But he didn’t stop observing. He soon concluded that there were skunks in paradise. The millennium hadn’t arrived.
Three hard men in fighting leathers stood in the shadows behind the dais. He knew them as well as he knew Ragnarson. Haaken Blackfang, Bragi’s foster brother, a bear of a man, a deadly fighter, bigger than his brother. Reskird Kildragon, another relic of the old days, and another grim fighter, who sprang like a wolf when Bragi commanded. And Rolf Preshka, that steel-eyed Iwa Skolovdan whose enmity meant certain death, whose devotion to Bragi’s wife bordered on the morbid, and should have been a danger to her husband—except that Preshka was almost as devoted to him.
And, yes, there were more of the old comrades, in the out-of-the-ways, the shadows and alcoves of balconies and doors. Turran of Ravenkrak, Nepanthe’s brother, white of hair now but none the less deadly. And their brother Valther, impetuous with blade and heart, possessed of a mind as convolute as that of a god. Jarl Ahring. Dahl Haas. Thorn Altenkirk. They were all there, the old, cold ones who had survived, who had been the real heroes of the civil war. And among them were a few new faces, men he knew would be as devoted to their commander—otherwise they would be on the dance floor with the peacocks.
All was not well.
He had known that since climbing to the dais. Two of the occupants of seats of honor were envoys from Hammad al Nakir. From their oldest enemy, El Murid. From that hungry giant of a nation directly south of Kavelin, behind the Kapenrung Mountains. It had taken the combined might of a dozen kingdoms to contain that fanatic religious state in the two-decades-gone, half-forgotten dust-up remembered as the El Murid Wars.
These two had survived that harrowing passage-at-arms, as had Mocker and Bragi and most of those iron-eyed men in the shadows. They remembered. And knew that that argument wasn’t settled.
One, in fact, remembered more than any other guest. More, especially, than this happily self-intoxicated little brown man.
He remembered a distant day when they had last met.
He remembered whom it was who had come out of the north into the Desert of Death, using cheap mummer’s tricks to establish a reputation as a wizard, to strike to the heart the hope of his master, El Murid, the Disciple. The envoy had been a young trooper then, wild, untameable, in the rear echelon of Lord Nassef’s Invincibles. But he remembered.
A fat, young brown man had come to entertain the guardians of El Murid’s family with tales and tricks—and then, one night, had slain a half-dozen sentries and fled with the Disciple’s treasure, his Priceless, the one thing he valued more than the mission given by God.
The fat man had kidnapped El Murid’s virgin daughter.
And she had never been seen again.
It had broken El Murid—at least for the time the infidels needed to turn the tide of desert horsemen sweeping the works of the Evil One from their lands.
And he, Habibullah, who slew like a devil when his enemies came to him face to face—he had lain there, belly opened by a blow struck in darkness, and he had wept. Not for his pain, or for the death he expected, and demanded when the Disciple questioned him, but for the agony and shame he would cause his master.
Now he sat in the palace of the infidel, and was silent, watching with hooded eyes. When no one was listening, he told his companion, “Achmed, God is merciful. God is just. God delivers his enemies into the hands of the Faithful.”
Achmed didn’t know how, but recognized that this embassy to the heathen had borne fruit at last. Unexpected fruit, sweet and juicy, to judge by Habibullah’s reaction.
“This charlatan, this talker,” Habibullah whispered. “We’ll see him again.”
Their exchange passed unnoticed.
All eyes had turned to the shadows behind the dais. Mocker whirled in time for the advent of the Queen, Fiana Melicar Sardyga ip Krief. He hadn’t seen her for years, despite her inexplicable habit of wandering the streets to poll Vorgreberg’s commons. Time hadn’t treated her kindly. Though still in her twenties, she looked old enough to be the blonde’s mother.
It wasn’t that beauty had deserted her. She retained that, though it was a more mature, promising beauty than Mocker remembered. But she looked exhausted. Utterly weary, and buoyed only by wholehearted devotion to her mission as mistress of the nation.
She seemed unexpected.
She came directly to Bragi, and there was that in her eyes, momentarily, which clarified Elana’s bitter remark.
It was a rumor he had heard in the Siluro quarter.
