Lamentation

Chapter 22

Neb

Winters avoided Neb’s eyes until the Marsh King returned, then she disappeared entirely. They hadn’t spoken, they hadn’t known what to say, and all of it was just too new and strange for him. Cryptic prophecies, strange dreams, unexplainable fits of glossolalia were not what he’d expected when he’d run after the magicked Marsher scout.

Now, the Marsh King stood before him and held court, asking Neb about the gravedigging operation, about the armies and even a bit about Petronus. Neb answered carefully about the old man-describing him merely as a wandering Androfrancine-and spoke honestly about the Entrolusians and what little he knew of Rudolfo and the Queen of Pylos, the few scraps he’d picked up listening to the soldiers speak.

The giant fur-clad man paused between questions, glancing to the idol of P’Andro Whym and occasionally askingItif follow up questions. Finally they fell into silence, and after a few minutes of this, the Marsh King spoke.

“You are on the edge of becoming, Nebios ben Hebda,” the Marsh King said. “A man is shaped not only by his choices but by the choices of those around him. You are being shaped by the Desolation of Windwir, and where some have taken up the sword you have taken up the shovel. I have seen in my dreams that your shovel will be the salvation of my people.” Here the Marsh King leaned forward, lowering his deep voice. “And I have seen in your dreams, too, the great sorrow that you will bear because of your great love.” The Marsh King paused. “I will summon you again in due time, Nebios ben Hebda. For now, I will leave you to your work and return to mine.”

With that, the Marsh King stood and departed. Eventually, Neb left the cave and went to the foyer that the tent created. A few minutes later, Winters appeared.

“I will escort you to the edge of the plain,” she said.

They walked slowly through the camp, and once again Neb wasn’t exactly sure where the camp gave way to the forest. It was getting colder, and the pools of rainwater were now staying frozen longer into the day.

As they walked, Neb looked at her out of the corner of his eye. How was it that she seemed prettier each time he looked at her? How was it that the dirt and grime seemed less and less prevalent and her eyes and mouth seemed more? And how was it that it felt so good to be near her, to have the musky smell of her in his nose? It perplexed him.

Certainly, he understood human sexuality at least in theory. They’d covered it in school, and he’d seen a bit of it as it played out around him during his life in the city. And he knew that a lot of people followed those promptings of their nature, but everything he knew said that as an Androfrancine, he lived above such things. It never occurred to him to ask his father about his mother or to ask how it was that Brother Hebda had not kept his vows to the Order. It was simple: His father had made a mistake. And the grace of P’Andro Whym covered that mistake, even providing a home and food and education for the product of that mistake.

Perhaps these were the types of feelings that took men down the path of error. Or perhaps the fit of glossolalia they had experienced together somehow bonded them in a deeper way.

Neb wasn’t sure, but he did know that the awkwardness grew and that she must feel it, too.

As if reading his mind, she stopped walking and turned on him. “I sense discomfort between us.”

Neb stopped. He wrestled to find the words. “I’m not sure what it is.” He thought about it some more.

“Is it unpleasant? "

He shook his head. “No. Just uncomfortable. I don’t know what it means or what to do or how to act or what to say.”

She laughed. “I feel that, too.”

Now that he’d started, the words just kept coming. “And then there’s your king and his dreams. It’s a way of knowing that cuts across the grain of everything I’ve been taught.” He felt a lump growing in the back of his throat, felt water building in his eyes. “And I really just want to go home, to talk with Brother Hebda about his latest dig, to finish my schooling and join the Order as an acolyte. But I can’t. Because my home is a field of blackened bones, my father’s among them. And there is no school, there is no library and soon enough, there may be no Order. Everything I have ever known and loved is gone from the world.”

She nodded, her brown eyes soft with something that might’ve been concern. “Then you will come to know and love differently,” she said, “and learn to live around the chasms. These are hard days, Nebios ben Hebda, but they are the travail of a woman with child. Through this pain, you will lead your people into their new home and it will be a home to you as well. I’ve seen it in the dreams.”

“I don’t want to lead anyone anywhere,” he said, and he heard the voice of an angry child in his words.

