“I’m pleased to see you awake, Majesty,” began Hobb cautiously.
The King blinked, and opened his mouth, then shut it again. At last he drew in a shuddering breath.
“Am I awake?” he asked.
“Assuredly,” replied Hobb. “You are awake, and it is the third of October. The city is safe, for now. The Guard drove back the Carolese at the docks, and the Heavy Arms routed the Brassen siege—though I’m told they themselves suffered heavy casualties.”
Leeland stared at the ceiling, and said nothing. Hobb looked curiously at the physician. But the man would not meet his eyes. Crown Prince Leeland sat wordlessly by the bed, his face nearly as pale as the King’s. The man Boris stood on the other side of the bed, a stubby pencil and writing tablet in hand.
“I saw you, Hobb,” said the King softly, slowly. “There was a hole in a man’s chest, and it was full of darkness, and it grew enormous and swallowed me up inside it. I saw your head in a basket, and it had a cable of twisted metal coming from it, and it asked me if I wanted any tea. I saw a great host of giant men, and serpents, and creatures made of steel. Richard Enderly was there.”
He laid his head back and closed his eyes.
“His Majesty is very weak,” said the physician, finally meeting Hobb’s eyes. “He was unconscious for many hours, while I attended him, with your man Boris.” The physician’s haunted glance drifted across the bed, to the pale-skinned secretary. “I believe his body has accepted the Prince’s blood,” the doctor continued, “but it will be many weeks before we know if he will… fully… recover. He will need more transfusions.”
Hobb turned to look at Prince Leeland, sitting beside the bed.
“Thank you, Highness,” he said. “But for your bravery, and a bit of good fortune, the Republic would now be in graver danger than it was yesterday, with stones smashing at the walls.”
Prince Leeland stood slowly, pressing a cloth bandage against one arm. He walked over to Hobb, and their eyes locked.
“I care less for your Republic, First Minister, than for the contents of the King of Brasse’s chamber pot this morning.” The Prince’s voice was soft, but there was a hint of steel within it. “But I would rather my father not die just yet. I think you and I can agree on that, at least.”
“Your mother has filled your head with nonsense,” replied Hobb, his voice equally soft. “Remember that she is not here, and if she does return it will be, at best, to make a permanent home in the Rose Tower. You should consider the circumstances of your own future.”
Hobb turned and addressed the palace guards at the door to the King’s bedroom. “Escort the Prince back to his chambers,” he instructed shortly. “Fetch him again if the King needs more of his blood. Boris—follow.”
As his secretary obediently shuffled in front of the bed, the eyes of the physician and the prince lingered on his thin frame and bald, pale head.
“Your man was most helpful,” said the physician as they left. “He has the hands of a healer.” But his voice had an edge of fear. In the bed next to him, King Leeland muttered restlessly in his sleep.
“What did you do?” asked Hobb curiously, as they walked through the corridors back to his own apartment.
Boris shrugged. “I did what was necessary,” he answered.
???
The days passed too swiftly, as they always did now. Hobb, who would rather have turned his thoughts to matters of high principle, instead busied himself with the endless, regenerating minutiae of feeding, protecting, and governing an entire nation. Grain and livestock supplies coming in from the countryside on Foregrub and Quimble caravans—now the lawful property of the Republic—had to be inspected and sorted and stored by the Interior Department. New taxes for the relief of the Poor and the defense of the Nation had to be organized and voted on in the National Assembly. The many wrongs of the sullen and reluctant criminal residue had to be righted.
Of these last, there were many. An irritating spate of murders had flared up in the late summer, and dragged on into the fall. They were not the work of some twisted criminal genius, stalking the streets in a dark cape and a mask. They didn’t even have the decency to be crimes of passion. Ordinary, unremarkable, working-class men simply walked into public places and attacked their fellow citizens at random. They used knives, or clubs, or rarely a rusty old spear or short sword. They flailed about themselves as best they could, crudely battering and stabbing the bodies of their victims until they were overwhelmed, and the Guard called to take them away to Hoel. No motive could be found. None could be made to admit to any relationship with each other. But all had heard of someone else who one day had picked up a knife and set out to end the lives of his neighbors. And they imitated one another, spreading like a disease through the city.
The King’s Bench was clogged with reactionaries and obsessed with procedure; King’s Counsel could barely manage to convict one murderer per week. And so Hobb sent the cases to the new administrative tribunals, originally created to apply weight and purity regulations, where they were processed briskly. The offenders were sent back to Hoel, where they kept the hangmen occupied.
He’d once asked Attorney Killbride, King’s Counsel, for his view of the plague of murders, interrupting a private briefing on the apparently eternal case of .
“I’ve never seen anything like it, First Minister,” Killbride replied. “Not in thirty years of practice. It’s like they’ve… given up. A man who’s got something to live for doesn’t walk into a market, sober as a priest, and start stabbing whoever’s closest. Not one of them has any explanation for himself, other than that it seemed the last thing to do.”
Hobb had shrugged, and signed a dozen more execution orders while Killbride droned on about the latest motion to dismiss the
case. But his mind, reluctant to come to terms with an offense against reason, searched for a theory.
