Emperor and Clown (19 page)

Well,
now he was a mage and there was nothing to it. It was not unpleasant, though.
It did keep a man from brooding, maybe.

Usually
Gathmor sat up on the box beside him, but this was the last leg of the day’s
progress, so he was clinging on at the back as if he were the genuine footman
his fancy livery denoted. Gathmor still dreamed vain dreams of revenge on
Kalkor. He had agreed to stain his face and hair, and he was short for a
jotunn. He had even removed his beloved floorbrush mustache, to seem more
impish. Rap could have dissuaded him from coming, at least for a few hoursfor
long enough to have left him behind at Ollion, by the sea where he belonged, but
Rap had been reluctant to use mastery on a friend, and he hated himself for his
stupid scruples. He did not know what awaited Gathmor in Hub, for his foresight
would not work on anyone other than himself, but at least nothing could be more
improbable than finding Kalkor there.

Rap
was driving now with his eyes shut, because evening was coming and the ruddy
western sun hung unpleasantly close to dead ahead. The wide pavement stretched
toward it as straight as an arrow, flanked by neat hedges to restrain the cattle.
Good dairy country, this. Earlier he had seen forest and near desert and
desolate swamp; he had caught faint glimpses of the snowy Qobles, far to the
south. Now the hills were green-impossibly green for so late in the year. The
trees were mostly bare, and the harvest gathered, yet the herds could still
graze their fill, and to a Krasnegarian that seemed very odd.

Everywhere
he saw prosperity: white farms and great mansions, villages and big cities. The
Impire rolled past as if it would never end, rich and safe and powerful.

And
yet ... out of sight of casual travelers on the Great East Way, behind the
nearest hills, the wealth grew more patchy. There were hovels there, whose
inhabitants wore rags. And when the highway rolled through the hearts of great
cities, then behind the great-fronted buildings-in the back streets and
alleys-a seer could find slums and misery without much searching. The Impire
was more than he had ever dreamed, and considerably less than it thought it
was. The world had certainly grown in the last year.

How
would humble little Krasnegar seem to him now?

On
the sumptuous padded benches inside the coach, Princess Kadolan and Doctor
Sagorn chatted pleasantly together, saying nothing of any importance, so far as
an eavesdropping mage had noticed. When she arrived at her destination, her
companion would be Andor, though. Sir Andor would have been mentioned in the
letter the courier had borne on ahead in the morning, so it would be Andor
again tonight.

It
didn’t always work, of course. A few times they had lodged at post inns,
especially when they had first left Ollion, but the princess had spent a
lifetime entertaining guests at Kinvale. She was acquainted with hundreds of
the Imperial nobility, and as she drew closer and closer to Hub, so more and
more of them lived within reach of the Great East Way, or their relatives did.
They welcomed her like long-lost kin, they feasted her and tried to make her
linger. Failing in that, they wrote introductions to others ahead, their own
friends and relations. They sent couriers to warn of her coming. Kade was
proceeding in royal style from mansion to mansion. The straw pallets and
pottery bowls of the inns had given way to silken sheets and golden plate.

Her
coachman and footman boarded with the servants, of course, and that suited both
of them. As far as Gathmor was concerned, that also suited Princess Kadolan,
but she kept trying to persuade Rap to play a grander role. A postmaster
expected to provide postboys along with his horses, she said. She would gladly
hire such men to drive her equipage. Then Rap could be her secretary, perhaps,
or a Sysanassoan prince on vacation, if he wanted. She appreciated now that he
was capable of faking anything, of fooling anyone, and yet she still cherished
dreams of taking him in hand and polishing him up to be a fitting consort for
Inos. Rap had politely declined. When she had grown more pressing, he had gone
stubborn on her again. His premonition would not let him be happy, but he was
less miserable when he was being as near to his real self as possible.

A
courier of the Imperial mail went galloping by and vanished into the sunset.
Rap pulled out to overtake two lumbering wagons. Traffic was always heavy on
the Great Way. That morning a whole legion had trudged by, five thousand solid
young men bound eastward to the wars, singing a rousing marching song with
their heads held high and their eyes glazed.

Rap
had wondered how many of them would ever return, and if they were wondering the
same.

