Blood Of Ambrose Part 32

They murmured various inconsequentialities, but he spoke on through them. d.a.m.n it, Ambrosia would roast him alive for this later. Everything he could say would be swept away before the imperious storm of her displeasure. But if he spoke now she would have to listen-the farce that gave her the power of regent compelled her to listen. Her burning gray eyes told him as much.

"However," he continued, "it pains me to say that I deserved more from some of you, as guests and as subjects, than I have received tonight. Lord Urdhven, you must not countermand orders I give to my servants. This is not your castle. It is my castle. You do not rule here. I rule here. You will acknowledge this or our treaty is broken and we will fight to the last soldier."

After a short pause, Urdhven said easily, "Of course, Your Majesty. I beg your pardon, and that of all here. I let old habits lead me astray." At that moment it occurred to Lathmar that Urdhven must be dead. This smiling urbane thing was not Urdhven.

"Your Majesty is not quite correct-I beg his pardon for saying so," Kedlidor said, in his scratchy pedantic voice. "The terms 'rule' and 'reign,' though often confused-"

"You beg my pardon, do you?" Lathmar interrupted, some of his anger returning. "I withhold it. A moment ago you sat by and watched a servant disobey my express command and did nothing to intervene. Had you shown then the nice concern for propriety you show now, that poor man would be spending the night in his own bed instead of a prison cell. I am displeased with you, Kedlidor. Leave my presence."

Wave after wave of emotion pa.s.sed over Kedlidor's face. But he was too much the Rite-Master not to acknowledge the King's right to dismiss him. He bowed his head and withdrew without a word.

You can only be killed once, the King reflected, and continued, "Lady Ambrosia, I find you too have lacked respect. Your familiarity with your brother should not blind you to the fact that when he is a guest at my table, he will not be compelled, nor cajoled, nor pestered to do this or that."

Ambrosia briefly rebelled. "Your Majesty, with respect, the last time someone made Morlock do something he didn't want to do-"

"Precisely," the King cut in. "Morlock Ambrosius can look after himself, none better. I expect you to look after me, as your sovereign-the respect due to me and to guests at my table, whether they be your closest kin or utter strangers. If I am not sovereign, then what is your office? Whose power do you wield? In whose name do you rule if I do not reign?" He paused, breathless, somewhat intoxicated by his defiance, at a loss as how to continue.

Ambrosia smiled like someone who tastes blood in her mouth. "I was wrong, Your Majesty," she said. "I apologize." And she bowed her iron-gray head.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

5HADOW5 SPEAK.

he half cup of wine that Thoke had poured remained at Morlock's elbow for the awkward remainder of the supper. Morlock kept smelling it, and more than once he had caught himself reaching out to pick it up.

On one of these occasions he looked up to see the Protector's eyes looking at him.

"Old habits die hard," he said wryly.

"I hoped they hadn't died at all," Urdhven's mouth said frankly. "But who knew the little King had such fire in him! I suspect Ambrosia will give him a paddling behind closed doors."

Morlock reflected on this for a moment, then said, "We've met before, haven't we? Earlier today?"

The smile on Urdhven's face became broader yet. "Superb. Really excellent. I had heard good things about you, you know, but I didn't see how they could all be true."

"They probably aren't."

"Oh, I'm sure of that. How did you know?"

"Just a guess. You're clearly not Urdhven."

"That is, as the little King would say, a moot point."

Urdhven's fingers reached out to take a grape. He tossed it in his mouth and crunched it open-mouthed so that the juice squirted. He swallowed. "Get it?"

"I got some of it," Morlock remarked, brushing away a few droplets from his tunic.

"My dear sir, I'm so sorry. But do you see what I'm driving at? Is the grape me, or am I the grape? That's the way it is with Urdhven and me."

Morlock looked past Urdhven's shoulder to see if Ambrosia was following this. But she was saying something rather stiffly to Vost across the table.

