Domes of Fire Part 17

'We need some place to shelter us from the rain, Danae.'

'I can make it stop raining, if that's all you're worried about. If one of those disgusting women starts talking baby-talk to me one more time, I'm going to turn her into a toad.'

'I think I have a better idea.' Sparhawk bent and picked her up. 'Act sleepy,' he instructed. Danae promptly went limp and dangled from his arms like a rag doll. 'You're overdoing it,' he told her.

He crossed to the far side of the room, gently laid her on a divan and covered her with her traveling cloak. 'Don't snore,' he advised. 'You're not old enough to snore yet.'

She gave him an innocent little look. 'I wouldn't do that, Sparhawk. Find my cat and bring her to me.' Then her smile turned hard. 'Pay close attention to our host and his family, father. I think you should see what kind of people they really are.'

'What are you up to!'

'Nothing. I just think you should see what they're really like.'

'I can see quite enough already.'

'No, not really. They're trying to be polite, so they're glossing over things. Let's take a look at the truth. For the rest of the evening, they'll tell you what they really think and feel.'

'I'd rather they didn't.'

'you're supposed to be brave, Sparhawk, and this horrid little family is typical of the gentry here in Astel. Once you understand them, you'll be able to see what's wrong with the kingdom. It might be useful.' Her eyes and face grew serious. 'There's something here, Sparhawk-something we absolutely have to know.'

'What?'

'I'm not sure. Pay attention, father. Somebody's going to tell you something important tonight. Now go find my cat.'

The supper they were offered was poorly prepared, and the conversation at the table was dreadful. Freed of constraint by Danae's spell, the baron and his family said things they might normally have concealed, and their spiteful, self-pitying vanity emerged all the more painfully under the influence of the inferior wine they all quaffed like common tavern drunkards.

'I was not intended for this barbaric isolation,' Katina confided to poor Melidere. 'Surely G.o.d could not have meant for me to bloom unnoticed so far from the b.a.l.l.s and gaiety of the capital. We were cruelly decieved before my brother's marriage to that dreadful woman. Her parents led us to believe that the estate would bring us wealth and position, but it scarcely provides enough to keep us in this hovel. There's no hope that we shall ever be able to afford a house in Darsas.' She buried her face in her hands. 'What shall become of me?' she wailed. 'The lights, the b.a.l.l.s, the hordes of Morslrmry flocking to my door, dazzled by my wit and-'

'Oh, don't cry, Katina,' Ermude wailed. 'If you cry, I shall surely cry too.'

The sisters were so similar in appearance that Sparhawk had some difficulty telling them apart. Their plumpness was more like dough than flesh. Their colourless hair was limp and uninspired, and their complexions were bad. Neither of them was really very clean.

'I try so hard to protect my poor sister,' Ermude blubbered to the long-suffering Melidere, 'but this dreadful place is destroying her. There's no culture here. We live like beasts-like serfs. It's so meaningless. Life should have meaning, but what possible meaning can there be so far from the capital? That horrid woman won't permit our poor brother to sell this desolate waste so that we can take a proper residence in Darsas. We're trapped here-trapped, I tell you-and we shall live out our lives in this hideous isolation.' Then she too buried her face in her hands and wept. Melidere sighed, rolling her eyes ceilingward.

'I have some influence with the governor of the district,' Baron Kotyk was telling patriarch Emban with pompous self-importance. 'He relies heavily on my judgement. We've been having a deuce of a time with the burghers in town-unt.i.tled rascals, every one of them-runaway serfs, if the truth were known. They complain bitterly at each new tax and try to shift the burden to us. We pay quite enough in taxes already, thank you, and they're the ones who are demanding all the services. What good does it do me if the streets in town are paved? It's the roads that are important. I've said that to his Excellency the governor over and over again.'

The baron was deep in his cups. His voice was slurred, and his head wobbled on his neck. 'All the burdens of the district are placed on our shoulders,' he declared, his eyes filling with self-pitying tears. 'I must support five hundred idle serfs-serfs so lazy that not even flogging can get any work out of them. It's all so unfair. I'm an aristocrat, but that doesn't count for anything any more.' The tears began to roll down his cheeks, and his nose started to run. 'No one seems to realise that the aristocracy is G.o.d's special gift to mankind. The burghers treat us no better than commoners. Considering our divine origins, such disrespect is the worst form of impiety. I'm sure your Grace agrees.' The Baron sniffed loudly. Patriarch Emban's father had been a tavern-keeper in the city of Ucera, and Sparhawk was fairly sure that the fat little churchman most definitely did not agree.

