Wyrms

Chapter 4. FATHER'S HEAD

THE HEADSMAN STOOD OUTSIDE THE DOOR AS patience waited for her father to die. He lay on the high bed, his face grey, his hands no longer trembling. Yesterday, the day before, as word of his final disease spread through King's Hill and down into King's Gift and High Town, a steady stream of visitors had come to say good-bye, to receive a final benediction. They all murmured some excuse to Patience as they left: We were friends in Balakaim. He taught me Dwelf. But she knew why they came. To touch, to see, to speak to the man who should have been Heptarch. There was blessing in the breath of the dying King.

Now Patience, who had heard nothing but wisdom and brilliance from him all her life, watched the old man's lips move in the forms of two dozen languages, babbling the empty phrases of courtesy that had been his stock in trade. It was as if Peace had to purge himself of all the words of grace before he died.

"Father," she whispered.

The door opened suddenly. The headsman peered inside.

"Not yet," she said. "Go away."

But the headsman first waited until he saw Peace's hand move a little. Then he closed the door again.

Father lifted his hand to touch his collarbone, where a small wound was still unhealed.

"Yes," she said. His memory was going.

He murmured.

"I can't hear you," she said.

"Patience," he whispered. She was not sure if he was saying her name or giving her a command.

"Father, what should I do now? How should I use my life, if I can keep it?"

He murmured.

"I can't hear you, Father."

"Serve and save," he said in Dwelf. And then, in Gauntish, "The King's House."

"Oruc will never let me serve him as you did," she said in Geblic.

He answered in Agarant, the common speech, which the headsman could surely understand. "The King's House is all the world." Even as he died, he had to make sure that the story of his loyalty reached Oruc's ears. Patience saw what it was for: so Oruc would begin to doubt that Peace ever was disloyal to him. Let him wonder if he misjudged the both of us all along.

But Patience knew it also had another meaning for her.

Even though in her life she might never bear the title, she nevertheless had the Heptarch's responsibility. She was to serve the world. She was to have universal magnanimity.

"You taught me to survive," she whispered. "Not to be a savior of the world."

"Or a sacrifice," said his breathless lips.

Then his lips were still, and his body shuddered. The headsman heard the squeak of the bed and knew. He opened the door and came in, the headpot in his left hand, the long wire of the scalpel in his right.

"Miss Patience," he said, not looking at her, "its best you not watch this."

But she watched, and he could not stop her, since he had not a second to lose if he was to have the head alive.

The scalpel was nothing but a coarser and stronger version of Patience's own loop. He passed it around her father's neck and locked the end of the wire in place.

Then he whipped left and right, severing all the loose flesh and muscle instantly. It took a moment longer to work the wire through the cartilage and nerves between the vertebrae. Peace had been dead scarcely ten seconds before the headsman lifted the old man's head by the lower jaw and laid it gently in the headpot.

The headpot rocked a few moments as the gools that lived inside jostled for position on the veins and arteries of the open throat. They would keep the head alive until it could be installed in Slaves' Hall.

Of course they did not leave her the body, either. Lord Peace may have been the King's ambassador in life, but in death his body was the corpse of the Last Pretender, and if the priests of Crossriver Delving or Lost Souls'

Island got their hands on it, there'd be no end of trouble.

So the diggers took him away to the King's Boneyard, and she was alone in the house.

She wasted no time-Father had told her long ago how dangerous would be the moment of his death. First protect secrets, he had always taught her. He had never kept many written documents. She found them all in moments and without hesitation she quickly burned them and raked the ashes into dust.

Then she took the tiny amber globe that had dwelt in her father's flesh and swallowed it. She wasn't sure whether the crystal it was made of could survive the process of digestion, but she didn't know what it was or how to implant it in her own body, and she didn't want it found if she were searched.

She had already prepared her traveling bag. It was filled with the tools of survival. Masks and makeup and wigs, money and jewels, a small flash of water, pellets of sugar. Not much, so it wouldn't encumber her. But enough. Her weapons were concealed in the open, where she could reach them easily. The loop in her hair. The glass blowgun in the cross that hung fashionably between her breasts. The poison in a plastic pellet between her toes. She was ready to survive, had been ready throughout the deathwatch, knowing the Oruc would surely arrange for her to die at the same time as her father, if not of the same disease.

She waited. The house was empty, the servants gone.

They had been there, watching, spying all her life. If she had harbored any hopes that Oruc would let her live, the absence of the servants dispelled them. He wanted no witnesses, especially not witnesses whose tongues were professionally loose.

There was a knock on the door. It was the bailiff. It would be the bailiff, then-he was one of the many King's slaves trained to kill at the King's command. He apologized and presented her with papers of eviction.

"It's a house for a King's slave, Miss Patience," he said, "and the King's slave is dead, you see." He stood between her and the other rooms of the house; she would not be allowed to take any of her belongings, he explained.

They had known it would be this way, of course.

Angel had taken everything of consequence with him some time ago. She would get it when she left King's Hill and joined him.

She smiled graciously and walked slowly toward the door. The bailiff made no sound that she consciously heard, nor was there a shadow. Perhaps it was the faintest trembling in the stone floor, or the slightest pressure of moving air on her hair. Without knowing how she knew, she knew that he was about to kill her. She lurched to the right, shifted her weight, and twisted and kicked all in a smooth motion. The bailiff had just begun to lunge with the dagger he held in his left hand, and now he had time only to show the surprise on his face as her foot caught him in the knee, bending it sideways.

He gasped in agony and dropped the dagger. Some assassin, she thought with contempt. Did Oruc think that such an oaf could kill the daughter of Lord Peace? It was not even a struggle. She left the dagger in his right eye.

Only when the bailiff lay on the floor with the dagger sticking up like a jaunty decoration did she realize that this was the first time she had ever acted against the will of the King. It was surprisingly easy, and she enjoyed thwarting him even more than she had enjoyed serving him. King Oruc, you have made a foolish mistake by not trying to use me in my father's place. I have a certain flair for government work. And now it will work against you.

Then she reminded herself that she was still not Oruc's enemy, even if he had chosen to be hers. She was the servant of the King's House, and she would do nothing to weaken his reign unless she knew it would bring about a greater good.

She went to the door and opened it at once. There would be soldiers all around, of course, but it was likely that they did not know she was supposed to be killed.

There was too much lingering support for the ancient bloodline. So as long as she seemed calm, she could probably get by. No, not calm. Grief-stricken.