchored by silver centerpieces. He attached his cloak to the epaulets on his shoulders, then made his way into the hall.

Memory served him well enough to find the tunnelway that led to the great dining hall of Canrif, or what had once been. Rhapsody had directed him to it the night before, but even if she hadn’t, or had his memory failed him, the tantalizing smell of breakfast, as arousing to his nose as it was surprising to his mind, greeted him enthusiastically as he rounded the corner to the hall where the entrance to the king’s balcony had been in his father’s day.

That door stood open in silent invitation. He could hear the sound of soldiers in the throes of breakfast in the high-ceilinged, giant room below the balcony, even out in the hall, though their commotion was less noisy, less merry than the sound of the human soldiers he was accustomed to. Anborn approached the door quietly and looked in.

The Three were seated at a long rectangular table near the half-wall that separated the balcony from the towering walls beyond it, laden with platters of food and pitchers of steaming drink. Achmed and Grunthor, their backs to the opening beyond the half-wall, were reviewing a heavy sheaf of parchment documents, clearly not maps or schematics, but ledgers of some kind. The Lady Cymrian, her back to him, sat on the side of the table closest to the door, an empty place beside her that he hoped had been reserved for him. A young Bolg woman sat on her other side; Anborn recognized her as Yltha, the midwife who occasionally tended to Meridion. Rhapsody was carrying on a soft, animated conversation with the baby, she using a variety of languages and songs, Meridion exploring his voice with cackles, coos, and clicking sounds, to the delight of his mother and no one else in the room.

Except now, himself.

“Good morning,” he said, stepping through the door and onto the balcony.

“Good morning,” Rhapsody replied, her face shining up at him from the table.

“Well, ’allo, General,” Grunthor greeted him as Anborn bent and kissed the Lady Cymrian and his great-nephew. “’Ope yer ’ungry; breakfast is pritty good today.” Achmed merely nodded to the Lord Marshal and went back to his reading.

“Smells delicious,” the Lord Marshal said, taking his seat beside Rhapsody and unfolding his napkin. “What is on the menu this morning?”

“Farmers from Bethe Corbair,” Achmed said, passing the plate of link sausages to the Lord Marshal. “A tasty lot, though a little greasy.”

Anborn looked down at the platter in Achmed’s hands.

Grunthor had already consumed a dozen and a half links. “Oi don’t think so, sir,” he said, helping himself to griddle cakes from another platter with an enormous fork. “Those were ’eavily spiced, if Oi recall. These are sweeter—Oi’m guessin’ these might be those lit’le kids from Canderre.” Achmed nodded as he served himself another link.

“They’re joking,” Rhapsody assured the Lord Marshal as he leaned questioningly toward her. “Welcome to breakfast in the Bolglands—they are actually taking it easy on you, believe it or not.”

“I’m sure,” Anborn said agreeably, taking the sausage platter as it was passed to him. He served himself generously, then looked down over the half-wall to the floor of the dining hall below, where the second shift of the soldiers of Ylorc were eating. “I’m actually shocked at the decorum of the troops; it certainly is nothing like what passes for behavior in the mess tents of the army of Roland. Or a Cymrian wedding—this is a formal dining experience by comparison. I don’t know if I can stand it, frankly.”

“Rhapsody insists on civility in all parts of Ylorc, even the privies,” Achmed said sourly. “And, unfortunately for all of us, she generally gets it. At least when she’s here she does. Everyone is painfully polite, refrains from public urination, and puts the seat down.”

“Except for you,” Rhapsody said, rubbing her nose against Meridion’s tiny one. “But even I occasionally accept the limits of what is humanly—or Firbolgly—possible.”

“Are you certain you don’t want to take her with you, Anborn?” Achmed inquired as he refilled his mug of tanic coffee; the odor made the Lord Marshal’s eyes water. “She’s a tremendous pain in the arse.”

