The Legend of Broken (60 page)

And as they went, Rendulic Baster-kin made only one sensible statement: “I can prove it, Radelfer—you think me near-mad, at this moment, but I can prove my assertion …”

“My lord?” Radelfer replied, wishing simply to get the master of the house abed.

“
Another child,
” Rendulic Baster-kin replied; and at that, Radelfer was forced to pause in the hallway.

“But my lord, we have just heard—”

“An
opinion,
” the young master replied, with the fire of inspiration in his eyes. “The great Lord Caliphestros said as much, himself. Well—I have formed my own opinion: if my wife and I can conceive another child, one that resembles Adelwülf rather than that horror we have just left, then,
then
I shall know the truth. And then there shall be punishments enough to slake even
my
wrath …” Walking unsteadily, Lord Baster-kin moved toward the bedchamber where Lady Chen-lun now lay alone, attended constantly by the marauder woman Ju. “Fetch Raban back here,” Rendulic Baster-kin said, pausing by the chamber’s door. “Send for him. I would have my wife well enough, at least, to conceive, and he shall accomplish it, if he wishes to live. Tell him that I have determined his tale of the
alp
from Davon Wood having invaded this house and violated my wife to be correct. We shall have a priest to purge this
Kastelgerd,
and protect it from such beings in the future. And then …”

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The Lady Chen-lun’s health did improve sufficiently for childbearing, for the most part because of Healer Raban, or so the lord and lady of the house believed; in reality, it was because of liberal reliance on various instructions which Lord Caliphestros had, Radelfer later learned, left behind with the marauder woman Ju, the only person in the great house who knew what had actually transpired between her mistress and Rendulic Baster-kin’s father, and therefore the only person, as well, who knew the truth of Caliphestros’s statements concerning Chen-lun’s illness.

The birth of a baby girl brought immediate joy into the home of the greatest of Broken’s ruling secular families, joy that lasted half a dozen years unabated. The beast-child Klauqvest remained exiled to the maze-like cellars of the
Kastelgerd,
along with a new and kindly nursemaid. By Kafran rites, Klauqvest should have been exiled to Davon Wood, a fate he escaped only because of the increasingly vexing nature of his brother, Adelwülf. While still a young boy, that publicly acknowledged scion of the clan Baster-kin had become so much the delight of the women of the household, and had learned how to use their adoration to achieve his every young desire, that he had grown spoilt and intellectually lazy, facts that often irritated his father; yet Klauqvest paid undivided attention to learning and development of the mind, achievements that were ever made clear to Rendulic Baster-kin by Radelfer. A taste and talent for knowledge could not, however, overcome the utter disgust his lordship felt upon simply looking at the boy; and so it was that the youngest child of the group (who believed Adelwülf to be her only sibling) became the joy of the family, embodying enough of both qualities—loveliness and true quality of intellect—to make her father constantly proud.

Early in her life this happy creature exhibited a joyous, almost ethereal talent and taste for dancing about the halls and rooms of the
Kastelgerd;
and yet this inclination did not cause her to ignore the studies that she was tasked to undertake early, and that she would need, should she ever in fact find herself leader of the clan Baster-kin. In addition, she was undeniably lovely, with beautiful, thick hair and the wide, dark eyes that made visitors—especially male visitors—innocently indulge her with gifts; although her father was delighted when she sometimes informed these acquaintances, quite earnestly, that she had not achieved enough that day to merit reward, and put off acceptance of such tokens. Thus did Baster-kin become ever more certain that, even if his eldest son became a useless wastrel, his daughter would never do so, and the clan would be secure. Keeping all this in mind, and still feeling most fortunate that the legacy of illness and despair that his father had intended to inflict upon Rendulic’s children had not, in two of three cases, materialized, the lord of the
Kastelgerd
had determined that he would name his young daughter Loreleh. When he explained to his wife the well-known myth of the beautiful spirit who was to be the child’s namesake, a siren said to stand on a large, rocky protrusion in the storied river
Rhein,
†
drawing river sailors to their crashing doom with her irresistible beauty and peerlessly beautiful voice, the yet superstitious Chen-lun believed the tale to be true. She found it a recklessly impertinent name to give a child who had, only by divine grace, escaped the terrible fate that had befallen the now-unmentionable creature that had emerged from her womb, and whom, Chen-lun believed, her husband and Radelfer had long ago left in the wilds of Davon Wood. Whatever god or gods one worshipped, she pleaded with Rendulic, why tempt them by flouting such a myth?

