Читать книгу Polgara the Sorceress - David Eddings - Страница 18

Mother was no longer with me. I felt a terrible vacancy as I clung to my dead sister, weeping and screaming out my grief. The center of my world was gone, and all of the rest of it collapsed inward.

I have very little memory of what happened during the rest of that dreadful night. I think that people came into my sister’s room, but I didn’t even recognize their faces. There was weeping, I’m fairly sure of that, but I really can’t be certain.

And then Arell was there, solid, dependable, a rock I could cling to. She held me in her arms, rocking me back and forth until someone – Argak, I think – handed her a cup. ‘Drink this, Pol,’ she instructed, holding the cup to my lips.

It was bitter, and I momentarily thought that it might be poison. What a perfect solution. All the pain would go away now. I drank eagerly, and my weeping gradually subsided as I sank down into blank oblivion in Arell’s arms.

I was in my own bed when I awoke, and I can’t really say how much time had passed. Arell sat at my bedside, and I vaguely noticed that the windows had been barred while I slept. ‘Your father’s here, Pol,’ Arell told me when my eyes opened.

‘How nice of him to take the trouble,’ I replied bitterly. Arell had not poisoned me, and I felt somehow betrayed by that fact.

‘That’s about enough of that, Polgara.’ Arell’s tone was crisp. ‘People die. It happens. This isn’t the time for accusations or recriminations. The death of a loved one can either tear a family apart or it can bind the survivors closer together. Which do you want it to be, Pol?’ Then she stood up, smoothing the front of her grey dress. ‘Don’t go looking for anything sharp, dear. I’ve had your room purged of everything with an edge, and stay away from the windows. Now get dressed, wash your face in cold water, and comb your hair. You’re a mess.’ Then she left, and I got out of bed to lock the door behind her.

It was evening again, though I couldn’t tell you what day it was, and father came knocking at my door. ‘It’s me, Pol. Open up.’

‘Go away,’ I told him.

‘Open the door, Pol. I need to talk to you.’

‘Get away from me, father.’ Even as I said it, I knew that it was more than a little silly. No lock in this world will keep my father out if he really wants in. I gave up and opened the door.

He was all business, though his face was bleak. He bluntly reminded me that our overriding responsibility now was the Rivan line. Riva himself was totally incapacitated by his grief, and somebody had to assume his duties – both as king and as the guardian of the Orb. Daran was only twenty, but he was Riva’s heir and therefore the only possible choice. ‘The Angaraks have eyes everywhere, Pol,’ father reminded me, ‘and if there’s any sign of weakness here, you can expect a visit from Ctuchik – or maybe even from Torak himself.’

That brought me up short. I pushed my grief and desolation back. ‘What do we do?’

‘You’re going to pull yourself together and take charge here. I’m putting Daran into your hands. I’ve talked with Brand, and he fully understands the situation. He’ll help you as much as he can, but the ultimate responsibility’s still yours. Don’t fail me, Pol. I’ll take you to Brand’s quarters. He’s talking with Daran there right now. They’re Alorns, Pol, so keep a tight rein on them.’

‘You’ll be here, won’t you?’

‘No. I have to leave.’

‘You’re not even going to stay for the funeral?’ That shocked me for some reason. Father’s always been a bit informal, but –

‘I’ve got the funeral in my heart, Pol, and no amount of ceremony or preaching by some tiresome priest is going to make it go away.’

It was only an off-hand remark, but it reminded me that I had a score to settle with a certain priest of Belar. If Elthek, the Rivan Deacon, hadn’t pretended to be so hysterically afraid of witchcraft, my sister might have received proper medical attention soon enough to save her life. A desire for revenge isn’t really very admirable, but it does tend to stiffen one’s back in the face of sorrow. Now I had two reasons to get hold of myself – Elthek and Ctuchik. I had enemies on both sides of the theological fence.

Father took me to Kamion’s book-lined study, and then he left us.

