The Conqueror (4 page)

“
So what do you think?”
Nyron had to get to his duties, and he was a few minutes late
already.

“
Magnificent!” Taez closed
his mouth firmly.

He gave Nyron a look.

“
All right, then. I must be
off! Once more unto the breach, dear friends—although I seem to be
more book-keeper than soldier these days.”

“
Ten gold
pieces.”

Taez’s mouth opened and he leaned
forward, trying to locate the bidder. Wordlessly, Nyron turned and
made his way through the crowd, all mouths open and all eyes on the
spectacle before them.

More laughs went through the hall as
the auctioneer flushed.

“
Reserve bid is set at one
hundred gold pieces.”

They should know that already, gossip
being what it was. The troopers had been around to half the taverns
in town last night, and there was only so much to talk about. Even
so, a long groan went through the assembly. Unless the reserve bid
was pulled, there weren’t that many folks around there who stood
even the slightest chance of getting Lowren. As to how desirable a
prize he was, that would soon be revealed.

The auctioneer raised his
hammer.

“
Bidding begins at one
hundred—”

“
Done!”

Without bothering to look, Taez raised
his own paddle, stained purple and gold to represent the Crown in
all of its glory.

There was a big
numeral,
‘one,’
painted on it in white. Registered bidders received a numbered
paddle, on a first-come-first-serve basis. In heated sales
contests, all the rules and all the protocols went out the window,
fairly quickly at times. The Queen’s numbered paddle was always
reserved for her or her representative, a tradition going back as
far as anyone could remember.

“
One-ten.” The buzz of talk
in the building went on unabated and the buyers had to shout loudly
and clearly.

A murmur of interest went through the
mob. The noise swelled as the press of humanity recalled the rumors
and the reputation of their Queen. The Queen’s Chamberlain was a
familiar figure.

Anybody that didn’t know him or hadn’t
seen him on his official business about the town and surrounding
countryside would quickly have any blanks in their knowledge filled
in by their neighbors.

Every eye in the house was upon Taez,
but this was no time to think about that. Surely this one deserved
a better fate than walking around in endless circles, turning a
water-screw or whatever a more regular fate held in store. As to
whether or how he might be controlled in his new duties, that
wasn’t his department. He was sure it could be done of
course.

Taez heard a call, one he didn’t quite
catch, but the roar that accompanied it told him all he needed to
know.

“
One-thirty.” He sounded
cool, confident, and very determined.

“
One-forty.”

This time he heard it properly. Knowing
better even as he did it, he leaned forward, looking to his left,
and tried to locate the gentleman. It was hard enough in this
crowd. All eyes were on someone over there somewhere. He caught a
glimpse of the tip of a paddle.

A non-descript individual leaned out,
met his eye, politely tugged on the brim of his low cap and then
turned back to the auctioneer.

“
Going once…”

Taez met those eyes. The auctioneer
could only hold off so long.

“
Going twice…”

Shit, that was a lot of money—it wasn’t
his either, but Taez had his instincts. And those instincts were
telling him to buy.

The hammer was about to fall on
Lowren.

“
One-seventy-five.”

There was absolute silence, until the
gentleman over there took one last look at the item on display,
shrugged his shoulders and turned away. He melted back into the
crowd, apparently uninterested in the more usual household or
agricultural servants.

The auctioneer grinned and
nodded.

“
Going,
going…gone.”

Taez sagged a little on hearing it. The
crowd rumbled and this was no time for second thoughts.

“
Sold, for
one-seventy-five!” The voice rang out, clear and
jubilant.

Knowing Taez well enough, he went
through the contract and disclaimers in a quick breath and then it
was on to Lot Eighteen. This was a matching pair of fairly
healthy-looking, not exactly young women with experience in
textiles and dye-works. They both still had a lot of their teeth,
had no dependent children and might very well be suitable as
domestic servants, agricultural specialists, or for work in the
hospitality industry.

While he was there, Taez also bought
one or two new staff members for the household. He had a certain
leeway in his budget and the people were needed here and there.
Making his way to the holding area, he made arrangements for them
to be brought up to the castle. Arrangements for Lowren took some
thought, but they did have all those dungeons after all.

The smiles and giggles from those all
around him could be borne. He was sort of wondering, kind of late
as it was, but hopefully Queen Eleanora would be pleased with her
latest acquisition.

If nothing else, they could always put
Lowren in the ring and let him fight it out with other condemned
prisoners. He had a sneaking suspicion that other bidder might have
been a fight promoter or something like that.

The possibility that he was a shill,
merely there to drive up the bidding had also crossed Taez’s
mind.

***

Taez was very conscious of the speed
with which the average secret evaporated in any small community,
which was just what any properly-constituted household was. He
presented the Barbarian King Lowren, as he was billing him, just
after the main course at dinner.

This was a long, drawn-out affair. If
things went his way, it would be the highlight of the night. No one
around Taez shared his tension and the time dragged interminably
until the desserts had been served. Servers were going around
freshening the wine glasses.

It was now or never.

Taez turned and found the eye of his
assistant, hovering in a side entryway. He gave a wave and the man
nodded, turning behind him to give the signal.

When the prisoner was led out, it took
a minute or two before people caught sight of him being led
forwards and to catch on to what it might mean.

A hush fell over the assembly as Taez
stood to address the Queen and the handlers pulled Lowren out front
and centre.

