The False Martyr (37 page)

As Cary dreamed, the
ambassador prepared as if he were being presented to the very King
of Liandria. He must have spent five minutes alone styling his
hair. Without a mirror, he kept asking Cary how it looked then
ignoring him when he said it was fine, then good, then dashing,
then regal. Cary had given up searching for adjectives after that,
and the ambassador had given up on asking for them. When he finally
declared himself ready, he was wearing a dark grey jacket with a
vest and scarf of Liandria’s cobalt blue. His white cotton shirt
was buttoned to his neck, scarf pinned with a gold broach in the
seal of his house, a silver mountain on a blue background that was
lost to the scarf. His shoulder-length brown hair was swept back
and greased so that it clung to his head and nearly dripped onto
his shoulders. It made his head seem even narrower than it was, his
pinched nose even longer, his angular jaw even sharper, his buck
teeth even more rat-like. Beyond that, the grease must have had a
perfume in it because the ambassador could not have snuck up on a
dead man for the sweet musk that proceeded him. It was a shame. In
the woods, the ambassador had seemed a capable and ruggedly
handsome fellow. Now, he looked like a prissy rat noble who’d get
lost in his own garden.

When he approached the
door, Cary stood to join him and received a look of disapproval.
The ambassador sighed. “I suppose that is the best you have and no
time to make amends.” He clicked his tongue and considered. Cary
looked down at his dress uniform. The light grey jacket and slacks
were certainly crumpled from being crammed in the bottom of his
saddle bags, and it smelled slightly of leather and the cedar he
had used to keep the moths away. But it was nearly new. He’d only
worn it one time then crammed it in the bottom of a trunk never
wanting to see it or think about that day again. Even now, years
later, he hated the uniform for bringing it back. Still, it was a
handsome uniform. The brass buttons shone. The embroidered seal of
the Liandrin Courier Brigade – a running horse done in blue – was
well-stitched without a single loose thread. The shirt beneath was
clean. His boots, though lacking polish, weren’t muddy or worn.
He’d even combed his bowl cut hair, though it made little
difference.

“
It will have to do.” The
ambassador seemed to decide. He looked at Cary as if just realizing
that a person was inside the clothing. “Corporal Lanark,” Cary had
to look around for the subject of the ambassador’s address – he
hadn’t realized that the man even knew his last name, “I don’t
suppose you can write?”

Cary was surprised by the
question but managed an answer. “I can, sir, but not fast or well.
The spellings a problem too, but . . .”

The ambassador held up a
hand to signal he should stop. “Won’t do. You’ll just have to be
what you are. They can’t have expected me to bring a proper staff.
I do not want you to say a word. Even if the Mother asks you
directly, you let me answer. Understood?”

“
Certainly, my
lord.”

“
You will watch and
listen. You will notice all the little things I miss while focused
on the conversation. You will note everything about our host: if a
finger moves, if a breath comes too fast, if a fart lingers through
the air. Understood?“

Cary doubted very much
that he would be able to smell anything lingering in the air over
the smell of the ambassador’s pomade – already his eyes were
watering – but he nodded. “Certainly, my lord.”

“
I cannot imagine why we
are being summoned, but this may be the most important moment in
either of our lives.” He took a deep breath as if bracing himself.
“If you do anything to embarrass me or offend our host, our entire
mission may be spoiled. Do you understand?”

“
I do, my lord.” For some
reason, Cary was not nearly as nervous as he apparently should be.
He was excited certainly, anticipating the adventure of being one
of the only outsiders in history to meet a Morg Mother, but he was
certainly not as terrified as the ambassador seemed to be. Then
again, he had spent his entire life around nobility, and the one
thing he had learned was that people like him were very nearly
invisible to the important people of the world. As Ambassador
Chulters had said, all he had to do was blend into the walls and
watch. If he did his job properly, the Mother would not even
remember he had been there by the end of the day.

Outside the room, Juhn was
waiting far more patiently than Cary would have thought possible.
His mistress – the queen, by all accounts, of this land – had sent
him to fetch people an interminable time gone, and he had not yet
returned. In Liandria, even a counselor would be berated for such
lassitude.

