Raptor (100 page)

“By the way, my companion Swanilda was also formerly a cosmeta. First to Theodoric’s princess-sister and then to his—”

That made Thor speak, and with vehemence: “Vái! You demand fidelity and constancy from me, but you have had that trull with you all the way from Novae!”

I tried to protest, “I have demanded nothing from—”

“You said I need seek no more. Or
stray.
Are you now telling me that, from here on, I will have to share you with that drab?”

“Ne, ne,” I said irresolutely. “That would hardly be fair to either of you. And, expecting that you
would
travel with me, I have already spoken to Swanilda… intimating that I may soon be dispensing with her company…”

“I should hope so! And who is the Maggot of whom you spoke? Is that your
male
concubine?”

I had to laugh at that absurdity, which rather spoiled the severity of my cautioning Thor, “Now see here! I grant that you were right in what you said before—about our being equal when stripped of clothes and other superficialities. If we are to be a pair from now on, I promise not to be a dominating husband or a domineering wife. But so must you promise. And bear in mind: this is
my
quest. I will take with me whomever I choose and, however many or few we are, when it comes to matters of decision and command, I am the leader of our company.”

“Vái, vái, vái!” Thor said, again abruptly in good humor. “Another quarrel? Why must you keep picking quarrels, Thorn, and wasting so much of our first night together? Come, let us kiss away the quarrel and then resume…”

“Really, Thor. It must be almost dawn.”

“So? We will sleep when we have not vigor or imagination enough to do anything better. Then you will go a-questing—and ja, of course I will be going with you. But the Goths’ trail is already centuries old; it can wait a while longer. My… urges… are more urgent. Are not yours, niu?”

Certain it is that I did not then love Thor, nor Thor me. But it is equally certain that we both were dazedly, nearly dementedly, obsessed with one another, from the very start of our association, as if we had been smitten by the Sending of a haliuruns or by the conjuration of Dus, the skohl of lechery. It is evidence of our mutual nympholepsy that, at some moment during our next intertwining that night, one of us gasped:

“Akh, I dearly wish I could give you a child…”

And the other: “Akh, I dearly wish I could bear your child…”

But I do not remember which of us voiced which words.

“Iésus Xristus!”

She spoke not very loudly, but it woke me, and my first thought was that it was the only time I had ever heard Swanilda use the name of Jesus as an expletive. My second thought was of relief that Thor and I were fairly well tangled in our blankets, because full daylight was streaming in the chamber window, and Swanilda had obviously seen us lying in close embrace. Then the door banged as she backed out of the room. I scrambled from the bed, but Thor only laughed.

“She keeps close ward of you, niu?”

“Be quiet,” I growled, fumblingly starting to get into my clothes.

“Well, if she did not share your secret before, she does now. And if I know women—and I do, I do—she will very soon be telling it to all creation.”

“I think not,” I muttered. “But I must make sure.”

“There is only one sure way to stop a woman’s mouth. And that is with the earth she gets buried in.”

“Will
you be quiet? Damnation, what has become of my other boot?”

Thor got up, rummaged under the bed and came grinning across the room to hand me the boot. Even in my state of mingled vexation, guilt and anxiety, I had to admire anew the beauty of Thor’s naked body, bright in the morning sun. However ungallantly, I had to acknowledge that Thor moved with more lissome grace than Swanilda did. Then I winced, when the bright body turned and I saw the dead-white Thor’s-hammer scar.

“I will escort Swanilda back to Meirus’s house,” I said. “You stay here, Thor. Get dressed, break your fast, do whatever you will. Only stay well out of sight. Give me ample time to soothe Swanilda and find out how much she may have conjectured. I will meet you sometime later at Meirus’s dockside warehouse.”

I turned to go, but Thor detained me long enough to make the immemorial female gesture of possession: picking a bit of lint off my tunic before I went out in public. Then I hastened from the room and from the building. I thought Swanilda might have fled fast and far, but she was only shuffling miserably across the pandokheíon’s stableyard. When I caught up to her, I said the first thing that came into my head:

“Have you broken your fast, Swanilda?”

She said sharply, “Of course. It is almost midday. Meirus fed me.” But when she turned her face to me it was not angry; it was wet with tears.

