A Liar’s Grace

by Joseph Howse

conclusion

“Now, Father,” came the next suggestion, “let us hear what the Royal Messenger has to tell us.” All Tasher eyes faced Neetham, who grinned and pulled his nose.

“Yes, well,” said the Royal Messenger, standing to lean somewhat shakily over the table, “here is this scroll, which is an architectural diagram, I am told.”

“Splendid!” squealed the Duke as he picked the edges off the wax seal. His daughter’s hand stopped him.

“Father, let us open this later; agreed?”

“Agreed!” he hissed. The Duke’s eyes wandered among his plate, the chandelier and the faces around him before he asked, “Can you report well of our Dukedom to the King?”

“Well,” declared Neetham, drawing air into his chest, “in fact, I was wondering why I’ve seen so few people on your lands. Am I correct that the King sends gold for the upkeep of your large... standing army?”

“A garrison town or two vanished into the swamp,” Aedon Tasher replied. Under the gaze of his kinsfolk, he added, “Thus the need for better architecture.”

“I see, I see,” grunted Neetham, loosening his belt and taking his first opportunity to knife some meat off the nearest winter hare. “Now, then,” (he sweated out words as he chewed), “his Grace’s niece doesn’t dine with you?”

“No,” sighed Valnya Tasher, wife to Aedon. She lowered her wineglass from her fraught mouth. “Nobility is but tedious to her. I fear she prefers the servants.”

“She takes after Aedon,” commented his Grace.

Further down the table, the lady-in-waiting gasped and held her hands to her slender throat, which sounded clogged. She made an impressive effort to choke in silence, yet this went beyond what flesh and blood could suffer, and in the end she regurgitated part of the hare onto her finely chiseled, hound-motif platter.

“Forgive me!” wheezed the damsel, fighting back tears as she smoothed her straw-coloured hair. “I am unwell! I shall retire! I shall see to the child first!”

An echoing patter of footsteps bore the lady-in-waiting and her platter away. The remaining platters on the table clacked with the nervous motion of cutlery. Aedon Tasher’s chapped lips parted, air escaped, and his eyes widened without focusing on anything or anyone. He had either sighed sadly or softly belched.

“May I say,” Neetham said, “your servants do seem to possess many praiseworthy virtues. I was very courteously received this afternoon by your... Gert.”

“Gert?” asked Aedon, shaking his head. “Could you be so kind as to describe her, Messenger?”

Neetham hesitated. “No, she’s plain, Sir, not worthy of description.” Aedon shrugged and went on eating.

“I know her by name!” interjected Valnya Tasher. “Do I alone know her by name? Unbelievable!”

“Then don’t believe it,” suggested his Grace.

As the hares grew thin, Neetham shifted his chair and stated, “I should thank your Grace and his family for this hospitality, and now make haste back to the King.”

“Good man!” the Duke sputtered from his meat-filled mouth as he shook the scroll in the air.

“No,” said the veiled woman, “you shall rest in Tasher’s Tor. You scarcely know our lands and it would be against our conscience to send you out in the night.”

“I can hardly avoid it,” Neetham stated. “The journey is seven days long and there are no towns along the way — or not anymore...”

“Yes,” the Duke’s daughter acknowledged, “but tonight in particular you should not be out on the moors.”

“I take the highway, not the moors.”

“Nor should you be out on the highway.”

“And do you mind telling me why?”

“Yes, I mind, so do what pleases you!”

The daughter was halfway out of the Great Hall before she turned. “Come, Father, we’ve mail to open.”

His Grace simpered and skipped along.

Neetham was left in the presence of Aedon and Valnya Tasher, both silent. Neither one of the couple met the other’s gaze. “Advise me,” the Royal Messenger pleaded.

“I’d pay her no heed,” Aedon Tasher advised. “She’s superstitious. You could just go.”

Valnya slapped her husband’s hand in reproach, yet she would not speak, as much as Neetham might coax her.

* * *

As the Royal Messenger prepared his bed in the spare wing of Tasher’s Tor, he checked and rechecked that he had bolted the door and shutters. The wind was tamer on this side of the keep than in Artgur’s guardtower, yet its voice still unsettled Neetham. A candle, which he attempted to keep lit by his bedside, winked out every few minutes. Each time, Neetham had to put on his stockings, go into the hall and relight it from the more resilient flames there. The hall sconces were shaped like slavering dogs, with fire cradled in their mouths and eyes.

Once, distant barking made Neetham jump. The mortal dogs were restless in their kennel.

The spare wing of Tasher’s Tor was deserted except for Neetham. He would not have chosen to have it reopened just for him, as much of an honour as it might be. Did the Messenger, albeit the Royal Messenger, really need to be sequestered in his own corner of the keep? Hardly. A little ambient snoring or stirring might have been welcome, even. Suddenly, lying awake and studying the candle, Neetham had the idea that he could go chat with Gert. He decided instead to go to Artgur, who was probably wakeful due to the festering hole in his head.

