Mother of Lies

INGELD NARSDOR

was confident of a safe homecoming and a warm welcome. She had been watching the mound that was Kosord draw steadily closer for several days, and now she could make out the palace itself. Even Oliva seemed to be kicking harder, as if anxious to be let out to survey her future domain. The crew promised that the aptly named Joy of Return would dock by noon. Every night Ingeld viewed auguries in the campfires, and lately they had shown her back at work, relighting the sacred fire on the apex of the pyramid, which was her most solemn public duty.

Deserters from the city had been joining her procession for days, for while Horold’s original host had been outsiders, its younger Heroes were Kosord-born and news of the satrap’s death had caused many of them to revert to their ancestral loyalty to the dynast. They reported that Daughter Sansya had done a superb job of substituting for Ingeld in her absence, and had recently taken to proclaiming the dynast’s imminent return. Sansya must be seeing the same visions she was. Holy Veslih had things well in hand, then, and no doubt the star Nartiash would appear at tomorrow’s dawn to proclaim the turning of the year, right when it would show to maximum effect.

So Ingeld herself would be safe, but the flames had shown her nothing of Benard. The gods gave no guarantees for his safety anymore, nor for old Guthlag’s. If there was going to be fighting, those two were the most vulnerable and the usurper’s horde must still outnumber her tiny force by a sixty to one. She might survive, but without Benard her happiness would not.

Those doubts she tried to keep to herself. She sat close to Benard in Joy ’s bow and watched the winter birds swoop low above the water. The day was cold, but sunny and not too windy. The half flank of Werists serving as today’s guard of honor were all formerly Orlad’s men-Jungr, Snerfrik, Hrothgat, Narg, Prok, and Namberson-and she was sure Hordeleader Guthlag had good reasons for that assignment. The other six boats that now made up her flotilla were following in close formation. Although river traffic was light at midwinter, once in a while some hardy crew would go past, struggling upriver against wind and current. Usually now they knew whose fleet this was, and cheered her.

Witness Tranquility was no doubt busily recording, but nothing of her was visible under her veils.

A head surfaced and disappeared again.

Snerfrik sang out, “Here comes another one!”

Something splashed alongside the boat. A whitish flipper slapped at the gunwale and became a hand. Snerfrik and Prok reached over and grabbed, hauling the man up until he could cling to the side, half in and half out of the boat, blinking water from his eyes. He wore a brass collar, naturally.

“Next boat behind!” Prok said. “Hordeleader Guthlag is aboard and will take your oath. There’s a Speaker there to help you get out of the present one.”

This happened all the time now, and usually that was the end of it as far as Joy was concerned, for she was a small boat and already crowded. But this time the newcomer stopped puffing long enough to say, “Got a message for the dynast from Daughter Sansya.”

“He speaks the truth,” Tranquility said cheerfully.

“I’m sure he does,” Ingeld declared. “Bring Packleader Yabro aboard.”

They had a procedure for that. She decorously studied water birds and shipping on one side of the boat, while Prok and Snerfrik helped the recruit over the other, Namberson handed him a pall to act as both towel and covering, and Narg went to the meat crock they kept for just this purpose. The clink of the lid going back on the jar was a sign that the newcomer was respectable and it was safe for Ingeld to look. Safe, except that Oliva did not appreciate her landlady watching men tear at raw meat.

She looked to Benard instead. “Packleader Yabro Yorgalson and I are cousins,” she explained. Fourth or fifth cousins. Her foremothers had been dynasts for so many generations that hardly a family in Kosord was not related to her in some contorted fashion.

Benard nodded. “He has your ears. I thought he was only a flankleader?”

Yabro was a youngish man, not large by Werist standards, with hair and beard closer to red than gold; his good looks were not limited to the shape of his ears. His mother was a Nulist, and had been Palace Mercy for many years, so he had been a playmate for both Benard and Cutrath. Ah, where was Cutrath? Sansya had chosen a credible messenger.

He gulped down the last bloody lump, wiped his stubble with a brawny, furry forearm, licked his fingers, and said, “Flankleader, yes, my lady.” He glanced longingly at the meat crock.

“Speak up, then.”

“The Daughter says that Huntleader Jarkard, who now calls himself hordeleader, intends to force you to marry him, my lady. He’s stationing men all along the waterfront and in all the boats he could commandeer. Everyone with you, all the Heroes, are to be put to death.” He glanced apologetically at Benard. “Especially you, Hand. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Kind of you,” Benard said dryly.

“Did she say she foresaw this?” Ingeld had not.

“No, my lady. She learned it from men who don’t like the orders they’re getting. She say she sees you as dynast again, but she has not been shown your return.” Yabro’s plaintive interest in the meat crock paid off when Narg pulled out a leg of mouflon and passed it to him.

