Robert Hughes - The Prophet of Lamath

“Put the hood on him,” Naquin ordered.

“My Lord!” the advisors chorused in shock. “You cannot do this thing!”

“Put the hood on his head and help me out of this robe!” the High Priest commanded. The advisors complied, but they voiced grave doubts throughout the operation.

“Now then!” Naquin smiled. The High Priest drew a circle in the air with his finger, and Pezi turned around twice to model his new vestments. “How does he look?” One advisor said, “Obese.” Another used the term, “Fat.” The other comments were similar.

“Nevertheless, the people need to see their High Priest, and so they shall.”

“But what do I say!” Pezi protested.

“How should I know? Make something up. That’s what I would do.” There was a pounding at the door, and Naquin motioned them all out. “Time to go. Have a nice time. Be sure to remember everything that happens, so you can tell me all about it. Good-bye!” He pushed them all out the door, and slammed it on all their protests. Then he looked at himself, and giggled.

He wore Pezi’s clothes. Rather, the voluminous garments swallowed him up. He turned across the mosaic floor, the robes billowing around him, and thought what it must be like to be Pezi.

“The ribs,” he said, “I mustn’t neglect those ribs.” With that he was off for the kitchen. He could not remember the last time he had enjoyed himself so much.

Rosha pounded his .fist on the walls in utter frustration. Bronwynn just watched. “I don’t know why you’re so worried,” she said. “He told us he would be back.” The young warrior looked over at her with a pained expression.

“How c-can you be so b-believing? What do you b-base such confidence on? On that b-book?” Bronwynn had been hugging the book to her. Now she looked down at it. “This? Partly, I suppose. Though not really. My confidence is more in those who made the book than in the book itself. No, better still, I believe in the one who taught me to read it.”

“You trust in P-Pelmen, then?”

“I trust in Pelmen,” she affirmed quietly.

“D-doyou… t-trust m-me?” Bronwynn looked up at Rosha now, wondering at the unusual tone in his voice. “Of course I trust you. What do you mean?”

“You t-trust me to… t-to fight bears, or evil in men. B-but do you t-trust me… c-could you t-trust me, like you t-trust P-Pelmen?” Bronwynn laid the book aside and got to her feet. “Why are you having such difficulty saying this, Rosha?”

“You d-don’t make it easy, m-my Lady…” He blushed and looked away from her. She put her hands on his shoulders and began to massage his rock-hard neck.

“I can’t read your mind, you know,” Bronwynn said, and he sighed heavily and walked away from her hands. “Are you still angry that I didn’t embrace Pelmen when they took him?” Rosha shook his head, and sprawled on the straw in the darkest comer of the cell. “Then what?” She came and crouched beside him, and ran a hand through his hair.

Rosha didn’t look at her. He laced his fingers behind his head and gazed intently at the ceiling. After a moment he began, “I… have so mu—so much I n-need to tell you. B-but it gets all c-closed up in-s-side me, and I c-can’t speak well…”

“Take your time,” she soothed, and she stroked his head again. That helped him to look at her.

“I remember m-my m-mother, some. And I—I remember that my father loved her, m-much. I m-may know n-nothing of love, but if I d-do, then I think that… Hove… you, B-B-Bronwynn.” His eyes flicked away from hers then, swiftly, and he looked for some crack or chisel mark in the cold ceiling to focus on.

“Rosha, I—”

“I kn-know you are a P-Princess, b-but I n-needed to say this. N-now it’s said. So.”

“Rosha?” He dared to look into her eyes again. Imagine his shock when he saw tears on her cheeks. “Why… why do you cry?” Bronwynn smiled, then half chuckled. “All my life, I’ve wanted someone to say that to me. And you just did.” Rosha nodded. Her face crinkled into a smile again, and she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“My Lady,” he muttered, “you are a P-Princess—”

“No, Rosha.” She hopped to her feet and spun around. “I am an initiate in the Divisionist order of the Dragonfaith—can’t you tell by my robe?” She dropped to her knees and took the cloth of his garment in her hands. “I see you are too. Don’t the brothers say we must love each other?” She smiled impishly at him, and he returned her smile with wonder. Then her expression changed. She showed him the girl she hid inside, and her eyes asked him how he could love one such as she. Rosha’s arms slipped around her slim waist in silent reply, and he pulled her to him. They lay in one another’s embrace then, as they had so many times before. But their embrace was different, this day, for both knew what it signified—and they rejoiced together in the gloom of the dungeon.

Waves of cheers broke on the platform, and Pezi could not hear himself think. He pulled the jeweled hood as low onto his face as he could, and hunched his shoulders, hiding behind the rich brocade of the High Priest’s vestments. His eyes shifted from side to, side, searching nervously for one who might shout out his name and expose him as a fraud to this throng. But those who watched him seemed content that he was truly their spiritual leader. They looked not at him, really, but at the robes and the hood of office. The High Priest rarely appeared in public.

The tugoliths danced impatiently in their harnesses, and demanded of Dolna that he release them and let them horn various members of the audience. The headsman stood at the top of the stairway, eyes following the progress of a small clump of uniformed men as they made their way from the dungeon gate to the platform. They surrounded a man in a bright blue robe, obviously the principal figure in this execution. The crowd swayed from side to side, carrying the soldiers back and forth, but on they came, plowing a way with shoves and curses and the occasional prick of a pike.

At last they gained the stairway, and the warder preceded Pelmen up the ramp. “I have brought your prisoner,” he announced to the headsman in the traditional formal language.

“What?”

“I said I brought your prisoner!”

“Oh! Good. I’ll get the keeper of the tugoliths.”

“What?”

“I said I would get the keeper of the tugoliths!”

“Oh!” The warder plugged up his ears against the noise as the headsman went off to fetch Dolna.

“I am required to read the charges before you execute the man!” the warder yelled when Dolna stood before him, and the tugolith handler nodded. The warder pulled a scroll from inside his tunic and began to read. “Inasmuch as the King has found this man…”

“What?” the headsman called.

“I’m trying to read the charges!” the warder yelled back.

“Oh! Just read them to yourself, we all know why the King is killing him.”

“What?” the warder yelled back.

The headsman waved his hand in disgust. He reached beyond the warder, pulled Pelmen around to the blocks, and cupped his hand around Dolna’s ear. “You can go ahead now!” Dolna nodded, and cut through Pelmen’s bonds. The two animals were harnessed back to back to a pair of large wooden blocks. Each block was five feet high and six feet long, and a pair of chains dangled from each end. At the end of each chain hung an ankle clamp, and now Dolna snapped the ankle chains from the blocks around Pelmen’s legs. “You’ll have to lie on your back now!” he yelled into Pelmen’s ear, and the Prophet nodded and sat down where he was.

“This is a fine pair of animals!” Pelmen said.

“What?” Dolna yelled back.