Edmund’s hand had been on the sword hilt, caressing it. He turned and said:
“Into battle? You are not letting him ride with the army?”
“Yes. He will ride beside me.”
“But it is impossible,” Edmund said. “A dwarf may not be a warrior.”
“He rode with us to the north.”
“As your servant.”
“And saved my life when I was a prisoner of the Sky People.”
“It was well done,” Edmund said, “and you are right to reward him. But not in such a way as this.”
“In what way, then?”
“With gold. No dwarf can ever have enough of that.”
“This one can. Gold means nothing to him. He wants only one thing: to be a warrior. And he has earned it.”
“The Captains will not be pleased.”
“They will have to learn to be. Or at any rate put up with it. In the same way that Greene learned to eat the flesh of polybeasts even though at first it revolted him. In the same way that he learned to accept a polymuf as his equal at the court of King Cymru.”
“But we are back in a civilized country, Luke! All that was on the other side of the Burning Lands. We have our customs and they must be kept.”
I knew the customs as well as he did. Since the Disaster, when the earth had buckled and belched fire, strange things had happened. Beasts had been born misshapen, and men also. Apart from those of human stock there were dwarfs, who were a true breed, and polymufs, who might have any deformity or crookedness.
Wherever polybeasts were found they were slaughtered, and buried or burned. In the case of children the Seers examined them and made pronouncement, calling them either true man or dwarf or polymuf. Their lives must then be lived in accordance with that decree.
Polymufs were servants always, and could hold no property. They were pitied at best, more usually despised. Dwarfs, on the other hand, worked as craftsmen and were respected as such. They had goods, even land, and polymufs to serve them. The Master Armorer sat at the Prince’s table in ceremonial banquets. All this was according to custom; and custom held also that only a true man could be a warrior.
I said: “I promised it to him. I will not begin my reign by breaking a promise.”
“At least put it off for now. Do not take him on this campaign. Wait until things are more settled.”
He meant: wait until your position is more secure. I had won my title lawfully and the crowd had cheered me for it. But the crowd was fickle, and not all my Captains were to be trusted. And I was young and inexperienced. I could not afford to make mistakes which in an older man would have been forgiven or overlooked.
I knew all this and understood that he spoke as he did for my good. I looked at him with fondness. He was taller than I and far more handsome; but the long face was frowning, the blue eyes worried. I put my arm on his shoulder.
“Do not fret. They will do as I say as long as I give them a victory over Petersfield. And if I fail they will pull me down whether or not a dwarf rides with the army.”
• • •
Later that day I saw the new Seer, the one who had been sent to replace Ezzard. His name was Grimm, but it belied him. He was a large and portly man, amply filling his Seer’s black coat. He was taciturn in public, as a Seer must be; when he spoke his voice was not harsh like Ezzard’s but calm and easy.
I did not see him at the Seer’s House but at the palace. By having Ezzard executed I had freed myself of suspicion of complicity in his crime, and the High Seers had confirmed this when they condemned him as one driven mad by false Spirits. But they had agreed that it would be wise for me to seem to stay aloof from the new Seer, at least for the time being. He might come to the palace but I would not go to him, except to a Seance in the way of duty and observance.
Like Edmund, Grimm was unhappy, though not about Hans. He knew nothing of that. It was the campaign that troubled him. He said:
“Luke, it is folly to risk everything at this stage. You need time to consolidate. Things have happened so fast. There should be a breathing space.”
I said: “Tell that to Michael of Petersfield. Or to the spirit of Markham, whom we buried this morning.”
“He has baited you and you have risen to the bait. It is what he wanted.”
I shrugged. “Maybe so. It makes no difference. I could do nothing else.”
“You could have laughed it off: the joke was feeble enough.”
“And the dead man? Does one laugh off a corpse also?”
“He was not of this city. They could not say his spirit called on you.”
“Not of this city, but he served it. He was lieutenant to my father, to my brother, and for a few short days to me. My honor requires me to avenge him.”
Grimm scratched his broad white skull, his head being shaven as befitted his office. He said:
“This business of honor wearies me. I hope you are not going to take it too seriously, Luke.”
I was aware yet again of the division in my nature and my mind. I knew and understood what Grimm meant. To him and the other Seers such things as honor and glory were of no importance in themselves: they only mattered insofar as they served that larger plan to which their lives were devoted.
The plan was for the renewal of that part of human knowledge which had been abandoned since the Disaster. Those who survived the heaving and twisting of the earth had blamed Science for their miseries. The blame was wrongly placed because the cataclysm had been one of nature, not of man, but the belief was firmly held. In the days after the cities crumbled and crashed, people turned against machines and tore to pieces any who made or used them.
They turned also to a worship of Spirits. These were said to be of two kinds: the Spirits of the dead, and those other Spirits who had never lived in the flesh but who invisibly plagued or benefited men’s lives, and served the Great Spirit who ruled and had made everything. In Seances the Spirits talked to the worshipers in darkened rooms, and the Seers presented and interpreted them.
So it was believed. In fact the Seers created the voices, and even the appearances of Spirits, by trickery and the use of those very machines which they claimed to condemn. Their purpose was to gain control of all the civilized lands. When their control was complete they thought they could wean men from superstition and back to science.
But in the civilized lands cities warred against each other, under many different Princes. The first aim of the Seers must be to unite the cities under one ruler. This was the task I had been chosen to undertake. Because of it my father had been made ruler, and after his death I had been smuggled from the city to the safety of Sanctuary where the High Seers lived. Because of it, though without my knowledge or even the knowledge of the High Seers, Ezzard had murdered my brother’s wife.
Thus the Seers had gained their first objective. I was Prince of Winchester, a city strong in itself and well placed to conquer others. All this I knew and had accepted and was pledged to serve. But I was moved by other things as well.
I had been reared as a warrior, son of a man who had risen from the ranks and gained nobility on the field of battle. Honor was no empty term to me; nor did it weary me. It was something which had touched my life as long as I could remember. It might mean nothing to the Seers, who spent so much time in trickery and deceit—albeit to a worthy end. But I knew I could not live their way.
I said to Grimm: “Look on it like this. You want me to rule all the cities of the south, in your behalf. My father took Petersfield. Will it do to let that city slip from our grasp?”
“We will get Petersfield back for you,” Grimm said. “Only give us time. Trevelyan will see to it.” Trevelyan was Seer of Petersfield. “In the short term Michael may hold the city and defy you. But in the long term we shall have him. We opened Petersfield’s walls to your father, and we can do it again.”