"Oh, she hasn't noticed," Urdhven's mouth said. "In fact, she's going through one of her periodic fits of Hope. She's finding them harder and harder to suppress, I believe. That's probably what I will offer her, when the time comes-the hope of a future without Hope, as it were."

"The time?"

"In time I expect to eat you all as I ate Urdhven. You won't know it until it's too late, but I can get each of you to let me in, I think. And, once I'm let in, I never leave."

"We're not all like Urdhven."

"I should hope not: one likes a little variety in the souls one eats. But you all have fears; you all have weaknesses; you all have secret or suppressed longings. Each one of them is a door, and through many of them I can enter."

Morlock shrugged.

"Don't make a pretense of your strength, Morlock! I see how you're pressing your hands against the table to disguise their trembling. You want that cup of wine so much! I can give you the pleasure of wine without the poison of drunkenness. Or I can give you something you want more: I can make it so that you never want to drink again."

"So can a sharp edge, or a noose," Morlock commented. He held up his hands in midair, turned them palm up and palm down. They didn't tremble.

"You can exert control over your impulses for a moment, for an hour, for part of a day-oh, day after day. But not forever. You can't guard your dreams; I've often entered into people while they were dreaming. I wouldn't tell you this if there were any chance of your doing something about it."

This last certainly wasn't true: he might hope to provoke fear, despair, rash action. But Morlock wasn't about to say as much. He shrugged again.

"You're ungenerous, Morlock. And you haven't even asked me my name."

Morlock said carefully, "I know the answer your kind always gives."

Urdhven's mouth laughed politely, and his body turned away to address some remark to Ambrosia.

Morlock's left arm was gripped by Jordel, and Morlock turned to face him.

"What was Urdhven saying to you?" Jordel asked.

Morlock reflected. "Nothing," he said, with perfect if misleading accuracy. He gestured slightly with his right hand, hoping Jordel would take the hint to talk about it later.

Apparently Jordel did. "All right," the vocate muttered, releasing his arm. "It's not like you're my junior in the Graith anymore. Say, do you remember that time in the Grartans ..."

The supper wound down to its conclusion. Ambrosia rose to escort the Protector and his followers out, throwing Lathmar a look that clearly menaced an unpleasant future conversation. Morlock thought he would have to intervene in that.

The King approached him presently and whispered, "You wouldn't have drunk, I suppose? I suppose it was all for nothing?"

"I'm not sure," he replied honestly. The boy deserved the truth. "I'm never sure when I'm offered a drink whether I'll drink or not. Anyway, it wasn't for nothing: I thank you, Lathmar. You were right about the others, too; their behavior was curious. I think I'll talk with Thoke before I go to bed, and perhaps Kedlidor as well."

"What is it?" the King whispered urgently. "That thing that pretends to be Urdhven?"

Morlock was surprised by this, but not very much. The boy's insight was becoming very sure indeed.

"He wants me to think he is a shathe," Morlock said thoughtfully. "So I naturally a.s.sume he is not. Apart from that, I'm not sure."

"If-" the King began. Then he saw Aloe approaching and he fled, throwing her a wounded look. His bodyguards followed hastily, their dress armor clanking as they ran.

Aloe was smiling indulgently as she reached Morlock. "He's very young to be a player in this sort of game," she said, nodding her head toward the departing King.

"Or perhaps you're too old," Morlock replied. "You hurt him badly tonight."

"You're soft, Morlock. But that won't do him any good."

"That's what Ambrosia says about me."

"That b.i.t.c.h."

"And that's what she says about you."

"Well, perhaps I am, in a good cause." She put her right hand on his chest, and he grew absolutely still. They stood that way for a few moments, oblivious of the others in the room. Then she dropped her hand to take his elbow. "And you've been very uncivil to me," she said, as if continuing a conversation they'd been having. "You haven't offered to show me your workshop."

"Would you like to see my workshop, Aloe?"

"The magical workshop of the master of all makers? I suppose it might have a certain tame interest. Since you insist, I'll accompany you there."

