CHAPTER XVI: Of Pearls, Pipes and Peers

After chores and supper were out of the way, Tatya hurriedly sharpened a goose quill or two in preparation for Greagoir's continued account of Geas-Geata and his sad affair with the Princess Leannan. In his five years of apprenticeship under the master-scribe, Tatya felt he had long been reduced to a mere cipher for interminable recitations on frayed and faded legends; suddenly, however, Greagoir had gushed forth with a literal torrent of spell-binding tales, particularly those involving the master's colorful and nomadic youth.

Greagoir's engaging memoirs changed Tatya's perception of the scrivener's trade from one of rote dreariness, punctuated here and there with a blessed day of rest, to a life of limitless possibilities (depending, of course, on one's ability to overcome the repetitive monotony attendant in copywriting). Such stirring stories gave the orphaned apprentice, a lonely indentured servant named Tatya Reecho, hope that one day he, too, could strike out on his own and experience all the good and bad, the wild and wonderful, which the wide world had to offer. Lurking as he was behind Greagoir's chair, even the blind scribe took notice of Tatya's anticipation.

"Blast it, Tatya!" Greagoir boomed in irritation, "Must you hover about me like some annoying little bat? Have you finished your chores?"

"Yes, master," Tatya replied.

"Washed the bowls and spoons?"

"Yes and yes."

"Weeded the garden?"

"Completely."

"Broomed the floor? Spread new rushes?"

"Done and done."

"Hung the clothes out to dry?"

"Finished and folded as well."

The flummoxed Greagoir scowled in certain defeat, but then a sly smirk surged across his lips. "Scoured out the chamber pot?" he retorted smugly.

Tatya's air of confidence suddenly deflated. "Errr…well…no," he mumbled in sudden indecision, "ummm…must I?"

Greagoir laughed aloud for the first time in several days. "Nay, Tatya, in lieu of my hard-earned victory, I believe the shite can wait."

One thought pushed out the other, and Greagoir began rummaging about in his robe, and like a fumbling magician, he pulled out a black pearl the size of a robin's egg. He rolled it about between his fingers, and then gently handed it to Tatya. "It is very rare," he said reverently. "It is said that in all the world only two such sea-beds exist where thrive the great clams which produce pearls of this size; and of these, black ones appear only once in ten-thousand culls. I have kept this pearl with me through all the long years since Geas-Geata. It was a gift from Princess Leannan."

Tatya sat transfixed, staring in wonder at the astounding pearl. He held it to the light and was staggered by its opalescent beauty. To say it was merely black in color would be an understatement, for it glistened with tinges of purple and burgundy and the deepest blue. Perhaps all the colors were horded inside this nacreous orb, and teased those that beheld it with brief flashes of the luminous hues that roiled beneath its surface. Tatya looked askance at Greagoir momentarily and thought of the vast sums of gold this rarest of pearls could fetch. With proceeds from the sale, they would neither have to live in poverty, nor would the master ever again have to beg for his pension before the haughty Peer Kiryatin.

Then Tatya saw the sorrow etched on the old man's face. After all these years, he still grieves for the Princess! Greagoir, that distant scholar seemingly consumed from childhood by one over-arching mission, had known a love every bit as rare and exquisite as this bauble. The apprentice shook his head in a moment of shared sadness and carefully guided the black pearl back into his master's hand. Such a thing is priceless for more than just its rarity as a commodity on the open market, Tatya thought, and no amount of coin could equal the value of the great vault of memories housed within that small sphere of lustrous black.

Greagoir grasped the pearl tightly in his fist, leaned back in his chair, and stared vacantly up at the ceiling. After several minutes, and only after Tatya assured himself that his master was not sleeping, did the apprentice clear his throat with a loud "AHEM"!

"I am well aware you are waiting, Tatya," Greagoir croaked resignedly, "but I am trying to gather my wits." He finally lowered his head from its reclined position and cast a blind eye in Tatya's direction. "Not an easy thing to do when you're a witless old fool!"

"Perhaps you might find your wits more easily if I made you some tea?" Tatya grumbled snarkily, fully aware that his inapt choice of words could be construed as confirmation of the master's witlessness; but Greagoir lumbered on, oblivious of the jab.

"Tea? Bah! Another Hobbitish concoction!" he barked in a sudden display of animation. "A strange, little race, those. Saved the world once, but mark my words: that damnable pipeweed of theirs will be the eventual ruin of more folk than the Ring they destroyed!"

This condemnation of pipeweed, however, got Greagoir to thinking of pipeweed in general, and of smoking specifically. In another few moments, he was puffing away with great celerity on a bowl he had ordered Tatya to stoke for him. Greagoir blew a languid smoke ring that wafted lazily to the rafters, then heaved a rumbling sigh. "Never have I spoken of the events surrounding my mission in Geas-Geata, Tatya," he muttered sadly. "Not even Peer Kiryatin is aware of my travails." The scribe clenched the pipe-stem between his teeth, and added circumspectly, "Nor would he have cared, truthfully; particularly upon duly receiving his forged birthright via the ship-captain I so handsomely bribed. That I did not return along with his precious parcel Kiryatin merely ascribed to my scholarly eccentricities."

"He did not question your absence?" Tatya asked, hoping that such a question would induce his master to begin recitations.

"Nay," the scribe replied, shaking his head somberly, "Kiryatin is a rather selfish sort, being a corsair, after all. He had gotten what he sought; that I had not arrived with his prize mattered not at all, save for his concern for whatever funds he thought I might have absconded with. Fortunately, I had hidden away what was left of the pirate's gold prior to being arrested in the grove of the Sepulcher. Naturally, he blistered the air with curses and had a knife to my throat when I at last returned, but our belated reunion became more civil when I handed over a cask full of his coin. Yet I was never in any real danger of having my throat slit, as the corsair still had need of me."

