Mother of Lies

BENARD CELEBRE

needed only a few seconds to dress-tie one loin cloth, grab two sandals-before he could wriggle out the door of the tent to see who was dismantling it and who was doing all the shouting. The sun was just rising in a narrow streak of sky between mountains and a roof of cloud. The island camp was in chaos.

“Wait a moment!” he shouted at the two sailors pulling up the tent pegs. “My wife isn’t-”

But she was, if only just. The tent was whisked away and there was Ingeld, kneeling while wriggling into a dress, her copper head just emerging from the top of it. People were yelling and running in all directions. Benard dropped to his knees and began stuffing things in the clothes bag. Even a dumb Hand could guess that the boat was about to leave.

“Don’t pack that yet! I need it!” Ingeld snatched back her comb. However gorgeous, long hair became a notable eyesore when badly tousled.

Dantio came staggering past carrying a rolled tent. Benard leaped up and blocked his way.

“What-”

“-is happening?” His brother grinned widely. “Horold’s tribe of goons has discovered that Witness Tranquility got stolen away in the night. He is spitting blood and bones. He’s ordered the islands searched. We think it wiser not to be here when he arrives.” He tried to slip past and met the same wall of brother again.

“You mean you rescued her? You and who else?”

“Orlad kept me company, telling jokes.”

Benard growled, unamused. “Where’s this New Dawn you promised us?”

Dantio glanced eastward. “Close. Not quite close enough, unfortunately. If you want to help, brother…” He heaved his massive bundle at Benard, who foolishly caught it and was left holding it.

He ran to the boat with it, tossed it in, and came running back.

And met his sister carrying her clothes bag.

“So you did it!” he said, hugging her. “Congratulations! That’s wonderful.”

“Me?” Fabia’s eyes were deep tarns of innocence. “Why do you think I had anything to do with it?”

“Your hair is damp and you smell of Wrogg.”

She practically spat at him. “You are an absolutely infuriating man, Benard Celebre! One moment you are totally obtuse and the next you are sharper than Horth.”

He spread his big mouth in a grin. “It was Orlad who saw that Dantio wouldn’t be asking for your help last night unless he needed it. You’re not worried I’m going to start boasting about my sister the Chosen, are you? Other people might not understand.”

“And you do?”

He didn’t, but he would trust her motives until he had reason not to. “Remember the day we met? Ingeld asked which goddess I would model on you?”

She raised two perfectly shaped eyebrows. “You told her Hrada.”

“I had to say something.”

“You guessed even then?” she asked skeptically.

“I suspected. I knew it wasn’t one of the Bright Ones.”

“I look evil, do I?”

“No, no, no!” He raked fingers through his hair. “I’m no good with words. The Bright Ones’ cultists are… monochrome. Orlad is all ferocity. Dantio is pure nosiness. Love or war or law… I couldn’t tie you down like that. You’re a rainbow, a dark rainbow, all indigo, maroon, olive, walnut… But you’re not, um, dull enough to be an extrinsic. I can’t tell you. I’d have to paint it.” He was happy to see her smile return. “It’s wonderful, Fabia! There’s an old saying that two gods are better than one. We have four!”

She kissed his stubbled cheek. “Then I won’t blast you with my evil eye. We can talk on the boat. I’ll talk, you draw.”

“Benard!” Ingeld was calling and beckoning from the fire pit benches.

He remembered that Horold was coming and trotted over to where she stood alongside a seated woman-elderly, small, and disheveled. Her dress was tattered and one side of her face had been badly scarred since he had last seen her. Ingeld started to introduce him.

“Mistress Lonia!” He dropped to his knees. “I was horrified when my brother told us of your plight.”

She smiled with grace. “And I worried about you, Master Artist. I was most relieved when I saw last night that you and the dynast were both alive and well.”

“You know each other?” Ingeld seemed surprised, as if Benard did not know every face in Kosord.

“Well, I didn’t know until last night that she was a Witness, but Mistress Lonia gave me one of my first commissions.”

“Not quite, my lady,” the seer said. “I asked young Master Artist Benard to make a mural in my home. When I told him I couldn’t afford the gift of silver he asked in return, he said he would do it anyway and I could give him whatever I liked.”

Ingeld chuckled. “Yes, you do know Benard.”

“In the end she gave me even more than I’d asked,” Benard countered. “I can tell an honest face.”

