The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (90 page)

Lord Alan smiled. "A true Emorian. I had no intention of suggesting otherwise; it is just that old customs are hard to abandon. I find myself longing sometimes for all of the ceremonial trappings of Emorian life, though I have been here for fifteen years now. It is hard to adjust to the sloppy manner in which these Koretians carry out their civil ceremonies."
"I understand that their priestly rites are more impressive," said Peter. He had been scanning the narrow-windowed room with his eye, his gaze stopping now and then on vases, paintings, and gold-tasseled cushions.
"You may be right, Chara, but I confess that I avoid the god-worship here as much as possible. It is hard for me to comprehend why the Koretians spend all of their time worrying about what the gods want rather than simply obeying the laws."
"Perhaps that is because they had no laws before we came," suggested Lord Carle, reaching to take another nut from the cut crystal bowl.
Lord Alan laughed. "Much as it pains me to agree with you, Lord Carle, I think you have wisely hit upon an important point about the Koretians. The Koretians certainly have some noble qualities – that is why it has given me pleasure to govern them for so long – but they have no history of ceremony or law. The result, as one might guess, is that they can be unrestrained in cruelty. This recent incident in Valouse is an example of what I mean."
A pause hovered, and Peter looked at me as though bidding me to speak. So I said, "From what the High Lord was telling me this afternoon, Lord Alan, I thought that you had not yet determined how the riots began."
"Quite true, Andrew; thank you for mentioning that. I ought to have said, the incident that caused the town to be in a riotous spirit to begin with. This event happened a fortnight ago, while your party was still on its journey. The incident gives us much insight into the nature of the Jackal and how we may be able to capture him in the end."
"The nature of the Jackal interests me very much," said Peter, wiping his fingers on the embroidered cloth he had been given. "Any leader who has been able to inspire his followers for so long must be an extraordinary man."
"The Chara is no doubt right," said Lord Alan, "but I confess that this story makes me wonder instead how the Jackal manages to persuade any Koretian to follow him. Cruel as the Koretians can be, the Jackal seems to exceed them all. What happened in Valouse two weeks ago was that the Jackal murdered a man. This happens regularly, of course. In this particular case, though, the man was no spy of mine, but simply an unlucky Koretian who stumbled upon the rebel-leader's lair."
"You now know where the Jackal's hideout is?" Frowning, Lord Carle leaned forward quickly.
"We know only where his hideout was two weeks ago, alas," said the governor. "The Jackal changes his lair regularly. In the past, however, he has usually met with his thieves in isolated locations far from any villages. If he is beginning to set his lair in large towns such as Valouse, it is possible that he will meet with his thieves here in this city. If that happens, I doubt that we will fail to find him. My soldiers are thick on the ground here, and they will be able to detect unusual activity."
"How did it come about that the murdered man happened upon the Jackal?" asked Peter. He was busy trying to mop up a wine drop that had fallen onto the precious fabric covering his couch.
"For the most part, we know little about such killings, but in this case we were fortunate," replied Lord Alan. "I have recently sent out a new spy, and while he has not yet become one of the elite who sees the Jackal without his mask, he was able to locate the Jackal's lair one night, and thus was witness to the murder of this poor fellow. It seems that the Jackal had chosen the empty home of a man who was out of town on business, and a neighbor became suspicious at the midnight activity. This neighbor would have done best, of course, to alert the soldiers, but he was certainly brave, creeping up to the house with not even a dagger to protect himself."
Lord Carle reached out and poured himself more wine from the black marble pitcher. "And did he remain brave once the thieves had captured him?"
"Surprisingly so, yes, and that is what makes this such a tragic story. The Jackal – who was, alas, masked on that night – at first tried to persuade the man to turn a blind eye to the presence of him and his thieves, at least until the Jackal could move his lair. Now, this man was a Koretian, but unlike many Koretians, he had a great love for lawful order, and he did not hold with rebels who creep around at night stirring up trouble. So he boldly told the thieves that he planned to report them to the soldiers. He said this despite the fact that he was in a room full of brutal and beweaponed men."
