The Embalmer's Apprentice by Lyra

Chapter 26

Lord Atanacalmo received me, as before, in his study. Evidently, I would have to earn my dinner, and I was more than a bit worried what the price might be. He bade me sit in the chair opposite his desk, as before, and then he studied me from half-lidded eyes for a while. I forced myself to smile politely, but as moments passed and he said nothing, the corners of my mouth began to cramp and I gave up waiting.
"What may your harmless fool do for you, my lord?"
I had meant to say it as a joke, to break the awkward silence – Lord Eärendur had said that a sense of humour helped in dealing with Lord Atanacalmo – but it came out wrong, bitter. Maybe I did not have the right sense of humour. I did not, in all honesty, find it funny.
At any rate, Lord Atanacalmo raised an eyebrow, his lips quirking in surprise or possibly delight. "You heard that? Well then, you should know the answer. What is the purpose of a fool? Entertainment, of course. So there: entertain me."
He pushed the chess board into the middle of the table, and soon we were locked in yet another unequal battle that saw my pieces slaughtered left and right, and him victorious in such a short time that he evidently did not find it entertaining at all.

We began a second round, and he said, "You should be thanking me on bent knee, you know," but when I obediently began to slide out of my chair, he clucked his tongue, waving his hand dismissively. "In a manner of speaking. A harmless fool is exactly what you want to be to Alcarmaitë, because you have neither the rank nor the stamina nor, if you'll forgive me, the wits to survive if he continues to see you as a serious opponent." He grinned wolfishly and took an archer that I'd hoped to use against his rook. "You will agree with me, even if your tender pride is stinging, that Alcarmaitë should not be considering you his most pressing problem. Right now, he would love nothing better than to crush you, and he will be in the position to do that fairly soon." His finger rested, for a moment, on the crown of my king. "You have no idea how hard it was to talk my brother into making your judgement depend on the state of that body! Alcarmaitë had him in such a fit that he would have sent you to the scaffold right away. And it's not easy to reason with Ancalimon these days, I can tell you that."

My mouth had fallen open in shock. "You did that, my lord? You changed his mind? Then I really should be thanking you on bent knee."
"Oh good grief, remain seated! I am not telling you this so you'll thank me, I'm telling you so you grasp just how precarious your situation is as long as Alcarmaitë takes you seriously. So let him laugh at you. Let him kick you, even, as long as that's enough to please him." My face was glowing with embarrassment, and still he went on, "Be the fool, or the dog if it need be – a minor nuisance, or ideally, mildly amusing. Don't bare your teeth, because if he takes you seriously, he will kill you, and I assure you he won't be 'reasonable or appropriate' about it."
Now my cheeks were growing even hotter, and I clenched my eyes shut. "I know! I know!" I forced myself to look at the chessboard and think about my next move, simply to distract myself from brooding. "If I may ask, Lord, why did you do it? What's in it for you?" My voice was sounding dull now, but I simply couldn't affect indifference. For a fool, I sadly lacked the skill of acting. I moved a pawn just for the sake of doing something.
Lord Atanacalmo said lightly, "You amuse me, obviously," and let a knight jump into prime position to take my other archer. I moved the archer out of reach, and Lord Atanacalmo snatched my rook with his queen. "Besides," he continued, "a fool may blurt out some useful truths every now and then. So I would prefer to keep you around." He leaned forward a little. His eyes were practically sparkling with delight. "I would even go so far as to offer you a permanent position on my staff."

I blinked and forgot about the game again. I tried to figure out whether he was speaking in earnest, which, with him, was no easy feat. Then I decided that it didn't actually matter. "I have to regretfully decline that offer, my lord."
"Not as my fool, man! It would be a honourable position, as my eyes and ears in the lower quarters. You're no longer living there, but you've still got your contacts, don't you? People know you. People talk to you. You can keep me informed on what is going on among the poor. I'll pay you a decent stipend, too. Moving house is expensive, isn't it? I'm sure you can use some extra money."
I could indeed, and I couldn't help squirming in my seat. "That is generous of you, but the answer is still no, Lord. With all due regret and gratitude, of course."
The laughter had left his face. "Why?"
Although the change in his expression worried me, I felt compelled to smile. "My lord, I have only just escaped punishment for supposedly neglecting my work as Keeper. I am not going to walk into the same trap again. My first duty is to the King, and my second duty is to the Day-talers' Welfare Society. I cannot risk doing more, nor do I have, as you put it, the stamina or the wits."
He was tapping his fingers on the smooth polished surface of his desk; one might almost have thought that he was eager to change my mind. "Lay down your work for the Welfare Society, then. Let someone else be the spokesman. It doesn't have to be you. You can still go there and smile and wave and bless babies or whatever they want of you! You just have to transfer your duty from them to me. I'll even donate some money to the cause, if that sets your mind at ease."
I thought about it, and there seemed to be some wisdom to his words. But still I shook my head again. "No, Lord. I am responsible for them, and for the time being, I don't think anyone else would dare to speak for them. Maybe in a few years, if they've had occasion enough to trust your Grace. But not now. It is too soon and too uncertain." I hesitated, because I probably shouldn't say what else was on my mind, but then I went ahead and said it anyway. "Besides, I already tell you what you need to know about the concerns of the poor, at my discretion, however shaky that may be. I don't want to be obliged to say more, and if I were on your payroll, I'd have to do just that."

