Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:23:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Kris Gibbons Subject: SongSpell 41 This story is a work of fiction. It contains references to both sexual and violent behaviour, along with expressions of physical affection. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny. This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived onto any other site without the direct consent of the author. I do not know how well-received these chapters are. The only clues I get are in emails from readers. Do you like the story? Hate it? Think Evendal should take a vow of silence? Hope I have written other works? Let me know. I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com Special thanks to Rob for editing. Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons. All rights reserved by the author. 41 Peevish Opposition It shows a will most incorrect to heaven; A heart unfortified, a mind impatient; An understanding simple and unschool'd: For what we know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we, in our peevish opposition, Take it to heart? Hamlet Act I, Scene ii, lines 95-101 Having not eaten since the night before, Karondeo felt no hesitation when the woman brought in the food. Almost everything tasted delicious, although he had yet to resign himself to honey on any kind of vegetable. During his second helping, feeling several eyes on him as he ate, he sought to divert attention along the mostly silent table. "So many unanswerables whirl in my head, but bear with me and let me rescue coherent questions from their maelstrom. Clearly much has happened since I fled six years ago. Would it be too onerous a labour for you gentle folk to slake my thirst for clarity?" "What would you?" Drussilikh asked. Karondeo did not say what he most wanted: Malismogh still free of the Throne and at his side on the Swan Song. "Lady Melianth, I feel that I and my father offended against you most directly. How did you fare after I fled? How came you to accept my father's mercenary courtship?" She was, after all, the point from which all else had followed, for him. The woman nattered on about his father being in a foul humour after he had left -- which came as no surprise - and that she, Shenrowyn, and Alekrond had conspired. Then Karondeo heard, "I insisted that your father attend Court...", which sounded like either self-delusion on her part or an indirect way to murder Alekrond. Karondeo held both hands up to interject. "But the sandcrabs(254) hate us! They fear us only slightly less than plague. The Court must have made Polgern's life miserable over that guesting." Melianth referred to the Court as 'a conclave of merchants who fear the introduction of any rival' -- an opinion he himself had long held -- and then explained how Polgern had issued an edict that had guaranteed Alekrond and his seamen welcome and liberties throughout the Thronelands. Polgern had supposedly made this an arrangement in perpetuity. She spoke naively, as if Polgern would have felt bound by such an agreement. Polgern had also issued her an ultimatum: give over the office into his hands or marry the 'lawless' corsair. He granted Melianth procuracy of the Counsellorship and she agreed to the marriage, provided she was granted a proper courtship. During the delay Shenrowyn, Melianth, and Alekrond stocked Ddronthys Island for possible siege, and slipped all of their confederates and friends off the mainland. The whole situation reeked of Alekrond's tendency for excess and exaggeration. It made no sense to Karondeo that Melianth would invest her future survival in the slippery old salt. "You make it sound as though you had no qualms at all in wedding my father." "Qualms? I had plenty. But during that courtship your father treated me well. And showed my father every respect." That assertion surprised Karondeo, but not as much as her next. "Were I to compare his manner to anything... he dealt with me, at first, just as a father would his daughter: forgiving of my ignorance, gentle with my worries, cordial but not overly familiar." That did not sound like his father at all! Alekrond was well capable of kindness and affectionate display, but it was of a piece with his temperament: sudden, fierce, mercurial. Gentilesse was not a policy Alekrond had ever demonstrated around Karondeo. Melianth continued. "I learned, though he never said so outright, that he did not truly want another wife. He expected that I would be a burden on his heart and time, a fragile and sensitive bit of coloured glass." Karondeo recalled the first time he had demonstrated that same attitude toward Malismogh. "What I got, lad," Alekrond rumbled, "was a ride through the Straits of Pylaustwydd!(255) Bracing and perilous and the joy of my old age." Melianth smiled and rested her hand on Alekrond's. "While I got a man who knows how to love both a wench and a lady." This was almost too much for Karondeo. He had had a surfeit of the Kwo-edan sorghum being fed him in his father and stepmother's answers. It was not that he begrudged Alekrond happiness. But he had both hoped for and dreaded this reunion, well acquainted with his father's skill at rationalisation and self-delusion. "I am relieved at your felicity, Lady Melianth. Father, you know the root of my reluctance to wed any bride?" Alekrond nodded, sad-eyed. "If you had been forthright with me, we both would have been spared so much." Karondeo's own eyes bulged in affronted but not surprise. "Had I been forthright with you, I would not now be breathing! Shall I list the labels with which you grace everyone you despise? A spineless molly-boy! A brown-noser! A bolt-chewer!" The digits of both hands flailed out, punctuating each exclamation. "To everyone who will hear. And am I to place myself among those you so scorn? Offer myself up as the target for knife practise aboard your ships?" "You are not anything like that!" Alekrond bellowed in protest. Blithely avoiding hitting Edrionwytt, Karondeo stretched his arms out just above the table, fingers splayed, and all but shouted, "Do you think I would not have struggled to fashion myself to your much-trumpeted expectations?" Eyes fixed on Alekrond, he gestured obliquely toward his lap. "The women were comely, willing, and yet my bolt remained a piece of seaweed!" One hand rotated before him, like a wynch pulling