Uellodon, October 1st, III:Leeland 15
Hobb the Wise strode deliberately through the familiar halls of Palace Naridium, his rhythmic footfalls punctuated from time to time by deep, ground-shaking thuds. The paintings in Begley Gallery were askew from the vibrations, and some had been taken down altogether to avoid the danger of being shaken loose. Chandeliers and hanging lamps swung from the impacts, and plaster trickled down from the walls and ceilings.
“We must add lamp oil to the ration list,” Hobb instructed the small, soberly-dressed man following along just behind him. “If the Brassens complete their encirclement and the Carolese blockade continues, we shall need to conserve fuel for the lanterns of the night watch.”
“Fifty barrels arrived yesterday on a Foregrub caravan from Roosterfoot,” replied the smaller man, taking a note on his writing tablet. “I’ll classify it as property essential to the war effort and move it to Warehouse Two.” He briefly paused to push a pair of wire-framed spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose.
Another massive crash interrupted their conversation, this time much closer and louder. An oak door on one side of the hallway swung open, unlatched by the force of the impact.
“Sloppy,” remarked Hobb disapprovingly, closing the door. “They overshot the walls.”
“What our unwelcome guests lack in precision, they more than accommodate in numbers,” remarked his companion dryly. “I counted three trebuchet this morning, and they’ve taken over the granite quarry in Arpette. If the Brassens are permitted to finish constructing their engines and establish a supply chain, we shall have to discuss terms.”
Hobb looked coolly over his shoulder at the small man. He wore the dark gray suit and starched white shirt of a clerk, with a small gray cravat.
“I am not prepared, Mr. Robe,” he replied, “to surrender the capital of the Republic and a hundred thousand citizens within it to Brassen and Carolese despots. The National Assembly looks to us for the defense of Uelland’s blood and soil. History will not judge us kindly if we fail that trust.”
“The road of history runs toward the unity and freedom of the People, First Minister,” agreed Mr. Robe. “One wonders only whether we are riding within the carriage of progress—or beneath its wheels.” He pronounced the m-dash in the sentence with special emphasis.
“I quite like that,” remarked Hobb, nodding idly at the two red-clad guards stationed at the base of the stairway to the Rose Tower. “Did you come up with it just now?” They began to climb.
Mr. Robe shook his head in modesty. “I’m afraid not, First Minister. It’s from the draft of your next speech to the Assembly. I’ve been working it over for a few days. I had a bit in there about ‘comfortably ensconced upon the cushions of principles within the wagon of social progress,’ but it seemed like too much.”
Hobb nodded. “Too many prepositions. Less is more, when you’re summarizing the fundamental social struggle of mankind. I look forward to reading your draft.”
As the two men climbed the long, spiraling stair to the peak of the Rose Tower, Hobb began to puff. He concluded, ruefully, that his years of casually ascending four hundred stone steps were now well in the past.
As they climbed by the makeshift cells that lined the outer wall of the Tower, Hobb glared vindictively at one in particular, from which a smug and irritating professor had escaped eighteen months prior. He gritted his teeth and looked up the narrow stair, wishing he’d personally thrown Cyrus Stoat from the top of the Rose Tower that night. But that chance had slipped by, like the years of his life. If such a chance came again, Hobb had no intention of wasting it.
The observatory at the top of the Rose Tower was spacious and open, with naked windows permitting the light and air to flow through. In August the perch was a welcome relief from the heat of the city; but now, at dawn in October, it was plagued by a chill, piercing wind. The sky over Uellodon was dark and overcast, with the heavy threat of a cold rain. Hobb shivered, and donned a thick fur coat from a box near the hatchway.
Two military flagmen were stationed at the parapet that ringed the peak of the tower. One busily relayed signals among the posts along the walls, while the second watched the open farmland around the city with a long field scope, looking for signals from the surrounds. Long lines of siege works were plainly visible around Uellodon, despite the distance, the overcast sky, and the smoke and wrack around the city. They began to the east at the riverbank and described a respectable portion of an arc around the capital; only a wedge of land to the west had no sign of enemy occupation. Trebuchet emplacements could be seen studding the fortifications at regular intervals, though most were still under construction. But at least four of them were indisputably operable, as they were flinging heavy boulders at Uellodon’s tall, gray walls. The sound and vibration of the impacts set the wooden floor of the observatory shaking. Soldiers, as tiny in the distance as the little toy armies that Hobb had played with in his childhood, could be seen milling about in and between the fortifications.