Lord Carle grunted. "I have known brave Koretians, but few that would defend the law of the Chara. It is a pity that this man died."
"The pity is in the manner of his dying. But I am getting ahead of my story. According to my spy, the Jackal then forced the man into another room and interviewed the man alone for several hours – threatening him or torturing him or whatever the Jackal's methods are."
"Or perhaps trying to persuade him to join the thieves, as some of your spies were persuaded," suggested Lord Dean, his expression carefully innocent of all malicious intent.
"As you say, Lord Dean," responded Lord Alan with an amiable nod. "At any rate, the Jackal failed to destroy this man's loyalty – and here is the part of the tale that turns my stomach. Rather than simply kill the man quickly, as any decent Emorian would have done, the thieves turned this into a lengthy, protracted affair, parading the man around the room and making various speeches about why they were killing him and so on. They even went to the length of binding his hands, though, as I have mentioned, they were murdering an unarmed man."
"And the method of execution?" asked Peter. His finger was running over his dagger sheath, but his eyes were now firmly fixed on the governor.
"The Jackal stabbed him through the heart, which is at least a humane death, but there is apparently a reason for that as well. My clerk has turned up information about a superstitious legend connected with the Jackal God – something to do with goats, I believe, but I couldn't quite follow what he was saying. At any rate, it seems that this man who calls himself the Jackal has adopted the method of murder preferred by the Koretian god. Otherwise, I am sure, he would have found a far more painful way of killing his victims."
The room was silent but for the echo of the governor's soldiers drilling outside in precise order. Peter, reaching vaguely forward to put down his glass, balanced it on the edge of his table, and the glass shattered on the mosaic tiles below.
"I beg your pardon, Lord Alan," said Peter. "I did not mean to mistreat such a beautiful and precious item."
Lord Alan waved his hand in the air, either in graciousness or to prevent a blood-fly from landing in his wine glass. "It is a small matter, Chara. I received these glasses as an inheritance from my grandmother, but the cups are fragile, so I have gradually lost most of them over the years. Would you like another glass?"
Peter shook his head. His gaze drifted from the governor to Lord Carle and finally rested on me. Lord Alan, following his gaze, turned to me and said, "I know that you have been Emorian for many years, but I am sure that you heard stories of the Jackal when you were a boy. Can you give me insight into why the Koretians would support such a bloodthirsty man?"
Lord Carle, I saw, was watching me with narrowed eyes. I said in an impartial voice, "When I was a boy, I did not hear stories with as much detail as you have just given us, Lord Alan. But I suppose that if you were to ask a Koretian what made him obedient to the hunting Jackal, he would say that the ways of the gods are mysterious."
Lord Alan smiled with all but his eyes, which remained watchful. "I am glad you have told me that. I imagine it must be an important fact, and it makes me regret that I have not learned more about the local religion over the years. What do you think of Andrew's idea, Chara?"
"I fear that I too am ignorant of religious matters," said Peter. "But I do have one circumstance in common with the Jackal, and that is that I must place some of my people under the high doom. I have no doubt that many of my subjects over the years have been mystified by how I act when I wear the Pendant of Judgment. So, while I am fascinated by the story you have just told, I am forced to agree with Andrew that the true nature of the Jackal remains a mystery."
Lord Alan's smile disappeared for a moment, but the next moment he was cheered as Lord Carle began giving his opinion of the terrible weather in Koretia.
"Did you mean what you said about the god, or did you simply not wish to answer Lord Alan?" Peter asked.
We had returned from dinner and were standing in the Chara's guest chamber. I helped Peter to remove his sheathed dagger as I said, "I'm not sure. The story he told was certainly disturbing, and it makes me wonder about the motives of the Jackal. But I can't help but feel that the governor, or his spy, is looking at the Jackal through a mask whose eyeholes are too small for him to see the full view. Something is missing in what he told us, something that might better explain who this man is. As to whether he is a god . . . Well, I believed so as a boy, and as Lord Alan says, it's hard to abandon old customs."
Peter undid his belt and collapsed onto the couch. "Staying in this palace has made me regret one old custom the governor holds to," he said. "I refer, of course, to his decision to build a palace with tiny windows in a land where the slightest breeze can mean the difference between life and death. I'm thinking of spending this hot night on the balcony. Will you join me there?"