There are precedents for a regency,’ Kamion told my sorrowing nephew and me, ‘quite a few, actually. The fact that a man’s a king doesn’t automatically exempt him from ordinary human incapacity.’

‘Lord Brand,’ Daran objected, ‘the people won’t accept me as their ruler. I’m too young.’

‘Your father was even younger than you are when he established the kingdom, Daran,’ I reminded him.

‘But he had the Orb, Aunt Pol.’

‘Right. And now you have it.’

He blinked. ‘Nobody but father can touch the Orb.’

I smiled at him. I suppose it was a sad smile, but the fact that I could do it at all surprised me. ‘Daran,’ I said, ‘your father put your hand on the Orb before you were twenty-four hours old. It knows who you are.’

‘Could he take the sword down off the wall?’ Kamion asked me intently.

‘I’m not entirely positive. I’ll look into it.’

That would give his Highness’ regency a visible sign of legitimacy and head off objections from any quarter.’

‘I think I’m getting a glimmer of an idea here, gentlemen,’ I told them. ‘I’ll have to speak with my Master about it – and with Riva himself – but if I’m right, there won’t be any objections to Daran’s regency from anyone.’

‘And then I can deal with the Rivan Deacon,’ Daran said, his young face hardening.

‘Would you care to define “deal with”, your Highness?’ Kamion asked politely.

‘I haven’t entirely decided yet, Lord Brand. I’m torn between running a sword into his belly and twisting it or burning him at the stake. Which do you prefer, Aunt Pol?’

Alorns! ‘Let’s get your authority firmly established before the blood-bath, Daran,’ I suggested. ‘Let Elthek worry for a while before you run your sword into him or start using him for firewood. We have other things to take care of first.’

‘I guess you’re right, Aunt Pol,’ he conceded. ‘Do you have the authority to close the harbor, Lord Brand?’

‘I suppose so, your Highness,’ Kamion replied, ‘but why?’

‘This is an island, Lord Brand. If we close the harbor, Elthek can’t get away from me.’

‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed.

It was much later when I was alone in my chambers that I was finally able to reach out with my mind. ‘Mother, I need you.’ Then I waited, growing more apprehensive by the moment.

‘Yes, Pol?’ Her voice was filled with fathomless sorrow.

‘Can Daran take up his father’s sword?’

‘Of course he can, Pol.’

‘And will the sword respond to him in the same way it responds to Riva?’

‘Naturally. What’s this all about, Pol?’

‘Alorn politics, mother. Riva can’t function just now, so Daran’s going to have to rule the Isle until his father recovers. I want to head off any arguments before they even get started.’

‘Don’t overdo things, Pol.’

‘Of course not, mother.’

It’s always been my opinion that funerals should be private affairs for just the immediate family, but my sister had been the queen of the Rivans, and that called for a state funeral.

The Rivan Deacon will officiate, of course,’ Kamion advised my nephew and me. ‘It’s unfortunate, but – ’

‘No. He won’t,’ Daran said firmly.

‘Your Highness?’

‘Elthek killed my mother. If he even comes near the funeral, I’ll chop him all to pieces. There’s a chaplain here in the Citadel. He’ll officiate.’

‘That’s your Highness’s final word on the matter?’

‘It is, Lord Brand.’ Then Daran stormed away.

‘I’ll talk to him, Kamion,’ I said quietly. ‘The Deacon won’t officiate, but I do want him to be present. Something’s going to happen that I want him to see.’

‘Secrets, Pol?’

‘Just a little surprise, old friend. I’m going to make the transfer of power very visible.’

Elthek was offended, naturally, but Kamion was smooth enough to unruffle his feathers, using such terms as ‘personal spiritual advisor’, and ‘the wishes of the immediate family’.

The formal funeral was conducted in the Hall of the Rivan King, and my sister’s bier was directly in front of the throne where Riva, sunk in bottomless melancholy, sat brooding over his wife’s pale body.