“Yeah, but we like to keep ’er around anyways,” Grunthor said between bites. “She smells good, and she’s a sweet lit’le thing most o’ the time—although she can be meaner than a badger if you vex ’er—she’s got a wicked right cross, General, so watch yer step. And Oi would ’ate to lose ’er; Oi’m sleepin’ with ’er, at least when Oi’m feelin’ generous, and she’s feelin’ lucky.” The Lady Cymrian ignored him in favor of exchanging giggling smiles with her son.

“I could have lived without hearing that, and the picture I now have in my head,” grumbled Anborn. “Please pass the griddle cakes.”

“’Ere—’ave a lit’le Lirin jam with those,” Grunthor said, politely offering the dish and small spoon. Rhapsody rose halfway and cuffed him without looking away from Meridion, then sat down again.

Achmed rerolled the parchments. “Ready?” he said to Grunthor. The Sergeant-Major nodded. “We’re off,” the Bolg king said to Rhapsody and Anborn. “I want to make sure the equipment I’m sending with you is properly packed, and that the quartermaster has included the instructions for the weighted ballistae and the catapults.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Anborn, preparing to stand up again.

“Don’t rush your breakfast,” Achmed said. “Yen, the Archon quartermaster, is outfitting your troops and packing up the supplies, armor and weaponry I am sending with you as we speak with the aid of your men. Grunthor and I will head down to the steppes and make certain everything is going as it should—you and Rhapsody can finish your food and watch from the rock ledge if you like. We’ll signal you from below when all is ready to go.”

“Thank you very much, Your Majesty,” Anborn said, appreciation apparent in his tone and eyes.

“No need to thank me; it’s just another excuse to get me away from the charming smell of baby
hrekin
at the breakfast table.” The Bolg king and the Sergeant-Major rose as if in unison.

“Excuse me,” Rhapsody said. “Meridion is dry. That’s the smell of your rancid coffee. Ashe drinks the same extract of filth; I believe I once told him it smelled like dirt from a skunk’s grave.”

Anborn laughed and rose as well, extending a hand first to the Bolg king, then to his Sergeant-Major.

“Thank you, Achmed, Grunthor, for your welcome, your assistance, the tour of your fortress, and your aid. If you can keep the eastern encampments supplied, we will keep the enemy’s traditional forces at bay and away from the Teeth for as long as humanly—or Firbolgly—possible.” He winked at Rhapsody. “And, of course, this exchange comes with the happy benefit of being able to present enormous bills of service to my nephew. Empty a little of his treasury; it will do him good to be sending a nice portion of his gold to the Bolg.”

“Did you think there was any other reason for my agreeing to this?”

“No, of course not.” Anborn lurched forward slightly as Grunthor patted him on the back. He watched as they exited the balcony, Achmed closing the door resolutely behind them, then turned to Rhapsody, who was finishing her tea.

“M’lady, I believe I require your talents as a healer.”

“Oh? For what? What part of you is injured?”

“My brain,” said Anborn, returning to his breakfast. The sausages were savory, the griddle cakes light and delicious. “I need your help in expunging the image of you sleeping with Grunthor from my mind; I can barely keep my food down.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t help you there. I’ve been sleeping with—or, more precisely, on—Grunthor since long before you were born, m’lord,” Rhapsody said humorously. “I did so almost every night of our journey here from Serendair. He’s very comfortable.”

“I’m sure your husband would be delighted to know that.”

“He already does. What he might not be so pleased to hear is that it has become a family tradition—Meridion loves sleeping curled up at Grunthor’s neck, just under his beard, away from the tusks. I think it’s a little like hide-and-seek for him.”

Anborn wiped his mouth with his napkin.

“I will make you a bargain,” he said, folding the piece of linen one-handed with the unconscious habit of one to the manor born. “I will spare Gwydion the thought of that if you will keep from elaborating on any further Bolg custom until I have a large tankard of ale, or something stronger, in my hand.”

