Read A Company of Heroes Book Two: The Fabulist Online
Authors: Ron Miller
A Company of Heroes Book Two: The Fabulist (19 page)
“Well, no, but . . .”
“Effectively, it is as though this country had two monarchs . . . clearly an impossible situation, don’t you agree? A people cannot have divided loyalties. There can only be one king.”
“Of course, but the bishop is
the Church
!”
“No, your majesty,
you
are the Church.”
“What?”
“You remember. The Privy Council, two weeks ago, made you the Chief Bishop of the Church.”
“Can they do that?”
“Of course! They couldn’t have done it otherwise, could they?”
“No, I suppose not . . .”
“It is not only perfectly legal, but what could be more right or logical than that the temporal and spiritual heads of the nation be one and the same person? You’re monarch of both your people’s bodies
and
souls. Isn’t that as it should be?”
“I think I can see your point . . . I mean, well, of course I do . . . but to put the bishop to death . . .”
“But he wasn’t bishop any longer; that’s the whole point. Once the Council made you the head of the Church
his
claim to still be bishop is both heresy
and
treason. Don’t you see?”
“I think so.”
“Of course you do! Think of it this way: can Tamlaght have two kings?”
“No . . .”
“There you go, then! Could you have the bishop telling the people one thing and you another? Of course not. It’s a simple matter of consistency.”
“Am I absolute monarch or not, is that it?”
“You’ve got it, exactly.”
“I’m king by the grace of Musrum Himself, I know that. And if Musrum placed me at the head of my people, then it should naturally follow that I should be the head of the Church, too, doesn’t it?”
“Naturally.”
“They’re really one and the same thing, when you think about it, chief bishop and king. Having them two different people is simply, ah, redundant. Musrum placed only one of us at the head of our people and I have only Harspranget’s word that Musrum chose him, whereas I
know
that Musrum chose me. Why, it’s been my destiny. Generations and generations have led to
me
, where did Harspranget come from?”
“I have no idea, your majesty.”
“See? Musrum! I’ve been tired lately, Payne; you have no idea of the pressures I’ve been under. I would’ve seen all this much sooner. If I are an ordinary human I would’ve broken; I know I would’ve. Thank Musrum I’m king, however. How did Harspranget take to his inquisition?”
“He broke down quickly. He’d scarcely lost a square foot of skin before he is gibbering confessions left and right.”
“I would never’ve betrayed myself that way. Are you certain that such methods are really necessary, Payne? They have such a . . . a . . . primitive quality to them. It doesn’t really sound civilized.”
“It really is war, your majesty. When the Church sealed its doors and defied your direct orders, it declared war. The Church is powerful, your majesty, and we must not underestimate its influence over the population. Its insurrection could have quickly escalated into civil war. It is necessary to work quickly; the Church’s insubordination had to be snuffed out by the most expeditious methods available.”
“But if the Church has such a grasp upon the people, what will they think of what has been done? Won’t there be civil war anyway?”
“I think not. This country has been undergoing a severe eco-nomic depression for a very long time now. People are starving, losing their homes. They are turning to the Church for solace without realizing that the Church is at the root of their problems, indeed, at the root of the difficulties facing Tamlaght as a nation!”
“What do you mean?”
“Few people, and certainly not the average citizen, realizes how very rich the Church is. Millions, even billions, are being poured into it, yet little if anything ever came out. A peasant might have given the Church the greater part of his income, after taxes, of course, for most of his life, he would attend a church where the walls are encrusted with gold and draped with fine tapestries, and receive the easily given and cost-free blessings of a fat, bejeweled priest without thinking for a moment that there is an anomaly somewhere. Then, when he had lost his home and farm and is starving, he thanked the Church on bended knee for being so kind as to give him a crust of stale bread and some watery soup.”
“Doesn’t sound very fair, does it?”
“Now think of what the common people are going to say when they learn how wealthy the Church had grown at their expense, and think of what they are going to say when they learn that this wealth is being transferred to the safekeeping of the State . . . that is, you, your majesty!”
“Yes, the people know that I care.”