He watched me, and his intent gaze felt almost like needles boring into my eyes. I could not bear it for long, and instead pushed the archer I had saved further across the board. He snorted, ignoring the archer and bringing his knight back into safety. I now saw that I could have taken it with one of my remaining pawns, but I hadn't noticed the opportunity in time. I sighed and tried to focus on the game.
"So you are telling me that you are not currently telling me the truth, is that it?" Lord Atanacalmo asked in a light tone that seemed to cover an iron edge.
I bit down hard on my lip. "No, my lord, I am telling you the truth, always! I tell you the truth about everything that is relevant to Society business. But I would not wish to find out my neighbours' private business for you, or report on matters that might be displeasing to you even if they are of no consequence."
"And who decides what is relevant, and what is of no consequence?" Lord Atanacalmo asked, tapping on the table once more.
"I do, as well as I can, my lord."
He snorted at that. "Which is not very well; you blab a lot."
I bowed my head – he was right, of course. I was not very good at keeping secrets, or maybe he was very good at making me talk. Either way, I had certainly told him – or his daughter, which probably boiled down to the same -- more than he'd needed to know before. And certainly he could command me to answer him truly even now. But he would still have to ask the right questions. If he appointed me to his eyes and ears, I would have to tell him everything in full, to lay open every sordid or absurd or maybe slightly irreverent detail, without him asking specifically. It would be different. I had been accused of spying before, and regaining my neighbours' trust had been hard enough. I did not want to betray it now, at least not on purpose.

Lord Atanacalmo was talking again. "Why do I even bother. I remember well what you were like when I first met you – snivelling, hunched shoulders, not an ounce of integrity..."
"'Very weak of character'," I agreed readily, remembering the words he had spoken when the King had pardoned me. I had never asked whether he had really been the councillor who had spoken against me, back then, but I was by now fairly certain that I had recognised him right. I went on, "'Unfixed, unreliable. Not the brightest, either.' I remember, too." I moved the pawn I had neglected before.
He smiled and licked his lips, as if flattered that I had not forgotten his words. "Why, what an excellent memory! Now that, at least, is a useful skill." And then he fixed his attention on the board again, and within six moves, my king was yet again at his mercy.

At dinner I sat among the better sort of servant: below young Lord Herucalmo's tutors and the steward, but above the scribe and the Keeper of the Heart. Perhaps I should have taken it as an insult, since I should technically have been a guest rather than a servant, but I cannot say that I particularly minded. There was just enough distance between myself and my noble host that conversation would have required shouting across the table, which these eminently cultured people obviously did not do, so I had no renewed opportunity to make a fool of myself. The food was very good, and the company was not unpleasant. The steward seemed to have gotten over his grudge, and we exchanged a few polite remarks about the disagreeability of winter and the relief of the mild spring weather. The scribe on my other side was a kindly man full of funny stories. Even Lord Atanacalmo didn't call him to order when he spoke too loud, probably because what he said was generally amusing. I suppose there was something to be said for being considered amusing.
I observed that Lady Arancalimë's husband appeared to be absent, and that no place was reserved for him at the table. I wondered what had happened to him, but of course it was none of my business, and I did not ask.
On the whole, I had the impression that Lord Atanacalmo's household was a happy one, and had to conclude that in spite of his intimidating nature, he was probably a decent employer. Nonetheless, I was glad that he did not repeat his offer. My duties were to the King, and to my family, and to the day-talers who trusted me with their affairs: I simply did not have the capacities to split myself further.

