Caliphestros followed as Radelfer, having lit a small torch, led the way up narrow, winding stone steps that opened out into a shadowy remove below what proved the main staircase of the reception hall. Radelfer held his dim torch close enough to the illustrious visitor that he might read the Second Minister’s reaction, when he saw the great hall for the first time, lit by the Moonlight that streamed through high windows in the western wall that faced the gardens of the Way of the Faithful. What he saw in those aging features was less awe than fascination, of a type that the seneschal found pleasing. Wandering into the center of the hall, Caliphestros glanced about as if to make certain that no witnesses were anywhere nearby; and Radelfer, assessing the older man’s expression, quietly announced:
“This night, I have instructed all servants to remain within their quarters, Minister, unless called for, using Lady Baster-kin’s distress as my ploy. Meanwhile, members of my own household guard are stationed at various positions throughout the Kastelgerd, to make certain that the orders are obeyed, discretion is ensured, and no miscreants can take advantage of the lack of general activity to attempt any crime or mayhem.”
Caliphestros smiled, amiably and knowingly. “Yes, Radelfer — I have heard talk of your ‘household guard,’ as have the God-King and the Grand Layzin. Veteran soldiers, assembled quietly from the moment you became seneschal of the Kastelgerd? It almost seems you oppose, even distrust, the activities of the Personal Guard of the Merchant Lord … But fear not. We all — Izairn, the Layzin, and I — share your disdain for that force’s increasingly troublesome behavior. Indeed, I have yet to meet a soldier or veteran of the regular army who does approve of those effeminate, violent louts — and rightly so.”
As soon as Caliphestros had satisfied himself that there were indeed no ordinary servants stirring in the great residence, he placed his hands upon his hips, and nodded: less, again, impressed than he was interested. “I have heard stories of the interior of this greatest of all the Kastelgerde—yet only being here can make one understand the endless gossip.” He glanced about the hall once more. “It is truly a structure worthy of kings …”
“I am glad to hear you say so, Minister,” came the unexpected voice of Rendulic Baster-kin in reply; and Radelfer realized with some distress that his master must have been listening from the gallery above, for he was now midway down the great stairs. “And to dismiss such idle talk with such excellent dispatch,” the young lord continued, slowly descending the steps to the hall below — a carefully arranged bit of theatrics, Radelfer silently observed, one that would become habitual, in future years. “It gives me all the more pleasure in welcoming you into my home — and thanking you for coming under such … unusual circumstances.”
“Unusual, but understandable,” Caliphestros replied, bowing slightly — although not nearly so deeply, Radelfer knew, as Rendulic Baster-kin would have preferred. “If your wife’s and your son’s conditions are indeed as critical as I have been led to believe, it is of great doubt that Broken’s own healers would be equal to the task of diagnosing and determining any true cure that might exist. Except, of course, for the truly capable Gisa — who recommended my services, I understand, as a consequence of having had some past business with your lordship …?”
“How very knowledgeable you are, Minister Caliphestros,” the Merchant Lord replied. “Which is as well, for the situation seems now to worsen by the day. And so I trust that you will take no offense if I forgo further niceties by asking you to cast your no doubt expert eyes on the troubled members of my family at once?”
He held what appeared to be an inviting hand out toward the stairs: but the gesture was in truth less welcoming than redolent of his intention to demonstrate his greater status and his supreme power in his own household and kingdom. Second Minister Caliphestros seemed incapable of being cowed, however, especially by one so young, and only smiled, joining Rendulic Baster-kin on the stairs and walking with him up and toward the bedchamber then still shared by the master and mistress of the Kastelgerd. Radelfer followed some few steps behind: where, he knew, the increasingly confident and bold young man had also expected Caliphestros to walk. Sensing the onrush of some unidentifiable crisis, just as he had once been able to smell the coming of battle during his years as a Talon, the seneschal prepared for it by reaching instinctively for the hilt of a fine raiding sword that had for all his career as a soldier been at his side, but was now gone: in its place, he found only a small jeweled dagger that had become his sole weapon of defense when he became a glorified domestic servant …
Shown first into the chamber where Lady Chen-lun lay, Caliphestros had needed even less time than Gisa would have, Radelfer observed, to reach some unspoken conclusion concerning her condition, one that even so experienced a healer and scholar had found shocking. And, once his examination had been completed, he asked to see the stricken child immediately, and was taken to a distant, cramped nursery.
If the great scholar’s expression on examining Lady Chen-lun had been one of shock, his countenance on studying the infant was overwhelming sadness. The child had not yet been named; but the latest Lord Baster-kin had already and bitterly taken to calling him “Klauqvest” (with a cruelty, it seemed to Radelfer, which all too closely resembled that of Rendulic’s own father) because of the child’s fingers and toes, the bones of which had appeared malformed at birth, and were quickly growing ever more fused, like some crawling, shelled sea beast. Asking only a 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.