Delerium's Mistress: Tales of the Flat Earth Book 4 (23 page)

“Then know,” said Qurob, “I alone, of all your sons, was false.”
And then Qurob explained everything he had done, and reminded the king of what
had been done through his lies. And the king started up in anguish, and his
heart burst and he died.

When the diadem of the city had been set on the brow of Qurob, his
mother came to him privately, in a shadow robe of mourning tear-sprinkled with
priceless gems.

“Now attend to me, my son,” said she. And she apprised him of the
prophetic witch who had come to her the very day of Qurob’s advent in the
world, and said he should be a king. But when he was king, he must not ride
upon a stallion’s back, for if he did the kingdom would be lost to him and he
would die. “I have told no other living soul,” said Qurob’s mother, “and all
who knew, I have made certain they are eternally silent. For if any are aware
but us two, they may turn the chance against you and trick you into just such a
ride.”

“Oh my mother,” said Qurob, “I am blessed in you. Oh most
sagacious of women, and best. I will heed your caution. None shall know save
you and me.”

Now it may be thought strange that Qurob should distrust his
mother, who had all this while kept the dangerous secret flawlessly. But most
men measure most matters by themselves. The woman had weaned her son to
trustlessness, and the trustless seldom trust another. Supposing he had one day
been at odds with her over something, or even that, growing older and infirm,
she muttered the story of the stallion’s back in a fever or in sleep?

So Qurob kissed his mother and gave her presents, and when she was
in her own apartments, he sent one after her to drown her in her bath, so it
should seem to be an accident. For had she not taught him for sixteen years to
be prudent?

The length of his lifetime and half again, then, Qurob ruled in
Nennafir, till he was forty years. He ruled in prosperity and health, no man
stood against him, and, though he was harsh and tyrannical, none spoke ill of
him but called him the Beloved King.

And be sure, for all the fine horses he selected, as if
carelessly, to ride upon, in all these years he never once took a stallion.

One day, Qurob went hunting. Beyond the flower fields that
garlanded the city there was a green plain with waters and spreading trees, and
here lived raisin-blue boars and shining white gazelles prized for their skins.
Nevertheless, on this day, the party started nothing, and the king became
sullen, in which humor he was feared. At last the sun was westering, and there
in the tall grass by a pool, Qurob beheld a gazelle drinking, white as the
word, and with a black star between her brows.

The hunt at once gave chase, and the animal leapt away fleet as a
spear. This was thought excellent sport, and every man shouted for
gratification—and relief, seeing the king would now be in a gentler mood. And
on and on the gazelle sprang, passing like a wind over grass and stone, leading
them toward the eastern sky, with the low sun at their backs.

But ride as they might, and cast spears, and shoot with the bow as
they might, they could not get near to her or wound her and bring her down. And
they left the hours behind them under their horses’ hoofs. The sun went on to
the western gate and knocked to be let forth.

The horses flagged. One by one the horsemen drew rein. Only the
king surged on. His courtiers dared not suggest to him any other course, but
each man but him, to save his mount, now dropped back to follow at a walk. The
gazelle they left to the king, and she and he were soon gone from sight into
the clear dark dusk.

Qurob did not like anything to elude him. His gelding labored, but
he thrashed it and spurred it to greater efforts.

He looked to see the white gazelle tire, but she did not. So he
called to her coaxingly over the echoing darkening plain: “Sweetheart, I admire
you and wish only to be near you. Let me come close. Let me protect you from
others who mean you harm.”

After a time, it seemed to Qurob he heard the gazelle cry back to
him: “Do not try those lies on me, Qurob. It was I taught you them, and I
remember how you repaid me!”

At that the hair bristled on Qurob’s neck. He went first chill
then hot then clammy cold, for it seemed he knew the voice of the gazelle; it
was like his mother’s.

Just then the gazelle reached a stand of trees and darted in among
them with a white flash. But she did not come out of the trees on the far side.
Going in after her, Qurob did not find her.

“Sorcery,” said Qurob in some annoyance. “Or that bitch’s ghost. I
will take offerings to my mother’s tomb tomorrow.”

He had scarcely spoken when the gelding shuddered and fell dead
under him.

Qurob rose bruised, and kicked the gelding’s carcass one final
kick. Then he shouted for his men, knowing they dared do nothing but follow
him. But they were too far off, as yet, to hear, and Qurob did not wish,
suddenly, to be solitary in that spot, the Beloved King of Nennafir.

Accordingly he left the cover of the trees, and stepping out, what
should he next see down the slope, but a cot with a lighted doorway, and the
evening cook-smoke going up. And nearby was a pasture in which a horse was feeding.
Going closer, Qurob saw this horse was a splendid mare.

Noting it, Qurob, generally so lucky, strode to the open door of
the dwelling. He said to the man he found within, “Down on your knees, oaf. For
I am the king of Nennafir.” At which the peasant sensibly obliged, leaving his
meal to burn on the fire.

“What is your will, mighty lord?” timidly inquired the peasant.

“Give me your horse. That is my will.”

“Alas,” said the peasant, uneasily, “if you mean the mare in the
pasture, I should not recommend it. She has had such dealings recently she is
fractious, and will not like to bear you.”

“What do I care for the whims of the brute?” exclaimed the king.

“I have, though,” said the man placatingly, “a noble stallion who
is currently content and docile—”

King
Qurob swore a dreadful oath. He had detected sounds without of spurs and hoofs,
and understood his courtiers were now approaching. And he was thinking this:
If
I decline the stallion, this dolt will question in his mind my insistent
preference, and so will they that arrive now, my court. Besides, there are
stallions ridden with the geldings for the hunt, and I may be offered one of
those and must refuse. And they may wonder at it, and may recall I have never
sat upon a stallion, and so divine
I
have some secret
reason, and guess it means no good to me, and trick me one day, just as my
mother told me.

