found his dressing gown, and tiptoed barefoot to the
door. Sneaking around in the dark when there was a
freshly bound Blade in the house was not exactly
prudent, but it was worth a try. He eased the
door open. In the darkness beyond, a girl was
whispering, "Oh yes, yes, yes ..."
Sighing, the master of the house closed the door
again.
Blades did have a use for beds.
He felt gritty-eyed and dejected when he
came down to breakfast. The winter day was as gray
as his mood, with casements rattling and
rain beating on the panes. Quarrel glowed like a
summer noon, working his way through a heaped plate
of ribs and a tankard of spruce beer. He
rose and bowed and beamed simultaneously. Kate
smiled a wary welcome.
Evaluating her husband's expression in the
light of long experience, she tactfully informed
Caplin that they would serve themselves from the sideboard.
As the steward went out, Durendal was very tempted
to call him back, just so his wife could not talk
business, which was what she obviously had in mind.
They had never quite agreed on suitable topics for
breakfast conversation. He poured himself a beaker of
cider.
"I read your book, my lord," Quarrel
announced cheerfully.
Durendal roared. "You what?"
The boy did not flinch an eyelash. "I read
your book about Samarinda."
"I expressly forbade you to do any such thing!"
"Yes, my lord. I heard you." He shrugged.
"Dearest," Kate said gently, "you look just
like the King."
"The King? I look absolutely nothing like the
King! What do you mean?"
"I mean you are glaring at Sir Quarrel
merely because he has been attending to his duties
with exemplary diligence."
With even greater diligence, Durendal took
himself off the boil. Perhaps there was some justice here;
he was being given a dose of the medicine he had
prescribed for Ambrose often enough. He
glanced at his wife's amusement, then at his
Blade's polite stubbornness. The boy must have
had a busy night. "I apologize. Of
course the book is now relevant to your
responsibilities, and you did right to read it.
What did you conclude?"
Quarrel eyed him warily for a moment. "That I
have even higher standards to live up to than I
feared. I--I wept, my lord."
That was absolutely the most effective thing the
damned kid could have said. Was he really an
incredible actor, or could he possibly be
genuine? Durendal grunted.
Kate made a noise that sounded
suspiciously like a smothered snigger. "Would you care
for some ribs, Your Maj-- my lord?"
"No thank you! And stop making jokes about me
and the King. Did you gain any valuable
insights into our problem, Sir Quarrel?"
"Just that that enchantment is the most evil thing I
ever heard of. Immortality supported by endless
murders!" He stole a quick look at Kate,
as if hoping for support; but she had risen and
gone to the sideboard to clatter the silver covers.
"You know His Majesty better than anyone, my
lord. If Kromman offered him that conjuration, would
he have accepted?"
Durendal almost yelled, "Why do you think I
couldn't sleep all night?" He said quietly,
"Not the king I have served all my life." The
silence festered for a moment--was he being dishonest?
"But when a man sees that last door opening before
him, the one that has nothing on the other side ...
when his life's work is threatened--Blood and
steel, lad! I don't know! And he may not have
had any choice. You must have read what Everman
told me, how they addicted him to the monstrous
feast with one mouthful. He was not the Everman I
knew at Ironhall--he looked just like him, but
his mind was twisted out of shape somehow. If
Kromman prepared the conjurement and then gave it
to the King ... But how would Kromman have known the
ritual? Can we reasonably suppose that he
sent another expedition back to Samarinda to steal
it? He's only the King's secretary."
"Face facts, dear." Kate thumped a
heaped plate down in front of him and resumed
her seat. "He has had a quarter of a century
to arrange it. He is very close to the
inquisitors still, and if anyone can steal a
secret, they can. Perhaps the King himself--"
"No! I will not believe that of Ambrose! And
I'm not hungry."
"You need to keep your strength up. His health
began to fail about five years ago. That's just time
for someone to make a round trip to Samarinda."
"Rubbish! If anyone had organized such an
expedition for him, I'd have heard of it." He
glared at her. If it had happened, it must be
Kromman's fault, not Ambrose's!
"Pardon me," Quarrel said. "You met
Hereward--he was my Second, ma'am. His
grandfather was an inquisitor. He told me once
how the old man used to tell him stories. He
didn't read them--he remembered them. He could
repeat any book he had ever read, word for word.
Inquisitors are given a memory-enhancement
conjurement."
When the cold, sick feeling had waned a little,
Durendal said, "I apologize."
