Truths and Consequences
Lady Rosalina Escobar shook her head. “Brought from another world – Celts – our former countrymen.” She shook her head. “I do not disbelieve, but it is much to believe.”
Osvaldo left the fire and sat with a chair backwards as Chen was doing, leaning his arms on the back. “This means changes.” He took the cool glass of wine Austin handed him, and sipped. “I have a question, Lard Rigel.” He gave Rigel’s name the Spanish pronunciation, “Ree-hkel”. “This task of yours, to slay all the Foe. How can you know when it is done?”
Rigel shrugged. “I haven’t figured that out.”
A figure sitting in the corner, reading scroll after scroll, stirred. “The Druids will know”, Hedraing asserted. “We cannot do so yet, but we shall.”
Rigel looked at him with interest. Anaph’s first disciple, if he could be called that, was growing by leaps and bounds into a confident, capable, talented, visionary individual. “I’ll take your word for it”, he stated. “Lady Rosalina, Anaph Druid, the High Druid, can sense living things from many kilometers away. If Hedraing says they can learn to tell if any Foe live anywhere in the world, I believe him.” The last he directed to Osvaldo.
The Heir Prince, become Heir, nodded. “As you say. Mother, Lard Rigel” – Rigel had given up being irritated with his younger companions for introducing that pronunciation to the Escobars. He smiled at the recollection....
“Why do you keep saying ‘lard’?” he’d demanded, exasperated.
“It’s funny”, Oran replied with a grin.
“That’s how that guy from the Springs said it”, Austin answered. “C’mon, at least we’re not saying ‘Ree-HELL’ any more.”
Rigel had conceded the point; he didn’t see how it could hurt anything – but he didn’t think there was anything resembling lard on him, not since the first trek from their landing spot.
“– has opened the world. He visits Celts and Quistadors” – that term had provoked laughter; the Escobars still used the full Spanish word – “and now us. In only a short time, Quistadors will know we are here. And I would rather they did not think to make us their vassals.”
“How could they make you their vassals?” Rita asked. “There’s a lot between you and them – like us and the Celts.”
“That is so. Even so, I would deter them from even thinking it.”
“Oz, what’s in your head?” Miguel asked.
“A higher rank. I rule – I will rule – seven great lords of cities and seven great lords of estates. I rule a company of lesser lords and caballeros and hidalgos. A full twenty lesser Houses are nearly vassals. Lady Rita, ought a mere great lord rule so much? or what higher rank would be suitable?”
Rita smiled. “I like the way you think. With all that, you’re at least a baron. But those great lords rule lesser lords, true?”
“Some do”, answered Lady Escobar.
“So they qualify as barons”, Rita stated. “So you have to be higher than a baron. Rigel, stop laughing! You could be a Count, but that would make you equal with the men of that title in Quistador country, and I think you stand higher than they. We’ve decided that an Earl ranks a Count, so you’re at least an earl.”
“Then I shall direct the Council to name me Earl Escobar”, Osvaldo declared. Rita and Lady Rosalina started to talk at the same time; the Lady yielded.
“High nobles were often given designations – not names, really – that were different from their names. Sometimes they were the names of their principle holding; since you rule these hills, you could be ‘Earl Hills’, which would make you ‘Lord Escobar, Earl Hills’. But sometimes the name came from a significant victory or deed they’d done, or occasionally that an ancestor had done.” She paused to let everyone turn the idea over and around a few times. “I have a suggestion, and it uses the last approach: I say you should be designated ‘Lord Escobar, Earl Steadfast’, because your noble ancestor held steadfast to his course, and because you have been steadfast to your father’s vision, not seeking power for yourself, but seeking the good of your House.”
“You use your word”, Lady Rosalina observed. ‘Steadfast’ – what is this in our tongue?”
Rita thought a moment; by now she was so used switching from language to language at need she didn’t really keep them separate. “Firme. Constante. Fiel. Tenaz. Fijo. Obstinante. Resuelto.”
“Earl Fiel”, Lady Escobar said, trying the idea on. “Earl Constante.”
Austin laughed. “Do these hills have a name?”
“We call this Refuge, but that is not truly the name of the hills”, Lady Rosalina mused. “What notion do you have, squire?”
“Name them the ‘Constant Hills’. Then Osvaldo can be ‘Earl Constante’, and it will mean both things at once.”
Rita slowly smiled, and it kept getting broader. “Sometimes you’re brilliant, Austin! I like it!”
Osvaldo nodded, pleased. “Then I shall direct the Council so”, he declared.
“Son, you are not Lord Escobar. You cannot direct the Council!” Lady Rosalina chided.
Osvaldo’s expression was mixed grin, mild malevolence, and determination with a touch of triumph. “You have commanded that messengers go out. In the morning they ride. In three days the lords meet. Come and see what I can do with the Council!” He sat back, his smile confident and determined.
His mother sighed. “He is an oak, this one, when he wishes. We must wait.”
“Tell us your story”, Rigel requested. “How did House Escobar get here? How did you do so well?”
“How did you get a population of over a hundred fifty thousand?” Rita asked eagerly.
Lady Escobar chuckled. “Son, tell them the count in the last census.”
“It was two years ago”, Osvaldo informed them. “The numbers from all the cities, estates, and free country folk totaled two hundred forty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine.”
Rita gasped. To have been so far off....! “But – how do these hills support so many?!”
“They do not”, the Lady of the House answered grimly. “We cut forests which do not regrow. Some lakes no longer have fish. The game is less plentiful by the year. Yet my brother dominated the Council with his cronies, and they would not do what is plainly necessary.”
“Move people out”, Rigel said, nodding. “They’re foolish! Just days from here there’s a lake we stopped at – it could support twenty thousand!”
“There’s another group of hills southeast”, Chen told them, “not as big as this one. But it could take another twenty thousand, if it has a good water source.”
“We’ll do that, too”, Osvaldo asserted with confidence. “Towns at the lake, towns in the hills.”
“I have another solution”, Rigel offered. He figured Rita could guess; everyone else focused on him to hear his proposal. “Those minor Houses – how many would like their own estates? There are abandoned Quistador estates up by the Celts – any House that wanted their own land could come rebuild one. Now wouldn’t be a good time, but first thing in the Spring, they could come up and restore things.”
“For the Quistadors to snap up?” Osvaldo’s eyes flashed. “No!”
Rigel chuckled. “No, I recommend they be vassals of a friend of mine, Antonio de la Vega. He’s independent of the Quistadors. With a few more men and another year, he’ll be able to stay that way permanently.”
Osvaldo relaxed. “Then I will give them your invitation. But... wouldn’t you want any for your vassals?”
Rigel considered that. “I know of a few abandoned castles – ruins, really – near my holding. Sure – I could take some on.”
There was a pause. Rita jumped in. “Tell us about the church here.”
“We don’t have enough priests. That’s changing, though, because my father ordered that priests who remain in one place be allowed to marry.”
“Whoa!” Rigel exclaimed. “The Lord of the House tells the bishops what to do?”
“We don’t have bishops”, Osvaldo explained. “Only priests came for Refuge, and mere priests cannot make a bishop. The priests have ranks, though, and at the head is the First Priest. And the Lord of the House may order the Church when it is for the good of the House and the Church, on a problem the Church has not been able to remedy.”
“I like that”, Rita commented. “It’s not really church-state entanglement”, she explained to Rigel, it’s state guidance.”
“What’s to stop the ruler from just taking over the Church?” Rigel demanded.
“If three-fifths of the priests say nay, the Lord’s order is rejected”, Lady Rosalina answered. “This they accepted because it was in truth for the good of Church and House, and because the first Pope, after all, had a wife.”
“What about the Inquisition?” Austin inquired.
Osvaldo laughed. “None were allowed. One priest came with the first colony, and two more with those seeking Refuge, but no Inquisitors.”
“Lucky you”, Oran noted.
“What’s this ‘first colony’?” asked Rigel.
