CHAPTER 53

Umbar, 7 Jasper Street

Night of June 27, 3019

Jasper Street was deserted at night, but the habit of checking for a tail was impossible to shake. Tangorn smirked: if anyone was tracking him, he had an unenviable task. This was not the port with its ever-milling crowds, but a respectable aristocratic neighborhood whose streets held about as many people outside after dark as the Moon shining down on them.

But in reality, who would need him now that the idiot Marandil has been arrested? More importantly, does he need himself? Does Alviss? What he does need now is a quiet hideout where he can sit and meditate on the following: did he fail to win at the Green Mackerel, or did he not want to win? At the last moment, was he afraid of a victory, remembering his unspoken deal with the Higher Powers: the end of the mission would be the end of his earthly life? Not that he was afraid then, no – it’s just that at the cusp of his duel with Elandar he couldn’t grit his teeth and do it even against his will. It was not strength or skill he was short of then, not even luck – no, just plain persistence and doggedness…

Thinking these thoughts, he had reached the jewelry shop of the honorable Chakti-Vari (a bronze snake on the door informed potential thieves that the place was being guarded by king cobras, as was the Vendotenian custom; any doubters were welcome to check), crossed the street, checked for surveillance again and opened the little door in the eight-foot limestone wall with his own key. Alviss’ two-storey house was deep inside the garden, at the end of a sand path. The dashes of silver liberally applied by the Moon to the oleanders’ waxy leaves made the shadows under the bushes even darker, and the cicadas were singing a deafening chorus… whereas those who were waiting for the baron in the moonlit garden could easily hide on a freshly mowed lawn in the middle of the day and walk noiselessly across a creaky wooden floor covered with dry leaves. Not surprisingly, the blow to the back of the head (a large sock filled with sand – cheap and effective) took him unawares.

Plunged into darkness, Tangorn did not see several black-robed figures gathering over him; nor did he see another set of figures, their robes of a slightly different cut, coalesce out of the night around them. He did not see what happened next, either – not that he would have made much sense of it: a nin’yokve fight is not something an amateur can follow. It mostly resembles the chaotic dance of a pile of dry leaves blown up by a gust of wind; the battle rages in absolute, totally unnatural silence, broken only by the sound of connecting blows.

When seven or eight minutes later the baron was yanked out of his unconsciousness by the nauseating stink of smelling salts, it was all over. Once he opened his eyes, a robed man took the vial away from his face and stepped away without a word. His back was against something hard and uncomfortable; in a couple of seconds he realized that he had been carried up to the house entrance and propped against the stairs. The robed men moved quickly and noiselessly about; the ones in a large spot of moonlight right then were dragging a man-sized sack with a pair of soft boots sticking out of it. Two people were talking somewhere behind Tangorn, one with a drawl of a Peninsula man; Tangorn kept his head motionless and strained to hear.

“…nothing but corpses. We netted one, but he managed to poison himself.”

“Yeah… disappointing, to put it mildly. How did this happen?”

“I’ve never met tougher guys. We have two dead and two maimed, first time I can remember such losses.”

“Who?”

“Jango and Ritva.”

“Damn!.. Write a report. No traces here in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Approaching footsteps rustled across the grass, and a tall slender man appeared before Tangorn. Unlike the others, he was dressed in civilian clothes, but he, too, was hooded.

“How do you feel, Baron?”

“I’ve been worse, thank you. To what do I owe the pleasure?..”

“A special team of Aragorn’s people tried to capture you, probably for a debrief and a liquidation. We interfered, but we’re not counting on your gratitude, as I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, so I was used as bait!” Having said ‘bait,’ the baron laughed sarcastically, but cut it short due to a stab of pain in the back of his head. “Are you DSD?”

“I’m not familiar with this acronym, nor is this important. I have bad news for you, Baron: tomorrow you’ll be charged with murder.”

“Of Gondorian spies?”

“I wish! No, of an Umbarian citizen Algali, whom you’ve poisoned tonight at the Green Mackerel.”

“I see. Why wait until tomorrow?”

“Because, for several reasons, my service is not interested in your revelations to the investigators or the courts. You have until noon tomorrow to leave Umbar forever. Should you delay and wind up in jail, please don’t blame us for assuring your silence by other means. Honorable Kantaridis’s caravan is leaving tomorrow morning via Chevelgar

Highway with a couple of available bactrians. The border guards will receive your description with an appropriate delay. Is everything clear, Baron?”

“All but one thing. The easiest solution would be to liquidate me right now. Why not?”

“Professional solidarity,” smiled the hooded man. “Besides, I really like your takatos.”

The garden was almost empty by now, the robed figures having vanished into the darkness whence they came without a sound. The hooded stranger followed his men, but right before disappearing forever into shadow between the oleanders he turned and said: “By the way, Baron, another bit of free advice – tread carefully until you’ve left Umbar. I’ve followed you today all the way from the Long Dam, and I can’t help but feel that you’ve used up your entire store of luck. One can feel such things instantly; I’m not joking, believe me.”

It did look like his store of luck was empty. Well, that depends: today he lost to everyone –the Elves, Aragorn’s men, the DSD – but managed to stay alive. No, wait – actually, he was allowed to live, that’s different. Or did he dream up the whole thing? The garden is empty, no one to ask but the cicadas… He got up and knew right away that he did not dream up the blow to the head, at least: pain and nausea sloshed around in his skull at about the ear level.

He put his hand inside his jacket to find the key and felt the warm metal of the mithril mail, which he had put on back at the bank, for extra protection before meeting Elandar. Yeah, it did help a lot today, right…

The moment he managed to insert the key into the keyhole, the door opened and he faced the sleepy butler, a huge phlegmatic Haradi named Unkva; Tina, scared, was peering from behind his shoulder. He moved inside past the servants; Alviss, closing her robe as she ran down the stairs, was already near.

“Goodness, what happened? Are you wounded?”

“No, just a little drunk.” Dizziness hit him with such force that he had to lean against a wall.

“Was just passing by, thought I’d call on you for old times’ sake…”

“Liar…” she sniffled, and her arms went around his neck, leaving the wide sleeves behind.

“God, how I’m tired of you…”

…They lay side by side, barely touching, and his hand glided slowly from her neck down to the curve of her thigh – carefully, as if not to brush off the silvery moonlight.

He finally mustered the courage to say: “Aly!” and she, somehow understanding immediately what he was about to say, sat up slowly, hugging her knees and putting her head down on them. Words stuck in his throat; he touched her arm and felt her moving away a tiny distance that he would now have to spend the rest of his life crossing, without any guarantee that it would be enough time. That was how she was: constitutionally incapable of making a scene, she could be silent in a manner that made him feel like a total bastard for a week… and that’s exactly what you are, Baron. Didn’t she have some sort of a matrimonial prospect on the horizon before you showed up? She’s no little girl, she’s almost thirty… you’re an asshole, Baron, an indifferent selfish asshole.

“Your Secret Service courteously gave me until tomorrow noon to quit Umbar forever, or they’ll just kill me. I’m in their sights and can’t escape. So it goes, Aly…” He thought: this is probably how men tell their mistresses that they can’t see them while their wives are suspecting something; he almost cringed with self-disgust.

“You seem to be justifying yourself, Tan. Why? I understand – it’s just Fate. And don’t worry about me,” she raised her head and suddenly gave a quiet laugh, “I was more farsighted this time around.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing, just woman stuff…” She got up and put on her robe. There was something so final in that movement that he asked involuntarily: “Where’re you going?”

“To pack your things, where else?” she looked at him with a bit of surprise. “See, I can never be a high-society dame. Sorry, I’m just not refined enough. I should’ve made a hysterical scene right now, just for formality’s sake, right?”

He had lost too much today in one fell swoop: the goal he has been striving for all these months, his belief in himself, the country that became his second home (even if against his will), and now Alviss… Knowing it was all over, he plunged ahead desperately like a man jumping off the pier to catch up with a departing ship.

“Listen, Aly… I really can’t stay in Umbar, but you… what would you say if I asked you to go to Ithilien with me and become Baroness Tangorn there?”

“I would say,” there was nothing but infinite weariness in her voice, “that you’ve always been too fond of the subjunctive, whereas women, by their nature, prefer the imperative mood. Sorry.”

“What if I change the mood?” He was trying as hard as he could to smile. “In the imperative it goes like this: marry me! Is that better?”

“That?” She stood still, eyes closed and hands clenched on her chest, as if really listening to something. “You know, it does sound a lot better! Say it again.”

He said it again, first in front of her on one knee, then while slowly twirling her around the room. Then she did have a bit of hysterics, laughing and crying at the same time… When they got back to bed, she first put a finger to his lips and then took his hand in hers and carefully pressed it to her belly, whispering: “Shh! Don’t scare him!”

“So you… I mean, we…” was all he could say.

“Yes! Remember, I said that I was more farsighted this time than four years ago? Now, no matter what else happens, I’ll have him. You see,” she clung to Tangorn with a quiet laugh and tenderly rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, “somehow I know that it will be a boy, just like you.”

He lay there in silence for some time, futilely trying to bring his thoughts into a semblance of order – too much at once. Tangorn the adventurer’s old life is over, that much is clear, but perhaps a quiet family idyll with Alviss is precisely the end that the Higher Powers meant? Or, conversely, am I being paid off to abandon Haladdin? But I can’t do anything else for him, my mission in Umbar has failed… Really? What if you had an opportunity right now to replay this and give your life in exchange for victory over Elandar? I don’t know… half an hour ago I would’ve given it without a doubt, but now – I don’t know.

Chances are, I would’ve found some decent way of weaseling out of it, to be honest. Some trap this is… Oh, to hell with it all! he thought fatalistically, I have no strength left to figure out those puzzles, trying to imagine what the Higher Powers want. Let it all be however it will be.

He finally gave up trying to gather his thoughts, since all kinds of trivialities kept coming up anyway. “Listen, won’t you be bored in Emyn Arnen? To be honest, it’s quite the backwater.”

“You know, I’ve had quite enough fun over my twenty-eight years here, in our capital of the world, enough for three lives. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, Baron,” she stretched alluringly, putting her hands behind her head, “isn’t it time for you to perform your marital duties?”

“Absolutely, dear Baroness!”