Guy Kay - The Summer Tree

“Yes, Highness. When shall I—”

“Now, of course.” She rose, and so, of necessity, did he.

“My lady’s will.” He made obeisance and turned to go.

And because of the falcons, the moon-touched memory, she called him back. “Devorsh, one thing more. I heard footsteps in the garden the night before last. Did you notice anything by the walls?”

His face showed real concern. “Highness, I went off duty at sundown. Bashrai took command from me. I will speak to him of this without delay.”

“Off duty?”

“Yes, Highness. We take turns, Bashrai and myself, in leading the night watch. He is most competent, I suggest, but if—”

“How many men patrol the walls at night?” She leaned on the back of a chair for support; there was a pressure behind her eyes.

“Twelve, Highness, in peacetime.”

“And the dogs?”

He coughed. “Ah, no, my lady. Not of late. It was felt unnecessary. They have been used on the hunt this spring and summer. Your father knows about this, of course.” His face was animated by unconcealed curiosity. “If my lady feels they should—”

“No!” It was intolerable that he be in the room another moment, that he continue to look at her like this, his eyes widening in appraisal. “I will discuss this with Bashrai. Go now and do as I have told you. And quickly, Devorsh, very quickly.”

“I go, my lady,” he said in the distinctive voice, and went. After, she bit her tongue, tasting blood, so as not to scream.

Shalhassan of Cathal was reclining on a couch, watching two slaves wrestling, when word was brought to him. His court, hedonistic and overbred, was enjoying the sight of the oiled bodies writhing naked on the floor in the presence chamber, but the King watched the fight, as he heard the news, expressionlessly.

Raziel appeared just then in the archway behind the throne with the cup in his hand. It was mid-afternoon then and, taking the drink, Shalhassan saw that the jewelled goblet was blue. Which meant that the northerner’s stone still shone as it should. He nodded to Raziel, who withdrew, their private ritual observed, as every day it was. It would never, ever do for the court to find out that Shalhassan was troubled by dreams of red wardstones.

Turning his thoughts to his daughter, Shalhassan drank. He approved her headstrong nature, indeed he had nurtured it, for no weakling dared sit on the Ivory Throne. Tantrums, though, were irresponsible, and this latest… Tearing apart her chambers and whipping her women were one thing; rooms could be restored and servants were servants. Devorsh was a different matter; he was a good soldier in a country with remarkably few, and Shalhassan was not pleased to hear that his Captain of the Guard had just been garrotted by his daughter’s mutes. Whatever the insult she might say he had given her, it was a rash and precipitate response.

He drained the blue cup and came to a decision.

She was growing too undisciplined; it was time to have her married. However strong a woman might be, she still needed a man by her side and in her bed. And the kingdom needed heirs. It was past time.

The wrestling had grown tedious. He gestured and the eidolath stopped the fight. The two slaves had been brave, though, he decided, and he freed them both. There was a polite murmur from the courtiers, an approving rustle of silk.

Turning away, he noticed that one of the wrestlers was a little tardy in his obeisance. The man may have been exhausted, or hurt, but the throne could not be compromised. At any time, in any way. He gestured again.

There were appropriate uses for the mutes and their garrottes. Sharra would just have to learn to discriminate.

The knowledge of approaching death can come in many shapes, descending as a blessing or rearing up as an apparition of terror. It may sever like the sweep of a blade, or call as a perfect lover calls. For Paul Schafer, who had chosen to be where he was for reasons deeper than loss and more oblique than empathy for an aged King, the growing awareness that his body could not survive the Summer Tree came as a kind of relief: in this failure, at least, there could be no shame. There was no unworthiness in yielding to a god.

He was honest enough to realize that the exposure and the brutal heat, the thirst and immobility were themselves enough to kill him, and this he had known from the moment they bound him.

But the Summer Tree of Mörnirwood was more than all of these. Naked upon it in the blaze of day, Paul felt the ancient bark all along the planes of his body, and in that contact he apprehended power that made what strength he had its own. The Tree would not break him; instead he felt it reaching out, pulling him into itself, taking everything. Claiming him. He knew as well, somehow, that this was only the beginning, not even the second night. It was scarcely awake.

The God was coming, though. Paul could feel that slow approach along his flesh, in the running of his blood, and now there was thunder, too. Low yet, and muted, but there were two whole nights to come and all about him the Godwood vibrated soundlessly as it had not for years upon years, waiting, waiting for the God to come and claim his own, in darkness and forever, as was his due.

The genial proprietor of the Black Boar was in a mood that bade fair to shatter his public image entirely. Under the circumstances, however, it was not entirely surprising that his countenance should display a distinctly forbidding mien as he surveyed his demesne in the morning light.

It was a festival. People drank during festivals. There were visitors in town, visitors with dry throats from the drought and a little money saved for this time. Money that might—money that should— be his, by all the gods, if he hadn’t been forced to close the Boar for the day to redress the damage of the night before. He worked them hard all day, even the ones with broken bones and bashed pates from the brawl, and he certainly wasted no sympathy on employees bemoaning hangovers or lack of sleep. There was money being lost every moment he stayed closed, every moment! And to add to the choler of his mood there was a vile, vile rumor running through the capital that bloody Gorlaes, the Chancellor, intended to slap a rationing law down on all liquids as soon as the fortnight’s festival ended. Bloody drought. He attacked a pile of debris in a corner as if it were the offending Chancellor himself. Rationing, indeed! He’d like to see Gorlaes try to ration Tegid’s wine and ale, he’d like to see him try! Why, the fat one had likely poured a week’s worth of beer over his posterior the night before.

At the recollection, the owner of the Black Boar succumbed to his first smile of the day, almost with relief. It was hard work being furious. Eyeing the room, hands on hips, he decided that they’d be able to open within an hour or so of sundown; the day wouldn’t be a total loss.

So it was that as full dark cloaked the twisting lanes of the old town, and torches and candles gleamed through curtained windows, a bulky shadow moved ponderously towards the recently reopened door of his favorite tavern.

It was dark, though, in the alleys, and he was impeded a trifle by the effects of his wars the night before, and so Tegid almost fell as he stumbled into a slight figure in the lane.

“By the horns of Cernan!” the great one spluttered. “Mind your path. Few obstruct Tegid without peril!”

“Your pardon,” the wretched obstacle murmured, so low he was scarcely audible. “I fear I am in some difficulty, and I…”

The figure wavered, and Tegid put out an instinctive hand of support. Then his bloodshot eyes finally adjusted to the shadows, and with a transcendent shock of awe, he saw the other speaker.

“Oh, Mörnir,” Tegid whispered in disbelief, and then, for once, was speechless.