“Lord Escobar foresaw trouble when lords began breaking their word to remain steadfast” – he used the word with a grin -- “against the Foe. So three years before the war ended, he send nearly four hundred people here to build a village and begin a castle. They were to make a place not just for themselves, but for others who would come.
“The war got critical, then. There was little chance for others to move. Some few did, and some refugees from abandoned or ruined estates came. So there were four hundred and more here when those remaining to the House arrived. That doubled the total. They made the town larger. In a quarter century, the numbers had doubled again another, and a third time. After five more generations, we are almost a quarter million.”
Rita shook her head. “That’s an amazing doubling time! How many children were mothers having?! With stillborns and childhood diseases, I’–“
“There are no stillborns, nor childhood diseases”, Lady Rosalina asserted.
“That’s not possible!” Rita blurted.
The Lady smiled. “Once, that was true. But among the Refuge-seekers was a daughter of House d’Aragon. She had seven daughters, and no stillborns, and no children died of disease. Each daughter had six or seven daughters, with no stillborns, and none with childhood disease. Every daughter of that line was the same. Now, there are few women at all not descended from that first mother. So every pregnancy gives a child, and every child is healthy.”
“A mutation”, Lumina concluded. “Were these mothers having twelve to fourteen children, then?”
“No.” Osvaldo looked unhappy. “Two or three girls are born for every boy. Thus every man who can support one has a mistress, and many have second wives.”
“What happens when the wives don’t get along?” Austin asked.
“That is very rare. You see”, Lady Rosalina explained, “a second wife is not chosen by the man, but by the first wife. A mistress must be approved by the first wife. Should a man be greatly wealthy, he might take a third wife, but she would be chosen by the first two.”
“Good system!” Rita said in approval. “Women are more than just property!”
Rosalina chuckled. “Women who know themselves are always more than property, Lady Rita.” She glanced sideways at Osvaldo, then shrugged; he knew the world’s realities. “If nothing else, we have an infinite supply of something men – most men”, she corrected, with a smile at Miguel – “crave, most of them desperately.”
Oran actually blushed at such blunt talk. Chen blushed slightly but grinned; it was undeniable truth. Rigel nodded; prostitution was called the oldest occupation, but he wondered if perhaps the first coin it was paid in was power. Austin laughed gaily; as he’d told friends, he could have fun with girls, but he’d rather have boys. He caught Miguel looking him over; in response he touched the tip of his nose with his tongue. Miguel looked away quickly, shifting in his seat. Rita caught the byplay and wondered just how many would be in Austin’s bed that night.
Lumina responded almost clinically. “We should talk about the ways a woman can control her own body”, she told Lady Escobar. “Control brings control.” The two smiled at each other in mutual understanding. Rita raised an eyebrow, Lady Rosalina nodded. The men looked baffled; to the women it had been a request and the granting thereof.
Rigel pulled the conversation back to other realities. “Lady and Heir – especially you, Osvaldo – I just remembered something that’s probably important to you. If my friend Lord Ryan is right, you have as many people here as all the Quistadors in the north, together. Even if they wanted to, there’s no way they could make you into vassals.” He shook his head slightly. “It would be interesting to watch if they tried – though they’d have to get past me, first, and that could be more than just tough.”
Osvaldo frowned. “We started with only five hundred, they with many thousands. How is it we are more?”
Rita turned it into a lesson. “Think about it – list as many things as you can think of that might be part of it.”
The young Heir pondered for a while. “Their children still die in childbirth and as infants. That would be a difference of... one in four? They are farther north, where food is harder to grow” – Rita wasn’t sure about that; north when inland could mean hot growing seasons, but she let it go – “and winter is harsher. They still have the Inquisition, which kills people, and dead people have no more children.” He frowned. “Do they still fight the Foe?”
That caught them all off guard. “I don’t think so”, Rigel answered. “Don Ramón seemed uncertain the Foe still live. How would he wonder about it if anyone still fought them?”
“They have that as an advantage”, Osvaldo stated. He was taken aback by the looks of shock and those exchanged between his guests.
“You fight them?!” Austin blurted out the obvious question.
“Not often.” Osvaldo shrugged. “The groups we see are small. If we can slay them without being discovered, we do. They haven’t ever bothered us here.”
“Scouts”, Chen guessed. “They’re looking at the area. Maybe they want to build new nests, or whatever they have. When parties don’t go back, it probably discourages them.”
“I’m suddenly very glad Tanner brought so many men”, Rigel said. “When we go exploring south, it will be nice to have all that firepower.”
“I’m going with you”, Osvaldo declared. His mother gasped.
“I knew it!” Miguel exclaimed. “I already have our things packed. I’ll get you some good armor.”
Lady Escobar’s eyes narrowed. She looked like some sort of raptor ready to strike. “And just how do you have access to armor?” she demanded.
Miguel reached inside his tunic and pulled out an old, tiny roll of leather. He undid the knot that secured it and handed it over to her. She read through it, then again out loud.
“Know that the armor which Miguel Bolivar, son of Manuel Bolivar wears, he wears this armor by my permission and command.” She looked up. “It is signed by my husband.” Her eyes could have skewered Miguel where he sat.
“Lady, he set me to protect Osvaldo. I did anyway, but he made it a duty.” Miguel gazed at the fire briefly, remembering. “He learned how well I fought, even as a child. He taught me everything he taught Osvaldo, all he knew. He sent me for lessons with Sir Aladan and with Sir Excelsior. He gave whatever weapons I wanted – bow, crossbow, sling, dart-thrower, knives, daggers. When I thought up a new weapon, he had a smith make it for me – a narrow tube which blows tiny darts.”
Rita laughed. “You invented the blowgun – that’s a stealthy one! And you have all these weapons?”
“Here and there. He showed me the secret ways of the castle, and some in town. I learned the others in the town, also.”
Osvaldo started in surprise. “The passages in the town belong to the thieves!”
Miguel nodded with a grin and shrug. “I became a thief. I’m in the Guild.” He sobered. “I suppose I’m rich. I trained with F– with the best. He said I was almost as good as he was. For my final test, I stole from... a certain Council lord, one of your father’s enemies, cousin. That was fun, so I stole from all his enemies.” He shrugged again. “But I can’t do anything with it; it will all be recognized.”
Lady Escobar was laughing behind her hand. “You made them furious! Francisco always said we had an ally in the shadows.” She looked at Miguel with affection and new respect. “I see it was no wonder you could always find Osvaldo when none else could, and why no ‘accidents’ befell him.”
Miguel nodded. “Only once did things come to an edge. Osvaldo, remember the floor at the... the floor that fell in? You were badly hurt.”
“And you got me home. The day after we found out the place had burned.”
Lady Rosalina’s memory was sharp. “Osvaldo Rudolfo Beltrán Escobar, what were you doing in the Inn of the Hound in Heat at age twelve?!”
Her son didn’t even flinch, just faced her directly. “Getting an education. I discovered that innkeepers water their wine but claim it isn’t diluted, and I learned that a girl who spreads her legs for many men learns many things.” He looked at Miguel and grinned in a way that was very much likes Oran’s impudent grin. “We still have friends there.”
Rigel cleared his throat. “What about the floor that gave way?”
Miguel nodded and resumed. “A certain lord’s man was thrown out for abusing a girl. He complained to his lord. He also sold the information that Osvaldo went there sometimes. The lord hired some who will do most anything for silver. They weakened that floor, but set it so it would seem strong until they removed a certain block. After that, one was always there watching for Osvaldo. When we went that time, the block was pulled, and the fire set.”
“You learned all this so you were ready to help?” Oran asked.
Miguel laughed. “No, I learned all that afterward, while I tortured the lord who had nearly killed my cousin. Then I poisoned him, with one that makes convulsions. When those began, I threw him in his armory. His fit knocked down enough blades no one noticed the torture.” He looked at Osvaldo. “Cousin, I have killed more than one lord to keep you safe.”
Osvaldo was gazing at his cousin in awe. “Why didn’t you poison all of father’s enemies?!”