"Nothing to apologize for, my lord."
"There is much. I should have seen that years ago.
If Kromman followed me into the monastery in his
invisibility cloak and witnessed the ritual, he
could have remembered it ..." Blood and fire!
Was that why Kromman had tried to kill both him
and Wolfbiter--so that he would be the only one with the
dread secret? Had the King known Kromman
knew the ritual, all these years? Or even
suspected? Could that be why he had put up with the
odious slug for so long?
"What are you going to do about it," Kate asked,
ever practical, "in all this rain?"
That was the question. He considered his options. Run
away, go abroad? Not now. Tell someone?
Who? Who would not just assume that he was spreading
such impossible lies about his successor in the
hope of getting his job back? If he had no
one but himself to consider, he would go and find
Kromman and kill him, as he should have done years
ago. But Chivial was not Altain. Killers were
hanged, so Kate would be a murderer's widow; and
if Quarrel guessed what he was planning, he
would try to beat his ward to it.
"If Kromman's doing what we suspect,
he has to murder someone every day. How can he
possibly get away with that? Who would help
him?"
"The Guard, of course," Quarrel said
angrily. "If a ward needs a body to save
his life, his Blade will provide a body." His
face paled, and he laid down the rib he had
&
nbsp; been waving. "Or volunteer?"
"Oh, no," Kate muttered. "No, no,
no!"
The King eating his way through his Guard?
"They couldn't possibly get away with it,"
Durendal said, trying to convince himself as much as his
listeners. "People don't vanish in Chivial without
being missed. If the King is doing that, then he can
only meet outsiders once a day, when he's
at about the right age ..." A little after sunset,
when he had received Durendal himself? No, the stink
of his leg had been genuine. It had happened
later--if it had happened at all.
If the answers were anywhere, they must be at
Falconsrest.
Quarrel knew that, too. "You're
under house arrest, my lord. Kromman has a
spy in your household."
"I expect he-- You know this?"
"The housemaid Nel, my lord." Actor or
not, he couldn't quite hide his delight at being so
efficient a bodyguard.
"And who told you it was Nel?"
"Er ... Marie, my lord. And Gwen."
"Both? Separately?"
"Oh, yes, my lord, of course! I mean
..." He was blushing at last.
Kate slammed a hand on the table. "I shall have
a word with Mistress Nel!"
"She more or less admits it, my lady,"
Quarrel muttered, even redder.
"What? Are you debauching my entire staff,
"Don't nag the man," Durendal said, "just
because he has been attending to his duties with
exemplary diligence." And incredible stamina.
Quarrel grinned sheepishly.
"Men!" Kate glared just like the King did. That
was not very fair, because her husband had warned her
exactly what would happen if they brought a
Blade into the house. She had even agreed that they
would have to take financial responsibility for
any unwanted results. "Very well! I shall
drive to Oakendown and lay the problem before the
Sisters."
Quarrel said, "But ..." and looked at his
ward.
"No need for you to go, dearest." Durendal
realized he had cleaned his plate and tried not
to show how annoying that was.
"I see it as my duty. I shall take Nel
with me for company, and I may stay there a few
days to recover from the journey. What you men get
up to while I'm gone, I shall probably be
happier not knowing; and what I don't know,
inquisitors can't get out of me."
Incredible woman!
"Sir Quarrel, would you wait outside for a
moment, please?"
His Blade frowned, then rose obediently and
headed for the door--checking the windows on the way
to make sure they were securely locked. The
heavy oak door thumped shut behind him.
Kate waited defensively for her husband
to speak. She looked tired already, although it was
only morning; her thinness was more than just
an illusion of the current fashions. He had
been working fourteen hours a day during the King's
illness, but he should have noticed. Even more galling
was the obvious fact that the servants knew what
he had missed.
"When Quarrel went to your aid last night,
my dear, he made a remark about healers. I
didn't pick up on it then, but now I know what
he almost said. He knows you cannot tolerate healing."
"Many White Sisters can't."
"But not all. How does he know you're one of
them? Obviously he has been gossiping with the
maids. Joking aside, part of his duty is
to understand my household. But why should they have told
him that about you?"
Kate's chin came up stubbornly. "Bah!
Pillow talk. I expect they were discussing
childbirth."
"I am quite certain Quarrel was not discussing
childbirth."
