Mother Aegypt and Other Stories Part 3

"I'm always in splendid health," said Lord Eyrdway. "Not like you, eh?"

"No indeed," said Lord Ermenwyr with a sigh. "I'm a wreck. Too much fast life down there amongst the Children of the Sun. Wining, wenching, burning my candle at both ends! I'm certain I'll be dead before I'm twenty- two, but what memories I'll have."

"Wenching?" Lord Eyrdway's eyes widened.

"It's like looting and raping, but n.o.body rushes you," explained his brother. "And sometimes the ladies even make breakfast for you afterward."

"I know perfectly well what wenching is," said Lord Eyrdway indignantly. "What's burning your candle at both ends?"

"Ahhh." Lord Ermenwyr lit up his smoking tube. "Let's go order a couple of bottles of wine, and I'll explain."

Several bottles and several hours later, they sat in the little garden just outside Lord Ermenwyr's private chamber. Lord Ermenwyr was refilling his brother's gla.s.s.

"...so then I said to her, 'Well, madam, if you insist, but I really ought to have another apple first,' and that was the exact moment they broke in the terrace doors!" he said.

"Bunch of nonsense. You can't do that with an apple," Lord Eyrdway slurred.

"Maybe it was an apricot," said Lord Ermenwyr. "Anyway, the best part of it was, I got out the window with both the bag and the jewel case. Wasn't that lucky?"

"It sounds like a lot of fun," said Lord Eyrdway wistfully, and drank deep.

"Oh, it was. So then I went round to the Black Veil Club-but of course you know what goes on in those places!" Lord Ermenwyr pretended to sip his wine.

" 'Course I do," said his brother. "Only maybe I've forgot. You tell me again, all right?"

Lord Ermenwyr smiled. Leaning forward, lowering his voice, he explained about all the outre delights to be had at a Black Veil Club. Lord Eyrdway began to drool. Wiping it away absentmindedly, he said at last: "You see-you see-that's what's so awful unflair. Unfair. All this fun you get to have. 'Cause you're totally worthless and n.o.body cares if you go down the mountain. You aren't the d.a.m.n Heir to the Black Halls. Like me. I'm so really important Daddy won't let me go."

"Poor old Way-Way, it isn't fair at all, is it?" said Lord Ermenwyr. "Have another gla.s.s of wine."

"I mean, I'd just love to go t'Deliat.i.tat.i.ta, have some fun," said Lord Eyrdway, holding out his gla.s.s to be refilled, "But, you know, Daddy just puts his hand on my shoulder n' says, 'When you're older, son,'

but I'm older'n you by four years, right? Though of course who cares if you go, right? No big loss to the Family if you get an arrow through your liver."

"No indeed," said Lord Ermenwyr, leaning back. "Tell me something, my brother. Would you say I could do great things with my life if I only applied myself?"

"What?" Lord Eyrdway tried to focus on him. "You? No! I can see three of you right now, an' not one of 'em's worth a d.a.m.n." He began to snicker. "Good one, eh? Three of you, get it? Oh, I'm sleepy.

Just going to put my head down for a minute, right?"

He lay his head down and was promptly unconscious. When Lord Ermenwyr saw his brother blur and soften at the edges, as though he were a waxwork figure that had been left too near the fire, he rose and began to divest him of his jewelry "Eyrdway, I truly love you," he said. The express caravan came through next dawn, rattling along at its best speed in hopes of being well down off the mountain by evening. The caravan master spotted the slight figure by the side of the road well in advance, and gave the signal to stop. The lead keyman threw the brake; sparks flew as the wheels slowed, and stopped.

Lord Ermenwyr, bright-eyed, hopped down from his trunks and approached the caravan master.

"h.e.l.lo! Will this buy me pa.s.sage on your splendid conveyance?" He held forth his hand. The caravan master squinted at it suspiciously. Then his eyes widened.

"Keymen! Load his trunks!" he bawled. "Lord, sir, with a pearl like that you could ride the whole route three times around. Where shall we take you? Deliantiba?"

Lord Ermenwyr considered, putting his head on one side.

"No... not Deliantiba, I think. I want to go somewhere there's a lot of trouble, of the proper sort for a gentleman. If you understand me?"

The caravan master sized him up. "There's a lot for a gentleman to do in Karkateen, sir, if his tastes run a certain way. You've heard the old song, right, about what their streets are paved with?"