“I didn’t realize there were so many,” said Mr. Robe in a subdued voice behind Hobb.
“It’s mostly conscripts, according to General Watt,” Hobb replied. “The Brassen professional army is tied up with their invasion of Svegnia. But they sent some of their siege engineers this way with the conscript army, and a smattering of officers and cavalry to keep it all holding together. While the King’s Heavy Arms were engaged further north with the Svegnians around Enderly, this lot made a forced march through the southeastern hills near Coopmaster. A clever game.”
Another barrage of giant boulders crashed into the eastern walls, and one of the guard towers crumbled suddenly. In his head, Hobb thought to himself: This was not part of the agreement. It was to be raiding along the border only, without attacks on major cities or open field engagements. Brasse and Carelon will pay for this treachery.
“More than clever,” said Mr. Robe gloomily. “They’ll be inside the city within a week at this rate. The Guard units stationed here are brave men and true patriots, but they’ll be swarmed under.”
Hobb smiled thinly at his lieutenant. “Have some faith in the Republic, Mr. Robe. I didn’t climb four hundred steps to watch our side lose.”
Mr. Robe shuffled his feet nervously and picked at a sore on his chin. He was in his twenties, with curly brown hair and dark, piercing eyes that were still lit, beneath his spectacles, with the husky fire of a young man frustrated that the world had not yet given him his due. Hobb found him useful.
They watched the siege engines work for many minutes in silence. And then, out on the plain of brown fields and farmsteads to the north of the siege lines, a commotion began to arise.
It began with a glint of light, reflected from the dim cloud-veiled sun by some distant piece of metal. The prick of light caught Hobb’s eye and drew it in. More glints followed, emerging from a low valley and forming, with agonizing slowness, into solid squares. Slightly larger blobs of brown and white and black, speckled with metallic light, flowed out and round the squares, coalescing into long lines that waved in the harsh October wind.
“What is that?” asked Mr. Robe, squinting at the far-off spectacle.
“That is the King’s Heavy Arms, Mr. Robe.”
“But they’re in Enderly!” protested his companion. Hobb raised an eyebrow and stared at him.
“And you’d rather they’d stayed there?” he asked with a slight smile. “I ordered General Hyden to make a forced march south as soon as our scouts discovered the Brassen conscript army. They abandoned most of their materiel in Enderly and have been moving the soldiers day and night by horse and wagon train. There’s a swath of farms between here and the Haalsterne who are now without their horses or wagons, I’m afraid. I received a pigeon from Hyden last night with an update on their position.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” demanded Mr. Robe. There was more than a hint of petulance in his tone.
“Because it wasn’t necessary, Mr. Robe,” replied Hobb urbanely.
On the plain before them, the distant army of silvery steel, with multi-colored blobs of heavy cavalry in the vanguard, began to advance against the hasty siege lines. A disorganized smattering of Brassen infantry came out to meet them, but were swept aside. The pace of the action, viewed from the Rose Tower, was peculiarly slow. A thin cloud of horsemen spread out from either side of the main Uellish force, circling around toward the rear of the siege engines.
“Scout cavalry,” said Hobb approvingly. “They’ll fire the trebuchet parks while the main force is engaged. The Heavy Arms has adjusted its doctrine since Baldwick. ‘House Fire,’ they call it. Some sort of military joke.”
Robe looked at him blankly, not getting it.
Nearby, the signal flagger watching the city increased the pace of his arm-waving, and the man watching the plains began to gesticulate as well. The noise of the signal flags whipping through the air caught Hobb’s attention, and he looked over at the two men.
“What are they on about?” asked Mr. Robe. Hobb strode quickly over to the southern windows of the observatory, and looked out over the well-planned neighborhoods and squares of Uellodon below.
There was a commotion at the harbor. A large mass of small boats had entered, enough to cause a crowd even in Uellodon’s spacious river port. The docks and streets beyond swarmed with human activity, painted in red and white and black with flecks of silver. Hobb quickly withdrew a telescoping spyglass from his pocket and peered through it. Then he lowered it, looking with his own eyes in horror at the distant scene.
“What is it?” asked Mr. Robe in agitation.
Hobb did not answer him, but instead turned to the signal flagger.