Rendulic Baster-kin was only mildly irritated by his wife’s continued clinging to marauder ignorance; for had not all his prayers to Kafra been rewarded by the lovely girl’s birth? The golden god had forgiven and rewarded the Baster-kin family, after punishing it for sins that Rendulic did not wish to mention, he told Chen-lun. And, in the end, Chen-lun’s guilt over the “sin” of which her husband had spoken forced her to submit to his reasoning. In addition, their daughter’s beauty, as well as her affinity for singing and her almost spirit-like ability to dance—both not only displayed from an early age but quickly developed by tutors of such arts—even convinced her mother, after a time, that her husband might have been right: his golden god Kafra just might have been more powerful than all other deities. And so, Loreleh became the child’s name; and if Adelwülf represented the clan Baster-kin’s public hopes, so Loreleh represented its private pride, joy—and security.

In all this, Rendulic was encouraged and comforted by an exceptional Kafran priest (whose name has been lost to history, with his eventual elevation to Grand Layzin); and among the many subjects upon which the two maturing men found they agreed completely was a fundamental disdain for the Second Minister of the realm, whose advice to Lord Baster-kin had been so foully wrong. In addition, the priest, although he could speak only in pieces of the matter, indicated that the God-Prince Saylal had been given good reason not only to rebel against, but to find moral fault with Caliphestros—particularly so far as his royal sister, the Divine Princess Alandra, was concerned.

This maiden had evidently fallen under the Second Minister’s influence and become his disciple, not only of in matters of healing, but in the study of all of Nature’s wonders: and the perfection of and delight in the human form that Kafran tenets idealized seemed to hold no place in such learning. Rendulic Baster-kin urged the priest to tell the young God-Prince that, should the day ever come that he or his sister might need “practical” assistance (for it remained clear that their father, the God-King Izairn, was wholly in the thrall of Caliphestros’s undeniable intellectual refinement and power), he could depend upon the full weight of the clan Baster-kin being brought to bear in support of his cause …

Here, then, was a portrait of a family that seemed to have righted the ship of its fate long ago; and yet on this night, the Merchant Lord kneels at the bedside of his wife to find that her ailments of mind and body are only worsening—and becoming, to him, ever more repellant.

Yet how can we have reached such a pass?
Lord Baster-kin wonders, for an instant uncertain if he has murmured the words aloud.
What was our sin? We lived pious lives; and when the God-King finally died, we followed the will of his son, Saylal, not only in ensuring the investiture of a new Grand Layzin, but by working for and bringing about the downfall, exile, and mutilation of that blasphemous minister, Caliphestros, and his acolytes, as well. Where, then, was the grievous error? Why should we have been so reduced?

But Baster-kin knows full well the individual steps that have led his family to this crisis, and he feels, in some private portion of his heart, enough pity to want to sit—for a time, at any rate—by Chen-lun’s side, to comfort and above all quiet her. At the same time, however, he inwardly knows his true
practical
reason for visiting his wife: in his heart, he has grown—until only the last day or two—to despair of any hope for the future of the clan of which he remains chief; indeed, of which he may well be the last unchallenged leader.
And there might be justice, if I were to suffer that ignoble fate,
he muses. But the recent news from the provinces has brought something like hope, if a dark sort of hope, to the
Kastelgerd
’s master; and so, as Baster-kin watches the pompous but well-bribed Healer Raban gather his calming and palliative drugs, he makes sure the greedy, ambitious Kafran man of “medicine” also conceals the additional ingredients that Baster-kin has contracted with Raban to slowly mix into her ladyship’s medicines. The healer then silently leaves the room, leaving his lordship to glance again at his wife, still writhing upon the bed, and then at Chen-lun’s sole remaining personal servant, the marauder woman Ju, who, as always, stands as if made of stone in the shadows of one corner of the room, comprehending few of the words, but much of the behavior, of the people of Broken. And, as he goes to his lady’s bedside and waits for her to acknowledge him before taking her hand, Baster-kin silently determines:

