Sorcerer's Moon (20 page)

‘I don't mind telling you more about the Salka retreat. The tidings came from that young blade Dyfrig Beorbrook. It seems he didn't simply confine himself to questioning the usual backwoods sources about Salka activities up north, as he'd been expected to do. Instead, he personally undertook a perilous secret spying expedition deep into the Green Morass! Plucky little whoreson, eh? His windscryer oversaw the monster horde withdrawing from its encampment at Beacon Lake. The buggers are streaming north to the sea. Abandoning their invasion.'

'But, that's wonderful news!' the chancellor exclaimed. 'Did Prince Dyfrig discover why this is happening?'

The king paid no attention to Kilian's question. He spoke slowly and with precision. 'Now keep a close eye on me, wizard. I take a sparse clump of the stiffer rabbit guardhair, hold it in place against the wire just at its bend, and wind thread about
the hair to fasten it in place. Behold! The artificial insect now has a wispy tail as well as a head.'

In spite of himself, Kilian peered at the king's handiwork. 'What the dev - what exactly is it that you are making, sire?'

'Didn't I just tell you, you clodpate? I am dressing this angle to become a mock bug: a simulacrum of the dead creature here in the dish, which late was crammed into the belly of a huge brown trout, along with several score of its deceased kin.' The king poured more spirits into his goblet and took a satisfied swig.

'You're dressing
what?"

'This bent wire, called an angle, is in truth a fish hook. No wonder you are surprised, for it hardly resembles the crude things made of bone customarily used by our simple fisherfolk. A large steel needle is heated red-hot in charcoal, then the eye is nipped and tweaked to form a barb. The needle's pointed end is turned into a loop where the fish-line may be attached, and the entire thing then curved round a tiny anvil, again while red-hot, into the proper hook shape.'

'But. . . why make such a thing, when bone hooks work well enough and are so much cheaper? Our people have used such from time immemorial.'

'Fool,' growled Somarus. 'Bone hooks and gorges do
not
work well! Ask any village lad who sits all day on a river bank, only to glean a stringer of panfish - mere tiddlers. He has hardly any chance at all of capturing an enormous brown trout or a salmon using impaled maggot or worm or grasshopper. The noblest freshwater fish, unlike those in the sea, will almost always craftily nibble off bits of bait rather than swallowing it whole along with the unnatural-appearing bone hook.'

'I didn't know that.'

'You're a clever man, Kilian. But perhaps not so clever as you think. An angled steel, dressed to look like the trout's
natural food and played artfully in the water in imitation of a bug's movement, is far more effective than sharpened bone with bait, dangling limply from a bobber. Even better, such play makes fishing a
sport
as challenging as hunting the stag or grouse! This novel pastime was demonstrated to me some weeks ago by Sealord Yons Stormchild. It is all the rage in Tarn, and some of the younger Cathran nobility also now esteem it.'

'Very interesting. Majesty. But if we may return to more important matters -'

‘I deem
this
important.' The king's tone was smooth and faintly menacing. 'Fashioning an artificial bug and scheming how I might outwit some venerable finny patriarch is immensely soothing to the troubled soul.'

'Mmm . . . just so. I'm sorry you suffer disquietude, sire.'

The king unfolded a bit of parchment and drew from it a strand of glittering golden tinsel. 'If you studied the dead thing in the dish intently, you would see that it has a metallic sheen. I propose to add such to my creation, first fixing the end of this short length of gold to the hook shank with additional turns of thread and letting it hang loose.'

'If the Salka are truly retreating,' Kilian persisted, 'it means we can disband the standing armies, at least for the winter. Get the Tarnian and Cathran troops out of Didion, You know they've been eating us out of house and home.'

Somarus shot a meaningful look at the chancellor. 'Once the Salka are gone, and Ironcrown and his arrogant gang are quit of my country, I mean to concentrate all my energies on getting rid of
her.
The Wold Wraith. I want you to put your mind to the best way of doing it.'

'Her. You mean the shadowy lass who calls herself Queen Casabarela? But sire, this deluded chit is no true threat to your throne. How can she possibly prove her claim?'

'She need not do so, my lord. Nay - she need only exist,
and act as a magnet for the discontented of my realm! We must find her before Conrig Ironcrown does.' Somarus's voice fell to a whisper. 'And kill her . . . Now let's fatten the insect's body.'