“You, man! The Carolese are at the docks! Tell Watt to send a message to the Guard barracks to assemble at once in Justiciar Square!”
The flagger ignored him.
“I speak for your King!” shouted Hobb. “You must obey!”
“King’s Eyes only, sir,” returned the man shortly. “Can’t take civilian messages. Already relayed the action at the docks to command.” And then he returned to his wild posturing with the flags.
Hobb snorted in disgust, and trotted to the hatch downward.
“What’s going on?” asked Mr. Robe again. “Who are the men at the docks?”
“Carolese,” snapped Hobb, flinging open the hatch. “They’ve got through the harbor chains and landed a force. If the Guard doesn’t push them back, Hyden will have to build his own trebuchet just to get back into Uellodon.”
Hobb scampered down the ladder, and began the laborious task of descending the four hundred steps that stood between him and relevance.
✽✽✽
By the time he and Mr. Robe reached the base of the Rose Tower, Hobb was covered in sweat and his breath came laboriously. His legs shook like thin wire. He had to pause for several moments to catch his breath, his lungs heaving and burning. But he staggered forward again, making his way first to the royal apartments. Brushing aside the startled guard at the door, he burst into the King’s chambers.
“Your Majesty!” he gasped. King Leeland III emerged from his bedchamber, still wearing his nightgown; but his eyes were alert and his movements vigorous.
Hobb explained quickly, and Leeland wasted no time with further questions. He seized the breastplate from a suit of armor standing against one wall, shrugged it over his shoulders, and ordered his valet to fasten it on over the nightgown while they walked. Then, trailing the confused servant and an even more confused Mr. Robe, he and Hobb made their way to the stables.
“We’ll need every man of the Republican Guard we can lay our hands on,” said the King. “The Heavy Arms has only a small presence to protect their command staff, and the regular watch will be useless against soldiers. Will the Guard stand up to professionals?”
“They might,” said Hobb cautiously. “The units are newly-formed from the People’s Watch. There are plenty of them, but we’ve trained them mainly for law enforcement, not organized combat. There are veterans among them, and some mercenaries. I can’t predict—”
“They’ll have to do,” interrupted the King. They had reached the stables, where startled grooms quickly set about saddling the King’s favorite destrier. Hobb gave instructions that his carriage be prepared as well. Leeland armed himself with a long hand-and-a-half sword of steel, and placed in his lance socket the black and gold standard of Uelland. Within minutes, they were on their way.
Hobb took a deep breath as the carriage rattled through the streets of the city, still quiet in the early dawn. The people of Uellodon, doubtless awakened by the barrage of stones against the walls, were sheltering in their homes. Mr. Robe, sitting across from Hobb in the small compartment, looked about nervously, as if Carolese soldiers might boil out from the side streets at any moment.
“There’s a Guard unit at the docks, Mr. Robe,” said Hobb. “We have not been blind to the danger from the river. They should hold for a time.”
A booming impact suddenly shook the carriage, and a massive boulder rolled across the street ahead of them, annihilating several houses in its path before coming to rest.
“We shall have to get that cleaned up,” remarked Hobb calmly, “and add it to Queen Keleste’s bill of damages. Take a note, Mr. Robe.”
Mr. Robe took a note, as the carriage slowly picked its way around the debris.
At the garrison of the Republican Guard, the scene was disorganized, but not chaos. These were policemen, after all, and policemen are rarely chaotic. The noise of the assault had awoken them, and most were dressed in their red uniforms and hats, armed with their long spears, clubs, and light crossbows. But the rank and file were milling about in small groups, fingering their weapons, adjusting their coats, and talking quietly without any obvious purpose or direction. They looked with surprise at the First Minister and the King as they swept into the garrison’s courtyard.
Hobb and King Leeland alighted from their transports, and Hobb led the way into the office of the commandant. He was found sitting at his desk, sipping at a cup of coffee and looking nervously at the walls.
“Major Bisking,” Hobb snapped. “Assemble the complete cohort of the Guard at once. All able bodies. We are going to the docks. And we will discuss, at some later and more convenient time, why this had not been done before the King and I had to come and roust you ourselves.”
Major Bisking—who, until a year ago, had been a mid-ranking functionary in the Department of Collections, and who had ascended to the lofty rank of Major of the Guard mainly by reporting more of his colleagues for corruption than anyone else—leapt up from his desk and ran out of the room, shouting indignant orders at any underlings who happened to be nearby.
