Emperor and Clown (13 page)

“How
d’you know?”

“Dad
says so.”

Shandie
retreated from that battle and tried again. “What else d’you hunt?” he asked
wistfully. And after the list ran out; “You ride every day?”

Thorog
was taken by surprise, busily hauling on a stocking. His legs were much longer
than Shandie’s, but not much thicker, and Shandie was rather ashamed of his
arrow-thin calves. But at least Thorog wasn’t getting dressed up in a toga.
Even to look at a toga made Shandie shake now.

“Don’t
you?” Thorog demanded.

The
thought of sitting a horse was very unpleasant so soon after yesterday’s formal
court function. “I never ... almost never ride.”

“Why
not?” Thorog looked thoroughly disbelieving. “You’re not scared of horses, are
you?”

“Course
not!”

The
nasty glint did not leave Thorog’s eye. “Sure?”

“Sure!”

“Then
why not?”

Shandie
shrugged. “Just don’t have time. Too many f-f-f-formal functions.” He plunged
ahead loudly. “Now that Grandfather’s birthday’s finally over, there won’t be
so many f-formal things I have to go to.”

“What
do you do at them?” Thorog demanded, standing up and squeezing his feet into
his silverbuckled shoes without unbuckling them.

“Just
stand beside the throne.” And I always fidget, no matter how much I try not to.
But this wedding isn’t that sort of function, so I won’t get beaten. I hope.

“Shandie,”
Thorog whispered with a quick glance around the obviously empty room, “does
Grandfather ever say anything now?”

Shandie
shook his head. “Not in we Why?”

“Mum
asked me to ask you. Don’t tell.”

“Course
not.” Shandie shook his head again. “When are they going to proclaim a regency?”

“About
a month, I think. They want to get the wedding over first. Why are we
whispering? The whole court knows all this.”

Thorog
said, “Oh!” and looked disappointed. Suddenly there was a gap in the conversation.
Now might be a good time to try to get an answer to a question that was really
bothering Shandie. He had been dying to find someone he could ask. His books
were vague on the matter, and Court Teacher was evasive. He took a deep breath
and decided to risk it. “Thorog ... what d’you know about puberty?”

“Puberty’s
what I’m in the middle of,” Thorog said, drawing himself up straight and
looking challengingly at the mirror.

Shandie
sniggered. “You mean like messing up a cravat?”

“No,
I mean like growing hairs on my lip-and other places,” he added mysteriously.

“What
hairs on your lip?”

“Well,
once it starts it comes very quickly, Dad says. And it’s started!” Thorog
looked even more mysterious.

“Where?”

“Down
here.”

Now
came the problem that had been really torturing Shandie. “Thorog, what color is
it?”

Thorog
stuttered and said brown, what color did he expect it would be?

“It
isn’t ... blue, is it?”

A
very strange expression came over his cousin’s face. He clumped over to where
Shandie was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Why, Shandie?”

Surprised,
and a little nervous, Shandie said, “Well, it can be blue, cant it? Hair down
there?”

“Who
has blue hair there? I won’t say you told me, honest. Except to Mum, and she
won’t tell anyone.”

“How
should I know?” Shandie said quickly, alarmed now.

Thorog
dropped his voice. “The only people with blue hair are merfolk. Their hair is
blue, all of it. Very pale blue. Even eyebrows, I suppose. They’re very unhairy
people, legs and arms, but I expect their grown-ups have hair down there like
any others. If a man had some merman blood in him, he might have blue hair, and
then he’d have to dye his hair so people wouldn’t know. But I don’t suppose he’d
bother dying the bit down there. All right?”

Shandie
nodded gratefully. That explained things, although it was odd that Thorog was
so knowledgeable about merfolk. “And what’s wrong with having merfolk blood? I
mean, is it worse than troll blood, or elf blood?”

“Nothing
wrong with a little elf blood,” Thorog. said snappily. “Dad says jotunn wouldn’t
be too bad, either. But merfolk ... you know why Grandfather doesn’t rule the
Kerith islands, young fellow?”

“Because
they don’t fight fair,” Shandie said. “Mermen won’t stand and fight. They pick
us off with cowardly attacks in the dark, one at a time. It’s happened...”