The priest who officiated was a gentle, kindly old man who was clearly not a Cultist. He gave us what comfort he could, but I doubt that any of us heard much of what he said. Elthek, the Rivan Deacon, sat near the front of the Hall, his face filled with injured pride. He was a tall, thin man with burning eyes and a grey-shot beard that reached almost to his waist. At one point during the family chaplain’s sermon, I caught Elthek glaring at me, and then his face twisted into a smirk that said volumes. He seemed almost delighted that I’d failed to save my sister’s life. He came very close to joining Belar out among the stars at that point.

Beldaran was interred in a hastily prepared royal mausoleum at the end of a long hallway inside the Citadel, and Riva wept openly as the heavy stone lid of the crypt slid gratingly over her. Then Kamion and I escorted him back to the Hall. I’d spoken with my distraught brother-in-law for a time just before the funeral, so he knew exactly what to do. ‘My friends,’ he addressed the assembled nobles and clergy, ‘I will be going into seclusion for some time. The kingdom will be secure, however.’ He went to his throne, reached up, and took his huge sword down from the wall. As it always did when he took it in his hand, the sword burst into blue fire, but it appeared that even the Orb grieved for my sister because the fire seemed to me to be a bit subdued. The grieving king turned to face the assemblage, holding the flaming symbol of his authority aloft.

There was an absolute, almost fearful silence among the mourners. ‘My son, Prince Daran, will stand in my stead,’ Riva declared in tones that clearly brooked no opposition. ‘You will obey him even as you would obey me.’ Then he switched the sword around in those huge hands, taking it by its fiery blade and extending the hilt to Daran. ‘Thus I transfer all power to my son!’ he boomed.

Somewhere a bell started to ring, a deep-toned sound that seemed to shake the very stones around us. I knew with absolute certainty that no bell on the Isle was large enough to make that sound. Daran reverently took the sword from his father and raised it above his head. The fire of the Orb burst forth, running up that massive blade and enveloping the young prince in a sort of nimbus of blue light.

‘All hail Daran!’ Kamion commanded in a great voice, ‘Regent of the Isle of the Winds!’

‘Hail Daran!’ the crowd echoed.

Elthek’s face was pale with fury and his hands were trembling. He obviously hadn’t even considered the possibility of a regency, and certainly not a regency so supernaturally accepted. Clearly, he’d assumed that the grief-stricken Riva would try to continue to perform the duties of the throne, and a situation like that would have been almost made to order for the Rivan Deacon’s gradual usurpation of power. Kamion would have been shunted off to one side, and Elthek, speaking for the distraught Riva, would have insinuated himself into a position of unassailable authority. The blazing sword of the Rivan King in the hands of Daran effectively cut off Elthek’s path to power, and the Deacon was clearly unhappy about it. I managed to catch his eye, and just to rub it in a bit, I returned his smirk.

Riva, as he’d announced, went into seclusion, and Daran, Kamion and I took over the reins of government. Daran flatly – and wisely, I think – refused to sit on his father’s throne, but presided instead from a plain chair placed behind a common table piled high with the documents which are the curse of every ruler in the world.

I discovered that winter and early spring just how tedious affairs of state can really be, and I marveled at the hunger some men have for a throne – any throne. Alorns are basically an informal people, and an Alorn king is usually nothing more than a glorified clan-chief who’s readily accessible to any of his subjects. That’s fine outside in the open, I suppose, but once the business of running a kingdom moves indoors, problems start to crop up. The formal setting of a throne room calls for formal speeches, and this unfortunately brings out the worst in some people. Oratory, however grand, is really nothing more than a way for a pompous man to stand up and in effect say, ‘Look at me,’ and most of the ‘petitions to the throne’ Daran was forced to endure were pure nonsense.

‘Must they go on and on like that?’ Daran complained one rainy evening after we’d closed up shop for the day.

‘It’s just a way of showing off, your Highness,’ Kamion explained.

‘I can see them, Kamion,’ Daran said. ‘They don’t have to wave their arms and make speeches. Can’t we do something to cut all this nonsense short?’

‘You could shorten your work-day, dear,’ I suggested.