He
had wondered how it felt to be a sword in the imperor’s army. Did it make a man
feel important? Or very unimportant? Strong or vulnerable? Proud? Ashamed?
Scared? He recalled what the outlaws in Dragon Reach had told him about
freedom.

One
thing driving did do was give a man time to straighten up his thoughts and lay
them out in rows. The Imperial posts were set about eight leagues apart,
usually in little villages or in market towns. At those he would turn in one
team and hire another. The ostlers would try to browbeat him, of course,
always. Anxious to hire out postilions to ride those horses, they would insist
that even a faun couldn’t handle six from the box. They would refuse to believe
him when he said that a shoe was ill-fitting or a fetlock sore before he had
even lifted the animal’s foot. And so Rap would apply a hint of mastery, and
get whatever he wanted, and despise himself for doing it.

But
he was circumspect, for there was magic everywhere. Ancient ruins and tiny cottages
still held faint vestiges of occult shielding. Here and there he saw things or
people blurred by a curious shimmer that suggested they were not what they
seemed. In the towns he often sensed the ripples of the occult at work; at
night in the great houses he would feel Sagorn prowling the library or Andor
recruiting a winsome servant maid to cheer his bed. He knew when Thinal took up
a collection for a good cause.

Before
the expedition had even departed from Arakkaran, the princess had produced some
brooches and strings of fine pearls, requesting that Sir Andor sell them to
finance the journey. Perhaps she had a rough idea of what first-class passage
cost on a fine ship, but she obviously did not grasp the expense involved in
bowling along the Great Way in style at twenty-five leagues a day.

And
yet perhaps she suspected, for she always became uneasy and fretful when Andor
wandered off to visit the markets in the cities. Pawnshops were his objective,
of course, although they were never mentioned. The ongoing finances were being
unwittingly contributed by the princess’s hosts, her friends, and Thinal was
her agent. Rap wondered if Inos would have found it funny, as Gathmor did. He
didn’t.

But
if the princess did guess that she was thieving, she was willing to do even
that for Inos.

And
here, at last, was the turnoff. He did not doubt, for a mage needed few
directions. He slowed the coach to a stop before the awe-inspiring gateway. A
man came running from the gatehouse, tugging his forelock for the gentry. He
swung the flaps, and Rap sent the team cantering up a long driveway, graveled
and wide. Rich parkland stretched out on either hand, and turrets showed over
the trees ahead.

Now
Andor had replaced Sagorn, and the princess was peering into a hand mirror.
They’d done twentytwo leagues today, less than usual. Tomorrow they would try
to do better. And tomorrow, as every day, Rap’s premonition would lie even more
heavily on him. It scratched at him constantly, telling him to turn back, turn
back!

Eventually
the journey would end. Of course he might go mad first, but otherwise the
spires of Hub and the waters of Cenmere must inevitably crawl up out of the
smoky distance. Then he would discover what awful destiny awaited him there
behind the fearful, agonizing white glare of his foresight. The magic casement
had given him three prophecies, and two were left to come-and yet, somehow, he
thought that the white glare took precedence over those. He dared not pry at
the future now, to find out.

In
Hub, perhaps, would be Inos. The princess was confident of that, or tried to be
so. Rap hoped so. He would like to see Inos again, to cure her scars and to
assure her that he bore no ill will. What would she care, though, for a
stableboy’s forgiveness? Who was he to forgive?

There
was nothing to forgive.

He
spoke a thought to the horses, and the great coach rolled gently to a halt
before wide steps and a massive archway surrounded by centuries of ivy.

Even
before Gathmor had dropped to the ground, a great door flew open. As happened
on so many evenings, a middle-aged lady in a fine gown came racing down the
stairs with her arms held wide, shouting “Kade! Aunt Kade!”

The
nearside front wheel caught in a pothole; the carriage lurched and a spring
broke with an audible crack. Horses shrilled in fright, and the rig bounced to
a shuddering, canted halt.

For
a few moments Odlepare sat and listened to the roar of rain on the roof. Beyond
the windows, all was black-or as near to it as no matter.

