Wielding a Red Sword (4 page)

Mym nodded, knowing what was coming. How much had the master pieced together?

“It seems that a beautiful woman had an encounter with them recently, but she managed to escape,” the master continued. “The police realized from the description that she was from our group, so they came to inquire. Indeed it was our Orb, and she confirmed that the encounter had taken place. Five brutish men, armed with knives and a sword. But it seems that you managed to dissuade them and escape unharmed.”

Mym nodded again, for once glad that he was unable to speak with facility.

“The five were found slaughtered in an alley. The pattern of their bodies is typical of that left by a berserker warrior. You know—the kind who tastes blood and goes crazy.”

Mym shrugged.

“But something doesn’t match,” the master said. “A true berserker would have slaughtered the woman too, then gone out through the city and killed and killed until overwhelmed by a force of twenty armed, trained men. This did not happen.”

Mym waited.

“Orb reports that you had her don your handkerchief to hide her face and that you led her out of that alley. She doesn’t know how you persuaded the thuggees not to follow. There was no one else—just you.”

Again Mym shrugged.

“Now I never heard of a temporary berserker,” the master said. “Obviously you are not one; you weren’t even armed. So I must assume that either a berserker happened upon the premises at that moment, destroyed the thuggees, and expired from a lucky return-thrust before he got to you—which makes no sense, as no other body was found—or that a highly trained warrior who hated thuggees did the deed.”

He had obviously caught on. Mym’s hand went to his inner pocket, and his finger found the ring.
Lost
? he thought.

The ring squeezed twice.

“You are very handy with knives,” the master was saying. “But I have never seen you juggle anything except weapons. This suggests that you were never an enter
tainer before. You merely have learned to handle weapons with an extraordinary facility. I can think of only one class of person who would have access to training like that—a noble.”

Still Mym waited.

“And now you tell me you cannot perform before a noble. Because you would be recognized?”

Mym nodded.

“Well, let me tell you something about concealment,” the master said briskly. “The best concealment is that which the observer never suspects. That is the secret of the legerdemain I practice. Misdirection. The very last place any noble would expect a noble to be hiding would be onstage before other nobles. I want you to do your act; I guarantee you will be secure from discovery.”

Mym shook his head negatively.

“Ah, but there is the stutter,” the master said, as if just remembering it. “Now it occurs to me that that might indeed be an identifying trait. I have no deep knowledge of the nobility here; I travel too much to keep current. I have heard of no stuttering noble, but that may be just my ignorance. Suppose we were to add some words to your mime act? Under your mask and makeup, no one can see your mouth move. If at key points a voice-mimic behind the stage were to throw his voice, so that it seemed to emanate from you …?”

Mym, vastly relieved, reached out and clasped his hand.

“But though there is no need for me to know details that do not concern me,” the matter concluded, “I think there is one who must be advised. I would not have her hurt for all the world, and nobles are notoriously casual about romantic liaisons. I think, before things proceed further—”

Mym nodded affirmatively. It was indeed time.

They talked, as the caravan waited out one of the monsoon downpours north of Ahmadabad. It was pleasant in Orb’s wagon as the sound of the rain beat loud, for her covering did not leak the way some of the others did. First she told him her history, for she wanted him to know
about her. She had been born in Ireland twenty years before and raised with a kind of sister she called Luna. Mym wasn’t quite clear on the relationship, but it seemed that Orb’s parents were Luna’s grandparents, and that the two girls seemed very like twins. Luna painted with a magical brush she had received from the Mountain King, and Orb sang with the harp from the same source. It was the golden harp that extended her power, so that the audience could experience it. Her father had had the same talent, but it only manifested when he was touching the person to whom he sang.

But what was she doing here in India? Mym wanted to know. For it was obvious that she could enchant audiences anywhere in the world and had no need to wander in such uncivilized reaches as these.