“Of course they do! They revere their king and know that he has only their best interests at heart. Why, think of how willingly your taxes are paid, for example. Do you have to threaten them with hellfire and damnation in order to extort money from them? Of course not! Do you resort to promising a better life that you know you will never have to produce? No, you give the people value for their money! Excellent highways, exquisite parks, a powerful police force to guard their safety, beautiful monuments to inspire them, palaces so they will have no reason not to feel pride in their sovereign, personal servants and retainers for you so they will not writhe in guilt knowing that you are overworking yourself, carefully prepared and nourishing food for their king so they will know that his health is not suffering on their account, relaxing yachts and country houses so they will know that their ruler can occasionally and deservedly refresh himself. What more could your people possibly hope for? What more could you give them?”
“They are fortunate, are they not?”
Payne is amazed and disgusted to see that the king is actually crying.
“They bless you every day, your majesty; even the tiniest children cannot fall asleep before they have lisped the name of their beloved king amongst their prayers.”
“Is that true?” he sniffled.
“Could I lie to you, sire? The Church is going to destroy everything you’d tried to do. It is going to undermine the people’s faith and love for you, your majesty!”
“That’d be treason!”
“Of course.”
“It must be stopped!”
“It’s being stopped now, sire.”
“Excellent! And what’re you doing?”
“As I says, we must consider that a state of war exists between the State and the Church. It acts as though it are a separate entity, above the laws that you and your ancestors created. Well, then, it’ll be treated as a separate entity. It must be shown that an independent, sovereign state cannot exist within the borders of Tamlaght. With your permission, sire, I’d like to combine the army with the Guards in order to lay siege against the Church. The whole thing should be over in a day or two if we do that.”
“Then do it, by all means!”
“Yes, sire,” Payne replies as the first booming echoes of the guns come from across the city.
“One more thing, before you go, Payne.”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you come to my exhibition?”
“Why, your majesty . . . you know how my mother died.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Forgive me. Ah, you may go,” he says in dismissal.
“Pardon me, your Highness, but this is my office.”
“Oh, yes. Forgive me.”
Ferenc returns to his own chambers and ruminates for the rest of the day, as intently as only a true ruminant can, trying to recall just how Payne’s mother
had
died.
The fall of the big cathedral takes even less time than Payne predicted. The combined forces of the army and the Guards are more than the defenders of the Church can bear. Although the cathedral had been originally designed as a fortress, that had been in a time when the state of the art in weaponry had been the catapult. Against steel-clad shells and high explosives, there is no defense. The thick stone walls collapse; opposition is answered by immediate death, and when active opposition ceases arrests are made and the prisoners disappears. Once the cathedral is breached the army is set to guard its perimeter with an unbroken wall of men. Only the Guards actually enter the vast building. The looting is done methodically and systematically, the men sweeping through the church like trained locusts. Not a single chamber, room, closet or cell is overlooked or failed to be stripped of its contents. They discover jewels and jewelry, paintings and sculpture, furniture and tapestries, wardrobes of fine clothing, armories of gold and silver weapons, books, manuscripts, maps and globes, vast amounts of currency in paper, coin and bullion, records of investments and properties worth even more than the hard cash . . . in short, the treasure and loot of centuries.
A train of heavy wagons waits in the square and as quickly as one is filled to capacity another moves to take its place. The treasure is taken to the fort at Kaposvar as the most secure place within the city’s environs. Payne is aware that the fort is on the side of the city furthest from the cathedral but makes no effort to route the wagons along either the shortest or most secure line. Instead, he allows a meandering course that takes the train of heavily guarded trucks through some of the most densely populated parts of the city.
Crowds of people pack the sidewalks and burst like bouquets from every window. As the heavy wagons lumber past, at first a dozen, then a score, and then another score, the citizens of Blavek cheer, and Payne knows that he had won. He is enormously pleased. They actually think that the wealth of the Church is being transferred to
them,
even if symbolically. Silly people.
If Payne thinks that life could scarcely be better, news arrives from overseas that manages to show how premature that conclusion is. The knowledge of Bronwyn’s kidnapping almost, but not quite, eclipses the glimmering heaps of treasure that are growing at that very moment in Kaposvar’s cells. Bronwyn herself would have hesitated, even if momentarily, to equate herself with such an unimaginable wealth. Praxx has brought the news about the princess to the Chamberlain and so distracted is the latter, inebriated in fact, by his gold-plated vision, that the general has to repeat himself before Payne becomes truly conscious of what he is being told.