Ingeld was not at all surprised by Sanysa’s news, for it only confirmed what they had been hearing for days. “He really is a nastiness,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. News of the satrap’s death had provoked the predictable power struggle in the city, and the winner so far was Jarkard Karson, leader of Vulture Hunt. The fall of the House of Hrag had left Kosord with far too many Werists, and the same would probably be true of all Vigaelia for years to come.

“Very well. I know I am in no danger, so I will go on alone. Flankleader, tell Master Mog to signal a parley, please.”

Snerfrik pouted rebelliously, but scrambled aft to tell the eavesdropping riverfolk what they had just overheard anyway.

“Alone except for me,” Benard said.

They had worn this argument to death over the last three days. Trouble was, she wanted his support. She hated to admit that she needed it.

“If you insist on that, my love, you will make it much harder for Guthlag and his men to stay out.”

“Then they can kill me themselves right away and save Jarkard doing it. Otherwise, I will be at your side when you step ashore.” He set his face in his most moronically stubborn expression.

The crew were turning the boat. It tilted, the sail flapped unhappily.

“Put away that snack for a moment,” Ingeld told Yabro. “I need to think. Thank you. About three score Heroes have come to join us already. Not nearly enough for a pitched battle, of course. You say the rest don’t like their orders. If the usurper tries to use force, will he be obeyed?”

The messenger squirmed. “Against you, my lady, no. Some might obey, but the rest would swat them. But…”

“But her mudface gigolo will be fair game,” Benard completed helpfully.

Pink under his stubble, Yabro nodded. “He has a special flank picked out, hard cases who don’t like, er, Florengians. Volunteers, all of them. They’ll be right there on the waterfront, my lady, drooling blood.”

Benard nodded. “My blood. But if you want to keep me as your husband, love, then I must come with you.”

Ingeld wondered how many of Cutrath’s childhood friends would be in that death squad. Felicitous Memory was coming alongside, bearing Hordeleader Guthlag, Speaker Ardial, and more than a dozen Heroes. Ardial had seemed quite happy-insofar as any Speaker could ever seem happy-to accept the post of justiciar and return to Kosord. He would be no help in a fight, though, unless he could bore the enemy to death with texts.

More than the horde would be waiting to welcome her. Most of the extrinsic population would turn out, too, wanting to cheer. She dreaded the possibility of them getting involved. But surely Veslih would have warned her if a bloodbath was likely? And if she put up no resistance at all, then Benard would be forever banished from the city, and she would be back to being the wife of a Werist. Oliva needed better than a Werist stepfather. Benard was right. For someone who normally seemed to drift along slightly above the ground, he was wrong surprisingly rarely.

The boats came together with hardly a bump and the crew held them there with boat hooks.

“Hordeleader,” she told Guthlag, “Flankleader Yabro reports that Jarkard is certainly planning violence. You are too badly outnumbered to do more than throw your lives away. Speaker Ardial, I wish you to accompany me. Apart from the Speaker and my husband, I will go in unescorted.”

It took a little while, but she eventually overruled Guthlag’s protests.

For the next pot-boiling or so, Ingeld just sat with her eyes closed and prayed. Praying to Veslih in an open boat was extremely difficult. The sense of warmth and comfort she normally experienced was erratic and intermittent there, but she could hardly ask the riverfolk to build a fire for her. She must return today, because the Festival of Demern had ended and the skies were clear. These were the Dark Days, unofficially regarded as belonging to the Evil One. She was convinced that Nartiash would rise tomorrow, and the city needed her there to declare the turn of the year as her foremothers had done for six sixty years. And then Consort Benard could proclaim the feast.

Even in the Dark Days, it was exceedingly rare to see the city frontage deserted, and yet Joy of Return passed not a single moored boat as she came in. There were people, more people than Ingeld could ever remember seeing. The entire population of the city seemed to be standing along the levee, starting well outside the city proper. They knew her robes and her red hair dancing in the wind, and they sang for her. It began unevenly, a single childish voice barely audible in the wind, completely unplanned, but at once other voices took up the refrain. It swelled as she passed the hovels of the poor on the outskirts. By the time she was level with the first of the great trading warehouses, it was a steady, unanimous choir.

They sang none of the great hymns to Veslih, neither a joyful welcome nor a triumphant victory song. Over and over they sang “Ambilanha,” an old and simple folk song calling for a lover taken by the river, ambiguously vague as to whether the singer was man or woman, and the lover gone on a journey or simply dead. It seemed strangely inappropriate, and yet it filled her eyes with tears.

Captain Mog had no choice of berth. The river was at its lowest now, so only the main traders’ docks were accessible to even the smallest riverboats. Moreover, there was only one place his passengers could easily disembark because the bank was everywhere walled with people except for a gap in front of the Temple of Ucr in the center of the trading district. In this gap, a decorated arch of welcome stood forlorn and pathetic with its feathers and gaudy bunting fluttering in the breeze. The steps below it had been kept empty for the dynast’s return-some effort had even been made to wash them. Two boys stood ready to catch the lines and bend them to the bollards.