"For you see, during my extended absence Kiryatin had discovered, to his chagrin, that merely having proof of noble birth in one's possession does not necessarily elevate one to a position of noble status. One could have enough paternal papers penned to wrap a pirate princeling in, yet still not be accepted into the ruling caste: introductions must be made, appointments must be secured, and wheels must be greased. For that, Kiryatin still required my inestimable services. He may well have been a successful corsair, if success in that bloody profession equates to the greatest amount of loot massed while escaping the gallows; however, he was not adept at dealing with this different breed of pirates: urbane and crafty brigands who operated within the law (for they, in fact, wrote the laws), and who plundered through taxation and foreclosure rather than brazen outlawry, and sent men to their deaths not with blades wielded by their own hands, but by legal writs from the poison pens of magistrates." Greagoir smiled gloatingly for a moment and added, "For an infamous corsair, Kiryatin was certainly out of his depths! Hah! He could barely tread water!"

Tatya frowned and rolled his eyes. He disliked Peer Kiryatin immensely, and was uninterested in the old pirate's deceitful rise to power. Before his master ran too far a field, Tatya made a valiant effort to steer Greagoir back on course. "But whatever became of Princess Leannan?" he asked rather abruptly.

Regretfully, Tatya realized he had overstepped his intended mark and had hurt his master. Greagoir sat in stunned silence, as if he'd been slapped in the face. His lips moved inaudibly for an instant, and then he said distantly, "Ah, yes, I haven't quite finished with Geas-Geata yet, have I?" He turned his face away from his apprentice and whispered to himself, "nor shall I ever."

But some bit of resolve remained in the old scribe, and he passed a hand over his eyes as if to regain his bearings. He laid his pipe aside absentmindedly so that ashes spilled across a well-worn table, and with a fierce intake of air and a long, labored exhale, he continued his tale:

"Marfach-Suil, exulting in his long-awaited revenge, left me to ponder my fate alone in the dank recesses of the dungeon while he and the slavers from Bajazet strolled off to bed, their cackling laughter and crass insults in their hideous dialect echoing down the dim corridors as they went. It was of a certainty that the former caravan-master would not suffer me to live once I was remanded to his custody. I most likely would not even survive the trip to the slave markets of Bajazet, a distant realm on the arid marches of the Desert of Roaring Waste. Marfach's bestial yellow eyes haunted the gloom of my cell as I lay sleepless atop the rank straw that made up my fetid bed. But I laughed at the irony of my situation. How appropriate that here, in my most desperate, agonizing hour, I should be a prisoner once again at the hands of that murderer! Fate could not have ordained a more absurd jest.

" 'How strange it is, my love, that you have been sentenced to certain death, and I to an uncertain life. I do not know which is preferable.'

"I thought I was dreaming, for somehow her lilting voice rang sad but clear in the depths of the darkened dungeon. Wishing to continue this pleasant fantasy, I obeyed the deluded whims of sleep and sat up drowsily to peer beyond the iron bars of my cell. But it was no dream that roused me from fitful sleep: she was there, her graceful outline illumined in the flickering torchlight.

" 'I cannot release thee from bondage, dear Greagoir," Leannan whispered somberly, 'for Mharu-muc has issued a death warrant for any that might aid you; and even I, the Princess of Geas-Geata, am unable to enlist accomplices who might overcome their own fear to accomplish this task. The dungeon guards risked much just to allow me this chance to see thee again.'

"I reached through the bars and clasped her hands and gently drew her to me. 'I have already suffered the only death that has meaning for me, Leannan. Your absence stilled the beating of my heart and stole my life's breath. I may still exist on this plane for a while longer, but life ceased to be when you were stolen away.'

"With tears clouding her eyes she kissed me. 'Ever the idealist; ever the poet, eh, Greagoir?' she replied with a winsome smile. 'But with what little prescience is still accorded to my dwindling line, I foresee a long life still ahead of you. Perhaps I cannot aid in your escape, but escape you must. Do not surrender to despair, I pray you, for there are countless songs left unsung and tales half-written. If you should fall, who then shall take up pen and paper and give shape and substance to the languishing shadows of the past? An age ago, the rape of the great libraries of the East marked the end of a glorious era: their facades were stripped, their precious contents pillaged, their once proud towers razed to the very foundations; and the long night fell. You carry the wavering torch of knowledge in these black lands -- bereft of a sense of history and purpose -- fallen prey to gluttonous hollow-men who stalk the dark nocturne of ignorance like jackals gorging at a carrion feast. In the West it is said wisdom is still accounted a virtue, and sage are those who rule their enlightened kingdoms; whereas in the East guile and wile -- the debased truths of the political animal -- crown the mendacious with undeserved influence.'

"Leannan paused to quell the deep-seeded ire that welled within her, and focused once again on me, for her eyes had strayed to the shadows and her thoughts dwelt on the certain dissolution of her realm. Her words may have been meant for me, but her venom was directed elsewhere: to Mharu-Muc, the devious, grossly rotund shadow-ruler of Geas-Geata. He had sold the realm out from under Leannan and her feeble father to the Khan of Talamh, and no doubt the eunuch would seek to reduce the unified khanate to his brand of puppet-mastery.

" 'But I shall stay with you here till morning, my love,' Leannan said with sudden boldness, 'and I shall give you a reason to live. For the tale I tell you shall hold dearly bought and worthy of remembrance.'

"Leannan handed me a great, black pearl, which she said I might perhaps use to bribe my captors once out of the dungeon. She kissed me tenderly once again, and then in the sing-song cadence of an ancient bard, she fell to talking of Tsin-Quinqan."