Аврам Дэвидсон: Peregrine : primus

“Hey, Buddy. Did you come to see me off? That was nice of you.” The pages smirked at each other. They had been selected by the prince’s dam for the purpose of introducing him into unnatural vice, as she felt that royal bastardy was bad for the domestic economy.

“Perry, where are you going? Are you going to have adventures? Appledore is up ahead, waiting for you, he wants to get a ride, she wouldn’t let him have a mule, not even a live jackass, the old bitch—”

“Now, Your Royal and Legitimate Highness, let’s not talk about your Mommy like that,” one of the pages said, primly, casting a quick and languishing look at Peregrine before tossing his head and glancing aside.

“Bugger off, you mothering catamite,” said his Royal and Legitimate Highness, aiming a kick at the catamite’s crotch. The

page clutched, dodged, hissed, and said, venomously, "Well, see if I don’t tell on you, you nasty thing!”

Peregrine reined in. “Appledore is going? Gee, I wonder why Oh, I guess it’s ” and then, seeing the second page regarding him keenly out of the corner of a painted eye, broke in mid-comment. “Goodbye, then, Buddy. Hey, be nice to Dadda, huh?and I’ll send you a souvenir from, uh, somewhere—”

“Send me a clean arsehole for a change,” muttered the foulmouthed prince. His pages squawked their shock at this unseemly insinuation. Buddy, ignoring them, kicked moodily at a fallen medlar, then came up and took hold of his older half-brother’s bridle. “Hey, Per, take us with you, I mean, me, take us, huh? Per?”

“Gee, Bubber, I can’t, you know that. Why, your mom would have the whole Equestrian Order on our trail before you could say, ‘Sound the alarm!’ ”

Prince Buddy scowled, muttered vile things about the entire Equestrian Order and an alleged relationship, damned by men and gods alike, between the Order and its mounts. “Why do the Bastards get ta have alia the fun,” he said. “ That’s not fair.” But the pages drew nearer and insinuated themselves between the boy and his brother. Prince Buddy began to cry, shook off their hands, struck at them, and then, his corrupted face in his arms, leaned against the tree, and wept. The catamite pages gave Peregrine looks half-defiant and half-covetous. He sighed, he winced, blinked, repeated his farewell, and rode on.

About halfway between the medlar tree and the wattle-anddaub hut which marked an important step on his journey, Peregrine saw, leaning on a staff, a figure from whom the bloom of youth had long since departed; sigils and symbols had once been brightly embroidered upon his robe and mantle-cap, but sigils and symbols were bright no longer, robe was rent and spotted in grease, and from one or two holes in the mantle-cap tufts of colorless hair poked out like badly-stooked hay.

“Appledore! You mean, you are also one of my father’s lovebrats, and they’ve been keeping it from me? Then where are your mules and—”

The older man grunted and sighed and scratched his aft armpit. “I wish I were . . . chronologically impossible, of course, for all I hear that'His Maj was a lusty lad . . . mule? Yes, a pair of

them, don’t you see?” And he lifted first one and then a second spindly shank. Dafty Claud gave a sudden guffaw, as suddenly stopped. “No, no, muh boy. Her Maj, you see, is making a clean, or rather, one might say, a dirty sweep. At one fell swoop she gets rid of you, last of the lot standing between His Maj and her and her own lawful progeny, and me. Me! The best royal combination philosopher, metaphysician, sorcerer, and impromptu-a capella bard any weeny court like this is ever likely to see again in this cycle of the sun. And appointed her own nephew, that fool, Philander, to take my place. Get the picture?”

A hare hoppited across the road and Appledore, automatically observing its provenance and progress, muttered, “Not unfavorable. Get the picture?”

Peregrine nodded and sighed. “It’s just what I figured, when the kid told me, back there, that you’d be here, and wanting a ride. Gee, poor Dadda!” He thought a moment, added, “Poor Sapodilla, too.”

Said Appledore: “Best thing for Sapodilla would be if Buddy broke his neck one night playing steeplechase with those geldings, and Slim caught a sudden dose from the black bottle, disguised as an ague, leaving Chuck. Chuck would soon fix the old lady’s wagon.”

“Why, Chuck’s the worst of the lot!” said Peregrine, dismayed.

The philosopher-sorcerer, and a cappella bard nodded. “Exactly. The worst—and the smartest. He might just figure out some way to get this so-far-overlooked-but-not-for-long anachronism of a country peacefully into the Empire. In fact, given half a chance, it wouldn’t surprise me if Chuck might not wind up as an Imperial Heir of some kind, himself. Co-Sebastocrator, or Conjoint Second Caesar, or something of that sort. Well. Going to stay here all day? With the whole wide world waiting for you? Onward!” He hoisted a grimy sack onto his almost equally grimy shoulder, thumped his staff, and strode on ahead.

Soldiers came out of the wattle-and-daub hut which did duty for frontier-post and customs-house since the former structure had collapsed in last spring’s downpour. Usually there were only two men stationed here, but today there were five. They looked apologetic as they gestured to Peregrine to dismount, and sheep

ish as they made him unload. “You know how it is, huh, Perry,” the sergeant said, poking through the equipment. “Doody is doody. Spelled, ‘Queen Calpurnia.’ ” He glanced at a copy of the master-list. “Nope. No contrabands, no, um, contra-indicated articles .... And what’s with you, Doctor Appledore?”

The sage shrugged, dumped his sack empty out onto the road. Soldiers, Peregrine, Daft Claudius, all stared. The sergeant snickered, hastily cleared his throat. Scratched his head. “Bunch a bones. A nold piece a hide. Well. To each his own. Uh, his own taste, 1 mean. I mean— No export imposts on these articles, Doctor. All respects. Pass, then, in The King’s Name. Lots a luck. Perry. Bye, Dafty. Um, uh, your benediction, Doctor?”

Appledore dumped the last bit of bone into the sack and straightened up. He raised his staff. “Salve adque vale,” he intoned. “Nos vobis dominus piscator absit omen.” He trudged off, dragging the sack.

Peregrine, over the resumed clip-clopping of the mules’ hooves, heard one of the soldiers say, low-voiced, halfimpressed, half-puzzled, “Omen, say, ain’t that what the Christians say when they ends their prayers?” If there was an answer, Peregrine didn’t hear it. He rode at a brisker pace, pausing only at the brink of the valley which was, in its entirety, part of the Central Roman Empire. Some of it was so far away that its outlines were blurred into a blue-brown mist. A river coiled its way like a lazy snake. A patch of white—that was, must be, a city. An Imperial City! He wished that he had some knowledge of what its name might be. He would have stayed, musing there, had not an odd noise caused him to turn the mule around.

Appledore was arranging the bones as though setting up a class for the study of veterinary anatomy. When he had them outlined he straightened up, gazed at the display with his head cocked, then grunted, spread the tattered and mangy old hide over the lot. “Gift of Queen Calpurnia,” he said, “fun-ny sense of humor she’s got. Oh, well—.” Then he began to intone something which Peregrine recognized as an incantation, in a tone quite different from the campy tones which Appledore had used for the “benediction” of a short while back. The sage’s voice seemed to come, now, from deep in his chest, and, now, from high in his nose. And next he began to beat his staff upon the dirty and stinking old piece of donkey-hide. The intensity of the