"Gladly," I said, "if you don't think that the governor would be shocked that your servant is spending the night in your outdoor sleeping chamber."
"He doesn't seem very shocked by you, does he? He was quite friendly to you tonight." Peter watched as I silently began to gather up the luxurious cushions and blankets that covered the bed. "Putting aside for the moment the mysterious Jackal, what do you think of our equally mysterious governor?"
"I think," I said precisely, "that he doesn't like Koretians, no matter what he may say about their noble qualities. This makes me wonder why he was so friendly to me tonight."
"Yes," said Peter, reaching down to touch the alabaster legs of the couch. "Of course, I'm used to watching my subjects try to befriend you in order to persuade you to tell them my secrets – a device I would have thought they would have long since realized was futile. Lord Alan, though, seems to have a special talent for congeniality. I spent much of this afternoon listening to him tell me how much he loves the Koretians. Later, I overheard him telling Lord Carle what barbarians the people here are. And from what Lord Dean has reported to me, it seems that the governor has already guessed that my High Lord is interested only in political expediency and has conversed with him in that fashion. This alone would be enough to worry me, but my breath was taken away tonight by Lord Alan's ability to satisfy all three of us at once. I suspect that we are dealing with a dangerous man."
"I wonder what his true face is under that mask?" I asked.
"If you're right in thinking that he hates the Koretians, then he may be most himself while talking to Lord Carle. As for Lord Carle, he has reached the pinnacle of happiness in finding someone who will talk to the end of time about the barbarity of this land."
I made no reply. Instead, I gathered up the blankets and cushions, and then went out to the balcony to arrange our beds. Peter followed me there and leaned over the balustrade, looking out at the darkened city. From this vantage point we could peer over the palace wall and into the market area. Seeing Peter scan the view, I came over to stand by him.
"John's house is over there," I said, pointing to a rooftop that was nearly hidden by the surrounding houses.
"John," murmured Peter, and I wondered whether he would refer to their confrontation that afternoon. But all that he said was, "How long has he been married?"
"He didn't say. It can't have been very long; Ursula looks as though she has recently come of age. I was surprised to see that John had a wife. When he was a boy, he used to talk as though he would never marry."
"I suppose that it's easy to change one's mind on such a topic." Peter pushed back a forelock that had become plastered against his sweat-wet brow. "And in these matters, a great deal depends on finding the right woman. It appears that your blood brother has been lucky in that regard."
"You think so?" I was feeling the heat around me, warm and comforting like a childhood blanket. Distantly I remembered the cool air of Emor, the chilling breezes that blew through the windows even in the middle of summer.
But all that seemed far away. "What did you talk about with Ursula?" I asked.
"Oh, this and that. We found that we had more in common than I would have thought. Her mother died in childbirth and mine while I was still in the nursery, so we both grew up without any women in our lives with whom we had strong ties. I've always considered women to be a mysterious race; it was pleasant being able to chat with one for a while. It took my mind off my problems with the Jackal."
As though on cue, a cry drifted faintly across the city, cutting through the sound of the cicadas. It was a thin, hoarse, and chilling sound, like the desperate cry that a dying man might make. I saw Peter's hand travel swiftly to his side before he remembered that he was unarmed. He asked abruptly, "What is that?"
"The jackal," I said. Then, at his sharp look, I added, "No, not the god; the god is always quiet. That sound comes from the animal which the god is named after. It hides by day and hunts by night, in packs or pairs or alone. It feeds on the dead."
"So," said Peter quietly. "The Jackal has named himself well. I wonder who the hunting god is hunting tonight." Without saying anything more, he turned and left the balcony.
I lingered where I was, staring down at the uneven rows of houses and the horizon-bound sea of trees beyond. The cicadas sang without pause, like an endless rush of waves, and I felt starting within me a pain. As yet, the pain had no name, and I instinctively knew I did not wish to name it. I turned away and walked rapidly back into the Chara's chamber.
There I found Peter talking to a Koretian man.