J. Calvin Pierce, page 2
Daniel walked several blocks before he saw any vehicle move more than five yards. He turned to look back down the street. For as far as he could see behind him, the signals at every corner were yellow. He wondered if Margaret had managed to get out of the hotel parking lot yet.
“I just don’t see how you manage without a car,” she had said today, borrowing from his brother’s stock of inevitable remarks. “Of course, when a person doesn’t have a steady job …”
Daniel had waited, knowing the script.
“Have you checked with the high schools for the fall?” she asked. “They say there’s a shortage of teachers.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Margaret had not fulfilled her obligation to remind him that he was not in his twenties anymore, because she had been anxious to say some extremely silly things about the Bath coup, a fine point of bridge that she misunderstood thoroughly and, Daniel was sure, permanently.
The traffic rumbled and muttered like a mob in a bad mood. The assembled horsepower was having its usual effect on the city air but achieving little else. Daniel wondered how many buses it would take to hold every cursing commuter trapped in the acres of idling cars.
A half a block behind him a man who looked like a professional wrestler all dressed up for Sunday school was peering intently into a shop window. Daniel continued up the street. After two blocks of walking at a good clip, he looked over his shoulder. Half a block back, the man was rolling along in his wake.
Twenty minutes later Daniel was already thoroughly bored with playing silly games. He had walked around a block and cut through the same department store three times, and he still could not tell whether he was being followed. All he had accomplished was to attract the attention of a stunning clerk at the makeup counter who looked as though she was made of porcelain.
Still, if Charlie was having him followed, it would be by someone who was good at it. The big man he had thought might be shadowing him had turned off a few blocks back, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t taken his place. Daniel didn’t really know how subtle Charlie’s employees might be. He decided to stop thinking about it. If he was being followed, so be it. He was only on his way home anyway, and Charlie already knew where he lived. Besides, if he walked by the makeup counter a few more times, the porcelain figurine was either going to call a store detective or offer him a key to her apartment, and he already had one girlfriend too many.
On the street, the traffic had finally begun to move. When an empty cab appeared at the curb, he grabbed it On the way to his place he occupied himself with an attempt to think neither of hired thugs or bridge tournaments. He thought about his livelihood instead. He probably should have accepted Milton’s invitation to the poker game. Despite what he had said to the old hustler, he would not be showing up at Charlie’s until this soap opera with Roxy had been resolved.
In his apartment, he mixed a scotch and water and sat down to ponder his options. His experience as a gambler had taught him that in life, as in poker, you could usually keep out of trouble if you stayed alert. You did, however, need some cards to play, or at least fold, and in this game, Charlie seemed to hold all fifty-two.
Life with Roxy. That was one of the options. But Daniel could not imagine spending a lot of time with someone who thought television talk shows were “stimulating,” and whose most animated conversation was on the subject of the private lives of singers, actors, and anyone else who was grossly overpaid and notorious. Daniel did not think of himself as a particularly well educated man. He knew for an indisputable fact that his master’s degree represented only very slight learning. Nonetheless, his interests strayed beyond the boundaries of commercial television and popular music. As far as he could tell, Roxy’s did not.
“So much for Darwin,” he said to his drink.
It occurred to him that his older brother had finally been right about something concerning “the kid.” If he had pursued his high school teaching career, he doubtless would not even be acquainted with any crime lords, or at least none old enough to have marriageable daughters.
And, as his brother (“Remember, I’m old enough to be your father.”) never tired of pointing out, with the extra money he could earn teaching a rock-climbing course at the community college, he would be “really set,” as well as having a good time with his hobby. “Not to mention the prestige,” his sister-in-law would be sure to add. Margaret seemed to be convinced that teaching rock climbing at a community college made her brother-in-law a college professor. As far as Daniel could tell, she considered it the equivalent of holding an endowed chair at Harvard or Yale.
The phone rang. He did not consider answering it. No great loss anyway. If it wasn’t Roxy, it was probably his dentist, who occasionally called with a last-minute invitation to his Thursday-night poker party. But the play was of such low quality that Daniel felt like even more of an impostor than he usually did when playing with amateurs. And anyway, the stakes were too low. “Pretzel contest” was the term Charlie favored to describe suburban card games where the tables were always littered with snacks. “Hey, kid—you make any money at the pretzel contest last night?”
But Daniel didn’t expect to hear any more avuncular ribbing from Charlie. Nor did he know when if ever he would be welcome again at Charlie’s weekly poker game, which amounted to losing the income from a full-time job. Even counting the occasional losing night that was an unavoidable part of his trade, it had covered basic living expenses. In a way, he supposed, marrying Roxy would be like marrying the boss’s daughter. Daniel sighed. All the more reason for Charlie to be offended at his obvious lack of enthusiasm.
The whole proposition was very simple from Charlie’s point of view—Roxy wanted something; what else was there to say? It reminded Daniel of a novel—one by Faulkner, he thought—in which a father tells a grown son that a southern gentleman “never disappoints a lady.”