King Leeland looked at Hobb with a raised eyebrow and a silent question.
“We are building the foundations of the Institution of the State entirely anew, Majesty,” replied Hobb apologetically. “One must start with a certain amount of raw material as one shapes it into a neutral, disinterested body that serves the People and their Republic without fear or favor.”
“Exceedingly raw,” agreed the King, as they walked together back to the courtyard. “He needs a bit of time to roast over a flame.”
“Major Bisking’s principal virtue, Sire, is that he lacks any sense of long, instinctive tradition by which he might oppose the principals of democracy.”
In the courtyard, the Republican Guard soon assembled into neat ranks. They wore red coats over white shirts with white crossed sashes, and their felt tricorn hats were a dark brown, trimmed also with white. They puffed out their chests and held their long spears straight, ignoring the light whip of rain around their faces. The Guard, whatever might be said of their efficacy in battle, were excellent at the task of standing in ranks with their spears held high. The officers—all men—gathered around King Leeland and Hobb.
“Gentlemen,” King Leeland addressed them. “Uellodon is attacked on all sides—by aggression from our neighbors and treachery from our own family. The Republic teeters on the edge of the sword. Our Heavy Arms are in the field against the Brassens, but it falls on us to repel the Carolese assault at the docks. We, and the National Assembly, and all the People require your service today, and we will honor you as heroes of the Republic, whether you fall or prevail. But any man who flees the field is a traitor and an enemy of the State, and I will cut him down myself.”
The Guard officers shuffled nervously and looked at each other, but said nothing.
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“Very well,” said the King. “We shall soon know whether the Republican Guard is made of iron or of butter. Go to your companies; follow me, and obey.”
King Leeland turned to Hobb. “Go back to the Palace, Hobb. It will be dangerous at the docks.”
“Majesty,” said Hobb cautiously, “please come with me. It is as dangerous for you as for me, breastplate or none.” He lowered his voice. “The people need a King, sire. He is the center of their identity as members of a nation. With Anne in rebellion in the north and the National Assembly still young, we cannot afford for the office to be vacant.”
Leeland shook his head. “Go, Hobb,” he said. “If I fall, you have my son. Take care that he is not stolen from us again.” And with that he turned and rode out of the courtyard. The Guard fell in behind him in a neat line.
Soon Hobb and Mr. Robe were left alone in the empty courtyard, being damp in the rain.
“Hadn’t we better go, First Minister?” asked Mr. Robe. “The King was quite specific.”
Hobb nodded slowly and made his way to the carriage. The driver looked down at him questioningly. He was a new man, recently promoted to the job from the kitchens. He wore a sober black suit and a tall black hat with a narrow brim. His face was pale, and his eyes had an uncomfortable reddish cast to them. Hobb found his skin crawling under the man’s gaze, but shrugged it off as a flash of distasteful irrationality.
“The palace,” said Hobb despondently, and climbed into the box. Somewhere, nearby, events were unfolding that would decide the outcome of a project to which he had devoted his entire life. And here was Hobb the Wise, riding in a comfortably padded carriage back to the palace to have a cup of tea while he waited for news.
Finally, as they passed beneath the towering statues in Justiciar Square, he opened the hatch to the driver and called out. “Turn around, man. Take us to the docks.”
As the carriage slowed and turned laboriously, Mr. Robe looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing, First Minister?” he demanded. “We were told to go back to the palace!”
“I am the head of the civilian government of Uelland, Mr. Robe,” retorted Hobb caustically. “We are in the capital of the Republic, which I am charged with protecting. I speak for the National Assembly and for all the People. And under the authority of the People, we are going to go and have a look at the docks.”
Mr. Robe shifted uncomfortably, but said nothing else as the carriage rattled back to the southern quarter of the city. Hobb looked out the small window pensively, cupping his hands in a tent before his mouth.
Hobb the Wise had never witnessed a battle up close, and was therefore unprepared for the noise. The clash of metal on metal, and the cries and screams of men whose bodies had been pierced by foreign objects, were a constant presence in the air around them. It sounded like a hundred pigs all being slaughtered at once, punctuated by a hundred smiths hammering at a mad pace. He shuddered, but clenched his buttocks and remained still within the carriage. The rain pounded on the roof.
