          SKY OF SWORDS
      A Tale of the King's Blades

                  by
            Dave Duncan


     Volume IV of Four Volumes
       Pages i-ii and 605-796


             Published by:
                EOS
        10 East 53rd Street
        New York, New York
             
   Further reproduction or distribution in
      other than a specialized format
            is prohibited.

            Produced in braille
        for the Library of Congress,
    National Library Service for the Blind
        and Physically Handicapped,
    by Braille International, Inc., 2002.












            Copyright 2000
            by Dave Duncan











          SKY OF SWORDS

                 

  It is not true that calamities come only in
threes. They often come in sixes or nines.
    ANON.

  After that, the day could get no worse, but it
certainly did not improve, at least not until
close to midnight, when Malinda was able to cuddle
into Dog's embrace and weep all over his
fuzzy chest. The wonder was probably that her
Council had not just resigned en masse and left
her to her fate. Why appoint a Council and then
make crazy decisions like that without consulting it?
  "So why did you?" Dog growled.
  The Queen sniffled in very unregal fashion.
"I was being kind! Neville had done nothing
wrong. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Dominic
tried to tell me and I shouted at him! I
didn't see that Neville had inherited his father's
claim and would be just as dangerous or even worse,
because he was born in wedlock, which will carry weight
with the snootier nobles. Even if he would have a
baton sinister on his arms, plenty of them do.
He can turn Granville into a martyour."
  "He swore allegiance?"
  "He can always claim he did it under
duress."
  "I'll kill him for you. Where is he?"
  "We don't know! I sent him to Constable
Valdor, who says he never showed up--but he
may be lying, playing on both teams. Grand
Inquisitor says the Dark Chamber has a
sniffer spell it could use to track him if we
had a suitable key--meaning something closely
identified with him, that he'd owned for a long time.
Which we don't. He's almost certainly far away
by now. ... Oh, Dog, I feel such a
fool!"
  Her father would never have made that mistake.
Ambrose would have let Neville molder in a
dungeon for years, just in case. If she ever
did get to sleep tonight she was going to have nightmares
of her own head on a spike alongside
Granville's.

  Nobody had been so disrespectful as to call
the Queen an idiot, but the Duke and Chancellor
together then took over the proceedings and
abandoned any pretense of being mere advisors.
They arranged everyone in chairs around the table and
kept the meeting going until sundown.
  The Council agreed that nothing could be done about
Neville unless and until he showed up, and
nothing should be done about the holdout garrisons at
present. The Council summoned Parliament for the
fifth day of Tenthmoon. The Council decided
it needed more members and discussed names; Malinda
humbly agreed to appoint the half dozen
selected. The Council even found some money,
or Master Kinwinkle did, when he pointed out that
a tax known as "relief" must be paid whenever a
vassal of the crown died. The Treasury and the
College of Heralds, he said, had been working
all summer, calculating the relief due for the
nobles who had died in the Wetshore Massacre,
and most of it had not yet been collected. With
ill grace, the Dowager Duchess confirmed that the
De Mayes relief was still owing; Baron
Dechaise was ordered to raise ready cash
by mortgaging these prospects.
  The Council even had the audacity to start
discussing possible royal husbands. Then
Malinda slammed her fist on the table and shouted
that when she wanted advice on that matter she would
ask for it. The Chancellor frowned at her as if
she were still only nine years old and changed the
subject, but the implication remained that the sooner
they found a man to take the stupid girl in hand the
better.

  "So what can you do?" Dog growled.
  "Just this." She kissed him. He needed no more
encouragement than that, having managed to lie still in
uneventful embrace while she recounted her
woes. The resulting frenzy drove her
worries away, for a while.
  They returned later, when she had her breath
back. "It isn't fair. A man makes
mistakes and he needs experience. A woman
makes them and she needs a husband!"
  "You've got a man already." The turmoil had
left them turned over so that Dog's head lay
on her breast.
  "And a wonderful one, the only man in the
kingdom who isn't seeking preferment." The
Council meeting had been followed by a long
audience and even longer dinner, honoring the
nobility flocking to court to pay its
respects to the new Queen. "They all want
appointments or settlements or their daughters
made maids of honor or grants of this or that.
You don't expect me to dress you up in
jewels and make you a marquis ... do you?" The
thought of the Council's reaction made her mind
boggle.
  Dog just snorted.
  "You never ask me for anything," she whispered.
"What do you want?"
  He took a while to answer. "To be your man
always. To have you as my woman." He nuzzled her
breast.
  She stroked the massive muscles of his arm.
"All the Guard knows you're my lover, so I
don't suppose it will stay a secret much
longer."
  "What the Guard knows Ironhall knows.
Heard you're going there to harvest more Blades."
  "That's a state secret. Nobody's
supposed to know that, except Audley and
Dominic and Chancellor Burningstar."
  "Probably just someone's lucky guess, then.
Makes sense. I heard Grand Master has a
dozen ripe ones for you to pick."
  "So did I," she said, annoyed. "Why can't
men keep secrets? I expect you're the
subject of political classes. You
suppose they're holding you up to the juniors as
Royal Gigolo, an example of rewards
available to the diligent student. You want that?"
  "No."
  He moved his tongue and lips to her other
breast, making it even harder to concentrate on other
matters. They were experienced lovers now, knowing every
pore of each other's bodies, every secret whim,
every unspoken thought--and also every evasion.
  "You haven't told me what else you want.
Crave a boon, Trusty and Well-Beloved
Subject. Anything."
  "Send me back to Sixthmoon of 350
to tell my pa not to kill my ma by making me."
  She shivered and stroked his hair. There was no
arguing with him on this. No such enchantment existed
or could exist, she was certain, for it would create
an impossible paradox. He wanted to cancel out
his own existence, but if he did not exist he could
not do that, so he would exist after all and could do it, and
so on, round and round forever. Conjuration could do many
things, but that was not one of them.
  "Then you will never meet me and become my
man."
  He did not answer. He could not accept that his
desires were contradictory, let alone
impossible. Crushed by guilt for deeds that were not his
fault, Dog was not always entirely rational.
  "Listen, love," she said. "As queen, I can
give you a letter to Grand Wizard ordering him to find
you the spell you want or make it up. If he
says it's impossible, will you believe him?"
  Dog stopped his foreplay. "I won't understand
his talk. Can I take Winter with me?"
  "Yes, love, you can take Winter with you."
  They lay in close and sticky silence for a
while, then she said, "Aren't you going to finish what
you were doing?"
  "You go ahead," Dog said. "I'll catch
up."

