Split Heirs (19 page)

Four hours later, while Wulfrith was explaining chapter 49 to Ubri all over the alcove carpet, the doors opened and King Gudge walked into the library. The Gorgorian monarch was still mumbling to himself
—
something about “Right shoulder, rain; left shoulder, luck. I still say it's a load of ox apples!” He scanned the imposing rows of books and spat. “Look it up
myself
, the wench says. The facts are
documented
, she says. Documented my hairy bum. Documented
where
, I want to know? Damn. Should've brought one of those Old Hydries with me. I bet you've got to know how to read to find out where this right-shoulder-left-shoulder swill's written up!”

A dim spark of thought, solitary and forlorn inside Gudge's skull, flickered with a memory:
Libraries are where you look for documented facts—
“I know that!” Gudge snapped. “Why else would I be wasting my time here?”
—and librarians are who you get to do all the scut-work for you.

“Oh.” That was an idea Gudge could use. He looked around the dusty shelves but didn't see any librarians there. He gazed upwards, but none were hanging from the rafters. Then he heard some interesting sounds coming from an alcove. “Sounds like a librarian,” he decided, and went to fetch it.

It wasn't a librarian, but it was a sight to bring joy to a simple barbarian king's fatherly heart.

“That's my boy, Arbol!” shouted Gudge, and scared poor Wulfrith all the way into Chapter Fifty-Two.

Chapter Twenty

“But…” Wulfrith said, as he tried to tie the drawstring of his breeches.

“But nothing, Arbol,” Gudge told him. “If you think there's any ‘but' then you've been listening to that damned mother of yours too much.”

“But…”

“It's about bloody time you became a man,” Gudge continued. “Why, you're what, almost fifteen? I was…well…I was…” Gudge had never been good with numbers, but the memory did eventually surface. “I was scarcely fourteen! That's two years I've been waiting for you, boy!”

“But…” Wulfrith was too concerned with questions of mistaken identity to pay any attention to the royal grasp of mathematics.

“Your mother probably hasn't told you what comes next,” Gudge said. “Ox's blood, she probably doesn't even
know
, being a Hydrie, and a woman.”

“Next?” Wulfrith had been desperately trying to find some way to tell the king that he was not Arbol that would not result in decapitation, or evisceration, or other impediments to further vitality, but Gudge's latest words had entirely distracted him.

Next?

None of the books mentioned anything after Chapter Fifty-Two, unless you wanted to count washing up, or getting married, or disemboweling unfaithful wives, or any of that sort of thing.

Well…some did mention a few things, but Wulfrith hadn't really taken those seriously. And they didn't agree with each other, anyway.

Gudge clapped Wulfrith on the shoulder, staggering him, and announced, “Now, my boy…now we get
drunk
!”

“Oh, your Majesty,” Ubri said from behind them. She had finally managed to get her skirt back to the general vicinity of her waist, and to get herself upright. “Your Majesty, I'm so pleased…”

“Good! Just a beginner, and he's already pleasing his women!” Gudge exclaimed, not looking back.

“No, I mean I'm happy that your son…”

“Me, too,” Gudge said, interrupting her, “but I won't be if you don't shut up. This is
man
talk.” His hand fell convincingly to Obliterator's hilt, and Ubri stopped dead in her tracks and watched the two males depart.

She sighed. It was progress, at any rate, and Gudge had certainly been feeling mellow. He'd given a warning first. She supposed she should feel lucky.

Wulfrith was unsure whether he should consider himself lucky or cursed. Being mistaken for the prince even by Arbol's own father, when he wasn't even trying, was quite an accomplishment for an impostor
—
but he wished he could get away from the king long enough to find the
real
Prince Arbol. The idea of getting drunk with King Gudge was rather terrifying; everyone knew the attrition rate among the king's drinking companions ran very high, and besides, if this “getting drunk” was a
special occasion
, what were all those rowdy, bellowing, bloodstained evenings that used up so many drinking companions?

And just what would be involved in this “getting drunk”?

