The Wicked and the Witless Page 2

  'Good!' said Jarl, on Lod's return. "Well, load up, mount up and let's be off. I'm sick of pissing around.'

  "We did have formal greetings from Farfalla to Lord Regan,' said Celadon. 'After days on the road we did hope, indeed, to sleep tonight in proper beds.'

  Well, you're shit out of luck,' said Jarl. 'Lord Regan quit Voice days ago. Business in the capital demanded his presence. But he left me orders to ride for Selzirk immediately you arrived.'

  'Surely Sarazin has friends who want to see him off,' said Lod. 'Shouldn't we at least await their arrival?'

  'Oh, I farewelled my friends yesterday,' said Sarazin carelessly.

  And, all lobbying for delay having failed, they left the fair city of Voice forthwith — with Sarazin downcast, for Lod had chanced on a sore point. Though legally a hostage, Sarazin had ever been Lord Regan's pet, and hence popular always. But exile to Selzirk must inevitably end his influence with Lord Regan — so he had lately found himself unfriended. Except by Jaluba.

  Ah, the luscious Jaluba, mistress of the thousand volup- tuous perfumes, queen of the lubricous arts . . .

  Sarazin left Voice with her taste on his lips, her mur- muring passion still hot in memory. He regretted this

  (surely permanent) parting, but told himself that, while Jaluba was fun, he was growing too old for idle fancies of the flesh.

  —My career, that's the thing.

  For a full season he had indulged himself with dreams of ambition fulfilled. Now he planned — oh giddy thought! — eventually to make himself master of the Harvest Plains. His next woman would therefore have to be a princess of the Favoured Blood. He deserved — and needed — no less. But . . . would she love him as Jaluba did?

  Of course! How could any princess resist him? He was so elegant, intelligent, poised, talented and cultivated. A man of discretion, wise in the ways of the world — and a doughty warrior to boot.

  Sarazin assessed his virtues thus as he rode in the front of the expedition where horsedust was minimal. He had taken the prime position as of right, for he planned to live by Lord Regan's doctrine:

  "They deserve the best who take it.'

  There Jarl found him, and remonstrated with him, saying:

  Why were you late? I told you to be ready to move at dawn.'

  'At sunrise,' said Sarazin, a dreamy smile on his lips, 'I was warm in Jaluba's arms.' That whore!' said Jarl.

  The most recent of my duelling scars,' said Sarazin, frowning, 'was acquired when—'

  'I know, I know!' said Jarl impatiently. 'Some fool of a brag called Jaluba a whore so you took to your sword for her honour. Very well! But mark this — once you've left the Rice Empire you'll find men don't play such games of cuts.'

  'An affair of swords is never a game,' protested Sarazin.

  'Come!' said Jarl. 'I saw you salt that little nick to make a better scar. Believe me, where we're going you'll get no scratches needing such enlargement. For duels in Selzirk are to the death.'

  'Who says?' said Sarazin.

  'Celadon. Your brother. We've talked already, while you rode dreaming of a bitch of a girl with cream in her cunt and perfume drenched from neck to arsehole.'

  You wrong her,' said Sarazin angrily, feeling that Jarl demeaned him by speaking so crudely of the flesh with which he had pleasured. 'She is but sixteen, yet her soul is as subtle as her body is supple.'

  "Not any old whore, then, but a desirable whore. But none the better for that I And you a fool to waste money on appetite.'

  You wanted her yourself,' said Sarazin, stung. You begged for her favours. She told me! But she found you unworthy.'

  'Ahl' said Jarl, unruffled by this revelation. 'I bet the bitch giggled when she said it. Then bit you for passion with her sharp little teeth. So you thought her in love with you, then emptied your purse on account of it.'

  'A woman cannot live on air, any more than a horse.'

  'Right! Neither can I. Hence fled from her prices extor- tionate. After all, meat is meat, and liver goes cheap at the shambles.'

  You're gross,' said Sarazin, disgusted.