“It is an elaborate scheme,” Praxx is saying. “More elaborate than I would have normally approved, but it is difficult to argue after the fact with success. The bombing of her room is a spectacular diversion. I realize now that anything less would no doubt have been immediately suspect.”
“It’s too bad, to my way of thinking, that she hadn’t been sitting on the bomb,” grumbles Payne.
“Perhaps.”
“Where is she now?”
“On board a ship, bound for Spondula.”
“And the court of the Badaud Alcatode, I take it?”
“So I believe. It is what I contracted for.”
“I hope this is the end of her. At least as far as I’m concerned, at any rate. That’s all that matters. By Musrum!” he sighs, leaning back into his chair as his imagination finally turns, reluctantly and probably briefly, from treasure to the princess. “I wish I could see her now! No. No, I take that back. I don’t ever want to see her again.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
BRONWYN AT SEA
Bronwyn wakes to the sounds of a ship’s bell and the fruity tones of a steam whistle and not even her violent headache is enough to prevent her from realizing almost immediately that she is, indeed, aboard a ship.
She had been lying on her back on a comfortable mattress. She raises herself onto her elbows, gently, and looks around the cabin. Her bed is in an alcove or nook recessed into one wall. Above her is a circular port through which projects a slanting beam of sunlight, terminating in a bright, round patch on the opposite wall, evidence that the day is either still young or near its end. The cabin is nicely, even luxuriously, appointed: heavy velvet curtains frame the bed-nook, the linens that wrap her are fine, there is an elaborately woven Ibrailan rug on the deck that she recognizes as being rare. The cabin has furniture carved in a dark, gleaming wood: a dresser, desk, chairs and a small table, and framed pictures on the walls that she suspects are originals. There is also, in one corner, a small sink with a tap and mirror.
From a distance she can hear a throbbing, churning sound that must be the ship’s engines. But other than the bell and whistle, there have been no sounds of human activity.
She swings her legs over the edge of the bed; they are long enough to reach the deck. Her feet are bare, she sees, but otherwise she wears the same clothing she had been wearing when she had entered Pataskala’s hotel room.
When
? Had that been just the previous night or had it been several nights ago? She has no way of telling. She feels very hungry, but that isn’t a very accurate index. Her head still hurts, though, which argues for a fairly recent injury. She gingerly feels the base of her skull and winces when her fingers locate the lump. It bears the crusty cap of a scab. She stands up, grasping the curtain for fear of a sudden dizziness, and is relieved when none comes. The sea through which the mysterious ship is ploughing must be exceptionally smooth, or perhaps the ship is quite large, since there is little sensation of movement and only the slightest perceptible roll.
Bronwyn notices a suit of clothing hanging from a hook on the back of a door; there are two doors in the cabin and this one is evidently that of a closet or wardrobe. The clothing must be intended for her since it obviously is not of the same class as the furnishings. She crosses the cabin and lifts the garments from the hook. Yes, it is a simple sailor’s outfit, probably belonging to one of the ship’s crew and expropriated for her use; perhaps a sign of the haste with which her abduction had been accomplished.
She climbs from her black leathers, fills the little sink with cold water from the tap and sponges the remaining unconsciousness from herself. She dries herself with a coarse towel and puts on the sailor’s uniform, which is clean and starchy-smelling. Bronwyn has grown since her adventures begain nearly two years earlier and she is now so close to six feet in height as to make any quibbling pointless, and standing on the tips of her toes she considerably exceeds that height, her inordinately long legs bearing the responsibility of exactly fifty-seven percent of the distance.
The sailor’s uniform fits her well, if loosely about the waist, and in other circumstances she probably would have been pleased with her appearance. A disinterested observer would have found the ensemble of Bronwyn and her bell-bottomed outfit unquestionably appealing . . . an opinion she would have scorned.
There are no shoes nor can she find her own boots, though this did not seem to her to be any particular handicap on board a ship.
For the first time, she has been avoiding the necessity until now, she tries the latch on her door. To her infinite surprise, it is not locked and turns in her hand with a soft click. She opens the door just far enough to admit her head into the corridor beyond. There is no one in sight. The ship is silent: there is no longer even the sound of the engines. She steps into the passage and closed the door quietly behind her. One end of the corridor ends in stairs leading upwards, so she heads toward them. Her feet make no sound on the metallic rungs.