He
could hardly believe that there would be only one pothole on a major highway
within a hundred leagues of Hub, but even if there was, the king’s coach would
have found it as surely as swallows return in the spring.

“What’s
happened?” Angilki demanded, the sulky, pouting expression of his doughy face
just visible in the last, faint gleam of evening.

“A
broken spring, I fear, your Majesty.”

“That’s
very inconvenient, Odlepare.” At least he could remember his secretary’s name
now. He had tended to forget it during the first few weeks.

“Yes
it is, Sire. We shall not make Hub tonight.” His Serene Majesty, King Angilki
the First of Krasnegar, Duke of Kinvale, et cetera, had noticed a milestone
that morning and had been convinced by it that he was within one day’s drive of
the capital. Thereafter nothing would satisfy him but to prove it. Who was
Odlepare to point out that Hub must be considerably larger than Kinford, or
even Shaldokan? Reaching the extreme outskirts at this hour would not solve
anything.

“Extremely
inconvenient! You are not suggesting that I spend the night in this diabolical
contrivance, are you?”

“‘I
am sure there will be an inn somewhere nearby, Sire.”

With
the fat man’s luck, though, it would be considerably less comfortable than the
coach would be. But of course the fool had insisted on pushing on after sunset.
He could always be trusted to push his luck, King Angilki, and he invariably
had the worst luck imaginable. Angilki the Unruly. King Angilki the Last. The
rain had not stopped since they left Kinvale, and yet every night someone had
remarked with regret on the glorious weather that had just ended. Angilki
brought winter with him. Very likely the sun broke out as soon as he departed.

Someone
was going to have to go out in that downpour ...

It
had been the fat capon’s fearsome mother who had conscripted Odlepare for this
Evil-begotten journey, summoning him to her sickbed.

“Without
proper guidance,” she had said, “my son is more likely to arrive in Krasnegar
than at Hub. I have decided you are the only one of his regular confidants who
can tell east from north.”

Odlepare
had resigned on the spot.

She
had bought him back with a promise of a bonus equal to ten years’ wages. He had
counted every minute of those ten years going by. Accidents and temper
tantrums, absentmindedness and endlessly repeated dissertations on the next
round of renovations planned for Kinvale . . . He had aged twenty years in the
last six weeks. Had it only been six weeks?

God
of Greed, forgive me!

A
rap on the door. Odlepare pulled down a window and recoiled as icy rain slashed
in at him. “Yes?” The postilion, sodden: “We have a broken spring, Master
Odlepare.”

“His
Majesty surmised as much. Have you by chance observed any inns or hostels
recently? Even a private establishment of quality?”

Any
of the minor gentry would be honored to provide hospitality for a benighted
king-at least until they discovered just how benighted a king could be. The
postilion could not possibly be wetter had he spent ten years underwater, so
Odlepare need not offer to go exploring himself.

“There
is an inn just across the road, master.” Odlepare shuddered. This was going to
be even worse than he had expected.

“It’s
called the Soldier’s Head,” the postilion added hopefully.

“And
I expect it will smell like it. You had better send someone across to count the
bedbugs.”

His
humor brought him a black glare, warning him that he had spent the day inside
the coach, while the postilion and coachman and footmen had not.

“There
is an inn across the road, your Majesty,” Odlepare reported.

“Excellent.
Where is the umbrella?”

“I
recommend a cloak also, your Majesty . . .” It would take more than an umbrella
to keep a shape like his dry in weather like this.

Using
all of the interior of the coach, King Angilki the Unwieldy struggled into his
voluminous sable overcoat. Odlepare found the umbrella, the door was opened,
and the two footmen helped their master to clamber down, while Odlepare
attempted to hold the umbrella overhead. It leaped in his hand and then turned
itself inside out. By that time he was already soaked and it was too late to
hunt up his own cloak. He climbed down, unaided.

Wrapped
and billowing, Angilki was leaning against the storm. He very rarely addressed
any of his retainers except Odlepare, and he could have identified none of the
others by name, but even in near darkness the iron brace on his right leg made
a postilion recognizable. The king was waving a finger under his nose and,
while most of his angry bellowing was muffled by the high collar pulled over
his face, enough was audible to convey his meaning.