  'True,' said Jarl. 'Cruel, coarse, gross and violent, steeped in the evil of the world, a master of murder, a lord of deceit. I've had five kinds of pox, the cures of which near killed me. Have you? I know the stench of a battlefield twenty days after defeat. Do you? I know—'

  Yes, yes,' said Sarazin. You know the colour of every sunset for the last ten thousand years. I thought Elkin the elder, but find myself mistaken. Well then, speak, dear Master of the Depths of Ancient Wisdoms. Speak! I'm all ears.'

  "No,' said Jarl, 'you're all cock, for such is the condition of your age. Very well. In Selzirk find yourself a gash then shaft it. But know what you pay for. You can buy flesh, but you can never buy love.'

  'I know, I know.'

  So spoke Sarazin, not daring to dispute the world's ruling wisdom. Yet secretly he felt Jaluba truly loved him. After all, she had never asked him directly for money. Delayed payments would see her chiding her little dog for appetites which would eat them into ruin. But she had never soiled their love by bartering herself frankly for cash.

  'Right, then!' said Jarl. 'Don't let whores bankrupt you. Watch your gambling, too. I know Lord Regan has covered your debts in the past, though he cursed you for a fool at the time. In Selzirk you'll not meet with such indulgence from your mother.'

  'I am her eldest son,' said Sarazin.

  'Maybe. But she has the reputation of being the hardest woman in all of Argan. Which is only to be expected, for a woman must be twice as tough as a man to win half the respect.'

  You say.'

  'I know! Just as I know you've every chance of ending up face down dead in the Velvet River. In Voice, privilege has protected you from life's harder lessons. You'll have no such protection in Selzirk. So remember: don't drink with strangers, don't gamble with strangers, don't—'

  When is this lecture going to finish?' demanded Sarazin.

  When I'm satisfied you can walk the streets of Selzirk for a day and a night without losing your head,' retorted Jarl.

  He was not satisfied for quite some time.

  Jarl, frustrated by the slow-paced baggage-animals, refused to allow a halt for lunch. Nobody was game enough to challenge him. With lectures finished, he grilled the foreigners about life in Selzirk, and it was long before Celadon was free to satisfy his own curiosity about Sarazin, who was weary and saddle-sore, unused to riding so far without a break.

  To his surprise. Celadon found his kinsman had great difficulty speaking their native Churl. They therefore conversed in the Galish Trading Tongue.

  You're glad to be free again, doubtless,' said Celadon.

  'I suppose I am,' said Sarazin cautiously.

  A career as a royal hostage was the only life Sarazin knew. He had enjoyed it. After all, he had always had good food, fine clothes, ready cash and comfort; his wit had won applause at parties; he had hunted, hawked, trained with the sword, visited the theatre, slept with courtesans, flirted with girlfriends and dabbled in scholarship.

  He had lived, then, as a man of good breeding should. From the warnings Jarl had given him, he suspected life in Selzirk was going to be a shock to the system. But, he thought, forewarned is forearmed. Then realised Celadon was talking to him.

  '. . . which might be fun.'

  'What might be?' said Sarazin.

  Weren't you listening?' said Celadon.

  'Brother,' said Sarazin, 'your speech is so fair it warrants a second hearing.'

  Such graciousness would have won him instant pardon amongst the sophisticates of Voice. But Celadon spat, then muttered something uncomplimentary in incomprehensible Churl. They were not getting off to a good start.

  'I was talking,' said Celadon, as Peguero and Jarnel rode up alongside them, 'of the pleasures open to free men. It can't have been pleasant living as a prisoner.'

  'It's been a tolerable life,' said Sarazin, diplomat enough not to confess that he wished himself a captive
still. Tve had my studies, my sword-work, my poetry.'

  'Poetry?' said Celadon. 'Dry stuff, dry stuff! The soldiering life, that's the thing!'

  You speak of war?' said Sarazin.

  'Oh, a little hand-to-hand is fun on occasion,' said Celadon. 'But a little's enough for a lifetime, thank you very much. It's the career which matters.'

  In fantasy, Sarazin had oft imagined winning glory with his sword. Leading armies into battle. Raising his standard on fields of victory. If he was fated to war, he was sure he would love it. And would do brilliantly. But to be a professional soldier in peacetime? That, surely, was a dull, narrow life.

  'Pray tell the merits of this . . . this career,' said Sarazin. 'Comradeship,' said Celadon, without a moment's hesitation.

