One Beast That Cannot Be Tamed

by Rachel Parsons

Table of Contents
Part 1 appears
in this issue.

Part 2 of 4

“Her animals did this to her?” Ioseff said incredulously.

“The dead do not lie, Ioseff. They are sometimes incomprehensible and often misunderstood, but they do not lie.”

“But they were obviously well taken care of animals. What would make them turn on her and the other woman and destroy them with the instruments of men?”

“A rogue beast tamer could,” I said.

“He would have to be a hell of a wizard to make such creatures turn on their owners,” Mango said, still a little green from the stink.

We were outside the cabin as, still inside, Arianrhod, a little ostentatiously, I thought, was making retching noises as she was picking up vibrations.

“He is right, Rhiannon,” Ioseff said. “I mean that was a panther and a bear in there. They are known for their devotion to their masters. And dogs, well, I do not have to tell you about dogs. No, I cannot say this was the work of a beast tamer.”

“What then, sirrah?” I said, feeling a little prickly at this male conspiracy against my point.

“Oh, it was a beast tamer, all right.” Arianrhod said, stepping outside and coming to my rescue.

She struck a pose, took a deep breath, and then sashayed down the steps of the cabin. She thinks she is the epitome of feminine pulchritude and resents the fact that, in my presence, men have eyes for me. She claims that if we were side to side, both of us naked and not just me, this would not be the case. But she is never naked in front of men, so I guess we will never know.

The men glared at her as Rosalyn and Zusanna aligned themselves to my sides. This was rapidly becoming a man-versus-woman conflict.

“How can you know this, Lady Arianrhod?”

“Ioseff, if Lady Arianrhod says she senses something, then you can be assured she does,” I said, placing my hands on my hips.

“Thank you, Rhiannon, but I hardly need your help in my defense. Any sensitive could recognize animal wizardry in there. It is as husky as a male panther’s spray.”

“Did the heads tell you anything about the varlet who did this?” Ioseff said, quickly changing the subject.

“Nothing useful,” I replied. “They do not know who would turn their animals against them. They were both so surprised that if we had not found them, they would have haunted the cabin. So would the spirits of the animals, who are chagrined that they were the means of their mistresses’ death.”

“I do not understand, mistress, aren’t they all together still?”

“Rosalyn, I do not understand that either. But the dead are as concerned with the living staying living as we are. It perhaps has something to do with the ancient harmonies. Or perhaps they have a sense of superiority; even we immortals are not really immortal, we merely live longer than you mortals and are harder to kill. Only the dead are truly immortal, and perhaps they are jealous of that fact.”

“Well, if you had listened more to your mother when she tried to teach you the dark arts, then you might know,” Ioseff said.

“Well, I did not. I was a know-it-all brat back then -”

“As opposed to now, I suppose. And see, you do use offworlder phrases,” he added triumphantly.

Rosalyn handed me a dagger; I threw it at him, as I had in my office.

He put his hands up.

“Surrender, Ioseff?”

“I only concede that my earlier remarks about your aim were in error.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Did you at least get their names?” he responded.

I nodded. “Melana Oswyn and her daughter Sybrina.”

“Well, then, at least I can begin some sublunary investigative work. And go from the victims to who would have them dispatched. And I suggest you go home, your highness, and rest for your busy day of ceremonies tomorrow.”

It was his way of telling me that he resented my intrusion into his bailiwick. When I had started taking over my father’s duties, I had tagged along Ioseff on many a policing, and he still smarts from the fact that I am his superior.

He was right, of course, which made me resent his remarks all the more. Tomorrow I was to lead a parade of soldiers through the town, wage a mock battle against offworlders, and then give speeches. I had not written even one of them. All of this after responding to all my correspondence, working on my short stories, and then meeting with the offworlder ambassador himself. It was making me weary even thinking about it.

“And avast ye devils, back to the stars!”