At Lord Eärendur's suggestion, I spent the money I earned that week on a set of splint boxes. It was customary, apparently, to send one's servants around with small compliments for the neighbours when one moved into a new house. "Normally you'd have the boxes painted with your family crest, but since you don't have one, any common pattern will do," Lord Eärendur had said, and naturally, Azruphel had jumped at the opportunity for painting something that actually served a purpose. She had managed a good imitation of the twists and twirls in the pattern-book that Lord Eärendur had lent her, and we filled the newly decorated boxes with cakes Lasbeth had made out of dried fruit and ground nuts. Ordinarily, we should have sent out fresh fruit, preferably from our own garden, but of course it was much too early in the year for that; even the strawberries in their pots in the protected inner courtyard had only just begun to flower. So Lasbeth's fruit cakes would have to do. Balakhil and Târinzil, the most respectable of our servants, delivered them up and down the street, naming my name and inviting the masters and mistresses of the various houses to call back. "I doubt that many of them will do it," Lord Eärendur had said with an apologetic grimace, "but at least they cannot say that you neglected the custom."
All but two of the boxes came back unopened, to signify that their recipients wanted to have nothing to do with us. My household enjoyed the fruit cakes all the more. Then on Valanya afternoon, Balakhil announced that Lord Saphadûl was asking to see me.
The name Saphadûl was unfamiliar, but of course I could not send a noble away at the door, and anyway, when I saw his face, I did recognise him from the feasts at the palace and the King's council. He was a portly man with greying hair, a heroic-looking scar on his face and a generous grin, and had brought a splint box of his own. The crest on it was a bee upon an apple flower, and the box was sticky at the corners because it contained a huge dripping chunk of badly wrapped honeycomb. I surmised that Lord Saphadûl was the owner of the skeps we could see from the balcony upstairs, which was perhaps fitting because he put me in mind of a bear. "Greetings, new neighbour," he said in a booming voice. "Care to invite an old beekeeper for tea?"

Lord Saphadûl was one of those rare men referred to as a Common Lord – not a guild-master (who might also occasionally be addressed as Lord by low-born men like me, preferring to err on the side of caution), but a man who had been granted the actual title in spite of lacking noble birth for some great service to the royal house. In the case of Lord Saphadûl, he had apparently saved the Crown Prince's life or victory or possibly both during that campaign in Middle-earth that had secured the Crown Prince's right to the throne, which had earned him the title of Lord for the length of his life, a seat on the council, a handsome old house, and the Crown Prince's special friendship.
These things I learned not from Lord Saphadûl himself, who had preferred to talk about gardening and his bees during his visit, but from Lord Eärendur when Amraphel and I next went to visit him. He wasn't entirely certain about what exactly Lord Saphadûl had done because there were conflicting versions of the story going around, as always happens with tales of heroism until one authoritative version asserted itself over the others. (That observation was Lord Eärendur's, too. I hadn't been aware that tales of heroism came in different versions, except maybe Long, Short, and Cleaned Up For Children.) What struck me about the tale – whatever the details – was that Lord Saphadûl was apparently a good friend of the Crown Prince, and yet he had been perfectly amiable towards me.
Lord Eärendur gave me a thoughtful look. "I don't expect they are friends in the usual sense," he mused, "Alcarmaitë is far too class-conscious for that. As for Saphadûl, I expect he acted out of loyalty, in the field, not out of love. I expect it's the companionship of lord and trusted vassal, no special devotion."

I pondered that, and came to the conclusion that it was no explanation. "Still, one would expect that his Highness would disapprove, so I must wonder why Lord Saphadûl is willing to risk that."
"He is high enough in Alcarmaitë's good graces that he needn't worry about it, I'd assume! And just because he was a celebrated hero, you mustn't think that he was eagerly accepted by my noble brethren, or even the common councillors. Many of the lords, or even the so-called better citizens, let him feel that they thought him beneath them and out of his proper place – he was a simple foot soldier before, if I recall correctly – so he may feel some kinship to you over the fact that you have both been raised above your birth, and encounter a great deal of hostility as a result."
That sounded reasonable enough. I nodded, satisfied with this answer, but then Lord Eärendur went on, "Of course, Alcarmaitë might also have asked him to win your trust and sound you out. Unfortunately, that is a possibility that we should also consider."
I sat up at that, very much alarmed. "Then I must not let him into my house again!" I tried to remember whether I had said anything dangerous during our conversation.
"On the contrary, I would advise you to befriend him. Not to trust him, of course! But to let him think that you do, so that you have control over what kind of information is given to Alcarmaitë – if the man is indeed a spy. Maybe he really is entirely benevolent. But if not, you can make sure that he has only innocent things to report. If instead you cut him off, especially if your first meeting was perfectly friendly, you'll not only let them know that you suspect something; you'll also make him think that you do have something to hide. And if Alcarmaitë wants a spy in your house, he will get it there either way. Better you know whom to suspect. So do let him in, and speak with him about innocent matters. Avoid the topic of politics. That should not be hard. He isn't one of those councillors who live for the great game of politics – indeed, he seems to care very little for it. Maybe he would be more committed if his reception hadn't been so discouraging in the beginning, but as it is, he prefers to eat, drink, and look after his garden."
"And his bees," I said. I had learned a lot about bees that afternoon.
Lord Eärendur smiled. "Just so. So if he suddenly does ask about your opinions on the King's judgement or other political matters, that's a fairly reliable sign that something's afoot. Tell him that you know and care nothing about politics, and steer the topic back into the garden!"

