Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

Arnthor said, “This is madness.”

“I agree, Your Majesty. But it wasn’t me who began this talk of tournaments. If you want me to command your forces, I’ll take charge and do what I can. If you want me to fight as one of many knights, I’ll do what I can still.”

“We command Celidon. Do you think us unable to rise from this bed?”

“I wish you stronger than that, Your Majesty.”

“We will be strong enough to stand when the time comes—to stand, and to sit a charger. We would make you our deputy if we could, Sir Able.”

I bowed. “Your Majesty does me too much honor.”

His smile was bitter. “As you say. You’re not to be trusted. We know it. You are of Aelfrice, however you may look, and whatever you may say. So are we, and know our own kind.” I believe he would have laughed as the Aelf laugh, but his wound would not permit it. “I was born in Aelfrice. My royal sister, too. Do you know the story?”

I nodded. “Your royal brother told me something of it, Your Majesty.”

“He is dead. We have tried to call on him for aid, but he is no more. Did you kill him, Sir Able?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“Would you tell us the truth, Sir Able, if you had?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The bitter smile came again. “Would he, My Lord Beel?”

“I believe so, Your Majesty.”

Arnthor’s eyes closed. “I pray to Skai that the man who killed him join us, and quickly. We may have need of him.”

I said, “The Overcyns have smiled on Your Majesty.”

His eyes opened. “He is with you?”

Beel said, “The blind man? My son-in-law told me.”

I nodded.

“Setr was our brother.” Arnthor’s voice was a whisper. “We used... It does not matter now. Nor will we avenge our brother upon a man who cannot see.”

I knelt. “I speak for the Valfather and his sons, Your Majesty, having knowledge of both. It’s well to triumph over foes, but it’s better to deserve to triumph over them. No more than any other man can I predict whether you’ll win the day, but today you’ve done more.”

“Thank you.” The king shut his eyes as before, then opened them wider. “This man is blind, you say. We are not. Do we not know your helm?”

I held it out. “It is Your Majesty’s, if you want it.”

“We do not. We say only this: you are not to wear it in our presence.”

I swore I would not.

“We must hoard our strength. Tell him, Beel.”

He cleared his throat. “I’ll be brief. Duke Coth was second to His Majesty until two days past. With his death the position falls on your liege. I’ve counseled His Majesty to summon him and urge that he be guided by your advice. There would be no mention of you in the formal announcement, you understand. Would that be agreeable?”

I said it would, and so it was done, Marder giving his sword to Arnthor (he sitting in a chair draped with crimson velvet and made to serve as a throne) and receiving it back from him, this witnessed by such peers as remained.

When we were alone, I asked Marder the state of our troops, although I had seen something of it already, and little that had been good.

He shrugged.

“You drove the Osterlings from Burning Mountain.”

“We did, with great loss to ourselves. We fought on foot. It was like storming ten castles. If the king had taken my advice, we wouldn’t have fought at all.”

I waited.

“We are crushed between millstones, Sir Able. Our men have no food, so we must fight while they can still stand. That’s one stone. The other is that we’re beaten. If you’d seen us at Five Fates...” He shrugged again.

He looked old and tired. His beard was always white, but his face was tired and drawn now. When I had waited for him to say more and he had not, I asked, “Is our hurry so great you can’t tell me about it? I was in Jotunland.”

“Where I had sent you. I used all my influence with the king to extricate you from his dungeon. He was immovable.”

“The king himself extricated me. Why is the battle called Five Fates? Is it a place?”

Marder shook his head. “It’s a tale for children.”

“Well suited to me in that case.”

“As you wish. The old Caan, the present Caan’s father, had no lawful issue. Bastard sons, in which he differed from our king. But no lawful sons or daughters, for his queen was barren. It became apparent to his advisors that when he died his bastards would rend his realm into twenty.”

I suppose I smiled.

“Would it had been so! He summoned a famous sorcerer and gave him a chest of gold. Perhaps he threatened him as well, accounts differ. The sorcerer assured him the queen would bear him boys, and went his way. She conceived, grew big, and dying bore not one son, or two, or even three.”

“Five?” I suppose I looked incredulous.

Marder shook his head. “Six. In all my life I’ve never heard of a woman bearing six children together, yet six there were, like as peas. There was no question of succession, because the midwives had marked them in order of birth, tying a red ribbon about the ankle of the first, a brown ribbon on the ankle of the second, a white ribbon on the third, a gilt ribbon on the fourth, a blue ribbon on the fifth, and a black ribbon on the sixth and last. Ribbons of the first three colors had been provided for the purpose by the Wazir. The rest they tore from their raiment.”

“And this is true?” I asked.

“It is, indeed. Our king has many ways of learning what transpires in Osterland, and all reported it. Besides, the young tijanamirs were clothed in those colors so they might be known in their order, and so they would know their places. The eldest was called the Red Tijanamir, and so on.”

“And the five fates?”

“Were the fates of five tijanamirs. As you may imagine, the appearance of six heirs in one birth occasioned comment. Seers were consulted, and one prophecy was repeated all over the realm, though the Caan forbade it. The seer had been asked—perhaps by the Wazir—which would reign, and if his reign would be long. He rent the veil and foretold that all would reign, and all would die young.”

I said, “That’s very good news, if it can be credited.”

Marder lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “Do you wish to hear the rest?”

“If it bears on the battle.”

“It does—upon the name we give it, if nothing else. This seer went on to foretell how each would die. The Red Tijanamir, he said, would be crushed by a stone. The Brown would be trodden into the mire. The White would die at the hands of his followers. The Golden was to perish in a gold fortress. The Blue was to drown. And the Black Tijanamir was to be run through and through with the sword the Caan wore the day the prophecy was made. What troubles you?”

I waved my hand and begged him to proceed.

“As you like. This prophecy came to be known as that of Six Fates, the seer having foreseen the fates of all six. The Red Tijanamir succeeded his father when we killed him. You were in the north, but I took part in that campaign, and Sir Woddet won great renown.”

“I want to see him. How did the tijanamirs die?”

“As the soothsayer had foretold, in every case. The Red Caan, who had been the Red Tijanamir, had removed his helm to wipe his brow. A slingstone struck and killed him, the first fate. The new Caan, the Brown Tijanamir, was trampled under the hooves of our chargers. That was the second. The White Tijanamir became Caan upon his brother’s death. Not an hour later, a lance pierced him through. Sure to die, he tried to end his life but found himself too weak. He begged his friends to kill him, which they did. Thus, the third fate.”

“I see.”

“The fourth was the Golden Tijanamir, as you may recall. He wore a golden helm, just as his brothers’ helms were red, brown, white, blue, and black. Sir Woddet’s point entered the eye socket, and the Golden Caan died in that fortress of gold. I rewarded Sir Woddet richly for the thrust, as you may have heard. The king rewarded him more richly still.”