The expression was a grimace this time. “I was nearly caught once. And the Guild told me that I could kill for vengeance or justice, but not for politics. Also, the lords learned; it became harder to break in, harder to get free.” The Heir’s protector chuckled grimly. “I found other ways to strike at them. Every time there was an attempt on you, cousin, I punished the one responsible. If I didn’t know who it was, I punished everyone I suspected.”
Lady Rosalina had already held up her hand to forestall anyone else responding. “Just how often did you ‘punish’ someone, Miguel Bolivar?”
He thought back. “No less than three times each year, no more than eight. Seven times this year – Tio Tirano was getting desperate. All, thirty-three.
“But I was not alone in giving protection, Lady. The Guild liked Osvaldo, and despised many of your Lord’s enemies. Half my warnings came from them. Half the plots were stopped by them. Four plots were stopped by the Guard. Two plots were stopped by friends of your Lord. But it was I who punished.”
His face grew hard. “I have strangled men, crippled men, burned a house, stolen messages, given messages to the wrong person, stolen gold, sunk a boat, plugged a chimney, stolen and left evidence for the Watch to hang a man who needed hanged, and more.”
“I think you should be knighted”, Chen commented. “You’ve been like a private army, defending the true Escobar heritage.”
“I must defend it more. Osvaldo is not yet eighteen, and even then he will not be safe.” He went on one knee to Rigel. “I beg of you, foreign lord and explorer, take us with you. While Osvaldo and I are with you, no lord here can reach him.”
Understanding came to Lady Rosalina. “I give permission, my son. I am too accustomed to thinking of your wanderings to see your intent.”
Miguel laughed. “His wanderings were why your Lord made me swear never to reveal the secret passages until my cousin was confirmed.” Rosalina laughed with him. “My Lord was wise. It was task enough keeping up with him; secret passages would have been too much!”
“They would have gotten you killed, cousin”, Miguel said to Osvaldo’s look of anger and indignation. “You would have snuck out without me, and that I could not allow. The oath was for your protection.” Osvaldo subsided, not happy, but thoughtful. But now he changed the subject.
“Lard Rigel, how many abandoned estates do you know?”
Rigel delegated. “Chen?”
“Nineteen reported before we left. The volunteer scouts were checking out six suspected spots. I’d say twenty-five by now.”
Osvaldo nodded. Rigel could tell he was thinking furiously. No question, though, could pry anything out of him.
“It’s late”, Rita announced some time later, when the conversation had drifted into personal stories and trading of whoppers. “I call adjournment.” The sentiment was shared, and led to voting with feet.
Lord Jimenez, de facto baron and closest confidante of the late and hardly lamented Regent Heir, called the Council to order. They spent two hours discussing roads, a bridge, a causeway, disputed border lines – one led to a duel to settle the matter – and several arranged marriages. Rigel fell into a trance Lumina helped him with, his body looking alert and attentive while in reality he dozed, but would snap fully awake the instant anything became relevant to him and/or his expedition. He could have actually slept; nothing was relevant in the least.
“The block of uncommitted is larger than I dared hope!” Lady Rosalina exulted when they broke for half an hour – an Escobar hour, which didn’t match a Ryan-determined hour.
Miguel nodded agreement. “And eleven lords have abandoned Jimenez. Two more have shown support for Osvaldo.”
Rigel stared at them with a puzzled frown. “Have you been getting messages?”
Rita laughed. “Rigel, if you hadn’t needed that rest, I could have given you a real education! Most of that discussion and maneuvering
was messages! Remember the bridge? No one really cared, except the five lords who would actually benefit. The arguments and voting were to let others know where the arguers and voters stood. And the dispute over which side of the small lake that one new road should go on? Same thing.”
Lady Escobar took a turn at laughing. “You understand us well, after such a short time, Lady Rita.”
“That’s why she’s a Wise Woman”, Chen informed her. “And you see Rigel would be doomed without her.” Rigel opened his mouth to object, but decided Chen was probably right.
“So is there more maneuvering?” Rigel asked.
Everyone looked to Lady Escobar. “Only a little. Right now, lords on both sides are trying to bribe those who are not committed. There will be a few votes to find out if the bribes were really effective. That will last... half an hour. Then it will be real business.”
“But not
the business”, Miguel noted. “Osvaldo might be asked to speak, and he could persuade a few if he does well. Then they’ll deal with some real issues – like what to do with Tio Tirano’s estate, since he has no heirs.” He looked blandly back at the surprised faces. “Didn’t you know? His remaining nephew suffered an accident last eve; he’s alive, but will never be able to walk and hardly able to speak again, and his three nieces suddenly vanished. His barren wife entered the convent, too. Amazing, isn’t it?” Everyone knew better than to ask about Miguel’s part in it all.
“The estates of traitors go to the House”, Osvaldo declared. “That will be the conclusion of the Council.”
“The Council isn’t interested in justice, my son, only power”, Lady Rosalina reminded him sadly.
“But I am”, he declared. “I am.” His eyes burned: he had something planned.
“So I ask Osvaldo Escobar, contender for the seat as Heir, if he would provide us a few comments.” Lord... Rigel gave up trying to remember the name; the man was old, bland, totally non-committed and neutral, and so made the perfect moderator.
The door for such entrances swung open. There were gasps, oaths, and objections. Osvaldo, dressed in a perfect copy of his father’s uniform, ignored them and strode to the center of the hall’s platform with confidence and purpose. The tumult died as he stopped and merely waited. Rigel almost laughed out loud; the tactic was one Ryan excelled at, and Osvaldo seemed to have the same gift. The boy stood unmoving and unmoved for over five minutes, looking for all the world like a general surveying a group of lowly soldiers whom he expected to bend to his will. The impact of that imperturbable figure finally brought the order that calls would never have done. In the meantime, Miguel and two tenientes quietly doubled the number of House Guards. Only as he watched that did Rigel realize he hadn’t seen a Guardian all day.
When the quiet began to bring nervousness and Osvaldo noticed someone glance at the increased Guard, he took a step forward and snapped his heels together. It was perfect theater and got everyone’s immediate attention. The Heir presumptive stepped sideways with his left foot and clasped his hands together behind his back, a sort of parade rest, or the stance a highly superior officer might take before a body of troops, Chen remarked. Clearly, Osvaldo wasn’t here to persuade.
“My lords and ladies”, he began. “We have recently survived a crisis following the arrival of visitors from outside, our first visitors since the beginning of the Refuge. They have come far, seeking us. There have been rumors – but first let me introduce these visitors.” In spite of the fact that they’d been introduced only thirty minutes before, he went down the list again. “There is another”, he continued at the end, “Lord Rigel’s captain of riflemen, who is drilling his troops and could not attend.”
Rita shook her head in admiration. The whole point of that beginning was to get in the reference to riflemen, for people who had in fact lost the art of making firearms at all. It had the intended effect: the manner of the introductions had told the assembly, “These are my friends”, and the last reference had served to say that they were powerful friends.
Maybe this is a speech of persuasion after all, Rita speculated. That must have just brought over a bunch of uncommitted. That it had brought a few was plain: three lords excused themselves, and when they returned they took new seats, quite near one or another steadfast ally of House Escobar.
“I have recommendations for this Council, on which I am certain you will act positively.”
You didn’t gain that much, kid! Rita thought. The appearance of concern on Osvaldo’s mother’s face indicated she felt the same way. “First: there is a lake several days west of here. House Escobar will put a town there. I propose to call it Francisco, in honor of my father.
“Lands will be given there to House Aguilar.”
A lord jumped to his feet; Osvaldo recognized him as one of his father’s most determined enemies. “It is not for you to propose to the Council! This issue has been discussed!”
“Discussed by cowards!” Osvaldo declared, shifting forward. “Discussed by those too busy congratulating themselves on how important they are to pay attention to the future! We are destroying our forests, on which we depend for housing, fuel, paper! We have ruined lakes, which used to feed us! There is no more land for orchards or fields! We are dying, only we have not noticed it yet! Now sit”, he barked, just like commanding a dog, “and listen.
