Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“That’s something she says,” Etela explained. “I told Toug, ‘n he said marigolds were flowers.”

Thiazi added, “Symbolizing wealth or the sun.”

Etela nodded gratefully.

I said, “Manticores are beasts the size of Gylf here. Their heads are like the heads of men or women, but they have the teeth and claws of lions. Their tails are like the tails of scorpions, though much larger, and their sting is fatal.”

“Why does she say it, Etela?” Toug asked.

“I don’t know. Why do you say why?”

Thiazi snorted. “I’ve a better question. What’s the second boon you crave, Sir Able? I may grant it if I can.”

“Can you heal this woman? Toug’s slave?” As I spoke, Gylf looked up at me. From Gylf’s look I knew Gylf knew I could have healed her myself, that such acts violated my oath, and that he was far from sure my oath had been wise.

“I can try,” Thiazi said, “and perhaps I will. Whether I will or not depends on your answers to some questions. Can you tell me who stabbed His Majesty the night of the combat and who took his life? And what is the third boon you ask?”

I sighed. “May I sit, My Lord?”

Thiazi nodded, and I resumed my seat on the rung. “I can’t answer your first question. If you want my opinion, the assassin was the same both times, though I’m not sure even of that. Is my final boon—I didn’t get the first—to be withheld?”

“You may not get the second, either.” Thiazi rose to pace the room, looking as tall as a tower. His voice boomed from the walls. “I will not believe that a man of your penetration cannot offer a guess.”

“I could offer a guess.” I paused, sorting swirling thoughts. “I won’t. I’m a knight, and a knight doesn’t put the honor of others at risk. Suppose I did. Suppose I said that though I couldn’t know, I felt it likely that the guilty party was a foreign knight, Sir Able of the High Heart. The accusation would spread as such accusations always do, and my reputation would never recover. Even if somebody confessed, people would say my character made the charge plausible.”

Thiazi paused in his pacing to say dryly, “You were absent, I believe, upon both occasions?”

“I was. That’s why I accused myself. Schildstarr has a friend with two heads. I don’t know his name.”

“Orgalmir is the left, and Borgalmir the right.”

“Thanks. I don’t say this, but suppose I did. I guess that Orgalmir wounded the king and Borgalmir killed him.”

“Absurd!”

“No more so than lots of other guesses. You wanted a guess. Okay, you’ve got one.”

“You risk your boons. Both of them.”

Etela said, “My mama isn’t—isn’t always like I would like her to be.”

“She was taken from her home,” I made my voice gentle, “and enslaved here. She’s an attractive woman, and she may have been used in ways you can’t understand. The shock disordered her mind. Soon we’ll go back to Celidon—your mother and you, Toug and Gylf and Mani and me, and even this Vil. Your mother will return home, and though the change may be slow, I think you’ll find she gets better.”

Thiazi, who had gone to the window, turned back to us. “I have not said I would not treat her. One of you—you there, sick woman. Put more wood on the fire.”

Etela did it. “Toug says there isn’t much more, ‘n we got to be careful.”

“Lord Thiazi believes things will return to normal soon,” I explained. “So do I.”

“Your boons...” Thiazi’s voice filled the room. “Your boons depend on your answering three questions. Questions I will put here and now. Answer, and I’ll grant them. Refuse as you’ve refused already, and I’ll grant neither.”

“You want me to talk,” I said. “Okay, before I hear your other questions I’ll say three things. My first is that I didn’t refuse to answer your question. I don’t know the answer and I told you so. My guess, if I made one, might be more valuable than this girl’s. But would it be worth, as much as yours? You know it wouldn’t. You were here both times. Your opinion deserves far more respect.”

“Do you accuse me?”

“Of course not. I won’t accuse anybody—that’s what you’re mad about. I’m just saying you’re bound to know more. What are the questions you mentioned?”

“I ask for your second and third remarks.”

“Okay. I remark that you’ve bound yourself to grant both my remaining boons, though you don’t know the last.”

“If you answer my questions, speaking out without quibbling about what your honor requires, I’ll grant it. Assuming I can.” For a second or two, Thiazi’s huge hands appeared to wash each other. “Whatever it is.”

Toug said, “I have an idea.”

Thiazi nodded. “We need some. Let us hear it.”

“Like Sir Able said, he wasn’t there when the king got stabbed the first time. He was down south in the mountains, fighting anybody who tried to come through a pass. This morning when the king got killed, he was pretty close, riding on the air with Queen Idnn. But all of us thought he was way far away. So maybe the person’s afraid of him and wouldn’t do anything except when he was gone.”

“Possible, but unlikely.” Thiazi paced the room again, an austere gray eminence, and his steps sounded even through the ankle-deep carpet. “Until today, he was here for no more than an hour or two. Sir Able, what is your third remark?”

“That though I lose my boons, you could lose more. Your foes, and even your friends, will accuse you of ingratitude.”

“My friends accuse me of nothing, since I have none.”

Etela said, “We’ll be your friends, if you’ll let us.”

“My foes accuse me of ingratitude already, and worse. Here is my first question. I warn you that you must answer all three.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“Did King Arnthor send Lord Beel with instructions to assassinate King Gilling?”

“No.”

Thiazi paused in his pacing to glare at me. “A simple yes or no will not be sufficient. Explain yourself.”

“Certainly, My Lord. I’m not King Arnthor’s councilor, nor have I ever been. His reputation, however, is that of a hard but honorable man.”

Thiazi snorted. “My second question. In what ways will King Arnthor benefit by King Gilling’s death?”

“In none, My Lord. A king in Utgard could forbid the raids that lay waste to the north. No king can’t. Besides, King Gilling took a share of the proceeds, which discouraged raiding. As long as there’s no king, the raiders can keep whatever they get, and they’ll raid more.”

“While we war among ourselves, we’ll have neither time nor strength to spare for raiding.”

I nodded. “My Lord’s wiser than I am, though many may prefer profit to killing their relatives—still more, to being killed by them.”

“My final question. You’re to imagine that I am King Arnthor. I have explained to you my reasons for wishing King Gilling dead, and although they may not satisfy you, they satisfy me. I then confide that I’ve chosen Lord Beel to act for me. Would you approve my choice?”

“Absolutely, My Lord. When failure is preferable to success, the course of true wisdom is to choose the man most apt to fail. May I speak freely?”

“You may. In fact, I desire it.”

“As I told you, I know nothing directly of King Arnthor. I’ve never seen him. But I traveled with Lord Beel through Celidon and the Mountains of the Mice, and some way across the Plain of Jotunland. I feel I know him well. For diplomacy, he’s the man—levelheaded, courteous, and tactful, with few passions beyond family pride and a father’s natural love for his daughter. If I were a king who wanted peace with my neighbor, I’d look for somebody just like Lord Beel. But for an assassination...” I shook my head.