The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt (good novels to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Fletcher Pratt
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The bridge leading to the southern suburbs blotted out the prospect; little white cakes of ice came swimming like ducks down the stream, and the ship swung to its quay, the one around the curve. There were lanterns there and a little group waiting; they must have been seen from the walls, and the word passed through to meet them. Someone hallooed to Rodvard from the stern of the ship; Demadé Slair was waiting there with Lalette, muffled close in her long cloak. (Rodvard thought: we are come back to Dossola, both of us, as naked as when we left it, but at least with more hope.) Said Slair:
“It would be as well to hurry. It does not do to be on the streets too much at night these days.”
(The back of Rodvard’s mind recognized that he had given Lalette no more than a priest’s argument that night in the lock-bed, and wished that he had found a better, since she must see the defect in this one. But what? How educate her to the ideal?) The plank was flung. Five or six men were at the other end, one of them in a provost’s cloak, but the shoes were not like what they should be, nor did the doublet seem to belong to the uniform. A longsword bulged out the cloak; the eyes flicked past Rodvard to rest on Lalette. Demadé Slair identified himself and shepherded his charges past a dark shed to the quay-side street. A man was there with a horse; Slair spoke to him, he swung himself into the saddle and rode off.
Said Rodvard (to say something); “That provost seemed in an inquiring mood.”
Slair; “This was no provost. The general assembly has abolished that hateful order. What you saw was a people’s guard.”
Rodvard; “This is a different Dossola.”
Slair; “It will be a better one.”
Lalette said; “Where are we going?”
“To the guest-house of the nation, that used to be the palace of Baron Ulutz, who has fled to join Pavinius. The man has gone for a carriage.”
The conversation winked out. Around a corner of the street somewhere in the dim, there was a shout that came to them only as the confused “Yaya!” of many throats, followed by a crash of glass and then another shout. “What is it?” Rodvard looked at Slair.
“Some of the people, doubtless. You should know; there are many debts being paid these days.” He shrugged.
Lalette stirred; (without the Blue Star’s intervention Rodvard knew that she would find in this wild lawlessness the case against his new day). He said; “Is there much of this from day to day?”
The man’s voice was indifferent. “Enough. It is mostly Zigraner moneylenders who suffer.”
Round the corner came a carriage with a single horse, the messenger riding ahead.
“You will report to the office of the committee at the second glass in the morning,” said Slair to the rider. The fellow’s chin was badly shaven; he leaned from the saddle and said; “Well, friend Slair, I will do the best I can, but it will be hard to ride more messages so early, for Mousey here is nearly done, and she’s my livelihood.”
Rodvard now noticed that the horse was drooping with weariness, but Demadé Slair said; “If you lose one, there’s another. The people’s business will not wait. Be on time.”
The man got slowly down and patted the neck of the horse. “Friend Slair,” he said, “I am as much for the people as anyone, but there’s more to this than livelihood. This is my friend.” The tired horse sniffed at the hand he put up.
Slair surprisingly burst into laughter. “Go, then, with your friend. I’ll be your warranty if you are late.”
The carriage had wide seats; Lalette huddled down in the corner, so that Rodvard was barely touching the edge of her cloak, and Slair sat facing them. Beyond the corner, where the turbulence was, figures were visible at a little distance and torches moving, but nobody said anything in the vehicle (because, thought Rodvard, there was so much to say).
Presently they turned in at the gate of the wide-flung Ulutz palace, where some statue on the entrance-pillar had been thrown down, leaving broken stone across the cobbles. There were lights in the building, but no doorman. Demadé Slair led the way, and straight up the wide flight of marble steps to a tall-walled room, where he struck light to a candle. A huge bed stood in the corner, and one of the chairs had been slit, so that the material of the upholstery flowed upon the carpet. “I bid you good-night,” said their guide. “There’s a kitchen below-stairs where you can have breakfast, and a messenger will call for you in the morning, friend Bergelin.”
When they were alone, Lalette sat in the good chair with her hands in her lap, and looked at her feet. “Rodvard,” she said at last.
“Yes?” (His heart jumped hopefully.)
“Be careful. You are not so important to them as you think. If you were—gone, they might make me give the Blue Star to someone else.”
“Could they compel you to put the witchery on it?”
“No. But they might find another witch . . . Rodvard.”
He went over to her, but at his touch she made a small gesture of dismissal, as though to rebuke him for bringing something childish into a moment of utter intensity.
“I am afraid, Rodvard. Don’t let them do that to me.”
He stepped away from her. “Ah, pest, you are shying at shadows. I am a member of the Sons; and even so you have the Art.”
“Yes. I have that.”
She only undressed to a shift, and wrapped it close around her, sleeping on the far side of the bed. The water was very cold.
