John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

The guards' nerves had eased a bit-their knees and backs had straightened-but their hands remained near their sword hilts. The king turned in awe to his old comrade-in-arms. "Macurdy, I've known for years you were a man of power. But to have a traveling companion like that? No man in Yuulith is your match!"

Grinning, Macurdy shook his head. "I'm not much more of a magician now than when I left. Which isn't all that much. I'm older and more experienced, and smarter I hope. But whether I'm smart enough, time will tell.

"Ask us in and we'll tell you what we know. But I expect we'll learn more from you than you will from us."

Wollerda nodded toward Vulkan. "He goes in with us?"

"Unless you'd rather talk out here. I expect Liiset will want to meet him, too."

They went in then, the king leading, several guardsmen bringing up the rear. Briefly Wollerda wondered if Vulkan was housebroken. But intelligent as the giant boar seemed to be, and a wizard to boot, that seemed unlikely to be a problem.

The royal apartment was on the second floor. When they went in, Queen Liiset met them with no sign of shock, or even surprise, at Vulkan's presence. Macurdy decided she'd been watching out a window.

"Curtis!" she said smiling and took his hand for a moment. She was the first person to call him that since he'd left Farside. "Introduce me to your companion," she added, turning her gaze to Vulkan.

Vulkan introduced himself. ‹I am Vulkan. I have learned much about the Sisterhood in recent centuries, but you are the first of them whom I have addressed personally.›

When Wollerda learned that his visitors hadn't eaten, he ordered a meal sent for Macurdy. Vulkan said he'd wait till later, and that a lamb would be about right.

After eating, Macurdy described briefly his past seventeen years on Farside. He'd intended to mention the voitar in Bavaria, then didn't. He did mention Vulkan's premonition about a threat from across the Ocean Sea, but didn't elaborate. The time for that, it seemed to him, was if and when the threat materialized. Or perhaps if pushed to it by questions.

"What I'd like to hear about," he went on, "is how things are going in Tekalos, and with the Sisterhood."

Wollerda had been everything King Gurtho had not. He'd striven for justice, and taken care not to offend his subjects needlessly. There hadn't been a tax uprising since his coronation, partly because taxes were now set by fixed rates. And partly because, over time, a count, three reeves and five bailiffs had been found guilty of flagrant abuse of office, mostly for tax offenses. After a tour of the kingdom in chains, they'd made the acquaintance of the royal executioner, and the heads had decorated poles outside their official residences. This not only gratified the population at large. It was also an ever-present reminder to those who succeeded them in office, and a warning to officials elsewhere. For their heads were left on the poles till long after they were bleached skulls.

"Those are the only brutalities I've committed in office," Wollerda finished, "but I have no doubt Brog'r forgives me."

Early on he'd established militia training for all youth, somewhat after the Ozian system, and reduced the standing army. County forces too had been reduced, and put on a reserve basis to reduce taxes. Their annual field training now was done on a military reservation, to avoid trampling farmers' fields-a long-standing source of damage and resentment. Aside from the king, only counts retained military forces at all. Reeves and bailiffs replaced theirs with police, which were fewer in number, and regulated by law rather than whim.

Shamans had been legalized. "Most of them," Wollerda added, "aren't very effective. But the poorer of them soon find business sparse, and profit slight from the puny fees they can get. But even the completely bogus sometimes effect cures by belief."

Macurdy turned to Liiset, who looked as young and beautiful as ever. She was a member of Varia's clone, and the resemblance was uncanny, even with their differences in aura. "And what's the state of the Sisterhood?" he asked.

Her eyes met his mildly. "Let me call Omara," she replied. "I get reports by courier, and make occasional trips to the Cloister, but she is Sarkia's executive officer."

"Omara is here?" Even as he spoke, Macurdy realized his response was giving away his feelings for the healer. But his aura would too, and Liiset wouldn't miss it.

"For a week," she answered. "She arrived this Three-Day, to initiate our children in the next stage of magicks and healing. She's considerably more advanced than I. And more fully informed of Sisterhood affairs. She'll be pleased to see you."

In minutes, Omara arrived from her quarters, smelling of fragrant soap. "My apologies," Liiset said, "if we interrupted you in your bath."

"I was done with it," Omara answered, with the calm that Macurdy remembered. "I was preparing to meditate." She turned, her gaze absorbing him. "Hello, Macurdy," she said, "it is very nice to see you again." He wondered how much she read in him. With her powerful talent and broad experience, surely she saw more deeply than Liiset or himself when she looked at an aura.

Only then did she give her attention to Vulkan. As hugely conspicuous and out of place as he was in the royal drawing room, she had not been distracted by him. "I was informed you were here," she continued. "I am Omara, as you have deduced, but I do not know your name."

‹I-am Vulkan.›

Macurdy wondered if the others had caught how impressed the great boar was. "We're traveling together," Macurdy said. "I think of him as my tutor."

Liiset broke in. "Curtis asked how things stood in the Sisterhood. You may have information I lack."

Omara took a chair unbidden, as someone treated by the royal couple as a peer. "Why don't you begin," Omara said. "I can expand on it later, if appropriate."

Liiset nodded. "As I indicated, Sarkia still lives. Once decline sets in, it is rare for death to hold off as long as a dozen years. Nine or ten is typical. With Sarkia it's been eighteen, thanks to Omara's powers and her own strong will. She still has not chosen a successor, though she'd like to, and most of us feel serious concern over what might happen if she dies without naming one.

"In that case Idri would probably be the new dynast. She no longer hides her desire and intention, though she knows she's unpopular with the Sisterhood. She's spent most of her life making enemies. I'm one of the few she likes and treats with respect, and one of still fewer who feel affinity for her. But I recognize her unfitness to rule."

Frowning, Macurdy broke in. "Then who supports her? Even if Sarkia decreed her to be the new dynast…"

"The Tigers. The Tigers support her."

Macurdy frowned. "The Tigers?"

Liiset nodded. "Sarkia gave Idri authority over the breeding and training of Tigers. That was back when you were still here, on campaign in the Marches, actually. Before Sarkia began her decline. Idri had failed at every other command assignment she'd had. I suppose Sarkia hoped this might be one she could manage. At first it was a secondary responsibility, but Idri turned it into her principal one. She quickly began building their numbers as rapidly as she could, while seducing, politicking-conquering so to speak-key Tiger commanders. And saying the right things to make herself popular with the entire corps.

"Their numbers did not-could not-increase rapidly, of course. It takes the better part of twenty years to mature and train a Tiger, and fewer than one in three of us are suitable mother stock for them. Fewer than one in ten are prime mother stock. So from the very start, Idri used her influence to shorten the resting periods between litters by prime mothers. Which increased not only the number of Tiger births, but the number of potential prime mothers born. And of the other suitable mother stock, she convinced Sarkia to increase the number of Tiger breedings. Which wasn't popular with Sisters, of course, but very popular with Tigers.