The Legend of Broken

few questions as he examined the boy — whose pain was the true cause of his unending wailing, explained Caliphestros, rather than any fault of character or desire to irritate his parents — the Second Minister next inquired as to how the child was receiving sustenance: for his mother certainly neither wished nor was in any condition to nurse him. Rendulic Baster-kin explained that he had attempted to find a decent wet nurse, but that all such had been too terrified by the prospect. Finally, a drunken hag from the Fifth District had been discovered, who would take on the task, provided she was liberally paid and constantly supplied with wine. When Rendulic Baster-kin had asked Caliphestros if such was a fatal mistake, and in any way the cause for the child’s worsening condition, the Second Minister had replied that, while never a particularly sound notion, the use of a drunken hag as a wet nurse, in this particular case, was unlikely to make a dramatic difference: if she at least provided milk, that was preferable to slow starvation — although the latter might, ultimately, have been the more merciful course.

These words caused the Merchant Lord to stiffen noticeably. “And what does the minister mean by such a statement? Are the tales I have heard true, then, and is this — this child the result of unnatural relations between my wife and some spirit, some alp from Davon Wood?”

Caliphestros could only laugh weakly, as well as grimly. “Yes, such a tale is what the Kafran healers would doubtless have arrived at, sooner or later. Absurd as it is, it would be better than the truth, which they would be too unnerved to tell you …”

Rendulic Baster-kin had been standing by the small window in that small chamber in which there were few comforts, as far from the crib of his infant son as it was possible for him to position himself; but when this statement by the great scholar Caliphestros caused him to turn, Radelfer needed no more than little light to see that his face was already filling with, at once, greater sorrow, rage, and malice than he had ever seen the young man exhibit.

“‘The truth’?” Lord Baster-kin softly murmured. “You claim to know the truth, Minister — the same claim for which you mock Broken’s own healers?”

“My lord,” Caliphestros replied; and there was now genuine emotion, true sympathy, in what had before been the face and voice of an impassive man of science. “We can none of us declare, with absolute certainty, that we know ‘the truth.’ But I must tell you: never, in all of the thousands of afflicted souls that I have observed, have I ever heard a plausible argument made for the interference of magical or divine forces so childish and petty as elves and alps, demons and marehs,† unless the sufferers’ healers themselves were too terrified or too ignorant — or, as in most such cases, both — to admit that they did not know the true cause of the illness, and required some inexplicably persecutory intervention by such creatures behind which to hide their ignorance.” Caliphestros could see that his words were causing the Merchant Lord’s rage only to rise. “It gives me no pleasure to say this, but—”

Rendulic Baster-kin looked up, his eyes having become deep-set, malevolent weapons of their own. Caliphestros took a deep, steadying breath. “My lord — your father, I have heard from certain healers, was a victim of the pox. Is that so?”

Rendulic nodded quickly; Caliphestros had just given voice to the very nightmare that, of late and near every night, woke the Merchant Lord in sweats both hot and cold. “It is so …”

“Then,” the Second Minister continued, “it is necessary that I tell you that both your wife and this child may well be displaying signs of the pox, as well: your wife, only intermittently, but your son … The disease, I suspect, has cast the very form of his being. And it will only become worse as the years go on — although with care he may live, even if both you and he will wonder from time to time if such has truly been a blessing.”

Rendulic Baster-kin stepped back as if struck hard. “But—” He had begun to grasp at any other conclusion that his mind could formulate. “Our first son — Adelwulf — he is the very model of health and virtue!”

“And conceived when the disease had scarcely taken root in the Lady Chen-lun,” Caliphestros answered earnestly, “as well as born during a period when it had, for a time, retreated. There are many of us who have studied this illness, my lord, who have come to call the pox by another title: the ‘Great Imitator,’† for its ability to mimic other ailments, until the terrible truth becomes undeniable. And such may be the case here — it may be that what we have called ‘the pox,’ in the case of your father, your wife, and your son, may be some other disease. But to be safe, my lord — you must not attempt to conceive a child with your wife, until she is healthy once more, and for an extended period of time. You yourself appear to have escaped, as has your eldest son — that at least argues for, not the pox, but a pox-like disease. And it ensures you at least one healthy heir. But you must not risk your safety again, or the safety of a future child. You are simply too important to this kingdom.”

