Midlow Court loomed on the horizon long before he reached it. The old walled castle pointed its high stone tower skyward from the top of a tall, knobby hill that stood isolated in a broad, flower-flecked meadow. A splendid old forest, which on most days—and nights, too—echoed with the cries of peerager hunters, ringed the meadow. The forest was broken only by the court’s network of roads and by a slow-moving river—the same stream that rushed past Midd Village. Just below the castle and almost invisible behind another high wall was the present palace, a sprawling structure of wood and stone surrounded by its gardens and the buildings where the peer’s household staff lived. Crowded tiers of buildings descended in steps to the bottom of the hill, each rank secure behind another high wall. The lowest, where the court spilled out into the meadow, contained stables and storage buildings as well as accommodation for one-namers who worked and lived at the court.
The castle had the same sturdy stone construction as the dwellings of Midd Village. The remainder of the court had evolved around it, creeping slowly but steadily down the hill in successive layers of peeragers’ dwellings. With the passage of time, wood had become more popular than stone, and the houses of each descending level were flimsier than those above but far more comfortable and more easily built. They also were more lavishly ornamented, it being easier to fashion intricate designs in wood than in stone. In contrast, the outer stone walls became thicker and higher, reflecting an increasing nervousness on the part of the peeragers. Some were apprehensive about the distant wars. Some feared a lasher revolt. Many were highly suspicious of the peerdom’s one-namers.
Peeragers ventured from behind their walls only for play and amusement. The meadow was the site of games; the river, of bathing and water sports; the forest, of hunts and romantic trysts. One-namers learned to keep to the road and look straight ahead when approaching the court.
The court was enveloped in the same uncanny silence Hutter had described. There were no creaking carts climbing or descending the steep roadway that spiraled from level to level all the way up to the castle. The sharp clicks of horses hoofs on the cobblestones, the clatter of one-name carpenters making repairs—the court required prodigious amounts of maintenance—the buzzing clamor of one-namers at work, the excited shouts and furious arguments of peeragers at play—all of that was missing. There was no one in sight, not even the gate guards.
There was nothing in sight. Even the paddock where horses were exercised was empty.
Arne wondered again whether the peer had died. The mysterious quiet was of a community dedicated to death.
Guards stepped into view as Arne approached the gate. They saluted him as though he were a peerager, which he found disconcerting. One of the peer’s servers was waiting there. He directed Arne to the parade by the river where the peeragers held their outdoor ceremonies and riding contests.
“What is a happening?” Arne asked him.
“I don’t know,” the server said.
Arne circled the hill, and soon he was able to see a small cluster of one-namers waiting at the distant end of the parade, looking awkward and uncomfortable in their holiday garb. They had been shunted aside even before the happening began. Their wagons and carts were parked just beyond, surrounded by tethered horses.
Katin had been right: A happening was for peeragers. In some way it had to do with the welfare of one-namers, or they wouldn’t have been invited, but they were not a part of it. They were spectators.
Resignedly they sat down to wait. Time passed, and the day became hotter and increasingly uncomfortable.
From the castle tower high above them, a drum began to beat with mournful monotony. Arne waited for the sound of trumps to echo across the valley—an impressive feature of every peerager ceremony. The trumps were ancient, magical devices of metal that survived only in the Peerdom of Midlow. Their one-name performers were members of a single family, and they jealously guarded the secret of producing trump sounds. No one, not even the peer herself, was permitted near them when they were trumping.
But the trumps remained silent. The drum beat continued. Peeragers began to file from the court gate, all of them dressed in black. For monts they had been making frantic demands for black cloth so they could have ceremonial clothing made for the peer’s funeral. That clothing was proving useful in a way no one had anticipated.
The peeragers seemed as puzzled as the one-namers—as though they neither knew what to expect nor what might be expected of them. One of the wardens led the way, and another marched beside the column and spoke sharply to anyone who got out of line or dawdled. Commanders from the peer’s own guard kept a watchful eye on the procession and occasionally snapped an order. The peeragers were unaccustomed to such treatment. They glowered but said nothing.
Arne and his one-namers got to their feet and waited respectfully. Never before had he seen all of the peeragers assembled at one time and place, but obviously all of them were going to be present at this happening—even children and babies in arms carried by their one-name nurses. The elderly were assisted or carried in chairs. The procession seemed endless.
It was a silent procession. Anyone who spoke was reprimanded sharply.
Finally the peeragers formed an enormously long line that extended the entire length of the parade from the one-namers waiting suspensefully at the far end to the main road that led to the court gate. Only the peer, her family, and a few of her high advisors were missing.
The court’s one-name servers followed, and they took their places behind the long row of peeragers. The drum continued its solemn, monotonous beat.
Then lashers filed down from the court: the personal guards of various important peeragers, the court guard, a large group of lasher officers from the no-name compounds, and members of the peer’s own guard. They formed a line facing the peeragers.
The peer arrived, carried in a chair and accompanied by her wardens and her younger daughter. The drummer followed, still thumping a solemn rhythm. Behind him came servers carrying a platform in box-like sections. They assembled it in front of the row of lashers, and the peer’s chair was placed on it, facing the line of peeragers. The land warden stood beside her. The other members of her party gathered around the platform.
The land warden silenced the drum with a gesture and began to speak. His thin, high-pitched voice was barely audible where the little group of one-name spectators stood, and Arne had to lean forward and cup an ear to follow what was said.
“At dawn six daez ago…”
He was describing the lasher raid on Midd Village. He recounted it in enormous detail, reciting the items of property damaged or stolen, the villagers injured, the high iniquity of actually lashing the peer’s first server. This heinous conduct, he said, which was performed at the order of the Prince of Midlow, was in defiance of long-established custom, in defiance of common sense and decency, and in flagrant defiance of the peer’s explicit commands. It could neither be tolerated nor forgiven. The peer had ordered this happening so all of them could witness the punishment of those who perpetrated such monstrous acts.
The drum began to sound again. The lashers of the prince’s guard were marched down from the court. They were still wearing their fancy uniforms, but not for long. The peer’s own guardsmen stripped them down to a single, scant undergarment, after which they were severely lashed. The twenty strokes that each received peeled away strips of flesh and left the patch of meadow where they stood stained red with blood. The drum halted, and they were brought, one at a time, to face the peer.