He wished he could find some excuse to get away, but he couldn't think of anything. His brain seemed to have shut down in panic, and his body was mostly interested in lying down somewhere and relaxing a little, not in slipping away.

Not that the king was offering any obvious opportunities for escape.

The first stop in “getting drunk” was the kitchen, where the king happily swatted various serving wenches on their respective bottoms and sent a steward down to the cellars for wine
—
“A little something to hold us until we get there,” Gudge explained, as the steward handed him an immense earthenware jug. Wulfrith nodded unhappily.

Gudge pulled the cork with his teeth and gulped down approximately half a gallon, then handed the jug to Wulfrith. “Take a swig, boy,” the king commanded.

Obediently, Wulfrith took a sip. He gagged, but kept the stuff down.

It tasted…well, once, when one of the real prince's Companions had taken a good whacking in fighting practice, he had soiled his pants, bled all over them, and fallen sitting into a mud puddle. Wulfrith happened to have seen the lad's breeches on their way to the palace laundry; more to the point, he had smelled them as they were carried past.

That was what the stuff in the jug tasted like. Only worse.

Wulfrith was not stupid enough to say anything about the taste; for that matter, he was unable to say anything at all for several seconds.

The second stop in “getting drunk” was the palace stable, where the grooms hurried to obey the king's bellowed orders, fetching and saddling Gudge's and Arbol's favored mounts.

Wulfrith had never played Arbol outside the palace before; this whole ordeal was growing steadily more terrifying.

At the third stop, however, some of the fear subsided; Wulfrith finally discovered what sort of a celebration “getting drunk” was, in this context.

“Getting drunk” consisted of marching into a tavern, loudly announcing one's presence, and then proclaiming, “My boy's a man today! Drinks for everyone!” Any arguments from tavern proprietors were cut short with Obliterator.

Then the king would down a gallon or so of whatever the place served, while everyone else (including Wulfrith) drank a pint apiece. After that, Gudge held forth in lurid and increasingly fictional detail about his son's amorous feats, gulping liquor between sentences.

When the need to piss exceeded his thirst, Gudge would march out, splatter the tavern's front wall, then jump on his horse and ride off to the next tavern, while Wulfrith struggled to keep up.

When the taverns directly adjoined each other, as a few did, the riding hardly seemed necessary, but Gudge apparently considered it part of the ritual.

With each tavern, the descriptions of the supposed Arbol's amatory prowess grew more obscene and less coherent, but the king's temper grew ever better. By the fourteenth stop, objections to the royal progress were no longer necessarily fatal; Gudge was too drunk to handle Obliterator with any skill, and instead simply punched anyone who did not immediately oblige his whims, usually aiming at the annoyance's face, but not always hitting it.

Wulfrith, harried and embarrassed, watched all this with growing amazement. He was convinced that he had seen the king imbibe several times his own volume in alcoholic beverage, and he did not quite understand how that was possible, even allowing for the amount that had then been distributed against various tavern walls. Gudge's face had become a truly amazing shade of purplish-red.

It had never occurred to Wulfrith how many taverns a city the size of the Hydrangean capital could hold; the number was well over a score, apparently.

It was at the conclusion of their visit to number twenty-two or twenty-three, a peculiar and nameless little place far up on the hill in the Old Hydrangean section that appeared to serve only peppermint liqueur, that Wulfrith, fairly intoxicated himself at this point, got up the nerve to ask, “Are we going to visit every tavern in the city?”

Gudge, cheerfully pissing in the general direction of the tavern wall, turned a bleary grin on his son. “Tha's gen'rul idea, yeah. 'Less we fall down firs'.”

“Oh. After we've visited them all, what do we do then?”

Gudge blinked. “An' we haven't fallen over yet? We start over again!” His grin grew impossibly wide, and he belched loudly.

“How…how many…”

Wulfrith had intended to ask how many taverns there were, in all, and maybe how the king came to know every single one of them, but Gudge was no longer listening; he was, instead, climbing onto his horse.

Wulfrith provided a steadying hand before clambering onto his own mount.