Well, she was looking for a song, she explained. It was titled the Llano, and it was the most marvelous song ever to be sung on Earth, but it was highly elusive. For one thing, it was very challenging to sing, so that only a few people in each generation could perform it successfully. She thought she might be able to sing it well enough and wanted to try. For another thing, it was said to be the most compellingly lovely song that the human voice was capable of rendering, and that intrigued her too. But mainly, she believed that her destiny lay with the song, for whoever traced it to its source would discover the avenue to a wholly new fulfillment. Orb, dissatisfied with her mundane existence, sought that fulfillment.

“I have heard of it,” Mym said haltingly. And he explained how the manifestation of the Llano had been said to accomplish miraculous things. Once a young woman had loved a great warrior, but she was of lesser birth, and the warrior was not aware of her. So one day she sang him a segment of the Llano, and he was instantly captivated and loved her from that moment.

Orb adored the story. “Of course it couldn’t happen in real life,” she said regretfully.

“It could happen,” he assured her.

She looked at him, understanding. “I—but of course you’re not a prince.” She was trying to mitigate the possible cruelty of the situation. “Not that that matters, Mym. I—have been growing very fond of you. Even—”

He cut her off before she could say anything she might prefer to retract later. “I-I-I-I—” But the stutter overcame him completely; he could not get the words out.

Orb put her hand on his. “It doesn’t matter, Mym.”

He shook his head. It
did
matter! But he couldn’t say it.

Then she brightened. “I have heard that sometimes—Mym, can you sing?”

“S-s-s-sing?” he asked blankly.

“It invokes a different portion of the brain, as I understand it. So some stutterers can sing clearly, even though they can’t talk. Come, try it; sing with me.” And she launched into one of her Irish songs: “O Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, /From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.”

Doubtfully, he joined her: “And from the trees, the leaves, the leaves are falling,/’Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.”

They both paused, astonished. He had not only managed to sing it without stuttering, he had sung it clearly and well.

“You could make it as a singer!” she exclaimed.

“I-I-I-I could!” he agreed, awed.

“No—sing it,” she urged him. “You don’t need a song; just hold the note, any note.”

“I can!” he sang in a level note.

“Now you can say anything you want to!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Mym, I’m so pleased!” And she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him.

He let her do it, but did not respond. First he had to acquaint her with his own history, and he wasn’t sure she would be pleased.

“I am not what I seem,” he sang on a single note, reveling in this sudden new ability while he dreaded what he had to say. “I
am
a prince.”

Orb sobered rapidly. “Go on,” she said with sudden reserve.

In singsong, he did. He was the second son of the Rajah of Gujarat and had been raised in a palace, his every whim obliged. His older brother was slated to become the new Rajah when their aging father died. Mym’s real name was
a complex construction that translated, loosely, as “Pride of the Kingdom.” Of course, he explained ruefully, he had been named before it was realized that he had a speech impediment. He was of course no pride, and the name had become an irony, one that he never used. His confinement to the palace had been as much to conceal him from public awareness as to cater to his needs, for indeed his father was ashamed of him.

But a prince remained a prince, and care was taken to bring him to the necessary level in every princely art. For if anything should happen to his brother, before there were issue, Mym would, to the consternation of all who were in the know, still assume the throne. How he could do this, when he could not even give a cohesive directive, no one dared speculate. It was vital that his brother be married early, so as to alleviate the possibility of disaster.

His brother had married early—but both his wife and his leading concubine had proved to be infertile. This was an embarrassment of another nature. They were maneuvering to obtain a fertile wife, but such matters were complex. Meanwhile, Mym—and the kingdom—remained at risk.

Mym had finally had enough of this. He did not want to assume the throne any more than his father wanted him to. He wanted only one thing—to be able to talk normally. But neither magic nor science had been able to help him; stuttering simply wasn’t properly understood. So he had run away.

