Chapter 5
Melanie's first act as Lady of Nast was to decree a two-day period of mourning for Lord Fausberg. This was not difficult to mandate, for the noble Lord was well loved by all, and the whole province mourned his passing. The only people who resented her moratorium on buying, trading, or selling were a few of the merchants, who grumbled complaints about "fairness" and "earning a decent living." On the whole, no one resented enough to rebel, and Nast was business-free for two days, at least on the surface.
At the end of the second day, Melanie sat in the grand bedchamber, now refurnished for her. She turned when she heard a familiar growl. "Aslan!" she cried happily.
"It is time for you to lead Nast," he said gravely.
"No," Melanie corrected, "we shall lead Nast. I'm ready to do whatever you want me to do. What shall I accomplish first?"
Aslan's tail flicked back and forth. "Come to the window, Melanie."
She joined him, and it happened at that very moment, a merchant finished "conducting business" with a debtor: he took the poor man's horse and wagon and dismissed him without so much as a button to his name.
Aslan growled at the injustice. "These people are severely oppressed. These merchants have no interest in justice, and support neither this province nor this nation. They are leeches, sucking the livelihood of the host for their own profit. They must be removed."
Melanie considered this carefully. "How shall it be done?" she asked.
"You must close the marketplace and allow me to drive them out. The marketplace must remain closed until all the merchant guilds and clans are gone."
Melanie pondered this. What if the merchants refused to leave? How long would the market be closed? She did not know the answers to these questions, but she knew at least one thing: because Aslan said it, it must be done, and because Aslan said he would do it, it would be done. "Let it be as you have said," she replied.
"Summon your captain of the guard and tell him to direct the closing of the marketplace."
Melanie nodded and rang the bell. A page appeared. "Summon the Captain of the guard," she instructed the boy.
The page disappeared, only to return minutes later followed by Captain Pareshin of the Royal Guard.
"Captain," Melanie ordered, "gather a company and close the marketplace. Post official declarations at all inroads to this effect: By order of Her Ladyship, Lady Melanie, the marketplace is closed to all forms of business. No person of any rank may use the square as a place of business of any kind, be it selling, buying, or trading, until further notice by Her Ladyship. Any persons attempting to enact business will be arrested. Post guards at each entryway, and keep a careful watch."
The captain bowed, but his expression was one of confusion. "Yes Milady," he said slowly, "it shall be as you command, but . . . permit me to inquire your reasons?"
Melanie cast a glance toward Aslan, but the Lion had disappeared. "I will permit the question," she told Pareshin, "but it is not for you to know the answer yet. Merely obey the orders, and you will know the reasoning behind them when the time is right."
"Milady, the market-square is already closed, out of respect for the late Lord Fausberg."
Melanie remembered the two-day mourning period she had set, but she also remembered the "business transaction" she had witnessed with Aslan. It occurred to her that there were some on whom written warnings would have no effect. Official documents do not always deter greed. "Even so," she said to Captain Pareshin, "there are those who would circumvent my commands. Have your men keep careful watch, and see that everything is carried out as I have ordered. Allow no one desiring to do business with another—least of all the merchants and traders—in or out of the square. Set up a rotation of the guard as you see fit, for I want your men on full alert at all times."
Pareshin bowed. "It will be as you command, Milady."
Melanie reclined on the couch after the Captain departed. She had fulfilled her duty. Now she merely needed to wait as Aslan fulfilled his. Melanie did not doubt he would.
Shiloq the land-trader reclined upon a couch of fine silk pillows, examining his rings. How beautifully they sparkled in the light of twenty bronze lamps! His wife, Shatiya, entered his apartment. How divine she looked, arrayed in a silk wrap and fur slippers! Large earrings of pure gold set with jet adorned her ears. A collar of gold set with jet and rubies encircled her bronze throat. Her ethereal appearance was marred somewhat, however, by the eloquent frown on her delicate face.
"Why is my angel so downcast?" Shiloq murmured as Shatiya cast herself onto the pillows next to him.
"Oh-the-delight-of-my-eyes-and-the-king-of-my-house," she replied, lauding him Calormene-style in a voice that did not mean a word of it, "Your angel weeps because she must dress in rags in spite of your toils."