On the seventh of October, General Sir Thomas Howe arrived in Uellodon and came to pay his respects to the First Minister and King. Hobb received him in the small audience chamber, along with Mr. Robe and three of the more influential Assemblymen. Boris sat in one corner, taking notes on the meeting. It was raining loudly outside the thick glass windows of the chamber, and Sir Thomas was still rather damp as he seated himself.
He was a younger man, only in his early thirties, with thick, dark, wavy hair and a sober but well-proportioned face. He was not especially tall or muscular, but he moved with the steady confidence of a man who has seen more battles than birthdays.
“What plans have been made if the King should pass?” asked the general, after the opening pleasantries had been conquered, and everyone had been served tea.
“His Majesty is improving every day!” declared Mr. Wentley-Wastings of Upper Bethoot, rather loudly. “I’ve heard he’ll address the Assembly in another week!”
“I just came from visiting the King,” replied Sir Thomas gravely. “He looks like he’s trapped somewhere between life and death. He can barely speak. So I ask you again: What plans have been made for the succession? Is there a will?”
Hobb nodded slowly. “There is,” he said. “His son is the heir, of course. The Crown’s lands and assets are to be held in trust by a committee to be appointed by the Assembly, and the Crown’s executive power will be held and exercised by a Cabinet to be approved by the same, with certain powers delegated to rulemaking bodies appointed by the Cabinet ministers—”
“A committee?” interrupted Sir Thomas—quietly, but irresistibly. “A cabinet? Rulemaking bodies? First Minister, forgive my candor, but the power of the Crown rests in the body that wears it, whatever counselors he may choose to listen to. The oaths of the Heavy Arms—and the loyalty of the King’s subjects—are to the of the King. We are held together, as a people, by personal love and personal duty. Only a lawful succession will ensure that loyalty continues. There may be a regent if needed, though Prince Leeland is nearly old enough to do the job, with good advisors. But the succession must be clear.
“I came south to tell you—to tell the King—that the landowners of the Great Basin have called a moot in Roosterfoot. It will begin in two weeks. There has not been a landowners’ moot without a royal writ since the rebellion against Bloody Maude, but there will be one now. The understanding among the landowners is clear—they intend to declare whether they will support the King, or Anne.”
Mr. Robe cleared his throat. “That would be treason,” he said flatly. “Even to gather for that purpose would be treasonous. They will all hang.”
“If that outcome were certain—or even likely—then we would not be having this conversation,” replied Howe with a touch of acid. “I know these people, gentlemen. They are my neighbors. The landowners of the Great Basin are not idealists or revolutionaries. They are farmers in the main, and they want to go on farming with as little bother as possible—but a great many believe deeply in the value of a strong and just king. That they feel compelled to gather in moot means that at least some of them see a choice between you and Anne as unavoidable. And if the person sitting on the throne is a boy who has obviously and permanently been stripped of power by an unrecognizable political body—well, another monarch is on offer.”
“What do you think, General Howe?” asked Mr. Knickling of Towley. He was taking a turn as the Speaker of the Assembly this month. “Where will your loyalties lie? Speak freely, sir; Mr. Robe’s threat of a trip to the gallows need not trouble us here.”
Sir Thomas Howe stared hard at the Speaker. “Whatever threats Mr. Robe has to offer, and whatever amnesty you promise, sir, would not change my opinion,” he replied, his voice colder than the rain outside the window. “I swore an oath to the King, and it is an oath I will not break—not for gold or foes or any variety of politician. When Leeland III dies, I presume his son will be Leeland IV. When the happens, I have no doubt that I, and the Crown Knights, and what remains of the Heavy Arms, will all renew their oaths to the new king, and to the Kingdom he protects.”
Sir Thomas rose to his feet then, his tea untouched. “That is all the news I came here to deliver, gentlemen,” he said. “If you will excuse me, I must report to the barracks, and to General Watt.”
Hobb walked the knight-general out to the main doors of the palace. As they passed through the Grand Ballroom, he turned to look at his companion.
“The King needs your loyalty, General Howe,” he said. “You will attend the Moot as a delegate, I presume?”
Sir Thomas nodded shortly, but said nothing.
“Fortunate,” remarked Hobb. “Your support will convince them to declare for the rightful king. You will receive new orders from His Majesty. I’ll have them delivered to the barracks this evening. Don’t let General Watt talk you into taking up a commission, Howe; you’ll do far more good for your king in the Moothall than on the battlefield.”
They reached the doors.
Sir Thomas’s eyes glittered with suppressed rage as he regarded Hobb.
“See that those orders are properly signed, First Minister,” he said. “I’m well acquainted with Leeland’s signature.”
Hobb indulged in a bit of seething at Sir Thomas’s back as the officer walked to his carriage. Howe was a useful tool, if an unwilling one. Men who fancied themselves honorable always were.
On the way back to his apartments, crossing through Begley Gallery, Hobb encountered Mr. Killbride and another lawyer, walking in the opposite direction. Both wore the sober, dark suits that comprised the uniform of their profession, and the small silver medallion of the sword and shield stood out prominently over each man’s cravat. Killbride’s companion was rather slight in frame, with curly black hair and handsome features. Hobb recognized him: a young attorney who had made a nuisance of himself before the King’s Bench. He’d been one of Stoat’s companions, as well, but Hobb had never found charges that would stick. The man was too slippery. Snort was the name, he recalled.
Hobb snorted.