out the words. "They were kind, cordial, and meant less to me than the men whose company I more honestly enjoyed. I am exactly 'like that', father." He thumped on his own chest with two fingers several times for emphasis. "Others may be able to take their pleasure without regard for gender, but not I. And so I left under my own sail, rather than wait for you to jettison me." His hand paused, pointing at Alekrond. "I would never..." "Father, in the time it takes two waves to slap against a ship!" Karondeo clapped his hands sharply for emphasis. "You did precisely that, nine years past, merely because I refused your demand! Do not tell me you would have stomached a man-loving heir!" Astonished and slightly dismayed at Karondeo's forceful manner, Kri-estaul watched as the young seaman waved his right hand, then again pointed an accusing finger at Alekrond. Evendal had noted the use of the slang 'sandcrab', a term he did not remember hearing before, but his attention wandered afterward. Karondeo's vigourous vituperation made no impact on the King until he felt his child press timourously against him. "What troubles you, my son?" "Is he unmanned, Papa?" Kri whispered, wide-eyed. Evendal considered. "Not any longer, I think. Karondeo is clearly a very direct man of enviable vitality. Not knowing why, I felt more troubled for him earlier when he spoke so carefully and gravely, for I expect that such is not his nature. Though fierce and vocal, there is no violence in him." Surn-meddil, eyeing the large-framed seaman, spoke up. "How can you know this? You have little to no memory of your time with him." The King countered, "But I know myself. I would not endure someone truly intemperate as friend or lover." "You seemed...distracted just now," Surn-meddil ventured. "I was?" Evendal grinned slightly. "Just enjoying a moment's concord." The King then turned his ear to the seamen's converse. "And now His Majesty is the man you love?" Alekrond sighed heavily. "With all my breaths," Karondeo asserted, not readily hushed or convinced of his father's conversion(256). "Male spouses of Hramal kings are permitted fewer freedoms than female, father, so you can expect no advantage from this bond Malismogh and I share. Do you still welcome your son wholeheartedly? Do I disappoint you now? Do you still reckon me a man of worth?" "Are you yet a man? In his eyes?" The Maritime Counsellor enquired levelly. "Is His Majesty then 'Queen' of Osedys?" Karondeo prepared to do battle, almost relieved. "Am I yet a man?" he repeated, and then wagged his index finger between himself and Evendal. "We are each other's man, each the mould of virility in the only eyes that matter. If your goal is offence, you labour too lightly toward it. Say on." Evendal noted the flush to Alekrond's granite mien and, against his natural reluctance, chose to intercede. "We think you might -- in this instance -- misjudge your father, beloved. Had his aim been for mischief, you alone would have made a more politick target. No. Master Alekrond asks for clarity, using the least offensive words with which he is familiar to discuss a topic with which he is unfamiliar." "No, Your Majesty," Karondeo replied in warning, waving a hand dismissively. "I have not misperceived the direction of my parent's argument. And so I will leave the exchange of snarls and drones to you two(257)." "We can guess at the thoughts plaguing you, Master Alekrond." Evendal grinned slightly, knowing -- without questioning his certainty -- that Alekrond was a man prone to meddling in the lives of those he cared about. "Which of us suffered what you fancy as the humiliation of submitting to the other? Was your son defamed? Did Karondeo act the pathic? Or did your liege? You harbour most honestly the old Nikraan, and of late Arkeddan, presumptions." "How else? How else am I to dress this offence? Either my King ceded his authority, discarding that which makes him sovereign. Or my son divested himself of his adulthood." "We do not see the matter so. Upon Guard Ierwbae and Guard Metthendoenn We rely, and they have proven worthy of Our trust and the authority We impart to them. Yet clearly one must submit to the other, so it is not relevant to their service, their repute, their character or glory which one enjoys the ascendancy." Alekrond shook his head. "The authority they exercise is not their own, and so not corrupted by their own weak..." The King regretted his intercession. "You ascribe to Our word, Our vassalage, qualities you would account ludicrous were that ascription not necessary to your argument. Give over. You object to the limits and scope of your son's affections simply because you do. You will not permit it a wholesome model or see in it a wholesome affect, simply because you do not wish to. It follows that you will encompass the genius of our relationship only when it serves some impulse in you to do so. So no discourse can provide you clarity. "That your son embraced haviour you deem disgrace-causing had to have engaged your mind before ever you approached Us to retrieve him. Certainly when you learned what impelled him to flee. Still you demanded his return and spoke only of how you had wronged him and hoped for atonement, not of how he soiled a repute your family does not have nor of how you would judge him. You changed the song you were singing, Master Alekrond, from a noble hymn of humility and repentance to an irate march for an imagined injury. "Let Us remind you how, earlier this very day, your dearest ambition was the opportunity to demonstrate to Karondeo your repentance -- that was your word! You bewailed your habits of thought as more Nikraan than Hramal, and were disgusted in the admission. Where is that righteous disgust now? That repentance?" "What do you want of me, Your Majesty?" Alekrond cried. "Am I to simply accept that my son is a catamite?" "Your son has never been kept for that purpose. Do not use hyperbole on Us, old fool!" "Papa!" Kri-estaul looked up and then, grinning with excitement, looked around the table of carefully bland faces. The son of the Maritime Counsellor had kept a statue-like pose, his trunk resting on the edge of his chair, legs stretched out under the table and crossed at the ankles, fingers of both hands interlaced over a flat, food-tautened belly. He seemed the eikhon of contented satiety. He fooled no one. "Your Majesty?" Gwl-lethry