Winters sighed. “I understand that feeling all too well. But we do what we are made for.”

Suddenly, her hands were sliding up and around his neck as she pressed herself closer to him. Stretching up on tiptoes, she kissed him lightly on his mouth. Then she stepped back quickly, her cheeks turning red despite the layer of mud and ash. Neb felt his own heat rising along with stirrings elsewhere. “Why did you do that?”

She smiled. “I already told you. We do what we are made for.” Then she dug into her pocket and pulled out a small silver vial. “The Marsh King wants you to have this.”

Neb took it, and looked at it. “What is it for?”

“It’s voice magicks,” she said. “You’ll need them.”

He slipped it into his own pocket, and was going to ask her what he would need the voice magicks for, but he swallowed the question when his fingers felt the ring there nestled beside the Marsh King’s gift. One more thing that Brother Hebda had told him in the dream, one more thing that the Marsh King knew without Neb saying.

Winters must have seen the look on his face. “Do not be troubled,” she said. She brought her hand up and touched his shouldeOhede="r.

Then the sound of horses reached their ears and they turned. Moving through the forest, Neb saw a handful of horses-one large and white at the head of them. A slight, bearded man in a green turban and a long golden robe rode high in the saddle with an aloof confidence, surrounded by men dressed in multicolored wool uniforms.

“Is that-?”

Winters interrupted. “It’s Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses. I’m afraid I will have to leave you here.” She took both his hands in her own. “Be well, Nebios ben Hebda.” She smiled at him, and for a moment Neb thought that maybe-just maybe-there could be some kind of peace or home at the end of this for him. “We will see each other again.”

Neb wasn’t sure how to respond, so he said nothing. He felt her squeeze his hands and he tried to squeeze back but it felt awkward.

Releasing his hands, she turned and ran back toward the camp.

Neb watched her go, still trying to capture and label the strange feelings she evoked. Then he continued south, breaking from the forest and making his way through the bones and ashes of Windwir.

He was halfway back to camp when something she said struck him as odd.

I’ve seen it in the dreams.

Shrugging it off, Neb moved south at a quickening pace, anxious to see Petronus and tell him what he could about everything that had happened to him.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo studied the Marsher camp as he rode into it. He had not been sure what to expect and he openly admired their skill at camouflaging themselves and their tents. He and his Gypsy Scouts stayed near one another. They were unmagicked to honor the kin-clave the Marsh King had proclaimed between them, and they were careful to keep their hands in plain view as well as their sheathed weapons and unstrung bows.

He’d never crossed into their lands and his only encounters with them had been with the king his father had captured and the occasional skirmishers he’d faced over the course of his life. He knew what most of the Named Lands knew about their history, and in many ways, he realized there was more kinship between the Marshers and the Ninefold Forest because of the ties to Xhum Y’Zir. Some scholars traced the original Marshers to the house slaves freed by Xhum Y’Zir after his sons were killed by P’Andro Whym. They came to the New World close on the heels of the first Rudolfo so long ago, before the others came led by the Whymers to establish the Named Lands.

He knew little OHe ablof their culture. They were given to bouts of mysticism, following a system of beliefs unknown to most. Apart from skirmishing and scavenging they kept to themselves, though at one time their skirmishing and scavenging had been on a much grander scale. They used to bring down whole cities. Now they occasionally took farms or caravans but even most of that slowed down ten years ago or more.

Rudolfo brought his horse to a stop in the center of the camp and raised his voice. “I’ve come to parley with the Marsh King.”

The people moved around him, silent, though they watched the mounted riders carefully.

Gregoric leaned over. “They say nothing.”

“Marshers vow silence that their king be their only voice in time of war,” a girl said, stepping from the crowd.

“And yet,” Rudolfo said, inclining his head to her, “you are speaking to us.”

“I am.” She curtsied. “I will bring you to the Marsh King.”

Rudolfo dismounted, leading his horse behind him as he picked his way through the muddy camp. He’d chosen a golden rain robe, wool trousers and a silk shirt over the top of his armor. He’d thought about leaving the light breastplate off, but he’d decided it would be best to humor his Gypsy Scouts.