She did, and, in the event, he did not speak to Thoke or Kedlidor that night, as he had intended.

"You are lovely in the morning light," Morlock remarked to Aloe as she stood in the western window of his workshop, silhouetted by the dawn.

Aloe, who was aware of it, said, "I wish you were. Why is it I'm never done with you, I wonder?"

Morlock paused, then answered seriously, "You are never really done with anyone."

Aloe was touched for a moment that Morlock saw her as so loyal. She knew it was a quality he prized highly. Then she realized he was thinking about Naevros.

"You're right," she said flatly. "I can never finish things with someone and walk away-even when they're dead, or in exile. What should I do about it?"

"Nothing," said Morlock the exile, with a crooked smile. "I can offer you tea and hotcakes for breakfast. It's a long way down to the nearest kitchen."

"I suppose you cook them with the same spatula you use to measure out darkleaf and dogbane."

"No, these are strictly cooking utensils. I gave up alchemy after I invented the still-"

"The still what?"

"The still is a mechanism which purifies, concentrates, and refines certain essences. That of wine, for instance."

"Sounds lovely."

"Hm. Well, it seemed a good idea at the time. Of course, I was drunk more or less continuously back then."

She laughed as if this were a joke, although she suspected it was not. "Hotcakes are fine," she said. "Anything to put on them?"

"Wyrth's own fireberry jam."

"Hm. You're sure there's no dogbane around here? Because-"

"It's pretty good jam. Try it."

She licked it off his finger, and tasted it again on his lips, and they said nothing more for a while.

"Morlock, your hotcakes are burning."

"Eh. Oh, you mean literally. Er. Breakfast will be a few minutes late."

"Indeed it will."

The sun was well up before they finally had their hotcakes and jam. As they ate, they talked about the matter at hand. Aloe was amazed at how easy it was to talk to him and to listen to him. There was a soul-deep comfort in it, the easing of a long-felt icy pain.

"I've missed you, Morlock," she said impulsively.

"And I you."

"Once I thought-it seemed to me that you threw away everything for nothing. But now that I see you the master of this great state-"

"Wait. This state is not mine. You see me as a servant of the crown."

Aloe laughed. "That's just a legalism. Why, that boy would do anything you told him to. Anyway, we all know that it's Ambrosia who has really ruled the empire all these centuries, and now she's growing too old to do it. I was shocked when I saw her. Who can she leave the job to except you?"

Morlock looked as if this had really never occurred to him, and Aloe laughed again. "Anyway. If-"

Morlock held up a hand and looked at the window. Aloe followed his gaze and saw a crow standing there on the sill. Morlock got up and stood over it as it gasped out some croaking syllables. Morlock answered briefly in the same language, and the crow's response was briefer yet. He took a fistful of grain from a closed jar nearby and scattered it on the silt with a final croaking word. Turning away he headed for the stairway door.

"Morlock! What is it?" she called.

"The King is gone." Then so was he. She ran to follow him.

When they arrived at the Great Hall, the regent was already sitting at the head of her council. Kedlidor and Wyrth were there, along with Jordel and Baran and the King's bodyguards, Erl and Karn. Ambrosia lifted her haggard face to sneer at Morlock and Aloe as they entered.

"Now we know the night's events have pa.s.sed their climax," she began, "since these lovebirds-"

"Shut up," Morlock said briefly. "A crow told me that the King was taken into the dead lands by two soldiers in royal surcoats early this morning, before dawn. The guards at the King's chamber say that no one entered there since Kedlidor, late last night."

Kedlidor nodded in confirmation. "And he was well, and alone, when I left him," the Rite-Master said. "And so-"

"Wait a minute, Morlock," Ambrosia said. "Are you suggesting that two Protector's Men stayed behind from the conference, disguised themselves as royal guards, and kidnapped the King? Because I saw them out myself."

"No, I think they really were Royal Legionaries. Or had been, before their insides were eaten. Like Kedlidor here."