“Fight
fair?” Thorog went back to his mirror. Amazingly, he seemed to be satisfied
with his cravat, for he set to work on his hair. “If someone invaded your
country, would you care about fighting fair?” Shandie had never considered the
question.

“And
why do the centurions let the men run around to be killed one at a time in the
dark? They don’t do it fighting dwarves in Dwanish, or elves in Ilrane. Why
fighting mermen? Never asked your books that question?”

“No,”
Shandie said in a small voice.

“Well,
it’s the merwomen who do the damage. They sing, or dance, or just show
themselves. And the army falls apart. You know how dogs flock to a bitch?”

“No.”

“Bees
to a queen, then?”

“No.”

Thorog
rolled his eyes. “You spend far too much time reading and hanging around court
functions, my lad! You should get out of doors more. But that’s why you’ll
never be Imperor of the Keriths, Shandie. Sex!” he whispered dramatically. “Men
go crazy!”

“Oh!”
Shandie said.

“And
that’s why merfolk aren’t welcome, not anywhere. They bring quarrels. Why don’t
jotnar ever trade in mermaid slaves?”

Shandie
considered that, then said, “Why not?”

“Because
they can’t bear to part with them!” Thorog crowed in triumph. “Now, who do you
know with blue hair down there?”

“Oh,
no one! Say, you don’t mind if I slip up to my room for a moment?”

He
didn’t sleep with Moms anymore. He had a new room now, all to himself, and his
medicine was there. He was beginning to feel scratchy-twitchy, and the only
cure he knew for scratchy-twitchy was a mouthful of his medicine. He headed for
the door.

“Why,”
Thorog said, staring, “do you walk that way?”

“
‘Cause I peed my pants on your bed,” Shandie said, and was gone before his
cousin had finished making sure he hadn’t.

The
ambassador’s decision to bring the reply himself had not saved it from being
delayed by bad weather. Krushjor glanced at the sky, contemplated time and
tide, and decided to hang around for another half hour in the hope that some of
the imps might contract pneumonia. He, after all, knew for certain what they
could only suspect-that the documents in his pouch were worthless forgeries The
safe conduct had been carefully phrased so that it became effective only when
it was delivered, and there was not one chance in a million that his dear
nephew Kalkor would blunder into a trap as obvious as this one.

Seven
hundred leagues to the west of Hub, in a cold and clammy dawn, Ambassador
Krushjor shivered under a fur robe on the deck of an Imperial war galley. Fog
hung over the sea like a white mystery, and the sea roiled slowly and painfully
below it, dark and menacing. In a pouch at his belt lay very imposing
documents, rolls of vellum decorated with heavy wax seals-an edict granting
safe conduct to the imperor’s trusted and dearly beloved cousin and a missive
welcoming the thane of Gark to the City of the Gods. Aged clerks, well inured
to hypocrisy, had muttered oaths as they penned the words.

If
a jotunn felt chilled, imps froze. Rowers, archers, legionaries, officers ...
their teeth chattered like castanets all around him, and their swarthy hides
were a livid blue in the dubious light. Moisture glistened on their armor as it
glistened on plank and rigging and sword.

The
possibility of treachery had been evident to both sides right from the start.
Thane Kalkor had listed many possible days and sites at which he might appear
to learn how the imperor had answered his arrogant request. This was one of the
places and one of the days, but not the first, for the wheels of the
secretariat had turned with glacial slowness, and even--

A
long way to the south, in a fog even thicker, a bonfire crackled and steamed on
a reach of rocky coast. A bowshot seaward, a rugged sea stack provided a notable
landmark, although it was presently invisible. Shiny, lethargic swells drifted
in to the shore, summoning just enough energy as they died to break the surface
and slap small ripples of froth on the shingle. Seabirds like toy boats bobbed
at the limit of vision. The rocks and grasses were as wet as the sea, the air
heavy with scents of weed and the restless ocean.

Shivering,
stamping his boots, and tending the fire, an aging jotunn named Virgorek cursed
his vigil and the Gods who had brought him to such a pass. He was Nordland
born, blue-eyed and blond like all jotnar, but burdened with a most atypical
fondness for security. Long ago, at fourteen, he had killed a man who had raped
his sister. And killed his sister, also, of course, for submitting. The incident
might have boosted his career considerably had the man’s family not possessed
more fighting men than his own. Discovering that his life was worth less than a
cormorant’s egg, Virgorek had fled from his homeland and sought his fortune in
the Impire; and in time he had found himself living in the capital, serving on
the staff of the permanent Nordland embassy there.