“Bargain,” Rhapsody said. “If you are ready, we can go out onto the rock ledge and watch them finish packing up.” Anborn nodded, and she signaled to Yltha to follow them. “Meridion seems more awake than usual at this time of day; he must somehow be aware that you are leaving, and wants to see as much of you as he can before you go.”

“Of course.”

“I’m joking; he’s an infant. I suppose that I am just projecting my own desires onto him,” Rhapsody said wistfully. “How I do wish you could stay longer.”

“As do I.”

“Then do so,” Rhapsody said as she led him off the balcony of the dining hall and into another of the corridors of Ylorc; the noise of the soldiers dimmed into a quiet hum as she closed the door behind Yltha. “You’re the Lord Marshal; who is going to complain?”

Anborn sighed as he followed her through the familiar hallways, now devoid of the priceless works of art, as well as the ugly echoes of the anger and hatred that had been extant in the place when he had lived here centuries before.

“Only my conscience,” he said. “I beg you, don’t tempt me, m’lady. I would love to stay and see more of the reconstruction, and spend another night or more in that heavenly bed. How did you make it, and with what did you imbue it?”

“Thank you; those are a special design of mine,” Rhapsody said, rounding a corner into a wider opening Anborn knew would exit onto one of the rock ledges in the outer face of the Teeth. “The Blasted Heath has long been a place where highgrass grows, a plant that in the old world was called Hymialacia, its True Name. It’s cut and dried in lengths about as long as your forearm, then mixed with lavender, sweet woodruff, vernalgrass, and clove pods and rolled into cylinders, which are stood on their ends and formed and tied into the frame. Then the whole thing is wrapped in a cotton shell that has been quilted with other herbs and flowers. Then a linen liner, and a silk mattress topper. And I sing to each one—I really do, a song of deep slumber and rest. Glad you enjoyed it. I hope you slept well.”

“As if I were entombed,” he said. He winced as the smile left Rhapsody’s eyes. “And I mean that as a compliment. Best night’s sleep in recent memory.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.” The Lady Cymrian nodded to the Bolg guards at the massive doors leading out onto the ledge. The guards drew back the enormous timbers that served to bar the doors, sliding them sideways into specially drilled holes in the walls on either side of the opening, then swung the doors themselves open with a great deal of creaking and the screaming of wood and metal.

“Close your eyes,” Rhapsody and Anborn said to one another in unison as the blazing light of early morning blasted down the tunnelway. Then they laughed; their mutual warning represented knowledge of the hazard that spanned a millennia in its application. Rhapsody had shielded the baby’s eyes, and let her hand move slowly away from them, watching as the tiny dragonesque pupils contracted in the daylight.

They stepped out onto the rock ledge, one of hundreds in the western face of the mountain, where towers, walls, parapets, and turrets had been carved during the Cymrian Age, some martial, others decorative, all of which allowed the eyes of the occupants of the mountains to see west to the Krevensfield Plain for so many leagues that it seemed as if Ylorc was always vigilantly watching the sunset.

A cool wind whipped up from the steppes, a thousand feet below. Rhapsody wrapped the blanket around Meridion to shield him from the dust it carried, even as her own clothing caught the breeze like a sail on the high seas. Her hair, pulled tightly off her face and bound back, flapped like a flag, the tendrils around her face whipping wildly. It was an invigorating feeling; once again she closed her eyes, tilted her head back and smiled as the sun coming over the mountain from the east behind them crowned her face with light.

When she opened them again, Anborn, his black hair streaked in silver flying in the wind as well, was smiling down at her.

“Now, that’s a sight I will carry with me,” he said quietly. Then he looked to the east, where in the distance he could see the encampment he had established a few days before. The campfires of the previous night were still burning, and he thought he could see access roads plied by horses and wagons moving like lines of vertical ants.
Good,
he thought.
They’re making progress.
His gaze returned, as it always did, to Rhapsody.