He followed the girl and his men did the same. They walked to a tent against the side of a hill, and the girl gestured inside. “The Marsh King will join you soon. I will have refreshments brought to you.”

Rudolfo nodded. “That would be most pleasant,” he lied.

The girl curtsied again and ran off. She was a waif if he’d ever seen one. Long brown hair, tangled and filthy. Dried mud and ash smeared into her face and her plain burlap dress. There wasn’t a clean patch on her. And even from the distance they’d kept, Rudolfo had worked hard not to wrinkle his nose at the smell.

He looked over his shoulder at his men, flashing hand signals to them. One of them stayed with the horses. The others took up their positions near the tent. Gregoric slipped into the tent, then slipped back out a minute later.

“It’s fine, General,” he said. “Filthy but fine. There’s a back entrance.”

Rudolfo nodded. “Very well. Wait with the men, Gregoric.” He brushed past his first captain and into the tent. At the end of the short passageway, he saw that a small table had been set, along with a stool. Nearby stood a massive chair, and near it a meditation statue of P’AndrO/a›paso Whym-the one with the mirrors of self-awareness. It was dented and dirty, but it spoke of centuries past and of the same mysticism that had paved the way for Whymer Mazes and the Physicians of Penitent Torture-dark sides of T’Erys Whym’s adoration of his brother.

Rudolfo went to the small table and sat, drumming his fingers lightly on the wood.

A most unusual kin-clave, he thought.

“Lord Rudolfo,” a voice bellowed behind him.

He looked over his shoulder, and stood as the massive man pushed his way into the cave. Behind him, two Marsh women followed with trays of food and drink. Rudolfo extended his right hand to the Marsh King. “I do not know what to call you,” he said.

The giant looked at Rudolfo’s hand, then locked eyes with him. “I am the Marsh King.” He continued past him to sit heavily in the chair. He glanced to the idol, then back to Rudolfo. “What is your strategy to win this war?”

Rudolfo chuckled. “You do not waste time with pleasantries, do you?”

The two women unloaded the trays onto the small table. One poured a thick, amber-colored syrup into a glass and set it by Rudolfo’s right hand as the other placed bowls of poached salmon mixed with walnuts, apples and onions, loaves of black bread and wheels of strong-smelling cheese. Rudolfo picked up a bit of cheese and nibbled it.

“Pleasantries do not interest me,” the Marsh King said, again glancing to the idol. “Have you listened to my War Sermon?”

Rudolfo shrugged. “You speak the Whymer tongue most nights. It is not a language I’ve kept up on.” But I’ve kept up on this language, he signed, using the house language of Xhum Y’Zir.

The Marsh King’s eyes widened, but he did not sign back. “The world is changing, Lord Rudolfo. I have dreamed it. On the night before the pillar of smoke, I dreamed of fire consuming the Named Lands for the sins of a father that is worshiped yet forgotten.” The Marsh King looked to the idol. “Windwir is just the start of this. But in the end, it will close the Marshfolk’s sojourn in the land of sorrows.” He leaned forward. “And in my dreams, your blade guards the path to our new home.”

Rudolfo picked at the salmon mixture with a small tarnished fork. It had been poached in lemon juice, and tasted surprisingly sweet and sour. He washed it down with a cold brown liquor that turned out to be a thick whiskey. He felt the warmth move through him and he savored it. He looked at the Marsh King. “And because of this you have announced our unexpected kin-clave?”

Rudolfo watched this time, carefully. The eyes always went to the idol before speaking. And after a glance, the words followed. “Your resurrected Pope will save the light by killing it. After, a Gypsy blade will guard that light, and by guarding it, guard our way.”

He felt his eyes narrow. “Tell me about this resurrected Pope.”

Another glance. “You will know of this soon enough.”

“Regardless,” Rudolfo said, watching the idol out of the corner of his eye, “you can imagine how odd it is that after two thousand years of scorning the Named Lands and its obeisance to the Rites of Kin-Clave, suddenly when Windwir falls you are quick to ride south and take a side.”

Then, before the eyes could shift to the idol, Rudolfo signed: You are not the Marsh King.