So Qurob drew his sword and lopped off the peasant’s head, and
going out he went after the mare and got hold of her, and when his court came
up the king said, “Go fetch my saddle and the rest of the gear off the dead
horse in the trees. I have taken a fancy to this plump mare and will ride her
home to the city.”

And that he did, though the stallions of the party were
troublesome at her presence, and she herself unwilling, as the peasant had
declared, and Qurob beat her.

For all that, she was a lush animal, and Qurob inclined to keep
her for his stable. Having forgotten her in other business, it was a while
later that, recollecting, a morning came when he called his chief groom and
asked for the mare.

“Alas, mighty lord, she died. She was in foal, which foal she
dropped before her time, and it came out of her feet-first, having stood all
its season in her belly. And, had the foal lived, it would have been the jewel
of your yards, for already it was in every particular the most choice of
stallions. And it is a great shame that only once you rode on his back, and
that unknowing, when you rode over the womb of his mother.”

Hearing these words, Beloved King Qurob went gray as ash. He
lifted his hands and took off the royal diadem, and from his fingers he pulled
the rings. “My sins have hunted me down,” said he. “My mother’s curse, for
certainly she cursed me, has found me out.” And he called his trembling
attendants and had them strip him of all his ornaments, and his raiment, and
even his shoes he put off from his feet. And he took with him only one sharp
dagger, and walked from his palace naked and alone, astounding the city, and
down to the brown river, where the white stone cats of Nennafir gazed away from
him with loveless eyes.

Qurob had no mind to wait for death, for he had often sent death
to others, or given them death; Qurob grasped death might be unlikable. So he
cut his own throat and his corpse fell in the river.

And those many hundred who had come to see and who watched, not
comprehending any of it, were filled by terror and amazement, though not, let
it be said, by grief.

8

POSSIBLY
the tale of the stallion was untrue, or exaggerated. Generally only the warrior
in battle chose to ride an ungelded horse, and then not always, for they were
intractable beasts. Perhaps there was some other cause for King Qurob’s guilty
fear and self-immolation.

Whatever it was, there he lay still, on his face, drifting downstream
and turning the brown water red.

Several thousands of people watched his corpse on its way, lining
the banks to do so, or staring out from high roofs and balconies. And where the
harbor was, the birdlike ships were lying with their wings noon-folded and
dipped, but men climbed up to the mastheads or hung over the sides, looking out
for the throat-cut king of the city. Word had gone fast through Nennafir. ‘‘And
is it the
lord
?”
they cried. “What reason has
he
to kill himself, the
ingrate, when I, with so many good reasons, estimably cling to life?”

But if Qurob heard he gave no answer, as he went drifting by on
his face.

And some said, “He was a bad master. But who is next may be
worse.”

Qurob had left many sons, and daughters, lust being his pastime.
Some of these were children, but others older. And there were some of
twenty-five years and more, that he had sired when he was the heir. These might
be expected to squabble and the kingdom not to be the better for it.

Then, far down the river, various sightseers thought they caught
another sight, that of a man in an orange robe, walking over the water where
there was no bridge. Still others spied him on the quays. He was a beggar, a
rich lord. He played a pipe of jade, or merely stood musing, gazing downstream. . . .
Fate had come to Nennafir.

A few miles to the west, the river loosed itself into the sea. In
that direction the tiered merchant vessels of the city were rowed, and from
that direction they returned, some heavy-laden, some light and with the promise
of gold. Now, seaward, westward, there seemed to be a sort of fierce flash,
either on the water, or just above it in the sky. There came a great radiance
suddenly, a second sunrise, and from the wrong place, which brought the people
of Nennafir in hordes to their windows and into the streets—or else sent them
burrowing to hide in fear. And silence fell, expectant and terrible. Those who
had come to watch the floating of their corpse king were due for superior
wonders.

The light in the sky turns soft and flowerlike. A day-moon, not a
sun. Only look, it is nothing horrible or fearsome, no sea monster out of the
depths raging inland, no animate lightning. It is something lovely and fair,
something that makes a beautiful music, and the glow on it is rainbows, and the
glimmer of colors on the wings of birds and the backs of big fish leaping.

“A ship!” exclaimed a thousand voices.

It
was
a
ship. But oh, such a ship it was.

It came upriver, between the banks of the city, gliding. And as it
came, Qurob’s cadaver slipped down under the water and was gone, from sight and
from mind.

Tall, the ship, seven tiers of it, so it should not be able to
stay upright or to move, and many, after, declared that indeed it did not rest
utterly on the water, but a little over it, on a cloud of bright air. Yet seven
oar banks turned, and the tips of their long spoons stirred the river.

It was the shape of a colossal lily, the ship, with a myriad
down-folding petals, but the prow was the head of a slender dragon which came
out from the flower with looking eyes and parted jaws. What woods had gone into
the making of the ship it was not easy to tell, for every inch was plated by
poured silver and hammered gold, so it blazed on and dazzled everything that
gazed at it. Transparent bubbles like ghost-suns hung over the ship, and rays
rang from the golden oars. Multihued, the birds came and went through the sheen
of it, and the fish sported in its wake. It had no sail, and no one on its
decks, and no cry from within of any directing the oars. Only music played,
with no source. It soaked into brain and limb. The listeners felt a delirium
fasten on them, they longed to spring about and dance, and quantities did so,
clapping their hands and shouting joyfully, although there was no reason for joy,
more for suspicion and alarm.

“Only see,” said children in the crowds of Nennafir, “there is a
lady on the ship.”