“Thanks, Arbol,” Gudge managed, as he wavered in the saddle. He shook the reins, dug in his heels, and his tired horse set out at a fast trot.

Wulfrith hurried after, his head swimming with every step his horse took. He had drunk far more than ever before in his life, even if it was only a tiny fraction of the king's consumption, and the effects were definitely making themselves felt. He was beginning to lose touch with the world around him.

“Y' a goo' boy, Arbol,” Gudge called, grinning.

“My name's not Arbol, is it?” Wulfrith said. “'Snot Dunwin, either. It's Wulfrith. I'm sure it is.”

“
‘Swhat?
” Gudge, somehow forgetting that he was on horseback, turned to face his son. He was now sitting sidesaddle on a large horse trotting down a steep hill, over cobblestones.

Wulfrith giggled. The king looked
silly
, swaying like that.

“I'm not Prince Arbol,” he said, “I'm his food taster!”

“No!” Gudge bellowed, and, still sidesaddle, tried to draw his sword.

That was too much; the god who looks after fools and drunkards threw up His intangible hands in disgust, and Gudge toppled from the saddle. He landed headfirst on the cobbles, heavily as a sack of grain; he rolled several yards down the steep slope, then stopped and lay very still indeed.

His amusement turned to horror, Wulfrith struggled to rein in his own mount. Dismounting, he hurried to the fallen Gorgorian, and felt for a heartbeat, for a pulse, for breath, for any sign that the king still lived.

There was none.

He looked around for help, and spotted three of the King's Own Guards, as his old Gorgorian raiders were now called, at the foot of the hill.

“Hey,” Wulfrith called from where he sat beside the late King Gudge. “Help!”

He then realized this was probably not the cleverest thing he had ever done. Wouldn't it have been better to get back to the palace and put his mask back on, and leave the king to be found by someone else? What if they thought he, Wulfrith, had murdered King Gudge? What did Gorgorians do to regicides?

“Who's there?” one of the guards called, and Wulfrith knew he'd wasted his chance.

He wasn't sure who he should claim to be just now, so rather than identifying himself, as the soldier probably expected him to do, Wulfrith called, “It's the king! He's fallen from his horse!”

He saw the soldiers glance at one another; then all three of them came charging up the hill. A moment later they stood around, looking down at the dead king and the live boy.

“That's old Gudge, all right.”

“Dead as a rock, ain't he?”

“Sure looks like it. I s'pose we should take him back and let a doctor make it official.”

“And you're the prince, aren't you?” One of the guards squinted at Wulfrith's face. “Hard to see in this light.”

“Um…” Wulfrith wasn't quite ready to claim to be Arbol; admitting he wasn't, however, seemed like a very bad idea just now.

“'Course it's Prince Arbol,” one of the others said. “Ain't you got eyes? Moon's up, innit?”

“Yeah, but…stand up, boy, let's get a look at you.”

Wulfrith got unsteadily to his feet.

“That's the prince, all right.” The three soldiers nodded. “Assuming the old king's dead,” the tallest one remarked, “there's no use in wasting time. I wanna be first to say it.”

“Say what?” The other two looked at the speaker doubtfully.

“Oh, come on, you know.”

“So say it, then.”

Wulfrith looked at their faces with no idea what the three were talking about. Then the tall one grabbed the boy's hand, raised it over his head, and shouted, “The king is dead! Long live King Arbol!”

Chapter Twenty
-
One

“Just to the library?” Wulfrith pleaded with the guard. “I'll come right back, I promise.”

The guard, a Gorgorian from the roots of his lice-infested hair to the tips of his grime-imbedded toenails, snorted with laughter. Or perhaps he simply snorted. At any rate, the resulting gob that splatted to the floor of the tower chamber was impressive. “Yer Majesty's got a good sense o' humor, I'll give you that. The libr'y! What for? It's all books down there.”

“Yes, well, um, I
—
” Wulfrith bit his lip. “I like books,” he finished rather feebly.