‘What?’

‘You could hold court for an hour every morning and then pack up and go back to your office. The fact that others are waiting in line and time is limited might encourage those orators to get to the point.’ Then another idea came to me. ‘Or, you could require each speaker to hold an iron rod in his hand while he’s talking.’

‘What good would that do?’

I smiled. ‘I’ll just gradually heat the rod until it’s white-hot, Daran. I think the speaker might hurry right along once his hand starts to smoke.’

‘I like that one,’ Daran said.

‘Unfortunately, it smacks of witchcraft,’ Kamion observed, ‘and Elthek might want to make an issue of it. I think we can come up with something else.’

What Kamion devised positively reeked of genius. The next morning a portly baron was reading aloud – badly – from a prepared text presenting all sorts of reasons why he should be exempt from certain provisions of the tax-code.

‘I think I’ve come up with the answer to our problem,’ Kamion murmured to Daran and me. He strolled to the edge of the dais, stepped down and casually approached the speaker. ‘May I see that, old boy?’ he asked politely, holding his hand out for the sheaf of paper in the baron’s hand. Then he firmly took the document from the startled noble and glanced at it. ‘Very interesting,’ he said. ‘His Highness will consider it and let you know what his decision is in a month or so.’

‘But – ’ the baron began to protest.

‘The matter will receive the Prince Regent’s full attention, old boy. Was there anything else?’

The baron began to splutter.

Kamion looked around. ‘Ah, corporal of the guard,’ he said to one of the soldiers at the door.

‘Yes, my Lord Brand?’

‘Could you find me a bushel basket somewhere?’

‘I think so, my Lord.’

‘Do be a good fellow and see what you can turn up.’

‘Of course.’

Kamion returned to the dais and then faced the assemblage. ‘One of the problems his Highness has been encountering lies in the fact that the finer points of many of your petitions are glossed over when you present them to the throne aloud, gentlemen, and what you have to say deserves better than that. As soon as the good corporal returns with that basket, he’ll pass among you and you can deposit your petitions in the basket. That way, you’ll all be able to go about your business without wasting time waiting for your turn to speak. Think of all the hours you’ll save that way, and all the important things you’ll be able to accomplish.’

They gaped at him. I knew for a fact that most of these nobles didn’t have anything better to do. The hours spent in the throne room were their only reason for existence.

Then the corporal returned with the basket and, at Kamion’s instruction, passed among the throng to receive all the laboriously prepared petitions, which were reluctantly surrendered.

‘Excellent, gentlemen!’ Kamion said. ‘Capital! Now, why don’t we all go back to work?’ He glanced at the window. ‘Pity it’s raining,’ he noted. ‘If it weren’t, we could all go fishing. Shall we adjourn?’

Daran rose from his chair, and Kamion and I followed him from the hall.

‘You haven’t really done me any favors, Kamion,’ Daran complained when we reached our impromptu office. ‘Now I have to read all that idiocy.’

‘It won’t take very long, your Highness,’ Kamion assured him. He went to the fireplace and dumped the contents of the basket into the flames. ‘Oops,’ he said. ‘How clumsy of me.’

Daran and I collapsed in helpless laughter.

In many respects, I think it was Kamion’s urbane and civilized manner that helped me through the difficult time after Beldaran’s death. He was very wise, absolutely loyal, and he had a charm about him that made everything he touched go smoothly. I knew his wife quite well – well enough to know that although she wasn’t happy about the way his duties kept him away from her, she understood that his position required him to spend long hours with Daran and me. There was never anything improper about the relationship between Kamion and me, but had our situation been different –

Well, there’s no need to go into that, is there?

