Lyrec (23 page)

Cheybal counted the obvious elements—those he knew—again. First, the king had been killed and the murderers were as yet unknown. Faubus was due back at any time from now to next week. Cheybal hungered to know what his man had found. He wanted an immediate answer.

Second, Tynec had begun to act oddly. Very haughty, very willful. From nowhere he had manifested more knowledge of Secamelan than Cheybal had. Further (and, although the notion was ridiculous, he could not dismiss it) he had the impression that Tynec had knowledge of things going on in
distant
parts of the country as well. He had twice mocked someone’s stated opinion on a subject in a way that, when confirmation of the error later arrived, suggested the boy had not so much been making fun as he had been boasting of his prescience.

Third, there was Ronnæm, the old king, still seeking revenge, singling out certain of the arrived guests to let them know his hand was in the pot and stirring again now that the son for whom he had abdicated was murdered. Admittedly, he’d become quieter in his habits these past few days and seemed to have taken an interest in particular in the activities of the Hespet; nevertheless, Cheybal assumed that the old man, like himself, was eagerly waiting for Faubus to return. The difference was that Ronnæm could have waited a thousand years if necessary, whereas Cheybal could not wait a week.

Above all of this hung a blade of dread, of foreboding, intangible and invisible, but nevertheless certain to chop sooner or later. No one else seemed to sense it, just as they failed to understand why he did. Frankly, neither did he—prior to every battle he had ever fought, every skirmish, he had waited with eternal calmness for the moment to arrive. Why had his steadiness deserted him now of all times? If he could just find the source of that dread plaguing him, all would be well. It had to be there. Yet he looked and saw nothing and so remained awake and watchful.

In this, at least, he was not alone: the castle lived this night. All sorts of people passed him in the halls. He took notice of all of them. They nodded and he nodded back. They bowed and he waved aside etiquette said, “Do not.” They were people he felt he should have known—cooks and servants, decorators and guards, raconteurs and musicians. The halls hummed with their business.

Cheybal came to the great hall where Tynec was to be crowned. Not a week before, Dekür had lain in state here, but all trace of that had been erased. The heavy tapestries were gone. Bright draperies of every color hung in their places. Cloth streamers curled across the room above his head like row upon row of waves. In one corner a group of minstrels practiced tunes which kept everybody’s energies up, and a sweet smell he identified as brewing mulcetta came from the large hearth.

The whole scene astonished him. He had not been part of the preliminaries when Dekür had been crowned; at that time he had been off fighting some petty border dispute. And at the time of Ronnæm’s coronation, he’d been a mere boy in Cajia, training horses with his father and fishing with the old men. He wondered for the first time what a coronation would be like.

The atmosphere of anticipation was contagious. People smiled and he found himself unable to hide his own pleasure at being in the midst of their work, and beamed back at them. Finally, the weariness and wariness in him went to sleep since he could not. The excited mood caught him up as it had all those working around him.

At the hearth he asked for a cup of mulcet. A girl there warned him it might not be ready and to watch out for the tartness, but she ladled out a mug of the spiced wine and handed it to him. Cheybal thanked her and then asked, “Is it like this all the night through?”

“Do you mean busy? Yes, commander, we’ve so much to do and more people arriving every day.”

“Remarkable. You know, in all the years I’ve dwelled in Atlarma, I’ve never before seen this side of it. There have been nights, of course—when some
fight
was imminent—we were up and out on the yard. The yard had legs, it was all you could see as I remember, hundreds of feet pounding the ground. You could feel the thunder beneath you, like we’d awakened old Kelmod deep in the bowels of the earth and he was threatening us with his stone fists, pounding back.”

“We’re equal, then, for I’ve never experienced such a night as that.”

“No, of course not. No battles like that here in a decade.”

“I’m seventeen.”

“Of course, but how long in Atlarma?”

She lowered her eyes. “Nearly a year.”

“Then this life is still fresh, full of discovery. How did you come here?”

“I came from Byr. I’d hoped to find work in the stables. I’m very good with horses. But the stables needed no one—they claim not to take on women in any case—so I found this serving post. One has to live.”