“So what did you do with it? No, don’t tell me.”

“It’s all right, I don’t remember.”

A Werist ran by. “Time to go, ladies! The monsters are coming.” It was Waels, the beautiful one.

“Benard,” Ingeld said. “Witness Tranquility is somewhat frail after her ordeal, and she still has a length of chain attached to her ankle, so I wondered-”

“My pleasure!” Benard scooped her up, chain and all, and strode off across the clearing. He grinned down at her. “You need fattening up, Witness!”

She laughed. “I feel like a child who has been lost and found. You Celebres don’t lack for brawn, I must say.”

“Orlad cheats,” Benard said. “I’m the real beef. Dantio has the family brains.” Fabia, he suspected, was more dangerous than any of them. “What happened after we left Kosord? How long was the satrap distracted by Nymph Hiddi?”

The old lady simpered, almost smirked. “She kept him very busy for two days and three nights, then took fright. I think she worried that his men would kill her. So she ran away-actually, she jumped on a boat going downstream, but only we Witnesses knew that. Horold regained his wits, discovered, er, um, the dynast’s absence, and came charging into the duty room. Sensing his anger, I had sent everyone else away. When I said I didn’t know where you were-which I didn’t, because you were out of my range by then-he struck me.” Her fingers touched the fading red scars on her cheek.

Benard said, “Monster!” The satrap must weigh four times what she did.

“In a way,” the old woman said. “In another way it was a good thing. We’ve been hoping for years that something like that would happen.”

“Horold broke the treaty?” asked Ingeld, who was hurrying along at their side, hard put to keep up with Benard’s pace.

“Yes he did! If any of us had lied to him, we would have been anathematized, but the moment a Werist knocked me down, the pact was shattered.”

That ought to mean that Dantio was now safe. Horold had broken the compact first.

The boat was in sight now, beyond shrubs and spindly trees. It had been launched; crew and passengers were boarding. Other riverfolk had taken alarm, and two boats were heading upstream, being rowed in the calm.

“So the satrap beat our destination out of you?” Benard asked.

The Witness sighed. “I am afraid he did, because I had seen you go off downstream and did not know you had doubled back until I saw you here last night. Trying to lie, I told him the truth-praise the All-Seeing.”

“Then holy Demern was rendering justice!” Benard said firmly. “Today Horold meets his doom.”

“How close is he now?” Ingeld asked.

“About halfway from his camp,” the seer said. “He has his men spread out in a line, all the way across the islands, so they cannot move very fast.”

“And New Dawn?”

“There’s several sixty sweaty men coming down the Milky, but they won’t be here for at least a pot-boiling. We can get away, but I’m very much afraid the satrap will, too. If he takes fright and heads downstream, then he’ll have a fast run back to Kosord.”

Benard thought, Ridiculous! A Werist running away? Then he recalled that the boar was a cunning beast. Horold must believe he was very close to his dread sister, and to turn up at Tryfors without orders, chasing a runaway wife he hadn’t found yet, would be a major provocation. Worse, he certainly would not want to confess to Saltaja that he’d broken the precious compact with the Witnesses. Having done so he had effectively blinded himself, so he could never hope to find Ingeld. He might see Tranquility’s escape as a face-saving excuse to run back to the safety of Kosord. Yes, Horold might well give up and go home.

And that would be a disaster!

The path narrowed between tall trees and for a moment Ingeld fell back out of earshot. “Do I still have seasoning?” he asked quietly.

The old seer twitched in surprise. “Mist told you about that?”

“Do I?”

She nodded.

He said, “Thanks,” but he wished she had said no.

Free Spirit was a roiling mass of confusion. All the gear had been thrown in higgledy-piggledy. The sailors were burrowing under the heap to find the sweeps, which they then hauled out and swung around to set in the thole pins, narrowly avoiding braining bystanders. Most of the passengers were trying to stay out of the way, but a couple of Werists were holding tight to the shrubbery to keep the boat from drifting. As Orlad was helping Ingeld board, Benard stepped between two bushes and passed Tranquility across to big Snerfrik, who had to release a branch to take her.

Benard slipped back and sank down prone behind the bushes. He hid his face and lay very still. Most people never saw what was right in front of their eyes, and the simple trick worked perfectly. In the confusion of departure, his absence went unnoticed even by the Witnesses. The last two Werists boarded and the boat pushed off without him.