It was early in the summer of the year 2038 that something came up that was far more serious than long-winded petitions to the throne sententiously delivered. Although the coast-line of the Isle of the Winds looks barren and hostile, the interior valleys are often lush and fertile – particularly in the southern part of the island. Rank among the Alorns was – still is, probably – based on the ownership of land suitable for agriculture, and those southern valleys are highly coveted. There was a Baron Garhein, a typical Alorn bully, who lived down there, and he had a son, Karak, who, as it turned out, was a drunken brute. Their neighbor, Baron Altor, had a daughter, Cellan, who was a beautiful, gentle, and cultured girl. After extensive haggling, Garhein and Altor arranged a marriage between their children, and the arrangements involved a dowry of land.

It was not a happy union. Karak came to the bridal chamber roaring drunk and forced his attentions on Cellan in the most brutal way imaginable. Things went downhill from there. Karak turned out to be a wife-beater, among other things, and word of this got back to Altor, who mounted an expedition to rescue his daughter. There were quite a few casualties on both sides, but Altor succeeded in taking his daughter home again. Then he declared the marriage null and void and took back the dowry. Garhein went up in flames – not so much about the wrecked marriage but rather about the loss of the land. The feud between the two began to expand as cousins, uncles, nephews, and the like enlisted on one side or the other. Solitary ploughmen were butchered, and crops and houses were burned.

Word of all this eventually reached the Citadel, and Daran, Kamion and I gathered in Kamion’s book-lined study to consider options.

‘They’re both very powerful men,’ Kamion told us gravely, ‘and they both have extended families. We’re going to have to take steps, or we’ll have another Arendia on our hands.’

‘Can a marriage actually be dissolved like that?’ Daran asked.

‘There are arguments on both sides about that, your Highness,’ Kamion replied. ‘In most cases, it depends on the relative power of the two fathers. If the husband’s father is the more powerful, the wife’s considered to be property. If it’s the other way around, she isn’t.’

Daran frowned. ‘Have I got a big enough army to go down there and force a settlement on those two hot-heads?’

‘I’d hold that in reserve, your Highness. Let’s try talking to them first. A general mobilization probably wouldn’t hurt, though. It’d be a demonstration of the fact that you aren’t happy about the situation.’

‘What shape is the treasury in, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked me. ‘Can I afford a general mobilization?’

‘I suppose so – if you don’t drag it out too long.’ Then an idea came to me. ‘Why don’t we hold a tournament instead?’

‘I’m sorry, Aunt Pol, but I didn’t understand that.’

‘It’s an Arendish custom, your Highness,’ Kamion explained. ‘It’s a sort of military contest involving archery contests, mock sword-fights, axe throwing, jousting matches – that sort of thing.’

‘What’s jousting?’

‘Two armored men try to knock each other off the backs of their horses with twenty-foot lances.’

‘What a peculiar notion.’

‘We could probably skip over that part,’ Kamion said. ‘Alorns don’t usually fight on horseback.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s really a very good idea, Pol. It’d give Garhein and Altor an idea of just how much force the throne can muster, and the nobles would have to pay their own way. We make our point without emptying out the treasury.’

‘What if nobody comes?’ Daran fretted.

‘They’ll come, dear,’ I assured him. ‘It’s a chance to show off. The planting’s all done now, so there’s nothing really very pressing to keep people away. It’ll be an honor to be invited, so we can be fairly sure that every nobleman on the Isle will put in an appearance.’

‘Including Garhein and Altor?’

‘Exactly. We can summon them to the Citadel during the festivities. They’ll already be here in the city anyway, so they won’t be able to refuse.’

And we can make an object lesson of them,’ Kamion added. ‘There are other little disputes festering on various parts of the Isle. If you come down hard on Garhein and Altor, other nobles should get the point.’

‘That might be just a bit optimistic, Kamion,’ I suggested. ‘We are talking about Alorns, after all.’

The invitations to the games went out, and the City of Riva was teeming with burly Alorns when Altor and Garhein arrived. The fact that almost every able-bodied man on the Isle had responded to the Prince Regent’s invitation wasn’t lost on them. The regency wasn’t yet a year old, but Daran’s authority was already well-established. We gave the two feuding barons a bit of time to absorb that, and then Daran summoned them to the Citadel. The meeting was held in the throne room where all the symbols of power were much in evidence.

