Dave Duncan - Mother of Lies

A shift in the wind brought him a whiff of bungweed, and that provoked a rush of unhappy memory. As the only Florengian child around Nardalborg, he had always been appointed the Mutineer, so all the rest of the boys could be Stralg’s Heroes, who would then hunt him down and beat him up. Bungweed grew in the moorland bogs where the best hiding places were, so its scent whispered of long hours of shivering in concealment, waiting for the inevitable ordeal to follow. He had taught them to do their hunting in groups, though. He had become very good at ambushing the strays.

Lost in reminiscence, he started when he heard footsteps rustling, then realized they must belong to a Werist. An extrinsic would make ten times as much noise. In a moment the celebrated Waels smile appeared above him, more diffident than usual.

“Am I intruding, lord?”

Orlad said, “No.” He wasn’t, surprisingly. “Sit down and talk, Hero.”

Waels dropped, folding his legs on the way down. Orlad smiled-smiling was something he had to remember to do, not something that just happened. After that he was content just to contemplate the sky again.

Eventually Waels grew fidgety. “Talk about what, lord?”

“Anything. The battle? You were great! Or explain people to me. Yesterday I discovered I had family. Today I found friends, too. I’ve never had either before. Don’t know how to handle them.”

“You’ve been doing amazingly well… if you don’t mind my saying so?”

“Have I? Life is complicated, suddenly.” Why, for instance, was he pleased to have Waels as company?

“Um…” In another rustle of leaves, Waels stretched out beside him and leaned on an elbow. “It could be even more complicated.” His eyes were bluer than the sky behind him.

“How?”

“Suppose you had a lover, too?”

That should have been a surprise, but it wasn’t. Waels wasn’t blushing or smirking, and Orlad was certain he wasn’t, either. He remembered their intimate, face-to-face confrontation on King’s Grass. His own reaction had puzzled him. He considered his memories of Musky, last night, which felt like a lifetime ago now. This was not that. Similar-some of the reactions were the same-but more complicated.

“I know even less about love. Nothing at all.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Waels touched a finger to Orlad’s collar and studied it as if he had never seen one before. “Remember the morning you chose me as your buddy? That was the happiest moment I’d known since my brother died.”

“You had a brother? What happened to him?”

“Died in cadet training. He was a spare. I’d been watching you all through the testing, admiring you, and when you appointed me your buddy, I knew that you wouldn’t let them do that to me. I almost wept, my lord.”

Orlad mumbled, “Understandable.” Never forgivable, though.

The smile that Benard admired flashed again, spoiled by the scarlet birthmark. “I’ve known ever since then… Orlad?”

Smile. “Waels.”

After a while Orlad smiled again, this time without meaning to. “This morning, up on King’s Grass-I have never been so glad to see anyone as I was when I found myself looking down at you.” Lying on top of him, in fact. “I’d so nearly torn your gullet out! Glad I didn’t.”

“Me too.” Another pause. “Just wanted you to know.” The blue eyes held challenge. “How I feel about you, I mean. Sorry if I offend… Orlad.”

“No,” Orlad said. “You don’t offend me, Waels. Not at all.” He caught hold of Waels’s collar and yanked him close. “How does one begin?”

Big smile. “Like this, I think…”

and her companions had camped on one of the Milk Islands on their way upriver. This one was more wooded, but the trees concealed a level, secluded campsite with a well of sweet water and a fire pit surrounded by tree-trunk benches. Luxury! She and Horth found a sunlit bench where they could sit while the riverfolk pitched tents, and were soon joined by Ingeld, Benard, and Guthlag. Later she saw Dantio playing slave, barefoot and stripped down to breeches, spreading the Werists’ palls over bushes to dry. She persuaded him to come and sit beside her to tell the others what he had told her about the day Celebre fell, fifteen years ago.

“You are the only one of us who remembers it,” she said.

“And I would happily forget.”

Four Heroes gathered around and sprawled on the grass to listen, still wearing riverfolk castoffs, so that only their stubbled heads and the glint of sunlight on their collars showed their allegiance.

It was not a happy story. “Mama carried you into the farmhouse,” Dantio finished. “That’s the last I saw of you for years.”

“What happened to her after that?”

“I don’t know. We cannot see what happens beyond the Edge. I heard extrinsic reports that she was still alive earlier this year, caring for Father.”

Fabia knew more than he did, then, but she was not going to admit that she had been shown a vision of her infant self being given to the wet nurse and her mother being abused by the bloodlord.

“I remember the parting,” Benard said. “I remember screaming my head off, but almost nothing after that until I was living in Kosord.”

Dantio described the harrowing journey over the Edge, and how the brothers had been forcibly separated. The Witness would have been a very handsome man, Fabia decided. Cropped ears and ragged haircut ruined his overall looks, of course, and she could see white whip scars on his back. But his face was lean and intense, shrewd-looking and refined by suffering.

Every now and again his attention would wander for a few moments. “Just riverfolk,” he explained the second time it happened. “They like to overnight in these islands.”

The biggest Werist growled, “You’ll tell us if any Heroes arrive?”

“None so far, but I saw two boats of them going by a while ago, heading upstream. Their palls were purple and red, with either green or red flank stripes.”

“Purple means Horold!” Ingeld said.

“’Fraid so. And red means Wrogg Hunt, which has all his best men. I doubt they’re on their way to Florengia.”

“Then he’s close behind them!”

“Not necessarily so, my lady,” old Guthlag said. “He never goes any nearer Saltaja than he must. He’s sent his best man after you, Huntleader Loki Nargson. The satrap himself will have stayed home in Kosord to go duck hunting.”

Ingeld looked unconvinced. Ducks would be safe from Horold until he had hunted down his wife.

A couple of the Werists sprang to their feet. “Must tell Orlad!”

Dantio squeaked “No!” in his treble, but so vehemently that they obeyed him. “They’re gone upstream. They’re no threat to us. Orlad’s resting right now. We can call him if he’s needed. His whole world has turned upside down, my lords. You went hunting at King’s Grass. He was the prey! He needs some time to, um, make plans.”

The two sat down again. “Can’t hear anyone getting murdered, anyway,” muttered the one they called Namberson. Fabia noticed fleeting grins and wondered what was funny.

“There was no huntleader in the boats I saw,” Dantio said, “nor even a packleader, so that likely means there are more of them on the way. They may be days away, though. Some boats are faster than others; convoys get separated. And there are lots of islands here.”

Fabia knew that most riverfolk would have made camp by now, so the chances of Horold arriving were fading. The sky was a blaze of red as the sun sank behind the wall of the world. Whatever its faults, Tryfors did have spectacular sunsets.

“Do you really know everything?” she asked.

“Within my range. The Wisdom knows everything, but it’s back in the Ivory Cloisters.”