The Unbeheaded King, page 20
part #4 of Novaria Series
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The sun was a crimson ball on the horizon when Jorian came in sight of the fence marking the border between Xylar and Othomae. A Xylarian border guard was closing the gate on the Xylarian side but opened it again as Jorian and his party appeared. The guards gave them a bored, perfunctory glance, not inspecting the cart, wherein Lieutenant Annyx lay bound, gagged, and covered by a blanket. The horse and mule proceeded into the neutral strip, three or four fathoms wide, between the two nations. At the far end of this strip stood another fence and gate.
In the neutral strip, Jorian halted, reached into the cart, and hauled out Lieutenant Annyx. "Turn him loose," he told Karadur.
The Mulvanian incanted; the rope fell limply to the ground. Karadur gathered it up and wound it around his waist.
Annyx arose with murder in his eyes and tore the gag loose. As Jorian led his horse to the second gate, the lieutenant shouted:
"Seize that man! He is wanted in Xylar! He is a violent criminal, a kidnapper, a fugitive from justice!"
The officer of the border watch on the Othomaean side said: "Send us a formal request for extradition, laddie, and we'll see what we can do."
The lieutenant looked as if he could cry. "You damned Othomaeans never do aught we ask, no matter how reasonable! This is a flagrant case of hot pursuit, so I am entitled to demand your aid in apprehending him!"
The Othomaean grinned. "That's the first time I ever heard a man who has been carried hog-tied in a cart claim he was in hot pursuit of anyone." He turned to Jorian. "And you, my fine oriental friend, what is your business in the Grand Duchy?"
Pulling Annyx's sword and dagger out of the cart, Jorian tossed them back into the neutral zone. He got out his papers. "Here you are, sir: permit for a foreigner to reside in Othomae; permit to wear a sword; permit to hunt and fish. As for the costume, I had business in Xylar and wished to do it without losing my head."
"Jorian of Ardamai!" exclaimed the guard. "We hear fantastic tales of you. Is it true that you slew a unicorn in the Grand Duke's park with your bare hands?"
"Not quite," said Jorian. "If I remember—"
Lieutenant Annyx had picked up his weapons. He shouted: "I demand—"
"Oh, shut thy gob!" said the Othomaean officer. "This man is well known in Othomae and, from all I hear, is entitled to political asylum. Now go away like a good boy and cease to pester us."
"You shall hear more of this!" said Annyx, turning back to the Xylarian side.
"The first inn," said Jorian, "is a league or so down the road. May we be on our way, to reach it ere dark?"
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Two years later, a small party appeared at the entrance to Evor's Sons, Clock-Makers, in Kortoli City. A foppishly dressed young man asked if Jorian were in. Sillius, the senior man of the firm, said:
"My brother is in but busy. May I have your name and business?"
"I am Corineus son of Holdar, and I bring a message from the Provisional Government of Xylar."
Sillius's eyebrows rose. "Wait, good my sir," he said, and disappeared. Soon he returned, saying: "I will show you the way in."
Corineus found himself in a large room used as a workshop. Tables were littered with tools and with sheets of paper bearing diagrams and sketches. In a chair at one end sat a tall, handsome woman nursing a year-old baby. At the other, Jorian, wearing a workman's leather apron over his clothes, puttered with a device of gears and levers.
It took Corineus a few heartbeats to recognize Jorian. When they met in Xylar, Jorian was clean-shaven and turbaned, with a dark-brown skin. Now he was light-skinned, bare-headed, and bearded. Corineus noted that he had put on weight, and that his black hair had receded a little.
"Your Majesty!" cried Corineus at last.
Jorian looked up. "By Imbal's iron yard!" he cried. "What brings you hither, Corineus? If you think to kidnap me back to Xylar to cut off my head again, forget it. I have taken measures."
"Nay, nought like that," said Corineus. "We have had a revolution and abolished the Regency Council, along with the custom of lustral regicide. We have a new constitution, with a king of limited powers and an elective legislature. And we want you for King!"
"Well, dip me in manure!" After a pause, Jorian smiled. 'Tell them I thank them, but nay. I have all I wish right here." He glanced toward Margalit, who smiled back. "Tell them to find some other popinjay, intelligent enough to follow public rituals but not so clever as to plot to seize absolute power."
"But King Jorian! My liege lord!" pleaded Corineus, sinking to one knee. "You are famous! You have become our national hero! The tale of your adventures—slaying the dragon single-handed, overthrowing the Goblin Tower, routing the besiegers of Iraz—is worth an epic by Physo!"
"I see the tales have not shrunk in the telling. Get some poet to make a lay, then, and send me a copy. 'Twere good for business."
"Business!" said Corineus in tones of disgust. "After all your splendid adventures, do you not find a mere tradesman's life dull?"
Jorian laughed. "Not at all, my dear fellow. As you once said, I am a tradesman at heart. We prosper. I have the respect of my workfellows, the love of my dear ones, plenty to eat and drink, and money at usury with my banker. My wife, by doing the bookkeeping, keeps us solvent.