I’ll state candidly here that my sympathies were wholly on the side of Baron Altor and his daughter in the light of Karak’s open brutality, but I’ll have to admit that the differences between Garhein and Altor were very slight. Both of them were big, burly, bearded, and not very bright. They wore chain mail shirts, but no swords, since Kamion had prudently decided to have everyone who entered the throne room disarmed at the door. Garhein had rusty-colored hair that stuck out in all directions, while Altor had greased-down black hair that looked much like a wet horsetail streaming down his back. Though it was early in the day, the brutish Karak was already drunk. He was a flabby young man with a sparse beard and unkempt hair, and I could smell him from half-way across the throne room. Altor’s daughter, Cellan, was the only one of the group to appear even remotely civilized. She was pretty, in a blonde, busty, Alorn sort of way, but her blue eyes were every bit as hard as her father’s.

The feuding families had been prudently seated on opposite sides of the Hall of the Rivan King. Word of the meeting had spread, and the hall was filled with curious onlookers.

Daran, Kamion and I’d had plenty of time to lay out exactly what we were going to do, so the entire event was carefully staged. The palace guard had been turned out, of course, and armed, hulking soldiers in mail shirts lined the walls just to make sure that there wouldn’t be any interruptions or surprises. We’d had Daran’s chair and table removed from the dais, so when we entered the packed hall, my nephew went directly to his father’s throne and sat down.

That caused quite a stir.

‘All right, then,’ Daran said crisply, ‘let’s get down to business here.’ There was a no-nonsense tone in his voice indicating that he was fully in charge. ‘My father’s distressed by certain things that’ve been happening on the southern end of the Isle, and we don’t want to upset him any further, do we?’ He leaned forward. ‘My Lord Barons Garhein and Altor, come here.’ He pointed imperiously at a spot directly in front of the dais.

The two warring hot-heads approached warily.

‘I’m going to put a stop to all this nonsense right here and now,’ my sandy-haired nephew informed them. The next one of you who breaks the king’s peace had better start packing, because he’ll be moving immediately to the northern end of the Isle.’

‘Your Highness!’ Garhein protested. ‘It’s all rock up there! Nobody can live on the northern end of the Isle!’

‘If you draw your sword one more time, Garhein, you’ll get a chance to try. You could probably raise goats. Goats eat almost anything.’

Garhein’s son Karak lurched to his feet. ‘You can’t do that!’ he bellowed at Daran in a drunken voice.

‘Can you sober this fool up, Aunt Pol?’ Daran asked me.

‘Of course,’ I replied.

‘Would you, please?’

We’d been fairly certain that the beer-soaked Karak would interrupt at some point in the proceedings, so I was fully prepared.

Daran had already demonstrated his power. Now it was my turn. The fact that Elthek, the Rivan Deacon, was in attendance made my performance a bit excessive, I’ll admit. Daran, Kamion and I were spreading object lessons in all directions that day. ‘Bring that drunkard here,’ I instructed the huge Master of the Guard.

‘At once, Lady Polgara,’ the vastly bearded soldier replied. He bulled his way through the startled crowd, grasped Karak by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to the front of the Hall.

I held out my hand, snapped my fingers and willed a tankard to be there. Then I took a glass vial from my sleeve and poured the contents into the tankard. I raised the oversized cup and said, ‘Beer.’ There was an absolute silence in the Hall, so the sound of the stream of foamy, amber beer pouring out of empty air above the tankard was clearly audible. I glanced at Elthek and noted with some satisfaction that his eyes were bulging and his mouth gaped open. People who pretend to perform magic are always very startled when they encounter the real thing. Then I advanced on the cringing, smelly Karak. ‘Now be a good boy and drink this,’ I instructed.

He looked at the tankard as if it were a snake and put both his hands behind his back.

‘Make him drink it, Sergeant,’ Daran instructed the Master of the Guard.