“
This way, please,” he
offered and led the two men down a hall with widely spaced doors.
Lamps stood between each to light the way – there were no windows.
They were in the section of the lodge dedicated to men’s sleeping
quarters, and Cary suspected that the other side of each door was
exactly the same as the room they had just departed. As the
ambassador had said, the Morgs seemed to live a perfectly communal
life with nearly absolute division of the sexes. The previous
night, they had eaten in an enormous dining hall with tables and
benches to hold thousands – Cary had felt incredibly small sitting
in that enormous room with its vaulted ceiling and only a dozen
other men. Even there, the food was set in a separate room that
could be closed to keep the men out while the women were setting
the meals. Cary had seen little else of the lodge, but he did not
suspect there was much else to see in the men’s quarters. As
Ambassador Chulters had suggested, it appeared that the men spent
the vast majority of their time outside the lodge, coming here only
in pauses in their work and training or when the harsh northern
winter required it.

As they exited the
sleeping quarters and prepared to enter the dining hall, Cary
spared a glance. There were only a few score of men at the tables
beyond, but one of them had to be the Imperial negotiator. His
bright colors stood out among the half-dozen Morgs that sat with
him like a peacock in a pen of turkeys. From Cary’s view, it
appeared the man was holding court to a rapt audience. Though he
was no ambassador, Cary guessed that was not a good
sign.

Juhn pulled them to a stop
before they reached the benches and steered them to what looked
like a blank section of wall. “Where are we going?” Ambassador
Chulters asked, staring at the wall in confusion. With a smile,
Juhn flipped a hidden latch. A section of wall swung open to reveal
a dark, cramped passage that ran into the shadows.

“
We call these the yaruth
kalach, ‘order’s passages’ roughly translated,” Juhn explained.
“Yaruth plajaa, ‘order keepers’, you’d call us counselors, are the
only ones who can move freely anywhere in the lodge. These passages
exist in every lodge, running to every section so that we may
conduct our duties without the formalities that inflict our
fellows.” He produced a candle from the pocket of his robe, lit it
on a nearby lamp, and led them into the passage. “Please close the
door behind you,” he called from ahead.

Cary looked around at the
narrow hall and the simple door that gave them access to it. His
mind was already struggling with all the wonders these passages
presented. Leading to every section of the lodge, the possibilities
were endless and so was the trouble it would cause if he pursued
them. Nonetheless, he made sure that he understood the working of
the latch before he closed the door behind them.

The hall was low and
narrow. Juhn, who was the shortest Morg Cary had ever seen, could
barely stand. His shoulders nearly brushed the walls. A proper Morg
warrior would have a hard time fitting through, but there was
plenty of room for Cary, who was only a few inches over five
feet.

“
Positions in Morg society
are determined primarily by size,” Juhn was saying from somewhere
in the gloom ahead. Cary quickly caught up and paid careful
attention to their path as they made a turn to the left. “We’re
much like the big horn sheep in the mountains. The men fight to
show their prowess and the women select them based on their size
and ability. Those of us that are not good enough to be chosen
typically seek a life in the South. Those of us who are not even
big enough to try end up married to the only woman that will take
us, the Order. Because we are sworn to celibacy and not worth
bedding in the first place, we are allowed access to the women’s
sections of the lodge, but like everything here, the passages must
be small enough to restrict any regular man from using them. You’d
think the women fear some sort of invasion.” Juhn laughed,
continuing to show that he was an entirely different sort of Morg
than the ones they had seen prior to this.

At the next intersection,
he turned right – Cary guessed that they were skirting the outside
of the dining hall – and continued his commentary. “The vast
majority of the lodge is reserved for the women. The men only
really have the sleeping quarters, the dining hall, the bathes, a
few workshops, and common areas. But they are only here a few
months of the year. Those you see now are mostly too old to venture
out. They maintain the lodge until the Order calls them. Women
seldom if ever leave the lodge, so everything they need is
here.”