It was perhaps a signal of the family’s degree of concern, he sang wryly, that his escape had been accomplished so readily. It was true that he was an accomplished infiltrator, who could slide past guards as if almost invisible—that was one of the talents useful to a Rajah, when rebellion threatened—but he was aware that only the most cursory attempt had been made to locate him. The truth was that his family knew that it would be better off without him. With luck, his older brother would carry the line on through, and the stutterer could be expunged from the records.

And so he had slipped about and spent his money cautiously, learning how to merge with the population and
get along without having to speak. For a time, the challenge of surviving had kept him occupied, but then the tedium had begun to encroach. Skulking around the streets of Ahmadabad had not been much more rewarding than being waited on as a prince. He had not dared show his princely skills, lest he betray his nature, and he lacked nonprincely skills. He had ranged beyond the city, seeking what he could not define. A magic charm had helped guide him and keep him from serious mischief.

Until he had seen and heard Orb sing and play. Then all the rest had faded away, becoming unimportant, and he had known the face and form of his ideal. And so he had come to her, revealing to her his handicap at the outset so that she would not be deceived, and had taken service with the group.

Orb, amazed at first, was evidently acclimatizing as his narrative continued. “So you
are
a prince,” she said.

“Not by choice,” he sang. “I desire nothing more than to remain here and be with you.”

“But I am not a regular part of this tour,” she protested. “I joined at Calcutta and will leave at Karachi, in Sind, where a ship will take me elsewhere in the world. It is the song I seek, the Llano.”

“Then I would go with you and be your bodyguard,” he sang.

That reminded her. “Those thuggees—as a prince you must hate them.”

“They are a bane to our fair kingdom,” he agreed. “They are vermin, to be exterminated wherever found. Most particularly when they threaten a woman like you.”

“You—trained in weapons. You can juggle five knives in the air without cutting yourself. Surely, then, you could—”

This was the other thing he had dreaded to tell her. “I could kill them,” he agreed. “And I did—and blindfolded you so that you would not see their bodies.”

Her face stiffened, and she turned away. He got up and went outside, knowing that the thing he had feared had come to pass. Orb was a lovely and somewhat innocent woman; she was revolted by physical violence. She was not temperamentally equipped to understand why or how
a prince would master the secret art of controlled berserkery, the ability to kill swiftly without losing his sanity. Yet the master had been right—he had had to tell her, before she began to share the emotion he had for her. There was no way he could bear to hurt her—and if her interest in him hurt her, then it had to be abolished.

But two days later Orb approached him. “I apologize for my reaction,” she said. “I realize that if you had not acted as you did, those thuggees would have killed you—and me—and then gone on to do the same to other innocent people. They did have to be destroyed. I—I simply have a problem adjusting to—to this sort of thing. I know you are not a violent man, Mym. I know you did what was necessary. I remember that you tried to get me away from harm before the thuggees showed, and I delayed to make another purchase, so it was really my fault, too. Will you forgive me my ignorance?”

“Forgiven!” he sang in a faint monotone, greatly relieved.

She came close, evidently intending to kiss him. But he shied away, for they were in the open. “People are watching!” he sang.

“Let them watch!” she exclaimed. She flung her arms about him and kissed him most soundly.

For a moment he savored the sheer delight of the experience, for she was all he had ever dreamed of. Then he broke somewhat. “I am a prince,” he reminded her. He knew that was no recommendation for her; she did not really believe in royalty.

“I think I loved you before I knew,” she replied. “I feared you were a criminal or a renegade, so I fought against it, but really I
knew
you were not. You are a remarkable man, who has been taunted by circumstance, and now that I understand you better, I do want to be with you. I would remain here in India, if I had to—”

“No, no!” he sang. “You must continue your quest for Llano! I would not deny you your dream!”

“But I think I have found my dream in you,” she said.

“Only part of it, only part,” he demurred. “And that
part you can have without sacrificing the other. I will go with you, wherever your quest leads.”

She smiled. “You are truly the most wonderful of men.” Then she kissed him again.