‘My pleasure, your Highness,’ the big soldier replied. He roughly seized one of the drunkard’s hands and interlaced his fingers with Karak’s. ‘Drink it!’ he thundered.

Karak struggled weakly.

Then the soldier began to squeeze – slowly. The sergeant had shoulders like an ox and hands the size of hams. He probably could have made a rock bleed just by squeezing it.

Karak rose up on his tiptoes, squealing like a pig.

‘Drink it!’ the Sergeant repeated.

‘Your Highness!’ Garhein protested.

‘Shut up!’ Daran snapped. ‘You people will learn to do as I tell you!’

The sergeant continued to squeeze Karak’s hand in that overpowering grip of his, and the drunkard finally snatched the tankard from my hand and noisily drank it.

‘Ah, Sergeant,’ I said to the soldier, ‘I expect that our young friend here might start feeling unwell in a few moments. Why don’t you take him over near the wall so he doesn’t splash all over everybody?’

The sergeant grinned broadly and dragged Karak off to one side where the sodden young man became noisily ill.

‘Lady Cellan,’ Daran said then, ‘would you be so good as to approach the throne for a moment?’

Cellan obediently, though a little hesitantly, came to the dais.

‘Do you wish to return to your husband?’ Daran asked.

‘Never!’ she burst out. ‘I’ll kill myself first! He beats me, your Highness. Every time he gets drunk – which is every day – he takes his fists to me.’

‘I see.’ Daran’s face hardened. ‘No decent man ever hits a woman,’ he declared, ‘so, by order of the throne, the marriage of Karak and Cellan is hereby dissolved.’

‘You can’t do that!’ Garhein roared. ‘It’s a woman’s duty to submit to her husband’s chastisement when she misbehaves.’

‘It’s also a nobleman’s duty to submit to chastisement from the throne when he misbehaves,’ Kamion advised him. ‘You’re pressing your luck, Baron Garhein.’

‘Now we come to the question of the ownership of that parcel of land,’ Daran said.

‘The land is mine!’ Garhein bellowed.

‘It’s mine!’ Altor countered. ‘It reverted to me entirely when his Highness dissolved the marriage.’

‘Actually, dear chaps,’ Kamion said smoothly, ‘the land belongs to the crown. The entire island does. You hold all your land in trust – at the crown’s pleasure.’

‘We could probably argue the fine points of the law for weeks,’ Daran said, ‘but legal arguments are very boring, so, in order to save time – and bloodshed – we’ll simply divide that disputed parcel of land right down the middle. Half goes to Baron Garhein, and Half to Baron Altor.’

‘Unthinkable!’ Garhein protested.

‘Start thinking about goats then, Garhein, or landless vagabondage. You will do as I tell you to do.’ Then my nephew’s eyes narrowed. ‘Now, just to keep you two and your assorted partisans and kinsmen out of mischief, you’re going to build a fifteen-foot wall right down the middle of that parcel of land. It’ll give you something to do, and it’ll keep you away from each other. I want to see a lot of progress on that wall, gentlemen, and I want to see both of you out there carrying rocks, too. You’re not going to just pass this off to your underlings.’

‘That’s twenty miles, your Highness!’ Altor gasped.

‘Is that all? You should be able to finish up in a decade or two, then. I want you to go to opposite ends and start building. I’ll have the sergeant here mark the exact center and you can think of it as a race. I might even let the winner keep his head as a prize. Lord Brand knows the name of every one of your partisans, and they’ll be joining you in your great work – either willingly or in chains. Have I made myself clear?’

They glowered at him, but wisely chose not to say anything.

‘I’d suspect that you gentlemen aren’t going to be popular among your kinsmen,’ Kamion noted. ‘I suggest that you wear mail shirts during the construction – just as a precaution.’

‘Now we come to that sick fellow over in the corner,’ Daran said, rising from his father’s throne rather grimly.

By now Karak had pretty much emptied his stomach of everything he’d eaten or drunk for the past several weeks. He was pale and trembling violently when the hulking sergeant dragged him back to the dais.

