tapped. The onlookers exchanged shocked
glances, held their breaths.
Long seconds crept by as Durendal
wrestled with his soul. His friend and defender had been
foully betrayed; he had bungled the necessary
retribution. How could he claim one speck of
manhood if he did not seek out Kromman again
at once and complete the job? What use would he
be to himself or anyone else if he had to live with
that crushing shame? It would destroy him.
But defiance now would destroy him even sooner,
certainly before he could empty Kromman's
blood on the floor. Even if he were merely
banished instantly from court, he would be ruined: a
Blade without a purpose. What else was he
good for except guarding the King?
How could he serve any king who decreed such
injustice?
But he could almost hear Wolfbiter warning him not
to be impulsive, arguing with cold-blooded
logic that this man was the only king he had, and a good
one in spite of his faults. Ambrose had more
pressing concerns than the death of one of his
Blades. Blades were dispensable. They accepted
their powers and privileges in full understanding of the
price. A monarch with a kingdom to rule,
responsible for millions of lives, could not
shatter the smooth running of his government
by deposing Grand Inquisitor and her minions
over a petty personal squabble.
Sometimes even the best of kings must dilute
justice with policy. And so on.
Oh, Wolfbiter!
He bowed his head in misery. "As Your
Majesty commands." Wolfbiter, Wolfbiter!
Ambrose continued to scowl. "We trust that
any wishes we may convey in future will be
granted more seemly acknowledgment, Sir
Durendal?"
A last flicker of rebellion: "No command
Your Majesty can ever give me will hurt more than
that one."
And a final spark of royal anger ... but then
a grudging nod. "You have not lost your brash
insolence. A little of that can be refreshing, but don't
overdo it. And no one understands better than we do
how readily a ward is inspired with countervailing
loyalty to his Blade."
"Thank you, sire."
"Your return is timely," the King repeated.
"Commander Hoare frequently displays an
inappropriate attitude to his duties. You
replace him now as commander of our Guard. And I
won't have him as your deputy, either."
Speechless, Durendal knelt to kiss fingers
like thick pink sausages.
It was typical of Ambrose that he left
Durendal the job of breaking the news to his
predecessor, which he did as soon as they
returned to the overembellished Guard
headquarters. Hoare heard of his dismissal in his
own bordello of an office.
He closed his eyes in rapture. "Oh,
bless you! Bless you! Bless you!"
"You mean that?"
"I will kiss your feet if you promise not
to tread on my tongue. Flames, I'll do it
anyway!"
"Get up, you idiot!"
Truly, the former commander did not seem to be
faking his delight. He hurled himself into a chair
and bellowed, "Wench! Wench! A bottle of
sack for a celebration!"
"I shall need your help," Durendal said
unhappily.
"Anything you want, brother, but I know you--it
won't take you long to pick up the
reins." Hesitation. "Did he mention release
for me?"
"Um, no. I can recommend it, of course.
You don't want to crawl off and rot on
Starkmoor, do you?"
Blades typically resisted release
vehemently, but Hoare was always an exception
to rules. He beamed. "I want to go off and rot
at a place called Sheer, whose lord has a most
gorgeous daughter of seventeen with the sort of
breasts that inspire poets to write epics."
"You mean sonnets."
"Not in this instance."
"Is she crazy enough to want a lecherous,
broken-down swordsman?"
"She is mad about me. So is her father, but I
can fight him off. No, I mean he approves
of me as a man, but he doesn't want his only
child tied to court, that's all."
With wistful thoughts of Kate, Durendal
congratulated him. Times were a-changing when the
Guard's most celebrated rake settled
into matrimony. He wondered how many more
Blades had such ambitions.
"You won't mind," Hoare said, "will you, if
I go and tell her now?"
As he ran out, he almost knocked over the wench
bringing the bottle of sack. Durendal sent it
back to the cellar and proceeded to explore Guard
headquarters. The first door he opened revealed
an assembly of seven bored Blades playing
dice and drinking. All of them dated from after his
time, except Felix, one of his old
classmates, but they all leaped to their feet
to embrace him and welcome him back to the world of the
living.
Touched, he broke the news that he was their new
commander.
"Ha!" Felix bellowed. "Now you'll see
some changes, you slipshod tadpoles! Now
you'll find your backbones stiffened."
"Quite possibly," Durendal said. "And you can
start by carrying a message for me, brother.