  'He means,' said Jarnel, forgetting, in his enthusiasm, to speak Galish, 'we get together every night and get pissed as newts.'

  Pissed?' said Sarazin, struggling to make sense of Jarnel's Churl. 'Newts?'

  All three of his brothers laughed.

  'Drunk,' said Peguero. 'He means we get drunk.'

  'Oh,' said Sarazin. I've been drunk once or twice myself.'

  Well, when you join us in the army, you can get drunk every night of the year,' said Celadon.

  Why should I want to do that?' said Sarazin.

  It was an honest question which sought a straight- forward answer. But his brothers merely laughed.

  We'll take you to the recruiter as soon as we hit Selzirk,' said Peguero. You'll be bedded down in the cavalry barracks that very same night.'

  Sarazin hoped Peguero was joking. If by chance he spoke in earnest, then he was out of luck, for Sarazin had no desire whatsoever to join the army, having decided that what interested him was the governance of the Harvest Plains.

  Hi was Farfalla's son, and Farfalla was the kingmaker, therefore — why should he not aspire?

  Thus Sean Kelebes Sarazin met his brothers, departed from the cool and shady city of Voice (city of the thousand wines, the seven shades of laughter) and descended to the lowlands. Though it was but early summer, it proved uncommonly hot. The days were ruled by heat, dust and horseflies, while whining mosquitoes tormented fever- dreams by night.

  On the dusty coastal plain, they picked up the Salt Road and thereafter followed it north. They met Galish kafilas, and, for the first time he could remember, Sarazin saw (and smelt) camels. To his surprise, they did not walk like horses, but instead moved both the legs on one flank simultaneously.

  'Mammoths walk likewise,' said Jarl.

  'Mammoths?'

  'Beasts of the Cold West, like the elephants of Yestron, only with shaggy fur and greater tusks.'

  'Oh,' said Sarazin, all eloquence lost to him.

  In that time of bewilderment he saw and heard of many people, things and places all totally new to him. One such wonder was the blood-red battlements of Veda, ancient city of the sages. Epelthin Elkin spoke of miraculous artworks housed within — masterpieces by artists such as Aromsky, Keremansky and X-nox the Dissident.

  'Did you train within the walls of Veda, then?' said Jarl, curious about the old scholar's provenance.

  "My training began at my mother's knee,' said Elkin. 'She taught me certain basics of politeness entirely unknown to the Rovac'

  'I said nothing impolite!' said Jarl. "Not this time, anyway. Are you ashamed of your breeding?'

  'If you must know,' said Elkin. 'I was born a bastard on Burntos. My mother was a kitchen wench. I was fathered, I suppose, by a soldier of the Landguard. I was but five when my mother moved to Narba, where I was raised as a scholar.'

  'Your mother a skivvy, yet indulged you in scholarship?' said Jarl.

  'There's money in such in Narba,' said Elkin. The scholars are scribes, accountants and translators for traders dealing with peoples as various as Orfus pirates and the master of Hexagon.'

  Then, while Veda's walls slowly receded into the distance, Elkin bored them at length with details of his doings in Narba.

  As the free city of Veda lay by the shores of the Central Ocean on the border between the Rice Empire and the Harvest Plains, Sarazin was shortly in the motherland he had left at the age of four. It was low, dull, monotonous countryside, patchworked with fields worked by peasants from adobe villages.

  In Voice, in the foothills of the Ashun Mountains, Sarazin had ever had the heights in view. He missed them. He was depressed and oppressed by the flatness, heat, dust and fatigue of their travels, by the nagging friction between Jarl and Elkin, by his brothers' inane booze-talk and clumsy bawdry. He longed for cool water, mountain breezes, a plane tree's shade and the prospect of an evening of intelligent conversation and sophisticated dalliance.

  But dusk daily brought him the company of Thodric Jarl, who harassed him with questions.

  'How many leagues have we come today? How many watering holes did we pass? That Galish kafila going south — was it battle-ready? What was its fighting strength? How many men could you quarter in this village? How many could this village feed? For how long?'

  Nightly, Sarazin dreamt of dust, camels and muddy water holes; he woke every morning to regret the ever- increasing distance between himself and Voice.

