The Stone of Farewell (14 page)

Guthwulf had considered killing Pryrates, but had decided it might only make things worse, like killing the houndkeeper when the dogs waited at one's throat. Pryrates might be the only one left who could control the king—unless, as the Earl of Utanyeat sometimes felt sure, it was the meddling priest himself who was leading Elias down the road to perdition. Who could know, God damn them all? Who could know?

Perhaps in response to something Pryrates said, Elias bared his teeth in a smile as he looked over the sparseness of the cheering throng. It was not, Guthwulf saw, the expression of a happy man.

 

“I am very angry. My patience is strained by this ingratitude.”

The king had taken to his throne, his father John's great Dragonbone Chair.

“Your monarch returns from war, bringing news of a great victory, and all that greets him is a paltry rabble.” Elias curled his lip, staring at Father Helfcene, a slightly-built priest who was also the chancellor of the mighty Hayholt. Helfcene kneeled at the king's feet, the top of his bald head facing the throne like a pitifully inadequate shield. “Why was there no welcome for me?”

“But there was, my Lord, there was,” the chancellor stuttered. “Did I not meet you at the Nearulagh Gate with all your household who remained at the Hayholt? We are thrilled to have Your Majesty back in good health, awed by your triumph in the north!”

“My cringing bondsmen of Erchester did not appear to be either very thrilled or awed.” Elias reached for his cup. Ever-vigilant Pryrates handed it to him, careful not to slosh the dark liquid over the rim. The king took a long draught and made a face at its bitterness. “Guthwulf, did you feel that the king's subjects showed him proper fealty?”

The earl took a deep breath before speaking slowly. “Perhaps they were ... perhaps they had heard rumors ...”

“Rumors? Of what? Did we or did we not throw down my treacherous brother's keep at Naglimund?”

“Of course, my king,” Guthwulf felt himself far out on a slender branch. Elias' sea-green eyes stared at him, as insanely curious as an owl's. “Of course,” the earl repeated, “but our ... allies ... were bound to cause rumor.”

Elias turned to Pryrates. The king's pale brow was furrowed, as though he were genuinely puzzled. “We have acquired mighty friends, have we not, Pryrates?”

The priest nodded silkily. “Mighty friends, Majesty.”

“And yet they have served our will, have they not? They have done what we wished done?”

“To the exact length of your intent, King Elias.” Pryrates snuck a glance at Guthwulf. “They have done your will.”

“Well, then.” Elias turned, satisfied, and regarded Father Helfcene once more. “Your king has gone away to war and has destroyed his enemies, returning with the allegiance of a kingdom older even than the long-gone Imperium of Nabban.” His voice wavered dangerously. “Why do my subjects skulk like whipped dogs?”

“They are ignorant peasants, sire,” Helfcene said. A drop of sweat hung on his nose.

“I think that someone here has been stirring up trouble in my absence,” Elias said with frightful deliberation. “I would like to know who has been spreading tales. Do you hear me, Helfcene? I must find out who thinks they know the good of Osten Ard better than does her High King. Go now, and when I see you next, have something to tell me.” He pulled at the skin of his face, angrily. “Some of these be-damned, stay-at-home nobles need to see the shadow of the gibbet, I think. That may remind them who rules this land.”

The bead of sweat finally fell free of Helfcene's nose, spattering on the tile floor. The chancellor nodded briskly and several other drops, strangely numerous on a cool afternoon, leaped from his face.

“Of course, my Lord. It is good, so good, to have you back once more.” He rose to a half crouch, bowed again, then turned and walked quickly from the throne room.

The thump of the great door closing echoed up amidst the ceiling beams and serried banners. Elias leaned back against the vast spreading cage of yellowed bones, rubbing at his eye sockets with the backs of his powerful hands.

“Guthwulf, come here,” he said, voice muffled. The Earl of Utanyeat stepped forward, feeling a strange but compelling urge to flee the room. Pryrates hovered at Elias' elbow, his face smooth and emotionless as marble.

Even as Guthwulf reached the Dragonbone Chair, Elias dropped his hands to his lap. The blue circles beneath his eyes made it seem as though the king's gaze had pulled back farther into his head. For a moment it almost seemed to the earl that the king was peering out of some dark hole, some trap into which he had fallen.

“You must protect me from treachery, Guthwulf.” A ragged fringe of desperation sounded in Elias' words. “I am vulnerable now, but there are great things coming. This land will see a Golden Age such as the philosophers and priests have only dreamed of—but I must survive. I
must
survive, or all will be ruined. All will be ashes.” Elias leaned forward, grasping Guthwulf's callused hand with fingers cold as fish tails.

“You must help me, Guthwulf.” A powerful note ran through his straining voice. For a moment, the earl heard his companion of many battles and many taverns the way he remembered him, which only made the king's words all the more painful. “Fengbald and Godwig and the rest are fools,” Elias said. “Helfcene is a frightened rabbit. You are the only one in all the world I can trust—besides Pryrates here, that is. You are the only ones whose loyalty to me is complete.”

The king slumped back and covered his eyes again, clenching his teeth as though in pain. He waved Guthwulf's dismissal. The earl looked up to Pryrates, but the red priest only shook his head and turned to refill Elias' goblet.

As he pushed open the door of the chamber and walked out into the lamplit hallway, Guthwulf felt a heavy stone of fear settle in his gut. Slowly, he began to consider the unthinkable.

Miriamele pulled away, freeing her hand from Count Streáwe's grasp. She took a sudden step backward and fell into a chair that the man in the skull mask had slid up behind her. For a moment she only sat, trapped.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked at last. “That I was coming here?”

