The Crystal Empire (12 page)

Staring at the unseen ceiling in the dark, Oln Woeck addressed the night: “Hethri Parcifal, e’er I use what I will of her—if there be aught left—I’ll pass thy little Frae on to many well-deserving others. She is but a step-stone toward fulfillment of my strategies.”

Among the three there was some squirming, grunting rearrangement.

Oln Woeck took a sudden breath.

“But observest thou: B’time her bawling calf becometh problema
t
ic—should it survive the uses I make of its mother—there’ll
be
no Si
s
terhood to threaten anyone!”

“Surely We will try you with something of fear and hunger and diminution of goods and lives and fruits....”—
The Koran
, Sura I

"I
won’
t
!
”

“Your will in this,” replied Frae’s father, weariness slurring his voice, “shall be without question to behave as I bid, in cheerful obed
i
ence, and
now.
”

Late as he had been arriving from the compound, he’d awaited hours before his daughter had crept home. His body trembled with humiliated fury. Still, in a corner of his mind, he took pride that he’d not raised his voice to her.

Nor yet his hand.

Frae answered, “You’re mistaken, Father.”

Dawn brushed pale color, brightened by the snowfall, across their whitewashed ceiling. Standing across the room from one another, ne
i
ther was warmed by it. In this house, not otherwise unlike the one next door, no fire glowed in the hearth. No candle had been lit. It seemed to both as if nobody lived here. Frae’s heart was with the Owaldsohns. Parcifal’s plans lay elsewhere, as well.

“I’m a woman.” She spread her hands upon her belly. “Tell me I’m not! My life belongs to me! I’ll do with it as I—”

“Your life belongs to
me!
” He took an angry step forward, she, a step back, until her heel met a wall. “Afterward, to whomsoe’er I should d
e
liver you unto!”

Hot tears sprang forth unbidden in her eyes. Hating the weakness they betrayed, she made fists of her small hands, regaining the half-pace she’d given up.

“Do I belong to anyone beside myself, ’tis to my love, Sedrich Sedrichsohn, and to this child of his I carry.”

Parcifal strode forward of a sudden, seized his daughter’s upper arms in both hands, bruising her. Between clenched teeth he whispered, “’Tis Oln Woeck’s child you carry! ’Tis what everyone will believe. What everyone believes is the truth.

“As for Sedrich Sedrichsohn...”

Frae looked up, terror in her eyes. “He’ll come for me! He’ll take me away!”

Releasing her, Parcifal snorted. “When your betrothed finishes with him, he’ll rescue no one. Not e’en himself!”

2

The late-afternoon light was beginning to fail as Sedrich looked upon his handiwork. It was the smallest arrow he could fashion, half the length of his little finger, the shaft of bronze, tipped with razored steel and fletched with tiny copper vanes. With a grunt of satisfaction, he tried what he’d begun calling the shoe—a half-cylinder of resin-impregnated softwood, grooved upon its flat diameter for the little a
r
row. It was the second such he’d fashioned with painstaking care. T
o
gether they encased the small projectile, only the tip of its lethal broa
d
head projecting beyond their rounded ends.

Sedrich breathed.

It was time for testing.

Rummaging in the spiderwebbed spaces behind the forge’s hardwood pile, he extracted a doeskin bundle, obtaining from it an iron tube the length of his forearm, closed at one end with a plug of steel—which had itself been pierced through with the finest twist his father possessed. Halfway along the tube, at right angles to its long axis, he’d fastened the handle of a block-plane, using castoff metal strapping.

He glanced over his shoulder.

In the forge lay a length of iron wire, its end glowing red in the coals. From the leather bundle he took a small resin container of irregular granules, gray-black, foul-smelling. Sedrich unstoppered it, poured out a mea
s
ure in his palm, tipped it into the open end of the tube. He started the softwood cylinder in behind it, taking care that the two carved pieces stayed in place along the tiny shaft. Using the brass rod, he rammed the cylinder home over the granules.

It was, he thought to himself, now or never.

The front end of the tube was equipped with a crude sight, like that of a shoulder-bow. At the rear, the double peaks of a shoulder-bow’s rear sight had been attached. Taking aim upon the largest log-end in the pile, Sedrich reached for the coiled “handle” of the wire in the forge, plun
g
ing its hot end, now glowing yellow, into the small hole behind the rear sight.

The tube moved in his hand with an orange flash, a soft
boom!

Casting it aside upon the bench, Sedrich hurried to examine the log. As he’d planned, the wooden shoes lay upon the floor between him and the target, stripped off by air resistance. The arrow itself was buried past its vanes in the hard wood of the log.

He’d improved, he told himself, upon the old fletcher’s idea. Better to let the explosive
push
the arrow than to carry the substance to the mark. Now to install the flint-striker which had been the most difficult portion of this project to conceive. In this wise, his new weapon would be free of the forge or some other source of fire.

“Sedrich!”

The anguish in Frae’s voice clamped a cold hand about Sedrich’s i
n
sides. He threw the tube aside, along with his musings. Running the muddy pathway toward her, he watched the girl tear through the snow-covered hedge at the margin of their properties, her face red-blotched, streaming with tears. At her wrists, blood dripped.

“Sedrich!” Throwing her arms about his neck, she buried her face in his shoulder. “They’re going to steal our child!”

“What?”

Pulling back a little, she looked up at him. “My father. Oln Woeck. They’re going to say our baby’s his!”

The cold hand was replaced by a burning one. Placing an arm about Frae’s shoulders, he led her back to the warmth of the forge. “It makes a demented sort of sense,” he told her. “But I promise you, they’ll not get away with it.”