“Horses, you’re good with horses. Really?” He smiled at rekindled memories of his own childhood. “Nearly a year you say? I wish I’d been restless on an evening before this. For you’re certainly someone for whom a late watch
ought
to be kept.” He grinned at the blush he brought out on her cheeks, then glanced around the room to seem nonchalant in his boldness as he asked her, “What’s your name, girl?”

She said it but the sound was lost in the shatter of his mug.

With a shout, Cheybal pushed away from the hearth and ran.

The music and noise stopped. People leapt away from him, everyone watched. He saw none of them—his sights had locked on the small balcony directly ahead. The figure he’d seen was no longer there but it had been real enough. The white robe had practically glowed where an unseen hand held back the curtain.
 

In his mind he saw Faubus standing in his office, grudgingly admitting that he’d seen a ghost, unable to describe it except to say: “It was very peculiar, white.” Yes, he thought, twice
very.

He took the spiral of steps two at a time. His hand went to his sword, then he thought better and freed his dagger. In this confined space it would serve him much better. Halfway up to the balcony, a second set of stairs branched off from the first. Cheybal swung around the wall and looked up the stairs. He saw no one, but heard footsteps above. He charged after them. His legs didn’t ache at all now.

The footsteps pounded across the wood beams of the floor overhead. That floor contained private chambers where many of the guests were housed. He hoped someone else had insomnia and would see the figure. Cheybal flung himself up the last steps and bounded into the corridor.

The hallway was empty.

He did not even catch a glimpse of white robe. The footsteps had stopped.

Which way? Echoes in the stairwell had indicated no direction. He took a step forward. Behind him a door closed. Cheybal swung around and ran along the hallway to where it branched left and right. The door had been beyond this point, that much he could tell from the sound.

Torches lit both ends evenly. He made up his mind, went to the right. Halfway to the first door he encountered the overpowering impression that someone followed him. He swung about in a crouch, ready to stab out. No one stood there. The entire hallway was deserted. Cheybal shivered from the unreleased tension, the certainty that somebody
had
been there. Hairs on the back of his neck bristled.
A ghost
, he kept thinking. Faubus had seen a ghost.

Moving to the first door, he listened against it, but could hear nothing above the hiss and crackle of the nearest torch. With the greatest of care he drew back the latch and nudged the door open.

A shriveled old man in a white tunic and dirty breeches slowly looked his way and, espying Cheybal in the doorway, jumped up and knocked over his seat—an empty cask. The pins that he had been holding in his mouth clicked as they hit the floor. One pin remained stuck to the old tailor’s lip. He reached up carefully and removed it.

Between the tailor and Cheybal stood a wax figure approximating Tynec’s size and shape. On it was hung a richly embroidered blue robe.

The tailor continued to stare at Cheybal.

The commander straightened and tilted back his head. He sighed deeply. He’d hired the old tailor himself half-consciously while arguing with some farmer about dung thieves who had been making off with the man’s midden heap, presumably to sell it, if such a thing were possible. He couldn’t so much as recall the tailor’s name.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I thought I heard rats scuttling about.” He closed the door quickly. “Gods,” he muttered, “what an idiotic thing to say.”

*****

When the door closed, the old tailor righted the cask. He reached out his hand and the pins shot up from the floor and stuck to his palm like iron filings to a lodestone. He looked at them in his hand, and then at the closed door again.

*****

Cheybal decided he should try at least one more door and went to the next one across the hall. This time, however, he opened the door in a straightforward manner, keeping the dagger out of sight at his side.

On the bed the sole occupant of the room glanced up. He was lanky and dark-skinned, and his eyelids drooped, conferring upon him a forever-languid appearance. He wore his black mustache long. The ends that curved like pincers around his mouth.

“Come in,” he said in a voice that had never held surprise, “but you might put away the dagger, or shouldn’t I trust the likes of you with my life?”

“Reket!” Cheybal shouted.

The dark man got up from the bed. He opened his arms and the two men embraced. Then they stepped back and admired one another.

Cheybal said, “Is that a sack of grain fermenting under your shirt?”