Hardly anyone cared as long as her affairs of the heart didn’t collide with affairs of state.
Mocker studied Rolf Preshka. The man’s pained expression confirmed his surmise.
“Your Majesty,” said Bragi, with such perfected courtliness that Mocker giggled, remembering the man’s manners of old. “An unexpected honor.”
The assembly knelt or bowed according to custom. Even the ambassadors from Hammad al Nakir accorded the lady deep nods. Only Mocker remained straight-necked, meeting her eyes across Bragi’s back.
Amusement drained five years from her face. “So. Now I understand the hubbub. Where did they exhume you?”
“Your Majesty, we found him in the last place anybody would look,” Ragnarson told her. “I should’ve remembered. That’s the first place to go when you’re hunting him. He was here in the city all the time.”
“Welcome back, old friend.” Fiana did one of those things which baffled and awed her nobles and endeared her to her commons. She grabbed Mocker in a big hug, then spun him round to face the gathering. She stood beside him, an arm thrown familiarly across his shoulders.
He glowed. He met Nepanthe’s eyes and she glowed back. Behind the glow he felt her thinking
I told you.
Oh, his stubborn pride, his fear of appearing a beggar before more successful comrades…
He grinned, laid a finger alongside his nose, did to the Queen what he had done to so many of his audience, roasting her good.
The lady laughed as hard as anyone.
Once, when she controlled herself long enough, she rose on tiptoes and whispered to Ragnarson. Bragi nodded. When Mocker finished, Fiana took her place in the seat that, hitherto, had been only symbolic of her presence. She bade the merriment continue.
Winded, Mocker sat cross-legged at Fiana’s feet, joining her and the others there in observing the festivities. Once she whispered, “This’s the best Victory Day we’ve had,” and another time, “I’m considering appointing you my spokesman to the Thing. They could use loosening up.”
Mocker nodded as if the proposition were serious, then amused her by alternately demanding outrageous terms of employment and describing the way he would bully the parliament.
Meanwhile, Bragi abandoned them to dance with his wife and visit with Nepanthe, whom he soon guided to the lurking place of her brothers. She hadn’t seen them in years.
Mocker had a fine sense of the ridiculous. There was funny-ridiculous and pathetic-ridiculous. He, dancing with a wife inches taller, was the latter.
He had an image to maintain.
T
HREE:
S
PRING, 1010 AFE
O
LD
F
RIENDS
It was the day after, and Mocker had remained in Castle Krief. Merriment had abandoned everyone but himself. Business had resumed. Bragi took him to a meeting, he explained, so he would get an idea of what was happening nowadays, of why old friends lay back in shadows wearing fighting leather instead of enjoying a celebration of victories won.
“Self,” Mocker said as they walked to the meeting, “am confessing overwhelming bambazoolment. Have known large friend, lo, many years. More than can count.” He held up his fingers. On those rare occasions when he wasn’t proclaiming himself the world’s foremost authority, he pretended to be its most ignorant child.
Ragnarson hadn’t brought him because he was ignorant or foolish. And Mocker had begun t
o suspect, after the Queen’s entrance last night, that he hadn’t been “exhumed” just because he was one of the old fighters and deserved his moment of glory. Nor even because Bragi wanted to give him a little roundabout charity by introducing him to potential suckers.
Bragi trusted his intuitions, his wisdom. Bragi wanted advice—if not his active participation in some fool scheme.
It was both.
Those the Marshall had gathered in the War Room were the same men Mocker had discovered in last night’s shadows, plus Fiana and the ambassadors of Altea and Tamerice. Their countries were old allies, and the ambassadors Bragi’s friends.
“Mocker,” Ragnarson told him after the doors were locked and guards posted, “I wanted you here because you’re the only other available expert on a matter of critical importance. An expert, that is, whose answers I trust.”
“Then answer damned question.”
“Huh? What question?”
“Started to ask same in hall. Bimbazolment? Fingers?”
“All right. Go ahead.”
“Self, am knowing friend Bear long ages. Have, till last night, never seen same shaven. Explain.”
The non sequitur took Ragnarson off stride. Then he grinned. Of that device Mocker was past master.
