Octobers Baby

SIXTEEN: Shadows of Death

i) New directions and vanishing allies

When Bragi went looking for Haroun, his old friend was gone. Side by side they had harried O Shing, moving too swiftly to visit, then the Royalists had evaporated.

When Bragi returned, autumn was settling on Vorgreberg. For the first time in years there was no foreboding lying over the capital. The rebellion was dead. All but a few of its leaders had been caught. But recognition of Gaia-Lange and/or Carolan remained unsettled.

In Ragnarson's absence the Queen had restructured the Thing along lines proposed by the scholars of Hellin Daimiel, adding commons drawn from among Wessons, Marena Dimura, and Siluro. Final judgmental authority had been vested in three consuls, one elected by the commons, another by the nobility. The third was the Queen herself. Before he reached Baxendala returning, Bragi learned that he had a painful decision to make.

Representatives of the commons met him in the Gap and begged him to become publican consul.

He was still worrying it when he reached Vorgreberg.

The crowds had turned out. He accepted the accolades glumly. Haaken and Reskird grinned, shouted back, clowned. His soldiers wasted no time getting themselves lost in taverns and willing arms.

Sourly, he entered Castle Krief.

And there she was again, in the same place, wearing the same clothing...

And Elana was with her. Elana, Nepanthe, and Mocker.

Haaken leaned close. "Remember the tale of Soren Olag Bjornson's wife." It was a Trolledyngjan folk story about the vicissitudes of an unfaithful husband.

Bragi started. If Haaken knew, the liaison might be common knowledge.

Maybe a consulship would keep him too busy to get in trouble with either woman.

ii) The new life

Ragnarson accepted the consulship, retained the title Marshal, and received a vote of generalship from High Crag. His most difficult task was integrating his arrogant, overbearing Trolledyngjan refugees into Kaveliner so­ciety, and, with the Queen, making compensation to the mercenary regiments. Ravelin's finances were a shambles.

There came a time when final action had to be taken in the matters of Sir Andvburand the Captal of Savernake. To Ragnarson's regret, Kimberlin had to be hanged. The Captal was more cooperative. After a long conversation with the Queen, concerning Carolan, he was allowed pen, parchment, and poison.

The best physician in Hellin Daimiel was brought in to attend Rolf Preshka. But the man neither improved nor worsened. The physician believed it was a matter of mind, not disease.

Time eased Bragi's longing for the Itaskian grant. The War Minister wrote that it would be a long time before he could come back. The Greyfells party had grown no weaker. Meantime, Bevold Lif continued his improve- ments. Ragnarson began looking forward to playing big fish in his new small pool.

There would be a respite before bin Yousif again maneuvered him into the role of stalking horse.

iii) One pretender

Crown Prince Gaia-Lange was playing in his grand­father's garden when the hawkfaced man appeared. The boy was puzzled, but felt no fear. He wondered how the dark man had gotten past the guards. "Who're you?"

"Like you, my prince, a king without a throne." The lean man knelt, kissed the boy on both cheeks. "I'm sorry. There're things more important than princes." He rose, vanished as silently as he had come. The boy's hands touched where lips had touched. His expression remained puzzled.

Hands and expression were still there when his heart beat its last.

It was another Allernmas evening.

iv) Party kill

Shadow from shadow, a lean dark man momentarily appeared in the room where the wine for the leaders of the Greyfells party, meeting before seizing Itaskia's throne, had been decanted. He dribbled golden droplets into each decanter.

Itaskia's morticians were busy for a week.

v) Autumn's child

Like a black ghost that had come on the wings of the blizzard moaning about Castle Krief, the dark man passed the chambers of the Marshal and his wife, the chambers of the Queen, and entered the door of the Princess' room. Drowsy guards never knew he had passed. The child slept in candlelight, golden hair sprayed over cerulean pillows. One small hand protruded from beneath the covers. Into it he emptied a tiny box. The spider was no larger than a pea.

The dark man pricked her palm with a pin. She made a fist.

Death came gently, silently. She never wakened.

He murmured, "October's baby, autumn's child, child of the Dread Empire. Fare you better in the Shadowland." For an instant, before he snuffed the candle and departed, a deep sadness ghosted across his face. One tear rolled down a dark, leathery cheek, betraying the man inside.