A Company of Heroes Book Two: The Fabulist

CHAPTER ONE

ARRIVAL

King Felix of Londeac is so startled by the unexpected appearance of his young niece, the Princess Bronwyn Tedeschiiy, that he has an attack of asthma that renders him bedridden for nearly two days. Bronwyn tries to speak to him during that time, but can barely understand his labored wheezing even when the hissing respirator that covers his face is not operating. Nevertheless, there is a twinkle of joy in his eyes that is impossible to misinterpret.

While she is waiting for her uncle’s health to reestablish itself, Bronwyn and her three friends are tendered every amenity. She is able to abandon at last the black leather riding habit she had worn every day since her escape from Blavek . . . nearly two weeks ago, she realizes with a jolt to her sense of duration. It seems as though it ought to have been less, yet seems longer. Or perhaps
vice
versa,
she is no longer able to tell.

She, Thud, Gyven and Baron Milnikov are given separate but adjoining apartments and the princess unabashedly wallows in unaccustomed and long-absent luxury. She eats until the servants assigned to delivering food to her room begin to complain among themselves; she sleeps, she strolls the parks surrounding Felix’s palace, and she tries on the many new clothes that are brought to her, clothes in amazing fabrics entirely new to her and in styles startling and exciting to a young woman who had been raised within the prudish confines of ultraconservative Tamlaght. She wears many of the costumes with not a little embarrassed self-consciousness. While she has never been shy about her body so far as Thud or the Kobolds had been concerned, she has always, subconsciously or not, relegated them to the status of servant, which is as much to say “furniture” or “nonentity.” Back in her old life in the palace at Blavek, servants had come and gone from her bath and toilet, or to and from her dressing-rooms, with scarcely an acknowledgment from her . . . in much the same way that anyone else would feel little discomfort while undressing in front of the family dog. However, when it came to exposing undue amounts of her body in public to
real
people, that is an altogether different matter.

What passes for fashion back in Tamlaght are clothes made of great quantities of heavy fabrics, dyed in blacks, greys and muted colors. All of Bronwyn’s dresses had possessed hems that brushed the floor, sleeves to her wrists and collars to her chin. Beneath had been layers of assorted undergarments which any hint of burgeoning female shape abandoned all hope of penetrating.

It had been her great fortune that she had been wearing only a light housedress, it had but a scant three petticoats, when she escaped so many months ago, else she might have been as hobbled as the flightless birds in a turkey shoot. The clothing available in Toth, on the other hand, is of a lightness wholly unimagined, and even unimaginable, by Bronwyn, to whom it had not occurred that what amazed her are fabrics that the people of Londeac considered as yet suited only for winter wear. She would have disbelieved the possibility that women might be willing, indeed, eager, to shed what she already thought is scandalously meager; summer, and her great enlightenment, are yet to come.

For all of that, the clothing is finer than anything she had ever before worn. What is difficult for her to accustom herself to is the way these exotic fabrics cling to her body. She possesses shapes and movements she had before been aware of only in a kind of private, theoretical sense. She is not at all certain that these shapes and movements are meant to be observed . . . although every woman she has seen in Londeac has been dressed not only in much the same way, but often in a manner that made the princess appear conservative, not that this is any particular comfort (nor even very difficult). What disturbs her is that her body seems to enjoy its freedom, traitorously jiggling and writhing no matter how much she insists it restrain itself or how carefully she avoids unnecessary movements. Perhaps it is just too early for the princess to either grasp or deal with the concept, but it is entirely possible that what disturbs her is the dawning realization that she is in fact a reasonably attractive young woman (she would never accept a more forceful, even if more accurate, adjective than “attractive” and she would absolutely insist on the qualifying “reasonably”), not that she would consciously admit to it.

The fashions that embarrass her so much seem to have been designed to emphasize just those features that are her most outstanding. Her extraordinarily long legs are shown off to good advantage by hemlines that come shockingly to mid-calf and by sheer hose that make them look lacquered, abetted by diaphanous fabrics that cling to her thighs like icing on a pastry. While skirts are fairly full, bodices are as carefully fitted as the skin on an orange and the contours of Bronwyn’s narrow waist, flat stomach and taut, hemispherical breasts are revealed with an explicitness that cause her terrible anxiety . . . she is constantly and intensely aware that scarcely an eighth of an inch separates her skin from the outside world. The current propensity for deep décolletage and short sleeves, or even, unbelievably, complete sleevelessness, only make matters worse.

