The Ultimate Stonemage: A Modest Autobiography (38 page)

Still, I bowed very low when I met her, for she was the queen and deserved my utmost respect. Moreover, I knew this was the same resourceful young girl who had rid the world of
Bellay, and, if it had not been for her, I would still have been in exile for a good many years longer.

Standing around the queen were a number of her young commanders, famous men, all of them.
Yunte the Bee was there, and
Briss Corniman, and even the
Earl of Tarphonay in his wide blue hat.

I talked with the queen for a good long time, and everyone there was impressed by the intelligence of my conversation. When the queen found out I truly was as wealthy as she had heard, or at least close to it, her eyes lit up with delight.

She said to me, “Yreth, you must serve as one of my advisors, for I will wager a good five grotecs that any man with the wits to gather such a great fortune about him as you have will also have much good advice for a queen.” Then she laughed loudly and said, “Am I right? Am I right?” and, still sitting at her throne, she kicked around at my rear, which I did not think an appropriate action for a queen.

Still, I maintained my good humour and said, “You may rely upon my good advice at any time.”

Then she said, “Hah! Good then. Now attend to this: you will live here at the palace, in one of the apartments which is behind the south wall, for those are the finest apartments there are, and they are kept for the use of such important persons as yourself.”

I said, “Queen, you are very generous.”

Then the famous Briss Corniman said, “Friend Yreth, you are right about the queen’s generosity. Do you know, this queen is so liberal she gave me a gift of five thousand arrans for recapturing the town of
Esper.”

I could scarcely believe my ears. Five thousand arrans for recapturing little Esper! I said then, “If Esper is worth five thousand arrans, it would be difficult to calculate a worthy reward for me, for I saved all Europe by my actions.”

They all laughed then, thinking I was making a joke, but I said, “No, truly, it is so.”

The queen said, “Explain yourself. And make it a good story too, for I am bored today and sorely in need of amusement.”

I said, “My story is so fascinating by its own merit that it barely requires a good telling, although as luck would have it, I happen to be an excellent storyteller, when the mood takes me.”

I then told the story of the giant ships I had met upon the ocean, and I explained how I had commanded those ships to sail west, and how they had attacked all the Indian cities. I said, “Above all else, it was these attacks, ordered by me, which gave us our victory in the war.”

Of course, none of the commanders would admit they believed my story, and they scoffed, saying I knew nothing about military matters and the ways of warfare and so on.

I replied, without malice, “Of course you would say my story is not true, for it makes all your accomplishments seem puny by comparison. Still, I will give you evidence of my claims.”

Then I produced
Bitian Teppel’s superb drawing of my sea battle against the
Flame
. It had been soaked in the sea when I fled from the Indian ship, but in the months since, I had carefully repaired the water damage and coloured his drawing with paint, so it might look even more beautiful and lifelike.

The queen said, “Is this one of the great ships you spoke of?”

I said, “No, but the picture shows an Indian warship which I fought, and it also shows my ship, which I lost in the fight.”

Yunte the Bee, who was well known for his insolence, said, “This picture does nothing to prove your claims about the giant ships.”

I said, “Indeed it does. In the first place, it shows I possessed a ship capable of crossing the ocean—you can see it here most accurately portrayed. In the second place, it shows I am an accomplished warrior, well able to distinguish between an enemy I might defeat, such as this Indian ship, and an enemy with whom I must negotiate, such as the giant ships I mentioned. In the third place, it shows my love of fine art, which, as all the philosophers agree, goes hip to hip with the love of truth.”

Yunte was an ignorant man, though, knowing little about philosophy. He said, “That is no proof at all.”

I said, “Well, then, I will soon show you something that will force you to believe me.”

Then I went out to the courtyard and I brought in my donkeys, with their valuable burdens, and my myrmidons too. I opened every box the animals were carrying, and I poured out all my gold and jewels onto the floor.

“There!” I said. “Would a man who is as wealthy as I am have reason to lie?”

The queen said, “By my socks! What a treasure that is! It is obvious now you spoke truly, a suckling calf could see it!”

The others agreed with her—even Yunte the Bee—saying my story must be true. You see, they had never seen such wealth as I had placed before them. Then the queen said I deserved a reward for my services to
Cyprus, and she asked me what I would like.