Ehlana had been trapped by the baron's wife, and she was beginning to look a little desperate. 'The estate's mine, of course,' Astansia declared in a coldly haughty voice. 'My father was in his dotage when he married me off to that fat swine.' She sneered. 'Kotyk only had those piggish little eyes of his on the income from my estate. My father was so impressed with the idiot's t.i.tle that he couldn't see him for what he really is, a t.i.tled opportunist with two fat, ugly sisters hanging from his coat-tails.' She sneered, and then the sneer slid from her face, and the inevitable tears filled her eyes. 'I can only find solace for my tragic state in religion, my beloved brother's art, and in the satisfaction I take in making absolutely sure that those two harridans never see the lights of Darsas. They'll rot here-right up until the moment my pig of a husband eats and drinks himself to death. Then I shall turn them out with nothing but the clothes on their backs.' Her hard eyes became exultant. 'I can hardly wait,' she said fiercely. 'I shall have my revenge, and then my sainted brother and I can live here in perfect contentment.'

Princess Danae crawled up into her father's lap. 'Lovely people, aren't they?' she said quietly.

'Are you making all this up?' he asked accusingly.

'No, father, I can't do that. None of us can. People are what they are. We can't change them.'

'I thought you could do anything.'

'There are limits, Sparhawk.' Her dark eyes grew hard again. 'I am going to do something, though.'

'Oh?'

'Your Elene G.o.d owes me a couple of favours. I did something nice for Him once.'

'Why do you need His help?'

'These people are Elenes. They belong to Him. I can't do anything to them without His permission. That's the worst form of bad manners.'

'I'm an Elene, and you do things to me.'

'You're Anakha, Sparhawk. You don't belong to anybody.'

'That's depressing. I'm loose in the world with no G.o.d to guide me?'

'You don't need guidance. Advice sometimes, yes. Guidance, no.'

'Don't do anything exotic here,' he cautioned. 'We don't know exactly what we'll be dealing with when we get deeper into Tamuli. Let's not announce our presence until we have to.' Then his curiosity got the better of him. 'n.o.body's said anything very relevant yet.'

'Then keep listening, Sparhawk. It will come.'

'Exactly what were you planning to ask G.o.d to do to these people?'

'Nothing,' she replied. 'Absolutely nothing at all. I won't ask Him to do a thing to change their circ.u.mstances. All I want Him to do is to make sure that they all live very, very long lives.'

He looked around the table at the petulant faces of their host's family. 'You're going to imprison them here?' he accused. 'Chain five people who loathe each other together for all eternity so that they can gradually tear each other to pieces?'

'Not quite eternity, Sparhawk,' the little girl corrected, 'though it's probably going to seem that way to them.'

'That's cruel.'

'No, Sparhawk. It's justice. These people richly deserve each other. I only want to be sure that they have a long time to enjoy each others' company.'

'What's your feeling about a breath of fresh air?' Stragen asked, leaning over Sparhawk's shoulder.

'It's raining out there.'

'I don't think you'll melt.'

'Maybe it's not a bad idea at that.' Sparhawk rose to his feet and carried his sleeping daughter back into the sitting room and the divan where Mmrr drowsed, purring absently and kneading one of the cushions with her needle-sharp claws. He covered them both and followed Stragen into the corridor.

'Are you feeling restless?' he asked the Thalesian.

'No, revolted. I've known some of the worst people in the world, my friend, and I'm no angel myself, but this little family-' He shuddered. 'Did you happen to lay in a store of poison while you were in Render?'

'I don't approve of poison.'

'A bit short-sighted there, old boy. Poison's a tidy way to deal with intolerable people.'

'Annias felt much the same way, as I recall.'

'I'd forgotten about that,' Stragen admitted. 'I imagine that prejudiced you slightly against a very practical solution to a sticky problem. Something really ought to be done about these monsters, though.'

