H. Piper - Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen

As though the decision hadn't been made already, here in Princess Rylla's smoke-filled boudoir. Real democracy, this was. Just like Pennsylvania.

THE Full Council of Hostigos met in a long room, with tapestries on one wall and windows opening onto the inner citadel garden on the other. The speaker for the peasants, a work-gnarled graybeard named Phosg, sat at the foot of the table, flanked by the speaker for the shepherds and herdsmen on one side, and for the woodcutters and charcoal burners on the other. They graded up from there, through the artisans, the master-craftsmen, the merchants, the yeomen farmers, the professions, the priests, the landholding gentry and nobility, to Prince Ptosphes, at the head of the table, in a magnificent fur robe, with a heavy gold chain on his shoulders. He was flanked, on the left, by the Lord Kalvan, in a no less magnificent robe and an only slightly less impressive gold chain. The place on his right was vacant, and everybody was looking at it.

It had been talked about-Kalvan and Xentos and Chartiphon and Harmakros had seen to that-that the Princess Rylla would, because of her injury, be unable to attend. So, when the double doors were swung open at the last moment and six soldiers entered carrying Rylla propped up on a couch, there were exclamations of happiness and a general ovation. Rylla was really loved in Hostigos.

She waved her hand in greeting and replied to them, and the couch was set down at Ptosphes' right. Ptosphes waited until the clamor had subsided, then drew his poignard and rapped on the table with the pommel.

"You all know why we're here," he began without preamble. "The last time we met, it was to decide whether to have our throats cut like sheep or die fighting like men. Well, we didn't have to do either. Now, the question is, shall we fight Sarrask of Sask now, at our advantage, or wait and fight Sarrask and Balthar together at theirs? Let me hear what is in your minds about it."

It was like a council of war; junior rank first. Phosg was low man on the totem-pole. He got to his feet.

"Well, Lord Prince, it's like I said the last time. If we have to fight, let's fight."

"Different pack of wolves, that's all," the shepherds' and herdsmen's speaker added. "We'll have another wolf-hunt like Fitra and Listra-Mouth."

It went up the table like that. The speaker for the lawyers, naturally, wanted to know if they were really sure Prince Sarrask was going to attack. Somebody asked him why not wait and have his throat cut, his house burned and his daughters raped, so that he could really be sure. The priestess of Yirtta abstained; a servant of the Allmother could not vote for the shedding of the blood of mothers' sons. Uncle Wolf just laughed. Then it got up among the nobility.

"Well, who wants this war with Sask?" one of them demanded. "That is, besides this outlander who has grown so great in so short a time among us, this Lord Kalvan."

He leaned right a little to look. Yes, Sthentros. He was some kind of an in-law of Ptosphes… had a barony over about where Boalsburg ought to be. He'd made trouble when the fireseed mills were being started-refused to let his peasants be put to work collecting saltpeter. Kalvan had threatened to have his head off, and Sthentros had run spluttering to Ptosphes. The interview had been private, nobody knew exactly what Ptosphes had told him, but he had emerged from it visibly shaken. The peasants had gone to work collecting saltpeter.

"Just who is this Kalvan?" Sthentros persisted. "Why, until five moons ago, nobody in Hostigos had even heard of him!"

A couple of other nobles, including one who had just sworn to wade to his boot-tops in Saski blood, muttered agreement. Another, who had fought at Fitra, said:

"Well, nobody'd ever heard of you in Hostigos, either, till your uncle's wife's sister married our Prince."

Uncle Wolf laughed again. "They've heard of Kalvan since, and in Nostor, too, by the war god's mace!"

"Yes," another noble said, "I grant that. But you'll have to grant that the man's an outlander, and it's a fine thing indeed to see him rise so swiftly over the heads of nobles of old Hostigi family. Why, when he came among us, he couldn't speak a word that anybody could understand."

"By Dralm, we understand him well enough now!" That was another newcomer to the Full Council-the speaker for the fireseed makers. There were murmurs of agreement; quite a few got the point.

Sthentros refused to be silenced. "How do we know that he isn't some runaway priest of Styphon himself."

Mytron, present as speaker for the physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, rose.

"When Kalvan came among us, I tended his wounds. He is not circumcised, as all priests of Styphon are."

Then he sat down. That knocked that on the head. It was a good thing the Rev. Morrison had refused to let the doctor load the bill with what he'd considered non-essentials when his son had been born. He'd never say another word against Scotch-Irish frugality. Sthentros, however, was staying with it.

"Well, maybe that's worse," he argued. "It's flatly against nature for anything to act like fireseed. I think there are devils in it that make it explode, and maybe the priests of Styphon do something to keep the devils from getting out when it explodes… something that we don't know anything about."

The speaker for the fireseed makers was on his feet. "I make the stuff, I know what goes in it. Saltpeter and sulfur and charcoal, and there aren't any devils in any of them." He didn't know anything about oxidization, but he knew that the saltpeter made the rest of it burn fast. "Next thing, he'll be telling us there are devils in wine, or in dough to make the bread rise, or in…"

"Has anybody heard of any devils around Fitra?" somebody else asked. "We burned plenty of fireseed there."

"What in Galzar's name does Sthentros know about Fitra?-he wasn't there!"

"I'm going to have a little talk with that fellow, after this is over," Ptosphes said quietly to Kalvan. "All he is in Hostigos, he is by my favor, and my favor to him is getting frayed now."

"Well, devils or not, the question is Lord Kalvan's place among us," the noble who had sided with Sthentros said. "He is no Hostigi-what right has he to sit at the Council table?"

"Fitra!" somebody cried, from a place or two above Sthentros; "Tarr-Dombra!" added another voice, from across the table.

"He sits here," Rylla said icily, "as my betrothed husband, by my choice. Do you question that, Euklestes?"

"He sits here as heir-matrimonial to the throne of Hostigos, and as my son-adoptive," Ptosphes added. "I hope none of you presume to question that."

"He sits here as commander of our army," Chartiphon roared, "and as a soldier I am proud to obey. If you want to question that, do it with your sword against mine!"

"He sits here as one sent by Dralm. Do you question the Great God?" Xentos asked.

Euklestes gave Sthentros a look-what-you-got-me-into look. "Great Dralm, no!"

"Well, then. We still have the question of war with Sask to be voted:' Ptosphes said. "How vote you, Lord Sthentros?"

"Oh, war, of course; I'm as loyal a Hostigi as any here."

There was no more argument. The vote was unanimous. As soon as Ptosphes had thanked them, Harmakros was on his feet.

"Then, to show that we are all in loyal support of our Prince, let us all vote that whatever decision he may make in the matter of our dealings with Sask, with Beshta, or with Nostor, either in making war or in making peace afterward, shall stand approved in advance by the Full Council of Hostigos."

"What? " Ptosphes asked in a whisper. "Is this some idea of yours, Kalvan?"

"Yes. We don't know what we're going to have to do, but whatever it is, we may have to do it in a hurry, and afterward we won't want anybody like Sthentros or Euklestes whining that they weren't consulted."