“Exactly what you’re thinking. These effete southerners have turned me into a ball-less woman.”
“Okay. On to question about Haroun.”
Ragnarson’s jaw dropped. His aide, Gjerdrum, demanded, “How did you…?”
“Am mighty sorcerer…”
The Queen interrupted, “He gave enough clues, Gjerdrum. Is there anybody else who calls both bin Yousif and the Marshall friend?”
Mocker grinned, winked. Fiana startled him by winking back.
“Too damned smart, this woman,” he mock-whispered to Bragi.
“Damned right. She’s spooky. But let’s stick to the point.”
“Delineate dilemma. Define horns of same.” Mocker’s ears were big. He lived in a neighborhood frequented by exiles who followed El Murid’s nemesis, Haroun bin Yousif, the King Without a Throne. He knew as much of the man’s doings as anyone not privy to his councils. And he knew the man himself, of old. For several years following the El Murid Wars, before he had grown obsessed with restoring Royalist rule to Hammad al Nakir, bin Yousif had adventured with Mocker and Ragnarson. “Old sand rat friend up to no goods again, eh? Is in nature of beast. Catch up little chipmunk. Does same growl and stalk gazelle like lion? Catch up lion. Does same lie down with lamb? With lamb in belly, maybeso. Mutton chops. Mutton chops! Hai! Has been age of earth since same have passed starved lips of impoverished ponderosity, self.”
Bragi prodded Mocker’s belly with a sheathed dagger. “If you’ll spare us the gourmet commentary, I’ll explain.”
“Peace! Am tender of belly, same being…”
Bragi poked him again. “This’s it in a nutshell. For years Haroun raided Hammad al Nakir from camps in the Kapenrungs. From Kavelin and Tamerice, using money and arms from Altea and Itaskia. I’ve always looked the other way when he smuggled recruits down from the northern refugee centers.”
“Uhm. So?”
“Well, he became an embarrassment. Then, suddenly, he seemed to get slow and soft. Stopped pushing. Now he just sits in the hills with his feet up. He throws in a few guys now and then so’s El Murid stays pissed, but don’t do him no real harm.
“And El Murid just gets older and crankier. You saw his ambassadors?”
“Just so. Snakes in grass, or maybe sand, lying in wait with viper fangs ready…”
“They’re out in plain sight this time. They’ve delivered a dozen ultimatums. Either we close Haroun down or they’ll do it for us. They haven’t so far. But they’re on safe ground. Attacking Haroun’s camps would cause a stink, but nobody would go to war to save them. Not if El Murid doesn’t try converting us to the one true faith again. It might even solve a few problems for cities with a lot of refugees. Without Haroun keeping them stirred up, they’d settle down and blend in. Distracting the troublemakers is the main reason Haroun gets help from Raithel.”
Altea’s ambassador nodded. Prince Raithel had died recently, but his policies continued.
“So. Old friend, in newfound, secure circumstance, is asking, should same be safeguarded by selling other old friend down river?”
“No. No. I want to know what he’s up to. Why he hasn’t done anything the past few years. Part I know. He’s studying sorcery. Finishing what he started as a kid. If that’s all, okay. But it’s not his style to lay back in the weeds.
“El Murid is a sword hanging over Kavelin by a thread. Is Haroun going to cut the thread? You know him. What’s he planning?”
Mocker’s gaze drifted to his wife’s brother Valther. Valther was the shadow man of Vorgreberg, rumored to manage Bragi’s cloak and dagger people.
Valther shrugged, said, “That’s all we know. We don’t have anybody in there.”
“Oho! Truth exposes bare naked, ugly fundament before eyes of virginal, foolish self. O Pervert, Truth! Begone!” And to Bragi, perhaps the simplest statement he had ever made: “No.”
“I didn’t make my proposition.”
“Am greatest living necromancer. Am reader of minds. Am knowing blackest secret at heart of hearts of one called friend. Am not one to be used.”
Gjerdrum countered, “But Kavelin needs you!”
An appeal to patriotism? No bolt could have flown wider of its mark. The fat man laughed in Gjerdrum’s face. “What is Kavelin to me? Fool. Look. See self. Am clear blue-eyed Nordmen? Am Wesson?” He glanced at Bragi, shook his head, jerked a thumb at Eanredson.