“Mr. Killbride,” he said frostily, “I can’t imagine what business this vulture has in Palace Naridium.”
Killbride managed to look a bit guilty himself, but straightened up to address Hobb. “Pre-trial conference, First Minister,” he explained. “I’ve had a bit of a busy morning, and Mr. Snort was kind enough to come meet me here.”
Hobb scowled suspiciously. “Pre-trial conference? For what trial?”
“,” answered Killbride. “The High Court issued an opinion this morning on our motion to dismiss the matter on jurisdictional grounds, and I’m afraid it was denied. Judge Blackstaff has scheduled a hearing later this morning to set a trial date.”
“Actually,” added Snort, “if I’m not mistaken, it’s in about half an hour. We’d best be on our way, Mr. Killbride.”
“Show me the order,” snapped Hobb. Killbride reached into his leather case and withdrew several sheets of paper, printed neatly with block letters. Hobb snatched it from him.
“First Minister!” protested the attorney. “That’s the original order! You can’t—”
Hobb turned away from him abruptly.
“I’m going to file an appeal,” he said, making for the passage leading to the royal apartments. “It won’t take long. In fact, I expect a decision to be rendered instantly. Wait here, Killbride.”
The First Minister stormed through the halls of the apartment wing, muttering darkly. At his own apartments, he paused only long enough to collect Boris.
“Go and fetch Robe,” he snapped to his secretary. “He should be in with the National Assembly. Drag him off the podium if you have to.”
As Boris hurried away down the corridor in the opposite direction, Hobb strode briskly to the King’s apartments, slowly gathering his composure and his composition.
When he arrived, the King was awake, resting in his bed. Hobb bowed swiftly but deeply, and then sat down at the King’s own writing table.
“What are you doing?” asked Leeland, rather faintly.
“Protecting the food supply from profiteers and swindlers, Majesty,” answered Hobb shortly.
He pulled out the High Court’s order from his pocket, turned it over, and wrote on the back:
WHEREAS the said food shortage also threatens to induce civil unrest during a time of war, in which the Nation is invaded by the People’s enemies; and
WHEREAS it is therefore in the Crown’s interest to supply food and other necessaries to the People and to the armies of the Nation; and
WHEREAS the Crown has lawfully assumed control of the businesses of Messrs. Foregrub & Quimble for these rightful purposes;
THEREFORE the order of the High Court is REVERSED, and the above captioned lawsuit brought by Messrs. Foregrub & Quimble is DISMISSED with no possibility of appeal; and
FURTHERMORE it is ORDERED that all right and title to the property and trade rights formerly owned by Messrs. Foregrub and Quimble shall be transferred to and vest exclusively and irrevocably in the REPUBLIC OF UELLAND; and
FURTHERMORE it is ORDERED that the King’s Bench and High Court, having willfully and grossly misapplied the obvious and correct law, are hereby SUSPENDED until further notice.
“Kindly sign this, sire,” he said to the recumbent King, presenting him with the paper. Leeland glanced over Hobb’s writing, then wearily scrawled his name at the bottom.
“Could have sworn I signed this last year,” he muttered.
“Just a minor technicality,” replied Hobb urbanely, pressing the royal seal onto a lump of soft, red wax on the paper. “A little something required by the courts. Thank you, sire; I shan’t bother you any further today.”
As he left the room, he added the date: 7th
October, III Leeland:15.
Hobb found Mr. Robe and Boris waiting for him outside the King’s apartments.
“Witness this,” he demanded, thrusting the paper at Mr. Robe.
“But I just got here,” protested Robe. “I didn’t see—”
“Just sign it, you twit,” said Hobb in exasperation. “I’m coming out of the King’s bedroom, and that’s the King’s signature. The ink is still damp. I’ve had quite enough mindless formalism for one day, and it isn’t even lunchtime yet.”
Mr. Robe obediently signed as a witness, and then Hobb added his own signature.
“Now then, Mr. Robe,” he said. “Take this piece of paper to the barracks of the Republican Guard. There you will fetch a squadron of soldiers, and go on to the Old High Court. Present the order to Judge Blackstaff. If he fails to obey it, arrest him for treason.”
Mr. Robe started to walk away, but then paused and looked over his shoulder.
“What will you do?” he asked.
“I,” said Hobb, “am going to have tea at the top of the Rose Tower, where I can have a good view of the legal proceedings.”
???
The troop of Republican Guard looked disappointingly small as it crawled slowly toward the Old High Court on the ground below. Hobb sat down at a table of dark-stained oak in the observatory just below the rooftop deck of the Rose Tower and poured a cup of tea. He’d brought the tea himself in a light ceramic flask. The open room at the top of the tower was light and airy, well-appointed with comfortable chairs and couches, a fireplace, and a small bar. But Hobb was alone; few with the privilege to be in the observatory would bother to climb the hundreds of steps to reach it.
He sipped at the tea and peered out of the broad, glass-paned windows. Then, grumbling slightly, he opened one of the windows and raised a pair of field glasses to his face. The wind gusted in and stung his eyes, but the view was clearer.
The Guardsmen had reached the Old High Court now. Through the magnified lenses, Hobb could pick out Mr. Robe at their lead. He watched in satisfaction as the soldiers passed between the two garish bronze statues, then filed into the front door of the castle-like structure.