  On the twelfth day of her reign, Queen
Malinda rode off to Ironhall, escorted by the
entire Royal Guard. Her purpose was not
only to raise the strength of the Guard by adding a
dozen recruits; she had also summoned a
general assembly of the Order. She left
by moonlight and did not travel the most direct
road--precautions her father had taken during the
Monster War, and which seemed only sensible now,
when a dozen garrisons scattered around the coasts
had either declared for King Neville or refused
to declare allegiance at all.
  Circumstances had changed since her first
visit to Starkmoor. The presumptuous
princess had become queen, overturning a
revolution while losing only a single Blade.
The entire school was assembled at the main door
to cheer her arrival, and Grand Master had become
a model of cooperation. Hammered by the Old
Blades and forged in the fires of necessity, he
declared, a dozen sharp and shining youngsters were ready
to serve Her Majesty; indeed he would now
venture beyond his written reports and release
fourteen. Starting with Prime and Second, they were
summoned in groups and asked in turn if they were
willing to serve. Each declared his readiness and
knelt to kiss the royal hand. With a couple of
exceptions, they all looked absurdly young, but
of course she did not say that; she reminded them
instead that they were special, because they were the first to be
bound by a reigning queen in almost a
hundred years. She did not mention that they might
be the last Blades ever bound, if Parliament
proved as antagonistic as she expected.
  The following day she had no trouble finding food
for thought during the hours of meditation that must precede
a binding. On her first visit she had spoken with the
candidates out of boredom, this time she did so
to take her mind off her troubles. Hunter and
Crenshaw she recognized, but there were another
dozen names to memorize: Lindore with the smile,
Vere the tall one, Mathew the freckled one,
Loring the gorgeous, Terrible the fidget ...
all eager, all scared. They all had their
sword names ready: Avenger, Glitter,
Lady, Gadfly, and so on.
  Several times Sir Lothaire, the Master of
Rituals, came around in his fussy,
absentminded fashion. Uncertain how to address
his sovereign when she was sitting on the floor
leaning back against the side of a raised hearth, he
tried to bow while kneeling, which was not a success.
And once, after a fatuous query about her
preference in wine for the banquet, he said brightly,
"Sir Dog is performing satisfactorily?"
  Anything the Guard knew, Ironhall knew.
Malinda turned to him in shock. Did he not
realize she could have his head for that remark? His
eyes were hidden by the reflection of firelight on
his glasses, but the inane grin on his mouth seemed
innocent enough. Giving him the benefit of the doubt,
she decided that the school bookworm was unaware
of the gossip. The onlookers were not--fourteen young
faces around the octogram struggling very hard not
to leer. Her cheeks were probably as red as the
coals in the grates.
  "Of course. He wields a mighty
sword," she said.
  Vere and Terrible developed coughing fits,
confirming her suspicions.
  Lothaire was still not flying with the flock. "Ah.
I am pleased to hear that. It is wonderful how the
binding solves problems, sometimes." There must have
been some other purpose behind his question. Here it came
--"I was just talking with Sir Jongleur ...
old classmates ... both here and later at the
College. He mentioned that Sir Dog came
to see him, posing a problem in conjuration.
Apparently--"
  "Sir Jongleur is here?" She had given
Dog the letter to Grand Wizard, but he had
not taken Winter with him when he went to the
College--probably because he still could not bring
himself to reveal his secret past to a friend. Grand
Wizard had referred the question to another conjurer.
Dog had refused to say much about their discussion,
meaning he had not understood a word of it.
  "He's come for the assembly. Lots of
knights--"
  "Go and fetch him," the Queen said. "Now!"
  As Lothaire scrambled to his feet and
