Hugh Cook - The Werewolf and the Wormlord

Ursula Major, having very carefully chosen her ground, was obeyed without protest.

There was no way Alfric Danbrog could persuade people to rebel against his aunt’s commands. Such rebellion was nearly unthinkable. If he had tried to stir the Knights into revolt, if he had pleaded that Ursula’s rule as regent was unlawful and that she must be replaced immediately, then he would have shocked one and all by his impious attitude to the dead.

The dead were due the honours which were being paid to them; and, whether Ursula Major was strictly entitled to command those honours or not, nevertheless all must obey Ursula’s orders lest they scandalize their peers.

Alfric was frustrated.

He wanted to bring Ursula Major to battle, and soon. He wanted to stage a confrontation. He wanted to march up to Saxo Pall and say:

‘Get off my throne!’

But he could not move, not until the funeral had taken place, and not until another three nights had passed.

This meant that Ursula Major had days in which to consolidate her position. Alfric knew that questions of power are largely settled by public perception. He had learnt from the Bank that power is an intellectual conjuring trick. While people believe it exists, it does exist. When belief falters, then power melts faster than ice in a blazing furnace.

By ruling from Saxo Pall as regent, Ursula Major was consolidating her position. She was teaching Galsh Ebrek to think of her as its customary ruler.

Alfric sat at home, wondering what he should do.

He was still sitting at home when the news reached him. Guignol Grangalet came personally to Varnvelten Street to bring Alfric the news.

The earthly remains of Tromso Stavenger and Grendel Danbrog had been recovered from the place of slaughter, and had been conveyed to the seashore, there to be cremated.

‘The seashore?’ said Alfric, startled. ‘Why?’

‘Because,’ said Grangalet, ‘Ursula Major has commanded that it be done so.’

‘But,’ protested Alfric, ‘the bodies of the kings of Wen Endex are burnt in the marketplace in the presence of the people. That is the custom.’

‘It has been the recent custom,’ acknowledged the Chief of Protocol, ‘but that does not mean that it is a good custom. Ursula Major thinks it to be a lazy, slothful thing to do. She says it constitutes a discourtesy to the dead. She says the Knights should prove their honour by making the march to the seashore.’

‘But-’

‘Furthermore,’ said Guignol Grangalet, ‘the practice of seaside cremation has an honourable place in our tradition. It is the older custom, is it not? Long before bodies were ever burnt in the marketplace, our kings were consumed by fire by the shores of the Winter Sea. ’ Alfric protested, but Guignol Grangalet told him there was nothing he could do. The bodies had already been taken to the seashore, and were being held there under guard in preparation for the funeral on the following night.

Once the Chief of Protocol had departed, Alfric raged around his house, kicking at the furniture in incoherent fury.

Now he realized his mistake!

Instead of sitting at home, he should have been taking active steps to seize control of any instruments which might have helped him win power. And, without a doubt, the corpses of his father and grandfather were such instruments.

Alfric should have gone personally to the mere to recover those battle-battered bodies. Nobody could rightly have denied him that privilege. He should have brought the corpses back to his house. Had he done that, Ursula Major could scarcely have wrested them away from him by brute force, for such an action would have scandalized Galsh Ebrek and would have turned the Knights against her.

Then Alfric should have personally made arrangements for the funerals of the fallen, and should have made sure — very, very sure — that the bodies were burnt in the marketplace.

Because the marketplace was in the middle of Galsh Ebrek, so any crowd which gathered for the funeral could then be marched to Saxo Pall by any orator who had the wit to rouse the mob.

Only now did Alfric begin to imagine the speeches he could have made.

It was obvious, wasn’t it?

This is what he should have said:

‘Here lies my grandfather in company with his son. In death, father and son are united, as they were in the last days of their life. When great peril threatened the nation…’

Oh yes, Alfric could see precisely how such a speech should be phrased. First, emphasize the unity of father and son, a unity which made a nullity of the banishment Tromso Stavenger had imposed upon Grendel Danbrog. Then praise the courage of the dead. Then speak frankly of his own part in the slaughter of Herself.

Thus:

‘Much have I dared already. I killed the dragon which long denied Island Thodrun to our race. I dared the wrath of the swamp giant Kralch to rescue the saga sword Sulamith’s Grief from the Spiderweb Castle. I wrested the brave sword Kinskom from the grip of the vampires. But, not content with this, I joined my father and my grandfather for the greatest test of all, that test being open combat with Herself. ’

Yes, yes.

Alfric should have made such speeches in the marketplace, and then he should have proclaimed himself king, and then he should have marched the mob to Saxo Pall, and he should have used the mob as an army to overthrow Ursula Major’s guards and put him on the throne.

‘Well,’ said Alfric at last. ‘What is, is. I’ll have to work with what I’ve got.’

Unfortunately, it was unlikely that any of the commoners of Galsh Ebrek were likely to make the trek to the seaside merely to see a couple of corpses burnt by night. The Yudonic Knights would be there in force — none would dare to stay away unless mortally ill — but the Knights would not be easily moved to precipitate action.

‘But I must try,’ said Alfric. ‘With every day that woman sits on the throne, it gets harder for me to displace her.’

So Alfric sat down and began to work on a speech which he could give at the funeral on the following night.

How should he phrase his claim to the throne?

Why, there were all kinds of approaches he should take.

For a start, it was the Wormlord’s will. Tromso Stavenger had explicitly stated that he would give the throne to Alfric as soon as the three quests had been completed. Well, the quests were well and truly completed, nobody doubted it. So it was time for the king’s will to be fulfilled. Yes, in constitutional terms, there was no doubt about it at all: Alfric Danbrog was the rightful king of Wen Endex as of now.

Furthermore, he was a hero, a genuine legitimate hero, for he had personally killed Herself, and that was a fact. Moreover, Galsh Ebrek acknowledged that fact.

Also in his favour was the fact that Ursula Major was a woman; for the Yudonic Knights of Wen Endex had certain fundamental objections to the rule of women over men.

‘Prejudice,’ muttered Alfric. ‘Yes, prejudice, that’s the way.’

The validity of his claim in constitutional terms… his personal heroism… the fact that his aunt was a woman…

‘Yes,’ said Alfric. ‘I’ll talk them over to my side with no trouble at all.’

And he worked long and hard on his speech, until at last he was disturbed by a brick which came crashing through his window.

‘Stroth!’ said Alfric.

He almost rushed out into the street, but restrained himself. This might be an ambush of sorts.

Instead, Alfric went upstairs, opened the shutters of a second-storey window and looked out. Below, he saw a couple of drunken yokel-louts.

‘What the hell do you want?’ said Alfric.

‘To bugger your arse with a hatchet,’ said one.

‘For what and for why?’ said Alfric.