The count chuckled, extending a crabbed finger to tap the fox mask he had discarded. “The strong rely on strength,” he said. “The not-so-strong must be clever and quick.”

“You haven't answered my question.”

Streáwe raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” He turned to his skull-faced helper. “You may go, Lenti. Wait with your men outside.”

“It's raining,” Lenti said mournfully, bone-white face bobbing, eyes peering from the black sockets.

“Then wait upstairs, fool!” the count said testily. “I will ring the bell when I need you.”

Lenti sketched a bow, then darted a glance at Miriamele and went out.

“Ah, that one,” Streáwe sighed, “he is like a child sometimes. But still, he does what he is told. That is more than I can say for many of those who serve me.” The count pushed the decanter of wine toward Brother Cadrach, who sniffed at it suspiciously, obviously torn. “Oh, drink it,” the count snapped. “Do you think I would go to all this trouble to drag you across Ansis Pelippé and then poison you in one of my own residences? If I had wished you dead, you would have been facedown in the harbor before you reached the end of the gangplank.”

“That doesn't make me any easier,” Miriamele said, beginning to feel like herself again—and more than a little angry. “If your intentions are honorable, Count, then why were we brought here by the threat of knives?”

“Did Lenti tell you he had a knife?” Streáwe asked.

“He certainly did,” Miriamele responded tartly. “Do you mean that he doesn't?”

The old man chortled. “Blessed Elysia, of course he does! Dozens of the things, all shapes, all lengths, some sharpened on both sides, some forked into a double blade—Lenti has more knives than you have teeth.” Streáwe chuckled again. “No, it's just that I keep telling him not to announce it constantly. All around the town they call him Lenti ‘Avi Stetto.' ” Streáwe stopped laughing for a moment, wheezing slightly.

Miriamele turned to Cadrach for explanation, but the monk was absorbed in a goblet of the count's wine, which he had apparently decided was safe.

“What does ... ‘Avi Stetto' ... mean?” she finally asked.

“It's Perdruinese for ‘I have a knife.' ” Streáwe shook his head fondly. “He does know how to use his toys, though, that one does....”

“How did you know about us, sir?” Cadrach asked, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

“And what are you going to do to us?” Miriamele demanded.

“As to the first,” Streáwe said, “as I told you, the weak must have their ways. My Perdruin is not a country whose might makes others tremble, so we must instead have very good spies. Every port in Osten Ard is an open market of knowledge, and all of the best brokers belong to me. I knew you had left Naglimund before you reached the River Greenwade; I have had people taking note of your progress ever since.” He picked a reddish fruit out of a bowl on the table top and began peeling it with trembling fingers. “As to the second,” he said, “well, that is a pretty question. ”

He was struggling with the fruit's tough rind. Miriamele, feeling a sudden and unexpected sympathy for the old count, reached out and gently took it from him.

“Let me do it,” she said.

Streáwe raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Thank you, my dear. Very kind. So, then, the question of what I should do with you. Well, now, I must admit that when I first got word of your ... temporarily detached state ... it occurred to me that there might be more than a few who would pay for word of your whereabouts. Then, later, when it became clear you would be changing ship here in Ansis Pelippé, I realized that those who would find value in mere tidings might be willing to pay even
more
for an actual princess. Your father or uncle, for instance.”

Furious, Miriamele dropped the fruit into the bowl, half-peeled. “You would sell me to my enemies!?”

“Now, now, my dear,” the count said soothingly, “whoever said anything about that? And who are you calling an enemy, in any case? Your father the king? Your fond uncle Josua? We are not talking of handing you over to Nascadu slave-merchants for a few coppers. Besides,” he hastily added, “that alternative is now closed in any case.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I am not going to sell you to anyone,” Streáwe said. “Please, do not worry about that.”

Miriamele picked up the fruit again. Now
her
hand was trembling. “What is going to happen to us?”

“Perhaps the count will be forced to go locking us up in his deep, dark wine cellars, for our own protection,” Cadrach said, gazing with fondness at the near-empty decanter. He seemed utterly and splendid drunk. “Ah, now wouldn't
that
be a terrible fate!”

She turned away from him in disgust. “So?” she asked Streáwe.

The old man took the slippery fruit from her hand and bit it carefully. “Tell me one thing,” he said. “Do you go to Nabban?”

Miriamele hesitated, wrestling with her thoughts. “Yes,” she answered at last. “Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“And why should I tell you? You have not harmed us, but you have not yet proved yourself a friend, either.”

Streáwe stared at her. A smile slowly spread across the lower part of his face. His eyes, red-rimmed, retained their hard edge. “Ah, I like a young woman who knows what she knows,” he said. “Osten Ard is full to brim with sentiment and imprecise understanding—it is not sin, you know, but foolish sentiment that sets the angels to moaning in despair. But you, Miriamele, even when you were a small child you had the look of someone who would do something in this world.” He pulled the decanter away from Cadrach and refilled his own goblet. The monk looked after it comically, like a dog whose bone had been stolen.

“I said no one would sell you,” Count Streáwe said at last. “Well, that is not quite true—no, do not glare so, mistress! Wait until you have heard all I have to say. I have a ... friend, I suppose you would say, although we are not personally close. He is a religious man, but he moves in other circles as well—the best kind of friend I could ask for, since his knowledge is wide and his influence great. The only problem is, he is a man of rather irritating moral rectitude. Still, he has given help to Perdruin and to me many times, and—to put it simply—I owe him more than a few favors.

“Now, I am not the only one who knew of your departure from Naglimund. This man, also, the religious fellow, had it through his own private sources...”