David Drake: Tyrant

And what am I? wondered Demansk. What am I to become?

"The reformer." He shook his head. Demansk was not a reformer, because "reform" was now impossible. The Confederacy of Vanbert could not be fixed, the way a broken machine is mended. The whole thing needed to be torn apart — wrecked completely — and built on different principles.

He would be. . what, then?

A revolutionary, perhaps.

But that term fitted him poorly. He was no slave, leading a slave revolt. Demansk was one of the most powerful men in the whole Confederation, after all — and one of the richest. Hardly someone who could call himself a "revolutionary" and keep a straight face.

Other terms flitted through Demansk's mind.

"The usurper." No, that implied a man simply driven by personal ambition. Whatever his other existing sins and crimes-to-be, Demansk could honestly say that he did not act from motives of personal gain.

"The redeemer." He snorted. He was not trying to save men's souls, nor purify the "spirit" of the nation. He was simply trying to save it from sliding completely over the edge into an abyss of ruin and corruption.

For a moment, then, he felt a trace of humor and chuckled a bit. His plans hinged, to a great extent, on that mysterious young Emerald by the name of Adrian Gellert. A Scholar of the Grove turned into a designer of incredible new weaponry, and possessed, it seemed, of some unearthly spirit. But Emeralds were fishermen as well as philosophers, and they had an old saying about the problem with catching a shark. Who's going to remove the hook? A good hook is valuable, but. .

Demansk dismissed the whimsy. Emerald fishermen had long since solved that quandary. Make damn sure the shark is dead, that's how.

He would do the same. With blood and fire and iron, and a pitilessness which even Wodep could admire.

So, standing before the statue of Vanbert's god of battle, Demansk named himself. It was a simple name, and one which ignored all motives and intents. A name which simply described, and named the man by his deeds.

Good enough. Even, in its own way, satisfying. Demansk would destroy Vanbert as it was, and use Emerald subtlety and wizardry in the doing. But, in the end, the great Confederation would be shattered by one of its own true sons, using a true and simple name which any pig farmer could understand.

The Tyrant.

Chapter 2

He was done then, with resolution. There remained the — not small! — matter of implementation. Again, his feet began moving, and he allowed them to lead him.

When Demansk realized where he was going, his lips quirked again. But, this time, into something resembling a genuine smile.

Say what the Emeralds would about Number and Form and all of their other fancy notions. Demansk, born and bred a lord of Vanbert, was a firm believer in the practical wisdom of feet. Calloused feet, ensconced in sturdy sandals, walking on solid and well-placed flagstones. There was a truth you could depend on.

His feet took him to a third statue, this one the statue of the Gray-Eyed Lady. The statue was nestled in a corner of a patio in the garden. This part of the garden, unlike the rest, was shaggy and unkempt.

As he neared the patio, Demansk could hear the object of his search humming a soft tune. He had had little doubt that she would be there. She usually was, this time of day.

So, when he entered the patio, he took the time to examine the surroundings rather than the young woman who sat on a bench near the statue. Those surroundings fit the woman. It was she herself, after all, who had strictly forbidden the estate's gardeners to do their usual work here. Rather to their quiet outrage, Demansk suspected. As was often true with servants, the gardeners tended to be even more devoted to established custom and practices than their masters.

He scanned the patio slowly. In the corner opposite the statue, a smoke tree had been allowed to grow unchecked. The "tree" was more in the way of a huge bush, and it had taken advantage of its liberty to spread exuberant branches in all directions. Yet, despite the luxuriance of its growth, the open nature of the plant itself allowed enough sunlight through for a multitude of smaller plants to thrive within its shelter. Some of them not so small, Demansk noted. One of the hostas bid fair to become a giant itself. And if the astilbes were groaning under the smoke tree's yoke, their abundant flowers certainly did not indicate so.

Demansk looked to his right. All along that side of the square a row of lilies — more a phalanx than a row — were crowding their enormous flowers into the square. It was a riot of color against a mass of green. With, still visible, the stalks of the irises which had sent forth their own glorious phalanx earlier in the year thrusting above the lilies.

His eyes flicked from a shaggy spirea to a triumphant sedum of some sort to a mound of lamb's ears; then, from another hosta to a nearby bed of marigolds. Demansk himself found the odor of those flowers a bit too acrid, but he knew that the mistress of the patio favored them. Enough so, in fact, that she relaxed her usual non-vigilance and kept the surrounding plants sufficiently trimmed to allow the low-growing marigolds their own needed share of sunlight.

Marigolds. It did not surprise Demansk, when he thought about it, that his daughter Helga treasured them. She was much like they, when all was said and done. Beautiful. . and a bit acrid.

There had been times when Demansk had regretted that harsh edge to his daughter. Despite his official august status, Demansk shared very little of the hauteur of the average Vanbert nobleman. So, where most such would have — did, in fact, those who knew her — found his daughter outrageous, he simply found her annoying. At times, at least.

But. . he had always loved her, and deeply. More so, though he would never have admitted it to anyone, than any of his three sons. And he had realized, from the time she was a little girl, that his daughter was a marigold. A sun-lover, who would die in the shade.

Watching Helga now, from his position in the corner, Demansk suddenly understood that he had tended to his own daughter much as she had attended to her garden. Violating custom and tradition, true; but giving her the room she had needed to grow strong. And the air, and the sunlight.

He took some comfort from that knowledge, for a moment. Once he stepped into that patio, he would set in motion a train of events that would pile a mountain of sins and crimes onto his name. The marigold herself would be the instrument for many of them. But, whatever else, Demansk would be able to go to the afterlife pointing to that vigorous flower.

This too, gods, was my doing. Damn me if you will.

By now, of course, his daughter had noticed him. Demansk could see her examining him out of the side of her eyes. She would have detected him long before he arrived, in fact. She was as alert as any skirmisher in Demansk's legions, and would have made a better sentry than most.

But she said nothing, allowing her father the same room he had always allowed her. That was her way, and it was one of the many reasons Demansk treasured her. She simply returned her eyes to the infant suckling at her breast, and resumed humming her little tune.

Tune? Demansk had to suppress a laugh. It was a medley, actually. A ridiculous pastiche of three songs: an Emerald hymn, usually sung at religious festivals; a semi-obscene ballad popular among the seamen and pirates of the Western Isles; and one of the marching songs of the Vanbert legions.

He began to stride into the patio, but was immediately forced to slow down and concentrate on where he put his feet. A good half of the patio's worn flagstones were overgrown by a medley of ground-covering plants even more exuberantly jumbled together than the "tune" his daughter was humming. Aggressive vinca warred with carpet bugle; red phlox with yet another variety of sedum. In the shadier spots, silver beacon valiantly held its own.