The man looked to the idol, concern washing his face. He continued the stare at the idol and Rudolfo smiled. Finally, the giant spoke. “Dreams come when they come. I do not bid them.”

Rudolfo nodded. “I understand.” Then his hands moved. You are the Marsh King’s puppet, he signed. You read his hand signs in the mirror.

Now he looked something like a wash between anger, puzzlement and fear. His mouth opened and closed, his heavy breath rustling his beard and mustache.

Rudolfo sipped the whiskey, then put it down. “I know what you’re about,” he said, raising his voice. Tell your puppeteer that Lord Rudolfo has sniffed him out.

But before he could speak, the girl appeared from her place behind the curtain. She smiled at him, and Rudolfo saw it was the girl who had led him here. “Lord Rudolfo, my apologies for this subterfuge,” she said, striding forward and extending her right hand. “You can imagine why it is prudent for the Named Lands to see the Marsh King as something other than what she truly is.”

Rudolfo accepted her hand and forced himself to raise it to his mouth, despite the grime and mud. “I understand completely. As long as kin-clave exists between us, I will honor your trust.”

She nodded. “Thank you. I know you understand what it means to come into power young and alone.”

Rudolfo felt the sting of memory, remembering that first lonely day as the new Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses. Gregoric’s father had been his strength, and not long after brought Gregoric into the position of First Captain so that he could become Rudolfo’s general by proxy. “Yes,” he said. “It is challenging to earn and keep respect.”

She looked at the large man who played her proxy. “My father chose Hanric to play the part of my shadow until I found my own strength. Of course, my people know.”

This surprised Rudolfo. “Really?”

She smiled. “Marshfolk are very different from Named Landers.”

“Aye,” Rudolfo said, chuckling. “As are the Forest Gypsies.”

“My role is more spiritual than directive,” she continued. “Most of my life is spent writing my dreams, both the waking and the dreaming. I also write out my glossolalia.”

Rudolfo pondered this. “These are the War Sermons we hear.”

She nodded. “They are. I’ve written these down for as long as I can remember. My Whymer Seers catalog them and assign them numbers, weaving my dreams into the matrix of dreams from the Marsh Kings that have gone before. My father chose Hanric as my shadow partly for his strength as a warrior, but also because, like me, he remembers everything he reads. He has spent his life preparing for the War of Androfrancine Sin, reading the dreams.” She looked to Hanric now. “I will draw numbers tonight and determine their sequence at random. And the Marsh King’s War Sermon will continue.”

Rudolfo laughed now. “I think we lead our houses very differently.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “We do.”

Rudolfo’s hand crept up to stroke his beard. “I must admit that this is not what I expected for my parley with you.”

“But you saw through my subterfuge soon enough.”

The Gypsy King shrugged. “I’ve had a life of statecraft and intrigue. Until now, I would imagine you spent your life away from that.”

“I have,” she said. “Though I had an Androfrancine tutor.”

Rudolfo raised his eyebrows. “That is quite curious given the history.”

“Yes.” She looked at Hanric. “I will come for you soon, Hanric.”

He bowed and quickly left the cave.

When he left she looked at Rudolfo, and for just a moment her hard eyes became soft. The Oeca was a certain prettiness beneath the dirt, and a coltish, awkward strength in her bearing. As young as she was, Rudolfo sensed that she already exhibited the trappings of formidability. “Now,” she said, “let’s talk strategy for this war of ours.”

Rudolfo smiled and reached for the bottle of whiskey.

Petronus

Petronus sat amid the rubble and ash and thought about the past.

He’d waited for Neb to return or for Gregoric to bring some word, but neither had happened, and eventually he’d wandered into the city. In addition to the boy’s disappearance, the work worried him. By his estimates they’d buried nearly a third of the dead, but it was obvious now that the winter was upon them, and their workforce dwindled with each day that the armies waited.

He’d often found that walking helped. One of the things he’d hated about being Pope was that he could no longer simply go for a walk. Gray Guard or archbishops or aides surrounded him everywhere he went, though from time to time he’d managed to slip past them. On those days or nights, he wandered a circuit of streets, always the same streets, head low and hands clasped behind his back, dressed in the simplest robes he could borrow.