alone looked troubled. Melianth sat, face impassive, with tears filling her eyes. The King was neither embarrassed nor penitent. "We did not challenge a sea power and endanger Karondeo just so he could be subjected to the baseless anxieties of an inconstant heart. I call this man an old fool. Do I misrepresent him?" "Not from what we have witnessed thus far," Aldul admitted. "But who is not a fool over family?" Evendal, uncertain if he had encroached on familial privilege in his assessing, glanced aside at Karondeo. The younger seaman turned his head, his expression grave, his eyes dull. The sight hurt. "You misrepresented yourself, Master Alekrond, asking the aid of the Throne. A liege must feel confidence in the responses of his vassals, in both their constancy and consistency. If you show no steadfastness toward your heir, We Ourself can hardly expect it of you. We excuse you from Our presence, Alekrond lin'Agredd, until such time as you truly have abandoned the clan of your father's father, or until We call upon you." Alekrond paused a moment, to assure himself of the King's sincerity. He then stood and stepped behind his wife's chair, to draw it out and help her to stand. Melianth, jaw clenched, drew her chair back. "Wife? Beloved? Our King bids us to depart." "He exiles only you, old fool." She stared across the table at a sad-faced, sympathetic Cheselre. "Melianth?" Alekrond besought. "And what will you do when our son or daughter mortally offends you? Or offends your hoary code?" "Is this how you support me?" the old salt asked, and too late realised his error. He could hardly intimate fecklessness on her part. "Yes. With honesty and honour. 'Tis not a tradition in the Thronelands to support with blind obedience. If mute compliance is what you want now after four years, I shall see our bond and contract nullified and you can pursue some histrionic flit - outside of the Thronelands." She twisted her head up to squint at her spouse. "Walk out that door, or stay, robed in injured pride, and I shall indeed nullify our marriage and name Karondeo my child's father." Alekrond looked as though his wife had hit him with a halberd. "You would give over a father's office(258) to someone who abrogates a man's authority?" Melianth was not impressed with the argument. "You would toss aside a son for transgressing an ethos you have disdained for decades. If you are going to punish him for leaving you to Polgern and a groomless bride, do so honestly. If you cannot? Keep that portcullis of a mouth shut and go punch a wall until you feel better." "Do you truly think I confront him out of spite?" The woman shrugged. "I care little as to why. I only know that Karondeo has shown more honour and virtue than you, though it cost him his home and kin. Such manhood can hardly be diminished by whom the man beds or who beds him." "I don't understand," Kri-estaul complained. "Master Alekrond is mean to his son? Why?" Evendal answered. "Because Karondeo might have been buggered by me. I told you how it is for some men." Kri-estaul nodded, his mind engaged. "Those who love each other, as a way of showing love. I remember." Evendal held a breath, uneasy at broaching such a topic with his abused son, but unwilling to cosset him completely. "But I still do not understand. Did Papa plough you, Master Karondeo?" Utterly nonplussed at the child's gravitas -- most boys having eight years would be giggling or showing exaggerated disgust mixed with delight -- Karondeo could only nod. "Did you like it, Master Karondeo, when Papa ploughed you?" Again a nod, an easing of the tightness around the eyes. "I hated when Nisakh did," Kri-estaul confided. "It hurt like nothing else did. Did you plough Papa also?" Karondeo cleared his throat before replying "I think you must ask your Papa that. I am sorrowed for your ordeals, Your Highness. 'Tis the penultimate in heinous acts to do against a boy or girl." "Your Papa thinks it somehow turns you into a little child, right? That it means you are no longer a man, but a boy, right? That sounds ridiculous." "Yes, it is risible. He also says, though I know not how thoroughly he believes it, that 'any man who takes it up the ass is more woman than man'." Karondeo bent his fury-stiff neck and grinned at Kri-estaul in reassurance. "You and I both know it takes a man's strength to endure such use. My father has a number of strange notions. I yet love him because he always intended nought but well for me." His Serene Highness turned his stare on Alekrond, a gaze made lambent by intensity and sincerity. "Then are you angry at me because Nisakh ploughed me?" Evendal stirred. "Yes, Master Alekrond, tell Us," he insisted with vinegared sweetness. "Though We do not recall the occasions of Our 'fault', as your son was Our purpose(259) We have no doubt they were many. So do you companion three people whom you would label 'mollies' by the criteria you have already voiced? Does Nisakh's abuse of his 'masculine privilege' mean Kri-estaul, the recipient, will grow up to be less of a man? Does that make him weak, who survived two years whipped, buggered, branded, and hamstrung? Shall We make wagers on your survival of the same treatment? You who have never played the pathic for any man? "Your son," the King spat, "chose -- against your coercion and direct command -- not to deceive or defraud an honest maiden. Your son banished himself rather than embarrass or 'shame' you before your assembly of captains. Your son's concern has ever been for other people, We need no memory of Our own to glean that. Nor do We need recollection of Our time at Alta to assert that he is a vital, integral man of virtue and honour. "Then there is Ourself. We are your liege for as long as you are indeed wed to Melianth. We have prevailed against two successful despots whom no one had challenged so before. We have brought the turn of Fortune's Wheel for Osedys. We manifest the Left Hand of the Unalterable and a Mastery of Song. In what way are We diminished by this expression of Our love for your son, this indicator of Our trust? Explain to Us how We are less than a man, or less of a man? Speak." Kri-estaul yet held Alekrond's eyes, though both blinked as needed. "How..." The older seaman's throat closed and he had to try again. "How could I be angry at you for the maleficence of another? And I fear... your father might be correct in every