The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (17 page)

A shocked silence ensued, broken by a few uncomfortable chuckles. Even Henry Fremont was speechless, staring with everyone else at the sallow young man. He returned their gaze truculently. Under his scholar’s robe, he wore a threadbare doublet that looked old enough to have been his grandfather’s. His dun-colored hair hung in a dozen tiny braids around his bony face.

Godwin said, “If that was a joke, Finn, it wasn’t a funny one.”

It was at that moment that Basil St Cloud entered the Blackbird’s Nest.

“Doctor St Cloud!” Peter Godwin called out imperiously. “An interesting question has arisen.” His voice broke halfway through the sentence, which, combined with his pomposity, was irresistibly funny to the men at the table. In the lull, St Cloud approached the group. When he saw Theron Campion there, he looked surprised. Campion nodded to him politely, and said, “We’re just having a scholarly debate. I expect it will be over soon.”

“Well then,” St Cloud said formally, “pray do not let me interrupt.” And he sat down to listen.

Henry Fremont took this as an opportunity to regain the upper hand and show off. “The question is this: was David, Duke Tremontaine, called the King Killer, a hero to the country and a liberator of his people, or was he a traitor to his king?”

“Rhetorically,” Theron answered carefully, “he could be both, since they are two different things. Unless, that is, you consider king and country to be one and the same.” The historians nodded. St Cloud had made the same point in a recent lecture. “If I read Hollis correctly, the wizards considered them so, and the kings did, too: for them, the king was the land, and the land was the king. But the nobles did not, and so it follows that the duke could at once be savior to the one and traitor to the other, without a speck of a stain on his noble character.”

The Northern boy, Finn, burst in impatiently, “Very pretty, Master Rhetorician.” Basil remembered Finn; he’d started coming to lectures three weeks into the term, and paid his student’s fee in tarnished old silver coins. “But what would you call a man who murdered his own kin?”

“Well, it depends on why he did it,” Theron said coolly. “If his relatives were irritating bores, I’d call him perfectly justified.”

People laughed. But Alaric Finn was not to be put off. His sallow, bony face with its small narrowed eyes was like an old boot next to Theron Campion’s animal beauty; yet he radiated a fierce passion that compelled attention. “I see,” he said. “So much for scholarship, eh, my lord?”

The debate was drawing people across the tavern, including a few other boys who, like Finn, were decorated with those outlandish braids. Basil thought they looked self-consciously antique, like the old tapestries of King Alcuin’s Companions.

“It’s only what I’d expect,” Finn added, “from a man claiming such kin.”

One quick retort, and Theron would have the rest of them back on his side. But Finn’s words made him catch his breath in anger, and he missed his moment. The other students pulled away, leaving Theron at bay in the middle of an angry pack.

Theron felt it. He slung off his black scholar’s robe with showy gallantry. “Hold this for me, Godwin, will you?” Rolling up the white linen of his shirt sleeves, he addressed Finn: “So. You don’t like my answers, and you don’t like my ancestors. To whom do I have the pleasure of defending their honor?”

The Northern boy shook back his braids. “My name is Alaric Finn. My father is Master Finn of Finnhaven. And I don’t take gaff from a Southron whelp who claims kin to the False Duke who did old Gerard down.”

Drawn by the smell of a fight, more men were drifting in. A clutch of young nobles, some in scholars’ gowns, came up behind Theron. “Calling good old David false, is he? At him, Campion!” It was Lord Sebastian Hemmynge, a student of Geography by day, a haunter of ballrooms by night.

Young Lord Peter Godwin, who’d been drinking more than was good for him in the company of his elders, remembered an old grievance: “Watch it, Hemmynge! Your family got rich enough off Godwin lands after the Fall—”

“A loyalist?” sneered Lord Sebastian. “Isn’t it a bit late for that, Godwin?”

Henry Fremont had wisely retreated to the edge of the circle. “Who says history is dead?” he remarked to Anthony Lindley. But Lindley had turned his dense blue eyes on Doctor St Cloud, who was watching the scene with silent abstraction, as though it were all happening off in a foreign country.