I shouted melodramatically, as the actors, dressed in green, splotchy offworlder uniforms, put up their hands in over-dramatized horror, screamed like banshees and ran off the stage. This was nothing like the real story. The real aliens had run to their ships in a panic, but none flailed their arms uselessly at the heavens and most did not scream like an old woman. As their machines departed to the skies, I had said something ironically offworlder like, “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” (Be that as it may, Ioseff is simply wrong about my use of their idioms.)

Dripping with sweat and unable to wipe any of it off except with my hands, which were wholly inadequate for the task, I stepped off the platform that had been erected in the center of Arbeth Dactyl. I was greeted by thunderous applause, cartwheels, leapings up and down from the audience, some of whom had come all the way from the Western Territories.

The town fathers had placed it where the execution block usually was, where many a beheading had occurred, more so since Ioseff had become the shire’s reef. Although there had not been an execution in weeks, I still fancied I could smell the copper.

There were none of the dead still standing around. Since I had become queen, I had used my mother’s arts to succor the spirits of the guilty and give them forgiveness for their journey to the Otherworld, and I could heal the soul-sickness of the innocent, shocked at the injustice of the world. I know that it is better to prevent them from being beheaded in the first place, if they are not guilty; but, well, I get distracted sometimes and do not always read their petitions. Freya, queen of the Morrigon, often chides me about this.

The Terran Ambassador and his entourage were approaching me. They had politely pressed their hands together during the performance. I could imagine how they felt at being portrayed as tyrannical, stupid, and scared of a little thing like an uprising of the dead. But most people are afraid of the latter, and they had been, in fact, tyrannical and stupid when they had occupied our world.

“Your highness, as a queen you make a fabulous actress,” said the lanky, gray-suited man with short grey hair in the style of their military.

I laughed and wagged my finger at him. Methinks he thought making merry was a way to gain rapport with me. That and his studied indifference to my lack of clothing. And verily my talents do not extend to the theatrical arts. In fact, to borrow an offworlder phrase, I verily do suck at them.

“If you have a moment, your highness, I wish to buy you a dish from one of your vendors.”

“For you, Emissary Franklin, I have the time.”

This was dragon excreta, of course, as Rosalyn had been right about the fullness of my schedule. I had, in fact, let loose without a chamber pot when I thought no one had been looking and I could not find one nearby. I was that busy. But another war with the offworlders could result in a permanent imbalance between the living and the dead. If I were again to raise an army of Otherworlders against the men from the old world, the breach between this world and the next might never heal. But the Terrans’ need for our resources was still great, and with their weapons of mass destruction, only their own murdered could stop them. So I would have to be gracious.

The whole town square was one great big festival. Normally I find the town center a little shunted in nature, with the side-by-side shops, public houses, and apartments looming out on the hexagonal hub of the city. I fancy the people smell: the men in their leather boots, pantaloons, and capes; the women, whose gowns, even those of rudest goats’ hair, making a fruit bowl of colors. On an ordinary day, you see them, stinking of stress, even when trying to relax, with dresses the color of lemons, oranges, plums, and even blackberries. I envy them all, even the garments that look smeared with cow dung.

But today instead of harried throngs of people competing to grab the latest wares of the merchants or purchase the service of the masons, the carpenters, the tailors, the tinkers, and the other free laborers, jugglers, dancing bears, female dancers, there abounded men with painted faces who pretend they cannot talk. Puppet shows on the grassy knolls were delighting children. Again the theme was us vs. the offworlders. Emissary Franklin and I passed one where an unclad Judy was hitting an offworlder-clad Punch over the head with a toy death sword. I felt vaguely uncomfortable for the Terran Ambassador.

He must have read my body language.

“We did our best, your highness, and that is why I am here, to find out what your peoples’ true needs are. We wish only to be of help.”

“In exchange for that which Daearu yields to you.”

In wintertime I insist that Rosalyn anoint me with honey oil to help preserve my body’s own heat. She pretends to be annoyed at the necessity, but it sickens her to see how cold I get. Just as I was being sickened by the oil exuding from the offworlder’s smarmy tone. I felt that snails had just crawled all over me, leaving their slime trails.