“All of House Aguilar will move there. Nor will they be the only Houses moving. Lord Rigel tells me of abandoned estates, large holdings which were once prosperous and rich, near his lands. Lords Ramos, Perez, Garcia, and de Cadiz, will move to four of those estates. House Escobar will provide aid, as will Earl Rigel. You shall be vassals of Earl Rigel, since none of you seem to like me, and were happy to see my father die.”
“He risks too much!” Lady Rosalina whispered to Miguel. “How will you protect him now?!”
“Lords Flores, Ortiz, Hererra, and Romero. Here you are lesser Houses. You shall go to estates neighboring theirs, and be lesser only to Earl Rigel and his vassal, Baron de la Vega.” These lords cheered. They hadn’t looked surprised, though; Osvaldo had done his preparation.
“Some of you are now thinking of killing me. Some of you have tried before. I have an announcement: I have considered that the Heir to House Escobar needs in these times to know more of the world beyond our few hills. I will therefore be traveling with Earl Rigel as he explores, and see what else is in this world. He found the Celts, our old neighbors, in their tens upon tens of thousands, and a good friend of his leads them. He has found our former countrymen, who now call themselves ‘Quistadors”. I have confidence he will find others.” He scanned the faces below him. “We must find them before they find us.”
“What makes you think we will pack up and move for you? You aren’t the Heir!”
Osvaldo smiled grimly. “You will move your immediate households before I return – or you will
be moved. When I return, I will be Heir, by our law and tradition. You are voting today to choose a regent for me, until then. I place into consideration Lords Tomas Ramirez, Valiente Rodriquez, and Augusto Ortega. The law requires three names to choose among; there are the three. The law says once there are three, a–“
“I call the vote!” a lord yelled. Osvaldo looked startled. Lady Rosalina wasn’t; she’d expected something and had been reviewing everything that could be done to derail her son.
“I call discussion!” she cried, standing. “Lest anyone say I am a woman, I point to the tradition: as I am the Regent by blood, until another is chosen, I am a man for the purposes of this Council!”
Eyes turned to their bland moderator. The moderator turned to a companion, his wife, whose hobby was the laws and traditions. She closed her eyes and recited once, twice, three times, with questions between from her husband. Lord Lopez turned back to the assembly and cleared his throat. “The head of House Escobar is correct. However, a vote cannot be taken at this moment. There is a matter with precedence.”
“What has precedence?!”
The moderator cleared his throat again. “The late Regent has been accused of treason. Those who made this charge have petitioned that the matter be settled before any vote on a new Regent. As treason takes precedence over a Regency....” He turned to face Osvaldo. “Pardon me, speaker, but this assembly is now a Court, and the matter of treason shall be examined.”
“You know what this ‘trial’ is going to be, don’t you?” Rita asked Rigel. Lord Lopez had granted a recess of two hours for anyone who wished to speak to prepare. They sat in the cool basement of a tea shop. Once again Rigel wished that Druids could conjure ice; he liked hot tea, loved ice tea... and abhorred merely cool or warm tea.
“They’ll vote according to where they’ll stand on the Regent thing.”
She nodded. “Most will, anyway. Some will vote according to what they find to be just, which will skew the results. But it will give a ballpark figure for the election.”
“I liked elections back home”, he said glumly.
Rita cracked up. “Rigel, this is
just like elections back home! Most campaign promises are offered bribes, endorsements are bought and sold, the bankers and corporations do with the Cabinet just what Osvaldo did here – they hand the new President a list and say ‘Pick from these’.
“BTW, did you catch the mistake that lord made? the one who called for the vote?”
Rigel thought, and then thought some more. “He called too soon?” he guessed.
Rita rolled her eyes. “You’re guessing. No, by calling the vote, he accepted the three Osvaldo named as the candidates – the only candidates. Then our moderator showed whose side he’s on: when he stated that the Council is now a Court, he ended nominations. The Council has to pick from the three Osvaldo named.”
“What else could he have done?” Rigel was lost; he’d never understood parliamentary procedure maneuvers, either.
“Suspended the matter – what’s called ‘tabling’ it back home. That would have left nominations open, if anyone had wanted to call for it.”
“Lady Rita is mainly correct”, Lady Rosalina affirmed when she joined them and Rita explained her conclusions. “But Lord Lopez cares nothing about Osvaldo. His concern is tradition, and tradition says the son of the last Heir becomes Heir. I think it’s only been done differently once – Lady Lopez would know. That was a son who’d had a riding accident shortly before his confirmation. His injuries left him unable to use his limbs or even control his mouth. It took him a fifth of a minute to say ‘House Escobar’.
“Arguably – here also, Lady Lopez would know – a Prince Heir can choose his Regent. That may also be why Lord Lopez closed the placing – the nominations, as you say.” She shook her head. “But this trial – what is the evidence?”
Miguel had slipped in while she talked with a companion. Now he stepped up, not alone. “I have some”, he declared. “But he has more.”
Miguel’s guest had haunted eyes. Lady Escobar recognized him, but kept silent; he was the son of one of the five most powerful lords in Refuge, already over forty years old, hoping his father would die. He’d lost his Lady in their third year of marriage to a boating accident Lady Escobar found suspicious, leaving an infant daughter. He’d remarried in his mid twenties, and lost that wife as well. He’d married again almost immediately, and the two were famous for the madness of their love. But his eyes betrayed far more than a lifetime of tragedy.
“It’s not father”, he said hoarsely. “It’s mother.” He dropped a stack of documents in Lady Escobar’s lap. “She’s sleeping with a quarter of the Council, using what she learns against others. She had Olinda killed....” That was his first wife. “She’s been behind three attempts on you, Osvaldo – two of them with your uncle. She knew of four others by your uncle – it’s all here.” He stared into Osvaldo’s eyes.
“I used to hate you. I was raised to hate you. Mother had me convinced I could be the Heir. But Olinda showed me just how far down I really am. It was all delusion. She lived in a dream world.”
“You talk as if she’s dead”, Rita said gently.
His head came back up. “No. But I handed her over to the House Guard. They have copies of this. They’ll hang her, won’t they?”
Osvaldo shook his head. “She’s noble – that means the blade.”
“She wasn’t born noble”, Lady Rosalina informed him. “She loses her titles once condemned. That makes her common, so she hangs.”
“That’s foolish! She did her treachery as a noble, she should die as a noble!” Osvaldo protested, fire in his eyes.
“It’s the law”, his mother said with a sigh. “You can’t change the law.”
Osvaldo stared at her, then suddenly went and whispered to Miguel. The latter got a look of mischief on his face and departed.
“What are those two plotting?” their visitor asked quietly. Osvaldo glanced at him; a hint of a smile showed through.
The trial dragged on. Rigel wanted to be on his way, but he was convinced that Osvaldo’s safety lay with him. They made preparations anyway; Tanner drilled the men in a park by the Escobar castle – which it remained, despite the additions and alterations which tried to soften its original function of fortress – as well as drilling the rest of the expedition in responses to various declared threats. The precision riding of the fighters impressed everyone who watched; for that matter, the mere presence of warhorses did that, because the Refuge had lost theirs; the only horse stock they had were heavy draft horses.
“Lard Rigel?” Osvaldo whispered as one lord droned on in a defense of the late Regent’s character. Even the lords allied formerly with the dead man knew it was almost all lies; they were as bored as the rest.
“Yo”, Rigel answered absently. He was trying to decide when winter would hit, and what that meant for his expedition.
“Would you trade war horses for some of our work horses?” the Prince Heir queried.
“Hadn’t thought of that”, Rigel admitted. “Your horses can pull a lot – they could be useful. I could probably be convinced.”
Osvaldo nodded. “Good. I promised some to some wavering lords.”
Rigel coughed into his fist. “Without asking first? What if I’d said ‘no’?”
“I didn’t think you would. Uh, you wouldn’t leave a few, would you?”
“No way.”