For the first time in her life she is able to wear the bright, rich colors demanded by her hair and complexion. In spite of her reservations, she nevertheless is curiously, if secretly, pleased and excited by the mirrored image of an inordinately tall woman of prolonged curves in a dark green dress that make her ivory skin, emerald eyes and mahogany hair seem like attributes wholly alien to the picture by which she had always mentally illustrated the abstract concept of
Princess Bronwyn.
Her inborn rebelliousness and a potentially latent exhibitionism refuse to allow her to flatly shun wearing these scandalous new clothes. Upbringing, however, is a powerful opponent against inclination, however natural, and she roams the gleaming marble hallways of the palace using the still-chilly season as her excuse for always being tightly wrapped in a shawl or scarf. Unfortunately for Bronwyn, in her first two days in Toth she has not yet had the opportunity to experience anything other than what is locally considered normal, and even conservative, day wear. Little does she know that the horrors of the evening gown are still ahead.

As for her three companions, they are weathering similar metamorphoses idiosyncratically. Baron Milnikov, the cosmopolite, as a man who had looked debonair in his prison pajamas, has no difficulty wearing the latest Londeacan creations. His tall, lanky figure and piratical expression, in fact, sets a formidable and uncommonly delightful challenge for the tailors to deal with. Though he is old enough (by a small margin, let us be kind) to be Bronwyn’s father, the princess thinks Milnikov is one of the most dashing and romantic men she had ever met.

Gyven has become even more of a cipher than ever. The palace tailor outfitted him with a charcoal grey suit of tapering trousers and a coat fitted to his narrow-waisted form, which only exaggerates his height and broad shoulders, his muscle-encased torso is shaped like a huge wedge of pie balanced on its tip.

Most of his original pallor is gone but, though no longer bone-white, his face is still pale beneath the glossy thatch of thick black hair. Level, heavy brows shade eyes like spheres of smoky quartz. In his new suit he is at one and the same time the most handsome and the most formidable man Bronwyn has ever seen; once again she feels that peculiar, inexplicable stirring within her, as though a fist has been clenched somewhere just behind and below her navel.

Thud is a problem. The king’s tailor took one look at the giant and had locked himself in his chambers, refusing through his tears to speak to anyone. Finally an army tentmaker had been called in who did a surprisingly creditable job in creating several suits of clothing for the big man. From a great distance and with nothing around to give away the scale, one might almost think Thud is a normal human being. He is inexpressibly proud of his new clothes, they are the finest things he has ever owned, at any one time or cumulatively, and tears obliterate the tiny black beads that pass for his eyes, making them look like frog’s eggs. Bronwyn finds herself tearful, too, at seeing her friend so moved by such an insignificant pleasure.

Uncle/King Felix is finally well enough to see his niece on the morning of the third day after her arrival in Toth. She visits him in his bedchamber while the doctor is still in the process of removing the complex machinery of the respirator.

“Good morning!” wheezes the king, opening his arms to greet her. She goes to the bedside and allows herself to be given a pressureless hug.

“Good morning, Uncle,” she replies. “You must forgive me, I had no idea you are so ill.”

“It’s no matter . . .”

“But I should’ve given you some warning!”

“Oh. This happens all the time, now. I’m getting quite used to it. If it hadn’t been the surprise of your arrival, it would’ve been something else. Don’t let it worry you, my dear. Please sit down.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course the question I’ve been asking myself, as I suppose everyone else has, is: what in the world are you doing here? Though don’t think for a moment that my question implies that you’re not welcome!” he adds hurriedly.

“I know I’m welcome, Uncle Felix, thank you. I don’t know where to begin, really.”

“I suppose it has something to do with your brother and that dreadful reptile, Payne Roelt?”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, come, come, Bronwyn! Our two countries are at a few points only ten miles apart . . .”

“I’m sorry, I is being stupid.”

“No you aren’t. I think perhaps you’ve just been a little too close to the problem. Look, forgive me if I’m jumping to any conclusions, but let me tell you why
I
think you’re here. May I?”