I said, “Well, not money, certainly. I have so much gold I hardly know what to do with it all. But there is a favour of a different kind you could grant me.”

She said, “What, then?”

I said, “Now this war is at an end, and many of our cities are in ruins, there will be much building to be done. Let me provide the designs for these huge commissions, and give me the authority to carry those designs through to completion.”

I knew, you see, such works would be a wonderful opportunity to further my fame as a stonemage. Many of the stonemages of antiquity had achieved fame in this way—most especially
Henry Eagles and
Illipton—and I believed, by following their example, my name too would live on.

She said, “Ah, that is true. Now I think of it, there will certainly be building to be done. You have your wits about you in realizing that.” She talked with some of her advisors for a few moments, and then said, “Well, Yreth, the post is yours. You are now the Queen’s Own Builder. Go the ruined cities and do all the building you like.”

I was very pleased at this, and I asked her then if she would like to see some of the plans and sketches I had made. I said, “They show my ideas for a marvellous castle which might be built at
Drantellie, and for a great harbour building which would sit well at
Neppo, and for a lord’s mansion which I will construct in
Carping or some similar place, as well as other plans for entire streets in these places, with fountains, and parks, and waterfalls.”

She said, “No, I do not need to see these things, for I find papers and plans very tiresome. I am sure you know what you are about. Do as you wish in those places—it is all the same to me.”

She had no real appreciation for the art of building, you see. I think she liked gold, though, because the moment she had finished speaking to me, she stepped down from her throne and began rummaging through my pile of treasure, picking out objects that struck her fancy, and saying things such as “That is a fine ring. I will try it on, I think,” and “This gold pot would suit my bed chamber very well,” as if it were her own treasure rather than mine.

She gathered together the things she liked best and said to me, “I would like these for my own. Will you give them to me?”

I looked over the objects she had selected, which were brightly coloured, though only of intermediate worth, and then I magnanimously said, “You may take these things for your own.”

She turned to my myrmidons next and examined them closely. She said, “These are good myrmidons, I can see. Will you give me those too?”

I said, “No, for they are mine, and I need them.”

Then the
Earl of Tarphonay said, “Do you think it is appropriate that, in your new role as Queen’s Own Builder, you should have such a force about you?”

I said, “I think it most appropriate, for they do an excellent job of protecting my treasure. Moreover, I think they will help me to earn the respect of those stonemages who might differ with my views.”

“That is true, as far as it goes,” he said. “And yet, I fear many people will think it is these myrmidons who have won you the post of Queen’s Own Builder by their fearsome ways, and not realize you have earned it by your own talents as a stonemage.”

I became worried at this, for it seemed to me the
earl was right, and it is the way of people to gossip so. Then he suggested the queen might buy the myrmidons from me, at five hundred arrans apiece (which seemed to me a very good price).

I said, “Yes, but who will guard all my treasure then?”

The queen said, “That is simple enough. Place it in my treasury.”

And the earl added, “Yes indeed. We will place it in the treasury. It will be much safer there than it would ever be surrounded by your myrmidons, and whenever you want to take some, why, you will be free to do so. You may trust my word in this, too, for I supervise the treasury.”

Well, this seemed like an excellent plan to me, for I knew that keeping treasure with a king or queen is something many of the wealthiest persons do. When I was treasurer for the Emperor, all manner of wealthy citizens would come to me, giving me their jewels and gold for guarding. I also knew the earl would be an honest, forthright custodian of my gold, because his grandmother came from
Rowel, and her brother was married to the sister-in-law of my own great grandfather.

So I accepted the queen’s offer.

Then the queen said, “And I think, as long as the treasure is there, I shall make occasional use of it too, for a queen needs gold, and plenty of it.”

I raised my fist in fury and said, “If that is your plan, you would do well to think again, for it is my money, and I will not have it taken from me, not even by the queen!”

But the
Earl of Tarphonay said, “You misunderstand the queen. She well knows it is your wealth, and she would never presume to take it from you. No, she merely wishes to borrow from it occasionally. I would ensure all is scrupulously accounted for, and you may rest assured that the full value of the amount borrowed would be speedily returned to you, together with, let us say, an additional one-fifth for each year the money was outside the treasury.”