The tavernkeeper made his way through the crowd, his knuckles bristling with empty tankards. “Gentlemen, scholars, if you please—” He saw who else was there— “and my lords. None of that in here,
if
you please. Outside, the lot of you. Yes, you! And you, too . . . No, no, Doctor St Cloud, you stay put, sir—young men will have their studies, every way they can . . .”

The young men struggled out of doors, cursing and shoving at each other, retreading grievances two hundred years old and more. They formed a circle around Theron Campion and Alaric Finn, while Benedict Vandeleur tried to interpose himself between them.

“Come off it, men!” he reasoned. “Debate if you want to, but don’t drag it down to the level of ruffians!”

A noble seized his elbow. “Who are you calling a ruffian?”

Theron, who had learned to fight on the streets of Riverside with boys much tougher than these, threw a punch at Finn’s pointed nose, producing a dramatic jet of blood. Finn howled and swung at Theron; but before it could escalate to a free-for-all, Benedict Vandeleur took a happy inspiration from the rules of swordfighting, and shouted “Blood!” at the top of his lungs. “First blood!”

Everyone fell back a step as ancient order moved into place. Although dueling with swords was not a privilege of scholars, they knew what the rules of challenge were.

Vandeleur grabbed the arm of the foremost Northerner, a tall blond youth named Greenleaf, and announced, “We witness first blood to Theron Campion. Campion, are you satisfied?”

Theron looked at Finn, who was trying and failing to stop the bleeding with the back of his hand. One of Basil’s students, the delicate redhead Lindley, was kneeling beside him with a handkerchief. “More than satisfied,” Theron answered.

“Alaric Finn,” Greenleaf asked in turn. “Is the quarrel resolved?”

Finn looked up, his bony face half-masked in blood, pure rage glittering in his deep-set eyes. Vandeleur felt Greenleaf tense, ready to intervene if Finn urged the quarrel on.

But Alaric Finn believed deeply in ritual. “Resolved,” he snuffled.

“Resolved,” echoed Vandeleur and Greenleaf.

The tension went out of the crowd as if a string had been cut.

The Northerners bore Finn off with Anthony Lindley’s handkerchief pressed to his nose. Shaking his head in disgust, Benedict Vandeleur drifted back into the tavern. Henry Fremont caught up with him. “Quick thinking,” he said. “You probably want a beer.” Which was as close to a compliment as he was likely to come.

Lord Sebastian and his mates had their arms around Theron: “Good on you, Campion—can’t let that dirt-boy speak ill of our folk. We’re with you—horsewhip the Northern bastard if he shows his face again in the Nest.”

“It’s nothing,” said Theron. His temper had cooled to the point where he couldn’t imagine what had gotten into him. He wondered whether Basil, whom he’d been hoping to impress, thought him a quarrelsome fool instead. “He’d probably had too much to drink.”

“That’s no excuse,” said Hemmynge. “Why be a student if you don’t know how to drink?”

“It’s what
I
came to learn!” added a young scion of the Perrys.

“I’m sure it is,” Theron muttered.

“So we’ll see you tonight, will we?”

Over their heads, Theron could see the tavern door, and Basil coming out of it, studiously avoiding them all. “Tonight? Where?”

“The Harvest Feast at the Perrys’, you rogue!”

“Oh, of course,” he said; “wouldn’t miss it!” Just that morning, he’d been telling Lady Sophia that he’d rather be hung by his heels down a well than have to face another annual rite of privileged debauch. But he’d known even then he’d have to go. He grinned bleakly as his peers slapped him on the back, then he hurried off to make a roundabout way to Minchin Street, where he prayed that Basil would be waiting.

BASIL WAS WAITING, AND HE DID NOT SEEM TO THINK Theron a quarrelsome fool. He held him tightly, and loosed his hair from its clasp, and tangled his fingers deep in its folds.

“You are remarkable,” the historian said. “Did you know that the oldest kings, the Northern kings, were war leaders?”

“Did you know,” Theron mocked, “that the tip of your ear is beginning to resemble a delicious ruby? Those damnable Northerners, there’s more of them every year.”

Basil held him back at arm’s length. “Don’t speak that way, Theron. The land is united. It was united almost five hundred years ago, and many good men, and a great queen, as well, worked hard to create a union indissoluble. The kings fell, but the Union did not. Do not you make that division now. If Finn offended you, I’ll speak with him.”

