The Death of Nnanji (34 page)

The king seemed surprised by that, sitting with his toothless jaw dangling.

Addis galloped ahead. “I know that’s not what the epic says, but I have heard the story from Dad, and my mother, and also Lord Shonsu, all of whom were there. Apart from a few details like that, my dad says that
Nnanji’s Farewell to the Prince
is the most accurate epic he’s ever heard, so… Sire?” The old loon was drooling. Was he going to have a fit?

The king roused himself. “Go on! Go on!”

“Well, Sire. It was my parents’ wedding night, Wheelwrights’ Day.” He knew that day because it always meant a family visit to the temple to give the Goddess an offering. Even if Dad wasn’t in town, Mom would take them.

“Bah! It was long after that, because the sorcerers didn’t prophesy it to me until Masons’ Day. You’re just parroting the wicked epic. It’s all lies.”

“Sire!”
Just in time Addis remembered he was addressing a king who could order his head cut off, and he only had Master Alacrimo’s word for it that he would not let anyone carry out the sentence. “Sire, sorcerers cannot prophesy! They send messages by pigeon, so they get to know things much sooner than anyone else does. I’m surprised it took them until Masons’ Day to get the news here, to Plo.”

“Go on!” The old imbecile seemed to be hanging on every word Addis spoke, so he plunged ahead.

“Well, Sire, the night was very still. And they had just completed their marriage vows when they heard swords clashing and cries coming from a boat nearby. It was the pirates who killed Polini. And they wounded your son so badly that he asked my dad to give him the Return. They’d met earlier, in a town called Tau, and he thought my dad was a hero, which he was, and—”

Brainwave!

Why hadn’t he remembered this sooner?

“Before your son asked my dad to, um, Release him, he gave him this. And when I left Casr two seasons ago to come here, my father gave it to me to return to you, because it belonged to your great ancestor Arganari, so it is rightfully yours.”

No doubt the sorcerers would have stolen the silver hairclip if they had noticed it, just as they’d taken everything else except his kilt, but it had been invisible in his mop all the time, and it was still hanging in there. He brought it out and took one step toward the throne. At once swordsmen with drawn swords appeared alongside the twin thrones as if they’d sprung out of the ground. Addis froze.

A footman stepped forward to present a silver tray. Addis laid the hairclip on it, and watched as it was borne in state to the king and proffered with a bow. Arganari fumbled for it, found it, and held it up to his nose. He made a strangled noise, causing the queen to lay a hand on his arm and lean closer, looking worried.

“A token! A token of Her special blessing… Come here!”

“Sire?” Addis said.

“Come here, boy, come here so I can see you.”

Addis glanced at the swordsmen nearest the king and received a grudging nod. So he went up to the throne.

“Closer!”

The king grabbed his head and almost hauled him off his feet, pulling their faces nose-to-nose close. Eyes as yellow as pee peered at Addis, scanning every pore and eyelash of him. “Yesh… yesh…” The dotard was drooling again, barely able to make words. “Yes! Knew the voice. The voice exactly. Face very like. Up! Up! Help me up, boy!”

He winced horribly at the pain as the bewildered Novice Addis helped him rise. Everyone else in the hall promptly went down on their knees, all except the swordsmen guards and the queen. Addis almost did, because Arganari was leaning so heavily on him.

“My people, let us give thanks! I have prayed diligently to the Most High that She send me a miracle, and behold, She has done so! A most wonderful miracle! A miracle to inspire minstrels for a thousand years! When were you reborn, Argie?” He thrust his right eye almost into Addis’ left.

Oh, Goddess!
“I was born on Shepherds’ Day, your Majesty.”

“Wheelwrights’ Day they were married and you were born on Shepherds’ Day? That fits doesn’t it, my dear?”

Addis staggered as the king leaned forward to peer at his wife.

“Exactly forty weeks, I think, Sire. Yes, it fits.” She looked amused, pleased. Shouldn’t a wife be alarmed when her husband goes screaming wet-hen bonkers?

All the courtiers started shouting in a great storm-surge of noise, in which only a few words like “Yes” and “Right!” and “Glorify the Mother!” were distinguishable. Apparently everyone humored the senile nitwit when he had these attacks. The priest-king raised his free hand for silence.