'It's already been taken care of.'

'Oh? How?'

'I'm not at liberty to say.'

They stepped out onto the wide veranda that ran across the back of the house and stood leaning on the railing looking out into the muddy back yard.

'It doesn't show any signs of letting up, does it?' Stragen said.

'How long can it continue at this time of year?'

'You'll have to ask Khalad. He's the expert on the weather.'

'My Lords?' Stragen and Sparhawk turned. It was Elron, the baron's poetic brother-in-law. 'I came to a.s.sure you that my sister and I aren't responsible for Kotyk and his relatives,' he said.

'We were fairly sure that was the case, Elron,' Stragen murmured.

'All they had in the world was Kotyk's t.i.tle. Their father gambled away their inheritance. It sickens me to have that clutch of out-at-the-elbows aristocrats lording it over us the way they do.'

'We've heard some rumours,' Stragen smoothly changed the subject. 'Some people in Esos were telling us that there was unrest among the serfs. We got some garbled account of a fellow called "Sabre" and another named Ayachin. We couldn't make any sense out of it.'

Elron looked around in an over-dramatically conspiratorial fashion. 'It is not wise to mention those names here in Astel, Milord Stragen,' he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper that probably could have been heard across the yard. 'The Tamuls have ears everywhere.'

'The serfs are unhappy with the Tamuls?' Stragen asked with some surprise. 'I'd have thought that they wouldn't't have had so far to look for someone to hate.'

'The serfs are superst.i.tious animals, Milord,' Elron sneered. 'They can be led anywhere with a combination of religion, folklore and strong drink. The real movement is directed at the yellow devils.' Elron's eyes narrowed. 'The honour of Astel demands that the Tamul yoke be thrown off. That's the real goal of the movement. Sabre is a patriot, a mysterious figure who appears out of the night to inspire the men of Astel to rise up and smash the oppressor's chains. He's always masked, you know.'

'I hadn't heard that.'

'Oh, yes. It's necessary, of course. Actually, he's a well-known personage who very carefully conceals his real ident.i.ty and opinions. By day he's an idle member of the gentry, but at night, he's a masked firebrand, igniting the patriotism of his countrymen.'

'You have certain opinions, I gather,' Stragen a.s.sumed.

Elron's expression grew cautious. 'I'm only a poet, Milord Stragen,' he said deprecatingly. 'My interest is in the drama of the situation-for the purposes of my art, you understand.'

'Oh, of course.'

'Where does this Ayachin come in?' Sparhawk asked. 'As I understand it, he's been dead for quite some time now.'

'There are strange things afoot in Astel, Sir Sparhawk,' Elron a.s.sured him. 'Things which have lain locked in the blood of all the Astels for generations. We know in our hearts that Ayachin is not dead. He can never die-not so long as tyranny is alive.'

'Just as a practical consideration, Elron,' Stragen said in his most urbane manner, 'this movement seems to rely rather heavily on the serfs for manpower. What's in it for them? Why should men who are bound to the soil have any concern at all about who runs the government?'

'They're sheep. They'll stampede in any direction you want them to. All you have to do is murmur the word 'emanc.i.p.ation' and they'd follow you into the mouth of h.e.l.l.'

'Then Sabre has no intention of actually freeing them?'

Elron laughed. 'My dear fellow, why would any reasonable man want to do that? What's the point of liberating cattle?' He looked around furtively. 'I must return before I'm missed. Kotyk hates me, and he'd like nothing better than the chance to denounce me to the authorities. I'm obliged to smile and be polite to him and those two overfed sows he calls his sisters. I keep my own counsel, gentlemen, but when the day of our liberation comes, there will be changes here-as G.o.d is my judge. Social change is sometimes violent, and I can almost guarantee that Kotyk and his sisters will not live to see the dawn of the new day.' His eyes narrowed with a kind of self-important secretiveness. 'But I speak too much. I keep my own counsel, gentlemen. I keep my own counsel.' He swirled his black cloak around him and crept back into the house, his head high and his expression resolute.

'Fascinating young fellow,' Stragen observed. 'He makes my rapier itch for some reason.'

Sparhawk grunted his agreement and looked up at the rainy night. 'I hope this blows over by morning,' he said. 'I'd really like to get out of this sewer.'