The guard gave him the fish-eye. “Here! You sure it wasn't you as plunked down on yer head on them cobbles?”

“No, I'm sure
—
I mean, I'm pretty sure, but
—
”

“Nice bit o' business, that,” the guard added. “Gettin' the old bastard drunk an' then givin' him a little push off the saddle, spong onto the stones.”

Wulfrith was flabbergasted. “I did no such thing!”

The guard just shook his head, smiling fondly. “Oh, don't worry about it. If you ain't the sort to brag, I'll keep mum. 'Course it's a fine old Gorgorian tradition, kings' sons skrinking their dads. Not one you'd've been like to hear on. Some reason, the kings allus try t' keep that branch o' learnin' from their boys.”

“I'm telling you, I didn't kill anyone! The king got drunk and he fell off his horse when I told him that I
—
”

The guard wasn't in a listening mood. He leaned on his spear and stared dreamily off into space. “Aye, now yer t' be crowned king, you'll be a right change fer us, an' no mistake. Got a good bit o' Gudge in you, but there's that Hydrie strain as well.” He was one of the more thoughtful Gorgorian warriors. Had he but known, he was a rarity. In the days before the Hydrangean Conquest, most Gorgorian men were so busy looting, raping, and burning things that they didn't have the time for pondering the future. Given the nature of their chosen profession, very few of them lived long enough to have a future.

Wulfrith sighed and gave up, leaving the guard to his meditations. Back in the inmost room of his tower suite, he reviewed his own situation and found it ghastly.

Ever since that ill-fated “celebration of manhood”, he had been kept confined to this suite of rooms in the Tower of Smug Reflection. The royal council, for once relieved of the danger of unexpected decapitations while in session, took over the instant that news of King Gudge's death reached the palace. They were waiting for him in the courtyard when Wulfrith returned, accompanied by the patrol and Gudge's corpse. Before the boy could escape to inform the real Prince Arbol of what had happened, they threw a heavy white velvet cloak over his head and bundled him away.

It was decreed before a solemn assemblage of the Gorgorian chiefs that Prince Arbol would remain in isolation until all the proper coronation rites had been performed, Old Hydrangean style. The chiefs saw no harm in this, as long as one of Gudge's bloodline wound up on the throne. They named one of their number
—
a Gorgorian worthy called Bulmuk
—
to be their representative and oversee the whole process.

“Don't wanna,” Bulmuk said. “I wanna go Gudge's funeral.”

His colleagues told him that he had to stay with the Old Hydries, to look out for Gorgorian interests and make sure none of their fussy customs did anything to hurt Gudge's only son and heir.

“Who cares?” Bulmuk replied. “He dies, one of us get the crown. Lotta blood, more funerals. I wanna go Gudge's funeral.”

The other chiefs assured him that while they didn't mind a little civil war now and then, they'd rather not have one just now. They also told him that if he refused, the first funeral would be his.

Bulmuk drew his sword and moodily hacked an underbutler to pieces. “I'll stay,” he said, pouting. It was very affecting to see the tears of disappointment in his eyes.

His friends promised that when the funeral was over, they would tell him exactly what everyone there was wearing and who killed whom using what and how many warriors drank themselves to death and if there were any grave treasures buried with Gudge that might be worth stealing later. They also swore on the Sacred Gorgorian Ox that they'd bring him back a couple of leftover kegs and some fruit.

Pacified, Bulmuk took his place among the Hydrangean nobles. From time to time he would come up to Wulfrith's room to demand whether the lad knew anything at all about the upcoming coronation rituals.

“Anything to drink there?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Wulfrith had to admit.

“Stupid Hydries,” Bulmuk grumbled and went away until the next time.

In spite of his recent bad experience with strong drink, every passing day made poor captive Wulfrith long for a snootful, if only to help him forget his situation. They hadn't even let him out to attend the late king's funeral, and they refused to let him communicate with anyone.