Kindly inform Mother Superior that the commander of the
Royal Guard needs to see her at once upon a
matter of extreme urgency. Don't mention my
name. I give you fifteen minutes."
When the formidable and somewhat breathless lady was
ushered into the ostentatious office, she recoiled in
horror at the sight of the man behind the
great desk. A wrinkling of her nose suggested that
the taint of the Samarinda conjurement had not yet
faded very much. She herself had brought the same
penetrating odor of lavender.
"Do be seated, Mother," Durendal said without
rising. "His Majesty has just appointed me
to succeed Commander Hoare. I am exceedingly
concerned about the King's safety, a matter on which
I have overriding authority, of course." He
scowled at a handful of papers he had snatched
at random from a drawer. "These schedules!"
She perched stiff-backed and awkward on the
edge of a chair designed for lounging. "What
schedules, Commander?"
He assumed a threatening glower. "About an
hour ago, Mother, I took a very obvious
conjurement into His Majesty's presence. I was
not challenged until I was less than twenty
feet from our sovereign lord. That is clearly
unacceptable."
"But ..."
"Yes?"
"Nothing. Do continue."
"I intend to." He slapped the unoffending
documents. "I am going to double all the guards
on the palace. That will apply to both Blades and
White Sisters
, of course."
She gasped and clutched both hands to her
monumental hat, as if it were about to fall off.
"Double? You mean His Majesty wishes to contract
for additional assistance from our Order?"
"No, I regret that the budget will not allow
hiring more staff. Advise your charges that they will be
working double shifts from now on."
The old witch glared at him. "I do not
believe this!"
Durendal was ashamed to discover that bullying could
be a pleasurable occupation in certain
circumstances. "If I fail to have your complete
cooperation, Mother, I shall lodge a complaint with the
Privy Council--just see if I don't!"
She colored in fury. She chewed her lip
for a moment. Just when he had concluded that she was going
to call his bluff, she said, "I investigated your
previous inquiry, Commander. There was a Sister
Kate, as you said. She resigned from the White
Sisters almost five years ago, which is why she
had slipped my mind."
"Indeed?"
"Indeed."
They eyed each other appraisingly, like fencers
after a first exchange. He dropped the papers on
the floor and leaned back in the chair. "And where
is she now?"
"Our last information is that she returned to her
parents' home."
"Married?"
"I understand not."
"In that case--and only in that case--I wish
you would find her for me. I shall be posting the new
duty rosters in ... let me see--three
days?"
She stood up. "Make it four!"
After so many years, what was one more day? "Four
it is." He rose and bowed across the desk to her.
"I look forward to working with you, Mother, on all
matters pertaining to the safety of His Majesty."
"It will be interesting," she said as she swept out.
After the King had been safely seen off to bed that
night and guards posted, the Commander was treated to a
private supper in the Chancellor's opulent
suite, and that august personage rewarded him
by returning his sword breaker. Montpurse had
aged less than anyone, for his hair had always
been ash blond and he had not lost it. He even
retained his Blade trimness inside vestments as
sumptuous and bulky as the King's. Despite his
disclaimers, he did not seem to be finding the
golden chain too onerous. His worst burden, he
said, was the King's creation of the office of private
secretary and the man he had chosen to be the first
incumbent.
"Then why don't we drink to his swift but
painful demise?"
"An excellent suggestion!" The Chancellor
refilled the glasses. "Kromman is a
hagfish. He attaches himself and sucks out the
life. Tell me what he did in Samarinda."
Cautiously Durendal asked, "How much do
you know already?"
Montpurse's eyes were still the color of
skimmed milk and could still twinkle in candlelight.
"More than the King suspects. He swallowed some
tale of the philosophers' stone and threw away a
few lives on it. But one of his strengths is that
he's never afraid to try something new. That's
rare in aristocrats, you know? I hear you
lost a good Blade. Was there anything behind the
legends?"
"Quite a lot. Everman would have been after your time
..."
Even to Montpurse, he told little. Just a
few words seeping back to the younger Blades would
give the King that blood feud he did not want.
As evening drifted toward morning the Chancellor
became quite talkative, passing on valuable
information about ministers and nobles and even some
noteworthy commoners in Parliament, supplying
Durendal with an expert's eye view of
Chivian government. But then he returned to the
subject of Master Secretary Kromman.