“
What about the children?”
Cary asked before he could stop himself. He realized that for all
the talk of Morg women, he had also never seen a Morg
child.

Ambassador Chulters made a
sharp inhalation and turned to reprimand his subordinate, but Juhn
answered before he could do anything more than stare balefully.
“Excellent question, my young horseman. The children remain with
their mothers until they have seen six winters, then the boys go
with their fathers to learn their ways. The girls stay with their
mothers, of course. The boys can visit their mothers until they
make their first seed, then they, like their fathers, must be
explicitly invited to a woman’s chambers.”

Juhn turned another corner
– heading into the middle of the lodge, Cary calculated. “Do you
know why we are being summoned?” Ambassador Chulters asked, trying
to sound casual.

Their guide looked back at
them but caught Cary’s eye rather than the ambassador’s. “It is not
my place to say. But you should know that the Mother of Torswauk
Lodge has not met with an outsider since the time of the Empire.
For her to summon you can only mean that the need is dire. You can
be sure that she knows about the invaders and fears them far more
than her husband does.”

“
I am sorry to have to ask
this,” the ambassador started, “but what role does the Mother play
in the hiring of the lodges?”

They arrived at what
appeared to be a blank wall with passages branching off to their
sides. Cary mentally mapped the dark maze – he had an almost
perfect sense of direction and ability to remember the layout of
passages in a building or roads outside it. He anticipated a turn
to the left, leading deeper into the lodge, but Juhn stepped
forward instead and clasped the first rung of a ladder that had
been hidden in the shadows. When he was sure that his wards had
seen, he extinguished the candle, casting them into perfect
darkness. Cary could tell only by the rustling that he was
climbing. Ambassador Chulters then Cary followed up and up and up.
Counting the rungs, Cary guessed that they climbed fifty feet until
firm hands guided him from the ladder to a landing where he was
packed between the ambassador and the rough logs of a
wall.

“
We have arrived,” Juhn
whispered, voice like a phantom in the darkness. “But I will answer
your question first. The Mother has almost no direct control over
what men do outside of the lodge, including fighting outsider or
invaders or each other.” Cary could almost feel Ambassador Chulters
deflate at his side. “However, she has almost unlimited power to
persuade the men who do control such things. She is as formidable a
woman as exists in this world. You would do well to remember that
and not underestimate her ability to influence even those events
that are outside her direct control.”

The counselor paused. Cary
could imagine him smiling but had no way to confirm or deny the
fact. A slat moved half-way up the door revealing a square of pure
light. Juhn’s head blocked it as fast as it appeared. “She waits
for you.” He stepped to the side and slid the slat back in place.
There was a click from low on the wall before them. A door
opened.

Blinding light met them.
Cary could see nothing but the white glow that seemed to infuse the
doorway. Squinting, arm held up, Ambassador Chulters gathered
himself, took a deep breath, and stepped through. Cary followed
more cautiously. Somewhat used to fighting through the glare of the
sun, he was able to step aside as his superior abruptly stopped in
front of him. A table, he realized, with six shadowy shapes sitting
on the floor at the farthest end. Their build and clothing
suggested women, but Cary could not see their features. He
retreated to a corner in search of an escape from the light
streaming through a cruel set of open windows – along with a cool
breeze and a number of flies – and waited for his eyes to
adjust.

Having expected a throne
room, he was decidedly disappointed. The room was small. There was
barely enough space for the knee-high table that filled its middle.
The walls were milled planks that had been lacquered until they
shone. No adornments whatsoever graced the room: no art hung on the
walls, no tapestries broke their expanse, no cups or plates or even
chairs adorned the bare planks of the table. There was no source of
light that Cary could see – lamps, candleholders, braziers were all
absent -- meaning the room would be a gloomy place should the
glassless windows ever be closed. Even more shocking, there was no
fireplace, no chimney. Only a hatch in the low ceiling would allow
smoke to escape should someone start a fire.
It is already cool in here. What do they possibly do in the
winter?