Now he had done the same thing, his feet picking out a path that carried him along the backside of the crater where the great library had stood. Before he knew it, he was where the Garden of Coronation and Consecration had once been, where as a younger man he’d taken the scepter and the ring offered to him and had been proclaimed Pope Petronus.

He sat down, thinking about what it meant then to be Pope, contrasting it to what it meant now.

Tonight, Rudolfo would raid the Entrolusian camp. Petronus had his doubts about the success of the operation, but rebuilding the library would be a popular cause in light of the Desolation of Windwir. And it was sound strategy to move the library north. The only unsound part of the strategy was the Androfrancines’ continued care of the light. Given their weakness now-from over a hundred thousand souls to maybe a thousand-there was no way they could keep the secrets of the Old World and even the First World safe from men like Sethbert.

You know what you need to do, old man, he told himself. You’ve known since you learned it was Sethbert. You’ve known since that clerk proclaimed himself Pope.

Petronus sighed. It was easier then, with the trumpets and the shouting and the crowds. Because on the surface of it, there was nothing to be done. Nothing to be responsible for, not really. Archbishops and Gray Guard and scholars and lawyers shielded him from any silent moment of accountability. The closest he’d come to it was the Marsher village, and only that because he’d commanded that captain to take him.

He heard movement behind him and turned. Neb made his way towards him, walking slowly. Petronus climbed to his feet and went to the boy. “You’re back,” he said, opening his arms.

Neb walked cautiously into the embrace, and pulled away quickly. Petronus saw that he had his hand in his pocket, fumbling with something.

“We’ve worried about you,” Petronus said. “Our Gypsy friends said they would inquire-I’ve been waiting for word.” He smiled, patting the boy’s back. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Neb nodded. “Lord Rudolfo approached to parley as I left.”

Petronus sat and pointed to the blackened piece of masonry nearby. As Neb sat, Petronus said, “The kings all met for parley this morning.”

Neb looked at him, and Petronus saw concern on his face. “What will you do?”

Petronus blinked, surprised at the boy’s sudden directness. He wondered what had happened to him in the Marsher camp, and would have asked, but Neb’s tone commanded honesty and attention. “I do not know what I will do,” he said.

Neb nodded. “The Marsh King talked about a resurrected Pope. He said that the end of the light is the end of their time in this land-that there is a new home for them.”

Petronus cocked his head. “Marsher mysticism and nothing more.”

Neb shrugged but didn’t speak.

“Something else happened,” Petronus said. It wasn’t a question.

Neb looked up, then looked away, his face awash with conflicting emotion. He doesn’t want to tell me, Petronus thought. “There was a girl,” he finally said.

Petronus chuckled. “This is the age it starts,” he said.

Neb looked away, and Petronus noticed that his hand was still buried in the pocket of his robes. “Do you believe that dreams are true?”

“Of course,” Petronus said. “The Francines teach us that the dreams are how parts of our mind work out the stimuli of our waking experience.”

Neb shook his head. “I mean-can they tell the future?”

Petronus sat back. “It must be possible sometimes. You dreamed that the Marsh King and his army rode south to Windwir, and he did.”

Neb’s eyes met Petronus’s. “That’s not all I dreamed that night.”

Petronus waited.

Finally, Neb continued. “In my dream, Brother Hebda told me I would proclaim you Pope in the Garden of Coronation and Consecration.”

Petronus felt the color drain from his face. Now the boy reached into his pocket, withdrawing something small that glistened dully in the gray winter sunlight. Petronus squinted at it and gasped.

The Papal signet lay in the palm of Neb’s hand.

The boy stretched his hand out to Petronus, and it shook slightly.

At first, he did not take the ring. He just stared at it, feeling the fear of it course through him. After what seemed hours, he picked it up and weighed it in his hands.

“You are Petronus,” Neb said, “the Missing King of Windwir and the Lost Pope of the Holy See of the Androfrancine Order.” Petronus saw the line of tears cutting tracks of white down Neb’s cheeks. He felt tears building in his own eyes.

“I am Petronus,” he said slowly. Holding his breath, he slipped the ring onto the second finger of his right hand.