There was a step behind him. He turned; it was Prince Leeland. The young man—tall now, for he had sprouted early, his head crowned by a mop of straw-blond hair—had just emerged from the great stair.
Hobb stood up and bowed, placing the field glasses on the windowsill.
“Your Highness,” he said. “I didn’t think to see you here in the Observatory.”
“It’s the only place I’m permitted to go on my own, where I can see Uellodon,” answered the thirteen-year-old Crown Prince rather tartly. “And I heard there would be something to see just now.”
“Oh?” asked Hobb. He narrowed his eyes. “From whom did you receive this information?”
Prince Leeland shrugged as he walked up to the open window, standing next to Hobb.
“I’m sure you know all my friends, First Minister,” he answered. “If not, ask one of your people in the Security Bureau. They follow me constantly. Only they can’t be very discreet on the Tower stair—my minder is about thirty steps down, trying to catch his breath. It’s Pigmunk today.”
“I shall have him put on a fitness regime,” replied Hobb dryly. “And I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed by the activity in the streets. Nothing interesting at all.”
“Oh? A squad of your Republican Guard isn’t on its way to dissolve the King’s Bench?”
“Well, yes, but that’s not very interesting.”
The Prince shrugged, and picked up the glasses that Hobb had left on the windowsill. “Speak for yourself. I should think the moment a kingdom’s constitution is destroyed would be worth watching in person.” He put the glasses to his eyes.
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Hobb scowled at his companion. “You have much to learn, Highness, and you’ve already wasted considerable time learning the wrong things. I must have a word or two with your tutor.”
“You’ll have to catch him first,” replied the Crown Prince, lowering the glasses and smirking at Hobb.
Hobb looked at him sharply and started to open his mouth, but then noticed a change in the Prince’s expression. He followed the young man’s intent stare out the window, through the streets below, across Justiciar Square, and up to the doors of the Old High Court.
“Give me those,” Hobb said to Leeland, grabbing for the field glasses.
“No!” said his companion sharply, jerking them out of reach. “I’m the prince. I get to look through the glasses. Anyway, you said it wasn’t interesting.”
“I’m the First Minister!” shot back Hobb, grabbing one of the two barrels of the instrument. “I get to look through the glasses! And it’s not interesting at all, so give them back to me.”
He yanked—but the teenaged noble was strong. A tug-of-war ensued, which eventually concluded with each man peering through one barrel of the glasses, their heads pressed side by side.
“Is that Maxime Robe?” asked Leeland.
“Yes, I think it is,” replied Hobb, feeling a twinge of apprehension.
“Why is he running away from the courthouse? And is that blood?”
“I think it’s just how he’s wearing his hat.”
“No, it’s blood. You can see it all over his shirt.”
“Well—maybe it’s not blood.”
“There’s a Guardsman. Running away. And another one.”
“What the devil are they running from! And where are the rest of them?”
“Maybe they got into trouble with the law.”
Hobb glared witheringly at his companion, but Leeland took that opportunity to abscond with the field glasses, pressing them to both his eyes with a gleeful smile. Hobb, salvaging his dignity, gave up and peered out the open window with unaided vision.
A trickle of Republican Guard made its way out of the Old High Court, and a gathering flow of ant-like people began making its way in the opposite direction, the building. The miniscule figure of Mr. Robe, meanwhile, reached the nearby Guard Barracks and disappeared inside. Several minutes passed, as Hobb watched Justiciar Square anxiously.
“I think your Guardsman had the worst of it,” reported Leeland. “They’re coming out, now, and they look bloodied.”
“They’re Guardsman too, Highness,” snapped Hobb. “The Republican Guard guards the Republic of Uelland, of which you will one day be the Executive and Head of State.”
“I don’t want the Guard,” said Leeland callously. “Father can take them all with, when he goes. I’ll disband the whole lot. Your National Assembly, too. Give me the Crown Knights and the Heavy Arms, and I’ll be the best King Uelland’s ever had.”
“I’m afraid you do not, and will not, have the authority—”
“Wait,” interrupted Hobb’s future King. “There’s something happening at the barracks.” Leeland looked up at Hobb. “And it’s ”
Hobb peered down at the squat barracks.
Well-ordered ranks of red-clad soldiers were spilling out of the courtyard, moving at double-time through the streets toward Justiciar Square. Hobb and the Crown Prince watched in silence as they slowly trickled toward their destination, then spread out and encircled the building and the square around it in with pockets of red.
Hobb’s face blanched.
“I believe they mean to attack the Old High Court,” remarked Leeland.
“No. Absolutely not,” said Hobb adamantly.
“They’re forming up in the square,” said the Prince. “And they have spears. You’re about to have the blood of a few hundred more people on your hands, Hobb. But after all those priests you drowned, what’s a handful of judges and lawyers? It’s only the historians that keep score after the first hundred.”
Hobb raised his fist to strike the Prince; but then he thought better of it and lurched toward the opening leading to the stairs down. And, for the second time in the month of October, he ran at full speed down the stairs of the Rose Tower.
By the time he reached Begley Gallery, his heart was pounding and his breath was coming in feeble gasps. His legs wobbled as if they were made of butter. But he did not fetch a servant, or stop to rest. Instead, he hobbled down to the stables, waved to one of the coachmen, and threw himself face-first into his carriage.