instance and every hint. Once I had my son home my thoughts turned immediately to my own welfare." "Is that bad?" Kri-estaul asked, bewildered. "Not in and of itself, no. But my thoughts run to worry over how I would be looked at, murmured about, challenged for primacy, because my son is a mollycoddle. Because my heir submits to the virility of another. That my son yields his strength, his control, to another man and is seen by many as soft, as less virile. That I will be laughed at, ridiculed, because I serve an unabashed passive and raised one." "So what?" the boy replied blithely. "What does that matter?" "Master Alekrond," Evendal added, "when has that happened?" "What do you ask? I do not ken." "When have you seen any of your crew, or any Hramal, ridicule a man for his pleasures? Or overthrow a leader for his heir's behaviour? When?" Alekrond shook his head. "Never. But these are fears my heart has harboured, they are not reasonable." "Then they are your burden, not Karondeo's. Your burden and your dead father's." Alekrond stood ruminating, chewing his upper lip as his labouring stomach rumbled and he struggled with what to do, to leave proudly or to accept his chastisement, to accept being in error. He glanced repeatedly at the frozen countenance of his grown son. Coming to a decision, the Maritime Counsellor strode past his wife, Sygkorrin, Ierwbae and Edrionwytt to kneel at his son's side. "Karh," he grumbled in what had to be his lowest register, "I keep hurting you, it seems." Karondeo straightened in his chair, to give himself some small distance; he swallowed a couple of times before he felt ready to answer. "Well, it would be easier to endure with some warning, chulta(260). Perhaps if you could provide a broadside(261) to warn me before your broadsides(262)?" The levity hardly warranted a chuckle, but it encouraged an ashamed and timorous older seaman. "I have distrusted everything about my days, my command, since you ran off. It has felt as though I lost... You were the most beautiful of my fashionings. When you left, and I had only crew to shout at, my life felt so grim. My heart hurt." "No more so than mine, father. I turned to you for so much else. But not this, I did not dare. You painted the facade of a virile, fecund rascal on me, 'twas your expectation and nearly all our crews' presumption of me." He waved both hands in the air, then gripped his father's shoulders in earnestness. "I saw no other avenue that would leave you with any respect but for me to flee." Once again, Karondeo asked, "Do you now welcome your son wholeheartedly? Or do I disappoint you? Do you reckon me a man of worth?" Alekrond stood and, bending slightly, wrapped Karondeo in an embrace. Seated, the son was nearly as tall as his father. To Kri-estaul's confoundment the young seaman started to tremble. "Yes. No. And yes, always." Alekrond mumbled into Karondeo's shoulder. "You are my son, a strong and good man, and His Majesty might someday be worthy of you." "You've got a wife who clearly loves you. Seems a good exchange, father. I would have caused trouble for you with the other captains. I will now, whether I want or not. Forgive me that." The Maritime Counsellor hushed his pain-wracked son. "Shhh. Granted sevenfold. I must ask your forgiveness, my son, for I have hurt you and distrusted you brutally. I do repent of my foolish cruelty." He raised his considerable voice so that all might hear. "You are a man, a son such as every father hopes for. And my silly wife is also right; all that which makes a man dwells in you, in full measure. "About this wife you left to me. She was a better consequence than I had any right to, and we both know it. "As for my captains. They must either accept the particulars of my family or I shall openly remind them of their many faults and less public vulnerabilities. Do not worry over them! Our liege might be correct -- it might be that any such trouble exists solely in my fancies." Alekrond patted Karondeo's salt-tangled hair and ceased projecting his voice. "I do not think I have seen you cry since my brother died. Your father is a tired old fool, Karh, whose ignorance could swallow the sea and more. Thunders, you deserved better at my hands than ever you got. But I do love you and am right glad you are back here." Alekrond returned to his seat and both father and son schooled their countenances as if nothing untoward had occurred, though Karondeo took a table linen and blotted his cheeks. "What prompted my macabre mode of return?" The question created another moment of tense quiet at the table. Karondeo had settled and looked about in expectation of a response before Alekrond provided a placebo of an answer. "As you can see, the Lady Melianth is nearing her time, and I needed to know if the child she bears was my heir or merely your sibling. Did you yet live? So I besought His Majesty Lord Evendal, and His Majesty begged the aid of his peers." "You know some aweful peers, Your Majesty." Karondeo commented with a shudder, arm up and palm facing out in warding. Kri-estaul moved from indifference to liking the young seaman. "Your father lies by omission, Master Karondeo, to spare you further turmoil on an emotional and tiring day." Karondeo gripped his edge of the table and, taking a deep breath, rolled his eyes in dread anticipation. "I would rather know all, and now. Tell me, Father." The old seaman actually flushed in dismay. "I am not well, Karh," he mumbled. "I have been feeling weaker and more worn every day. And it is not just the season's effect or my fouler habits. I... I may not live long." "What nonsense!" The son was clearly thunderstruck. "Who has told you this? Why?" Alekrond shrugged. "Two healers. A heart arrhythmia, among other things. Bile spewing up from my guts late at night, setting me to vomit up chyme and blood." "No. No! No!" Stunned, Karondeo shook his head rapidly and then turned pain-widened eyes of night upon the young woman down the far end of the table. "Lady Melianth? This cannot be!" The wife of Alekrond mimicked her husband's shrug. "'Tis true, Master Karondeo. We all wish it were not." She gazed down at nothing. The young seaman declined his head and furrowed his brow, flummoxed by the lady's light tone of voice. Seeing no expression, finding no hint of remorse or concern on the woman's pale face did not sooth Karondeo's already agitated state. "You