The
pay was excellent, for few of his countrymen could tolerate indoor work, and
they pined without the smell of salt water in their nostrils. He had estimated
that a couple of years of such drudgery would earn him enough to return to the
sea and buy his own boat so that he could end his days in respectable fishing,
brawling, and smuggling. He had overlooked the sheer impossibility of anyone
but an imp managing to hang onto money in an impish city.

After
five years of this degradingly honest labor, he was wiser, but also older and
poorer and no more content. Indeed, when he contemplated his debts and domestic
problems back in Hub, he could think of no sane reason why he should return
there.

Meanwhile
he must spend two hours at dawn here, on every one of eleven specified days, in
the slight hope that Kalkor would choose this one time and place out of a
handful of others. Virgorek had no way of knowing whether the documents he bore
were the real ones or merely more of the forgeries. This was the seventh time
he had gone through the same useless ritual, and the only good thing about this
one was the fog. This was authentic orca weather.

The
dory had crept almost within hailing distance before he saw it. His first
sensation was annoyance that some stupid local fisherman had blundered into the
rendezvous and would have to be killed in case he gossiped. Then he noticed the
solitary rower’s gold hair. And finally he registered that the man’s back and
arms were bare. In that weather, such deliberate discomfort ruled out any
normal fisherman. Virgorek’s heartbeat speeded up considerably, and he began
rehearsing the passwords.

Just
before he beached, the rower expertly turned the dory and backed water for a
few strokes. Then he rested on his oars.

“What
do you catch, stranger?” Virgorek called. The response took long enough that he
had almost given up hope, but the newcomer was merely study- - ing him and the
enveloping fog.

“Bigger
than you expect.” came the expected reply at last.

Virgorek
held up his pouch.

“Bring
it!” the visitor commanded.

Reluctantly
the ambassador’s emissary stepped forward into the icy clutches of Westerwater.
He waded out through the puny waves. Before he reached the boat, his teeth were
starting to chatter, and the freezing water was almost up to his groin.

“All
blood is red,” he said, thinking that his own might be turning blue by now.

“And
beautiful,” the rower said. He was wearing nothing but a pair of leather
breeches, and his lips were white with cold. Even the damp could not darken his
heavy pale hair. His eyes were an intense blue, glittering arrogance. His face
was callous-and also clean shaven, which was strange indeed if he was a raider,
a sailor on an orca ship. Even more strange, he bore no tattoos. He still
looked mean enough to eat trees.

But
the passwords had been correct. With relief that his vigil was over and he need
never return to this godsforsaken headland, Virgorek fumbled at his pouch.

“Get
in,” the stranger said, waving a thumb at the bows.

The
ambassador’s emissary hesitated, and the raider’s fingers strayed to the hilt
of the dagger in his belt. Virgorek scrambled aboard and huddled himself into a
shivering knot. The boatman pulled a few strokes, sending the little craft
leaping seaward. Then he hauled the oars inboard and scrambled back off his
thwart. “You row. Warm you.”

Virgorek
unwound and edged over to sit amidships; then he was toe to toe with the raider.
Maybe Hub was not the worst place in the world to live. Maybe a diplomatic
career not the worst fate a man could suffer.

“Give
me the pouch,” the stranger said. “It is for the thane’s eyes only.”

The
steady sapphire gaze was a nightmare of unspoken threat. “I will give it to
him.”

He
must be one of Kalkor’s men, and one of the most trusted. By definition, then,
he was a killer with no scruples at all.

Virgorek
passed over the pouch and took the oars. He had not rowed in years, but a
jotunn learned boats before he learned fighting, and fighting before speech. He
put his back into it, to show this uppity youngster, and in a few moments he
began to feel his blood run warm again.

The
raider’s change to inactivity must be chilling him, but he showed no signs of
it. He leaned back, a statue of hard muscle and icy stare, and for several
minutes said nothing. Then he bent and found a third oar, which he pushed out
aft and tucked under his arm to steer. He seemed to have no compass, and the
world ended less than a cable length away in all directions. He did not look
worried. He did not look as if he ever worried.