Ardial and Benard helped her disembark. Oliva was already making Ingeld unsteady on her feet, and the stairs seemed unnecessarily long. She took them slowly, leaning on Benard’s arm. At their side walked Speaker Ardial in his black robes and permanently bloodless expression. A Speaker was safe enough. Even Stralg had been content to drive Ardial out of the city, when he would have put an extrinsic ruler to death. Witness Tranquility followed them up, carrying her distaff and spindle to record the dynast’s return.

Still the people chanted “Ambilanha.”

Ingeld paused at the top to catch her breath, to survey the enemy, and to smile at the crowd. The arch proved that someone had planned a public welcome. Beyond it, a band with trumpets and drums stood in glum silence, making no effort to overrule the “Ambilanha” dirge. And there was a wagon with a throne on it, all brightly decorated, the sort of contrivance the Lamb Queen rode in at the Festival of Nastrar. The ropes that would draw the wagon lay deserted on the roadway, and the children who would pull them were nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of Sansya or the senior priests and priestesses, the heads of cults and guilds and senior families, all of whom should have been here to greet her.

The great crowd was held back, upstream and downstream, by walls of massed Heroes, at least six deep, perhaps a mustering of the entire city horde. And in the center of the open space stood the self-proclaimed horde-leader, Jarkard Karson, backed up by a dozen Werists-presumably the Benard execution squad, Yabro’s hard cases who didn’t like Florengians. They were all smiling eagerly.

Benard’s hand on her arm was steady, but icy cold. He kept it there as they walked forward and the chanting crumpled away into silence.

Ingeld stopped several paces back from Jarkard. “Return your men to barracks, Huntleader. They are not required.”

Jarkard was big, of course, but more bloated than beefy. Either he had practiced long and hard, or his face had come with a built-in sneer. “They are here to witness our marriage. I see you brought a Speaker. How considerate!”

“He is here to administer your oath of loyalty.”

“Then he will be disappointed.” He pointed at Benard. “You, boy, will leave now. I will count to three.”

“And I,” Ingeld said, “shall count to two.” No need to delay. Either the goddess would support her or She wouldn’t.

“You can count anything you like, my sweet,” the Werist said. Was there a hint of hesitation in his puffy eyes?

Nasty though he was, Ingeld would prefer not to kill him. “Do not provoke my wrath!”

Jarkard’s sneer remained unruffled. “One!”

“One!” Ingeld echoed. “I warn you for the last time.”

“Two!”

“Two!”

Jarkard opened his mouth to say “Three” and Ingeld laid the curse of Veslih on him. He did not so much burn as erupt, as if he had been struck by lightning. His pall and skin charred instantly. A tower of red flame hurtled upward, then his head and belly exploded in fire and steam. His escort leaped back in horror, and every throat in the city cried out-except Be-nard’s, because he had been forewarned, but his grip nearly crushed Ingeld’s forearm. The crowds, even the Werists, fell to their knees in the presence of the goddess. In moments Hordeleader Jarkard was reduced to a smoking, reeking litter of charred bones.

Ingeld was shivering with the relief of tension. She had never cursed a human being before. Once she had dealt with a mad dog, but she had not been certain that she could bring herself to kill a man. Her grandmother had done so twice, reputedly. The crowd was moaning and weeping.

“Dramatic!” Ardial said dryly. “Twenty-seven years ago you did not treat Stralg so harshly.”

Ingeld bit her lip. What could she respond to that? I love Benard but did not love you? Or perhaps, Horold was handsome and you were not? Even, I was only a child back then? She said, “Oliva will need her father, Ardial.” That felt nearest the truth.

“It is unfortunate you did not burn the Fist, though. The world has suffered much since then.”

“I am sure you could quote me a number of texts about missed opportunities. Witness,” Ingeld added quietly, “will there be more challenges?”

Behind her, Tranquility laughed. “Not a peep, my lady.”

“You!” Benard bellowed. “Flankleader! Get those men back to barracks! All of them. Do you want to be next? Bandleader, play!”

The cheering began, rising to a roar and drowning out the brazen shriek of trumpets. Consort and dynast walked forward to the wagon. As they passed the cinders, Ingeld averted her eyes and met Benard’s loving gaze. Those artist’s eyes-dark Vigaelian eyes-missed nothing, not her nausea, her relief, her shame, her joy. His great hand tightened around hers

“Well done!” he said admiringly. “You didn’t warn me you were going to melt his collar.”

“Horrible!”

“But necessary. And there won’t be any more. Everything will be all right now.”