So I befriended Lord Saphadûl. That in itself was no hardship. I had found him quite likeable on our first meeting. He seemed friendly and unpretentious, if a bit noisy, and although he could hold forth for hours on how to properly trim and train my fruit trees or what flowers I should plant in my garden, which could at times be irritating, it also meant that I had to contribute very little to our conversations, giving me no chance to say anything incriminating. The trees in the trellis – they turned out to be apricot trees – grew well under his advice. And his honey was good.
The only discussion we ever had about politics concerned the government of the bees, which Lord Saphadûl described as strange, since their state (he said) was always ruled by a queen, and men were of little importance among them, and yet they thrived. Considering that I let my wife govern the household – with great success – and that the noble ladies I had met so far had all seemed quite capable of ruling, I didn't find it particularly puzzling. "If they are born and raised for it," I said, "I don't see how it is strange." Lord Saphadûl laughed, but he did not argue. Privately, I wondered whether this was worth reporting to the Crown Prince, if indeed that was what Lord Saphadûl did; and if so, what they would make of it.

In early summer, I came home – quite literally – to a buzz in my garden. Apparently, one of Lord Saphadûl's hives had swarmed and lodged itself in the chestnut tree in our front garden. Now one of Lord Saphadûl's servants, a young fellow lithe enough to climb along the branches if need be, was making his way up a high ladder while Lord Saphadûl himself, huffing with the effort, came behind with an empty skep. It was quite a spectacle to watch them, and I was worried that the branch would break and send them – and the doubtlessly angry bees – tumbling onto the lawn and the curious spectators. But in the end, they managed to maneuver the skep underneath the bees that hung, like an absurdly overgrown, buzzing and shifting pear, in the branch. Lord Saphadûl struck at the branch with a cudgel, and the swarm – for the most part – dropped into the skep. I was amazed that neither Lord Saphadûl nor the servant seemed to get stung, but apparently, the bees were too busy with themselves, although the servant, climbing back down with the skep in one arm, was surrounded by a cloud of bees all the way down. He clearly wasn't doing this for the first time.
They put the skep, still turned upside down, at the base of the tree. "Now the last stragglers can join the rest. The important thing is that the queen is with her people. The rest will follow." Lord Saphadûl explained, wiping his brow. He sprinkled some water onto the bees in the skep - "that'll make them think it's rainy, so they won't take off again" - and then announced that he'd like some refreshments now, how about us?
"I'm going to leave that hive here overnight to make sure they’ll stay, and then I'll pick it up tomorrow," he declared when we were sitting together in the garden. "Or would you like to buy it?"
"No, thank you," I said. "I'm afraid I don't have the time to look after them properly."
"Oh, I can teach one of your servants, that's no bother at all."
Amraphel spoke up, "Perhaps it would be a good investment for the Society. Would you be willing to teach one of our former neighbours, Lord Saphadûl?"
He smiled his broad smile. "It's all one to me! You know what, I'll donate that swarm to your Society. They can use some honey, I'm sure!"

And he did that, too. I was glad for it, for I could not have afforded to buy it. My weekly pay, which had once felt like a fortune, melted like ice taken out of the ice-house under the heat of my servants' wages and the food for such a large household and the firewood and the furniture I'd still had to buy. When we did not have to impress visitors, we lived an austere life. Fortunately, our servants didn't complain when there was pottage or fish stew for days, being used to worse and less.
I could, of course, have asked Lord Eärendur for a loan, but I did not want to put that strain on our friendship except at the last need. Already, he had given to me a great deal of curtains and sheets and bedding from his own houses: all used, but of such high quality that they would probably last another couple of decades of use. He had said that it was no hardship for him – and I suppose it wasn't – but I already felt that I had received too much. "It pleases me to see you settled well," he had said when I had expressed my gratitude and embarrassment. "Besides, I expect your enemies were hoping to see you bankrupt yourself, and we can't give them that satisfaction."