I said, “In that case, it would be my honour and my privilege to give you the use of my wealth, according to the terms you have just stated.”

Then the queen said, in her blunt way, “Well, there is no point waiting about for it. We must stash this gold in my treasury right away.” And she set her slaves to work collecting up all the gold and placing it into one of the treasury rooms.

As they worked, I told everyone of how the
Duke of Oaster had tried to steal my treasure, and I explained this had been the reason for my angry outburst. They were all shocked at the news, and the queen said the duke was a rogue to behave in such a way to a hero like me.

She said, “Now you are dealing with me, and I will make sure you get what is rightfully yours.”

I put this to the test on the spot and asked her when I would receive my additional money for my myrmidons.

The earl replied for her, showing me a little book filled with numbers, where he had already made a note for the value of my myrmidons. He said, “Do not worry. You may be sure all it will be entered into the accounting, and the figuring will be scrupulous and exact, to the last grotec. Nothing will be forgotten.”

This put my mind at ease, and the earl and I went off together to see my new apartment, leaving the queen to sift through all my fine gold things.

It was a magnificent apartment, too. I was so delighted when I saw it that I turned to the earl and made him a gift of my donkeys, for I was done with them in any case, and they were a bother to feed.

A Sixteenth Section Of The Eleventh Part

In Which I Describe My Plans For Rebuilding Many Cities And An Injury That Befell Me

The task of rebuilding which
I had chosen for myself was vast in scale—a hundred times larger than any job I had done previously. I knew I would never be able to do all the building alone, so, using my new powers as Queen’s Own Builder, I summoned all the important principal stonemages from all the eastern regions of the
Cypriot Empire, and I told them to bring maps of their towns and cities, so they might show me the extent of the damage.

I spent some weeks talking with these stonemages and working with maps of the various towns and cities I had decided to rebuild, but I soon realized, if I was to do the job properly, I would have to visit these places. So, I packed up my plans, together with a good supply of food and some travelling clothes, and I spent three months touring the eastern regions of our empire, where the Indian armies had done the most damage.

My tastes had become expensive by now, and I spent a great deal of money during my travels. This worried me not at all, though, because the
Earl of Tarphonay was as good as his word and kept a very precise account for me, so whenever I was in need of more money, I had only to send a message to him, and he would promptly have a satchel full of gold delivered to me, wherever I was, by means of a fast runner.

I made many plans and sketches during those days. With every hour that passed, I thought of another wonderful idea for improving this town or that city, especially when I was travelling on the road between each place. I will describe a few of these now, so you can see how fresh and original my conceptions really were.

My Ideas for the Improvement of
Peasmond:

I talked to the people of Peasmond, and also to the
Earlina of Livy who lives there, and I learned this town is subject to frequent floods, due to its location near the river.

This set my mind humming, and I considered various ways to hold the water back with improved flood walls and so on. But then I thought, “Why fight nature? It is better for people to grow accustomed to it.” At once, my ideas took a new direction. I decided that all the roads of Peasmond should be dug up, and ditches should be put in their place, so the water might flow there from the river. There would be no streets, but only streams and pools, with every house designed so the water flowed right into it.

Children born into this environment would quickly become so accustomed to the water they would swim around like fish, holding their breath for long periods, and never fearing the effects of future floods. Furthermore, these people would be most useful in any future war, for they could swim out to the enemy ships and attack them from below.

As for those residents of Peasmond who were sick, or old, and therefore unable to hold their breath, they could easily get around the town using rowing boats.

My Ideas for the Improvement of
Treedle:

Treedle’s two great industries are leather and cheese, both of which send unpleasant smells about the town. This is a shame, because in many ways Treedle is a beautiful town, all set in the hills as it is.

My plan for this place was to mask the odour with the sweet smell of roses, and to this end I made sketches of the houses and other buildings which might be constructed here. Outside the window of each house, I planned to put a large flower box, as big as a wagon and filled with earth. Into this earth would be planted the roses, thanks to whose fragrant blooms it would be possible to open the windows wide and smell the sweet air once more.

“Yes, very clever,” you will say, “but what about those who must walk upon the street? They will still be subject to the evil odours.”