‘Decent men don’t beat their wives, Karak,’ Daran said, ‘so I’m going to teach you decency right here and now.’ He reached behind the throne and picked up a long, limber whip.

‘You can’t!’ Garhein almost screamed. ‘My son’s a nobleman!’

‘You and I seem to have conflicting definitions of nobility, Garhein,’ Daran told him. ‘Since this sodden beast is your son, though, I’ll defer to you in the matter. I’m either going to flog him or chop off both his hands. Take your pick.’

‘Behanding him would keep him from hitting women, your Highness,’ Kamion noted clinically, ‘and it might cut down on his drinking, too – unless he’d like to lap his beer out of a bowl like a dog.’

‘Good point, Lord Brand,’ Daran noted. He reached up and took down his father’s sword, which leaped joyously into bright blue flame. ‘Well, Garhein?’ he said, ‘which is it going to be?’ He held out the flaming sword in one hand and the whip in the other.

Garhein gaped at him.

‘Answer me!’ Daran roared.

‘Th-the whip, your Highness,’ Garhein stammered.

‘Wise choice,’ Kamion murmured. ‘Having a son and heir without any hands could be so demeaning.’

Then the Master of the Guard, who’d obviously already been instructed upon what to do, ripped off Karak’s doublet, kicked his feet out from under him and seized him by one ankle. ‘Just to keep him from crawling under the furniture, your Highness,’ he explained, firmly planting his foot on Karak’s other ankle.

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ Daran said. Then he hung the sword back up, let his cloak fall to the floor, removed his doublet, and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Pushing right along then,’ he said and proceeded to flog the screaming, squirming drunkard to within an inch of his life. Cellan, I noticed, loved every minute of it. Alorns are such a simple, uncomplicated people at times.

After Daran had finished, he tossed his whip down and picked up his clothes again. ‘I think that concludes our business here for the day, my friends,’ he announced to the shocked assemblage. ‘If I remember correctly, the archery contest begins this afternoon. I might even shoot off a quiver of arrows myself. I’ll see you all there, then.’

After the three of us had returned to Kamion’s study, I put it to the two of them directly. ‘You had that flogging all planned in advance, didn’t you?’

‘Of course, Aunt Pol,’ Daran grinned at me.

‘Without consulting me?’

‘We didn’t want to upset you, Pol,’ Kamion said smoothly. ‘Did you really find it too offensive?’

I pretended to consider it. ‘Not really,’ I conceded. ‘Considering Karak’s behavior, it was more or less appropriate.’

‘We talked about some alternatives,’ Kamion said. ‘I thought it might be sort of nice if I called that beer-soaked bully out, gave him a sword and then chopped him to pieces, but his Highness decided that might upset you, so we settled for the flogging instead – less messy, you understand.’

‘And the threat to chop off his hands?’

‘I just made that up on the spur of the moment, Aunt Pol,’ Daran admitted. ‘I think it might have gotten my point about wife-beating across, though.’ Then he snapped his fingers. ‘Why don’t we enter that in the criminal code, Kamion?’

‘You’re a barbarian, Daran,’ I accused him.

‘No, Aunt Pol, I’m an Alorn. I know my people, and I know what frightens them. I don’t want to rule by terror, but I do want other Rivans to understand that things can get very nasty if they do something that I don’t like, and I really don’t like wife-beating.’ He leaned back in his chair and looked speculatively out the window at the bright sunny day. ‘That’s really at the center of all power, Aunt Pol,’ he mused. ‘We can try to act civilized and polite, but at the bottom of it all, the power of any ruler is based on a threat. Fortunately, we don’t have to carry that threat out too often. If I’d known I was going to have to be a savage to sit in my father’s place, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’d still be running, and neither you nor grandfather would ever have been able to find me.’

I was so proud of him at that point that I almost exploded.

News of Daran’s handling of the feud between Garhein and Altor spread far and wide throughout the Isle, and the Rivans began to look at their youthful Prince Regent with a new respect. Daran was working out just fine.