He put off thinking about how he would get out of town if he was being followed. For one thing, it was difficult for him to imagine he could be in any real danger from his poker pal Charlie. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to give things one more day. He could spend some time tomorrow wandering around the city and find out once and for all if anyone was watching him.
The phone rang again. He wondered if Margaret might be calling to talk over the day’s triumphs. Sometimes after she had shanghaied him into a tournament she tried to interest him in playing with her regularly. She thought it scandalous that her young brother-in-law played poker often enough, and well enough, to live on his winnings; but somehow she thought it would do him a world of good to spend a few nights a week at the bridge table—after working all day, of course.
Over the past year her favorite comment had become, “When a person is past thirty, they’re not a kid anymore.” Daniel could tell that Margaret thought she was being subtle and oblique. His brother was usually more direct. “Grow up,” was his standard advice, to which Daniel invariably replied, “No, thanks.”
From time to time it occurred to Rand that his position as principal adviser to the king of Ambermere must be envied by many of his fellow subjects, especially at court, where the scarcity of common sense made foolish errors in reasoning routine. This notion usually sought him out when he found himself in one of the thoroughly unenviable situations that were so frequently his lot.
“No, no,” said the king from his immense chair, waving away his valet, “I’m sure I wore that last time. Or maybe it was the time before. I don’t want to arouse suspicions by appearing in the same disguise too often.”
It was a sign of the well-known lack of justice in the universe, thought Rand, that a man of his years should find himself spending irreplaceable moments watching the king, who aside from his other attainments, was far the fattest man in the land, make meticulous choices from a collection of vast garments meant to counterfeit the dress of a prosperous commoner. This wardrobe existed for the purpose of allowing Asbrak the Fat, whose unmistakable silhouette appeared on signs over the doorways of tradesmen throughout the city, to pass unrecognized among his subjects.
The valet minced forth carrying a long jacket and a pair of pantaloons that together might have furnished the material for a capacious, if unusually colorful, tent. Rand turned his head fastidiously from the rude clash of patterns and hues as the little man spread the clothing before the king with a flourish.
“Perhaps,” purred the valet with an affected lisp that he evidently thought made him sound like an aristocrat, “one might be permitted to offer this ensemble to His Majesty. If he will ignore its undoubted vulgarity, His Majesty will perhaps agree that it is otherwise quite nice.”
“That might do. That might do.” The king looked at the ceiling. “I wonder what Rand thinks,” he said in the manner of one who is alone and talking to himself. He turned to his adviser. “What do you think, my Lord Rand?”
“As Your Majesty very well knows, I think it most imprudent for Your Majesty to go abroad unaccompanied, wandering the streets and alleys of the city in the middle of the night, inviting who knows what disaster.”
“But I shall be disguised.” The king turned laboriously on the thick cushions that lined his chair. “Men, and women, too, walk our streets unmolested.” He fixed his adviser with the regal stare. “Surely you don’t think I will be recognized?’
Though it was unthinkable. Rand thought of pointing out to the monarch that the very cats on the windowsills could not fail to recognize the king, however attired, by his unmatched girth and ponderous swaying gait alone.
“I concede that Your Majesty is a master of disguise,” he said. The king never failed to beam at this particularly cherished compliment. “Nevertheless, I find it difficult to understand how your deception can hope to succeed.”
Rand knew that to leap to his feet the king would need the help of some sort of mechanical contrivance; nonetheless, the glint in the monarch’s eye suggested that he had leapt to his feet in spirit.
“Please explain yourself, my Lord Rand.”
“Why, it should be obvious to anyone,” said the older man, covertly enjoying the growing incredulity of the kingly glare. He paused to relish the moment before continuing. Such sport was small recompense for hours wasted, but better than none at all.
“When Your Majesty appears among the populace, however cunningly disguised, it must be a wonder that you are not at once discovered.” He paused again for as long as he dared. “Your Majesty’s noble bearing must be obvious to all. Your kingly eye. Your …”—he brought his hands together and stared at them, as though searching for exactly the right word—“presence. These things could not escape the attention of the least alert of our citizens.”
The king was beaming again. He struggled from the chair and moved himself with stately step to the center of the room.
“But this, you see, Rand”—he turned as though better to display his kingly lineaments. Rand thought he looked rather like a large trained animal attempting a pirouette—“this is the essence of my disguise. What you say is undoubtedly true, my bearing, my carriage, and so on, but I can suppress it. I don’t change only my clothing when I go among the people; I change my glance, my step … everything. I think that had I been born poor, I would have made a success on the stage.”
To Rand, this was at once the most sympathetic and the most frustrating quality of his ruler. The man, a widower and a father, and old enough to be a grandfather, was in many ways like an immense boy. For all his bulk, and the gray in his beard, he spoke of his adventures with the enthusiasm of an urchin brandishing a wooden sword.
“As I said, Your Majesty is a master of disguise. But still I wish you would allow me to persuade Your Highness to stay at home tonight.” He walked to a window set deep in the stone wall. “You see, Your Majesty, that now it begins to rain, so you must abandon your plan.”