“Heavens, no! I’ll fight my own battles, thank you. Finn— is that his name?—is new here. I’m not. I’ve been coming to University since I was old enough to hold Sophia’s hand and cross the street. I’ve heard just about everything that anyone can say about the Mad Duke or any other Tremontaine, not to mention women in the lecture hall, women in the surgery, and the getting of foreign whelps. I know how to fight. Now Finn knows that.”

Basil said, “Yes. I understand. But perhaps it would be best if we two should meet here. And not at the Nest.”

“Yes,” Theron breathed in his ear. “I agree. It nearly undid me to see you standing there surrounded by your worshipers.”

Basil grinned. “Why don’t you come to my lectures, then? Come early enough, and you can watch me from the front row—”

“Right!” Theron launched himself forward enthusiastically. “And we can enact for your students some Living History—pantomimes, like a village ball: King Sebastian and the Wizard Guidry! The Seduction of Mezentian! King Anselm the Wise in the bushes with his favorite groom— ouch!”

“Oh, my lord,” said Basil, rising above him. “These are not games for anyone but us. Understand that.”

“I do,” Theron gasped, knowing the play required an answer. “I was joking.”

“Joke with the others,” his lover said, “but not with me.” He took Theron with brutal efficiency, and then strung out the boy’s pleasure till his lover mewed with frustrated desire. Theron’s skin was as rich and dense as the covers of the book, the secret book, the book that he possessed as surely as he possessed this son of the ancient kings. There was nothing he could not do, owning them both. Behind the magister’s eyes, wild boys twined ivy in their long, long hair, and words in a lost language danced on the edge of sense.

When they were both done, Basil wasted no time. “Off you get.” He swatted Theron’s rump. “I’ve a lecture to prepare for tomorrow, and the Governors’ Harvest Supper is tonight.”

Theron groaned. “I, too, have obligations.”

“I weep for you.” Basil was already up and dressing. He felt invigorated, ready to write his whole book in one night.

Theron reached out his naked arms. “Let me stay here. I’ll be very quiet.”

Basil chuckled. “I know you.” He felt the power of sex tingle throughout his whole body. He loved the fastidiousness of his dry clothing against his still-damp skin, while he gazed on his naked, impossibly beautiful lover, stretched out yearning for him on the bed. “Come back,” Basil said a little huskily, “tomorrow, after my class. I’ll have plenty of time for you then.”

AFTER THE FIGHT, THE NORTHERNERS BORE FINN OFF TO The Green Man. Situated in the cellar of a lecture hall, the tavern was small, damp, and even darker than the Blackbird’s Nest. But its cider was decent, its owner was Northern-born, and a man could air his opinions there without worrying about some Southron noble taking offense at hearing the truth.

Greenleaf dropped onto a wooden settle by the fire. “Bring us cider, Wat, and a key to put down young Finn’s back. Harvest’s not the time for blood.”

His friends heard this pronouncement with solemn deference. Roland Greenleaf was First Companion, Master of the Hunt and Keeper of the Mysteries in the Southlands. He knew things about the rituals of the seasons that none of the rest of them knew, except maybe Smith, who was Second Companion. Greenleaf was the son of an ancient family descended from the seed of kings, as all the oldest Northern families were, and as proud of his lineage as any duke. The white bars on his gown-sleeves proclaimed him a Fellow of the College of Law.

“That’s the last time I ever set foot in the Blackbird’s Nest,” Smith said. “Historians! Fancy themselves, don’t they, pissing on the kings and the wizards. They’d give a lot to know what we know, eh, boys?”

“They would,” Finn snuffled through the clotted mess of Lindley’s handkerchief. “Don’t be so hard on them, Smith; you should come hear St Cloud lecture one of these days. He gets awfully close sometimes.”

“That’s as may be,” Greenleaf said solemnly. “He’s welcome to all that any man knows, North or South. But hearken, Finn: you know as well as I do that the Inner Mysteries are for none but our brotherhood. If ever I discover that you’ve breathed a word of them outside, whether it be in season or out of season, the Land will drink of your blood.”