championed me over your husband, Lady, and I thank you. But your cold manner just now belies your words! Do you even mean what you spout? Do you hate him so? It is like you simply wait for my father to die!" Swiftly, Evendal reached across and gripped Karondeo's arm, tightly enough to leave marks. "Beloved, stop!" he hissed, sotto voce. "Think! Look at her closely! She only acts on your father wishes." He leaned closer and spoke even more softly. "Have no doubt that she has been bearing grief along with her baby these past eighteen fortnights." After a moment masking his face in his hands, Karondeo lowered them and turned back to his father and stepmother. "Forgive my baseless accusations, Lady Melianth, Father. I spoke from selfish pain, ignoring your own travail and clear integrity." The daughter of Shenrowyn sat as though made of stone, her hand still and lifeless over her husband's. When Melianth's immobility continued to where Evendal doubted the woman had even taken a breath, Alekrond turned about. The scrape of the old seaman's chair against the floor seemed loud in the respectful silence. He placed his other hand over his wife's. "Here now, Meli. I am doing fine right now. Nothing to fret over, you hear me? We agreed..." Melianth sucked in a tremendous breath and began to shake and whisper. To have her struggle unveiled so succinctly brought a pressure against her breastbone, made the mass of sorrow and anxiety she held tight to suddenly and swiftly unbearable. Her voice slowly rose in volume and pitch as she repeated one word. "No. No. No. No." Evendal had no doubts that her voice would have elevated into a shrill shriek had she not broken down into sobs in her husband's massive arms. "Forgive us, Your Majesty," Alekrond begged hoarsely, "but if we might retire for a time?" Perversely, the King again shook his head. "Your Majesty? I'll not have us be a lodestone for people's pity!" Evendal glanced up and down the table. "Master Alekrond, We doubt if anyone here pities you. We may feel pain for your wife's terrible burden and your own, but nothing so useless and patronising as pity. You are not diminished in Our eyes nor, We deem, in the opinion of anyone here, Madame. But We suspect that you grieve prematurely." Alekrond scowled and squinted belligerently at his King. "Speak plainly, Your Majesty." "Have you not noticed that you can? 'Speak plainly', We mean? You have not coughed or lacked for breath since sitting. We think that your stay on the Swan Song may have proven a tonic for your ailments, Master Alekrond." "My stay on the Swan Song?" Alekrond queried. Then enlightenment showed in his face and he fell silent. Evendal had seen, just since leaving the pier, a less cadaverous skin tone on the old seaman. His breathing had subtly eased. And Osmaredh's granddaughter of long ago did refer to the Moonchild as 'the Old Meddler'. "I do not understand," Melianth complained, her face tear streaked. "We are saying, dear lady, that We would be very surprised if your husband's health does not improve hence." "Truly?" The female half of the Maritime Counsellorship leaned left and forward in her seat, as though to get closer to the King. "Why?" "Nothing We did. Consider it a gift of the sea." Attending this exchange closely, Karondeo protested, "Your Majesty has me caught between grief and ease." "Patience. Only time will give proof. Instead, continue with your questions, and let us grant your family a respite from Our attentions while still providing what comfort Our presence might give." But Karondeo could not resist a final question. "Father, who told you the cause for my refusal?" Alekrond blinked owlishly at his son and began to bluster. "What? You think that, once I had calmed, I could not reason my way to the truth?" With a brittle grin Karondeo answered, "Yes, that is what I think, Father." "Bri-etalin." "Bri-etalin," Karondeo echoed and, obedient to the King's greater wisdoms, did not pursue the matter. But Evendal, seeing the younger seaman's down-turned mouth and troubled air, understood that his beloved's heart might have a history. "Most of my questions I would address to my fellow mariners and my new liege, so those can wait. And as Your Majesty has wisely said, I am tired and distressed. So let me turn to less weighty queries and ask Master Edrionwytt how old he is." Edrionwytt had discovered that honeyed beets were not as sweet as their name indicated, and was drowning the taste in a cup of mulled cider. Once he had succeeded, he turned to his questioner and stared as though harpooned. Karondeo noted the unusually thick fold at the inner corner of the eyes. "Sire?" he whispered. "How many years have you?" The youth struggled to find an answer, his eyes darting about and blinking with the effort. The flattened bridge of his nose gave him a lost, cross-eyed appearance. "Mama said I had three years when my father died. Sire." Startled, Karondeo softened his brisk tone. "That means you now have twelve years, Master Edrionwytt. And who is your mother?" Again a look of anxious confusion crossed Edrionwytt's face. "Mother? She's just my Mama." "But does no one address her by a name when they speak with her?" "We do not entertain at home, Lord. Forgive me. I remember M... Matron Drussilikh and the woman who told me to go to the Scriveners calling her some name, but I cannot recall it. I forgot. I apologise." It was clear, at least to Karondeo, that the boy was mimicking. Karondeo flung his arm across Edrionwytt's shoulder. "Peace, lad. You comport yourself well for one who has never guested." "Sire?" "You show good table manners, young master." Edrionwytt grinned, well pleased, and recited, "'Almost anything can be forgiven you, so long as you never embarrass your host. Or guests.' That's what Mama told me." Karondeo grinned back, fully engaged. "Your mother is correct. I gather that you seldom left your home?" "A few times when I was very young. We went to the Scriveners, where Mama taught a lot of people. That is how I knew where to go. See, I remembered how to get there." He was clearly proud of his accomplishment. Evendal interrupted. "For Karondeo, and those who may not have approached a Crier's Post these past few days, beside Us sits my brother Edrionwytt, the last son of my mother Wytthenroeg of Alta and my father Lord Menam (may his memory be green)." Karondeo's brow knotted. "Your