Wulfrith sat in a sumptuous chair and stared at his hands. He was fairly sure that his magic could have unlocked the door, and he could have transformed the guards
—
though he couldn't be sure what he'd get
—
but then what? He had no idea where to go, or what to do, if he got out of the tower room, and there would be guards and Gorgorians all over the palace, probably. He couldn't transform them
all
before someone stuck a sword through him or did something equally drastic.

And if he did get away, what sort of trouble would that make for the
real
Prince Arbol?

Bitterly, he wished that his wizardry included the knowledge of how to send messages over great distances. He desperately wanted to contact Arbol and the queen.

What must they think of him? He didn't want to know. Palace rumors traveled faster than palace roaches. By now Queen Artemisia must have concluded that Wulfrith was a treacherous schemer who had waited his chance, then murdered her beloved husband before snatching the crown from her true son and heir. He had to get word to her and explain that it was all an accident. He hoped she'd believe him.

He hoped even more than Prince Arbol would believe him about not wanting the crown. He and the prince were friends, but he knew Arbol's attitude about the kingdom:
Mine! Mine! Mine!
summed it up nicely. Too, Arbol had inherited his father's temper, and he was better with a sword than Wulfrith was with a spell.

Wulfrith put his hands protectively around his neck. If the prince found a way to get to him before he got to explain things to the prince, it was going to be ugly.

There was a knock on the door, followed by a fanfare of trumpets and a peal of silvery bells. A strong tenor voice bleated, “Hail in all humbleness the royal sun where he awaits below the dawn's horizon! May entry be vouchsafed the servants of his magnificence who loyally attend his pleasure?”

“Huh?” Wulfrith shouted back.

The door opened a crack and young Lord Alsike's needle-sharp nose poked in. “May we come in?” he whispered.

“I guess so.” Wulfrith waited. No one moved. “What's the matter? I thought you wanted to come in.”

“You have to say something like, ‘Enter and be welcome to partake of my grace for howsoever long it please my regal condescension,
'
” Alsike informed him.

Wulfrith smiled for the first time in days. “You're kidding.”

“No, we are not.” Lord Alsike sounded peeved. “Look, we've got to get the coronation rites under way. The sooner you're crowned king, the sooner we don't have to eat lunch with Lord Bulmuk any more. So how about it?”

“I'll do my best.” Wulfrith took a deep breath and declaimed, “Enter and be welcome to, uh, enter and
—
”

“Good enough!” Alsike brightened, then called over his shoulder, “His Majesty in his infinite grace and wisdom has bid us enter. Stop shoving!”

Before long, Wulfrith found himself surrounded by the entire royal council, several musicians, a host of richly-dressed servants he'd never seen before, and Bulmuk, who looked like he could surround a whole city all by himself. There weren't anywhere near enough chairs for everyone.

Lord Alsike began by introducing Wulfrith to the silk-and-satin-clad servants. “These are the Official Royal Hydrangean Keepers of the Coronation Ritual. It is a hereditary post, passed down from father to son.” The Keepers all bowed beautifully.

Wulfrith noticed that each Keeper was attended by one to three young men, not so nicely dressed. “Who are they?” he asked.

Lord Alsike explained: “Some of them are the Keepers' sons, if the man has more than one. If he's only got one male child, the others attending him are apprentices. The job pays very well, even if the Keeper never has to perform his ceremonial functions even once in his lifetime. However, part of his duties entail passing on the ritual knowledge. The apprentices are kept on in case the Keeper's son dies or turns out to be too stupid to remember the rites.”

“What's so hard about a coronation?” Wulfrith asked. He was soon very, very sorry he had.

The first Keeper, a tall man wearing too much green satin, hurried forward, sank to his knees before Wulfrith, and pressed the boy's hands to his lips. It was like having two shucked oysters crawl over your skin.

“Your Pending Majesty, I am Olk, Principal Keeper of the Coronation Ritual, and this is my son, Oswego.” He made a lovely flourishing gesture of introduction at the empty air to his left.

“Why is he invisible?” asked Wulfrith.