The driver reached a street at which he could go no further, and Hobb dismounted the vehicle. Ahead, a wall of red-clad figures faced away from him, thrusting their spears forward over the shoulders of their comrades. A hasty barricade of wagons and barrels stood between them and figures beyond, stretched between two buildings. Crossbowmen, perched in the windows of houses, shot down into the melee, and others were arranged in a rank behind, loosing bolts over the heads of their comrades in a ballistic arc.
Hobb found he had no clue of the tactical situation.
“Wait here,” he instructed the driver, raising a broad umbrella against the rain. Mr. Robe also stayed put.
Hobb went inside the nearest building and found his way up to the attic. The house was abandoned, any families that lived here having long since fled. Folding his umbrella, he moved to the southern window, opened the wooden slats, and looked out.
The building he had selected was tall, and though it was not at the edge of the docks, his window had a view over the lower rooftops to the waterfront. This was swarming with men in white and gray uniforms, pressing forward away from their boats in a huge mass. The bolts of crossbows were thick in the air, and they added a hissing whine over the sound of the combat below.
The line of white-clad invaders came to a ragged halt in the streets beyond the docks, where it was met by masses of red-clad men. The melee seemed to have swung back and forth, for there were white-clad figures beyond the lines of the Republican Guard, and red-clad figures nearer to the docks. Guardsmen and Carolese were perched in the windows and rooftops of the buildings on either side of the line, shooting back and forth at each other and at the men in the streets. At the line of division between the two sides, spears and swords were being thrust madly and hatefully into the bodies of the enemy, and men died in plentiful numbers.
The Carolese were numerous and well trained. They moved in small, cohesive units, using the terrain of the city to hold the Guard in place while they circled around to attack from the flanks where they could. But the Guard were also numerous, and had the advantage of a defensive posture. To Hobb’s untrained eye, the battle seemed static.
His gaze swept the streets for the King, and found him at the eastern edge of the docks. The black and gold battle standard was plainly visible, and beneath it King Leeland III, sweeping his broadsword back and forth against the men on either side. A mass of red-clad Guardsmen protected his flanks and rear, but the King himself was set against the spears of the Carolese before him. He seemed to be pushing forward, and the street behind his company was well-fertilized with white-clad bodies.
And then he fell.
The destrier went down first, pierced by spears through the chinks in the armor on its breastplate and neck, and then the King was down beside it. The spears and swords of the Carolese flashed over his body in the gray light. The crowd of Republican Guard pushed forward for a moment, and then withdrew. He saw the battle standard being dragged back to the north, and with it a prone figure in a nightgown and a breastplate.
Hobb hesitated, but only for a moment. In that moment he looked down at the struggle of men and nations and ideas, happening right there in the streets below him, and thought of how it might turn out. And then, without any more thought at all for his own part in it, he dashed down the stairs of the house and out the front door. He gestured madly in the direction of the carriage, but Mr. Robe was already gone. The driver, though, hopped down and followed him.
Hobb reached the milling throng of red-clad Guardsmen, and saw the body of the King being pulled back from their midst. He was alive; his eyes fluttered, and he groaned. There was a large red stain on the nightgown below the breastplate, and another spreading from his shoulder. Around them, the men of the Republican Guard were beginning to turn. Seeing their King felled, they were wavering. They looked in fear back at the mass of death and pain in the streets.
“Take the carriage back there,” he said to the men carrying the King. “Take His Majesty back to the palace, and have the physicians see to him at once.” And then, without waiting for an answer, he scooped up the battle standard and raised it high in the air again.
“Forward!” he cried. Hobb was a trained orator, and his frame was tall; his voice carried over the din. “Forward! For your King, and the soil of your home, and the blood of your people! Forward and die if you must!” And he ran forward himself, against the tide of men streaming backward.
It was an absurd sight, of course. Hobb was not a soldier; he was a politician, dressed in the sober, dark-gray suit and tie that was his own uniform. He did not know how to carry a battle flag, or how to comport himself in the face of men who wanted to kill him. The eyes of the Guard followed him more out of amazement than out of loyalty. But their eyes did follow him, and their ears heard him, and they saw the black and gold standard above. Their bodies and arms followed their eyes. If this frail, lanky old man with his flag could run toward the tight ranks of the invaders, screaming defiantly and awkwardly and sincerely, then so could they.