Majesty claims the Lady Wytthenroeg for your mother? What, then, was Onkira?" "Our father, on his authority, had papers composed that bound Wytthenroeg and her fortunes to him and his. Composed, signed and given the royal seal prior to his then duplicitous avowals to Arkedda." "Yes," Edrionwytt recalled, "The girl called Mama 'Wytthenroeg'. Do you like honeyed beets?" he asked Karondeo. "Not overmuch," Karondeo deferred. "So Her Highness Onkira had no path to advancement even had she sought one? And died without issue?" "None," Evendal affirmed. "But she bore one child. Introductions might have been a bit rushed, if so Our apologies. At Our oldest friend's right hand sits the only offspring of the union of Master Polgern ald'Morruth and Her Highness Onkira olm'Aguandit a Mulhassoir. Cheselre olm'Onkira ba Polgern, born the same season as Ourself. The Lady Cheselre is the gracious mother of a strapping boy having two years named Meracaldi." This was the first Alekrond had heard of his former passenger's pedigree. "And you suffer this claimant here?" "Claimant to what, in Osedys?" Evendal asked rhetorically. "It is north she must go had she any ambitions. Lady Cheselre?" The woman looked down the table at the King, again sad-faced in the scrutiny of her dinner companions. "I am content with the kingdom I have made, Your Majesty, among the people of Ddronthys. And I happily acknowledge you as my sovereign." "We recommend to you converse with Our friend and scribe, Danlienn. And We repeat that you are most welcome here. We grant the freedom of the Palace to you and to your son." "Thank you, Your Majesty." "Who raised you?" Danlienn blurted out. "How did you live? Where?" The lady turned to and looked uncertainly at the scribe. "The couple who raised me dwell on Ddronthys. We live very well, to my mind, as we are seldom bothered." The King redirected the attentions of his guests. "Lest We forget, Matron, Priestess, Master Gwl-lethry, Masters Alekrond and Melianth, Guard Ierwbae -- you may be visited by a young brine-neck under Our protection. He is called Limmal and is nephew to the late Master Polgern. An intense, honourable young man seeking the truths regarding his uncle's history. Treat him well, bear with his rough ways, and be honest, for Our sake." "How has he remained ignorant to his uncle's perfidy?" Gwl-lethry enquired. "He has spent a time of exile in Alta. That one of Our Guard escorted him there suggests that Master Polgern sent him for his own safety." Karondeo resumed, his arms extended out at his sides, palms open, doggedly seeking clarity. "When last I was here, Her Highness had done little more than attend fetes. What warranted her execution?" Drussilikh dryly addressed that last query. "She arranged for an assassination attempt upon Wytthenroeg of Alta, employing some of my students. She attempted a coup here and in Arkedda." Having missed the event, Karondeo remained ignorant of the significance of the execution. "How troublesome," he adjudged blandly. With an enervated, heavy-lidded look, he waved one hand limply in the air as though brushing the issue aside. This simple imitation of a Court-bored courtier caused Evendal to grin over his spoon. "Has there been some suit the Archate would beg of His Majesty?" He resumed his avid expression, his eyes glittering like polished obsidian. The King gestured to Sygkorrin to answer as he had a mouth full of oats. "Not particularly. Why?" "'Tis strange to see both an Honourable Ambassador for the Temple and the Prince of the Archate herself in attendance without honours or entourage." Sygkorrin declined her head. "I am here in my offices. Master Aldul is here, despite his health, out of his curiosity and friendship to His Majesty." Karondeo turned his hawklike gaze down the table to a man who looked as robust as any. "Despite his health?" Aldul grimaced briefly. "The cold and wet makes my bones ache on occasion," he demurred. "I am well." Sygkorrin was permitting no prevarication. "The winters here are going to be a constant impediment for Master Aldul. His joints and sinews betray him into pain after any lengthy period of rest or immobility." "You seem young to be suffering from such a rheum." Aldul shrugged. Evendal drew the young seaman's attention. "It was Aldul who found Us, as he journeyed from Kwo-eda to here. He has been witness to nearly all of Our cardinal moments, and has consistently supported Our better thoughts and ambitions. His wisdom and experience have greatly benefited Us and Our son." "So gratitude places him here?" Karondeo challenged. The King stared, owl-like, at the closer table guest. "No. An agreement of wills. As Her Eminence told you. What troubles you?" Karondeo blushed as much as his tan allowed. "My own position and status yet unsecured, I find myself hard pressed to treat all of Your Majesty's company with the manners they deserve." Evendal nodded. "So the questions you have for Us most specifically will not permit pause?" "You did conjure me into this occasion of feasting and commemoration, taxing my affability. I have never been one to dance in a ceilidh(263) while my ship burned in the harbour." He waved his hand toward where he supposed the Swan Song lay. "Speak then. Perhaps We can ease your heart with dispatch." "What I would say, how I would speak with you... I would not weigh others down with sentiments and intelligence of no moment to them. I do not yet share your ease or intimacy with these your companions." "We have no doubt that We likewise suffered a constant traffic and intercourse of your crew during moments of great personal delicacy to Us. Can you not think of this as another such occasion?" Evendal saw Karondeo's turmoil, and knew the true answer to that question. He held up his hand to pre-empt the seaman's accommodation. "You ken that, as Osedys, We are never alone?" "Yes. But, here and now, I feel like a town crier facing the curious masses." The King looked about the table and raised his voice. "Kith and kin, Madame Shulro intends gingerbread(264) as the meal's final plate. Ourself having had a surfeit of sweetness, We will leave it to you to do her noble effort gustatory justice." He looked down at his son. "Have you had enough oatmeal for the moment?" "Yes, but I want gingerbread too. I think." Evendal understood from Kri-estaul's word choice and tone that the boy could not recall if