Bozadon Reket brushed down his shiny stitched tunic and, with a thick lateral accent, answered, “As you can see, the cut of the material plays a trick. I’m as fit as you if not a little more so.”

“I doubt that. But how long have you been here? Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“I arrived in the afternoon. You were too busy, they told me at once. You lord over it all just now, heh? How is it, being king?”

“Do you still long to be a governor in Novalok? Well, I’ll tell you, you can have it all. Who do you suppose ever conjured up the idea of ruling over something? It’s dreadful.”

Reket sat again and hung one leg over the bed. “Yes, well, I admit I now know something of it. I own land now, a great piece.”

“A governor? You
are
a governor.”

“For some time, yes.” His teeth flashed. Reket’s smiles came and went like glints of light.

“Where does it all go, time?”

“Probably out the bladder like a bad humor. Isn’t it one of the essences?”

“Is it a large tract of land?”

“I said as much, yes.”

“Oh, you did. Well, why didn’t you force your way in, for Voed’s sake?”

“You were busy,” Reket stated flatly.

“No longer so. And we have a lot to catch up on, that much is obvious.”

“Then, you had best acquire two bottles for each of us.”

Cheybal began to laugh. It felt good and he let it go on. “I will, of course I will.” He started out, but seeing the hallway; he recalled what he was doing there. “Reket—why are you awake so late?”

“Why? Travel. It upsets my internal wheel.” He tapped his stomach. “I roll unevenly.”

“That’s all?”

“Should there be something more?”

“I came up here … did you hear footfalls—someone running along the corridor?”

“Running? No. But, then, I did not hear your approach, either. Fortunately, I was not, ah, indisposed. In Novalok that is a tragic interruption.”

“How can I allow such a barbarian within our walls?” He closed the door before Bozadon Reket could reply. He looked down the long empty corridor. “It’s the lateness of the hour,” he told himself, though he did not believe this. Nevertheless, for now there was no more to be done. The figure had eluded him. By now the white robe would have been doffed; the true countenance exchanged for whatever disguise might be employed. The figure might be anyone. He would have to have the rooms on this floor searched tomorrow while all were busy elsewhere. If only he could find the time.

The four bottles Cheybal ordered were duly sent to the quarters of Bozadon Reket. However, the commander did not return as intended. As he stood apologizing to Imbry, the girl at the hearth, a tired young messenger staggered into the great hall and requested him to follow. Cheybal gave Imbry a look, then fell in beside the messenger, knowing whose return the boy must betoken. As he passed by, he looked at the balcony again. It was empty, the curtains drawn.

*****

Shadows thrown by torches high atop the ramparts crisscrossed the courtyard. Cheybal found the newly arrived soldiers still mounted. Each seemed cut from the shadows upon them. He saw Faubus at the head of the group and something inside of him iced over. He waited on the top of three steps, gathering his tired wits to face what his chosen captain was about to tell him.

Faubus dismounted and came stiffly forward. “Commander,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Captain. We should retire to my quarters I think.”

“As you wish, sir.” Faubus eyed the two guards flanking Cheybal. “Nonetheless, the news will be out tomorrow.”

The commander also eyed the two guards. They stiffened to attention. “We shall see. Let your men dismount, they deserve a long rest and a meal, I’m sure. Come with me.”

Once they’d reached the chamber and Cheybal had closed the door, he faced the captain and said, “Now, what news is it that will spread by morning?”

“May I sit first, sir?”

“Would you like some mulcet as well? There’s a vat brewing.”

Faubus smiled with weary gratitude and Cheybal opened his door and called out to a servant, ordering drink and food for the captain. “Now if you would, please. Report.”

“Sir. The village of Ukobachia is destroyed. We were too late by a day to save it, even though we made the best possible time getting there.”

“You’re not being faulted for it, go on.”

“We found few survivors, very few. Some may have escaped into Boreshum, but we hunted them and, if they were there, then they preferred not to be found. I posted men in the village, on the roads, the pass as well. but I thought it far more important to return here myself than to count bodies there. The coronation and all.”