Overall the river was very quiet. Angry voices, the squeal of the thole pins, the coxswain’s attempts to call a stroke-all soon faded into the distance. Dantio and Tranquility would see him the moment they looked, of course, and then there would be a battle royal between the passengers wanting to come back and get him and the crew wanting to escape from Horold. It was very doubtful that Orlad and his warriors could work the sweeps, so the sailors would probably win.

Benard was normally the least suicidal of men, but Ingeld would never be safe while Horold lived. She must go home very soon, because she had a duty to holy Veslih to let Oliva be born within the city she would one day rule. Now Horold had wandered into a trap and must not be allowed to wander out again before it was sprung. A good trap needs good bait.

Benard still had seasoning. He might yet change the flavor of the world.

He raised his head and confirmed that the over-long oars had already carried Free Spirit out of sight around a bend in the channel. He could hear another boat coming upstream. He rose and took off at a run, back to the clearing and on beyond it, heading downstream. When Dantio saw him, he would guess what his crazy brother was doing, but Benard would be hard to catch once he got a good start.

He reached a channel, paused to make sure his sandals were tightly tied, then plunged in and swam across to another island. And so on, across the maze of water and pathways. Whenever the way was clear he ran or trotted. And all the time he prayed to Anziel.

… great Her majesty and in infinity the realm of Her blessing… She is the sun, the candle, and the stars…

I know I’m not a good liar, my lady, but You could make me seem like a good liar, just this once. I’m not brave, either, but You could make me seem brave. He visualized his face all serene and earnest. Make me look like that today! Just today would be quite long enough. He might not live until noon, and if he did he would likely wish he hadn’t. Horold could be incredibly spiteful.

When Benard judged that he was safe from pursuit, he found himself a ramshackle bench in a wide clearing and sat down to recover his breath and prepare a plausible story. He had done the first and was making progress with the second when a couple of Heroes came into sight through the trees. Then others. They saw him waiting and ran forward.

Yes, this was going to be bad. The blue-sashed flankleader was Vars Varson, who had been a cadet in the Kosord palace guard the last time Benard saw him and was even nastier than his friend Cutrath Horoldson. By the time he and half a flank of warriors arrived, Benard was on his knees, head humbly bowed.

“Looks like our lucky day, lads,” Vars said. “Where’s the woman?”

“I’ll tell the satrap,” Benard said and was slammed to the ground.

The flankleader licked his knuckles. “Nork, you’ve got a good bugle. Tell Big Pig.”

One of his men screwed up his face as if he were doing something painful, and released a howl that could not have come from any normal throat: “We got the mudface!” He followed it with a series of trumpet blasts to help Horold locate him. He might have been audible in Tryfors.

Vars kicked Benard. “On your feet, vermin!” Then he said, “Now try and stay there!” and went for him with a blur of punches. Benard’s efforts to parry, dodge, and retaliate met with no success at all. He could have broken Vars over his knee like a twig if he would have stayed still for it, but a Werist was a trained fighter. A Hand was not. He found himself lying on the grass, hurt and bleeding.

Vars said, “Your turn next, Ranthr. Just don’t kill him, quite.”

His men laughed at the sport. They took turns kicking Benard until he got up, then seeing how many hits they could get in before he went down again. When he could no longer stand, they just kicked-kidneys, belly, head, face, groin. A really good scream earned extra points. He was going to die. Ingeld! Ingeld!.. His ordeal seemed to go on long enough to boil every pot in Vigaelia, one at a time, but eventually someone locked fingers in his hair and hauled him up to a kneeling position. He found himself peering blankly up at the tusks and snout of Satrap Horold.

“Where is my wife?”

Benard mumbled, “At a farmhouse on the Milky River, lord.” He kept his eyes on the satrap’s killer hooves.

“And what are you doing here?”

“I came to tell you, lord.” Benard no longer worried whether he looked truthful or not. Nothing was going to show on the bloody pulp of his face. He had lost several teeth and could not see straight.

“Why?”

What was the story now? Oh yes… He spat out more blood. “Because she’s pining, wasting away. She has to go home to her city or she’s going to die!”

“You do know you are going to die, don’t you?”

“My lord is kind.”

“Not so as you will notice.” Horold laughed. The day was looking up for him, after a bad start. “Did you get her with child?”