Taking the candle for comfort, Neetham shuffled out and along in his stockings. Another canine sconce awaited him just beyond the next one and the next and the next. The corridor curved, as the walls followed the contours of Tasher’s Tor. Thus, to Neetham’s eyes, everything was lit but it abruptly ended where the bending walls seemed to meet. A scroll-shaped world should not have frightened the Royal Messenger, yet it did.

Suddenly, Neetham became aware of another noise in the night — other than the slow-burning flames and the fast-yapping dogs — something like the scratching of pen upon paper. He looked down, whence it came, and he screamed as eighteen black claws climbed over his stockings.

The candle fell and rolled down the nearest stairway.

“Rat!” hissed Neetham. After clutching his blood-speckled stockings, he hobbled back to his room to fetch his boots. He resolved to wear them everywhere, day and night, no matter how the stench might build. Lacing and unlacing would be no problem, then.

As Neetham approached his own room again, he saw Gert creeping out and shutting the door.

“Gert, what are you doing?” the Royal Messenger asked.

“Ow! Ow!” Gert howled in quick succession. “Ow, I was gwin to see Artgur, what with him sorely swollen, ’n I heared such an awful scream I was sceered for me life, ’n so I went in to find ya to protect me, ’n now ya accuse me of stealin’ — poor, wretched, lowly girl what I am!”

“I didn’t accuse you of stealing.”

“Ow.” Gert curtseyed and she attempted to brush past Neetham. He caught her by the threadbare sleeve of her dress. “Anyways,” shouted Gert as she flailed her captured arm, “it t’ain’t no crime to rob the dead, which is what ya is set to be around here, Master Banderdrake!”

“I beg your pardon?” Neethem asked.

“Beg as you likes!” Gert hollered. “They’s set to roast ya alive, and Tashers does as they sets!”

The sleeve ripped and Gert ran, adding warlike echoes to the hallway. She was wearing Neetham’s boots.

* * *

Aedon Tasher was at prayer. At least, he was in the chapel and kneeling with his hands clasped.

“I am not an evil man,” he breathed through the perpetually parched skin of his lips. “I am not, as such, an evil man. I do not deny — in this private time and place, I do not deny — my errors, both of the body and the mind.” He paused and in his silent solitude he either shuddered or narrowly averted sneezing.

“However,” he continued, “I have never blackened my soul with sorcery. I am not as others are! Then, if my soul stays pure as holy water in such an evil fen, is it any wonder it scalds the more corruptible flesh and intellect?” He glanced around the darkened chamber, as if for guidance, as if he believed another entity took interest in this tongue-work.

“I’ve explained myself enough and I am sworn to do it. Recall, last year, I swore to do it.”

Aedon Tasher rose, lifted the corner of the altar cloth and used it to polish the silver, ornamental blade he always kept concealed on his person. He swiftly flexed his mouth, an action that caused him some pain, and then he spun to face the maw of the hallway.

Someone’s footsteps were there. A heavy veil reflected light from the moon. Had she heard him? No, she seemed to be rushing elsewhere, surely to another’s woe but not to his. The Duke’s cousin returned to bed, did nothing and prayed no more.

* * *

By the time Neetham set his stockinged feet in the cold, hard courtyard, the hounds had whipped each other into an unstoppable rage. The neighbouring horses were panicking from the bellicose din even as they redoubled it. Neetham could only be glad the beasts were barred, for now. He knew they would not be for long.

The postern gate seemed slightly subtler as an escape route. At least Neetham would not pass the dogs’ noses and he would not be in view of the guardtower. He wound his way among the baffled walls that hedged the postern gate. As he reached it, he saw the Duke’s little niece leaning against the oak boards. A withered sprig of holly whirled in her hands. “Hello,” the Royal Messenger stammered, “what brings you here?”

“I might ask you the same!” snapped the sombre, dark-haired girl. “And you still offend me! You offend me; you offend me!” she hollered over and over as Neetham elbowed past and slammed the gate. The uncontainable din pursued him as he hurtled himself down the slopes of Tasher’s Tor.

Light was flaring from window to window when Neetham stopped to look over his shoulder. The Tashers and company were searching the keep for him and it would not be long before the hunt moved back to the moors. Perhaps Calbin III would lead from the rear with whimsical utterances while his hounds pressed to the fore more single-mindedly.

Faced with the choice of the highway or the moors, Neetham fatefully decided to be devious again. He struck out across the fetid, cheese-like landscape in hopes that any Tasher would be too superstitious or too laconic to follow. To his relief, the frost-crusted moss gave little under the tread of his stockings.

No moon lit the sky. The bitter wind soon swallowed Neetham’s gasping and the dogs’ frenzies alike. For the moment, no sense could penetrate the curtain between him and his pursuers. He paused atop the solidity of willow roots. The catkins of last summer lay around like discarded bridal garlands. Dazedly, as he squinted into darkness, Neetham wondered why the youngest Tasher would not gather catkins instead of briars and holly.