“My people, let us praise Her!” He began to chant a hymn in a strong, if quavery, voice. Everyone else seemed to know the words. Addis did, so he joined in too, even if he did seem to be describing himself as a
manifest blessing
. His mom would not agree with that, most of the time. But his mom had nothing to do with him any more, since he was sworn, and he was beginning to think he might not see her for a very long time, if ever. He would need a new mentor…
Oh, Vixi! Why couldn’t Vixi have lived to see this?

The king demanded to be put down, and Addis managed that quite gently, he thought. Everyone else was now free to stand up. Funny, but from what he could see, just about everyone was either pleased with all this madness, or else very skilled at hiding their real feelings.

“You never could carry a tune,” the king muttered, “but you’re not as bad as you were last time. Come and stand at my right hand, son. Push that stupid swordsman out of the way. Beloved subjects, tomorrow we shall hold a service of thanksgiving in the temple, and adopt Novice, um…”

“Addis, Sire.”

“Adopt Novice Addis as our son, with the name of Arganari.”

Gods’ balls!
Things were moving too fast for Addis. A free gift of a kingdom was a nice thought—especially such a gloriously rich city as Plo—but to agree to things like adoption he would need permission from his mentor and his father… Except that his father was half a world away and his mentor was dead. He should certainly play along to stay out of the hands of sorcerers and Reeve Pollex. In a few weeks he could sell a few gold plates and sneak away to buy passage on the River, back home to Casr…

“But Argair, my love?” the queen murmured.

The king cackled to indicate the arrival of another Good Idea. “Oh, why yes, of course! Tomorrow we shall adopt Novice Oddis as our
heir
with the name of Arganari, and we shall betroth our beloved daughter Argair to this Eddis son of Nnanji, as a token of the friendship between him and ourselves, and a pledge of our acceptance of the Tryst as guarantor of peace to our domain of Plo and Fex. You father will accept that?” he asked, peering up at what he must be seeing as the Addis Blur.

If you can ride a pony you can ride a horse,
Mom always said.

“Truly, Sire, my father, Nnanji, swordsman of the Seventh, liege lord of the Tryst of Casr, will be overjoyed to hear of this joining of his house with that of the ancient lineage of the legendary Arganari I, leader of the tryst of Xo, and he will gladly guarantee to the people of the great domain of Plo and Fex, as he does to all peoples dwelling under the protection of the Tryst of Casr, honest government and all their historic liberties.”

How was that, Dad? Mom would shit sideways at the thought of any son of hers sitting on a real throne. Was it just possible that any of this might be
real
?

“Nobody,” Addis concluded, “need fear the Tryst except corrupt swordsmen.”

Apparently that was what they wanted to hear. The beloved subjects roared their approval. Who were all these people? Officials? Aristocratic parasites? Palace flunkies? Rich landowners or merchants? Whoever they were, there seemed to be a lot more of them than there had been at first, and they loved that last bit.

Were they going to be
his
beloved subjects, one day soon?

“The only part my father would not approve of, Sire,” the heir whispered, in his first attempt to influence government policy, “is that you say you welcome the Tryst, but you have deployed an army on the far bank to repel it. Perhaps that army could be disbanded—as a token of good faith, that is?”

The king mumbled and drooled. “Pollex wanted it,” he quavered.

“But, Majesty, if I may presume to make a personal comment, it may be that your subjects do not approve of Lord Pollex.”

The old relic looked up at him sharply, and for a horrible moment Addis thought he had overreached himself and burst the bubble.

“Are you sure of that?”

Swordsmen taking orders from sorcerers, poisoned wells, the massacre at Soo, and all the things he had been told by the swordsmen right here in the palace—Addis was utterly certain, but people who spoke up against corrupt reeves had a very short life expectancy. That was why Dad had been trying to stamp them out, and if he could risk his life day after day for years in the quest, how could Addis do less? “I believe that he is a very evil man, Sire.”

The king glanced the other way. “What do you say to that, my dear?”

The queen looked at Addis.

Addis looked at the queen. He wasn’t sure how to signal
Which side are you on?
with his eyebrows, but he did his best.