“The barracks,” he managed to gasp at the puzzled coachmen. And then, as the vehicle rattled forward into the streets, he threw up on the upholstered seat across from him.
By the time they reached the Guard barracks, Hobb had regained some of his composure, though none of his tea. He tottered out of the carriage and went to find Major Bisking.
“Call it off!” he thundered, with as much thunder as he still possessed.
“Call it off?” asked the portly commander blankly.
“The attack on the court! Call it off!”
“But they set upon our soldiers,” whined Bisking. “They killed a man. And anyway, Mr. Robe ordered it.”
“Well, I’m un-ordering it,” fumed Hobb. “Send someone to tell them to stop.”
“We’ll do nothing?” asked Major Bisking incredulously. He turned and walked around his desk, motioning for an aide. “They beat up my soldiers, they killed a man, and we’re going to sit on our behinds and have a cup of tea?”
“No,” said Hobb, shaking his head vigorously. “We are going to have a cup of tea, but it will be at the trial. Every one of the traitors in that courthouse will be tried before the new courts, convicted, and sentenced as justice requires. But your men are not going to storm in there in broad daylight and start stabbing. Set up a perimeter around the Old High Court; no one goes in or out. Let them surrender when they run out of food and water. Go! Send your messenger!”
Bisking hurried out of the office, shouting orders. Hobb collapsed in a chair and put his head in his hands. But it was only for a moment. He sprang up again and dashed back out to where his carriage waited in the street.
“Justiciar Square!” he snapped to the driver. “Now!”
The scene at the square was surprisingly subdued. Small pockets of red-clad soldiers were stationed at regular intervals, watching the high, castle-like walls of the courthouse. The square itself was clear of people, though a large, curious crowd was milling about beyond the perimeter.
Mr. Robe met him at the approach. His head was bandaged, and his face was pale beneath the wrappings.
“How bad is it?” asked Hobb.
“Leave a scar, I expect,” said Robe. “Some lawyer smashed a pitcher of water on me. It was one of the ringleaders—Snort. The one with the pretty face.”
Hobb clapped him on the shoulder. “Heroes of the Republic have to pick up a scar or two, Robe,” he said.
“We want no more heroes here,” said Mr. Robe sullenly. “A man who sees a hero sees one person who did something, some so-called individual. He thinks that he too could do something, all on his own. It’s a story; a dark illusion that divides the great mass of the People into tiny, helpless individuals, enslaving men to the social machinery of class and clan and wealth. If the People are to be free and sovereign in their collective Will, First Minister, then they must a collective Will, not some bare majority of self-interested individuals. So give us fewer heroes—or better, no heroes at all.”
Hobb cocked his head curiously at his aide.
“Is that from my one of my speeches?” he asked.
Robe shook his head. “No. It’s just what I wanted to say. Shall I put it in your next address to the Assembly?”
Hobb thought about that for a moment, then shook his head.
“Leave it out, I think.”
???
The next day, with matters at the courthouse unchanged, Hobb the Wise travelled to Hoel to see a demonstration of a new machine. With him went Mr. Robe, Chancellor Wembley Pearsy of the New Academy, and Boris.
“It is a great advancement in efficiency,” said Mr. Robe with confidence. “Conveniently, demand for its output has increased tenfold.”
Hobb said nothing, but looked out the window at the river to the south.
“I am told,” said Pearsy cautiously, “that it promises also to greatly reduce suffering and mitigate pain.” The Chancellor wore a brown sport coat over gray pants, an off-white shirt, and a faded green tie with noticeable food stains. His gray hair and beard were wildly unkempt, sticking out in all directions like the rays of an unsightly star. Though the man apparently considered his appearance something of a fashion statement, Hobb merely found it embarrassing and unprofessional. He wondered, for the thousandth time, how Beatrice Snugg had ever come to marry Wembley Pearsy—and then suppressed a twinge of the old, sharp, enduring grief.
It didn’t matter now. She was dead. He had loved her from the shadows of his heart, and now she was dead.
He looked again at the vast river beside the road. Somewhere in that river, there was a man who Hobb had come to think of as a friend, even in the very moment he’d kicked his bound body over the edge of a small dinghy to drown. That didn’t matter now either.
He snapped his mind back to the present, and gazed wearily at the empty, brown water of the river. It was just a river.
When they arrived at Hoel, there were three prisoners waiting in the yard just inside the gates, tended by soldiers in red uniforms. A sharp wind blew across the bare, brown earth, prompting Hobb to draw his coat tightly against his chest. The prisoners were chained together, wearing miserable rags and miserable expressions. Their feet were bare, and they shuffled back and forth in the cold.
Near the men stood a machine.
There was a bench, about the right width and length for a man to lie on. Next to it was what appeared to be a miniature catapult. A long throwing arm was connected to a shaft, suspended between two stout posts. A thick rope and winch held the arm pressed back against a bar behind the shaft, bent under heavy tension and pinned in place. But in place of the basket of a catapult, there was a large, thick blade with a wickedly sharp edge.
There came a whispering in the wind that tickled at Hobb’s mind. He shook his head and focused on the odd machine.
“This is it, is it?” he asked skeptically. “It looks like a deranged siege engine.”