She emerges into dazzlingly bright sunshine. Before her stretches a long, polished deck above which is tented a canvas awning. A half-dozen unoccupied deck chairs are strewn about in the shade. She turns to look toward the bow of the ship. A white deckhouse is directly behind her, from which she has just emerged. At its further end perches a glassed-in pilothouse behind a tall, slender smokestack set at a rakish angle. On one side of the stack, and presumably on the obverse as well, is painted a red dragon or flying snake. She does not recognize the symbol. She does, however, recognize the ship as the yacht which had sat off Diamandis Antica the night she had arrived to look for Ugler Pataskala.
“Welcome aboard the
Limnoria
,
Princess,” says a suave voice from behind her. Bronwyn replies as she turns.
“I might have known it would be you, Bugarach; who else would name his yacht after a worm?”
“You know your marine zoology, Princess.”
“No. I just recognize an invertebrate when I see one. I suppose I’m not going to be surprised when I hear whatever explanation you’ve prepared?”
“Only in that I don’t believe I have any reason for feeling that I owe you an explanation . . .”
“But . . . ?”
“Why not? We have some time ahead of us before your cruise is finished, and it’s as good a topic of conversation as any. Would you join me in the salon? I think we’d be more comfortable.”
Bronwyn follows Bugarach into the deckhouse, the interior of which has been decorated richly and furnished elegantly. The walls are ornamented with an ominous collection of edged weapons: antique and modern, exotic and familiar. She finds a comfortable-looking wing chair and sits in it, legs and arms crossed.
“To tell you the truth,” she says, “I don’t know that you’ll be able to tell me anything that I either don’t know or haven’t guessed.”
“You’re probably right. Would you care for some sherry? I have an excellent Wrawwroke here I think you’d appreciate.”
“No, thank you.”
Bugarach shrugs his shoulders and pours himself a dram of the purple liquid. He turns and leans against the cabinet of sparkling decanters. He takes an appreciative sip. “There’s really no reason for you to be like this, Bronwyn . . .”
“You’ve no right to use my name familiarly.”
He shrugs again and says with a small smile, “
Princess
Bronwyn, then. There are discussions of providing a far more permanent fate for you. Both Payne Roelt and General Praxx are all for simple elimination. In fact, I wouldn’t expect any really severe reprimand should I violate my orders to the extent of dropping you overboard, suitably ballasted, anytime before reaching our destination. It is only by the narrowest margin that it is deemed wiser to instead take you where you’re now going.”
“Am I supposed to feel grateful?”
“Did I imply that? This isn’t being done for your benefit, I assure you . . . believe me, you’ll have nothing to feel grateful for.”
“You’re a traitor to your class, Bugarach.”
“Lord Bugarach.”
“Bugarach. I judge by this boat that you don’t sell yourself cheaply. Or do your perverse hobbies have handsome prizes?”
“You’re not going to irritate me, just in case you want to save the effort.”
“It’s no effort.”
“Well, you’re wrong on one count at least, if you think that I’ve been paid in coin.”
“No low merchant you, is that it?”
“Not at all. I is simply made a better offer.”
“And what is that?”
“You.”
Bronwyn’s eyes slit as though two shutters have just slammed shut. Emerald glints through them like green rays from a prism. She doesn’t say anything.
“You haven’t asks yet
where
you’re going.”
“All right: where?”
“The court of the Badaud Alcatode in Spondula.”
“
What
?” Bronwyn can’t disguise the surprise that shows in her voice and face.
“I thought that would crack the ice a little,” he smirks.
It has indeed. Bronwyn has heard stories about Ibraila since she was a little girl, almost all of them designed to either disgust or frighten her. The excesses of the Ibrailan court were used as the most evil possible examples of what constituted the absolute antithesis of Musrumic and Tamlaghtan conservatism. The Ibrailans are barbarians of an almost definitive order and their Badaud is the example they all looked to for inspiration.
Bronwyn has little doubt that Bugarach has the infamous harem of the Badaud Alcatode in mind. That would certainly, if everything she has been told and has read is even remotely true, be a fate worse than being dropped over the side of the ship just behind a few hundred pounds of scrap iron.
