Treason Page 0,92

you consider that I'm the decaying remnant of a decadent line. I only have one son." That amused him, and he laughed.

I did not laugh. I looked at the titles on the spines of the books. Habits of the Humpers did not disappear overnight, and when I had nothing of importance to say, it was hard to say anything.

Barton stared at me penetratingly. "You are not what you seem."

That amused me and awoke my old manner of speech. "So many people have said that that I'm beginning to think that's precisely how I do seem. What is it I seem to be that you have now discovered that I'm not?"

"A sharp tongue, even when speaking to a lord, and a man who refuses to come when bidden until the planting's done. You seem to be a rebel, sullen and silent. But the people, say you're the Man-in-the-Wind, and you save mothers in childbirth and heal lame sheep and help simple children find their minds. Miracles, yes?"

I didn't answer, regretting my outburst of Muellerish speech. Enough of that. I was done with that.

"But the reason I asked to see you has little to do with that," said Barton. "Legends come and go among these superstitious folk, and I don't call every passing healer in to speak with me. What intrigued me was white hair like wool, as the Humpers say, and a man who seeks out hardship. A man who seems young in years but old as I am in experience. Whatever became of Lanik Mueller?"

The last question was so ridiculous, so out of place-- so dangerous-- that I couldn't hide my surprise. Barton laughed, obviously feeling very clever. "Tricks and traps. I play them even on the wise. There are rewards, you know, for seeming to be a foolish old man. Lanik Mueller has always fascinated me, you know. It's been what, four years now since he and dear old Ensel Mueller vanished into the forest of Ku Kuei, never to be seen again. Well, I don't put much stock in legends. They always seem to have a perfectly natural foundation. And I don't think people who go into Ku Kuei necessarily die. Do you?"

I shrugged.

"I think they come out again," said Barton. "I think that Lanik Mueller, the scourge of the Rebel River plain, I think he lives."

He looked at me intently. "I met you, boy, when you were eleven."

That forced me to look at him again. Had I ever seen that thin old man before?

"I was a traveler in the old days. And a bit of a historian. I picked up tales and genealogies wherever I went, trying to discover what had happened to the world in the days since the Republic set down our ancestors and their families on this paradise of a world as a punishment for their sins. And when I met you, I thought, 'Here's a boy bound to do something important.' They say you burned and ravaged and raped and killed anything in your path."

I shook my head, trying to decide whether to admit the truth of what he was saying or pretend not to know any more about Lanik Mueller than any other man might know. Ironic, that no one recognized me on the Rebel River plain, where my double had made my face well known, while here in the most obscure corner of the world I was recognized.

"But what intrigued me most was something that strikes very close to home, Lanik Mueller. I have learned that your younger brother, Dinte, is now ruling where you would have ruled."

"A figurehead, thank God, since the bastard couldn't rule an anthill with any efficiency," I said, admitting what he obviously knew.

"The child of your mother?"

"Incredible as it may seem, yes. I never saw you, Lord Barton."

"I was younger then." He got up from his chair and strode to a ladder, climbed it slowly, and reached down a book that must have weighed five kilos. When he was back to the floor, he gave it to me. "I bought this from your father, who was reluctant to part with it. But he had another copy, and when I explained how important genealogy was to me he became convinced I was a doddering idiot. He let me buy the book, though he charged me five times what he thought it was worth."

That was my father.

I opened the book. A genealogy of Mueller and a history, kept as a kind of chronicle in the hand writing of