scurried away, she glanced around the circle.
Twenty-eight eyes avoided hers. She was almost
as angry at herself for being embarrassed as she was
with the conjurers for discussing Dog's private
problems. She rose in silence and headed for the
stair.
  The door led out to a grassy space between the
gym and the perimeter wall at the northeast corner
of the complex, not overlooked by anyone. She was standing
there, studying cloud shadows on the sunlit tors,
when Lothaire came hurrying back with another
sword-bearing knight. He was in his forties, with a
belly and jowls, which were unusual on any member
of the Order. His beard was streaked with gray and
hung halfway down his chest, but he bowed
nimbly enough. Lothaire fidgeted, uncertain
whether to go or stay.
  Malinda ignored him, concentrating on the
conjurer. "Last week we sent Sir Dog
to see Grand Wizard. He told us later that he
had been sent to you."
  Jongleur chuckled lightly. "Blades in the
raw unnerve the old gaffer, so he always refers
them to me. Sir Dog is a deeply troubled young
man, as I am sure Her Majesty is
aware."
  Her Majesty was mainly aware of hunger and
worries and shortness of temper. "Then why do you
breach professional ethics by discussing his case with
an outsider?"
  His eyes narrowed. "I am sure Sir
Lothaire will be discreet."
  "Why should he be, when you are not?
Furthermore, the letter Dog brought bore our
seal. That made it crown business. You have
violated your oath of allegiance."
  He fell on his knees and bowed his head. He
said nothing, which was his wisest option. Malinda
looked at Master of Rituals, who promptly
dropped beside his friend. She let them shiver
for a moment before she spoke.
  "Taking the inquiry on that basis, what
answer did you give our messenger?"
  "What he wanted would not have worked, Your
Grace," Jongleur told her shoes. "It would
violate the laws of conjury." He was almost as
pompous as the Duke of Brinton.
  "What laws of conjury?"
  "Well, to start with, Damiano's Axiom and the
Prohibitions of Veriano, my lady."
  "I am aware of Damiano's Axiom:
"Action prescribed without available resolution
will dissipate the assemblage." Alberino
Veriano's Prohibitions are merely a list of
things that he considered conjuration could not achieve, many
of which have been accomplished since his day. Be more
specific." Malinda had put her mother's
library to use during the summer, seeking either a
solution to Dog's problem or proof that it had
none. She had found neither.
  The men looked up in surprise. Sunlight
flashed on Master of Ritual's spectacles;
Jongleur tugged nervously at his beard.
  "Your Majesty shames me. ... The
principle of superposition."
  "Continue."
  He gulped, worried now. "To assemble
elementals and command them to perform an
impossibility is extremely dangerous,
leading to uncontrolled release of spiritual power.
It is impossible for one thing to be in two
places at once, which rules out traveling in time
--even conjury will not let you go back and strangle
yourself. Nor can you exist when you do not exist, that being
another forbidden outcome. Sir Dog's desire
to visit his childhood cannot be satisfied by any
means known to modern spiritualism."
  "And did you explain that to him in words he could
understand, or did you amuse yourself by confusing him with
technical jargon and overblown vocabulary?"
  Jongleur hung his head. "I did not understand
that he was acting on Your Majesty's behalf."
  "Well you do now. You will go and find him at
once and explain the problem in detail, until
he is completely satisfied. Do you understand?
Furthermore, since my request was directed
to Grand Wizard, I shall expect a written
reply from him to be delivered to my secretary,
Master Kinwinkle, before I return
to Grandon. Otherwise you may see the
inside of the Bastion." She turned her glare on
Lothaire. "And you, Master, will remember that
Sir Dog's past is none of your business.
Nor his future, either."
  She stalked back into the Forge, leaving them on
their knees. The whispering there stopped abruptly
when she entered.