Lord Ermenwyr began to smile. "I have indeed. Karkateen it is, then."

"Right you are, sir! Please take a seat."

So with a high heart the lordling vaulted the side of the first free cart, and sprawled back at his ease.

The long line of carts started forward, picked up speed, and clattered on down the ruts in the red road.

The young sun rose and shone on the young man, and the young man sang as he sped through the glad morning of the world.

The Briscian Saint.

We shouldn't have killed the priest," said the first soldier.

He was one of three who fled from the long high smoke-pall of the burning city and he glanced back now to see what white rider might be flying over the fissured plain, following them.

"Don't be stupid, what else could we have done?" said the second soldier. "He swung an axe at us.

That made him a Combatant, see? So it was all right."

"But he cursed us, before he died," said the first soldier uneasily.

"So what?"

"So then the earthquake hit!"

"It didn't get us, did it?" said the third soldier, as he jogged steadily on.

"It got our side," said the first soldier, whose name was Spoke. "One minute we're a conquering army, the next minute the Duke's buried under a wall and we're on the run!"

"It got plenty of the Briscians too," said Mallet, the second soldier, panting from the weight of the burden he carried. "And the Duke never paid us much anyway, did he? So to h.e.l.l with him, and the priest, and the whole business. We're clear away with a fortune, that's all I know. That's called good luck."

"We're not clear yet," said Spoke, and an aftershock followed as if on cue, making them all stagger.

"Shut up!" said the other two soldiers, and they ran on, and Spoke turned his face too and ran on, peering desperate up at the hills. Only he who rode behind Mallet regarded the flaming devastation, now, staring from the leather pack with wide sapphire-colored eyes. If the prayers of the dying reached his golden ears, he gave no sign, for his faint smile altered not in the least.

By nightfall they had made the cover of the trees and followed a stream up its course, crossing back and forth to throw off anything that might be tracking them by scent. They crawled the face of the wide-exposed stone gorge, expecting any moment to be nailed in place by pistol-bolts; but no one attacked, and when they lay gasping at the top Spoke said: "I don't like this. It's too easy."

"Easy!" said Mallet, who had carried on his back a statue weighing more than a child. He slipped off his pack with a groan and set it upright, but it toppled over and the golden figure struck the rock, ringing hollowly. Spoke cringed.

"And that's a bad omen!" he said.

The third soldier, whose name was Smith, sat up. "If it was," he said, "I'd think it'd be a bad omen for the Briscians, wouldn't you? Their saint falling over?"

"You're both idiots," said Mallet. "Omens! Portents! My a.s.s."

"If you'd seen what I've seen over the years, you'd be a little more respectful," Spoke persisted.

"My a.s.s," Mallet repeated.

Spoke crawled to the statue and slipped it from the pack, handling it gingerly He set it upright before them, knelt, and cleared his throat.

"Blessed saint, have mercy on us. We are poor men in need, and we fought only for pay. Our Duke is dead, maybe by your just anger; so be appeased, and take no further revenge on us. We promise to atone."

Mallet snorted, "I promise to take that thing straight to the first goldsmith I find. The eyes alone are probably worth a farm."

Wincing, Spoke cried: "Judge us separately, blessed saint! Rebuke his blasphemy as you see fit, but accept my contrition and spare me."

"Oh, that's lovely," said Smith. "So much for being comrades-in-arms, eh?"

"Haven't you ever heard any stories about this kind of thing?" said Spoke. "Remember what happened to Lord Salt when he mocked the Image at Rethkast?"

Mallet just shook his head in disgust and got up, looking about them. He moved off into the trees, picking up broken branches as he went.

Smith slipped off his own pack and rummaged in it for flint and steel. "Have you ever noticed," he said, "how those stories are never about ordinary people like us? It's always Lord This and Prince That who p.i.s.s off the G.o.ds and get blasted with balefire."

"Well, there could be a good reason for that," said Spoke. "Highborn people get noticed, don't they?

If they're punished for sin, everyone sees. Makes a better example than if the punishment fell on n.o.bodies."

"So the G.o.ds think like men?" said Smith, standing up to peer through the shadows. He pulled down a low bough and yanked free a handful of trailing moss, rubbing it between his fingers to see whether it was dry enough to take a spark.