The king took up fuzz from the heap of rabbit undercoat and spun it deftly around the still-attached thread by twirling, until the once-fine strand resembled yarn. 'See? I coat a length of unbroken thread with fur, then wind this fluffy bit round and round the hook shank to simulate the body of the insect. More fur on the thread nearest the head for a fat thorax. Lower on the shank, a more meager winding to simulate the thinner abdomen. In water, it will seem alive.'

Kilian allowed himself a superior simper. 'Alas, sire. The creation looks not much like an insect to me, especially with that dangling bit of tinsel. Would a fish really be fooled?'

The king's massive head lifted. His eyes, sunken in fatty folds, nevertheless had clear whites and gleamed with cunning; he looked more than ever like a ravaged but still menacing lion. 'Tell me, Lord Chancellor. What do you think might happen if Conrig Ironcrown chose to acknowledge little Casya Pretender as royal heir, rather than my own son, Crown Prince Valardus?'

'He would never dare!'

'So you say. And you are so much wiser than I... Or are you?' Somarus let loose a raucous guffaw.

Kilian sat back and took refuge in his cup of wine. What in Zeth's name had got into the king? He'd always been fairly tractable before, even in his cups - a valiant barbarian not overendowed with wits, content to let most knotty matters of state be dealt with by his betters. Had Duke Azarick Cuva planted this all-too-plausible doubt-in the king's mind? Were the peer and his cohorts finally attempting to undermine Kilian's influence?

Somarus said, 'Now observe: I wind the gold tinsel about
the bug's abdomen in wide turns, investing my simulacrum with splendid gleaming bands. The end of the gold I tie down with twists of thread, then move on to the final touch of authenticity.'

'Sire, again to the point. You mentioned that another piece of information was confided to you at dinner by the Sovereign -'

'To hell with the Sovereign!' Somarus blared, surging up suddenly from his chair, eyes ablaze and great flabby body quivering with pent-up rage. Kilian was now certain that the monarch was pissed as a newt. 'And to hell with you, too, wizard, who dare try to play me like a farthing whistle! You think I'm an untutored savage, thickheaded and led as easily as a bull with a ring in his nose. But you're wrong, and soon I'll no longer have to put up with your chivvying and false-hearted blandishment. In my dreams, I've seen a great change coming. I've seen Didion free!' He began to tremble more violently and his engorged features turned nearly purple.

Kaligaskus rushed up. 'Majesty, Majesty - be calm, lest you damage the handiwork you've so nearly completed! It's going so well. One of the best angles you've ever made.' He took firm hold of the king's thick arm and pressed him back into his seat with surprising strength. 'Now then. Breathe deep, take a sip of the water of life - then back to the task.'

Somarus relaxed and the lurid flush faded from his face as Kilian sat frozen in place.
Dreams?
What dreams? Great God, had the royal dolt's mind finally come unhinged, or was something more sinister afoot? In either case, action would finally have to be taken . . .

Kaligaskus was obviously well able to cope with his master's seizure. After helping him to drink and blotting the royal lips with a silk kerchief he withdrew, leaving Somarus huffing slowly with his eyes shut. In a few minutes the king
came to himself once again and spoke in a voice as calm and rational as before the attack overcame him.

'Hmm. Yes. It's time to finish up and retire. Observe, wizard! With these scissors I snip a bit of stiff feather from a goose-quill. I lay it over the furry thorax, behind the bead-head, and bind it down with more turns of thread. When trimmed short, thus, the feather simulates the cape-like wing case of the waterbug.' He pushed the dish containing the dead insect toward the chancellor. 'See for yourself.'

'The thing is half-decayed,' Kilian muttered in distaste. ‘I cannot discern -'

'Not decayed, but partially digested by the fish. I told you, the insect was taken from the belly of a brown trout. And
this
is the very essence of the new angling: to discover what the large fish truly eats, not proffer it any old thing and hope to catch it by chance. A trout of noble size doesn't savor balls of cheese or bits of bread. Such regal swimmers may sometimes take worms or other soft bait, but they are not its preferred food, only what thoughtless man thinks to offer. This dead bug in the dish, so loathsome to us, lives in obscurity on the floor of streams and pools and is only rarely seen by human beings. Yet we can be certain Lord Brownie thinks it supremely delicious.'"