Benard vaguely remembered deciding that a straight denial would not be believed. “Yes, but she lost it. She said her goddess rejected it.” Horold would like hearing that.

The satrap laughed again. After a season away from his palace bathtub and scent bottles, he reeked like a burning manure pile. He turned to a follower. “Packleader, summon the boats.” The result was another flurry of long-distance howls, answered from afar.

“Who raided my camp last night and stole the seer?”

Through shattered teeth, puffed and bleeding lips, Benard mumbled, “Lord, I do not know.”

Horold probably kicked him then, for he found himself flat on the ground again, with the world spinning overhead. His mouth was full of blood and broken teeth.

“Bring him,” Horold said. “Don’t hurt him any more or you won’t leave any fun for me.”

There were no riverfolk in the satrap’s boat. Either he had just seized it and thrown them out, or they had taken fright and fled. After a lifetime of campaigning all over Vigaelia, Horold was quite capable of fending for himself on land or water. Being no stranger to ambushes, either, he had sent six boats on in line ahead and had another six or more bringing up his rear.

The pallid Milky was a winding stream and the gusty wind kept changing direction also, but he had no need to raise sail or run out the steering oar. He had lots of manpower available. Sixteen Werists walked alongside, hauling the boat. When they set out the Wrogg had been shoulder-deep, so they had stripped, leaving their palls and shoes aboard. Now they were having trouble moving the boat over the Milky’s shallows and were pale blue with cold, whole-body goose bumps. Horold didn’t care.

He lounged in the stern. Benard sat amidships, tightly bound to the mast, fading in and out of consciousness and in too much pain to pay attention anyway. That last blow had jangled him completely, so he was seeing double and hearing waterfall noises. He was also sitting in a scarlet puddle, copiously passing blood. Yesterday he had asked the gods to send Horold to join his brother, now it looked as if Benard himself would lead the way. That was traditionally what happened to those who cursed.

“Prisoner!” Horold roared, for the third or fourth time.

Benard managed to lift his head and half open one eye. “Lord?”

“I said that if this is a trap, I will kill you first. Understand? I’ll rip your balls off and tear the rest of you into little pieces.”

He would probably do that anyway.

Benard peered around at the fuzzy, blurred, and duplicated landscape. It had been farmland the last time he looked, and now it was bulrushes and swamp, with patches of willow, dogwood, and bungweed. The little town of Milk had come and gone. There was still no sign of the New Dawn rebels, but at least the satrap’s flotilla had not run into Free Spirit, which had been his greatest fear.

“How far to this farmhouse?” the satrap demanded.

Benard’s mouth was so swollen he could hardly speak. If he waited any longer he wouldn’t be able to say what he wanted to say. It would doubtless kill him, but this folly had already gone on too long. Life hurt too much.

“There is no farmhouse,” he mumbled. “This’s an ambush. Your reign is ended, monster. My brother Orlad killed your brother Therek yesterday. Him and a few others to help.” He vomited more blood and the world spun again. “There was fighting in Tryfors later. Don’t know if your sister got her deserts yet or not. But she’s going to. These woods are stiff with rebels. New Dawn, they call themselves.”

“You’re delirious!”

“I lied about the baby. My daughter will rule Kosord after Ingeld.”

The giant uttered a deep roar. He rose to his feet, enraged and enormous, raising a hand armed with massive claws. “Florengian trash!” He took two steps forward.

The warriors splashing along beside the boat had been listening to Benard’s mumbled diatribe and were curious to see how their hostleader would dismember him. They were less attentive than they should have been to their surroundings, so many of them failed to battleform soon enough when a hundred war-beasts erupted out of the rushes. Men hit by two or more war-beasts apiece died quickly. Up and downstream, the attacks came moments later, but those crews had seen what was happening and had time to react, so those battles went on longer. The results were the same in the end, though.

Guthlag Guthlagson had long maintained that Satrap Horold would never dare battleform again unless it was a matter of life and death. That day had now arrived. His warbeast was more like an eight-foot bear than a boar, armored in yellow fur and wielding claws like meat hooks, but it did have two dagger-sized boar tusks. He disemboweled his first two attackers, then toppled under a pack of them. The boat fell apart when the mountain of flesh hit the side, but the water was too shallow for it to sink. The mob had to tear him apart to kill him.

Benard watched it happen. The gods had granted his prayer. Now he could die happy.