As the Guard surged forward again, pressing the Carolese back with a thicket of long spears, Hobb made his way up onto a low barrel and stood there as if at a podium before an audience. He waved his standard and shouted—what it was, he could not recall later—and refused to budge from his spot. The driver stood next to him, and curiously, the man would every so often give Hobb’s hips a gentle push, or a pull, adjusting his position ever so slightly. Not a single arrow or bolt found its way to the First Minister’s body, which was remarkable given their abundance in the air above the battle.
Slowly, step by step, the Guard advanced, and the Carolese retreated. Hobb was in a state of ecstasy, unable really to think or even to understand the tactical situation with any subtlety. He could only see that his side was moving forward, which was good. When the melee advanced beyond his street, he descended the barrel and walked forward among the Guard, still shouting hoarsely and waving the standard. The battle turned a corner, and Hobb went with it, walking the streets, screaming and waving and letting the odd carriage driver push him back and forth from time to time as the bolts of the enemy whizzed past.
Eventually the Guardsmen parted to let him go toward the front. When he got there, he found that, in whatever length of time he had been waving his flag, two things had happened. First, his arms had grown quite tired. And second, the Carolese had fled back to their boats, abandoning the docks and retreating out into the Green River. The streets were choked with the bodies of the dead, but they were also choked with the living—living soldiers wearing red cloaks and white shirts and three-cornered hats, who had just this morning, before breakfast, become as hard as iron.
Hobb handed the battle standard to Major Bisking, who had acquired a bandage over his head and one eye, and also an air of pride and confidence. And then the First Minister permitted his carriage driver to lead him back to the carriage, in which, as it rattled through the streets to the palace, he fell fast asleep.
✽✽✽
“Do you write, Boris?”
“I do.”
“In Uellish?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s give you a test, then.”
Hobb rose from behind his desk and strode briskly around his spacious study, thinking. The peculiar carriage driver sat quietly in a straight-backed chair before the desk, holding a quill over a sheet of hemp paper and listening attentively.
> When the sun set yesterday (we’ll adjust the date later) it laid night’s black veil over all Uelland. But when light returned in the morning, it was not the accustomed gold and rose, but red. Red ran from the bodies of heroes, both without and within this city, and colored all the world around us. The soil of our fields and farms is red with the blood of the King’s Heavy Arms, who routed the foul Brasen invaders at terrible cost to their own. The docks and the harbor are red with the blood of our own neighbors, who launched a treacherous and cunning attack from the river. And the streets of fair Uellodon are red with the blood of the Republican Guard, who found courage in their hearts and strength in their limbs to defend the people.
Hobb paused, and went over to look at the driver’s sheet of paper. Since the morning’s excitement he’d had a change of clothes and a cup of tea, both of which were marvelously energizing.
“Not bad. Not bad at all!” he enthused. “Capitalize ‘People.’ And you misspelled ‘Brassen,’ but that’s an easy mistake. No one has ever explained to my satisfaction why we must have two ‘s’-s in some words and just one in others. There was a time when spelling was a matter of personal taste, you know. Our great progress toward the uniform has, unfortunately, codified a certain amount of the irrational. Never mind. Your dictation is acceptable. Where did you learn?”
Boris looked at him steadily from the chair, his pale red eyes unblinking.
“A schoolteacher in Hog Hurst taught me. Her name was Alice Miller.”
Hobb frowned. The surname ‘Miller’ conjured up some unpleasant memories. But it was a common enough family name, being a common enough profession.
“You shall be my secretary, Boris, if you wish. You proved your loyalty at the docks, and I need loyal men around me. You shall accompany me to my meetings and take notes, and record my dictation when I wish it. I may have other errands for you as well. You will receive a stiped as a member of my personal staff; I believe it is considerably more than that of a carriage driver. Do you accept?”
Boris nodded gravely. “I accept, First Minster.”
Hobb clapped him on the shoulder. “Excellent. You’ll be part of something greater than yourself, Boris. Greater than all of us.”
“Of that, I have no doubt,” replied his secretary.
✽✽✽
Hobb took Boris with him to see the King.
The sheets of Leeland’s bed were stained a deep maroon, and there was a foul smell in the room. The King’s short black hair was slick with sweat, and his face was pale. His chest rose and fell slowly. His nightgown had been removed, and there was a tight bandage around his abdomen, also stained red. A thin, pale man with a mustache, wearing a white smock over his crisp shirt, was taking the King’s pulse as the First Minister and his secretary entered. Several attendants stood at hand.