  —Ah, Jaluba! Will I ever see you again?

  CHAPTER THREE

  It is 4324 years since wizards and heroes made their famous Alliance. In this time the continent Argan has seen: 1. The Long War, ending in the year 269 when the

  Alliance finally drove the monsters of the Swarms

  from Argan North;

  The building of the castle-guarded flame trench Drangsturm to protect Argan North against the Swarms;

  The Short War, ending in 374 when wizards defeated heroes and set themselves up as rulers of all of Argan North;

  The protracted power struggle which destroyed the Empire of Wizards, allowing smaller nations to arise in Argan.

  As they neared Selzirk, regrets gave way to excitement. Soon Sarazin would be in the city where, after dreaming about it for years, he would have at last a chance of real power. Powerful foes would oppose his rise to the rule of the Harvest Plains, but at least he was guaranteed support from his mother. For surely Farfalla would approve his ambition once she learnt of it. Surely she would not want power to die out of the family with her death. Surely not.

  By the time they reached the confluence of the Velvet River and the Shouda Flow, some seven days after passing Veda's bloodwalls, Sarazin was all eagerness. Just across the river lay the walls and towers of Selzirk the Fair, capital of the Harvest Plains, sovereign city of Argan's most powerful nation.

  Improvising a rite of homecoming, Sarazin dismounted, walked to the river's edge — sun-cracked mud crunkling beneath his feet — knelt, cupped water in his hands, then drank of the mud-flavoured fluid. Closed his eyes. Let hot sun beat upon his eyelids. Committed the moment to memory. Straightened up. Stood. Saw a corpse leisuring downstream, a gash-beak black crow as banquet-class passenger. And laughed with sudden joy, feeling his youth, his strength, his life.

  Again he scanned the riverdistant city, seeking land- marks. In the eastern (upriver) quarter rose an ancient wizard castle, now Farfalla's palace. Nine towers it had.

  Those of the eight orders of wizards were sealed against trespass by magic, but the gatehouse keep, an extra- ordinary tower soaring seventy storeys skywards, was at Farfalla's disposal. He could also see the High Court, a modern building (a mere three hundred years old) rising clear of the palace battlements (which were, if he remem- bered his lessons correctly, some four storeys high).

  Sarazin smiled, then walked back to his horse. Then noticed his brothers staring at him. But it was Lod of Chenameg who spoke.

  'It was nice knowing you, Sarazin my friend, but I fear I'll know you no longer. To drink from the Velvet River means certain death by nightfall.'

  'Gahl' said Sarazin, in a rare display of perfect idiomatic Churl.

  But his brothers chaffed him about his recklessness until it was time to board the slave
-powered ferry for the trip north to the city of his destiny. Once aboard, Sarazin did not sit. It was too crowded, there were no seats — and his buttocks were raw from the saddle. Padded with greasy raw wool he had managed to ride — but only just.

  Lod continued to josh him about drinking riverwater. Had he really made a bad mistake? He thought to ask Jarl about it — but Jarl had vanished. Sarazin, desolated, feared him gone for good. Thus it happens in legend. The old swordmaster trains the youth who is fated to dare all on a perilous quest for power or treasure. Then the master dies, retires or vanishes, leaving youth to battle unaided against the evil wizard, the red dragon, the pit of claws, the halfelven enemy or whatever it is.

  Momentarily, Sarazin was half-convinced he had indeed embarked on a life of legend. After all, he had always known he was meant for great things. But, as he realised in a moment of utter panic, he was far from ready to dare such a destiny unaided.

  Thodric Jarl, hemmed in by horses, heaped baggage and a rabble of peasants, dourly pondered Sarazin's chances. Jarl's good advice, thrice repeated, might save him from a few of early manhood's egregious errors. But Selzirk's politics would probably prove lethal.

  While Sarazin lived, Jarl had an easy living. He would draw a spy's pay from the Rice Empire, and might win some position in Selzirk itself. But when the boy died? He'd manage, but... he was getting too old for new cities, new languages, new beginnings. At age forty-five — yesterday had been his birthday, and, while he had mentioned it to nobody, he was keeping count — he wanted to settle down. He had seen all, had done all, and had been everywhere. Long ago.