  Now she had something else to worry about. She
should not have lost her temper! Dog was her weak
point. Enemies could strike at her through him.
She did not have time to work up a good fret over this,
though, before Audley came trotting down the steps
and presented her with a dispatch just in from Chancellor
Burningstar.
  The ports of Horselea and Tharburgh had
declared for Fitzambrose. Neville himself had
been reported in Pompifarth, claiming royal
honors and issuing a summons for Parliament
to meet there, instead of in Grandon.
  Members of Your Grace's Council, the
letter concluded, respectfully recommend that
Your Grace consider declaring Pompifarth to be in
a state of insurrection and in breach of the Queen's
Peace; and that Your Grace may wish to charge the
Black Riders with freeing its loyal
inhabitants from the traitors who have deflected
them from their true allegiance and to bring all
contumacious subjects under the royal mercy; but
the Council will of course loyally wait upon Your
Grace's instructions. The Council, in
short, was not going to start a civil war without the
Queen's command but was protecting itself in case things
got worse before she returned.
  The Queen was in no mood to start a war,
civil or uncivil, but as she rammed swords
through fourteen young hearts that night, she found herself
wishing that one of them belonged to Neville
Fitzambrose. That one, she would cheerfully chop
in slices.

  She still had to preside over the general
assembly before she could leave Ironhall and
race back to the capital. Knights and some
private Blades had been flocking in ever
since she arrived; and on the morning after the binding
the Loyal and Ancient Order of the Queen's
Blades assembled for the first time since 361, when
Sir Saxon had been elected Grand Master.
Master of Archives, that professional
pedant, muttered that there was no record of a
general meeting of the Queen's Blades, not ever.
Now there was, for the Head of the Order, seated below
the broken sword of Durendal, was Queen
Malinda the First, bejeweled and wearing a crown.
  More than six hundred men had gathered in the
hall. The entire Royal Guard was present,
still in the old blue liveries, alas, because the
Queen could not afford to outfit them with new.
Snake and his Old Blades were there in force, as
were knights so ancient that they could remember
Ambrose II and would insist on doing so if
given the slightest encouragement. Every private
Blade in the land had begged and bullied his ward
to attend, and many had consented. These non-Blades
were shunted off to a safe, quiet corner to dispose
of a butt of fine wine from the royal cellar, but
no other strangers were present.
  The ceremony was brief and matter-of-fact,
yet many an eye blinked tears. Grand Master
read out a blood-chilling list of additions to the
Litany, including a "Sir Wolfbiter,
slain in a far country" and ending with Sir Abel.
But the main business of the meeting concerned the three
Blades who had been crippled at Wetshore:
Sir Bellamy had lost a leg, Sir
Glanvil the use of an arm, and Sir Dorret
had been both blinded and horribly mutilated
by a kick from a horse. For half a year they had
lived in torment, driven by their bindings to defend
their ward and balked by physical inability.
  The conjuration to release them could hardly have been
simpler, yet only the sovereign could perform it,
and Amby had not been capable. Each in turn
knelt before the Queen with bared shoulders, and she
dubbed him knight, touching his flesh with the sword that
had bound him. Right after that, as Snake cheerfully
remarked, they could go off and get roaring drunk for the
first time in their lives.
  Commander Audley floated in bliss, ever at
the Queen's side, being Leader before the entire
Order, the youngest ever recorded. No other man
had ever gone from Prime to Leader in just half a
year, either. Much drollery was being lobbed around just
behind his ears, on the lines of
"do-you-suppose-his-fencing-will-improve-when-his
comballs-drop," but he could pretend not to hear that.