Flanked as she was by guests of honor,
interrupted in the act of sending choice tidbits, the first slice
of something to Loshon, Ambassador of the Heloi, her mouth opened
even as the light smattering of applause died away and the people
waited for her reaction. The foreigners, at least, looked pleased
and they muttered amongst themselves. Unfortunately for Taez, their
opinion, while possibly helpful, wasn’t the one that really
mattered.

At first, it did not seem good, and
Taez’s heart sank, as did that of his friend Nyron, attending all
official state functions as per standing orders in his role as an
officer and a gentleman. His table was on the far side, at the
kitchen end of the Great Hall, but there were half-empty tables as
well and he saw it without heads and bodies in the way.

A small gasp had escaped Eleanora, and
her hand flew up to her mouth. The hand came down, ever so
slowly.

“
Majesty. We have a
surprise guest attending this evening’s celebration. I give
you—literally, in this case, Lowren, King of the Lemni.”

The handlers gave the chains a shake to
emphasize the point and Lowren glowered left and right.

There was a hush and Taez thought he
was going to die of the suspense.

She smiled, ever so sweetly, that pale
oval face turning from Lowren, looking angry and resentful and no
doubt wondering what they were saying about him and what his fate
might ultimately be.

“
What? For me?” Her eyes
slid back to the tall stranger, shackled, chained and collared like
any common criminal.

It really was a most extraordinary
sight.

Her ladies-in-waiting, the most
prominent seated not far along the head table, gave a collective
gasp as if of one mind. All eyes turned to Taez, and more than one
heart fluttered in sympathetic tremors. He’d taken a fearful risk,
and some of them could see that.

His heart sank further still, and Taez
wondered if this was the blunder that would send him to he
stocks—or the frontier, or maybe even the gallows. The chopping
block, he thought.

“
No, really, Taez—you
shouldn’t have.”

“
Yes, my Queen—” How his
knees knocked when he spoke those words. “It’s just that as soon as
I saw him—and I thought, what if some other noble citizen should
take him before you even had a chance…to see him?”

He stopped right there.

The Queen regarded Taez, eyes narrowed.
The Queen was a beautiful woman in profane terms. She was, within a
heartbeat, at her most forbidding, and yet that countenance could
also hide her true feelings.

“
I cannot think, Majesty,
of any other sovereign, anywhere in the known world, who has
anything remotely comparable in their own collection.” His only
safety lay in buttering it on as thickly as he dared.

She swung around to look at the big
barbarian again.

“
He’s going to look
wonderful standing guard beside your throne, and providing his neck
as a footstool when you mount, or a bench, possibly…one for your
favorite dwarf to sit upon…”

Titters and giggles broke out all
around and the man under scrutiny darkened, ears burning at the
humiliating sound of their laughter. His chin came down and he
watched her closely. The handlers braced themselves.

Lowren stood very still, staring into
her eyes. She found herself torn.

A barbarian king. Here. Now.

A strange toxin of emotion went through
her. It could happen to any one of us, she thought.

Eleanora was aware of the man, very
much so.

He was like a cobra, coiled to spring
at anything that moved, and yet he had a brain, he knew what would
become of him if he made the least threat.

She stared into those eyes for a long
moment.

“
Perhaps one of our more
deserving—or perhaps one of the more honorable ladies-in-waiting
will require a husband. Your Majesty could simply have him sent
back to his own people as the best possible gift of state: the
restitution of their beloved king.”

There were precedents for that last
option, and he had to think of her dignity in front of all these
people.

The Queen took a long, hard look at
Taez. Foreign policy was not his arena and he’d best tread lightly
there, but displaced barbarian kings had it notoriously tough. Most
were executed on the battlefield. Some lived their lives in exile,
captive in another sovereign’s court, hidden in castles or dungeons
and never seeing the light of day. At the first sign of trouble,
they were quickly put to death on any mere suspicion. To escape was
almost worse. Their brothers, sons or nephews, having succeeded to
the throne, were rarely so eager to give it up—and yet the people
(and all of the world was people) saw it as a peace offering, a
gift of what was thought irreplaceable. It was good foreign
relations and even better foreign policy. That’s not to say Taez
had any ambitions in that regard, because he didn’t—it was just an
opportunity he could not overlook to please Eleanora. It was what
he had been retained to do, after all.

“
Well. Thank you for this,
Taez.”

The talk was that Lowren’s people had
been quite fond of him, he explained, voice lower now but still
strong and clearly heard in all corners of the great room. His
audience listened with rapt attention. This prize, whatever she did
with it, would reflect great glory on her crown and her
kingdom.

Eleanora surprised him, which she had
done once or twice in the past.

“
Good. Excellent.” Those
expressionless eyes stared right through Taez, and he trembled for
his head in that moment. “Send him up to my bedchamber immediately
after dinner.”

The roar of laughter that rang forth
upon this remark was both gratifying and terrifying to
Taez.

He had taken a terrible risk, and the
results were so uncertain—so nebulous, that he wondered at his own,
sheer, unmitigated gall.

Quite frankly, he wondered just how
stupid a man could be. He had taken an insane risk, when he thought
about it.

And yet it was true, too—far better to
buy the slave, return him to his people, and let him sow discontent
and confusion among his own loyal followers. Taez had a hundred
thoughts on that score, if only he had a brief moment to explain.
It’s not like he didn’t have a story to cover his backside. The
thing was to get a chance to explain, sometimes.