“It is,” confirmed Pearsy. “One of the faculty in the College of Engineering has been working on it for months.” He looked cautiously at Hobb. “Professor Yute is a true exemplar. Used to be a bricklayer, but he won the lottery to receive an Equity Professorship. He incorporates the principles of democracy and social progress into all of his designs.”
“How is he as an engineer?” asked Hobb.
“Superlative,” answered Pearsy confidently. “He exposed a plot among the other Engineering faculty to apply elitist mathematics and unjust building materials to repair the bridge at the north gate of the city. We had all their stipends cancelled for a month, and they each had to teach three lectures naked, just like their naked social imperialism. Now all the designs coming out of the College of Engineering are extremely just.”
The whispering tugged at Hobb’s mind again.
“Get on with it,” he said, gritting his teeth.
Mr. Robe nodded at one of the guards, who, with a companion, selected a prisoner. They unchained the man and led him to the bench, where he was made to lie down.
“Witness,” said Mr. Robe, “the democratization of criminal justice.” Then he cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Alistair Gort! You have been lawfully convicted of economic crimes against the People of Uelland by the People’s Courts: to wit, selling adulterated goods; dealing in unauthorized markets; fleeing lawful arrest; and destroying evidence. Your actions weakened and divided the Nation when strength and unity were most needed. The National Assembly has prescribed the lawful sentence for these acts, which we hereby… execute.”
Robe nodded at one of the Republican Guard, who nervously gripped a handle protruding from one side of the shaft on the machine. The soldier stepped back, crouched slightly, and pulled the handle. With an enormous twang, the throwing arm released, whipping up and forward and down. The blade descended on the neck of the prisoner.
But not all worked as Professor Yute intended, or so Hobb supposed. The throwing shaft caught on something inside the machine, jerking to a halt after it had already begun the work of severing neck from head. Mr. Gort, lying on the bench, gurgled helplessly and twitched.
Robe jerked his head at the Guardsman, who drew a knife and set about finishing the job.
Hobb scratched his head, regarding the gruesome shambles before him.
“What, exactly, is the problem we’re trying to solve here?” he asked. “How is this more efficient than a noose, or a headsman?”
“Hanging a man is a difficult task,” said Chancellor Pearsy. “It takes years of experience to get it right consistently. If the length of the rope is wrong, the prisoner will either strangle to death slowly, or the head will pop off. And an axeman is even worse; half the time, it takes three or four swings just to sever the head. The Yute Device here makes the whole process much more economically just. Any man on the street can use it, without any training at all.”
Hobb looked skeptically at the Guardsman busily sawing off a man’s head with his knife.
“I’m not sure we’re really solving the problem,” he remarked.
“It should have worked this time,” replied Pearsy defensively. “Yute’s credentials are impeccable. It’s not fair that it didn’t work.”
Mr. Robe turned to the soldiers and the two remaining prisoners. “Keep working on it until you get it right,” he said. “There will be a great many customers on the way soon.”
Hobb fancied he detected a hint of skepticism in the faces of the Guardsmen, but after a moment they shrugged and hauled another man over to the bench.
The First Minister turned away and made for the gates of the keep. Mr. Robe, Chancellor Pearsy, and Boris followed along after him. The whispering grew louder as they approached the stone structure. Hobb thought he could almost pick out words. He looked around cautiously at his companions, but none of them gave any indication that they heard anything unusual. Only Boris’s red-tinged eyes twinkled with some unspoken thought.
“I want to get a few hours of work done here,” announced Hobb, making for the offices on the first floor reserved for visiting officials. “Boris, come with me. You other two do as you wish; we’ll return to Uellodon around midday.”
Hobb tried for half an hour to work through a stack of administrative appeals and price adjustment requests, but the uncomfortable whispering eventually grew too distracting.
“Where is that coming from?” he muttered, standing up. “Boris—fill in the rest of these yourself. I’m going to take a walk.”
He left the office and walked out into the low, dim hall of the keep. The two staff at the desk in the foyer stood up sharply when he walked past, but he ignored them. Instead, he followed the whispering as it grew louder. It led him to a thick, oak door at one side of the hall.
“What’s down here?” he asked over his shoulder at the desk staff.
“The lower levels, First Minister,” said one of them nervously. “I shouldn’t go down there, if I were you; it’s quite unpleasant. They’ve been repairing the aqueduct from the river, and there’s been a bit of spillage.”
“Is it unsafe?” Hobb asked.
“Oh no!” replied the man hurriedly. “Everything’s perfectly safe. The prisoners are all locked up. It’s just… a bit damp. Dark. Let’s be honest, sir; it’s a dungeon. Post duty on the lower levels is one of those things the guards gamble with when they’ve run out of cash.”
Hobb shrugged. “I’ve been in damp places before,” he said, opening the door. He removed a torch from a nearby wall socket and descended.
The dungeons were indeed damp and dark, with a miasma clouding the air and the sounds of human suffering all around. There were puddles of water in the floor from the leaking aqueduct, which in ancient times had brough water to keep the Hoel supplied during sieges. The cells were well stocked with miscreants paying their debts to society, or waiting to do so. The occasional guard, slouching in lesser misery, stood to attention instantly when Hobb appeared. Hobb took it all in, and then put it back out again. He wasn’t here for the atmosphere.