He was not allowed to hear the praise, of which there was
considerably more; the Guard had developed an
affectionate respect for its mascot
commander. He had made no mistakes, and that was a
talent swordsmen valued highly.
  Malinda, for her part, could breathe more easily.
As long as she had the power to release Blades,
she was sovereign. They recognized her, their
bindings recognized her, and no one could deny her.
  That situation might change very rapidly, though,
and her intention was to leave as soon as possible.
If she went by midday she could reach Bondhill
by sunset and be home before noon tomorrow. She would
find more trouble waiting there, she had no doubt. So
she fretted through the ceremonial meal--which was
barely appetizing, because Ironhall was neither
staffed nor equipped to create banquets--and through
some very windy speeches after it. She cut her own
remarks to a barely decent brevity and departed,
knowing the knights would now indulge in a memorable
orgy of drinking at her expense. Companions were
kept sober by their bindings.
  Even in Ironhall she went nowhere without an
escort, and she was dogged upstairs by fourteen young
men who could hardly endure to let her out of their
sight. She went straight to the royal chamber, a
solitary oasis of luxury in Ironhall's
stony austerity, furnished with her father's taste for
overstuffed, overcrowded mishmash. There she found
Dian laying out her riding clothes, but she also
found Winter.
  "What are you two getting up to?" she said
cheerfully, then saw that he had more on his mind than
Dian. She dropped the smile. "Spit it out!
And I don't mean your thumbnail."
  "Your Grace ... I've been talking
to knights." Winter was rarely so hesitant.
Either he had not finished solving his problem or he
could not convince himself of the answer he had found.
"There are knights from all over Chivial here."
  "And?"
  "There's something strange going on just west of
here." He pulled his hat off and scratched his
hair. "At Lomouth, Waterby, Ashter ...
all around Westerth, southern Nythia ...
Mayshire."
  She waited, knowing that interruptions would only
slow him down. Hunter and Vere were quietly
inspecting the room for hidden assassins, while the
rest of the fourteen had packed up in the doorway
and corridor behind her, reluctant to push past
their sovereign.
  "Lots of knights," Winter
mumbled. "Sir Florian from Waterby mentioned
it first, then Sir Warren, who's running a
private fencing school near Buran. ...
They're good men, my lady! So then I started
asking, and hunting out others to ask, and I got
eight or nine certains and a couple of
probablies. ..."
  "Tell her!" Dian snapped.
  "Please do," Malinda said.
  "Hiring swordsmen, Your Grace! And
men-at-arms. And even farmhands. Strong arms and
weak heads, if you know the expression. Several
hundred, at least. I think someone's building a
private army out in the west, here, Your
Grace." He stared nervously at Malinda, like
a child expecting a scolding.
  She was training herself to take time to think. So she
took time to think. Her first conclusions remained
unchanged. In troubled times, men of property
naturally wanted protectors, no matter what
the law said about private armies. Half a
dozen bullyboys to guard a mill or dockyard
were of no account. A thousand or two with weapons and
veterans to train them would be something else
entirely. But who could find the money to do that? She
couldn't!
  "Is it only hereabouts? Have you asked?"
  Winter nodded vigorously. "There's some of it
going on all over, yes. Fitzambrose is
openly hiring in the north. Farmers everywhere are
screaming about a shortage of hands to bring in the
harvest. But, it does seem a lot just west of
here, Your Grace."
  What else was bothering him? "Any idea
who's behind it?"
  "Mayshire seems to be the center, Your
Grace." Winter drew a deep breath.
"Several people mentioned your cousin, Prince
Courtney." He waited anxiously to see how
Her Majesty liked hearing her heir being accused
of treason.

