Sometimes the Christian priest was with us. He was a weak-looking man, small in stature and with a stoop that at times gave him a look of one of those polymufs who carry a second back upon the first. As though in copy of the Seers his head was shaved, apart from a thin circle of hair round the base of his skull, and he wore black like the Seers also but in a garment more resembling a woman’s.
His voice, though, was strong if his body was weak. He talked in deep tones and was never lost for words. He was always on about this god of theirs, and there were some tales that even I found worth listening to. It seems that when soldiers were sent to arrest him, one of his men very rightly drew his sword and sliced an ear off one of the guards. But the man-god rebuked his follower, saying: “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” What I could not understand was what was wrong with a sword death. Was it not a better end than dying starving in a ditch, as many of these Christians looked like doing? I thought of asking the priest that, but then thought it would only bring on another flood of words and did not.
He consoled Peter, as Ezzard had done my father, by declaring that he and Ann would meet in a better world than this. Ezzard had been able to further the deception with the machine through which my mother’s living voice had been captured on a moving tape, to be heard again in the darkness of the Seance Hall. The priest had no such aid, but he did well enough with words.
And I, for my part, sickened of them, and of the black atmosphere which I could do nothing to lift and which roused troubling feelings in me: even a sense, although I knew it was absurd, of guilt. I withdrew more and more from my brother’s presence and he, listening to the priest, seemed not to mind. The winter wore on, with blizzards and biting cold that froze the snow in the streets into ridges which the polymufs could not shift. It seemed that it would last forever, continuing day after bitter day.
Then in a night the weather changed. I awoke to rain drumming against my window. It fell all morning, carried on a wind from the west that seemed almost warm after the northeasterlies we had endured, and long after it had stopped water dripped from the eaves as the last of the icicles melted.
Within days the trees were budding. The small green spears had a look of impatience to them, of bursting out from restraint. I felt the same urge to be free of things that bound me. I found Peter alone, without the priest, and said:
“We must talk about the summer’s campaign.”
He shook his head. “There will be none.”
“Why?”
“She hated war, as you know.”
“She was a Christian. You are not.”
“But I will not lead out the army in the year in which she died. Next year, perhaps.”
I saw he would not budge. But it was unendurable to contemplate a summer penned in the city with this grieving man. I had hoped the fighting would work a change in both of us. If it was not to be I must find some other way. I said:
“The embassy still goes north, across the Burning Lands?”
He said indifferently: “I suppose so.”
“I asked you once before for permission to go with it. I make the same request now.”
“You are anxious to leave me, Luke.”
“I must do something!”
He did not respond immediately. I thought he was going to refuse and prepared to argue for it. But he said:
“If you are so eager for it, then go.”
“May Edmund go with me?”
I did not need to add, if he wishes. I knew what his feelings would be. My brother turned away to the window. It was raining once more, a gray rain thick with ash from the Burning Lands. He said:
“Take whom you like. See Greene about it.”
• • •
Dwarftown lay across the river, toward Eastgate. None of the houses there were tall but they were solidly built and brightly painted, and decorated with much gleaming brass. Nearly all had window boxes and when I arrived, on a Sunday morning, I found Rudi attending to his. He was putting out hyacinths which he had grown indoors during the winter. They were in full bloom—blue and pink and white.
He greeted me and took me indoors. The rooms were low of ceiling and I had to watch for my head. There were a number of cabinets and sideboards bedecked with china and brass ornaments, many warm-colored cushions lying about, and the walls themselves were painted in differing hues. In the room to which I was taken two of red faced two of yellow, and the ceiling beams were a deep blue.
Rudi showed me to a chair which I guessed was kept for human visitors: it stood higher from the ground than the rest and was generally bigger. Very much bigger—I felt lost in it. I told him I had come to see his son, Hans, and he sent a polymuf maid to call him. Although not high the houses were extensive and I knew Rudi’s rambled back over a considerable area. It was several minutes before the son came.
Like Rudi he was tall for a dwarf. Had he been born of human parents a tolerant Seer might have passed him at the Showing. He bowed gravely to me and stood watching in silence from just inside the door. I am dark of complexion and hair but he was far more so, a swarthy lad with a curly beard springing. His face was broad but the eyes did not have the relaxed, even sleepy look one expected of his kind; they were alert and watchful.
I said: “Hans, your father has told me that you would like to go on campaign with the army. As a servant, of course, with the baggage train.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“I promised I would arrange this.” The eyes watched me, showing nothing. “But there will be no campaign this summer because my brother mourns his Lady.”
The eyes shivered briefly with disappointment; then he was impassive. He said:
“I understand, Captain.”
His voice was low and harsh but sure. I liked it, and the look of him altogether. It was some time since I had seen him bringing his father’s dinner to the forge, the pot wrapped round with towels to keep in the heat. I had paid him no more attention than any other dwarf boy; but I remembered him now and felt he had improved greatly. I had come here with my mind undecided, chiefly inclined to give him this word and go. But I said:
“There will be no campaign. But I myself will ride north, with the troop that is to go across the Burning Lands to the city from which the peddler came. I am not in command but as a Captain I may take a groom with me. I make no promises—we may not get through the pass—but if you wish I will take you.”
He did not reply immediately and I thought: I have been mistaken, the notion scares him. Then he quickly crossed the room and dropped on one knee before me. Eyes staring up, he said:
“I thank you for this honor, Captain. I promise I will serve you faithfully in every way, for as long as I live and you have need of me.”
It was the ritual speech required from polymufs when they came into adult servitude but said, unlike theirs, with passion and also pride. I took his hand and raised him. Over his shoulder I said to Rudi:
“Does this content you?”
He smiled. “It contents me, Captain.”
I said: “He is to be my groom and we go into unknown lands with many hazards. It would be well for him to take a sword.”
Hans stared at me, his chin thrust forward, a small incredulous smile on his lips. Rudi said:
“I will make it for him.”
• • •
There had been no banquets since Ann’s death but the Captains were called to the palace the night before the embassy was to leave. There was meat in plenty and much ale was drunk but the jests were few and there would plainly be no singing. When my brother stood up, they watched in silence.
He gave a toast to the expedition’s success. Then he said, dry-voiced:
“I have another thing to say. I will not speak of my loss but you know that it was double. The last time you were assembled here you drank to my son, the Prince to be. There are Spirits, it is said, that watch for pride in men, to punish it, and maybe they sought me out.”