In the Lion’s Mouth

Cengjam Gaafe: The Second Interrogatory

“So,” says Bridget ban, low and drawn out, so that the sibilant slides like a hiss from between her lips, “it was no kidnapping, at all. He went with you of his own free will.”

The Confederal shrugs and grins. “Not free. Cost great deal.” Then, in Gaelactic, “And what is will, anyway? We are bounced about by the impacts of Fate and where we finally ricochet, that is where we fare. Whether we will to go that way or whether we simply will go that way is a question for metaphysicians, not for one so humble as I.” She sips again at her coffee, which has grown tempered as she unwound her tale.

“Paint it as you like,” the Hound replies. “He had control of the ship. He had the choice. To bring you here to me, or to proceed into the Confederacy.”

“A false dichotomy,” says Olafsdottr. “He did both; for here I am. The Fates weave cloth fine as silk.”

Graceful Bintsaif stirs. “It seems clear to me,” she announces. “Donovan’s old loyalties to the Confederacy reasserted themselves, and he went to answer his masters’ call.”

The Shadow turns in her seat and smiles at the junior Hound. “It seems clear to you because you are young, if not…” Her eyes flick to the blazon she wears above her left breast. “… if not without some experience. As you grow older, matters become much less clear.”

“Because eyes age and lose their focus.”

“And that may be a good thing. Some things best not seen clearly. But what are these ‘loyalties’ you speak of that ‘reasserted themselves’ and drove him to the Confederacy? Are they incorporeal creatures that lurk inside Donovan’s head—as his sundry selves do—awaiting opportunity to pounce and seize control of him? No, I think loyalties are things that a man expresses, not mysterious entities that express a man.”

Méarana strikes a chord. “There was a tenth Donovan once,” she remembers, “one he confronted and defeated, one that sought oblivion and death.”

“Ooh, we all seek that, harper, though soome less willingly than oothers. Or perhaps I should say, we all find it in the end, whether we seek it or noot. For whether or noo we seek it, it surely does seek us.”

The harper’s fingers take the chords into a goltraí, a lament. “So, maybe the Tenth Donovan survived after all and, resurrected, compelled him to his doom.”

Bridget ban snorts derision. “There was no compulsion, Lucy. You heard her. He chose to join them.”

“Aye, Mother, I heard her. I dinna ken an I’ve heard the sooth. And in any case, he went to o’erthrow the Names, not to succor them. So whate’er loyalties impelled him, ’tis nae clear that they were loyalties to Those.”

The Hound pours herself a fresh cup of coffee and replenishes that of Ravn Olafsdottr. “No, it is clear to me to whom his loyalty lay.” She hands the courier the cup, and their eyes lock for a moment before the latter leans back and raises the fresh brew to her lips.

“But tell me,” Bridget ban continues when Olafsdottr is once more set, “we of the League care mickle for Donovan buigh but muckle for the stirrings of the Confederation. Tell us more about this civil war you say roils the Shadows of the Names.”

The Shadow flashes her mocking smile. “What should it matter to you whether a great edifice is fallen, save that when whole it once blustered and frightened your sleep? Is it not enough to know that, turned upon itself, it can spare no attentions for you?”

“When a building close by crumbles, the rubble may strike my own. Bad enough that your masters once sent raiders across the Rift to devil our borderlands. At least there then were Those from whom we could demand redress. But if you are coming apart, a thousand filibusters, a thousand mercenaries may now descend upon us. Bad enough, our own pirates. We’d rather not host yours.”

The Shadow’s face loses its smile. “Do not hope too fulsomely, Hound. Hope is the cruelest of virtues, for her betrayal strikes more deeply. What is underway is not bongkoy, but chóng jíán, not disintegration but reconstruction.”

“Are you sure,” asks Bridget ban with a thin smile, “that it is not lam lam?”

The courier throws back her head and laughs, and even Graceful Bintsaif’s stern façade wavers. Méarana plays an interrogatory note on her harp and asks her question with a glance.

“Ooh, your moother plays a foony jooke, yngling. We say ‘lam’ it means ‘collapse.’ But also with a change of tone ‘sweet-talk’ or ‘coax.’ She means to say that it was my sweet-talking of Doonoovan buigh that caused his resistance to collapse.”

Méarana plays aimlessly. She has not yet found the right motifs for the tale. She has a bounding, rollicking, menacing melody for the Frog Prince, but she has not yet captured her father or his captor—or the lam lam.

“There is one thing I do not understand,” says Graceful Bintsaif.

“Ooh, there is moor than woon, I’m thinking.”

The junior Hound colors, but presses ahead. “Why did your rebels want Donovan buigh so badly. What is one more used-up, discarded agent among so many thousands fresher?”

“Many hands make light the work, but no one pair of hands lightens much. One may as well ask why we needed anyone at all, as in the limit the marginal assistance goes to zero. But…” Olafsdottr shrugs. “… I am but a simple Shadow. I am not told what I need not know.”

But Méarana has the impression that the Ravn’s duty had been more than mere courier work and that she regards a part of it at least a failure. Aye, a goltraí it would be for this opening section. And two melodies in counterpoint for Olafsdottr’s theme, because for a certainty she had two purposes. But which had failed? The overt one of carrying Donovan into the storm? Or the covert one that remains as yet concealed?

“Now must I digress,” says Olafsdottr, “and relate some while of such events as earlier befell; for our discord had been long a-building. Hear then while heroes in bold strife contend for twice-ten years among the homes of men.”