                 

  Until death do us part.
      CHIVIAN MARRIAGE CONTRACT

  The members of the Council rose when their
sovereign entered--three women and sixteen men
around a paper-littered table. She and her
Guard had spent the night at Bondhill and
been on the road again before dawn, pounding along in
a blustery wind that threw rain and sleet
by turns. At Abshurst she had told Audley
to send his best two horsemen on ahead to warn
Chancellor Burningstar to call the Council
into immediate session. She stalked in with Audley and
Winter, all three of them soaked, windswept,
and muddy.
  "Please be seated, Excellency, my lords and
ladies." Malinda squelched down on her
chair at the head, facing down the length of the table
to Chancellor Burningstar.
  Everyone had noted Her Majesty's evident
displeasure and was trying to appear noncommittal,
with varying degrees of success. The new Mother
Superior, especially, tended to simper or chew
her lip as conditions warranted. She was a pale
little spider of a woman; it seemed she and her
predecessor belonged to different factions of the
Sisters, because they obviously detested each other.
Today lip biting was in vogue. The Dowager
Duchess of De Mayes was doing it too. None
of them could come close to Grand Inquisitor's
graven inscrutability. Master Kinwinkle
remained standing at his writing desk.
  Malinda chose to give the suspect a chance
to redeem himself. "What bad news do you have this
fine day, before I tell you mine?"
  The Chancellor peered over the eyeglasses she
had recently adopted. "The members of your
Privy Council are, as always, deeply
honored to have you join their deliberations, Your
Majesty. We were considering a map Master
Kinwinkle has prepared, showing the insurgent
garrisons."
  A paper was hastily passed along and spread
out before the Queen. She frowned at the red names
disfiguring the outlines of her realm like festering
pox. The north was especially bad, for
Neville's supporters were concentrated near the
Wylderland border, but there were pustules less
than a day's ride from Grandon itself. The absence
of trouble spots in the southwest now seemed
ominous.
  "None of this is especially new. Can we
continue to deny that we have a revolution on our
hands?"
  "Local unrest," grumbled the Duke of
Brinton. "Horse of a different
color. These towns are being held against the
Queen's Majesty by armed bands of malcontents.
The inhabitants in general are, we can be
certain, loyal subjects of the crown."
  "Is that true, Grand Inquisitor?"
Malinda asked.
  Lambskin spread his hands. "We have conflicting
information, Your Grace. In some case yes, in
others no."
  "So you see no imminent armed rebellion
springing up?"
  "Certainly not imminently, no."
  He had been given his chance. He had failed.
  "Setting Fitzambrose aside for a moment,
I believe the Council should hear certain information
we obtained at Ironhall. Sir Winter?"
  Winter stepped forward and began to recite. He
was more confident now, having had time to prepare, and
he spouted a damning stream of names and places.
The last name, of course, was that of Prince
Courtney.
  "Have the honorable members any questions to put to the
guardsman?" Malinda inquired sweetly.
Most of the honorable members were staring hard at
Grand Inquisitor. It isn't just me, she
thought. They all suspect him. They don't
think it's just age and incompetence.
  The old man glanced calmly around the table,
waiting for others to speak first.
  Burningstar, who detested him, said, "Grand
Inquisitor?" Her cheeks bore little red
rosebuds of anger.
  "It is an impressive indictment," he
said. "All hearsay, of course, but still disturbing.
If I may presume, without prejudice to your
royal cousin's loyalty, Your Grace, would it
not be advisable, in these uncertain times, to summon
His Highness to court to explain what, if anything,
may lie behind these rumors?"
  "What can, other than treason?"
  Lambskin cracked his knuckles.
"Defense. Baelish ships have been seen
skulking in the Westuary several times in the last
few months. The locals fear a major
Baelish raid, which is something we have all dreaded
since the collapse of the treaty last spring. Before
Your Grace was born, King Aeled scored the
greatest triumph of his bloody career by seizing,
looting, and razing Lomouth. While still not what it
was, the city is now prosperous enough
to repay another rape. Since his son has never
touched it, Lomouth would not be an unlikely
target for him to choose now." He scanned the
company again, as if assessing reaction. "Your
boy may merely have stumbled on traces of many
landowners looking to their own protection. To assume
that His Highness the Duke of Mayshire is behind
all the recruiting is to jump to unwarranted
conclusions."
  Butter should be so smooth. Malinda kept
tight hold of her temper. "We fully intend
to summon him before this Council. Would you care
to explain why we learned of the situation at a
drinking party, instead of from our Office of General
Inquiry?"
  He shook his mummy head sadly.
"Overtaxed resources, mainly, Majesty. The
inquisitors have been concentrating on
Fitzambrose. I did withdraw five agents
from the north last week and dispatch them to the west
country to investigate why our permanent
personnel in the Prince's household had
fallen behind in their reports."
  "What in flaming britches do you mean by,
"permanent personnel," eh?" the Duke
demanded, suddenly scowling. "You dare to plant
spies on a prince of the realm, the Heir
Presumptive?"
  Grand Master's glassy stare avoided him,
wandering around the rest of the company instead. "Her
Majesty's Office of General Inquiry
keeps watch on anyone who might present a
threat to the Queen's Grace."
  Brinton spluttered. "You implying the Dark
Chamber spies on me too?"
  "Such matters should be discussed in private,
Your Grace."
  "I take the matter extremely seriously,"
Malinda said. "I am more concerned about Courtney
than I am about Fitzambrose." To back
Neville would be open rebellion--and there had
been few signs of general support for him as
yet--but many people who would draw back from that grim
plunge into rebellion might see little wrong in
forcing a juvenile queen into marrying a mature
prince who was her heir and next of kin anyway.
Even, perhaps, some of this very Council. Like grim
old Horatio Gallows, there. Never
treason! Oh no, just rationalizing the lines of
command. ... How many of the other
councillors were in his power?
  "Is it agreed that we summon Prince
Courtney?" she said harshly and watched the heads
nod. "Then, if there is no new business, we
can adjourn. Perhaps you would bring me the warrant
to sign in an hour or so, Chancellor?"
  It was the twentieth day of her reign. Already
she had defeated one rebellion, and now she
faced two more.