“How is he?” asked Hobb, rather more out of form than out of any real curiosity. It was readily apparent that he was not well.
The pale physician looked up at Hobb through bushy eyebrows.
“Gravely wounded, sir,” he answered. “The spears pierced his intestines, and he is bleeding on the inside. He has lost a great deal of blood already.”
“Will he live?” asked Hobb, feeling his face blanch.
The physician shrugged. “I give him better than no odds at all. But if he is to have a chance to recover, we will have to replace some of his lost blood. It is immensely risky, and I must have you put in writing your approval. Yet without a transfusion, he will very likely die before sunrise tomorrow.”
“Why is it risky?”
The doctor sighed. “Because it only works about a quarter of the time. Some blood mixes well in a foreign body, and some causes further harm. No one has ever determined why, though there have been many theories. It seems to work more frequently among family members. Whoever uncovers the reason for it will save thousands of lives every year. But for now—if King Leeland doesn’t receive new blood so that his body has time to heal itself, I very much doubt he will live.”
Suddenly the physician looked up, hope appearing in his eyes.
“His son!” the man gasped. “Of course! Young Leeland is old enough to give some of his blood without weakening too much. I beg you, First Minister, summon him at once.”
Hobb kept his face very still, but his mind raced through the implications of his possible responses.
“Is there a risk to the donor?”
The doctor shook his head. “Not unless you draw too much blood, too quickly. The prince will feel weak for several hours, but will recover. It is a pity Leeland has only one son.”
In his own head, Hobb laughed uproariously.
He turned to Boris. “Go and tell Mr. Robe to fetch the Crown Prince, on my authority,” he instructed. “The guard outside will show you to Robe’s office. If the prince is unwilling, have him brought forcibly.”
Boris nodded and departed. Hobb sat down to wait, wrestling in his mind with a terrible risk. For, of course, young Leeland’s blood had nothing at all in common with the man lying in the bed.
Hobb had known of King Leeland’s views toward women for many years. He had arranged to spy on the King’s bedchamber on his wedding night with Queen Anne, to see if the union would produce the necessary preconditions for biological offspring. It had not then, nor on any later night. The King was polite and correctly formal to his wife in public, but no child would be forthcoming.
So, when a young Crown Knight with blond hair and deep blue eyes had turned the Queen’s head, Hobb had discreetly encouraged the affair. He arranged for them to see each other socially. He placed the knight in command of her bodyguard. And when the young man began to use his position of trust to visit Queen Anne in secret, Hobb had smiled to himself, and arranged for the palace guard to be out of their way. In due course, Uelland had a presumptive heir to the throne, and everyone was happy.
Until, to Hobb’s enduring irritation, Queen Anne had fled Uellodon with her son and set herself up as a Queen in her own right in the north. Logwall had done his duty and returned with the boy—but now here was Hobb, about to endorse a blood transfusion between a young man and Uelland’s king which stood no more chance of success than if it were Hobb’s own blood.
Young Leeland’s face blanched when he arrived and saw the King’s wounds, but when the physician explained the need and the procedure, he grimly rolled up his sleeve.
“Send word of any changes,” he instructed Boris. And then, trailing Mr. Robe, he walked briskly back to his office to make plans.
✽✽✽
There was a note pinned to the door of Hobb’s apartment when they returned. He snatched it down and read it.
> My dear old boy. I got a look at your action at the docks. Irrationally brave for a man in his nineties, but you must spend some time composing your battlefield speeches in advance. You simply haven’t the flare for spontaneous theatrics. ‘Forward?’ You sounded like a mercenary sergeant ordering his men to the mess tent. Still, you tried. How is the King? I pray his young lad won’t be met with any unexpected promotions; I wonder greatly at his readiness for the position. There’s a well-qualified lady in Green Bridge who’d be keen for the job.
>
> I’m terribly sorry to have missed you, but I left a surprise in your office. It is a preview of things to come.
>
> Yours truly, etc.
> WS, Chancellor
Hobb’s face darkened, and he crumpled the note in his fist. Then he wordlessly strode into his office, glaring about for evidence of intrusion. Mr. Robe followed him. But the office was as Hobb had left it: not a pen out of place.