“I didn’t think so. I told them you barely have what you need, so they’d have to wait, probably till spring.” Rigel decided not to respond, wondering if he was really that easy to figure out.
Lord Ortega, chosen as judge, granted Osvaldo a chance to speak during the morning recess on the second day. Forty-two lords had spoken the day before; none presented actual evidence.
“My lords, I have a difficult situation to face. I have learned that a bold individual recently acted to the great benefit of Refuge – yet I dare not reveal a name. Search has been made of tradition and law, and I find that I may award a title, under seal until knowledge of the rank is required. I ask of you to make this proceeding as quick as possible, that I may turn my attention more closely to this other matter.” Osvaldo went back to his place and sat. Lords looked at each other, baffled.
That evening the bombshells came. Miguel had witnesses telling of meetings, irreputable people hired, payments made. None of it was a direct link to treason, but the timing, related to several “accidents” which had befallen both father and son, Heir and Prince Heir, convinced some and brought others to waver. Yet that was just the warm-up: Lord Heir Cristobal de Logroño took the stand.
Lord Valiente Rodriguez did the questioning.
“What evidence do you present, sir?”
“Documents of conspiracy to kill the Heir and the Prince Heir, my lord”, Cristobal replied. His voice was strained; everyone could tell this wasn’t easy for him, and that sparked interest.
“Where did you obtain these documents?”
“In our castle study, from a false bottom of the great desk.”
“Do you know who penned them?”
“Yes, I recognize the hand.” His voice shook, his jaw set.
“What do the documents have to tell us?”
For an answer, Cristobal picked up the oldest document and read. Faces went white. He skipped names of those not accused. Occasionally Rodriguez asked him to re-read a section. When he finished, there was silence; the guilt was evident.
“In whose hand are these?” Lord Rodriguez asked gently, already knowing the answer.
“My mother’s”, Cristobal answered, sounding desolate. In that moment he lost two parents; his mother was convicted as surely as the plotting uncle – and his father sprang to his feet with a cry, “No!” The cry turned to a strangled sound as the elderly lord, sixty-six years of age and ancient in that society, clutched at his chest, then crumpled.
“Father!” Cristobal leapt from the seat and forced his way through the gathered lords. He was fast enough to catch his father’s final words: “I loved her... I didn’t know her.” Tears poured down the man’s cheeks. The elderly lord collapsed in his son’s arms, and moved no more..
Lumina was right behind him. She looked up at Rigel and Rodriguez. “His heart is broken – ruptured. Nothing can be done.” Bystanders looked uncertain; a physician protested. “She cannot know that!”
“She’s a Healer”, Rigel told him. “She can.”
The spreading word over this revelation gave Cristobal the privacy he needed just then.
No one had any further words to say. Lord after lord stood for his turn, silent for half a dozen seconds, then sat.
The condemnation was overwhelming, the vote a lopsided one hundred twenty-eight guilty, forty-seven “with the assembly”, and twenty-two passes which did not return to vote, and so were effectively abstentions.
“What’s ‘with the assembly’?” Austin asked.
Chen chuckled. “It means they’ll go along with whatever the majority says. Right, Lady Escobar?” She merely nodded.
Lord Perez stopped to sneer. “Your evidence was too strong. The vote tells you nothing!”
“You won’t have a vote, once you move”, Austin pointed out, as Rigel had instructed him if any of the four lords ordered to be his vassals put in an appearance.
“Move? At the word of a boy?” The man actually spat on Austin. Rigel was going to stand anyway, but now he got to his feet, his knuckles on the left hand white with the intensity of his grip on the sword of Escobar. He stepped within a hand’s breadth of Lord Perez.
“If you insult one dear to me again, you will not live to see another hour. Is that clear?”
“You bear a stolen blade,
boy.”
“Want to prove that on my body?” Rigel skipped only a heartbeat. “You’ll have to wait – I have an expedition to run.” He leaned forward till his nose nearly touched the other man’s. “Now, you have given insult to the Prince Heir of Escobar. That is his affair. But you were promised to me as a vassal, and vassal you shall be. I have sent a messenger north to tell Lord Ryan in Cavern Castle this. By the time he reaches there, you should have begun moving. If you have not, do not think he cannot know – Druids can speak simple messages to each other over long distances. Then how would you like it if he sent five hundred riflemen to encourage your obedience? Oh – do you know what a cannon is? Like a rifle, only instead of little bits of lead it throws stones as big as your head. Two ought to be able to knock down a wall of your castle in an afternoon. Twelve would be better; the riflemen wouldn’t have to sit there, waiting. They could be in, oh, in half an hour – just to let the dust settle.” Lord Perez’ breathing had become slow and heavy. Rigel stood there pinning the man with his eyes. He found himself hoping Perez would draw, or even touch his sword. He didn’t get that satisfaction: the man backed up, turned, and strode away.
“Rigel one, bad lords, zero”, Oran quipped.
“You made a real enemy”, Miguel told Rigel admiringly.
Rigel wasn’t sure it was admirable, but he didn’t say so. “Let’s get out of here”, he urged. “Before I chop someone’s head off.”
“You don’t have five hundred riflemen!” Austin protested once they were in private. “But you threatened to send them!”
Rita burst into laughter. “No, he didn’t – he didn’t claim to have riflemen, cannon, or even druids. All he did was ask Lord Perez how he would like it if an army like that showed up! Nicely done, Rigel – but you may have to make good on that.”
Lady Rosalina shook her head. “Not with Perez – he won’t take the chance. He values his position and wealth too much to risk it. But when he discovers you have no such force, there will be trouble.”
“Except that Lord Rigel will have a sufficient force to stop trouble”, Hedraing told her. He turned to Rigel. “Lord, how did you know of far-speaking?”
Rigel grinned. “Anaph told me one day. He was frustrated because he knew it could be done, but hadn’t learned to do the things he needed to learn the things he’d have to know to figure out the things required for learning to do it. He has all the knowledge of the old Druids, but he still has to work through it to do it.”
Hedraing nodded. “This I experience now, daily. Yet there is another way, and by it I know that you will have the rifles: two nights now, I have dreamed the same dream, a dream of Master Kalef telling Señor Cortez that the iron mine is open, and Señor Cortez saying that the blast furnace will be ready for the first ore. When a Druid has the same dream two nights in a row, there is no doubt it is from another Druid.”
“Urien’s not a full Druid”, Austin objected, protective of that privileged status for Anaph’s sake.
Hedraing bowed his head to Austin. “True. His pride is too great. Even so, he has mastered this. Iron for rifles will be moving in bars before Lord Perez can pack. Before he can arrive where he is to go, Lord Ryan can have one hundred twenty new riflemen.”
“The Springs was purifying sulfur fast enough to make ammo for all those, too”, Rita pointed out. “Their problem was shipping it!”
“Okay, Osvaldo”, Rigel said, “I’ll trade those horses. Two for three: two war horses for three work horses. Rita, work out how many wagons the Springs will need to get continuous hauling going.”
Osvaldo had been staring out the window. Now he turned. “There’s a place you can get more iron”, he said. “It’s too strong for us to work, but perhaps you can.”
Lady Rosalina perked up. “Osvaldo....” she cautioned.
“No, mother. Lard Rigel is the key to saving this House. He needs metal. He is from another world; it is not forbidden to him. Lard”, he said to Rigel, “There is an ancient city, with structures free of all materials but metal, shining metal which reaches to the sky in great structures. But some have fallen. If you can cut the metal, and forge it....”
Chen laughed. “We can cut it, all right! Rigel?” He and Rigel both had thought of the cutters.
“It’s worth it”, Chen’s lord responded, nodding. “It sounds like some kind of honest-to-Life stainless steel. But do the smiths have fires hot enough?” He didn’t know it, but that question had already been answered, for to the north.
“It’s coal”, Devon confirmed. “Antonio, with this we can double the heat of our fires! I hoped for it, when I decided on blast furnaces for smelting. We’ll get more out of the ore, and I think get metals we couldn’t before.”