24SPEECHES IN THE GREAT ASSEMBLY
It was the old Hall of Presence. The throne stood as before, its dark wood bright with jewels, and the jewelled star bright above it, so that Rodvard felt at his back almost a palpable emanation of Dossola’s high fame. Before him, chairs had been swung out from the walls into the space where all had once stood to hear judgments pronounced from the throne, as in the great days of King Crotinianus; and other chairs brought in, not consonant with those already there. He himself occupied the seat once reserved to the Announcer, two steps up; a board was placed for him to write on, since this was to be the pretence for his being there. To the right, another step up, was the place once occupied by the Chamberlain, which Mathurin would presently take. It also had a board.
Rodvard looked out across the hall, now filling with men, most of whom bowed to the throne on entering, in the ancient form. Very few were badged with coronets, and it seemed to Rodvard a cause of hope and pleasure that this was so. There was a solid group of legists; some merchants; and a few men from the lesser orders, though not as many as he had expected. As he watched, the Episcopals came in, six of the seven at once, not looking around at the fall and sudden rise of chatter that attended their entrance. They moved to places in the premier row of chairs; legist badges began drifting toward them as straws on a stream will be drawn by a log.
Mathurin came in. He wore his servant’s black and badge of low condition as though they were robes and a crown, strutting visibly. He did not bow to the throne, but walked straight up to the Chamberlain’s place, sat down, bounced up again immediately and slapped his palm on the board for attention. As the buzz of talk died reluctantly and men took their places, he watched with tight lips; when only two or three whisperers remained, he struck the board again and said; “There is a new matter of utmost importance before the assembly of the nation.”
A solid-looking man who bore the coronet badge stood up into the dramatic pause and said; “I am the Marquis of Palm. There is an old matter for which this assembly was called that I shall never cease to urge. No regent-apparent has been—”
He was allowed to say no more. A chorus of angry babblings covered his voice, and Mathurin slapped sharply. His voice rose; “I am only the writer before this assembly, and will place before it whatever is desired; but it does not seem to me that it wishes to hear your proposal, Ser Marquis. The more since the matter of which I speak is so great that it overrides every other. I have to say that the nation, already threatened by exterior enemies, is now called upon to face a worse danger, one that will call for all our exertions. It is this: the leaders in whom we have most trusted have turned traitor, and are conspiring with the enemies of the people.”
Now there were more babblings, and angry cries, such as “Cut their throats!” with a couple of fists brandished aloft; but Rodvard noticed that all the outcry came from one section of the hall, behind the Episcopals. One of the latter began fanning himself rapidly. Instead of quieting, the tumult augmented as Mathurin stood sweeping his eyes across it with a half-triumphant air. At last he raised a hand.
“I will tell you the worst,” he said, “not in fine words but brutally, for this is a brutal thing.” He shuffled a handfull of papers. “No, wait, I will begin with the tale of how this knowledge reached us.
“At Drog, below the pass that leads through the Ragged Mountains to Rushaca, there is an inn. Some eight days gone there came to it a carriage, bearing one of the ladies of the court, oh, a beautiful lady, all dressed as though for a ball. She came from the north, from Zenss, where the court is, and as the road leads to Tritulacca ultimately, her actions roused some suspicion in the mind of the innkeeper. He is a true patriot, and thought she might be carrying wealth away out of the country in violation of the decree against it; watched her, and noticed that she was very careful of a certain casket. The innkeeper thereupon summoned people’s guards, who seized the casket and broke it open. They found no money, but they found—this.”
Mathurin drew from his papers one that seemed to be of parchment, and waved it aloft, so that all could see that it bore at its foot a huge blue seal, star-shaped, the sign-manual of the chancery of the realm. There were sharp intakes of breath and stirring among the chairs; the Episcopal who had been fanning himself stopped. The sturdy man who had described himself as the Marquis of Palm stared aloft with his mouth open and a frown on his face.
“Shall I read it to you? No, not word for word, for it is written in Tritulaccan, and with the stupid, decorative court phrases that try to hide real meaning.” (Rodvard thought: he has more orator’s tricks than I ever would have imagined.)
Pause. “Here it is, then: a missive, signed with the name of Count Cleudi, himself a Tritulaccan by birth, to Perisso, Lord Regent of Tritulacca, but bearing as proof of genuineness, the seal of our Gracious Majesty, the Queen. The substance of it is that while without doubt the rebellion of her cousin Pavinius, aided though he is by the Mayerns, will soon be put down, the war is likely to be long and wasteful. Her gracious majesty therefore consents to the proposal of the Lord Perisso, made in the name of true religion and the old friendship between the two houses, that he shall join the army of Dossola with not less than sixteen shars; and in return for this, it is graciously conceded that Tritulacca has a just claim to the city and province of Sedad Mir. And some of these Tritulaccan shars shall pass to the war by way of Netznegon city, to suppress certain disorders there. The rats! There is no dealing with such people!”
“Shame!” shouted someone almost before he had finished, and now all over the hall men were on their feet and shouting, but among other cries there was one of
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