Chapter 11.

The following morning dawned bl.u.s.tery and unpromising. Sparhawk and his companions ate a hasty breakfast and made ready to depart. The baron and his family were not awake as yet, and none of his guests were in any mood for extended farewells. They rode out about an hour after sunrise and turned northeasterly on the Darsas road, moving at a distance-consuming canter. Although none of them mentioned it, they all wanted to get well out of the range of any possible pursuit before their hosts awakened.

About mid-morning, they reached the white stone pillar that marked the eastern border of the baron's estate and breathed a collective sigh of relief. The column slowed to a walk, and Sparhawk and the other knights dropped back to ride alongside the carriage. Ehlana's maid, Alcan, was crying, and the queen and Baroness Melidere were trying to comfort her.

'She's a very gentle child,' Melidere explained to Sparhawk. 'The horror of that sorry household has moved her to tears.'

'Did someone back there say something to you he shouldn't have?' Kalten asked the sobbing girl, his tone hard. Kalten's att.i.tude toward Alcan was strange. Once he had been persuaded not to press his attentions on her, he had become rather fiercely protective. 'If anybody insulted you, I'll go back and teach him better manners.'

'No', my Lord,' the girl replied disconsolately. 'It was nothing like that. It's just that they're all trapped in that awful place. They hate each other, but they'll have to spend the rest of their lives together, and they'll go on cutting little pieces out of each other until they're all dead.'

'Someone once told me that there's a certain kind of justice at work in situations like that,' Sparhawk observed, not looking at his daughter. 'All right then, we all had the chance to talk with the members of our host's family individually. Did anyone pick up anything useful?'

'The serfs are right on the verge of open rebellion, my Lord,' Khalad said. 'I sort of drifted around the stable and other outbuildings and talked with them. The Barons' father was a kindly master, I guess, and the serfs loved him. After he died, though, Kotyk started to show his real nature. He's a brutal sort of man, and he's very fond of using the knout.'

'What's a knout?' Talen asked.

'It's a sort of scourge,' his half-brother replied bleakly.

'A whip?'

'It goes a little further than that. Serfs are lazy, Sparhawk. There's no question about that. And they've perfected the art of either pretending to be stupid or feigning illness or injury. It's always been a sort of game, I guess. The masters knew what the serfs were up to, and the serfs knew that they weren't really fooling anybody. Actually, I think they all enjoyed it. Then, a few years ago, the masters suddenly stopped playing. Instead of trying to coax the serfs to work, the gentry began to resort to the knout. They threw a thousand years of tradition out the window and turned vicious overnight. The serfs can't understand it. Kotyk's not the only n.o.ble who's been mistreating his serfs. They say it's been happening all over western Astel. Serfs tend to exaggerate things, but they all seem to be convinced that their masters have set out on a course of deliberate brutality designed to eradicate traditional rights and to reduce the serfs to absolute slavery. A serf can't be sold, but a slave can. The one they call "Sabre" has been making quite an issue of that. If you tell a man that somebody's planning to sell his wife and children, you're going to get him just a little bit excited.'

'That doesn't match up too well with what Baron Kotyk was telling me,' Patriarch Emban put in.

'The baron drank more than was really good for him last night, and he let a number of things slip that he otherwise might not have. It's his position that Sabre's primary goal is to drive the Tamuls out of Astel. To be honest with you, Sparhawk, I was a bit sceptical about what that thief in Esos said about this Sabre fellow, but he certainly has the attention of the n.o.bles. He's been making an issue of racial and religious differences between Elenes and Tamuls. Kotyk kept referring to the Tamuls as "G.o.dless yellow dogs".'

'We have G.o.ds, your Grace,' Oscagne protested mildly. 'If you give me a few moments, I might even be able to remember some of their names.'

'Our friend Sabre's been busy,' Tynian said. 'He's saying one thing to the n.o.bles and another to the serfs.'

'I think it's called talking out of both sides of your face at once,' Ulath noted.

'I believe the empire might want to give the discovery of Sabre's ident.i.ty a certain priority,' Oscagne mused. 'It's embarra.s.singly predictable, but we brutal oppressors and G.o.dless yellow dogs always want to identify ring-leaders and troublemakers.'