Bragi knew Mocker. Mocker was terribly upset when he spoke this plainly. Ragnarson also knew how to penetrate the fat man’s distress.
He produced a large gold coin, pretended to examine it in a shaft of light piercing one of the narrow windows. “How’s Ethrian?” he asked. “How’s my godson?” He spun the coin on the polished tabletop inches beyond Mocker’s reach. He produced another, made a similar examination.
The fat man began sweating. He stared at the money the way alcoholics stare at liquor after an enforced abstinence. They were Kaveliner double nobles specially struck for the eastern trade, beautiful pieces with the twin-headed eagle and Fiana’s profile in high, frosted relief. They weren’t intended for normal commerce, but for transfers between commercial accounts in the big mercantile banks in Vorgreberg. The gold in one piece represented more than a laborer could earn in a year.
Mocker had seen hard times. He did mental sums, calculating temptation’s value in silver. The things he could do for Ethrian and Nepanthe…
Ragnarson deposited the second coin atop the first, dropping his eye to table level while aligning their rims. He produced another.
Mocker changed subtly. Bragi sensed it. He stacked the third coin, folded his arms.
“Woe!” Mocker cried suddenly, startling the group. “Am poor old fat cretin of pusillaminity world-renowned, weak of head and muscle. Self, ask nothings. Only to be left alone, to live out few remaining years with devoted wife, in peace, raising son.”
“I saw the place where you’re keeping my sister,” Turran observed, perhaps more harshly than intended.
Bragi waved a hand admonishingly.
“Hai! Self, am not…”
“Like the old joke,” said Bragi. “We know what you are. We’re dickering price.”
Mocker stared at the three gold coins. He looked round the room. Heads pointed his way like those of hounds eager to be loosed.
He didn’t like it. Not one whit. But gold! So much gold. What he could do for his wife and son…
He had aged, he had mellowed, he had grown concerned with security. Having to care for others can do that to a man.
He raised his left hand, jerkily, started to speak. He looked round again. So many narrowed eyes. Some he didn’t know. He had things to say to Bragi, but not here, not now, not before an audience.
br /> “Define task,” he ordered. “Not that poor old fat mendicant, on brink of old age, near crippled, agrees to undertake same. Only purpose being to listen to same, same being reasonable request to allow before telling man to put same where moon don’t glow.”
“Simple. Just visit Haroun. Find out what he’s up to. Bring me the news.”
Mocker laughed his most sarcastic laugh. “Self, am famous dullard, admitted. Of brightness next to which cheapest tallow candle is like sun to dark of moon. Forget to come in from rain sometimes, maybeso. But am alive. See? Wound here, here, everywhere, from listening to friends in time past. But am favored of Gods. Was born under lucky star. Haven’t passed yet. Also, am aware of ways men speak. Simple, says old friend? Then task is bloody perilous…”
“Not so!” Ragnarson protested. “In fact, if I knew where Haroun was, I’d go myself. But you know him. He’s here, he’s there, and the rumors are always wrong. He might be at the other end of the world. I can’t take the time.”
“Crippled. Excuse limps like sixty-year-old arthritic.”
Actually, it was unvarnished truth. And Mocker knew it. He rose. “Has been enjoyable matching wits with old half-wit friend. Father of self, longtime passing, said, ‘Never fight unarmed man.’ Must go. Peace.” He did an amusing imitation of a priest giving a blessing.
The inner door guard might have been deaf and blind. Or a path-blocking statue.
“So! Now am prisoner. Woe! Heart of heart of fool, self, told same stay away from palaces, same being dens of iniquitous…”
“Mocker, Mocker,” said Bragi. “Come. Sit. I’m not as young as I used to be. I don’t have the patience anymore. You think we could dispense with this bullshit and get down to cases?”
Mocker came and sat, but his expression said he was being pushed, that he was about to get stubborn. No force in Heaven or Hell could nudge a stubborn Mocker.
Ragnarson understood his reluctance. Nepanthe was absolutely dead set against allowing her husband to get involved in anything resembling an adventure. Hers was an extremely dependent personality. She couldn’t endure separations.