Muttering curses under his breath, Hobb sat down firmly in the tall-backed oak chair at his writing desk. Then he sprang up again, howling in pain and clutching at his bottom. He withdrew therefrom a small, sharp pin with a round metal head, and flung it on the table.
“Puerile academic,” he growled. “When I find that men, I’ll have one of these inserted into each of his eyes.” Then, inspecting the seat of the chair carefully, he sat down again.
It promptly collapsed.
Hobb stood up from the wreckage, his face flushed.
“Mr. Robe,” he said, struggling to keep his breathing calm. “Interview every member of the palace staff personally. I want to know when and how an intruder got access to my office, and then I want the man most responsible fired and put out on the street, along with ten of his closest friends.”
“First Minister,” Mr. Robe began to protest, “I have many responsibilities in the Assembly, and there are hundreds—”
“PERSONALLY!” roared Hobb, in all capitals. Then he fetched another chair from his bedroom, tested it carefully, placed it behind the desk, and sat down. As his gaze drifted to the surface of his beloved writing desk, it found there a small lump of some brown, resinous substance stuck squarely on the smoothly-stained surface. Upon closer inspection, this proved to be a wad of used chewing-gum.
Hobb closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Let us consider the facts for and against us,” he said plainly. “Mr. Robe, take this down.”
He frowned in thought. “The Brassens have been routed, and the Carolese pushed back. But the army’s ranks are devastated, and morale is black.”
Mr. Robe cocked his head quizzically for a moment, but then regained his composure.
“The King is gravely wounded,” Hobb went on, “at the brink of expiration. The National Assemb’ly alone cannot command the nation.”
“First Minister,” began Mr. Robe tentatively, but Hobb shushed him. Then he paused a moment, listening to something.
“No,” stated Hobb firmly. “We’re not having a song here. Now: The judges are against us, and they’re all reactionaries. And the pretender in the north is making bold our adversaries.”
He cleared his throat and paused.
“But we’ve got an army of our own,” he continued, “and now they’re battle-tested. The Guard of the Republic has returned what we’ve invested.”
Hobb looked around desperately, unable to stop. Mr. Robe giggled, and then immediately drew his face into a stern scowl. He scribbled furiously on his tablet.
“It’s the People undivided, Robe, on whom we must rely. They must see it’s in their interest the Republic doesn’t die!”
“Rhyming couplets are the lowest form of poetry, you know,” remarked Mr. Robe.
“The problem, Mr. Robe, is not my present oratory. The world is full of people focused on the transitory. If only the collective good were easier to see; we must make them all be less like them and more like me!”
HOBB the WISE:
Be more like me,
Be more like me
Let me break the chains of choice and set you free!
Yes, we’ve all got our frustrations, but have a little patience
And entertain another possibility
Be less like you and more like me!
MR. ROBE: I’m just like you, First Minister. But everyone else is so annoyingly different!
HOBB:
Take Anne, as an example,
Her charms and wit are ample
But they mask the cruel absolute of monarchy.
Her ideas are absurd
And they’re dangerous if heard
And it follows that she should be more like me.
Be more like me
Be more like me
There’s nothing else that’s reasonable to be.
It’s either princess or pretender
And there’s no one who’ll defend her
She should be less like her and more like me.
MR. ROBE: We are beset on all sides by wrong and unjust ideas. Some villain left one of them on your door.
HOBB:
The man who left that note
Is of a kind with Cyrus Stoat
And both of them are traitors to the Nation
It’s far too late for them to see
That they should have been like me
This story ends with their decapitation.
Be more like me
Be more like me
It’s the only thing that’s legal now to be.
If they cut against the grain
It will only lead to pain
They should be less like them and more like me.
The fields are all full of foreign invaders
The money’s been robbed by unscrupulous traders
The People are slaves to the rich upper classes
The courts are all stocked with robe-wearing asses
Criminals creep through the palace at night
To leave asinine notes and then slink out of sight
That girl in the north has some half-wits rebelling
And a market’s been found for the lies that she’s selling
Representative government, it seems, only works
If you aren’t representing self-interested jerks
The King’s on his deathbed, the prince is a boy
And if all this weren’t enough to annoy
Me, the world is just crawling with men who can’t see
They should stop being them, and start being me!
Be more like me
Be more like me
Just give up and see the person that you ought to be.
When everyone conforms,
Peace and justice are the norms,
So go on, lay down the burden
Of trying to be you—who?
Be less like you and more like me.
Be more like me!