She said, “I think Prince Arganari is absolutely correct, love, and very brave to speak up. Pollex is a horror, a sub-human brute. He makes my flesh creep every time I look at him. If the prince were not a very clever and upright young man, the Goddess would not have sent him to you in your time of need.”

Addis couldn’t have said it better himself.

Tears welled up in the tired old eyes. “Oh, Argie, Argie! How I have missed you all these years! Long, long I have waited for someone I could trust to give me honest counsel. Where is that Fifth who brought you in?”

“Master Alacrimo… um, Sire.” Addis was horrified to realize that he was starting to talk like Dad already. He had spoken the name like a summons.

It was taken that way. The acting reeve marched in from the side and saluted the throne. But he was looking at Addis as he did so, and there was a gleam in his eyes that might mean… might mean several things.

“Sire?”

“Um, I am advised that Lord Pollex is not a good reeve. I hereby dismiss him. If he shows up, put him under arrest. Who is that fellow at Fex?”

“Lord Ozimshello, sire?”

“That one. Get him here and tell him he’s to be reeve of Plo as well until we can, um, think about it.”

Without doubt the king had just made a popular decision. The subjects roared louder than ever. The old man gaped for a moment, and then just sat there and grinned, once in a while glancing up at Addis as if to share the enjoyment. He wasn’t quite the dimwit Addis had first taken him for, apart from the weird obsession that his dead son had been returned to him, and perhaps a priest could believe in prayers being answered with miracles more easily than a swordsman could.

The queen caught her husband’s sleeve and whispered something. He nodded, and raised a hand for silence. “Announce her,” he said.

“Her Highness Princess Argair!” boomed the herald.

Oh, all gods! In all this busy governing business, Addis had forgotten that there was a marriage involved. There’s bound to be a hitch, Vixi would have said. But Old Drone, one of their tutors, had explained that royal marriages were usually diplomatic arrangements, and Addis was being treated as royalty in this madhouse. He did not want to get married yet, though, not for ten years at least. How old would she be, if she were ancient Arganari’s daughter? Old as Mom? Older?

But the girl who walked in and curtseyed to the king was about the same age as Nnadaro. That was better, especially when he recalled that his sister had no interest in boys at all. Rough, smelly, and loud, she called them. Argair was a lot prettier than Nnadaro and was going to be a beauty like the queen. Maybe even have, um, a bosom like hers! At the moment she looked terrified, listening to her father explain that she was to be betrothed to this novice swordsman, this one here…

Argair looked at the new Prince Arganari in horror.

Addis winked.

Her chin shot up indignantly, then she hastily lowered her gaze and seemed to fight back a smile. He stepped forward, took up her hand, and kissed it. She blushed scarlet, the courtiers applauded. Ten years might be a bit too long to wait for the real thing. Five, maybe?

“So I win the fairest jewel in the kingdom,” he exclaimed, hamming a little.

Even redder. “And I the handsomest swordsman.”

“It’s my eyelashes,” he whispered.

She liked that.

“You have no sword!” the king exclaimed. “We can’t have a swordsman without a sword! Where’s that reeve?”

Master Alacrimo came forward again.

“Fetch the sword!” the king demanded. “Get it down. And you give it to him.”

This was too much! First escape from death, then a mighty kingdom, a very promising fiancée, and now…
What sword did he mean?
Not…

Yes he did. Alacrimo was snapping orders to swordsmen: a gangling Third, a very brawny Second, and a wisp of a First. All three went behind the thrones. The two big ones hoisted the novice to sit on their shoulders, and then up to stand there, so he could lift the fourth sword of Chioxin free of its peg. A moment later, Master Alacrimo was down on one knee before Addis, proffering him the priceless fourth sword of Chioxin in the ritual that must be even older than Chioxin.

“Live by this. Wield it in her service. Die holding it.”

“It shall be my honor and my pride.” Addis took it, remembering Shonsu giving him his first sword at the assembly, half a year ago.

It was glorious, as beautiful as Dad’s seventh. The guard was a gold basilisk holding a huge orange stone, but the decoration on the blade was very similar, monsters and heroes on one side, maidens and monsters on the other. There were only a couple of nicks on the edge, and the leather of the grip seemed as good as new. Stunned, he just held it and marveled for a moment.

Then Alacrimo said softly, “No honorable swordsman challenges a First, prince.”