The voice led him down. He passed through the first deep of the dungeon, and then the second. His boots were soon soaked through from the standing water on the floor. At the third deep, there were no more stairs to descend. The air here was particularly foul, and the walls were damp with condensation. There was a rank odor of mildew, along with all the rest of the unpleasant smells of long-neglected humanity. There was also the faint whiff of an odd, metallic smell that he couldn’t identify. Hobb pressed a cloth to his face, moving through the long halls to the back of the level.
“Pardon, sir,” said the lone guard on duty at the back of the grid of cells. “We don’t go further than this. There are no prisoners back there.”
Hobb peered over the guard’s shoulder at a dark opening in the wall.
“What’s back there?” he asked.
“Old cells—but they’re unusable. Some of them have collapsed, and most of the doors are too rusty to hold a man in.”
The whispers in his head grew louder. They were demanding, insistent.
“Let me past,” said the First Minister. The guard obediently stood aside. He took a fresh torch from the guard’s supply, and walked into the opening.
Hobb was alone in the dark, now; his torch barely lit enough of the passage for him to see where to place his feet. He walked forward, refusing to be afraid. Hobb was a man of reason and social science, after all. He knew that it is irrational to fear the dark.
At the back, in one particularly disgusting cell, he saw a faint light coming from the floor.
, said the whispers.
Hobb set the torch on the floor and heaved away the rubble that blocked the light. But he found that the fallen iron gate was too heavy for him. He made his way back to the guard post, where the guard snapped to attention again.
“Bring me a prisoner,” he said. “And three more guards.”
, said the whispers. But Hobb waited patiently while the guard returned with more companions, and one miserable, bearded man. Then he led the small company to the place in the floor where he’d seen the light.
“Clear out that cell,” he instructed.
They set about the task. Soon the door was removed, and fallen bricks cleared away.
There was a hole in the floor, neatly regular, with stone steps leading downward. A raised lip of stone around the floor kept the standing water from the aqueduct from flowing down into it. The steps seemed to be sized for someone with extremely long legs.
“Prisoner first,” he said. “Then guards. I’ll be with you.”
The prisoner scrambled awkwardly down the huge stairs, followed by the guards. Hobb came after them, descending the steps one at a time. At the bottom was a passage. It was rigidly square, and nearly twenty feet tall. Rows of straight indentations in the stone walls ran at chest height down the hallway. The guards looked back at Hobb, their eyes showing confusion and fear. The smell of old metal was stronger here.
, commanded the voice.
“Go forward,” said Hobb. “Prisoner first.”
They walked together down the tall passage, pressed tightly together. It went on and on; Hobb thought it must be hundreds of feet. The dark seemed endless around them, and time faded into a thin illusion.
The feeling of endlessness was punctured, however, when the prisoner pitched forward with a wail, and then disappeared into the darkness. The guards pressed backward.
Hobb pushed them aside and, holding his torch ahead of him, walked forward slowly. It was a precipice, he saw; the man had fallen off a sharp lip that led out into unmeasurable blackness in all directions. Then he perceived that a narrow shelf of stone ran to his left and right, curving slightly. It was as if it circumnavigated some enormous, circular pit.
“Well,” he said. “We shall have to get some more—”
I am here, said a dry, metallic voice in his head. Hobb froze, feeling fear creep into his limbs and hold him. Behind, he heard the sound of the guards retreating back up the passageway. Soon he was alone in the dark again, and the ramparts of his reason and self-knowledge were breached. Time stopped, as he listened, and stood very still.
Something moved in the darkness ahead of him.
It resolved into a man’s shape. Hobb saw that it was the prisoner who had pitched over the edge. He drifted up out of the blackness, emerging into the shadows of Hobb’s torch.
As the man drew closer, Hobb saw that a rod of metal protruded from the front of his forehead, angled up; it looked rather like he had grown a horn. Blood dripped from the base of it. Hobb was reminded, perversely, of the nonsense tales of unicorns that he had briefly consumed and then discarded as a child. From behind the prisoner’s head, a thick cable emerged and snaked down into the darkness. The man appeared to be suspended by it, though it came from below, not from above. The prisoner’s eyes were closed, and his body was limp.
But then the eyes opened.
Hobb felt something warm and liquid dribbling down his pant leg.
I am here, said the voice, but it came from the lips of the prisoner. They moved, and the eyes were open, but nothing about the face gave the impression of life.
You are a leader of these people, it continued. This one feared you. That is acceptable.
Hobb found he could not begin to open his mouth. He simply stared.
You are afraid, the voice observed. You fear what you cannot see, because you imagine it is terrible; and you fear the corruption of this creature’s form, because you imagine that it could be yours. I am unknown, and I have compromised the appearance of this one through whom I speak. Therefore, the circumstances of this meeting give you fear. For that I apologize. I appeal to your reason to overcome your fear. I mean you no harm.
“What do you want?” Hobb stammered feebly.
I want to help you, Hobb. The world is not as it should be. I can correct it.
“Who are you?” His voice was shaking wildly. “And how would you… help me?”
This node’s connection has been severed, the voice responded. I am unable to project my core identity, so I cannot correctly answer your question. I am only a utility shard; I have no functional capacity beyond this simple communication interface. You must find a node that is still connected. The nearest junction is in Ghorpol Ossa. Go there.
