Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

The man had been crouching beside one of the figures, polishing its leg with a cloth and abrasive. He looked up, scowling angrily at the interruption. Then he rose, and she saw that he was not unusually tall, just very wide and thick... his black hairiness was barely concealed by a leather overall that seemed to be his only garment... dusty, sweaty, unshaven, unkempt. Unprepossessing. A quarry worker—with a wrist seal.

He saw Ingeld and a smile like summer sunrise turned him into a huge, overgrown boy, black stubble and all. As the lady skillfully brought the chariot to a halt without ever reaching for the brake, Benard's dark eyes switched to Fabia and stretched wide.

The apprentice came running forward, all awkward arms and legs and gaping smile. "My lady! Great honor.. ."

"Veslih bless you, Thod!" Ingeld said. "Will you water them for me? And walk them a little?" She accepted the boy's hand to descend and gave him the reins.

Fabia left the car without noticing she had done so. Benard was still staring at her as if she were a sending from the Dark One. She could do no better than stare back at him. Twenty-three was not really old at all. He had incredible arms ... wavy black hair down to his shoulders ... eyes black, lustrous.

She stopped just before she walked into him.

"Fabia?" he said in a sort of squeak.

"Brother!"

"Mother's eyes." He touched her face with a hairy knuckle. "Cheekbones from Father, but the rest is all Mother... They told me you were dead!"

"No one ever told me about you at all."

Whereupon Master Artist Celebre uttered a scream that raised pigeons from half Kosord. He grabbed his sister, swung her up like a child, spun around several times. Setting her down again, he kissed her and yelled, "Fabia, Fabia, Fabia, Fabia!" He was stronger than the Wrogg in flood and gentler than thistledown. Where had he been all her life? "Oh, Fabia!" He kissed her again.

Fabia's eyelids prickled painfully. She hugged him in return, and kissed him, all stubbly.

"You two know each other, I see," Ingeld remarked.

He roared, " Why didn't you tell me she was coming ?" Which was no way to address the dynast.

"Because I didn't know. Are you going to crush her to death?"

He laughed and apologized and kissed Fabia yet again, all at once, and finally he let her go. For a moment it seemed as if he would grab Ingeld and kiss her also, but he remembered his manners and bowed low.

"Benard, you'd better know this right away. I told you your father is very sick. He may have returned to the womb already. Fabia is on her way home to Celebre."

His face went wooden. "Female succession? What of Dantio? Is he not the heir?"

"He's dead. You know that." She spoke to him like a mother or a teacher. "And it wouldn't necessarily be him, even if he weren't."

"You are not plotting to make me a doge, I hope?"

"Only the gods do miracles. Benard, Fabia is to marry Cutrath."

He turned almost as pale as a Vigaelian. He yelled, " No !"

"Benard—"

" No ! No !"

Across the yard the echoes agreed, " No ! No !"

"Benard—"

" No ! I am her eldest surviving male relative and I absolutely forbid—"

"Don't be such a puddle-brained, idiotic—"

"Over my dead body and any other bodies I—"

Fabia concluded that they were not going to sit down in some comfortable, shady place for a family chat. Back in Skjar artists ranked just above laborers, well below merchants and artisans, while Ingeld sprang from a long line of royal foremothers—twelve generations in Kosord alone—yet here these two were screaming at each other like bazaar hucksters in a slow spell. Thod, walking the team slowly by, stared with owl eyes at the unseemly squabble.

One might conclude that Benard did not approve of Cutrath Horoldson and that Ingeld thought he was being unrealistic, but the quarrel had sprung up much too fast to be only that. Fabia had seen the same pattern in her friends, in her father's employees, and even in the riverfolk. She was almost certain that Benard and Ingeld were yelling about this because they dared not yell about some other, more important thing. Curious!

"You want my opinion?" she asked.

Benard wheeled on her. "No, I do not..."

Ingeld said, "You keep out of ... Yes, of course we do."

"Tell us, Sister," he said hastily.

"With no disrespect to your fine son, Ingeld, I will not marry a Werist. Any Werist. Benard, if Stralg wants to use me to control Celebre, then he will leave no rival claimants alive. Saltaja will see you dead before she leaves here, and yelling at each other won't help the situation."

The disputants eyed each other warily and declared a truce.

Benard folded his massive arms. "How do you plan to escape the Cutrath disaster?"

"I shall need your help. As my nearest male relative, you have a duty to escort me to Tryfors."

He pouted. "Satrap Horold would rather I remain here in Kosord, in an unmarked grave."

"We'll discuss it tonight," Ingeld said firmly. "Um, everything all right for tonight?"

He grinned with what seemed like sheer boyish glee. "She's willing!" He did not deign to explain to his sister who was willing to do what.

"Get your hair cut," Ingeld said, sounding more like a mother than dynast of the city. "I'll send a chariot for you. The brother of the bride must be present at the feast. Did your robe arrive? I'll send one for Thod, too!"

Benard's huge grin flashed back, wiping ten years from him. "He'll eat himself sick and his mother will die of pride!"

"That's what feasts are for." Ingeld waved to the boy to bring the chariot.

Fabia had just taken her first proper look at the three silent bystanders, the marble goddesses. Horth would give gold by the bucket for such art. "Benard, you carved these? But they're ... beyond words! Oh, I am so proud to have a brother who can do this. This is holy Mayn, of course? And this one? ..."

twenty-nine

INGELD NARSDOR

whipped up the team and sent the chariot rattling across the yard. That had gone very well. She had not blushed like a child on seeing her lover and Benard had behaved himself as well as could be expected. Fabia could have no reason to guess their secret.

"Does he remember?" the girl asked.

"Remember what?"

"His parents giving him away—our parents."

"Yes he does. It scarred him terribly. The first time I met him, he was curled up in a ball. It was a sixday before he would uncurl long enough to feed himself." For a thirty or so, she had been the only person who could get him to straighten out. A year later—when he had finally stopped following her around the palace all the time, when he would sometimes talk with other people, even play with other children—any mention of his family, his home, the war, any of those, and he would promptly just curl up again. On some level, he was still doing it.

Fabia said, "Is he bitter?"

"Very."

"I don't. Remember, I mean. I was a baby."

"Of course not. Curse my sister-in-law! She is going to drag you away before we can even begin to get to know each other." But Fabia's arrival could have been a serious impediment to the lovers' planned flight, for she would certainly notice their disappearance, even if everyone else was too busy partying. So bless Saltaja for whipping her away again so promptly! "And you'll miss most of the feast. You don't have to eat until you're sick, but you are entirely free to do so."