Neb stood and drew a vial from his pocket, unstopping the lid. He raised it to his lips, and Petronus shook his head, standing.

“No,” he said, taking the vial away. “You’ve done enough, Nebios. Let me proclaim myself.”

Neb let out his held breath, and Petronus took the vial from his shaking hand.

Raising it to his lips, he felt the power of it course through him. Blood magick from its taste, spiced with powders from things grown in dark places. He drank it down and cleared his voice, feeling the wave of sound rumble out from him like thunder.

Then Petronus drew himself up to his full height and shouted at the sky. “I am Petronus,” he said. “I am the coronate King of Windwir and consecrated Pope of the Holy See of the Androfrancine Order.”

The words blasted out from him, marching for league upon league. Petronus intended to stop with that, but as his eyes took in the blasted city around him, he felt all of the anger he’d kept buried these last few months, and iOw m tot demanded release.

Pacing the holy ground of his consecration and coronation, Petronus spent the rest of that afternoon delivering a War Sermon of his very own.

Sethbert

Sethbert heard the voice outside and stood from his luncheon table. Over the weeks he’d grown accustomed to the Marsh King’s midnight ranting, but they’d been easy to ignore, being in what was for all practical purposes a dead language. He’d had the first few nights translated by an old man he’d kept on for just that sort of thing, but once he’d seen that it least a third of it was unintelligible, another third was disjointed bits of scripture, and the rest a smattering of references from something called the Book of the Dreaming Kings, Sethbert had put the old man onto other work and put the Marsh King’s War Sermons out of his mind.

But this afternoon’s voice was clear, speaking in the formal language reserved for matters of high ceremony. Sethbert exited the tent and saw he wasn’t alone. Soldiers, servants, war-whores, aides and cooks had all stopped, looked up, and went outside to listen.

Sethbert waved over a young lieutenant. “I missed the first part. What did he say?”

“He said he was the King of Windwir and the Pope of the Androfrancine Order,” the young lieutenant answered.

Sethbert snorted. “The King of Windwir and the Pope of the Androfrancine Order is at the Summer Papal Palace.” He opened his mouth to say more, but swallowed his words when he heard his own name mentioned in the angry outpouring. He felt eyes on him, and at the same time he felt his anger rise. The voice was making charges-true charges, Sethbert realized-and spelling out the consequences for Sethbert’s transgressions.

He kept listening, hearing much of the same language he’d read in the written proclamation. Of course, the written proclamation had been kept away from his military at General Lysias’s insistence.

He looked now at the listening faces around him, his eyes measuring them. Lysias had protested his handling of the desertions, but they’d dropped off substantially when word spread through the camp of how Sethbert dealt with those who spurned their oath to the Delta City States. He wondered now what this news would mean for his army.

I could tell them the truth. They would hail me as a hero. But Sethbert would not tell them the truth simply because he knew that he shouldn’t have to. “Some are kings and some are not and there’s a reason for that,” his father had told him. Sethbert believed it.

And the longer he kept knowledge to himself, the better control he had over what that knowledge could do. Something he’d actually learned Otua Nefrom the Androfrancines.

Sethbert listened to the War Sermon, listened to the rallying call of this Pope, and for a moment he thought the voice and words seemed familiar. It sounded like someone he’d known.

He saw Lysias walking quickly toward him, a perplexed look on his face. Like an Androfrancine clock, Sethbert thought, perfectly on time.

“This does not bode well,” Lysias said. “I’ve a bird back from the front lines. It’s coming from the center of the city. Scouts have been dispatched.”

Sethbert nodded. “Do we know who it is?”

Lysias shrugged. “Not with any certainty. But…” He started the sentence, then paused.

Sethbert sighed. “But what, General? Who is it?”

Lysias set his jaw. “He claims to be Petronus,” he said.

Sethbert dropped the wineglass he’d forgotten he still carried. It shattered on the ground. He felt his stomach lurch, and he closed his eyes against it.

The wily old gravedigger and his Androfrancine laws, he thought.

I should have recognized him.

Then Sethbert screamed for his horse and sword.