Rather unsteadily, Kilian Blackhorse rose to his feet. 'Majesty, perhaps we can speak again tomorrow.'

Somarus's smile was beatific and his eyes seemed focused upon another, better world.

'So I complete my small, satisfying task, making three knots in the binding thread and snipping it off neatly. My artificial insect is done, a perfect fish's breakfast. With it, a man may truly match wits with a worthy prey. True, the great brown trout may be more easily netted - or even snagged in the flesh with cruel gigs. But conquering him with this dressed angle that I myself have fashioned . . . what a simple joy.

What a triumph of duplicity!' He began to giggle softly. 'Do you doubt me, Lord Chancellor? Come a-fishing with me on the morrow, and I'll prove my point.'

'Thank you, Majesty, but I am called to more pressing matters.' And Kilian thought: God's Blood, was ever a schemer in high places given less likely regal clay to mould?

They bade each other goodnight, and the one who slept most sweetly was the half-mad king.

The rain pelted Castlemont's lower fortified enclosure, where wagon-train drivers, pedlars, and other wayfarers of low estate found shelter for the night in a barnlike guest-hostel at the foot of the knoll crowned by the main keep. The building had a central stone hearth that provided warmth and a means whereby travelers might cook their own food, but few other amenities. Saddle mounts, draft animals, and livestock belonging to guests were hitched to ranks of posts or confined in large pens open to the elements. The beasts were furnished with mangers of cheap hay and troughs of water that now overflowed in the relentless downpour.

Rusgann Moorcock squatted at the edge of the fire, sparing a brief sympathetic thought for her drenched mule, and finished her supper of toasted bread, sausage, and dried apples. Rain falling through the roof's chimney-opening was beginning to quench the middle section of the heap of burning pine logs, producing choking billows of smoke. Some of the other guests were already coughing and shifting to more salubrious positions.

Sipping from one of her flasks of cherry brandy, she thought wistfully about her comfortable bedchamber back at Gentian Fell Lodge. Even though she had plenty of money, she hadn't dared to seek better accommodation in Castlemont's famous keep. She would have been too conspicuous. Here inside the dreary hostel, no one paid
any particular attention to her and she was finally beginning to relax ... in spite of the fact that the hunt for her was definitely on.

She was certain now that her escape from the Lord Constable's hideaway had been discovered and her movements traced to the tavern in Beorbrook Town. Earlier in the day, when she came to the summit of Great Pass, the border guards were questioning travelers about a tall woman wearing a red headcloth, a many-colored shawl, and a long white apron, who traveled afoot. Her description had undoubtedly been broadcast far and wide by Vibifus, the unsavory hireling wizard who resided at the hunting lodge and served as its windvoice.

Fortunately, before purchasing the mule, Rusgann had once again put on her magicker's disguise. (It had also earned her a small discount from the superstitious stable owner.) On the way up the pass, she'd attached herself to one of the many trains of supply-carts headed for the Sovereign Army encampment, telling the teamsters she was afraid her mule might go lame and strand her on the steep road. The men offered to see her safely to Castlemont if she'd conjure good luck for them. She promised to do that, for what it was worth, and shared her brandy and repertoire of naughty songs with them as well.

Later, when a suspicious soldier at Great Pass garrison challenged her and demanded to know her business, she slumped in the saddle and gabbled senselessly and sniveled until one of the carters stepped up and claimed she was just his batty old grandma, heading home to Didion. The guard had shrugged and waved her on . . .

'All to bed now!' declaimed the hostel keeper, who had begun to shoo away the few people, still gathered about the hearth. He frowned at Rusgann and said, 'Will you hire a pallet, mistress? Two farthings.' He held up a limp tube of sacking, skimpily filled with straw.

And no extra charge for the fleas! she thought. All the same, she paid for the miserable mattress and carried it into a far corner. She pulled off her stout boots, unrolled the good woolen blanket she'd brought from the lodge, and lay down with her head pillowed on her saddle. On one side of her was a snoring cattle-drover who stank like he hadn't bathed in a year; on the other was a young peasant couple with a softly whimpering baby.

If she left very early tomorrow, she might reach Boarsden by evening. The friendly carters had told her that both town and castle would be in a state of turmoil because of the great gathering of nobles, warriors, and hangers-on. As yet, she had no notion of how to find Prince Dyfrig without giving herself away.