The Totem-Maker (part twenty-six)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Three

I Am the Cause

(part twenty-six)

He addressed Lord Ulfas, with a northern show of baffled curiosity. “I cannot keep this prisoner for myself?”

“In justice…” the governor began.

“You have some scheme for the enrichment of your minor houses? Material to the bankruptcy of your Emperor, no doubt. But we have councils in my land, not courts. As the breaking of bread leaves each holding a crumb, and a crumb for each is greater than a loaf for a few, so a verdict that comes by many stages must be wiser than…”

He bored himself, and made a negligent gesture.

“In justice…” Ulfas began again.

“Should I have denied this man’s request?”

Mumas could not snub the Prince. The crowd craned to stare, and found him with his man of law, thumbs hooked on his belt, hands working forward and back.

“I have only been asked to array my soldiers and my ships, that your enemies cease their piracy, that your harbors fill your Emperor’s barren coffers, that your people are not seized into slavery along the highways. Having done so much, I was given another small task, and thought to have it dispatched within the hour. But tell me what your pace is, Lord Ulfas, and I will slow to it.”

“Ao-bahcan Darsale,” Sente said. “I yield to you, if it pleases you. The prisoner is yours.”

“No. The Emperor’s money is my niece’s. Have it be a month, a second month. Let us all be comfortable. Sente, you are of rank to deliver my message to Lady Nyma.”

Sente, showing pains when the Prince watched the prisoner, effacement in answering him, bowed and moved with his household guard, backwards.

My cell was over the stable—clean, well-scented by manure, my own straw fresh. I was in company, contented with it, enjoying a snort or nicker from below. I talked to the horses aloud, and fancied encouraging words returned. I had visits from two sociable cats, opening the shutter for them when they climbed. Yes, I could have escaped. Water and food were brought by a lone servant, and never with a jangle of weaponry.

But I was eager to know Lady Nyma’s ruling, how she would explain it…feeling almost in audience to my own drama.

Sente came up the ladder one evening, toed away straw in a circle, and placed a lantern. “You bear it all calmly.”

He sat, crosslegged, on the floor.

“Lom told me he had seen his fate. I am a teller of fates. Do I tell myself, then, that I have played my role, and no more can be helped? If the gods mean us pebbles in a rushing stream, with no power to rise or sink or come to shore, why have they made us at all? What is the use of this game, with no sport in it? We die in agonies…we starve, we burn, we drown. We seem at rare times to please them.”

“Yes. You have thought all that.”

27

I Am the Cause

The Totem-Maker (part twenty-seven)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)