Still, it troubled me, because it intensified the feeling of being an impostor in that grand house, playing at being rich without being able to afford it. Our savings grew but very little. Amraphel had initially proposed to finally find teachers for our daughters – no self-respecting teachers had been willing to venture into our old neighbourhood, but they could hardly turn up their noses at our new home – and I accepted that both Azruphel's interest in music and dance and her talent for painting ought to be fostered, but we'd had to postpone the search for suitable tutors, and they only learned what Amraphel taught them (which was certainly more learning than I’d had at that age).
My patronage for the Daytaler's Wellfare Society was limited to letting them use my old house as a meeting-hall and storage room, and the small garden for growing vegetables, free of rent. And of course Amraphel went down there twice a week to teach reading and writing to the younger children, and accountancy to the older youths, and we had also organised lessons in weaving and gardening and housekeeping and other useful skills, taught by those of our members who were particularly good at them. But I was not able to bolster their funds, as I had hoped to do. The meagre membership fees we collected didn't add up to much, either.
"It's not worse than it was before," Târazôn said reasonably. "We've actually got some provisions, and most of us are doing alright just now, so we're not using them up. And when they'll be gone… well, then it still won't be worse than before."
And I suppose that was true, but I still was dissatisfied that I couldn't make it better. I could have sold my amber pendant, of course, but I was hesitant to part with it, and besides, it seemed better to keep it in case our need should ever turn truly desperate.

One of the boxes I had sent out to my neighbours had never been returned, which (Amraphel said) was an even worse insult than sending it back unopened, because it meant that it wasn't even worth acknowledging that we had sent it in the first place. I accepted it. Lord Saphadûl had by now told me who the people living around us were – some guild-masters whom he knew from the council, some wealthy merchants, and some old money who barely greeted him in the street. We occasionally saw these people on the terraces and balconies or in the gardens of their own houses, but they never hailed us or even just smiled in our direction. The guild-masters were now, very generously, giving me the curtest of nods when we passed each other in the street or saw each other at the palace, thus showing that at the least they recognised me as a regular appearance. Other than that, my household was like its own small island in that clean, quiet, well-ordered street, and the hedge around my grounds might as well have been the Sundering Sea. After a while, I began to appreciate it. I probably would not have had the time to socialise much, anyway. I kept busy at work. Although we seemed to have now reached the point that we had been working towards all the time, we had been given no new directives, so we continued our experiments, anxious to look productive, although the King’s condition had once more worsened and we saw no more of him. His brother, on the other hand, regularly desired to annihilate me in chess and fire snide remarks – and the occasional thickly veiled word of praise – in my direction. My in-laws wished to see their grandchildren. Lord Eärendur invited us to his city house and to Andúnië, and Lord Saphadûl called regularly, as did my colleagues. So I cannot say that I truly missed the company my new neighbours withheld from me.

Nor can I say that I was truly unhappy. It was, there was no denying it, a very good house. During the hot summer days, it was still pleasant and cool inside, and in winter, the hypocaust would make it pleasant and warm (that is, if I could afford sufficient firework for that purpose). Waking up in our spacious blue bedroom to pull back the curtains and step out onto the gallery, watching as the garden filled with light, was uplifting. Crossing the pretty white courtyard to pull up water from our own well, seeing the apricots ripen on the trellis and my daughters paint or read in the colonnade, made my chest flood with joy. And of course it was a delight to have a bath inside our own house, where we could not only wash off the sweat and dust but also sit and relax in the warm water for as long as we pleased. The big garden, too, was lovely to have. There were all kinds of good things growing there. Palatârik admired the butterflies and nibbled on strawberries and daisies, and Narâk had converted the useless flowerbeds into additional vegetable patches, which helped to supplement our meals very nicely. His daughter, the frail little Narukil, was no longer constantly coughing and had even put on some weight, which made all of us happy. In short, I had plenty of reasons to be grateful, in spite of the strain on my purse. The house was, as I had felt from the beginning, a world unto itself; but slowly, it came to be my world. Although I continued to feel that I could not possibly be the master of this fine house, I suppose I began to grow into it, and it certainly grew on me. By autumn, the Valar in the front hallway began to look benevolent rather than reproachful to my eye. Of course, our happiness could not last. But still, while it lasted, I decided that we could as well enjoy it.