Nay, I can no longer lie to myself about these things
;
for if condemning my second son to the near-perpetual darkness usually suffered only by prisoners in dungeons, as I did when Klauqvest became a youth wise enough to be of use as an advisor, was an act made more bearable by Kafran tenets, I cannot help but wonder if the order concerning my third child has not placed me beyond the pale of any true forgiveness or peace. And even if it has, what of my “merciful” intentions toward my wife: am I so certain that they are the righteous course?

And who is there who could argue with the man’s doubts on these subjects? For Baster-kin broods, in the first instance, upon his long-ago yet constantly remembered order that Radelfer take his daughter Loreleh—that same Loreleh who was once the greatest joy of her father’s life, but who had begun, late in her childhood, to show tragic signs of the onset of physical deformities all too close to Klauqvest’s—into the deadly wilds of Davon Wood, and abandon her there. The
mang-bana
had been forced upon the girl that Baster-kin saw as his greatest hope simply because the city and kingdom were aware of her, and could see the deformity growing. As for his second cause of self-torment, Baster-kin struggles over the deadly course he has lately embarked upon regarding his wife: a woman who, he has been told, no longer has any hope. Yet even if he counts his deadly plans for her a mercy, will his god judge them thus, as well?

“Rendulic,”
Lady Chen-lun says, seeing him at her side, and then feeling his touch on her own hand. “I heard Raban,” she almost whispers. “Speaking in the hallway. Someone said that you might not come, but Raban said that you must; and I knew you would. But—here is the strangeness of it, Rendulic—” Her eyes suddenly grow wide with emotion and she arches her back in torment as she says more urgently: “
I knew who he was speaking to; I knew the second voice!
It
seemed
I did, at any rate—and it was
him
—our child, Rendulic. But it
cannot
have been; I
know
this, husband, for I know that you saw to his exile; I know that he is no more, that he was taken by the Wood. And so, it must have been … someone else …”

“Calm yourself, my lady,” Rendulic Baster-kin says softly, holding her right hand tighter. “It was but Radelfer, whom I earlier ordered, as I ordered all of the household staff, to speak in whispers, so that you will not be disturbed.”

Nodding her head nervously, wishing to preserve this moment of peace and affection, Chen-lun responds, “Yes, husband. No doubt it was just as you say. Would that you could always command my mind to be so still …”

“But you
do
grow still, now,” Rendulic says, as soothingly as he can manage. “Raban’s medicines make you so—you must allow them to do their work.”

“Yet I would not have it so, Rendulic—I would remain awake, to be with you, to
lie
with you, to be the wife I once was—”

“We are none of us what we once were,” Rendulic answers with a small smile, putting a hand to her brow and using his fingers to comb the long, moist strands of her black hair back on her head—and pretending, for the moment, that he cannot see that the ulcerations in the skin of the neck, as well as the lumps beneath the surface of the chest, are daily growing larger.

Wiping at drops of sweat that have appeared on her brow without being aware of the movement, Chen-lun answers, “The night is so warm—
all
nights seem so warm, this year; yet not so warm as the nights we passed in this bedchamber, when first we were betrothed.”

“Indeed, wife,” Baster-kin says, moving to get to his feet. “And if you are a calm and obedient patient, that warmth may someday fill this chamber once more …”

Chen-lun looks suddenly alarmed at the thought of Rendulic’s leaving. “You return to your duties, my lord?”

“I do,” Rendulic replies, now standing and releasing her hand. “With the greatest reluctance … But you must have peace, my lady; and the enemies of this kingdom never cease to plot against us.”

Chen-lun’s countenance grows a bit more pleased. “They say you have dispatched an army against the Bane, at last?”