In the shed, he swept the clutter off a low bench. “Here, you must calm yourself, and not only for your own sake.” He placed a gentle hand upon the girl’s swollen abdomen. “What’s wrong with your wrists?”

Frae glanced down, as if just aware of the injuries which covered her hands with blood. “Father tied me in my room.” She shook her head. “I got loose.”

Sedrich thought, did his fury build higher, he’d die of it. Taking his own advice, he breathed deep several times, then fetched the water jug with which he and his father were used to refresh themselves in the forge-heat. He was washing the girl’s wounds, which were superficial, when she looked up at him. “Sedrich, what is that noise?”

Outside, far away, the young man heard the drumming of feet. He had heard its kind before. It was not long before his first, most dismal guess was confirmed.

“We believe— (Clash! Clash!)

We believe— (Clash! Clash!)

We believe in the Father,

Maker of heaven and earth,

Who hath turned His face away. (Clash!)”

“The Botherhood of Man, love.”

Striding across the shed, he retrieved the dagger he’d put aside. Thrusting it through his belt, he proceeded to charge his iron tube with granules once again. He’d another arrow to spare, and the spent shoes lay easy to hand upon the floor. “I’d wondered why your father didn’t pursue you. He’s Oln Woeck’s Brotherhood to do it for him.”

“We believe—
(Clash! Clash!)

In Jesus Christ His only son,

Born of the Virgin Mary,

Crucified, dead, and buried....

He descended into Hell.
(Clash!)

There he shall suffer

Till he be redeemed,

And sitteth on the right hand

Of God the Father Almighty,

Whence shall he come
— (Clash!)

To judge the quick and the dead!
(Clash!)”

Just as Sedrich completed his preparations, they arrived in full pan
o
ply, surrounding the forge with a wall of robe-clad bodies. The air stank with their presence. Awaiting their shouts for him to show himself, Sedrich was surprised to see Oln Woeck’s companions drag some bu
r
den onto the property, struggling it into an erect position. It was a pole, the thickness of a man’s thigh, wrapped with burlap about straw ticking. Across the pole, set perhaps a quarter of its length from the top, was a shorter spar. It was a cross, he realized, symbol of the martyr they wo
r
shipped.

But why the straw and burlap?

In the growing shadows, Sedrich could feel Frae behind him, one hand at his hip, the other at her throat. Wondering where his mother and father were, he tightened his grip upon the handle of his tube, watching as Oln Woeck put torch to the cross. Soon, in the failing light, the yard was full-illumined with its burning.

“Sedrich, son of Sedrich who is called Owaldsohn! Surrender thyself to the justice of Him who burneth for thy sake in Hell!”

Sedrich stepped into the roaring light of the cross. “Go there yourself, Oln Woeck! I’ve no truck with your cross-god, nor has he with me. Leave us alone!”

With his bodyguard, Oln Woeck strode forward. Light glared from the ring of robes surrounding the yard.

“Thou’st no right to be left alone, boy. Not when thou’ve kidnapped my bride, nor in any case at all! Give thyself over! Cast off thy iniqu
i
ties. Surrender thyself to His mercy!”

Sedrich raised his tube, aligning it upon Old Woeck’s shaven head. “She’s
not
your bride, you vile, scum-sucking—”

There was an orange flash, a soft
boom!,
just as one of the bodyguard stepped into the arrow’s path. The bronze projectile took him in the base of the throat. He screamed, spewing blood, and fell convulsing to the muddy ground where he kicked himself silent.

Two tubes
, Sedrich was amazed to find himself thinking. I should have fashioned two of these things, lashed side by side.

He’d just drawn his dagger when a dozen of the Brothers, rushing forward, seized him. An overwhelming press of bodies descended upon him. The dagger was torn from his hand. Sedrich was aware they’d ta
k
en Frae. She called his name but wouldn’t scream. They held him against the wall. Others took her outside into the firelight. Like a dog, they dragged him through slushy snowmelt into the yard. When he a
t
tempted to regain his feet, a sharp blow in the small of his back pinned him to the ground.

Looking up, Sedrich could see Oln Woeck, one hand buried in Frae’s hair as, upon her knees, she struggled against his grasp.

“’Tis my pleasure to announce I’m about to be a father!” the old man shouted, mouth-fog making his vile words visible against the torchlight. “My betrothed is with child!”

Once again Sedrich attempted to struggle erect. Once again the foot upon his back held him helpless in the mud.
Where was his father?

“You’re a liar, Oln Woeck,” the young man shouted. “The child is mine! Ask its mother!”

Frae opened her mouth. Oln Woeck released her hair for a moment. As she staggered, he struck her with all his strength, backhanded, across the face. To keep her from falling further, he seized her hair again.

“Best,” the old man suggested, “ask her father!”

From between two of the Brothers ringing the property Hethri Parc
i
fal stepped forward, holding his cloak clear of the sodden ground. “’Tis so,” he answered. “All the formalities have been observed. The child is of Oln Woeck. This insane kidnapper must be punished.”

“More,” Oln Woeck shouted at the world, “he dabbleth in the forbi
d
den! His parents both have tutored him in the fiery arts mechanic.”

Several Brothers pushed Sedrich’s land-boat from the shed. Its wheels cut deep furrows in the snow.

“Here be the first indication,” Oln Woeck shouted, waving a skinny arm in the vehicle’s direction, “and here”—he pointed toward the m
o
tionless body of the Brother Sedrich had shot—“is yet the worst!
Fir
e
arms!
He’d bring the Death upon us again!”

He looked down at the mud-bespattered girl.

“By the power of our Lord who suffereth for our sake, I declare this woman and myself to be lawfully wed. Let him who dareth speak now or fore’er hold his peace!”