  The Queen's Chamber was the largest and finest
room in the Royal Suite at Greymere,
large, and commanding a fine view above huddled city
rooftops to the hills of Great Common. It was
renowned for its framed Duville tapestries,
whose improbable shepherd youths and maidens
frolicked in an idyllic landscape and a much
warmer climate than Chivial's. Queen
Haralda had often threatened to hang smocks on
some of them.
  As a child Malinda had wondered why her father
did not claim the best room as his own, but she had
guessed the reason after the Night of Dogs; and
when she returned to Greymere as queen she made
the Guard show her the secret door and the
spyholes concealed by the famous tapestries. They
posed no real problem, though, because they led through to a
bedchamber in the attendants' wing, and the door to that
was fitted with a lock and a strong bolt. That was how
Dog came calling after curfew.
  She had bathed, dressed in a comfortable gown, and
was nibbling a snack of fruit and cheese when
Chancellor Burningstar was shown in. As soon as
her guest was seated and had accepted a glass of
cordial, she went straight to what they both
knew was the main reason for the meeting.
  "Is Lambskin playing me false?"
  Burningstar sighed. "I honestly do not know,
Your Grace. I personally despise the man,
but I feel that way about all inquisitors.
To most White Sisters, a Blade smells like
hot iron and an inquisitor of rot and decay.
He reeks stronger than any. If your cousin
is gathering and training an army, as you obviously
fear, then you certainly have cause to dismiss your
chief of security for not warning you of the danger."
  "The next question is: Can I do it?"
  "Indeed it is! Who defends the hunter from his
dogs? Your father always appointed elderly persons
to head the Dark Chamber, on the theory that
none of them could ever be trusted for long, and it was much
safer to let them die off than to try and remove
them."
  Lambskin had not been many years in his post.
Malinda could remember his predecessor, a
huge and sinister woman, dramatically dropping
dead at a concert.
  "Forgive my asking, but you are worth a
hundred Lambskins to me. If he has any
hold over you, I will sign a pardon for it, no
matter what it involves."
  Burningstar smiled, obviously pleased by the
compliment. "I have nothing on my conscience except
maybe some sarcastic comments when Your Grace was
much younger. I fear that others on your council are
more vulnerable. Your honored uncle, for
example."
  "Brinton?" Malinda said incredulously.
"How can anyone blackmail a duke? Dukes
can get away with anything." Perhaps not murder or
treason, but she could not conceive of the bovine Brinton
murdering anyone. Boring them to death, maybe.
  "Well ..." said the first minister of her
government, "it is old gossip, and I swear
I have never repeated it to anyone before ..."
  Malinda grinned and leaned closer. "But when it
is a matter of fealty to the crown ...?"
  "Exactly. Do you know why he's never fathered
any children?"
  "Um, no. Do tell."
  "When he was about ten," the old lady said in a
conspiratorial whisper, "he watched a
mountebank juggling axes. He was so impressed
that he went off behind the barn and tried it himself."
  The Queen guffawed, much to her shame. "I can
see why he would not want the tale told, but I
don't think he would let it trap him into open
treason."
  "It might sway his judgment if there were
doubts. Add a few more cases like it, and your
Council may have trouble supporting you against Grand
Inquisitor."
  "I don't need its support in a case of
treason," Malinda said grimly. "And this time
I would not make the mistake of emptying my
dungeons too quickly. But we have no proof
yet. Let us see how Courtney responds
to the warrant, and then decide."
  She read over the summons to her cousin, which the
Chancellor had brought, then moved some
plates to make a space for signing it. When she
looked up, she caught Burningstar staring at the
tapestries.
  "My great-grandmother's choice. I like the lad
with the drinking horn. Impressive, isn't he?"
  "Oh, I beg pardon, Your--"
  "Don't apologize. Everyone reacts that
way at first. For sheer beef, perhaps the one with the
plow, and I don't mean the ox in front." For
sheer beef, Dog put them all to shame. "I
doubt if Prince Courtney will look much like that
with his clothes off, but I know of course the
Council wants me married, so--"
  "Not at all, Your Majesty! Far from it! You
don't think we're enjoying ourselves? No, most of
your Council ... if you will pardon my
presumption, Your Grace ... we really think
you are doing very well, andwitha little more experience ...
and when we ourselves have more ... I doubt if any of
us wants to see Prince Courtney wearing the
crown matrimonial. Most detest him."
  "Thank you for this assurance. I am less
worried by Fitzambrose's threats of armed
rebellion than I am by an insidious
campaign to pressure me into marrying my
cousin."
  "Ah," the Chancellor said sadly. "That
wasn't quite what I said. If Lambskin has
sold out to him ... The Prince has been around
court all his life and may be as well equipped
to apply blackmail as Grand Inquisitor is.
Together they would be formidable indeed."
  "I wonder why everyone claims to despise
Courtney and yet he always rises to the top?"
  "Scum always does," said the Lady
Chancellor. "Begging Your Grace's pardon."
  "Pardon granted. What about that?" Malinda
pointed out at the view of Great Common, still
disfigured by rows of tents, a deliberate threat
to the city. "I don't want the Black Riders
there when Parliament meets."
  "Your Council recommends sending them
to Pompifarth."
  "So you said in your letter. But to turn mercenaries
loose on my own people! That is abhorrent! And
unpd mercenaries, at that. I wish I could pay
them off and ship them overseas." She had been
glad of their help three weeks ago, but drawing
a sword was always easier than sheathing it again.
  "We do not propose storming the town,
Majesty!" the Chancellor said, looking shocked.
"We merely want to invest it, to block
Neville's call for an anti-Parliament
to meet there. We expect very few lords or
elected commons to attend, probably none, but
he may claim that they have. If he puts on a
puppet show, people may be hoodwinked."
  "Starve him out, you mean?"
  "Not even that. Pompifarth is a major
port, which we cannot hope to blockade without
attracting the attention of the Baels, who would
love to feast on your troubles. We propose
throwing a cordon of Black Riders around the
walls and declaring a siege. The inhabitants will
not starve. I doubt very much that Neville himself is
even there."
  Malinda scowled at the window. The rain had
started again, blocking out the view of Great Common.
"Let us discuss it at a full meeting of the
Council tomorrow," she said reluctantly. She could
not hold back forever; she must do something about
Neville.