The king joined him at the window. Lights were already showing at the windows of the houses and shops beyond the castle walls. In the fading glow of day the colors of the tile roofs deepened as they were glazed by the soft rain.
“Rand, you came here during my father’s reign, and I myself have been on the throne for more than twenty-five years, so you are not a newcomer in this land.” The king gestured toward the sky. “It is dusk. At this time of year it rains every day at dusk. I point this out to you in case you have failed to notice it. It is no more unexpected than the midday bells.”
“But there is no need for Your Majesty to go abroad in this way.”
The king turned to his valet. “Leave us. I will ring when I am ready.”
The valet bowed and left quietly by an inner door. The king raised his hand to forestall conversation and listened in the silent room. He peered along the walls and into the shadowy corners as though there might be forgotten or hitherto unnoticed visitors with them in his dressing room. Or perhaps. Rand thought disconsolately, he was just counting the chairs. Asbrak stepped away from the window.
“I hope to learn something that may help us,” he said in a soft voice pregnant with significance.
Rand suppressed a sigh. “Your Highness, the only things that will help us are an army large enough to defeat King Razenor’s, which we do not have, or patience, which we must have.”
The king paced to the window and looked out at the rain.
“An army. How I wish I could ride to the walls of Ascroval at the head of my great-grandsire’s host. How sweetly our neighbor the viper-king would smile as he invented excuses for his vile treachery. And when he handed over the princess unharmed, perhaps, but only perhaps, I would not put his head on a spike, though my military ancestor would not have been so forgiving.”
“Your Majesty must remember that in those days a captured enemy could get his head on a spike for smiling too much—or not enough—or wearing colors that clashed.”
“But to have such an army!”
“Those armies and warriors, and their wars, are all long dead. Your Majesty. Your great-grandsire led troops who knew all the tricks of the battlefield and thirsted for the blood of their foes. Our soldiers know all the tricks of the parade ground and are acquainted with no thirst that cannot be quenched at a tavern. We live now in a world of bargains and diplomacy.”
“And vile treachery.”
“To be sure, Majesty. Always treachery.”
“But on the streets or in the taverns I may hear something that will be of use.”
“Your Majesty, we know everything we need to know. Our neighbor, King Razenor—”
“Son of my father’s cousin, and a lying snake his whole life!”
“Indeed, Your Highness. King Razenor, perhaps with the help of the wizard he is reputed to have in his service—”
“Rogan says that cannot be, that he may be a magician of high rank, but that wizards do not attach themselves to courts.”
“Your Majesty knows how earnest is my respect for our palace magician, Rogan the Obscure, as he wishes he could persuade everyone to call him.”
“He is very learned in his Art, and very long in its practice.”
“He is certainly old, I will grant. And that may be magical, considering the quantities of wine that disappear into his apartments. But speaking as a survivor of his recent fireworks demonstration, I am not inclined to overvalue his abilities.” The adviser’s lips turned to a near smile. “I will concede that, considering the livestock and stored grain that with a slight shift in the wind might well have been reduced to ash, it was the most terrifying celebration I ever attended.”
The king sighed and gazed from the window at the darkening sky. “Yes,” he said in a quiet voice, “the celebration of the engagement of the Princess Iris to the son of our richest neighbor. The marriage that will seal an alliance of endless prosperity and security.”
He turned back to his adviser. “And where,” he asked in a voice loud with anger and bitterness, “is our princess, my daughter, the Lovely Iris, Fairest Flower of the Kingdom? Held by Razenor the Snake, who does not wish to see this alliance become a reality.” The king clenched his hands as though they grasped his enemy by the throat. “He holds her there in his castle, and yet will not acknowledge it.”
“Not officially, Your Majesty. But his emissary has made it clear to me, nonetheless, in the customary way, without admitting anything.”
“I wish you had told me before allowing the ‘emissary’ to leave. I would have sent him back without his ears.”
Rand disregarded this, knowing it to be bluster. Aside from everything else, the oversize monarch was far too kindly and softhearted to mistreat even a diplomat.
“In any event, Your Majesty, I am confident we shall soon be in receipt of King Razenor’s terms.”
“Terms?” thundered the king. “I will give him ‘terms’ to consider when my magician finds a way to deal with this viper!” The king pointed to the ceiling. “Up there in his tower, Rogan the Obscure is working without rest to find a way to bring Razenor the Snake to his knees.”
Rand had frequently suspected the palace magician of drinking without rest, but he doubted he could be expected to persevere in any other project. Still, bringing a snake to its knees seemed one worthy of his talents.
“I hope Your Majesty will not be disappointed. His trade is ceremonial magic. And while I don’t think anyone is truly safe with Rogan at work, I cannot imagine what he could possibly accomplish that would be of any use.”
The king returned to his overstuffed chair, positioning himself carefully above it before dropping into it with a force that would have reduced most furniture to scraps of wood and cloth. Rand, who had witnessed this operation countless times, had always thought of it as the mirror image of leaping from a seat.