“Definitely – if we can find the ore.” Ryan grimaced. “We take one step forward only to find the next step isn’t there. Maybe Anaph has run into something...”
He had, but it wasn’t exactly what Ryan was hoping.
“Master Drûdh, you speak of gifts from this Lord Rigel, your friend. It seems not friendly to me, to be giving nothing to him. I speak not of a price, but his gifts would say ‘friendship’, and we ought say it back.” The head of Clan Walkinshaugh nodded his head firmly, crossed his arms on his chest and looked around at the others in the council hall. When they nodded agreement, he grunted in satisfaction and sat.
Not a single chief had made such an offer before. Anaph knew Rigel didn’t need furs or lumber or meat. Unless there was something special.... He smiled inwardly. It had been mentioned only rarely, but it was something Lord Ryan had wished for fervently. He nodded solemnly. “There is a thing which would please Lord Rigel greatly”, he told the assembled chiefs and elders and war leaders. “Do you know a substance, from the earth, rather gray, often with tiny crystals, that can produce a white metal?” Anaph went on to give more information.
One chief whispered to another. “I must send for a smith”, the second said, to the first and to Anaph. “I know a material, but it is not what you describe. It can produce a white metal, but only in a very hot fire.” Anaph tapped on of his young warriors on the shoulder; the warrior went to the chief, listened, and ran off. He was back in under two minutes, during which the host chief sent for and shared the clan’s local ale, made from the seed kernels of a wild grass mixed with a certain fungus found on what they called simply “red spear trees”.
The smith had come straight from his work, smoke smell and hot iron aroma and all. He listened to Anaph’s description. “I know the material, and the white metal. We use another, dark and shiny, often with pink crystals, some very large. We cannot make the metal itself, but it will mix with copper when the two ores are heated together.”
“It is abundant?”
The smith laughed. “Master Drûdh, if you filled every hut in this village with it, that would hardly be a beginning. Do that for fifty years – that might be a beginning.”
“What do you call it?” Anaph asked.
The smith shrugged. “It is galmat, but not ordinary. Usually it is called ‘pink-crystal galmat’. Have you need of some? We have great piles, already dug, for in the hill it comes upon a seam of gold and pockets of copper.”
Anaph remembered Ryan saying that brass was copper plus zinc, sometimes with a bit of tin or lead or iron. The copper pockets under the galmat explained why the area had an abundance of brass. He knew Ryan would have realized immediately that there was a galmat source nearby, but Druids didn’t think in the same paths. He turned to the Clan chief. “Vinnar, Lord Rigel would be delighted to have such as a gift of friendship. Lord Ryan, the Wizard Lord, would as well. I do not know, I cannot say, what gift he might send in return, but it would be a great gift of thanks.”
“Rifles, perhaps?” the chief asked slyly.
Anaph chuckled. “Always you press, Vinnar. But even a Wizard cannot make rifles without the metals he needs. More, he must first arm his own Lord’s men, and then his, and his allies. But yes – when he has metal, he would be happy to send rifles.”
“Only so we might kill slavers for him”, claimed a chief who held the position that no lord of any stripe did anything except for his own gain.
“Send slaver heads, and see if you get gifts back”, another called.
Anaph tapped his staff, standing on its own, a signal for attention. “Send the slavers, and please him more. He needs workers, and finds it just to teach them what they have done to others.” He looked around the assembly. “I find it just, as well.”
That declaration was enough for the council: if the High Druid found it just, then it was just. “We shall practice the gathering of students for his justice, then”, Vinnar declared, with chuckles at the humor and grunts of affirmation.
Anaph considered calling an end to the council; he was weary, and drawing on the Life around him couldn’t fully fill all his need for energy, nor replace all the reserves he was spending. Nevertheless, he had to go on; they were moving as he hoped. “What else is a concern?” he asked, hoping there wasn’t anything and they could move on to the matter of a king.
An old chief in the back stood. “Roads”, he stated. “If we had the making of roads....”
In the morning the Council of Lords turned to the matter of Lady de Logroño. There was no discussion; the documents convicted her more directly than they had the previously accused. The vote was one hundred eighty guilty, thirteen “with the assembly”, and three effective abstentions.
“All the old family allies”, Lady Rosalina explained. “They know she is guilty, but they will not say so, out of loyalty.”
“Stupid system of justice”, Austin grumbled.
“No, squire”, she responded. “Had it not been a certain conclusion, they would have voted for condemnation. Since there was no doubt, they could show loyalty – which is also compassion for poor Cristobal, who lost both parents in a moment.”
“Lard Rigel, might I borrow Oran as a messenger?” Osvaldo requested.
“Sure – what for?”
Osvaldo pulled out a small document bound with a golden cord and sealed with both his own seal and that of the House. “This is my compassion”, he said softly. “Whatever she was, Cristobal does not deserve seeing his mother hang.”
“He’s not going to watch”, said Lord Ortega. “He declared so to me as judge.”
“Then he will not have to remember her death as a hanging.”
Rigel nodded. “You’re going to make a great lord, Osvaldo.”
“As long as he manages to stay alive”, Miguel commented. Oran took the document and left. Ortega caught at his sleeve and handed him another document. “As for staying alive – Lords Perez and Ramos have bought twenty wagons each, and have begun packing. They will not be here to trouble you on your return, cousin.”
“Good news!” Rita closed her eyes and savored that small victory. “What about the other two? It was... Garcia, and de Cadiz?”
Miguel shrugged. “I don’t know everything. But the Guild is watching the castles.” He flashed a grin. “Not everything brought out will get loaded.”
“Now comes the vote on Regent, my son”, Lady Rosalina said. “How do you think it will go?”
“That’s easy, mother. I talked about it with Lady Rita, to ask if my thoughts were firm. They will choose Lord Ortega. My lord, you were superb as a judge: you held everyone to the laws and traditions, you showed no preference for one lord over another, you were firm and unyielding.”
“That’s the word on the street”, Miguel added. “Even lords who hate you, Lord Ortega, grudgingly agreed you are the best choice. Those do not trust the other two not to seek to disadvantage them. Others merely do not know the other two as well as they now know you. Most are following the lead of Lord Lopez, who made a comment on how well you know the law and how fair you were.” He grinned a huge mischievous grin. “I put silver on you, to get one hundred twenty votes or more.”
Ortega chuckled. “What are the odds?”
“On you winning – no bets are being taken; no one doubts that outcome. But for one-twenty or more, they are seven to one.”
“Is it too late to put a bet on myself?” Ortega asked innocently. The whole group laughed.
Miguel whooped, and laughed hardest of all. “You just won me gold! I bet the only gold I had that you would bet on yourself once I explained all this. How much do you want to wager? Be aware it can’t be too much; sudden large bets would change the odds a great deal. And place it in silver and gold both – in fact, I can have several bets placed, so there is no one amount suddenly appearing. No more will be taken after an hour before the council sits again....” They got an unrequested lesson on the fine art of betting, and hiding how much you were betting.
Lady de Logroño stared at the gallows. Stripped of her titles, stripped of her husband, for whom she had done it all... they’d taken everything from her, and her own son wouldn’t be there. Inside she felt an emptiness so great she wondered why it didn’t suck the Refuge and all who lived there down into nothingness. She wanted that nothingness, having nothing left to cling to.
The priest came and knelt before her. The action almost cheered her; she had seen priests refuse to put themselves on the level of the condemned. She despised that; priests were supposed to offer consolation, and how could that be done from arrogance?
The sign of the Cross brought no comfort. She saw her own actions in a different light now; it had been the news that her own son judged her that brought the change, shattering her proud world and revelaing her dreams for delusions. Her sins alone would have sent the sweet Lord to that instrument of torture and death. She didn’t see the grace it bought, only the pain she had inflicted on Him.
“Sister, would you make confession?” the priest asked. That startled her. She looked at the man more closely: a Franciscan! They were the most gracious of all priests. She would have cried at the compassion his presence spoke, except that the name of his patron saint was the name of a man she had conspired to have killed. She didn’t say anything, because she didn’t have any words for him.