"You must ask him--he is a man of many
talents. Meanwhile, my dear, we both have
duties to attend to. When the present crisis
has been resolved, I trust we shall have
leisure to discuss our future together."
"Oakendown is--"
"I am quite capable of journeying to Oakendown,
Durendal. I want that future of ours to be as
long as possible, you understand? So you will please deal
with Master Kromman--finally and expeditiously!"
She rose, defiance in every inch of her. "I do not
expect you to sit here warming your hands at the fire
while I am gone."
He caught her in his arms before she reached the
door. "Won't you tell me?"
"Later. Your problem is much more urgent than
mine."
"Then take care, my dearest!"
She laid her head against his shoulder. "And you,
my love. Come back safely. I don't
want to be alone."
The answer lay at Falconsrest, so there he
must go, although he could not guess what he would do
there.
If a watch had been set on Ivywalls,
the drenching rain would be worse than a thick fog
for the watchers, and it had removed the snow
that would have held tracks. Leading the way on
foot through the orchard and the coppice, Durendal was
virtually certain that he was departing undetected.
On impulse, he asked Quarrel if he thought
he could handle Destrier and received the inevitable
answer. Annoyingly, the big black seemed
equally enthusiastic about the new arrangement--
fickle brute!--and the two of them were beautiful
left Durendal on Gadfly, who had no great
turn of speed or agility but would thump along
all day without complaint. A long, miserable ride
it would be.
As the first cold trickle penetrated his
collar, he mused that the previous day he had
been effective ruler of all Chivial, and today
he became a felon just by leaving his house. For a
lifetime he had served his King with all his heart,
but now he was contemplating murder and treason.
Kromman ... if he had Kromman within reach,
would he kill the new chancellor? Perhaps. He had
owed Wolfbiter a death for too long. Only
thoughts of the inevitable consequences to Kate and
Quarrel made him doubt his own resolve now.
He stayed clear of the main Grandon road,
lest he be recognized by some passing royal
courier--incredibly unlikely but a risk that
need not be taken. He had decided to avoid
Stairtown for the same reason, going south to Great
Elbow, which was slightly closer to Falconsrest
anyway.
The weather made conversation on the road
difficult. It was only during a most-welcome
break for a meal in a wayside inn that he told
Quarrel what he had decided.
"We need a base, even if it's only for
one night, and an old friend of mine runs a
tavern just outside Great Elbow. He calls
himself Master Byless Twain, but he's really
Sir Byless. He was my Second, so he's
another broken-down old ruin like me. Don't
smirk at your ward like that; it's disrespectful.
He may be able to help us and certainly won't
stand in our way. I warn you now--he's more than a
little odd. He's usually friendly enough with me, but he
has no love for the Royal Guard or even the
Order."
Quarrel waited for an explanation, but it did
not come.
"It's a couple of years since I
saw him. ... He has a very pretty daughter.
Let your conscience be your guide, of course, but
in my hunting days I regarded other Blades'
daughters as off limits. They're not so easily
impressed by the legend, anyway."
"I understand, my lord. If I gave offense
at your house--"
"No, I expected it. I did exactly the
same at your age. The legend's a side
effect of the binding conjuration."
Furthermore, being a Blade was a job that
deserved its compensations. Of Lord Bluefield's
four Blades, one had died resisting his arrest.
The other three had been waylaid successfully
by Montpurse, but only Byless had survived the
reversion conjuration, and even he had not brought all
his wits back with him. Quarrel would be happier
not knowing the story, for Bluefield had been only
the first of King Ambrose's chancellors to fall from
favor.
Another reason to use Byless's tavern as their
headquarters was that the King's Blades shunned it.
They disapproved of its name, The Broken
Sword.
Never having called there in winter, Durendal
was dismayed to see how bleak and depressing it was,
a thatched hovel cowering by the road under dark and
dripping trees. He was even more dismayed
to realize how many years must have passed since his
last visit, for the woman in the doorway could
only be the formerly pretty daughter. She had
lost most of her teeth while gaining a great deal
of weight and at least three children, two of whom
clung to her like burls. She was suckling the
smallest and might be going to have a fourth in the
foreseeable future. Both her face and her hair
needed washing.
She looked at Durendal without recognition.
"I can give you a meal and a bed, sir, if you
won't mind looking after your own horses. The men
have gone out. There's only me and the brats here."
He agreed they would stable their own horses. As
they went to do so, Quarrel remarked acidly that his
conscience was in complete control so far.