For those persons, I had a simple solution, which I designed in my head. It involved taking petals from roses and other fragrant flowers, placing them in a silk pocket, then sewing it shut to make a pouch. This pouch would be tied around the nose and mouth, so those upon the street would think, from the smell of the place, they were in some beautiful garden, even though, in fact, the air on the street would be as foul as ever.

My Ideas for the Improvement of
Savercass:

If you have been to Savercass, you will surely know its worst failing: the city is so large and contains so many twisting streets that you can hardly walk fifty paces without becoming hopelessly lost.

My plan was to eliminate this problem entirely by stripping away all the buildings and roads, then building them along a new pattern. The city would have a single road, spiralling inwards, and covering the entire area of the city. In this way, it would be impossible to get lost in the city, for no matter where you were, there would only be two directions you might travel: towards the centre, or towards the exterior.

To make things even easier, I planned to build a large tower in the centre of the city, so people might see at a glance which way they were travelling. If the tower was to their left, they were travelling outwards; if to their right, inwards.

My Plans for the Improvement of
Beacon:

I had a wonderful idea for Beacon. I said to myself, “Since the town is called Beacon, I shall build it a beacon—the biggest and brightest in all the world.” As I envisioned it, the beacon would be contained in a great glass bowl as big as a mansion, supported at the junction of three vast leaning towers. The glass bowl would be filled with wood from the nearby forests, then, every night, it would be set alight, so it would shed its warm beams down upon the town as brightly as the sun.

If you have read that fine philosophical work of
Ducambe Aletto’s entitled
On the Necessity of Sleep
, you will know sleep is induced by the debilitating effects of darkness. Aletto explains that, if the sun were to be in the sky during the night as well as the day, we would all have no need to sleep at all, and, moreover, we would never age.

My great beacon, then, simulates this state of constant daylight, thereby conferring everlasting life and wakefulness on the fortunate people of Beacon, who would happily work and play all the day long, hardly noticing as one day crept into the next, and the next, and so on.

Of course, not all my plans were as original as those I have described above, and in such towns as
Zoam and
Redwall and
Dresh-by-Sea, and many others besides, my ideas followed more conventional lines, with rolling walls and fine towers and wide roads. After all, let us never forget that the true aim of building is not to create some vainglorious bauble to please the stonemage, but to serve the real needs of those who must live their lives in the place.

Even so, every one of my drawings, even those I considered relatively ordinary, was met with the utmost astonishment by the nobles of these places, and they all said my designs were the finest they had ever seen.

I would say, “You realize, of course, these constructions will be very expensive. Just because the queen has chosen me as her own builder does not mean you must accept my designs.”

But they said, “No, but we will accept them, for this is what we truly wish, whatever your position with the queen might be.” They cared not a flea for the price, either, for my plans were so lovely that thoughts of gold dissolved from their minds, and they thought only of eternal beauty.

The Earl of Omerlind, whose regions included the towns of
Carping and Treedle, said the sketches were more like the work of God than of man.

Then I said to him, “Perhaps that is because I became an archbishop when I was in America, and, indeed, since the post was never taken from me, I can only say I still hold it today.”

And he said, “It certainly explains everything. But how did it happen that you gained such a rank in that far-off land?”

Whereupon, I told him of my adventures, and he said my stories were astonishing in the extreme and must be recorded for future generations.

Upon thinking this over, I saw he was right. But at the time I was too busy with my plans for buildings, and I did not take my labours in this new direction until recently.

I was received by more than thirty great nobles, and to see the cordial manner in which they greeted me, you would think I was a great noble myself. Although, artistically speaking, I suppose it was true I possessed a kind of nobility which made me greater in rank than any of my hosts.

Wherever I went, I would summon all the local stonemages before me and give them words of advice on how the first stages of the reconstruction should be dealt with.

I said to them, “I am the Queen’s Own Builder now, so you must not build anything, or even draw any plans, until you have first presented the idea to me for my approval. In that way, my own good taste will be reflected upon your entire city.”

Many of the younger stonemages used to follow me from city to city, watching how I appraised each place, and listening to me lecture about how each place should ideally be laid out. Oh yes, I was a popular fellow in those days, and much admired by all who met me.