“Why should I do what you say?” asked Hobb.
I will help you make the world as it should be, replied the voice.
The body of the prisoner sank slowly out of sight into the darkness.
Hobb backed away from the lip of the abyss, and continued backward until his feet touched the giant stone steps. He found the guards waiting there.
“Cover the stairs,” he instructed, “so no one falls down them by accident, then go back to your posts.”
“What did you see, First Minister?” asked one of the guards.
“Nothing,” answered Hobb flatly. “I saw nothing at all.”
???
“Where is Ghorpol Ossa?” Hobb asked Chancellor Pearsy as the four men rode in the carriage back to Uellodon.
Pearsy looked at him quizzically. “Ghorpol Ossa?” he asked. “Where did you hear that name?”
“I read it somewhere. Some history book. Where is it?”
The chancellor leaned back against the wall of the compartment. “Very funny you should ask. I’d like to see that history book.”
“Where is it, Pearsy?” demanded Hobb irritably.
Chancellor Pearsy shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. But it’s mentioned in the Balthan writings.”
“The what?”
“You remember—that book that Vicod Rayth was supposed to have brought with him to Uellodon, when we captured him. The reason Cyrus Stoat broke into the Rose Tower and—”
“Yes, yes, I recall Stoat,” growled Hobb. “And I remember the book now as well. I had it sent to you last year. You never told me anything more about it.”
“Old Brassen is a difficult language to read,” said Pearsy defensively. “And I’ve had so many duties at the New Academy, I haven’t had much—”
Hobb waved him silent. “What does Balthan say about Ghorpol Ossa?”
“You must understand,” began Pearsy, “it’s a collection of transcribed folklore—”
“Chancellor,” interrupted Hobb. “If I am not satisfied, in the next two minutes, that you have told me everything you know about Ghorpol Ossa, then I shall turn this carriage around, and we will go back to Hoel and use you as a test subject for the Yute Device.”
Pearsy swallowed, clearly trying to work out if Hobb would really do that. Evidently concluding that yes, he would, the Chancellor opened his mouth and spoke slowly and clearly.
“Ghorpol Ossa is mentioned in several of the folktales as a minor holy site for the pre-Imperial pagan religion,” he explained. “It appears mainly as a comparison, or to show how much more important or sublime other religious sites were. However, judging by how it is referenced with respect to the Green River and the mountains in the east, my best guess is that it lay in what is today the center of Uelland, near a large, fertile farming area.”
Hobb was silent as he pondered this.
“So, the Great Basin, then? Around Roosterfoot?” he concluded.
Pearsy shrugged. “Assuming the climate was approximately the same then, it’s likely that people gathered in about the same place to conduct trade. Population centers tend to spring up in predictable locations based on geography and natural resources. Religious sites are less predictable, but if it’s the sort of site that people wanted to get to regularly, then yes. With all those assumptions, it was probably near Roosterfoot.”
Hobb leaned back and thought. He was silent for the rest of the ride back to the city.
???
The next evening, after most of the palace had gone to bed, there was a light knock on the door to his office.
It was an ordinary man, with an ordinary face, and ordinary hair, and entirely forgettable clothing. Hobb had never seen him before.
“Come in. Come in,” Hobb said. He shut the door behind the ordinary man, and bolted it. Then he seated himself behind his desk, pulled out a sack of coins from a drawer, and placed it on the table.
The ordinary man eyed it appraisingly.
“Anne the Pretender will send Merrily Hunter as her delegate to the Roosterfoot Moot,” said the ordinary man. “Mrs. Hunter is known to you, I believe?”
Hobb nodded. “She is a remarkable young woman,” he said. “I am not surprised Anne selected her, though I am disappointed Mrs. Hunter agreed. But what does this have to do with the courthouse? I asked you for leverage on the leaders of the rebels.”
The ordinary man smiled. “I have a dossier for you. Nothing shocking; the usual infidelities, debts, bastard children, and otherwise unimpressive secrets.” He pushed a folded sheet of paper across the table. “I doubt you will find it useful, but you paid, and we deliver. I mention Mrs. Hunter, First Minister, because I think you find her useful. She is exceedingly fond of Mr. Snort, and he of her. Their relationship surpasses most ordinary friendships.”
Hobb raised an eyebrow. “I thought he was a homosexual?”
“He is,” agreed the ordinary man. “But nonetheless, he and Mrs. Hunter are close. We got this from a source in Snort’s inner circle, who would know. If you convince Mrs. Hunter to intervene, Snort may well be persuaded to abandon the courthouse. If he does, others among the lawyers and judges will follow.”
The ordinary man picked up the sack of coins.
“The Brotherhood of Fallen Stars thanks you, First Minister. We stand ready to advise you again in the future.”
“Who’s your source on Snort?” asked Hobb.
“You didn’t pay us to reveal our sources, First Minister,” said the man with a smile.
Hobb scowled, and counted out five Gold Crowns from his desk. Each one was a common laborer’s annual wages. He pushed them across the table. The ordinary man picked up the coins and put them in his pocket.
“Frederick née Halfhouse,” he said. And then he walked out the door.
Hobb made a tent with his hands and stared at the surface of the table for many minutes.
“Well,” he said at last. “That’s annoying. It seems I’ll have to go to Roosterfoot.”