But it had already become clear that Rendulic Baster-kin saw only the worst in his predicament: Radelfer watched his young friend and master turn back to the window, as the Merchant Lord said, in a soft, bitter voice, “Even from beyond the pyre, he strikes at me …”

Radelfer rushed quickly to the young lord’s side. “Did you not hear the minister, my lord? It may be some other illness, there may have been no such attempt to curse your life at the last—”

“I knew him, Radelfer,” Rendulic quietly continued, shaking his head to deny his seneschal’s protest. “It would be precisely his perverse idea of — of immortality: to poison his descendants for generation after generation … And so, whether he knew it or not, I would stake my life that he believed he was planting the seed of the plague in us all …” Without fully turning back about, the Merchant Lord tried to speak with as much composure as he could muster: “My … thanks, Lord Caliphestros. We have, at least, solved one mystery, I believe: the condition of that”—he tossed his head in the direction of the crib—“that thing that was to be my son. And now, I must ask you to give me a measure of time alone. Radelfer will see you out, and arrange all payments.”

Caliphestros nodded. “No payment is necessary, my lord — and let us pray that I am wrong, as all healers are, on occasion. I shall take my leave, then, offering only my deepest sympathy — and my most emphatic advice that you heed my words, which are not mine alone, but the sum of knowledge gained by most learned men far outside the frontiers of this kingdom …”

Not waiting for an answer, Caliphestros moved quickly to the nursery door, where Radelfer intercepted him even more speedily. “Can you find your way back out, Minister?” the seneschal whispered. “I–I confess that I am afraid to leave my lord alone with either this child or his wife, after what you have said.”

Caliphestros nodded. “You are right, Radelfer, to take such precautions. Of course, I can look after my own departure. But you must continue to try to make him see that, even if his child and his wife have been so abominably cursed by his own vicious father, he must care for them, and not turn to the punishments which I know are first in the minds of all Broken nobles, when they are presented with such imperfection and perfidy.”

Radelfer nodded, urging the minister further along the hallway. “You speak of the mang- bana?”† Radelfer asked. “I confess, it is my own fear — for my master is, as you have witnessed, a young man of enormous passions, capable of reason one instant, and of …” The aging soldier did not seem able to complete this thought, bringing Lord Caliphestros’s hand to his shoulder.

“You are wise, Seneschal,” he whispered, “and your master is fortunate to have had your steadying influence. Remain here, if only as a kindness to my own conscience.” Caliphestros looked into the nursery a last time. “For the mang-bana may be the least of what will occur to him, once he has brooded on the subject at length. And with that — I fear I must bid you farewell …”

As Caliphestros moved more rapidly than Radelfer would have thought his silver and black robes would have permitted down the grand staircase and toward the front entrance of the Kastelgerd—for it mattered not if any servant heard those doors open and close, now — he heard the child within the nursery begin to wail once more, his torment rising again, and looked in to see his master moving toward the crib.

“My lord?” the seneschal asked carefully. “Are you well?”

The young lord shook his head. “Evil has been done, and there must be blame. There must be— punishment …” As Rendulic continued to stare at the wailing child, he held out a desperate hand. “Do you know — I would comfort him, had I any idea of how to do it. Simply to be touched, said the great scholar of the Inner City, to be taken up and swayed, gently rocked to expel the air and vomit in his stomach, all that a child requires, this the child finds agonizing. And so — I cannot … I cannot bring myself to offer him such ordinary comforts, if it is at the cost of such severe pain. We must have a drunken bitch of a wet nurse to do it, for his cries will mean naught to her ears and heart, or whatever machine passes for her heart, until the inevitable day …” And then another thought, altogether different, occurred to Rendulic Baster-kin, and he looked to Radelfer:

“And yet, what if the great scholar who has just left us is wrong? What if this disease will resolve itself