I decided against delaying or dodging the issue. “My dear, you told me yourself, before we commenced this journey, that at any time I had only to say, ‘Swanilda, enough.’ “

She wiped at her eyes. “Akh, darling Thorn, I had nerved myself against the likelihood of someday losing you. Perhaps to another fair princess like Amalamena. I never dreamed I might lose you to a
man.

I sighed thankfully. Then Thor and I
had
been sufficiently covered by the blankets. Swanilda only thought she knew what she had seen.

I said, “But, as I told you earlier, Thor and I had much to discuss last night. Then, overcome by sleep, we simply collapsed.”

“Into one another’s arms. Do not dissemble, Thorn. I make no reproach. After all, I need not have walked in on you. I am troubled only because… because I believed I knew you well.” She tried to laugh, and sobbed instead. “I did not, did I?”

I was less than pleased to have Thor and myself taken for a pair of despicable concacati, but that was preferable to our being recognized and perhaps loudly proclaimed for what we really were.

“I am sorry you found out, Swanilda. Or at least that you found out in such a jarring way. But there are still things of which you cannot possibly be aware. If you were, you might think more kindly of me.”

“I do not think ill of you,” she said, and sounded sincere. “I will leave you to your—your preferences. But I will not leave
you.
Let us get on with the mission.”

“Ne, let us not.”

She looked incredulous. “You would give up the quest?”

“Ne, I will give up only your company. I would like you to return to Novae.”

Now she looked distressed. “Akh, Thorn, when I told you that you could say, ‘Swanilda, enough,’ I told you also that I would thenceforth be your humble servant. Please—let me be at least that to you.”

I shook my head. “It would be intolerable for you, for me, for everybody. You are bound to realize that, and better now than later.”

And now she looked desolated.
“Please,
Thorn!”

“Swanilda, I do not put much store in wise-sayers, but perhaps once in a great while they are worth heeding. Last night Meirus predicted that this very day you would cease to regard me fondly. I suggest that you do exactly that.”

“I
cannot!”

“Do. It will make our parting easier, and part we must. Now come, walk with me to the old Jew’s house. I am quite befogged by lack of sleep. I will beg from him a waking drink of wine and a bit of food.”

Meirus greeted me with only a grunt, and only grudgingly bade a servant fetch the meal I requested, and meanwhile flicked his beetling gaze back and forth from me to Swanilda. She had accompanied me in silence, but dragging her steps, and her countenance was woeful. Nevertheless, she said nothing to the Mudman of what she had found at the pandokheíon, saying only that she would get her horse and lead it back there, to retrieve and pack what belongings she had left in our chambers. It was left to me to tell Meirus that I was sending Swanilda home to Novae—to make our company less cumbersome, I said. That seemed to dye the old Jew’s black mood even blacker, so I tried to lighten it by telling him:

“My associate Thor and I discussed the matter of your prospector. Between us, we have decided that we
will
let Maggot ride with us, and we shall strive to set him safe and sound on the Amber Coast.”

“Thags izei to you both,” Meirus grumbled sourly.

I went on leisurely eating and drinking until he unbent and said:

“Thags
izvis,
Saio Thorn. I hope to make great profit from that venture, and I am sure Maghib will benefit by seeing new horizons. I only hope that he and your new friend Thor together will prove half as worthy a companion to you as the girl Swanilda has been.”

I did not deign to comment on that, and got up from the table. “Then let us go and tell Maggot to prepare to travel. I should also like to inspect the horse you promised him.”

“Maghib is at the warehouse, waiting for you. I will tell my groom to bring a number of horses, from which you and he may choose.”

“Good,” I said. “Thor also will be joining us there. You two will get to meet again.”

“Biy yom sameakh.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘O joyful day,’ ” he growled, and went out a back door as I went out the front.

Maggot was standing in the street door of the warehouse, as if he was awaiting me most impatiently, but he did not look
happy
to see me. He was holding the reins of Swanilda’s horse, and it was saddled and wearing its pack, so I supposed that she also was here, waiting inside to say goodbye when we had all forgathered.

“Háils, Maggot! I have good news for you. If you are still of a mind to go adventuring, Thor and I invite you to ride with us.”

He did not effusively thank me, or caper with glee, but said only, “The lady Swanilda…”

“She will not be coming with us.”

“Ne,” he said, in a sort of croak, and pointed to the building’s dark interior. “The lady Swanilda…”

“I know,” I said. “We will all say farewell to her.”