"They must think like men," argued Spoke seriously. "At least, when they're dealing with us. They have to use logic we'll understand, don't they?"

Smith ignored him, breaking off dry twigs and settling down to the business of starting a fire. He had a little creeping flame established by the time Mallet came back with an armload of dead wood. The wood caught, the flames leaped up; the clearing above the gorge lit in a small circle, and the black shadows of the trees leaned back from it all around.

"Good," grunted Smith, stretching out his hands. He slipped off his helmet and went down to the water's edge, where it ran shallow and transparent over the smooth rock before plummeting down in mist. Here he rinsed his helmet out, and brought it back full of water. Arranging three stones close against the flames, he propped it there where it would take heat. After a moment, the other two men followed his example.

They sat in silence, watching for the water to steam. Spoke, however, turned his troubled gaze now and again to the image of the saint.

"Was his face pointed toward us, before?" he said at last.

"Of course it was."

"I thought-it was looking straight ahead."

The other two glanced over their shoulders at the statue.

"You're right!" said Mallet. "Oh dear, what'll we do now? There Holy Saint Foofoo sits, taking advantage of the fact that all these jumping shadows make him look eerie as h.e.l.l. As soon as he's got us good and scared, you know what he's going to do? He'll start creeping toward us, a little at a time. Only when we're not looking, naturally"

"Shut your face!"

"He'll come closer, and closer, and then-"

"Stop it!"

"Then he'll realize he's two feet tall and armed with a teeny little golden tambourine in one hand and a-what is that thing in his other hand?" Mallet squinted at it. "A silver toothpick?"

"It's supposed to be a dagger," said Smith.

"Oh, I don't know how I'm ever going to fall asleep tonight, with a supernatural menace like that around," said Mallet.

Spoke stared into the fire.

"It was looking straight ahead," he murmured.

"You couldn't have seen that, as dark as it was here," said Mallet.

Smith shrugged and took up his pack again. He pulled out a ration- block wrapped in oiled paper, a little the worse for wear after being knocked around in the company of his other gear. He opened it, picked off dirt and lint, and broke a few chunks into the water in his helmet, which was beginning to steam slightly.

"Let me tell you about something that happened in our village," said Spoke. "AU right? We had a saint of our own. She watched over the harvest and she kept away the marsh fevers. And if you had a toothache, you could pray to her, and she'd heal you every time. All you had to do was leave offerings in her shrine. And make sure her image was kept polished.

"Well, one time, somebody's little boy went in there and left a lump of b.u.t.ter in the statue's open hand. He thought she'd like it. But it was summer, and the b.u.t.ter melted, and then dust blew in from the road and stuck to the mess. When the old priest saw it, he thought somebody'd been disrespectful, and he cursed whoever'd done it. And, do you know, the child was taken ill that very night? And he burned with fever until his mother figured out what he'd done, and she went and made an offering in apology?

And right away the child got better."

"Some saint!" said Mallet, stirring bits of ration block into his helmet.

"Well, it would have been the priest's mistake, not the saint's," conceded Smith.

"d.a.m.n right; a statue can't make mistakes," said Mallet.

"And I'll tell you something else that happened!" said Spoke. "The old priest died, and we got a new one. But he wasn't a holy man. He was greedy, and people began to notice that the offerings were disappearing from the shrine, almost as soon as they were put out. When pig-slaughtering time came around, somebody left a beautiful plate of blood sausages in front of the saint's image; but they disappeared the same night."

"Was this shrine outdoors, by any chance?" asked Mallet.

"Listen to what happened, before you laugh!" said Spoke. "This priest had a mole on his face-"

Mallet began to chortle.

"And from that night it began to grow, you see? It got huge, hanging down the front of his face, and it turned dark red and looked exactly like a blood sausage!"

Mallet fell back, guffawing, and Smith snickered. Spoke stared at them, outraged.

"You think this is funny?" he demanded. "This really happened! I saw it with my own eyes! And finally the priest died of shame, but before he did, he confessed he'd been stealing the offerings left for the saint."

"Sounds like he died of a tumor, to me," said Mallet. "And I have news for you: all priests feed themselves on the stuff left at shrines. In my city they did it openly. And what's so unusual about a child getting a fever? Children are always getting fevers. Especially in marshy country. Especially where people are too ignorant and superst.i.tious to go to a doctor instead of a priest."