he had ever consumed 'gingerbread' before. "Do you want to eat it now? Or would you rather stay with me while I speak with Karondeo?" "Can't I eat it and stay with you?" After a period of serious consideration, Kri-estaul grudgingly decided, "Stay with you." "Good. I shall ensure you get gingerbread after." His Majesty singled out those he felt necessary to the possible scope of the coming discussion. "Master Aldul, Guards Ierwbae and Metthendoenn, if you would of your grace join Us. Cart what refreshment you require. Master Karondeo, would you feel more at ease at another table or another room?" Karondeo clearly was not delighted with the number of attendants, but said nothing. "Another table would be sufficient, provided people do not petition for their King's time while we speak." With a frisson of dread and hope at the prospect of a more immediate tete-a-tete, Evendal glanced behind him to the two Guard quietly flanking his chair. "That is Our will as well," he bade them. He readjusted his grip on Kri-estaul and stood, requiring all table guests to stand and bow. The Priestess, the Lord Tinde'keb, the Matron, the Heirs Apparent and Presumptive of Arkedda, and the Maritime Counsellors of the Thronelands all remained standing as the King and those he had singled out claimed an adjacent table. Ierwbae moved quickly to help a convalescent Metthendoenn out of one chair and into another. Edrionwytt, after a moment's hesitation, followed Aldul to the new focus. Karondeo waited, and watched the procession in irritation and amusement. Had he merely witnessed this unheralded migration, which silenced conversation at all occupied tables, he would have been utterly bewildered, especially as it was not a discommoding of the King's subjects but of the King. He grasped at the incidental as a reassuring sign; the lover he knew had likewise discarded protocol at others' need without second thoughts. The lover he knew might yet await him beneath the distracting accretions of Evendal's temporal power. "Master Edrionwytt," Karondeo cautioned, "unless His Majesty did signal for your attendance, it would be the better part of valour for you to abide and chaperone the ladies thus temporarily abandoned." The youth halted and turned to Karondeo. "Sire?" He blinked and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Master. Karondeo. My Mama bade me stay with my brother and my... his son." The lad said nothing more, as if his commission was sufficient to silence any objections. After the briefest of considerations, Karondeo realised Wytthenroeg's fiat did just that. King or no, 'Mama Wytthenroeg' outranked everyone in Edrionwytt's hierarchy of authority. Though Edrionwytt's assertion was delivered like an irresistible passport past any difficulty, Karondeo did not see assurance on the lad's face, only confusion and worry. This youth was twice a child, required by his mother's frailty to perform a man's office with naught but the barest of verbal instructions to guide him through. He himself had had Shenrowyn and Melianth to help navigate and, as a seaman, had been comfortable dealing with groups in close quarters and in swiftly changing circumstances. Edrionwytt had to feel very alone, and terrified of offending or embarrassing his brother as much as of disobeying his mother. He probably cared not at all for the conversations he could not follow, just so long as he survived this social occasion unscathed. The youth was not stupid, Karondeo felt fairly certain of that, or else Wytthenroeg would have chosen another deputy to witness the execution. "Then that is what you must do, Master Edrionwytt, and allow me to intercede should anyone challenge you. Is your mother well?" The lad turned and paused before reciting, "She regrets being indisposed and hopes you'll pardon her absence." For Edrionwytt's greater ease, the young seaman gave him the expected social amenity in return. "Tender my sincere wishes for her restored health." After the King sat at the head, Karondeo took the first place at the King's right and gestured to the chair across the table from his. "Sit." Edrionwytt complied with alacrity. Karondeo perused the four witnesses he now had, to his thinking an improvement over the twelve he had felt surrounded by. Ierwbae and a pale, tired Metthendoenn seemed more aware of each other than of anyone else; not negligent per se, but each throwing shy or wary glances when one thought the other preoccupied. Edrionwytt looked back at the first table momentarily; glad to have left the beets behind. Aldul gave the King and Karondeo his steady and undistracted attention. "Your Majesty, I abandoned crew in Alta, good folk ignorant of my fate." The King nodded, anticipating the likelihood. "As soon as the crocus blooms outlast the nights here, We shall send for them." Flustered, Karondeo willed himself to ignore the strangers beside him. "When... when you did not return to the ship, I thought perhaps I had driven you beyond your patience." Troubled, Evendal asked the obvious. "How?" Karondeo twisted in his seat to look at the kitcheners' entry and wish all these attendants gone through it. "Can we not...?" he began, but saw the futility of any wish for greater privacy. "Pretend that there are only you and I. That is easy enough for me to do." The glow on Malismogh's face could not obscure his expression, one that, for Karondeo, was sweetly familiar. He chuckled, but with a pained expression. "Stop. You confuse me." "How so?" The young seaman cleared his throat, and turned a solemn gaze back on Evendal. "The Prince I knew was the sum of his forbears, actual and assumed. You would to chase after the Sheikh of Alta than confess error or need. When first we met, to be the target of the assertion 'I love you' infuriated you. To say it terrified you." "Demanding and snobbish? Arrogant?" the King mused. "I sound more the burthen than the helpmate." "Not arrogant. Constrained. With me alone would you speak to the point -- eventually. I... I learned to suspend judgement regarding you." Karondeo waved a hand back toward Alekrond. "My father never held out the possibility of his love as a goad. I grew up awash in his affection and pride in me. Whereas when you heard 'I love you'," he pointed at Evendal, his brow knitted, "you girded yourself to perform some unsavoury task or support some unpalatable lie from your parents. The only