“I understand your reluctance. We have not been good stewards of our planet’s resources. That is why we come to you hat in hand,” the ambassador continued.

“And with a mailed fist?”

He shook his head. We had stopped by a vendor near the avenue that led to the harbor who had pig snouts between bread rolls. Franklin insisted on paying; the vendor, a short man with receding hair, looked to me for confirmation. I get credit all the way through the town, of course, not being able to carry money on my person. We exchanged glances, and he began putting condiments on the bread.

“There you are, Rhiannon.”

Ioseff was running up to us, his spurs jangling. He gave the emissary a fish eye. He hates it when I pay attention to any other man, as I must do frequently and daily, but he especially hates it when the man is an offworlder.

The two men gruffly exchanged acknowledgments. They each knew the other from my court, of course.

Ioseff turned to me. “I have news about the beast tamer.”

“The beast tamer?” Franklin asked, as he splashed a yellow colored condiment on a long roll which had what looked like the male member of some unidentified natural kind wrapped in it.

“A domestic issue of no importance to you, sirrah,” I said dismissively.

Terrans do not believe in sorcery, or in witchcraft, lycanthropes, or, for that matter, immortals, which makes me wonder what they think I am. They do not even believe that I defeated their soldiers with their own dead, which I did make rise against them. Their government has dismissed the occurrence as “war hysteria of some unknown origin.”

“What news?” I asked of Ioseff.

“One of my men came to me with information on a carnival coming to town for Jubilee. They have a whole tribe of beast tamers with them.”

“How did this information get to you so fast, Ioseff? Out of town is a long way away.”

“Coincidence. The bailiff was routinely telling me of matters important to your highness’ peace.”

I caught his ‘poor pitiful put-upon me’ tone, but chose to ignore it.

“Huh. So how could a beast tamer arrive earlier than his troupe?”

“I do not know, Rhiannon. I thought you might be interested, as you think there be a rogue beast tamer in the land.”

There was exasperation in his tone. I had thought it an intelligent question.

“I am interested, Ioseff.”

“So you say, but your tone is the same as if I wanted to show you my statuettes.”

“Ioseff, how many pigmy pig statuettes can one man have? Anyway, I am very interested in this new development.” Turning to Franklin: “Emissary, I always find your opinions about the relationships between our worlds to be fascinating, but I must carry out my duties as queen.”

Franklin bowed to me. Walking off, Ioseff blurted, “You find that pompous idiot’s opinions fascinating?”

I sighed. “Ioseff, I have to say that to be gracious. I find his opinions to be tedious, and too much a copy of his government’s. He has no mind of his own.”

“So he has nothing in common with you?”

I punched Ioseff on the arm. He rubbed it, but grinned. He was always criticizing me as a woman too much in love with her own mind. When he first said that, I conceded it was unfeminine, but then shook my bosoms at him, lest he be confused about my sex. He has not been so confused since.

We made our way through the throngs to the livery stable next to the plain wooden station that saw the carriages come into town and tended to the needs of visitors. By the time we had arrived at our horses’ stalls, the small of my back was hurting from all my return bows. I know it is odd for a lady to return a bow with a bow, but I obviously cannot do so with a curtsey, even though sometimes I forget, and bend my knees anyway. The first time I did that, Rosalyn rolled on the ground laughing.

She was there, of course, in her soldier’s clothes. If she is not by my side, out of the palace, she is where I will be, even, sometimes, before I know where I will be. I do not know how she manages that, as she has no witchy talent.

Her horse’s saddle bags were loaded with almost as esoteric assortment of equipment as Arianrhod’s belt, which, next to the usual scissors, bottles, nail polish, and bells, had spheres of uncertain identity and bags of uncertain and possibly unearthly origin.

She had her own sword on her left, as well as mine on her right. She was prepared for the giants, as they say.

The livery servants finished saddling my horse and Ioseff’s, and then opened their stalls. We mounted the steeds, and rode out of town to the carnival.

To be continued...