Lamplight flickered in Neetham’s sight. He scanned for it anew but could not see it anywhere on the open moors. A glimpse of it came and went again, as if someone was stealthily signaling to him. Unnerved, Neetham was almost foolish enough to call out in greeting. Then he believed he heard music or whistling — not the wind anymore.

“Neetham Banderdrake, Neetham Banderdrake...”

This could not possibly be the wind’s voice, could it?

“...blasted, cheating, preening, mendacious...!”

No, indeed it was not the cry of the natural elements.

The lamplight flickered into existence again and it held. By it, Neetham could distinguish the unpleasant face of Dufrel. Gold teeth glinted as they gnashed. “Twice confounded Royal Messen-enger! Fiddleheads for brains...” Apparently, Neetham’s detractor could not see him and, moreover, was lost. Dufrel was walking in circles and attempting to peer beyond the narrow arc of his lamplight.

An idea came to Neetham. He twisted off one of the bare willow boughs. The sound made Dufrel turn. “Hey-ho!” called the vagabond. “Pay my mutterings no mind! Anyone who goes there, this old bard will sell his merry songs to you...” The fingers of his free hand twitching, Dufrel paced toward the willow. At the last moment before the lamplight would have touched him, Neetham rushed roundabout and used the bough to whip Dufrel as fast as he could. The willowing brought the ragged man to his knees. Neetham leapt atop him to smother the bearded face in the depths of muck and cold. Dufrel flailed with his knives, managing to gash Neetham’s right foreleg, then it was over.

Perhaps it should have alarmed Neetham — the way the ground had sighed and melted where he and Dufrel walked and scuffled. There was no chance, no air for contemplation.

Neetham rolled Dufrel’s body face-up and snatched the scroll from the patchwork maze. The seal was broken; still, could he trade it to the Tashers for his life?

Standing painfully, the Royal Messenger spat. As an afterthought, he took Dufrel’s battered leather boots.

The lamp lay broken in the muck. Neetham, too, had lost his sense of direction. As he staggered back and forth in search of landmarks, he began to wonder why Dufrel had cursed him so. Had Neetham not surrendered the message as asked? By what measure, then, was he, rather than Dufrel, the liar? Neetham concluded it was mere self-justification, practiced so oft by traitors to the Crown.

As he shambled, the Royal Messenger worked on his delivery lines — beneath his breath, of course: “I’ve got it back!” was his first attempt. That sounded feeble. “Your Grace, I’ve got it back!” Scarcely better. “Noble Tashers...” No, better get to the point. “I have retrieved the genuine message and unfoiled the plot against your lives!” That was pretty good. “Foiled, not unfoiled,” Neetham corrected himself. “...and foiled...”

Something whipped against Neetham’s face and he bellowed, more in surprise than in pain. He fought back until he realized it was just another set of tree limbs, snapping and snaring in the renewed breeze. Neetham smirked as he concluded that nothing deadly dwelled in this fen, except for the men who interloped or lorded over it.

“I have retrieved the genuine message and unfoiled...”

Neetham’s left leg plunged into the earth. He wrenched it but the peat seemed to double every force the captive limb could offer. His right leg lacked the strength to pull the other out. He was planted and he was waiving in the cold and empty air. Neetham stopped muttering his oration and instead began to belt it out in hopes that anyone would hear:

“I have retrieved...! I have retrieved...!”

He had walked the same ground over and over until it would bear him no more. All told, he had not ranged farther than eight hundred yards from Tasher’s Tor, nor eighty yards from the highway.

For Neetham, his location and route began to sink in as he saw the dogs’ silhouettes on the high ground. A burst of fear enabled the Messenger to pull his feet out of Dufrel’s boots — and then to reach back for the left boot with his right hand — before he sank again.

The dogs now spotted him, pawed the mud, and barked from on high instead of lunging down. Soon, the rider had joined them to say, “Stay still, Neetham. No one wants to rush you on your way to the bottom.”

As Neetham’s luck would have it, he was allowed the chance to explain himself and to hand over the recovered scroll. However, his lines ended quite differently than planned: “But what do you mean,” he asked the blank, veiled visage, “’This isn’t the right scroll either’...?”

Dufrel had been right about one thing. The Royal Messenger was among the victims of the scroll.

* * *

At the end of an alley, in the modest shelter of his stall, an old pawnbroker surveyed his pair of clients, both short of several teeth. They had probably stolen the horses they were tethering and had surely stolen the object on offer for sale. He fingered the scroll once more.

“Ow,” said the woman of the pair, “what it worth ya?”

Trembling, the broker unfastened his bursting purse from his belt and handed it to her.

“Ow!” beamed the seller from the depths of her icy blue eyes. “Thank ya!”