“Sister, the Lord is merciful, even now. Turn to Him!” He was practically begging, and she heard his sincere desire to see her free of the torment that surely awaited her.
What mercy? she thought.
What mercy can there be for me, here, now? Can His hand touch me in my desolation? Turn me to nothingness! Take away this blot on Your Creation!
The priest considered her, and began to pray. “El Señor es mi pastor”, he began. Despite herself, she reflexively joined in the familiar words. –
The Lord is my Shepherd. But they stirred no life, no hope; she was a filthy lamb who ought to be cast–
“Captain! Captain!” a voice cried. That she didn’t know it brought a hint of curiosity; she was familiar with all the guards and men at arms who would be here, and the messengers, too. She stirred enough to turn. It was one of those... Scouts, she remembered, one who had come with the strange foreign lord who’d set all this off, who’d touched the edge of the house of leaves. He handed the Captain of the Portal – a name she’d always thought silly, indicating that he was in charge of sending condemned prisoners to the portal of death – a small scroll, with seals and a golden cord. “It’s from Lord Osvaldo”, the Scout said, panting. “It’s a sealed record, but you have to read it now.”
She couldn’t believe it was actually getting worse. What other crimes – she admitted now that they were crimes – had they uncovered? Was she to be strangled now, or buried alive? The ache she thought dead in nothingness rose up and smashed at the remains of her heart, which she’d though dead as well.
The Captain looked at the seals, checked the knot on the golden cord, nodded, and opened the document, slipping the cord off and popping the seals from the curve of the small scroll, leaving them hanging on the end. He read it, then checked the signature and stamp at the bottom. She wondered what it said when he read the whole thing over again. He stared at it for several seconds.
“Messenger, you are to read the assignation to the prisoner”, he ordered. The Scout actually grinned, an impudent grin she found she liked, and took the document back. The Captain turned and pointed to the gallows. “Bring it down!” he ordered. “Adjutant, is the Blade available?” The adjutant ran to knock on a door, shouted the question to those inside, and returned.
“Not present, sir. Should I seek him?”
“No”, the Captain said after consideration. “No; I have read the words of Lord Escobar, and I find it fitting that I do this myself.”
Her head was spinning; she couldn’t figure out what was happening. She’d thought it was a worse condemnation, but then the boy grinned, and the Captain asked for the Blade.... And here came the boy, the Scout, with the explanation.
He looked at her with sympathy, and even understanding. “Cristobal still wouldn’t come”, he told her, “but he cried and sent his love.” He’d seen the heir to the de Logroño name not far outside the execution yard. “Well, I’d better read it.” He cleared his throat.
“In consideration of exceptional and sacrificial service to the House of Escobar, I, the Heir and future Lord of the House, set upon the recent Lady de Logroño the title of Baroness of the House, and order herewith that she be given all the consideration due her rank.” He rolled the little scroll back up. “There’s a bunch of legal stuff in it, but that’s the important part.”
“Osvaldo did this?! I don’t understand!” she cried.
“Last night he wondered how Cristobal could have found those documents if you hadn’t left them to be found. He concluded your heart must have desired to see the war within the House ended, and traitors punished, so you put the documents where your son could find them and reveal them. You knew it would be your own death, but still you acted.” He grinned. “He wanted to make you a Countess, but Lord Ortega said he couldn’t make a rank higher than his own. Oh! There’s something from Lord Ortega, too.” He fumbled at his tunic. “Here.”
“Lady de Logroño, I have the sad duty to inform you that the council of lords this morning voted to condemn you as guilty. Yet I must report that through an odd oversight, no statement was made of the crime of which you were guilty. This leaves me, as judge, to declare the crime from the evidence. Accordingly, I have determined that the crime of which you are guilty is that of conspiracy to murder.
“There is forgiveness even for murderers, says the Apostle, and so also, I judge, for murderesses. Make your peace with God, and pray your son finds peace for his House and his soul.
“Manuel Augusto Aguila Fidel Reyes-Ortega.”
She wept, her heart of stone shattered under the mercy of a human lord – no, of two. “Padre, I will confess”, she declared. The Scout stood and listened, or maybe just witnessed so he could tell Cristobal of her end. A man-at-arms came over and the Scout intercepted him – then handed him the two documents and pointed outside! He was sending them to Cristobal!
She had a lot to confess. She had ruined many lives, and stolen a boy’s father, and her son’s wife.... As she went on, she began to believe the hymn, “Yet there is forgiveness with You, that You may be worshiped.”
When she was through, the Scout grabbed the priest and wouldn’t let the man go. She didn’t understand, until the priest spoke with the Adjutant, who sent a runner, who returned with bread and wine. But there was no altar. The priest had his own ideas, though; quite grotesquely yet appropriately fitting to the situation: he made the headsman’s block into his altar. He knelt behind it, making himself on the proper level with it. Lady de Logroño recalled that the Franciscans looked on the altar as also a table, and celebrated from the other side, looking at the people.
As others grasped what was going on, they began to come kneel behind her. The Scout knelt beside her, the Captain to her left, company for her final Eucharist. She held in confused tears as the priest began to speak.
“This is no formal church, no sanctified place.” He paused and looked around at everything in the courtyard. “Nor was the Upper Room in which our Lord shared this great blessing of His continued presence with the chosen few.” He tapped the block, covered with dried blood. “This is no altar, set aside by prayer and anointing.” He looked right at her and smiled. “Nor was the Cross on which He first offered this Sacrifice. Indeed, that He has brought us here is truly fitting: here we are in a place of criminals, and it was a place of criminals in which he died. He we are in a place of death, and it was in a place of death that He died. Here we are in a place where the despised are found – and He was also despised. Here we are in a place covered in blood – and He died that we might be covered in His blood.” He looked around at them all, then regarded the headsman’s block turned altar.
“A normal man dies, his blood runs out, and there is no more.” He patted the side of the block. “Here is blood, and this is its end; it has no future.” Looking at them, especially at her, he went on. “Yet the Blood of Our Lord, though He died, remains living blood. It comes to us hidden under wine. It is the blood of sacrifice, and so now in this place we partake of that same sacrifice. For there was one sacrifice, so if we partake, it is the same sacrifice; we offer no sacrifice, but the sacrifice is offered to us.”
“So. Let us declare together our faith: I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty....” Beside her, the young Scout stumbled at some of the words.
He knows it differently, Lady de Logroño thought,
but he knows it. They are not infidels or barbarians, these strangers!
The Creed ended; the Franciscan went straight to the meat: “On the night in which He was betrayed....”
The Captain, himself the son of a noble house, however minor, used his own sword. Lady de Logroño bent herself over the block-altar, her eyes on the piece of bread the priest had left there for her consolation. The blow was swift. For a moment she saw the world rolling, then
The numbers man counted out the coins with a sour expression. Miguel just let them stack up. Even though the odds had dropped to one in six, few had really believed the vote would be so off-balance. He went away whistling; he’d bet with more than one outfit.
He found it amusing that in another few days he’d be somewhere where coin would be useless.
On his return to the Escobar castle, a boy from the Guild was waiting for him. He listened to the news, gave the boy one of his new silver pieces, and went to find Earl Rigel.
“There’s news”, he said the moment he found his quarry. “Lord Garcia is dead, by his own hand. His heir declared he will not consider moving until after the funeral.”
Rigel shook his head, eyes closed. That was one way to be rid of an enemy, but he so hated it when people took their own lives. “I’ll pass that on to Osvaldo”, he said. “Or you can wait for him.”
“I’ll wait.”
The young Guild member who looked a great deal like Osvaldo snuggled down into probably the best bed he’d ever be in. It was fun to pretend to be the Prince Heir, and get treated like it, even if he was there because someone was going to try to kill the Prince Heir. He wasn’t exactly defenseless, after all, and friends were close by, too. A little wiggle checked the positions of his daggers against his body. He was naked, the way the Prince Heir slept, just in case he had to get up and that was when the assassin – or assassins – struck.