Now, an unfortunate thing happened to me during my travels. I was travelling on my way from
Teodrick to the little town of Mian Staff. Since it was just to be a quick visit, I travelled alone, without my usual accompaniment of junior stonemages. It was getting dark on the road, and I knew
Mian Staff was still a good few miles on, so I stopped at a little village on the road and went into an inn there.

That night, I got to talking with a number of men. They saw my fine clothes and asked who I was and where I was from.

I said, “I am Yreth, the Queen’s Own Builder, and I now live in the palace at
Ithron.

They said, “No, you are joking with us. Prove that you are who you say.”

I said, “How shall I prove it?”

Well, they thought about this, and then one of the men, a big farmer, said, “I know. Tell us where the queen comes from. That is to say, tell us who she was before she was queen.”

I said, “That is easy enough.” Then I told them the story the physician had told to me, that she was a hunter who had poisoned
King Bellay after he had married her.

The farmer said, “Wrong.”

I said, “What do you mean, wrong?”

He said, “I have heard the true tale, from a very wise traveller, and if you were really from Ithron, you would have heard it too.” Then he told me the story as he believed it. He said, “The fact is, before
Queen Sarla was queen of Cyprus, she was a warrior queen from a far-northern tribe. One day, though, she wandered too far south, and, from a high mountain in the Deyern range, she caught a glimpse of the glittering cities of
Cyprus, saying to her followers, ‘I will have those lands for my own.’ Then she marched forward, but on the way she met the mighty Bellay with his armies. He said, ‘Where are you going?’ and she said, ‘I mean to have these lands for my own.’ Then he said to his followers, ‘And I mean to have this woman for my own!’ He did, too, and they were married until he died a hero’s death.”

Well, I had heard this foolish story before, and I knew very well how to show it up as the nonsense it was.

I said, “What you say cannot be, for I have talked to travellers who have visited the
Deyern Mountains and climbed their peaks, and they say, from these high points, they saw only mountains and forests stretching to the horizon. The cities of Cyprus are simply too far away to be visible from the mountains.”

He said, “Perhaps those travellers lied to you.”

I said, “No, for I am an excellent judge of such things as whether a person is lying or telling the truth. Moreover, if you approach the matter in another way, you will realize that, if it were possible to see the cities from the mountains, it would also be possible to see the mountains from the cities. But everybody knows this is not so, and even if you climb the tall towers of
Eopan, you will not see the Deyern Mountains, just as you will not see
America.”

Well, he had no answer to that, so it seemed I had proved my point. Just then, though, an old falconer, all in black, spoke to us from across the room.

He said, “I have been listening to you fine fellows discussing the queen, and I will tell you that you do not even know what it is you are saying.”

Then the farmer said, “Well,
Mild Lestic, if you are so wise, then tell us the truth of the matter.”

Mild Lestic said, “I will, though you must swear you will keep this tale a secret, for I had to swear the same when the tale was told to me.”

We all swore we would not tell another soul.

Then he said, “The truth is that Sarla was a princess, the daughter of
King Yreth [after whom I was named, incidentally]. When she was just a tiny baby, a passing eagle spotted her lying upon her bed, and Vush! it swooped down and stole her away. Yet the eagle, breaking with its savage nature—for it is the king of all birds, you know—did not eat the child, but raised her as its own. So, when the king’s family were slaughtered by Bellay, she alone escaped. Later, Sarla swore she would be avenged against King Bellay. And do you know how she did this? Well, I will tell you: she carved a monster from the very rocks of the mountain, and she said to it, ‘Go! Go and kill Bellay.’”

I said, “Come now! You cannot believe such a tale.”

He said, “You cannot prove it false!”

I said, “Indeed I can, for how did the eagle teach Sarla to speak? Moreover, is it not the habit of eagles to toss their young from their nests, in order that they might learn to fly?”

He said, “You know much about these great birds, for what you say is correct.”

I said, “Well, then, since Sarla does not have wings, she could not possibly have survived the ordeal. But most of all, if the child was stolen before King Yreth’s family were slaughtered, then why did she harbour such a burning desire for revenge against King Bellay? She could not have known of the slaughter—unless perhaps she was told of it by a passing dove.”

Then Mild Lestic said, “Yes, perhaps that is how it happened,” for he was such a fool he did not even realize I was making a joke with my comment about the dove.