“You
know?”
he said, in a sort of squeak, and goggled his eyes.

“What is the matter with you?” I demanded.

“With
me?!”
he said, in a sort of bleat, and pointed again inside the warehouse.

Wondering, I strode in there. It took some moments for my vision to adjust to the darkness. Then I saw what Maggot had meant. From a high corner beam hung a tangle of leather harness, stretched taut because its lower straps were knotted about the neck of the small dangling corpse.

I instantly drew my sword, slashed the leathers and caught her limp body in my arms, but I could as instantly tell that it was too late for resuscitation. Gently settling the still-warm corpse on a hay bale, I said, half to myself, half to the hovering Maggot:

“How could a living person go from such a beautiful sunny day as it is outside into such a dank and malodorous place as this and do to herself such a horrible thing?”

“She must have thought you would approve,” said a rough voice, and I realized that Meirus had joined us. “Swanilda was ever ready to do anything that might please you.”

There was too much truth in that for me to gainsay it, so I took refuge in equivocation. I wheeled on him and said angrily:

“Or did she simply do what you foretold, Mudman? Why try to blame this on me when you could have
prevented
it?”

He did not back away, but stood firm. “I foresaw only the cessation of her affection for you. I did not foresee the manner of its happening:—in one last act of affection. Or of abnegation. She was giving you up, Saio Thorn. But to what?”

“To his duty and destiny, perhaps,” said another voice, soft but smoky. “A man with a mission should not have to drag along the useless weight of a mere—”

“Be silent, Thor!” I barked, and Meirus gave the newcomer one of his black looks.

For a moment we were all quiet, gazing at the pitiable small cadaver. I said, again half to myself:

“I was sending her home to Novae, and alone. I had forgotten what she told me once. Without a mistress or a master, she was a forlorn orphan. I suppose that was what impelled her…” Then I looked up and saw Thor’s eyes on me, mocking, almost challenging. So I tried hard to put on a semblance of manly induration.

“Well, whatever her reason,” I said, as coolly as I could, “I wish… she had not done it…” There my voice threatened to break, so I turned to Meirus and said, “You see, as a Christian, she has sinned unforgivably against God’s will and grace and judgment. She must be buried without priest or rites or absolution, only with execration, and in unhallowed ground, her grave unmarked.”

Meirus scornfully spat,
“Tsephúwa!”
which sounded like an exceptionally filthy vituperation. “You may think little of Judaismus, Marshal, but it is not so cold and cruel a religion as Christianity. Leave the poor dead girl to me. I shall see that she is buried with unchristian compassion and decency and dignity.”

“I am grateful to you, good Mudman,” I said, and with heartfelt sincerity. “If I may return the favor in a small way, there will be no need for you to provide a horse for Maggot.” I turned to the Armenian. “If you still wish to ride with us, yonder is Swanilda’s mount, already saddled.”

He looked rather indecisively from me to Meirus and Thor, until his master urged, “Take it, Maghib. It is a better steed than any in my stable.” And Maggot made a gesture of resigned acceptance.

Then Meirus—oddly, I thought—asked Thor instead of me, “Would you examine this parchment I wrote, fráuja Thor, and see if it is in order? The document accredits Maghib to act in my interests in the amber trade.”

Thor took a step back from the proffered parchment, a little flushed of face and seeming momentarily flustered. Then, recovering the demeanor that Meirus had repeatedly called “arrogant,” Thor said loftily, “I know nothing of the amber trade
or
of the clerk’s trade. Which is to say that I know nothing of the clerkish drudgery of reading.”

“Say you so?” Meirus grunted, and handed the rolled parchment to me. “I should have supposed that the ability to read would be a necessity for an emissary sent by King Euric to compile a history.”

Pretending indifference to that exchange of words, I opened the document, scanned it, nodded and tucked it inside my tunic. But in truth I was embarrassed far more than Thor appeared to be. Although I was no augur like the Mudman, I might have thought to assure myself of the qualifications of my “associate historian” before announcing Thor as such. I had simply taken it for granted that someone as well-spoken as Thor must logically be literate. But of course a cosmeta continually exposed to the conversation of court ladies could easily accrete an overlay of
seeming
courtliness and cultivation. Anyway, I only said to Maggot: