Ellen Under The Stairs by John Stockmyer Page A

crowd had backed Pfnaravin, the old Mage's
soldiers waiting on the same wharf to arrest John for treason --
the driving political force here, as in too many places: support
the powerful, whoever they may be.)
    The crowd of well-wishers hemming them
in, they had difficulty dodging the offal, excrement, and garbage
that littered the streets of Xanthin, noxious odors only one of
many inconveniences of a medieval society.
    The squad of soldiers at last forming
a wedge to break trail, they'd made it through the people-packed
center of the city, booths to either side offering goods like
clothing, knives, iron ware, leather products, and silverware.
Further along, they passed the shops of furriers, tailors, spice
merchants, and butchers: meat cutters offering every kind of
delicacy from pickled sheep's heads to sugared
pig-tails.
    Ale houses, of course,
predominated.
    The crowd thinning at the far edge of
the city, they took the exclusive access road to the triple walled
palace, eventually arriving at what was more fort than royal
residence. Recognized immediately, gate guards ushered them inside
the surrounding walls, doing that with as much pomp as simple
uniforms, courtly bows, and snappy salutes allowed, John's people
as safe here from unseen enemies as they would be anywhere in this
"other world."
    "Honor guarded" across the courtyard
and inside the palace proper, they were greeted by lines of
functionaries promising the fulfillment of their every wish, which,
at the moment, was to be bathed, fed, and put to bed, John praising
the loving attention of the Palace staff, the staff loving praise
by the Mage.
    As for John's major concern, he was
glad that Ellen hadn't suffered a set-back through it all. Though
still coughing in the night, her robust look in the daytime backed
her assertion that she continued to improve. (John would wait until
she was asymptomatic throughout the night before he'd even consider
taking her ... home.)
    With Pfnaravin still missing, John
uncertain of his own acceptance here, he'd decreed that four guards
accompany him wherever he went, their shields and bucklers
clanking, swords swinging at their sides, leather under-armor
squeaking in counter-point.
    He ordered the same number of sentries
to be posted outside his bedroom at night. (Not that guards and
more guards assured your safety, John knowing that, in the late
Roman Empire, it was usually the Emperors' "protectors" who
assassinated them. Who guards the guards?, was a question as old as
time.)
    Zwicia and Platinia were installed in
separate, but connecting quarters, John ordering soldiers for the
women's protection.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Donning his white silk Mage robe in
the early morning, armed men accompanying him, John breakfasted
alone in the stone banquet hall -- had broth, cooked meat, candied
eggs, and warm wine -- his guards then having to squeeze him
through passageways clotted with mop wielding cleaning women. Also
past minor officials: Aber, the prolocutor (whatever that was,)
Bachur, Plenipotentiary (whatever that was,) Qrig the barber, Heimg
the Vice Legate -- all eager to do him service.
    Finally to reach his destination, the
"war room" on second, its rectangular table dominating the sizable
space, twenty, heavy chairs around it, the Mage-ordered map of
Bandworld on its stand at the back.
    A flanking table was still laden with
charts -- showing sea currents, blowups of harbors and the like --
another, lower table, offering ink and vellum, everything just as
he'd left it. After John's victory over the evil Mage, the room had
apparently become a kind of shrine, the room's smell backing his
"shrine theory." Stale.
    Closing the door, as yet undecided
about what problem to attack first, he approached the barely
translucent window overlooking the island's "Beakward" side.
Pulling open the casements, he leaned out to see, at extreme
angles, the corner turrets of the palace, Stil-de-grain flags
topping the turret spires, the banners limp in the