The Legend of Broken

“Loreleh?” Radelfer moves further into the shadows, and as his eyes become accustomed to the darkness, he finally discerns the form of a girl whom he knows to be fifteen years old. Her face and most of her form are lovely: pale skin, wide, dark eyes, and luxuriant tresses of dark hair lightly tinted with red, all atop a fine form. The only suggestion of imperfection in this beauteous image is a rough-hewn cane that Loreleh carries in her left hand, which directs the observer’s eye to the awkward angle at which the foot on that side of her body is articulated at the end of the leg, and to the heavy, specially cobbled boot that covers that extremity: the girl is clubfooted.‡

“Are you both mad, then?” Radelfer continues. “To be out of the cellars when so much activity consumes this household?”

“I am sorry, Radelfer,” Loreleh replies. “And please, do not blame my brother. I forced him to bring me.”

Radelfer smiles through his alarm and skepticism. “Forgive my saying that I doubt if such coercion was either necessary or used.”

“Oh, but it was,” Loreleh replies naively, as Radelfer and Klauqvest exchange a knowing glance. The maiden then smiles at them both as she drags the clubbed foot a few steps closer to the seneschal. “But do not suppose that I make this request for medicine for myself, alone: Klauqvest has been suffering too, due to how many tasks our — that his lordship has demanded he undertake, these last few days.”

“Loreleh, I’ve told you, I am well enough,” Klauqvest protests, in an exhausted, weakening voice that belies his words. “We must address your pain first—”

“Just as you always do,” Radelfer says, as he kneels to examine Loreleh’s left foot, which is yet covered by the unique boot. Finding nothing, he begins to delicately undo the boot’s buckles and laces. “Loreleh, did you fall or twist the foot in some way?”

“No,” Loreleh answers quickly; but her brother puts one of his bandaged, claw-like hands atop her head.

“Loreleh,” he admonishes gently. “It will defeat our purpose if you insist upon bending facts simply to preserve your foolish pride …”

Loreleh submits. “Very well, brother,” she murmurs. “I did trip and fall,” she continues, to Radelfer. “Two days ago. And so, when we heard that Raban would be coming on another errand …”

“Yes, I see,” Radelfer replies, by now studying the denuded foot. It is horrifically misshapen and turned inward, certain parts having grown too large for the shortened shin above it; in addition to which, it bears the deep crimson and plum shades of recently acquired bruises. “It must pain you badly. With its additional bones, there is far more to break and to bruise than in your right foot …” The considerate manner in which Radelfer utters this last statement almost makes the ugly mockery of a woman’s delicate foot that is in his hands sound less a source of shame than an object demanding compassion, an attitude for which Klauqvest and Loreleh are clearly grateful, as they have been throughout their lives, during all of which Radelfer has been more benefactor than servant.

“I will offer you a bargain,” Radelfer says, standing. “If you will get back to the cellars as quickly as is possible, the pair of you, I shall secure generous amounts of Healer Raban’s medicines, before he departs, and bring them to you as soon as I am able. Fair?”

Unable to stand on the toes of her feet and reach Radelfer’s cheek, Loreleh contents herself with taking his one hand in her two and kissing it: an action that plainly embarrasses the seneschal. “Now, now — none of that,” he says quickly.

“But we are once more in your debt,” Klauqvest whispers. “You go beyond the bounds of service, as you have ever done for us. And so we ask only that you yourself take care, Radelfer, on so dangerous a night.”

Attempting to shrug off such sentiments, Radelfer motions in the direction of a hidden door beneath the grand stairway. “Go, I beseech you. Lest we all be exiled to Davon Wood …”

And, as he says these last words, he hears but does not quite see the stairway portal in the shadows open, then close again. When he is sure all is safe, he turns and directs his steps toward the thick door to the Kastelgerd’s library, on the opposite side of the great hall. Striding across the hall’s marble floor purposefully, he shakes his head, recalling Klauqvest’s words in a whisper:

“‘So dangerous a night …’” And then he muses silently: A dangerous night, indeed. And may the gods let it pass quickly — for tonight the Moon throws shadows of an equally dangerous past ever longer across this great house …

{iv:}

Within the bedchamber in the north wing of the Kastelgerd, meanwhile, Rendulic Baster-kin has entered. He quietly closes the door behind him, yet remains close to the doorway, trying to take in the scene before him as if it were new; but all elements within are as they have been for the last few days, as well as during crises of similar intensity and duration that have struck every few Moons over the last several years: the upward arching of his wife’s body with the worsening of her fits; the desperate restraining efforts of Lady Baster- kin’s own marauder maidservant; the maidservant’s obvious discomfort with so freely laying hands upon her mistress, even if it is required; the vapors that rise from the infusions and tinctures of Healer Raban’s treatments as they are mixed and brewed and fill the chamber with strange aromas; and, finally, the various and increasingly sharp scents of Lady Baster-kin’s body, which bring to any visitor’s nose the biting tinge of bitter pain, as well as of deep confusion and fear.

Lord Baster-kin cannot keep his thoughts from journeying back to the early and happy days of his marriage to the marauder princess called Chen-lun,† an event that he had dreaded, until his father had returned from the East, the princess and her small retinue riding beside him. Chen-lun could sit a mount as well as any Broken cavalryman, and the treaties that Rendulic’s father carried in his personal coffers would benefit not only Broken, but the Baster-kin family; and, while Chen-lun could not have been less like the one maiden ever to have captured Rendulic’s heart (the low-born, golden-haired healer’s apprentice from the Fifth District called Isadora), the scion of the Baster-kins — fresh from his panther hunt in Davon Wood — had soon found that this made no difference. The eastern princess was well versed in such amorous skills as would make any young man’s head swim. And — although Rendulic’s father had succumbed to his pox soon after his return to Broken, without ever speaking another word to his son — the new Lord Baster-kin had only become more deeply enamored of his young bride, all the while. He quickly got the wife his father had selected for him with child, before even the dying man had made his journey to Kafra’s paradise …

Remaining by the bedchamber door for several moments more, and calling to the fat-faced, richly robed Raban, Baster-kin informs the healer that he himself will approach the bed only when the patient has in fact been calmed The healer nods obsequiously, and then returns by reverse steps to a table by the bed. He quickly prepares and administers to the tormented woman before him a powerful, crude mixture of several of his drugs: opium, Cannabis indica, and, finally, ground and properly brewed wild hops‡ from the mountainside. The effect of this combination is swift: within moments, Lady Baster-kin’s pain and seeming madness finally begin to subside, although, in her face, there is no greater apprehension of the events about her than there had been moments before.

A quieted chamber and household is what Rendulic Baster-kin has repeatedly demanded of Raban this evening. Only when the Merchant Lord is sure the effect is not temporary does he slowly approach his wife’s bed. He orders Raban and the healer’s apprentice out of the room, but exempts Chen-lun’s personal servant from this command: he has learned over the years of his marriage and especially of his lady’s illness that even attempting to order the ever-silent attendant from her mistress’s presence, particularly during such crises as this one, has no effect, and indeed can lead to unspoken yet dangerous confrontations. The woman, who is called simply Ju,† has been Lady Baster-kin’s shadow‡ since long before the striking, black-eyed princess came to Broken. A dark, silent form, lithe of shape and movement (just as was her mistress, before illness struck and began laying long siege to her body), Ju seems ever to keep one hand on the pommel of a large dagger, its scabbard stitched into a belt drawn round her waist.

Only the most warlike marauders, of the regions to the east and northeast of Broken, carry such blades; and the weapon is not merely ornamental, especially in one such as Ju’s hands. Upon those few occasions when