The man three lords had hired was very, very good. Two guards lay unconscious – he killed only those he was paid to, unless it was a matter of his own survival. The window had been difficult, but he’d defeated it, patience his greatest weapon. His clothes had been made to blend into the stones of the castle outside this room, and they worked; fourteen people had passed by below without noticing him.
He watched the Prince Heir. The young man had rolled over a bit ago, a third of an hour after using the pot. Every indication said the target was asleep, but the assassin hadn’t stayed alive and gotten so skilled by relying on first conclusions. He waited.
After another half hour, he was satisfied. He took almost five minutes to clear his path through the window, and two to get into the room. But only three seconds sufficed to take him to the bed and slip a poisoned skewer-turned-weapon into the sleeping boy’s kidney. A fifth of an hour, and he’d be dead, despite what anyone roused by his screams could do. The boy came up with a dagger, but his reflexes were already slowed; the assassin batted the weapon from a trembling hand disdainfully.
When he turned, someone was in the way. He raised his skewer, even though the poison was almost all in the Prince Heir. Something hard struck his wrist; he felt things break, and lost the skewer. Then a hand from behind pressed a cloth over his face. The one in front of him punched him in the gut; reflexively he sucked in breath after the air had been forced out of him.
“Poisoned”, Lumina reported, having appeared from out of a trunk from which they’d removed the bottom. “Damn – where’s Hedraing?”
“Here”, the Druid replied, finishing his roll from under the bed and sitting. His hands landed on the thief’s rear end. It was as good a place as any; he extended his senses. “Common one”, he said. “Quickly, though – lensilla, quilnus, withnaigh, glamofrodh. Two, three, five, eight.” Lumina repeated the information under her breath, realizing which poisons it might be from the antidote. It wasn’t exactly an antidote, she corrected herself, but a palliative, to mitigate the effects. She didn’t look as Hedraing bent his lips to the boy’s back and sucked, once, twice, thrice... seven times from the wound. Then he took a spoonful of raw salt and a tiny sip of wine. The salt would mostly neutralize the poison; more importantly, it would draw it out of the flesh. The wound was deep, so they couldn’t use salt on that; their approach was to calm the heart to slow the spread, fight the death of the cells the poison was attacking, make the patient sleep so any anxiety wouldn’t speed his heart, and turn much of the poison into... a colloid, that was the word – that would be filtered out by the kidneys without doing damage.
Hedraing shuddered. He should have been able to neutralize the poison in himself, but he was nowhere near mastering that on compounds he hadn’t tried. The salt burned his mouth and tongue, but it had to be endured. Meanwhile, he had trouble paying attention to his patient. He’d done what he could, though, so he tried to concentrate on himself. He reached down with a practiced awareness into his own cells, and watched what the poison did. It was simple, and in fact used simple pieces from his body. He focused on a patch of fat cells – not that he had many – downstream in the blood flow from his mouth, and ordered them to dump certain substances in their content. Those flowed past the poisoned cells. Wherever possible, he made the cells pull them in. He was rewarded with the pieces joining to the poisons in a way that wasn’t damaging to the cells. It left pieces too large to get the cells to eject, but he’d worry about that later. He continued working, practicing.
Someone handed him tea; he gulped it; then broth, and he gulped it. Those didn’t work for him as they did for a Healer, but they certainly helped strength and alertness. Now he turned again and pressed hands – and leaned a weary forehead – against the stand-in for the Prince Heir. He examined the wound, noted the way the poison was going, selected fat cells, and gave his orders. In under half a minute he was exhausted, but he thought he’d gotten maybe a third of the poison neutralized. When he rolled away, Osvaldo himself was there, helping get the thief into a sitting position, holding him while Lumina poured her tea into him and ordered his muscles to swallow. A thought struck the Druid, but he had no strength. He grabbed at the closest person; it was Miguel.
“Protector – sip some of the Healer’s tea. Put your mouth to the wound, and gently push some in. Understand?”
Miguel said, “Yes”. He didn’t understand what the point was, but he understood the instructions.
Not long after, the tea was gone. Hedraing was passed out. Lumina checked things with her senses: there was heavy damage to the wounded area, but the poison wasn’t spreading from there any longer. The bloodstream was cluttered with the big molecules Hedraing had generated; she examined those to see what he’d done. The Healer grimaced; that had neutralized a good deal of poison, but the molecules it had made were going to cause their own problems. A multitude of poison molecules drifted as well, but they weren’t concentrated, which meant they wouldn’t do enough damage anywhere to be significant. Her conclusion: the young thief would live, though he was going to have little pains in his muscles for a week, have a bad headache for days, and be a month letting his kidney repair itself – and that was with her help.
Or with Gavin’s, five weeks. She didn’t like it, but the lad was going to have to stay.
“I won’t tell you a thing”, the assassin told Rigel, two hours after the attack.
“Never met a Druid, have you?” Rigel asked conversationally. “They can be interesting people. You’ll want to do everything you can to make one happy – one way or another.”
At that, the man looked wary. He was prepared for torture, for herbs – but he’d never heard of a Druid.
Hedraing came in, robed and hooded, staff seemingly alive and writhing. He walked over to the attacker. “Look at me”, he ordered. The assassin found he couldn’t resist; his will had disappeared. “Now, remember”, the dark, empty hood he saw commanded. “Remember....”
Even knowing it was coming, the man’s scream made Rigel jump. Hedraing wouldn’t even know what he’d touched, except that it was a memory that terrified the assassin. Most people had them; most were buried and forgotten – and that made them all the more devastating.
They got their answers. At the end, Hedraing noted that the man was slipping into madness. He pondered whether he could stop it, decided that it was possible – but didn’t try; he’d never observed madness, and this was a chance to learn.
Lord Gomez sat up, awakened suddenly from sleep, and turned his lamp up. There was a small pain on his arm that was starting to itch, too. He’d have to tell the servants to clean better; he hated being bitten by vermin.
Scratching didn’t help the itch; in fact it seemed to be spreading the pain. He turned the lamp high and looked closely, and saw a tiny hole in his skin, one that was, to his horror,
growing. Blood began to ooze out as the hole got larger. He grabbed his wine from the bedside stand, and poured it, trying to wash away whatever it was that had bitten him – and he knew something had; he could see the slightest wiggling motion. He squeezed the wound as taught in case of poison and stings, hoping to get whatever it was out of him. Blood streamed down his arm – and he felt tiny little pricks in its path. Pricks became sharp pains, sharp pains led to new little holes.
He lurched to his feet and called for the castle physician. The man had to be roused, then dress, then collect his remedies. It was taking too long. Lord Gomez went to the fireplace in his sitting room and stuck a piece of kindling in the coals. When it had coals itself, he pressed it against the original wound, then the smaller wounds. The physician came in while he was doing the last. “I burned it out”, he told the man. “But look at the blood on my sheet. It moves!”
The physician wasn’t convinced; he might have seen movement, but considered it was probably just the light. Nothing he knew matched the symptoms Lord Gomez described, so he prescribed a general remedy, and something for sleep, then went to consult his scrolls. It was hours before he found a reference he thought might help. His room was too far away to hear the screams.
When he got back to the lord’s apartment, all he found was a mass of tissue and blood on the floor, a skeleton protruding from the mess. He looked close, and sure enough, the surface writhed. He knew better than to touch it, but called for servants. “Burn this room”, he ordered. “Don’t take anything from it. And don’t touch the mess on the floor.”
Two servants weren’t careful to heed him. By morning, he had two more rooms to burn.
“I told you that saving some of the crap from gurvenpig blood would be useful”, Oran told Rigel as they rode, the Prince Heir by his side, between him and Miguel.
“That’s a disgusting way to kill someone”, Rigel told him.
“A terrifying way”, Osvaldo pointed out. “Lords may not be loyal when I return, but they will fear me.” He grinned at Oran. “What did you call my little weapon?”
“A blowgun”, the Scout replied. “Too bad we had to burn it.”