Keeper Olk did a double-take that ended when his eyes lit upon his son way over on the other side of the room. The boy was engaged in animated conversation with Bulmuk. He was just saying, “Wow, all the way
through
a human skull on the downswing?” when his father grabbed him by the collar and yanked him away.

“The idea! Consorting with barbarous Gorgorians!” Olk fumed. Then he recalled one little detail about His Pending Majesty, the prince, and a sickly smile oozed over his face. “That is
—
I mean
—some
barbarous Gorgorians. The rest are perfectly delightful to consort with.”

Oswego stuck out his lower lip, and it was a doozy. His father gave him a healthy clout in the back of the head. “Now be a good boy and tell His Pending Majesty all that I've taught you about the first three days' schedule.”

Wulfrith and Oswego hollered “
The first three days?
” in such perfect unison they might have been practicing.

“The
first
three days, did you say?” Wulfrith added.

“Preliminary rituals of valor and chivalrous address,” Olk replied. “Simple things, really, but the peasants find them entertaining. Go on, Oswego, recite the way Daddy taught you.”

“I don't remember,” Oswego said. The lip was out again.

“But it's so
simple
! You remembered all right this morning.”

“Didn't wanna be a barbarian this morning,” Oswego informed his father. “Talk about simple; there's the life! Don't like how someone's treating you,
whack!
” He cut a mighty swath with swordless hands. “There goes his head, bouncing down the breakfast table.” He gave his father a disturbing smile.

Lord Alsike tapped his foot. “Olk, if your son is unable to recount the rites to His Majesty
—
”

“His
Pending
Majesty,” Olk corrected, letting Oswego have a clandestine thunk in the noggin.

“
—
then either do it yourself or let your apprentice handle it.”

“Can I, sir? Can I? Can I?” Olk's apprentice was named Clerestory, a bright, eager lad with more get-up-and-go than a nest of insane fox terrier puppies. Without waiting for the go-ahead from Olk, the boy began rattling off, “Day One, dawn: Ritual of the nine cups and a lemon. The king-to-be must inspect nine golden cups and find out which one has the lemon in it. Originally done with three wooden cups upside down and a dried pea hidden beneath one, this rite has evolved to nine cups rightside up and a pretty large fruit. Day One, before breakfast: Ritual of the three virgin kitchen wenches and the tavern slut. The king-to-be must use the virtue of his own spirit to find the one impure woman. Tavern slut is encouraged to dress the part. Day One, breakfast: Ritual of the ox.”

“We put that one in,” said Bulkmuk, smiling. No one else was. “You gotta kill an ox with your bare hands. Great tradition of the Gorgorian kings.
Only
tradition of the Gorgorian kings.”

“At
breakfast?
” Wulfrith yipped.

“Whaddaya think you get to eat
for
breakfast?” Bulmuk countered.

“It's all right, Your Pending Majesty,” Alsike whispered. “We'll drug the beast first, and maybe line up a couple of brawny guardsmen to be the official carvers. Who's going to notice if they start carving a little before you're quite done killing the ox bare-handed?”

Olk's apprentice leaped in and resumed his recitation of the many small and annoying rituals that would dog Wulfrith through the first three days of the coronation. Some them involved dogs.

As young Clerestory went on and on about holy swords and enchanted doorknobs, Wulfrith began to feel calm for the first time since that awful night. So much time, so many things to do between the beginning of the coronation rites and the actual moment when the crown was placed on his head! Surely in all that time he
must
be able to get word to the queen!

Clerestory ran out of wind and passed the torch to the next Keeper, who informed Wulfrith about the rites awaiting him for the
next
three days. All in all, what with quests and vigils and receiving homage from almost everyone in the kingdom, the whole business wouldn't be done with for about three weeks. So it was that when the seventh Keeper said, “And then the only rite left before the coronation ceremony itself is the public bath,” Wulfrith did not flinch. This seemed to surprise the Keeper. He cleared his throat and repeated, “The public bath. In public. With people there to see. The king-to-be is entirely naked to the gaze of the populace, that all may know there is no defect of person about their ruler.” In an undertone he added, “You have to take all your clothes off.”