another, wholly unknown and unmanageable factor into an equation already insoluble? ‘Unmanageable.’ Indeed that is the right word. The sole certainty I have is that this spark would ignite a thousand new religious lunacies and make peace in Europe impossible for another generation or worse.
“No, Captain Whatever-you-are,” he ended, glacial again in the way the world had come to fear, “I want no part of you or your immortals. France does not.”
Lacy sat equally quiet. He had had his reverses often before. “May I try to persuade Your Eminence otherwise, over the next few days or years?” he asked.
“You may not. I have too much else to occupy my mind, and too damnably little time left for it.”
Richelieu’s manner mildened. “Be at ease,” he said with half a smile. “You shall depart freely. Caution enjoins me to have you arrested and garroted within this hour. Either you are a charlatan and deserve it or a mortal danger and require it. However, I deem you a sensible man who will withdraw to his obscurity. And I am grateful to you for a fascinating glimpse of—what is best left alone. Could I have my wish, you would stay a while and we would talk at length. But that would be risky to me and unkind to you. So let us store this afternoon, not among our memories, but among our fantasies.”
Lacy sat silent for a bit, until he drew breath and answered, “Your Eminence is generous. How can you tell I won’t betray your trust and seek elsewhere?”
Richelieu chuckled. “Where else? You have called me unique. The queen of Sweden has a penchant for curious characters, true. She is still a minor, though, and when she does take power, well, everything I know about her makes me warn you most sincerely to stay away. You are already aware of the hazards in any other country that matters.”
He bridged his fingers. “In all events,” he continued, didactic, “your scheme was poor from the beginning, and my advice is that you abandon it forever. You have seen much history; but how much of it have you beenl I suspect that I, in my brief decades, have learned lessons in which your nose was never nibbed.
“Go home. Then, I strongly suggest, make provision for your children and disappear with your friend. Take up a new life, perhaps in the New World. Remove yourself, and me, from temptation, remembering what my temptation is. For you dream a fool’s dream.”
“Why?” Lacy croaked.
“Have you not guessed? Really, I am disappointed in you. Hope has triumphed over experience. Hark back. Remember how kings have kept wild animals in cages—and freaks at court. Oh, if I accepted you I might be honest in my intentions, and Mazarin might be after me; but what of young Louis XIV when he comes to his majority? What of any king, any government? The exceptions are few and fleeting. Even if you immortals were a race of philosophers who also understood how to rule me—do you suppose those who do rule would or could share power with you? And you have admitted you are only extraordinary in your lifespans. What can you become but animals in the royal menagerie, endlessly watched by the secret police and disposed of if ever you become inconveniently articulate? No, keep your freedom, whatever it costs you.
“You begged me to think about your proposal. I tell you to go and think about my counsel.”
The clock ticked, the wind blew, the river flowed.
From down in his throat, Lacy asked, “Is this Your Eminence’s last word?”
“It is,” Richelieu told him.
Lacy rose. “Best I leave.”
Richelieu’s lips contorted. “I do wish I had more time to give you,” he said, “and myself.”
Lacy approached. Richelieu extended his right hand. Lacy bowed and kissed it. Straightening, he said, “Your Eminence is as great a man as I have ever met.”
“Then God have mercy on humankind,” Richelieu replied.
“I shall never forget you.”
“I will bear that in mind for as long as is granted me. Farewell, wanderer.”
Lacy went to the door and knocked. A guard opened it. Richelieu signalled him to let the man by and close it again. Thereupon he sat with his thoughts. The sunlight lengthened. The kitten woke, scrambled down his robe, and frisked off in its own life.
XII. The Last Medicine
Over the plain from the north the young men came a-gal-lop. The haste and rhythm of it were like the ripples that went through the grass beneath the wind. Sunflowers here and there swayed the same, lofty, petals as hot yellow as the light pouring across the world. Land and sky reached both unbounded, green seemed to meet blue but that was only at the edge of sight, distance went on and on farther than dreams could fly, A hawk rode the airflows, dipping and soaring, his wings twin flames. A flight of marshfowl lifted, so many that they darkened their quarter of heaven.
Children set to keep crows out of the fields were first to see the young men. The oldest boy among them ran back to the village, filled with importance; for Deathless had ordered that he be told of the return. Yet when the boy had passed inside the stockade and was among the houses, his courage faltered. Who was he to speak to the mightiest of all shamans? Dared he risk interrupting a spell or a vision? Women at their work saw him stand forlorn. One hailed him, “Oh6, Little Hare, what is in your heart?” But they were only women, the old men he glimpsed were only old men, and surely this was a thing of terrible power if Deathless cared so much about it.
The boy gulped and made for a certain house. Its dun sod loomed over him. When he came around its length to the front, the doorway gaped on a nightful cave where a single banked fire glimmered red. The families that shared it were elsewhere, doing their tasks or, if they had none, taking their ease down by the river. One did remain, the person for whom Little Hare had hoped, a man dressed in woman’s clothes, grinding corn. He looked up and asked in his mild way, “What do you wish, lad?”
Little Hare gulped. “The hunters come back,” he said. “Will you go tell the shaman, Three Geese?”
The noise of stone against stone ceased. The berdache rose. “I will,” he replied. Such as he had some power against the unseen, perhaps because the spirits made up to them for their lack of manliness. Besides, he was a son of Deathless. He dusted meal off his buckskin, uncoiled his braids, and departed at a dignified pace. Little Hare gusted relief before he started back to his duty. Eagerness tingled in him. What a brave sight the riders would be when they went by!
The shaman’s house stood next to the medicine lodge at the middle of the village. It was smaller than the rest because it was only for him and his family. He was there just then with his wives. Copperbright, mother of Three Geese, sat on the ground outside, watching over the two small daughters of Quail Wing while they played in the sun. Bent, half-blind, she was glad she could still help this much at her great age. In the doorway, Rain At Evening, who had been born the same winter as the berdache, helped a daughter of her own, Dawn Mist, ornament a dress with dyed quills for the maiden’s forthcoming marriage. She greeted the newcomer and, at his word, went inside to call her husband. Deathless came forth after a short while, still fastening his breechclout. Young Quail Wing peeped out from within, looking rumpled and happy.
“Ohe, father,” said Three Geese with due respect but not the awe that was in the likes of Little Hare. After all, this man had dandled him when he was a baby, taught him to know the stars and how to set snares and everything else needful or delightful—and, when it grew clear that the youth was not going to become fully a man, never lessened his love but accepted the fact with the calm of one who had watched hundreds of lives blow past on the wind. “They have seen Running Wolf’s party on the way back to us.”
Deathless stood quiet for a bit. When he frowned, a single wrinkle spread on his face. Sweat made his skin gleam over the springy muscles tike dew upon rock; his hair was like the rock itself, polished obsidian. “Are they sure that is who it is?” he asked.
“Why, who else?” replied Three Geese, astonished.
“Enemies—”
“Raiders would not come so openly, in broad daylight. Father, you have heard about the Pariki and their ways.”
“Oh, true, I have,” the shaman muttered, as if he had forgotten and needed reminding. “Well, I must make haste now, for I want to speak to the hunters alone.”