vulnerabilities unveiled around you were fabricated or exaggerated manipulations, so you had learned to hide all felt needs and deny all shortcomings..." Evendal ald'Menam finished the assessment. "... that I might serve the need of whichever parent I faced. Now I sound battle-scarred and hag-ridden." Karondeo nodded. "That would be accurate enough. You were impassible at times. But conversely anxious to please at others. And if I told you to climb the mast to spare my mates from mortal injury, you would though a tempest raged, not out of affection for them but because you knew how they mattered to me. You counted your life less than your wounds and your loves." Evendal sat puzzled by this description. "Is such the manner of man I was before my disappearance?" "Not wholly," Karondeo clarified. "You fought against your second nature with the determination of an Arkeddan chasing an errant kypri(265). This last season you would admit to loving me outright with a smile rather than a grave look. Hearing me say 'I love you' no longer rendered your body still with anxiety. We... we accepted each other, provisionally, from our first talk. When we did not, we talked, shouted, or whispered, until we had at least restored trust in the other's love and respect." "But it sounds like an austere and unrewarding courtship for you," the King opined. The seaman shook his head in dispute and chuckled. "Far from it. There are so many ways to tender love without resorting to the word itself." "So what did you think I had taken such umbrage to that I would abandon you?" Karondeo glanced at the few around him, then grimaced. "I have thought much on this since you vanished. When first you...left, and after I became convinced Alta had not absconded with you, I thought perhaps you had chosen to free yourself of her detention in a way that kept me and my crew blameless. But you would not have done so without apprising me. So I returned again and again to the belief that you had tired of the accumulation of misunderstandings and demands and expectations I met you with over the whole of our time together." "Oh. Did I hoard grievances so?" "No." "Were you such a termagant?" "No. But nothing else I could posit made any better sense." The young seaman's dark complexion turned darker still. "Your mouth spouts 'No.' Your face disagrees." Karondeo's right hand gripped the thumb of the left, the fingers of the left then covering the back of the right. Clamped thusly, he pressed a knuckle against his lips as he sought to make order out of the jumble in his tired mind. "Unwittingly, I worked to herd you back to the Thronelands." Evendal's left eyebrow rose with the right corner of his lip, encouraging his spouse to elaborate. "Whenever our itinerary included the Eastern Dark or the Tinde, I all but begged you to accompany me on those expeditions." His hands separated again, relaxing now that he had broached the wellspring of his pain and shame. "That much closer to home, eh?" "That much closer to your birthright and your vocation," Karondeo corrected, shaking his head and tapping a finger on the table for emphasis. "At every opportunity I saw, I hinted for you to quit your pledge to the Sheikh. I would carp on how much safer you and I would be in any other port but Alta's and how the Thronelands needed you home." "Is this a confession?" Evendal asked both amused and slightly bemused. The young man pondered the question, and then nodded. "Yes. I did not allow myself to see my habits for what they were: I cast doubt on our few allies in Alta, and had encouraged you to do so as well. Three fortnights ago I woke from a sodden sleep perceiving how thorough my...purpose had been." "I do not understand your meaning." "You trusted me. So you assumed that I pressed you to leave because I mistrusted your support, your Altan friends. But I mistrusted those allies only because I wanted us to leave." "And the reason I fled the ship, that last time?" Karondeo studied his long fingers. "You refused to leave the Sheikh while her enemies yet threatened. That alarmed me. So I chose to see her as my rival, furious that your affection -- and not just your word -- might be behind your commitment to her." "You asserted this then?" "Yes." Feeling that a simple affirmative was not enough of an answer, Karondeo elaborated. "'Twas the apex in a ladder of accusation I hurled at you that bell." "And what was my counter?" "The truth." The young seaman looked squeamish. "Detail this 'truth' for me." Karondeo took a deep breath. "That I exalted my unadmitted wants above your honour and the needs of others. That I expected you to betray Alta -- even as Osedys had at Mausna -- for the sake of what would only be my equanimity, not my weal. That you were tired of enduring my idea of subtle coercion, and after over eight years in Alta with a target sewn to your tabard you knew better than I did which Altans you could rely on. When I insisted on my innocence, you stormed off saying you would return in time to supp. You didn't." (254) ~Landlubbers. (255) ~A stretch of water seasonally connecting the Kerilawyn and Donnag rivers. (256) andern-unbewuBt, root or radical change. (257) ~Karondeo compares the succeeding dialogue between Alekrond and Evendal to the earsplitting barks and hoots between territorial sea-lions. (258) akhsi-wma - that of which one is thought worthy, an honour; rank, position. (259)~ 'Attractant', eromenon. The text is awkward in English. Evendal is offhandedly asserting that since what he feels from Karondeo is universal eros(which infuses & motivates every element of the Hramal kosmos), Evendal must have sought union with him many times. He is not being gauche here: Evendal actually means 'sought union', not 'had sex'. For those unfamiliar with 'universal eros' and its implications, see Love & Will, Rollo May, W. W. Norton & Co.; 1969; pg.72-94. (260) ~Nikloan: sire, father (261) a (1) a sizable sheet of paper printed on one side; (2) a sheet printed on one or both sides and folded b : something (as a ballad) printed on a broadside (262) a: all the guns on one side of a ship; also : their simultaneous discharge; b: a volley of abuse or denunciation (263) Celtic ref., equivalent to a community dance, pronounced 'kay-lee'. (264) http://www.recipesource.com/misc/medieval/ginger-bread1.html (265) ~Much as the ha'penny used to be. An incremental measure in copper.