Shiloq leered at his wife greedily and stroked the soft skin of her bare arm, pausing to run his oily fingers over the gold bands on it just below the shoulder. "Does my goddess desire that her lowly minion strive the more, to adorn her suitable to her inimitable stature?"
Shatiya shrugged away from his pawing, greasy hands petulantly. "Nothing like that, husband!" she rolled her eyes. "I only wish the little farmer's brat would lift the horrid embargo she's put on since the old Lord died. I do so need a new dress," she pouted, but turned and began stroking Shiloq's face coquettishly, "as this one will be a week old tomorrow." Her articulate eyes plainly challenged the merchant, What are you going to do about my problem?
"Do not fret, beloved," Shiloq said with a wicked smile as a plan formed in his mind. "One person, such as this farm-lady who now resides in the castle, cannot have her eyes everywhere, and our brotherhood is numerous. Tomorrow, I can arrange events so that some of our people divert the attention of the authorities, the market will be ours within the first hour of the prohibition's expiration, and my dulcet pet shall have all that her incorruptible heart desires. Does this please you, my adulation?"
In reply, Shatiya took his face in her hands and kissed it. "Truly Shiloq is most cunning among merchants!" she cried.
Shiloq grinned proudly, "One cannot be a land agent without one's cunning, my jewel." He extended his arm without rising and daintily struck a silver chime next to his couch. A servant bowed into his presence from some dark corner of the room, where several more awaited any command from their master. "Fetch us wine, for we rule the marketplace come the morning!" he ordered raucously, already drunk with visions of the success of his plan.
The servant wordlessly crossed to the small stand on which stood a gold pitcher full of strong wine from the wild lands south of Calormen. The servant filled two crystal goblets stemmed with jewels and brought them near his master's hand on a silver platter.
Shiloq never got his wine.
As he was reaching for it, a strong, deep voice warned, "Shiloq, your time has come."
Instantly, his numerous gold rings transformed into hideous worms and maggots. Shatiya shrieked as the earrings she wore transformed into enormous beetles and dropped to her shoulders, where they crawled disgustingly down her dress. She ceased her noise as her necklace turned into a black- and red-banded, hissing viper. Servants rushed in with bows to report the circumstances: every piece of finery in Shiloq's possession had turned into some nasty insect or other crawling creature. All of his gold, which he had so cleverly extorted from all the farmers, turned into a teeming mass of ants and scuttled away, and all the merchandise he planned to sell altered in like manner and either killed the men standing near it or crept, slithered, and crawled away.
"Aaiieee!" Shiloq screamed, "It is a curse come upon us! Our time has come! We must leave at once!"
He stormed out of the apartment amid the wails and shouts of his brotherhood, and began ordering the servants and clansmen to load the wagons with what was left.
"But Brother Shiloq!" one of the men who had escaped unscathed called out to the terrified merchant as the said land-agent scraped the slimy worms from his fingers and screamed for a handmaiden to assist his wife, who had fainted just before the viper slithered away. "We will lose our place in the market, and what about our clients!"
"May this curse be upon them!" Shiloq retorted. "Who knows but it will worsen if we remain! Load the wagons with what you can! Let us leave before the very lamps turn to vermin!"
The instant the words left his mouth, Shiloq regretted them. He turned, horrified, and saw that the twenty bronze lamps were now twenty fat, smelly, repugnant rats with little flames on their tails. Shiloq lifted the skirts of his robe as the rats ran from the apartment between his ankles. "WE LEAVE NOW!" he bellowed.
One hour later, the buildings once occupied by the riotous clan of Shiloq stood bare and silent in the dawning light.
A servant informed Melanie at breakfast that one of the merchant clans had fled during the night. The Lady smiled secretly. She knew who had done this thing. "Very well," she told the servant, "Tell Captain Pareshin to maintain his guard." The servant bowed and left to deliver the message.
That night, before going to bed, Melanie remembered the Lion as she gazed up at the gorgeous stars in the Telmarine sky. "Aslan," she whispered into the still air, "do you walk tonight?"
A sweet-smelling gust of wind blew her face back, as a Voice said, "I walk."