“Do you see the beauty of it, your
Highness
? Simply having you destroyed would not have a certain, um, how shall I put it? A certain finesse, an artfulness, if you will. If I are to have returned to Blavek and reported that you’d been neatly and promptly disposed of, it would’ve been too
simple,
don’t you see? There would be nothing for the mind to linger over during those odd moments. Just a mental image of a dead body, that’s all. How boring. Oh, perhaps there might be a few moments of terror or pain to savor, but that would be all. Not much return for all of the trouble you’ve put my superiors to.”
Bronwyn is looking at the suave, handsome man, who is gesturing dreamily with his sherry glass, completely lost in his speculations, trying to decide which are stronger: her feelings of revulsion or horror.
“This way, however, Payne, Praxx or your brother can lie awake for a few minutes every night, aware that you are no doubt still alive, and wistfully drop off to sleep knowing that you wish you aren’t. I doubt, though, that their imaginations would really be able to compare with the reality of your situation. Praxx’s might, on second thought, though he seems to me to be a particularly sexless item. Since that will be the major theme of your, um, punishment, Praxx may have some difficulties with the more bizarre nuances. I see a flicker of disgust on your face.”
“If you do, it’s devoted entirely to you.”
“Do I disgust you? I really haven’t given you any reason yet.”
“Do I detect a threat?”
“Threat? Well, I suppose that from your point of view you might find the Immediate future threatening . . . I’m looking forward to It, myself.”
“You seem altogether too sure of yourself, Bugarach.”
“I have every reason to be, I assure you.”
“There’s no way you’ll get away with this.”
“Why not? You’re only being trite, now, Princess. No one knows where you’ve gone, no one knows where you are now . . . at least no one who matters to you, at any rate. And the only place I’ll be soon is back among the very people whose sole interest is in your continued absence. So why shouldn’t I get away with it?
“And don’t think for a minute that anyone on board the
Limnoria
will lift a finger to help you. I’m sailing with a skeleton crew which has been carefully hand-picked. . . “
, like a scab, mutters Bronwyn.
“. . .There’s nothing you could offer them that they know perfectly well that I could not only outmatch but can actually produce. So far as you’re concerned, they’re blind, deaf and mute. And, in any case, they’ve just been given strict orders to remain below no matter what they hear.”
“We’ll see what happens when I get to Spondula . . . I assume that’s where you’re taking me?”
“Oh, I could have you picked up at any one of a dozen deserted coves, but there’s no necessity for that, and it would be something of a hardship for me. No, you’re quite right, we’re bound for Spondula. We should arrive late tomorrow, in fact.”
“As I says, we’ll see what happens then.”
“You don’t seem to realize that it’s not really very important, at least not as important to you as the next few hours might be.”
“The threat again?”
“Here’s my reasoning: we both know, at least by reputation, what the harem of the Badaud Alcatode is like, and even if we didn’t our knowledge of the Ibrailan character would give us a clue. In any case, I’m sure that you’ve deduced by now that the Badaud’s harem is your eventual and imminent destination; a bottomless pit from which you’ll have no hope of emerging. The Badaud’ll be deaf to your protests and entreaties, he’s heard them all before, and why should he care more about your own than any other? No one outside’ll know that you’re there, and there’ll be no one in all of Ibraila who would help you even if they dared.
“The Badaud’s only interest will be in the fact that I’ll have delivered to him an extraordinarily lovely and even exotic new plaything, I don’t know when he last had a certifiably royal princess among his women, or even a woman who could read for that matter, he’ll reimburse me and I’ll be on my way. Who you are or who you claim to be will be of no influence on him at all, at least nothing positive from your point of view. To repeat myself, it’ll be exactly as though I’d dropped you into a bottomless sand pit; there’s no escape and the more you struggle, the faster you’ll sink. In fact, the more you struggle, the more the Badaud’ll like it. It’s the kind of thing he enjoys.”
“Now I see no reason not to deliver merchandise that’s already been, ah, utilized. After all, you’re no longer a virgin, I assume, so that little thrill is already denied my client.”
“I thought you’d be getting around to that. You really are a feeble little coward, aren’t you?”
“Probably. To tell you the truth, the idea of physically forcing you to submit to me is rather exciting. When’ve you ever allowed yourself to be subjugated by a man? Taken against your will? I can see by the expression on your face what you think of that. Well,
I
think that it’s about time, then.”
“You’re afraid of me, then, aren’t you?”
“Afraid of
you
? Whyever
would
I be?”
“What a miserable little victory you plan for yourself. What had you in mind? Beating me into submission, then raping me?”