“Of course.”

“What Roelt’s been doing to Tamlaght, in your brother’s name, has been horrifying us here in Toth, nay, all Londeac!, for many months now. To tell you the truth, are it any other country, Crotoy, even Ibraila, we could care less. In fact, we might welcome such internal disintegration. But Londeac and Tamlaght are once a single nation, though this is a very long time ago. Still, we share a commonality and there are still strong ties of blood. Good heavens, you’re my niece and that poor, bedeviled creature in Blavek is my nephew, my brother’s only son, Musrum help us both! Of course, there are political considerations as well; as I’ve just mentioned, Tamlaght is only separated from Londeac by ten miles . . . who knows that Payne Roelt’s ambitions will stop at the strait?”

“I couldn’t agree with you more, Uncle,” Bronwyn replies fervently. “In fact, I suspect that things may be worse there than you think.” She then proceeds to describe the horrors she had witnessed during the months she had spent in Blavek, before escaping with her three friends: of the pogrom organized against the barons and their families, her description of Piers Monzon’s murder and the massacre of his household is so vivid that poor Felix turns blue as his lungs flood sympathetically and her story has to be interrupted until he can again breathe normally; of the looting of state treasures, not only from the palace itself but from the museums and archives, priceless works of art are being broken up for their jewels or melted down for their gold and silver (never mind that their value is lessened a hundredfold in the process); and the creation of new and unfair taxes, while at the same time virtually all public services are being curtailed or eliminated.

King Felix is wheezing like a wet, used party favor by the time Bronwyn arrives at her description of the celebratory orgy that followed the coronation, but at the mention of Payne’s obvious intention to eventually loot the Church itself the doctors have to again be called in to restore the king and the interview is necessarily postponed. When it is resumed, an hour later, the king prudently has his physicians standing closely by, the bellows of the respirator quivering anticipatorially. It is as well, since Bronwyn has yet to tell Felix of the atrocities committed against her own person. His every alveola collapses like a thousand punctured balloons when he learns that not only had Payne Roelt attempted to murder his niece, but that the crime been abetted by her own brother.

“And how did you at last,
heeeeeeee
, reach Toth?” he is finally able to ask, once the doctors, glaring furiously at the princess, remove the valves from his face.

“Baron Milnikov had a yacht in the Slideen harbor. I’d gone to the lodge on Catstongue Island to warn Payne and Ferenc of their doom, and the yacht, with Thud, Gyven and the baron already on board, was waiting for me afterwards on the downstream tip of the island. In an hour we are well away from the city and far beyond any pursuit. In fact, I doubt that anyone had any idea for days how I’d gotten away. Anyway, we left Tamlaght via the Moltus. The Baron insisted we travel at full steam day and night, so it only took a little more than two days to reach the mouth of the Solsonna River. We went ashore at a little town there . . .”

“Spolkeen-on-the,
heeeeeeee
, sea,” wheezes the king.

“Yes. Well, and this is the best part of the whole thing, we took a train!”

“Yes?” answers Felix, not sharing in Bronwyn’s excitement, and a little puzzled by the apparent irrelevance.

“I’d never seen a steam train before,” explains the princess, a little crestfallen at the failure of her uncle to appreciate the thrill she had experienced. The high technology of steam power had been something of which Bronwyn hitherto had only theoretical knowledge. She had of course seen the steam-powered ships that plied the waters of the Slideen below the windows of her palace apartment, but they had all been foreign vessels and forbidden to her. And of course she is aware of the presence of the industrialized Transmoltus district, Blavek’s (and Tamlaght’s) sole and reluctant concession to modernity. A zone as forbidden and forbidding as the Realm of the Weedking, it is as tantalizing and alluring as are all things that are deemed evil by others but are unexperienced by ourselves. By day, vast clouds of reddish smoke and oily fumes poured into the sky like an evil, antigravitational waterfall; by night the district flickered and sparkled like burning steel wool. Barely half a mile separated the palace from the Transmoltus and its sounds carried easily across the water. That same asymphonic medley of sound effects that Thud had grown to ignore is like a siren call to the imaginative young princess. In all her eighteen and three-quarter years Bronwyn had never actually seen, with her own eyes, a machine more complex than a gun.