"He is definitely after my job. I'd
give it to him gladly if I thought I could
escape with my life." That was a gentle twisting
of the truth, of course. It was obvious by now that
Montpurse reveled in being chancellor. "And when
he has stuck my head on a spike, I am
sure he will go after yours."
"I'll drink to that as an order of battle.
Er, not tonight, though. I seem to have reached my
limit."
"Oh, I'll come first, no question. He's
efficient, Master Hagfish. He can lie to you,
but you can't lie to him. The King realized his
mistake very quickly. He was going to remedy it
back into the cesspool it came out of, but now
you've changed all that."
"Me? You're saying that I saved
Kromman's job?"
The Chancellor sighed and refilled his glass.
"I fear so. Court intrigue is very like fencing in
some ways: thrust, parry, feint, riposte. Where
was I? Oh, yes. You convinced the King that
Kromman is a liar, right? And had actually
lied to him. So now the King has a noose he can
drop around Kromman's neck any time he
wants. That increases his value immensely.
I'm truly surprised Ambrose would put an
incorruptible like you in charge of the Guard. He
likes to use people he can menace."
"You are calling me incorruptible? What are
you guilty of--clandestine nose picking?"
"Many things. Letting His Majesty believe
he could fence worth a spit, for example,
the truth."
Durendal hurriedly reached for the
decanter. "Maybe I could manage one more
glass."
Montpurse laughed. "Never forget, Leader,
that the best player in the game is Ambrose
himself."
"I don't like the game. I don't want
to be part of it."
"You will. It grows on you."
By the following noon, Durendal had
interviewed every member of the Guard. Far too many
of them were of his own generation, those who remembered the
Nythia campaign. He made tactful
inquiries about romances, ambitions, outside
interests. He discovered that Ambrose had not
visited Ironhall in more than eight months and
Grand Master's reports told of a dozen ready
seniors cribbing their stalls.
When he had prepared his report, he set off
to seek an audience. He caught the King after
lunch, when he ought to be in a good mood; but the
way he bunched his eyebrows and rumbled,
"Well, what is it?" was not promising. He
made no move to take the scroll being offered
him.
"Briefly, sire, half your Blades are
rotting from old age; they contaminate the rest. I
have here a list of fifty-seven who ought to be dubbed
knight and released. You don't need so many
guards." The royal mouth opened, but before the foam
could start to fly, he continued: "And Ironhall
is bursting at
the seams. If you keep those boys
waiting any longer you will ruin their edge." That was as
close as he dared come to saying that his sovereign
should move his fat carcass to Starkmoor and stop
torturing all the anxious youngsters.
But the King took it that way. His face flamed
red and his beady yellow eyes glinted like those of a
wild boar. "Nobody talks to me like that! I will
shorten you by a head, you upstart pigsticking serf!"
Durendal knelt. "My life is Your
Majesty's, always, but I swore an oath
to serve you and will not serve you in any way except
the best I can. To withhold unwelcome truth is
no true fealty." If he was remembering a
certain night when an upstart recruit had given
his liege a brutal lesson in fencing, it was a
reasonable wager that the King was remembering it also.
The King glared.
After about two minutes, he said,
"Arrange it. And get out of here before I
throttle you!"
The Commander rose, bowed, and withdrew.
On the third day, heading up a wide
granite stairway, he saw an odiously
familiar figure in black robes mincing down
toward him. Kromman's face had returned
to its former pallor, but it was thinner, and the dangling
hair framing it was streaked with white. They halted
to appraise each other. A couple of White
Sisters came by, going down. They pulled
faces and went on without a word.
This was the moment Durendal had been dreading, the
encounter he had wanted to put off as long as
possible. It was going to take all the
self-control he possessed not to draw his sword
and revenge the treachery that had slain his friend.
Fortunately Kromman was unarmed.
When the Sisters were out of earshot, Durendal
said, "So even the vultures rejected you?"
"I fail to understand that remark, Commander." The
Secretary's voice had not lost its
unpleasant hoarseness. "I do wonder on what
terms you obtained your release from the brethren."
"Go and get a sword!"
Kromman smiled. "If you wish. We know that
you are destined to betray your king and if I must die
to stop you then I shall willingly lay down my life
for His Majesty. Do you plan to call me out?"
"He has forbidden it."
"How unfortunate! Of course your exalted
new office pays an additional fifty crowns
a year, which you will not wish to jeopardize by defying
him."
Fire and death! "Don't push me any
further, Kromman."