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He also achieved success by bringing himself to the attention of Authority. In the crowd there were men of a sort he had seen in other kingdoms, too average, too disinterested, too carefully attentive beneath that disinterest, to be anything but spies. Storm King spies, who would be very much interested in any large gathering. Nepanthe, their Princess, had proven cu
They were the shadow men who backboned the government Valther had built for his sister. Attracting their attention lay at the root of Saltimbanco's plan. Everyone, especially they and their mistress, had to think him a harmless clown.
"What do you think?" one shadow man asked the other.
"A clown with a new act. I imagine he'll end up asking for money."
And at just that moment, Saltimbanco did so, proving himself less than wholly concerned with his listeners' souls. He smiled to himself on seeing the spies' knowing nods. He was safe for a while.
Day after day, week after week, he continued his idiot's speeches, moving about the city so the greatest numbers might hear him. He spoke on a different subject each day, parlaying the philosophical nonsense of centuries into a mad but i
Because he was enjoying himself hugely, and making a fortune from donations, the weeks slipped away rapidly. Spring was but a month distant when he decided the city was ready for his magnus opus, a long-winded and, to the people in the street, laughable oration praising the Princess Nepanthe-for the political weather was growing more treacherous daily, and the woman faced increasing popular opposition. Daringly, the speech was to be presented on the steps of the Tower of the Moon.
Because most Iwa Skolovdans thought the speech a new high in his career of idiocy, Saltimbanco felt certain they would place him where he wanted. Indeed, they turned out in record numbers. When he reached the Tower, astride his patient donkey, he found a vast crowd waiting. They cheered. A nervous, redoubled Tower guard eyed them uncertainly.
The soldiers relaxed when they spied him. They now assumed nothing but storms of laughter would be raised. Saltimbanco prayed he would incite no insurrection.
Ponderously he mounted the steps leading to the Tower entrance, lifting the skirts of his monkish robe like an old woman about to go wading. His ears told him his audience would be warm before he spoke a word.
He stopped five steps below the soldiers, turned, launched upon flowery rivers of praise dedicated to Nepanthe. Soon the crowd were roaring delightedly.
• • •
Nepanthe sat in the shadows of her lonely chamber, mind in a stupor. A dark mood was on her. She cared not at all for the world, had but one foot in the realm of consciousness. The dreadful demons of her dreams now pursued her even by day. She could sleep only when she fell from exhaustion. This coming out of Ravenkrak had worsened things, not, as she had hoped, made them better.
Dimly, as through a sound-baffling curtain, the roaring reached her. The Werewind'?, was her first startled thought. Then: Those're human voices!
She went to a window overlooking the street, walking stiffly, not unlike a woman twice her age. From a shadow she looked down on the crowd, awed. She had never seen so many people in one place. A thrill of fear brought her fully awake. She backed from the window, hands at her throat, then turned, ran. She seized a bell-cord and rang for her guard captain.
He was awaiting her summons, knocked before she finished ringing.
"Enter!" she commanded, trying to mask her panic.
"Milady?"
She ignored the amenities. "Rolf, what're those people doing?" She waved an unsteady hand at the window.
"A fool's making a speech. Milady."
"Who?" she demanded. She was certain she sounded terrified. But, if she did, he gave no sign of having noticed. He waited with the merest hint of a curious expression. "Let's listen," she decided.
They went to the window and stood, but could hear little over the laughter of the crowd-though Nepanthe thought she heard her name spoken several times. Timidly, little-girlish, she asked, "Why do they laugh so?"
"Oh, they think him a great clown and fool, Milady." Rolf chuckled as he leaned on the windowsill.
"And you too, eh?"
He smiled. "Indeed. Iwa Skolovda's needed him for a long time. Too staid."
"Who is he? Where's he from?"
"There you've got me. Ladyship. Because he has the ear of the people, we've tried to find out. All we know is that he rode in some time ago, after preaching in the villages to the south. There's some evidence he was in Prost Kamenets before that.
"After arriving, he spent several days alone, then started the speeches. He's a folk-hero now. I'm sure he's harmless. Milady. The people just gather to laugh at him. He doesn't seem to mind. He makes a good deal off them."
So. He did see my fear, she thought. And now he's trying to reassure me. Aloud, "What's he talking about? Why such a huge crowd?"
The soldier suddenly seemed distressed. He tried to hedge.
"Come, come, Rolf. I heard him use my name. What's he saying about me?"
"As your Ladyship commands," he muttered. Plainly he feared losing his position as her captain. "His speech is in praise of yourself, Milady."
A spark blazed in Nepanthe's eyes, a mote of fire that could easily become anger. "And for that they call him a fool?" The anger waxed, spread from her eyes to her brow. "Why?"
Rolf's ma
"Captain!" Nepanthe snapped. "Your reticence displeases me!" Then, in a more kindly tone, "When was the last time I punished a soldier for expressing an opinion, or for carrying bad news?"
"I can't remember, Milady."
"If you think carefully," she whispered, looking toward the window, "you'll remember all punishments have been for breach of discipline, not for performing duties which discomforted me! Now, speak up! Why do the people laugh when this man praises me?"
"They despise you. Milady."
A cold wind seemed to blow through the room. Indeed, swift-coming clouds in the north promised a winter's storm.
"Despise me? But why?" There was a hint of hurt behind her quiet inquisition.
"Because you're whom you are," he replied gently. "Because you're a woman, because you're in power, because you overthrew the King. Why do men despise their rulers? For all those reasons, and maybe more, but mostly because you're from Ravenkrak, get of the old foe, and because the ousted Councilmen, that you foolishly freed, keep inciting them." The cold wind sighing round the Tower, down off the Kratchnodians, seemed as much spiritual as real. Chilling.
Would the reverberations of the Fall never cease? llkazar was dust, but echoes of the fury of her collapse still beat upon her scattered grandchildren. The shadowy wings of hatred still drifted across their lives like those of searching vultures.
The people still roared below.
"Tell me, Rolf-honestly-aren't the people better off since I came here? Aren't the taxes lower? Don't I care for the poor? Haven't I replaced a corrupt, lazy, indifferent government with an incorrupt, efficient, responsive one? Haven't I repressed the crime syndicates that were almost a second government before I arrived?" She shuddered, remembering ranks of heads on pikes above the city gates. "What about my subsidies for trade with Itaskia and Prost Kamenets?"