"Furthermore I am engaged in a problem more fascinating to me than how far one must run to tire out a pursuing dragon."
"What's that?"
'To make an accurate clock powered by falling weights instead of falling water. I saw them working on such in Iraz. My little brother Kerin has gone to the Far East to learn the secret of their superior escapement."
Corineus shook his head. "I cannot imagine how one who has survived all your knightly adventures could settle down to so drab a life."
Jorian: "Since I survived those adventures by the skin of my teeth, they make fine fireside talk. But I sought them not; the goddess Elidora forced them upon me. Whilst they were going on, I should have been heartily glad to be elsewhere. Meseems that when one has had as many narrow escapes as have been crowded into the first half of my life, one is happy to spend the second half in a safe, peaceful, humdrum pursuit. At least, that's how I feel."
"Do the honor and glory of the kingship, without the hazard of execution, not beguile you?"
Jorian shook his head. "Had I never experienced it, it might. But for five years I had my fill of donning ornate costumes, and sitting through tedious ceremonies, and hearing the lying arguments of litigants and petitioners, and trying to collect enough taxes to keep the kingdom going without inciting a revolt. So tell your people I am flattered but firm in my refusal."
"But think of all the good you could accomplish!"
Jorian smiled. "That's the excuse every tyrant gives in snatching at total power. But from what I've seen of the world, plans to better the lot of the people seldom turn out as the planners hope, even with the best intentions."
"Will nought persuade you?"
"Nought whatever. Your legislature will have to muddle along without my wisdom."
Corineus stared at the ground. "I—I ought to thank you—I made a bit of an ass of myself on our first meeting. You—you had been justified in slaying me..."
Jorian grinned. "Forget the whole episode. When I was ten years younger, I did silly things, too. But let me ask you: How did you, an admirer of the old feudal regime, get involved in a popular revolutionary movement?"
Corineus looked embarrassed. "Forsooth, Estrildis talked me into it. She said 'twas the only way our marriage would ever be fully recognized as legal in Xylar. She can be very persuasive."
"I know," said Jorian. "How is she?"
"Fine, and so is the boy. She is getting—well, a trifle plump."
"Give her my brotherly love."
"Where is the old Mulvanian?"
"Karadur is a professor in Othomae, having compassed the ouster of his predecessor Abacarus. I had something—" Jorian was about to say "to do with that," but thought better of it. "He wants me to teach an engineering course at the Academy. What befell that clerk, Thevatas?"
"He was hanged."
"Indeed? My grief overwhelms me not. How fell it?"
"The Regency offered a generous reward for recovering the crown, but he held out for a seat on the Council. Believe it or not, he lusted to command the army. Losing patience, they feigned to agree and then, as soon as they had the royal headpiece, hustled him off to the scaffold with hardly a pretense of legal process."
"So perish overreachers!" said Jorian. "Now join me in a glass of wine, and then be off to tell the Xylarians what I have said. When one has been to as many places, and worked at as many trades, and suffered through as many vicissitudes as I have, if he have learnt nought else, he should at least know when he is well off!"
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Book Information
Scanned by Highroller.
NEVER TRUST A DEMON
Something moved against the star-strewn sky. The flying object took shape, growing from the likeness of a bat to the demon Ruakh with a bulky object in its arms. With a thunder of wings, it settled upon the balcony, lowering a blanket-wrapped body.
"Here's your precious Estrildis!" Ruakh growled. "When I approached her, she fainted. I wrapped her thus and bore her out."
"Well done," the sorceror said. "You are dismissed."
The scarlet demon whirled, blurred, and vanished.
Jorian knelt by the blanket-wrapped form, afraid that Estrildis might have perished from the altitude to which Ruakh had borne her.
The form began to wriggle, then threw off the blanket and sat up.
Jorian swore in shocked surprise. "You're not Estrildis!!"
"Who ever said I was?" the woman asked.
The Unbeheaded King
Volume Three of the Reluctant King
L. Sprague de Camp
A Del Rey Book
BALLANTINE BOOKS – NEW YORK
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright 1983 by L. Sprague de Camp
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Convention. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-16466
ISBN 0-345-29840-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Hardcover Edition: March 1983
First Paperback Edition: December 1983
Cover art by Darrell K. Sweet
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Back cover
Never Trust A Demon
Three years earlier, Jorian had been the crowned King of Xylar. But the laws of Xylar decreed that each randomly chosen King must be beheaded at the end of a five-year reign. Jorian had a prejudice against losing his head. With the aid of the aged wizard Karadur, he managed to flee.
Unfortunately, he had not been able to bring his beloved wife, Queen Estrildis, with him, nor had he yet been able to find a means of freeing her from the palace in Xylar City.
Now, however, he felt that his luck was about to change. He and the aged wizard Karadur were being flown through the night air in a great copper bathtub, powered by a demon under Karadur's control. Ahead of them lay Xylar City. There, while the demon kept the bathtub hovering above the palace, Jorian could let down a rope and rescue Estrildis.
It should have been a foolproof scheme ...
L. Sprague de Camp, The Unbeheaded King