  Continuing rain ruined the roads and threatened the
harvest. With Parliament due to convene in another
four days, members were still struggling toward the
capital, and messengers returning from Mayshire
were long in coming. Prince Courtney's reply to the
warrant was a curt note pleading indisposition.
  By the time the Council assembled to discuss this
defiance, Malinda was so furious that she could not
bring herself to take her seat. The weather was murky
outside and the mood inside even grimmer. Only
the lashing of rain against the windows disturbed the
silence as she paced back and forth on the rug; her
ministers stood around the table and watched her. All
except one.
  "Where is Grand Inquisitor? By the eight,
if he does not appear in five minutes, I will
send the Royal Guard to fetch him! What news
from Pompifarth, Chancellor?"
  "No change, Your Grace. The town is
sealed off from the land, but boats continue to enter and
leave the harbor. There has been no fighting."
  "And no news from Mayshire?"
  "Nothing official ... rely on Grand
Inquisitor ... more rumors, of course."
  Rumors, indeed! Lord Candlefen,
Malinda's squirrel-brained cousin, had
arrived from Westerth that very morning with a
whole cartload of rumors. He had been more
interested in describing the hardships of his
journey, but when pressed he had passed on
stories of Prince Courtney raising an army
with the help of Isilondian military
advisors.
  "Where is he getting the money?" she demanded,
still pacing. "Constable, how much has he spent
already?"
  "Depends how many men he has hired, Your
Grace," Valdor rumbled. Before she could call
him an idiot, he added, "Warm bodies come
cheap, but assume at least one crown per man so
far, including board and shelter. The problem will be
weapons. Even a pike needs first-quality
steel. Ash poles are cheap enough by the dozen, but just
try to collect a thousand! Shields and arrows and
helmets--all very specialized artifacts.
Strong boots, warm bedding. Horses and oxen and
carts. But weapons first. A good sword, even,
can cost more than a matched team of horses; the
Lord Protector stripped the country to arm his
garrisons."
  "So Neville Fitzambrose has them all
now? Very comforting!" Still no sign of Horatio
Lambskin ... Had he fled to join his master,
Courtney? "Commander Audley, since Grand
Inquisitor has refused our summons to this--"
  There was a knock on the door.
  Audley, whose brows had risen very high at the
thought of arresting the head of the Dark Chamber, said
quickly, "By your leave, Your Grace ..." and
opened the door a crack. And then wider,
to admit the gaunt, gibbet form of the missing
inquisitor, who entered clutching a bulky mass
of papers under his arm.
  He bowed to the Queen. She sat down and
gestured for everyone else to do the same, leaving
Lambskin still on his feet, heading for his usual
seat.
  "We are not accustomed to being kept waiting."
  He looked at her reproachfully, making her
wonder if he had deliberately staged this
entrance.
  "I humbly crave Your Grace's pardon.
I tarried to finish gathering some savory tidings,
and I trust that they will compensate for my tardiness."
  "My cousin is not raising an illegal
army?"
  Shaking his head sadly, Grand
Inquisitor laid the papers on the table.
"Indeed he is, Your Grace. About a thousand
men, as near as my office can calculate.
Abandoning subterfuge, he has now concentrated
them in a camp just outside Lomouth."
  "So we face two armed insurrections!"
Malinda looked around at the shocked faces of
her Privy Councillors and wondered which rats
would start launching lifeboats first. "I thought you
said you brought good news?"
  She had never seen Grand Inquisitor
actually smile before. She hoped she never would
again.
  "It seems very good news to me, Your Grace.
Two nights ago, the Baels landed in force near
Lomouth and attempted to seize the city. As I
said, the Prince had just established his camp there.
He organized resistance and sent out a sortie
that engaged the Baels in battle and routed them.
They withdrew to their fleet and attempted to depart,
but another contingent of the Prince's forces had so
damaged the longships on the beach that a great many of
them sank when they were launched. Hundreds or
thousands of the invaders were drowned. At latest word
the survivors were being hunted down in--"
  The room exploded. Even the Chancellor was
on her feet shouting, waving her arms overhead,
looking ready to start dancing. Never in the long and
blood-soaked struggle had the Chivians ever
managed to bring any significant Baelish
force to battle. There was no precedent for even a
real fight, let alone a victory. That
Courtney should be able to claim credit! Among
all the tumult of joy, Malinda sat in
silence, wondering why the spirits of chance were being so
kind to her cousin and so unfair to her.
  No, this could never be coincidence! She had
feared all along that Courtney was being backed
by Baelish gold, because Radgar Aeleding had more
money than anyone. Must she believe that the
invincible Bael had blundered so badly?
  When the pandemonium faded enough for her to be
heard, she said, "Are you quite certain this battle was
genuine, Grand Inquisitor? Is there a
reliable body count? Can we really believe such
an improbable story?"
  The room fell silent, and the councillors
sheepishly resumed their seats. This time Grand
Inquisitor sat down, too.
  "I believe it, my lady. There are
some questions still unanswered, yes. The messenger
arrived just after dawn, exhausted, having ridden
all night. He was still being interrogated when I
came away to attend this meeting. I left
instructions that I was to be informed at once if
deeper probing revealed any inconsistencies in
his story."
  Malinda shuddered. "What does "deeper
probing" mean? You put your own agents to the
Question?"
  "Oh no, nothing so severe, just a mild
conjuration to search out details or omissions. The
subjects rarely show much permanent impairment.
The man is merely a part-time agent, you see.
A trained inquisitor can be emptied like a
bottle."
  "It is not like the Baels to leave their ships
vulnerable," Constable Valdor rumbled.
  Grand Inquisitor favored him with a
snakelike stare. "I hear of hundreds of dead
and a large number of prisoners. Including one
whom Her Majesty may wish to identify
personally." He paused to let the implications
penetrate, eyes to widen. "Radgar Aeleding."
  Amid the renewed tumult his words had
caused, ancient Horatio Lambskin sat in
brooding stillness like a reef in surf, but his
gaze was restless, assessing everyone's reaction.
Malinda was doing the same. The Chancellor had
smiled at first, but now she was frowning. Master
Kinwinkle was another who had seen that this seeming
triumph held dangerous implications.
  "Military protocol is not my
speciality," Burningstar said when order
returned. "Am I correct in thinking that a
royal prisoner automatically belongs to the
monarch?"
  Several men spoke up in agreement, including
Valdor and even Kinwinkle, the former herald.
  "Whistle for him right away!" the Duke
boomed. "Have him brought to Grandon posthaste.
Bird in the hand, what? A king ought to be worth a
king's ransom."
  "Not in this case," said Grand Inquisitor.
"Granted he is rich beyond measure, he has
no close family to ransom him, while he
certainly has many rivals who would seek
to block such a move. And his person is of no
value, since kings of Baelmark are elected
by the moot. The moment his capture
becomes known, the earls will assemble to elect
another. After that he will be just another pirate."
  "He may be willing to ransom himself,"
Chancellor Burningstar said. "I agree with the
Duke's suggestion that a troop of lancers be
dispatched to Lomouth to remove the royal prisoner
here. We should not give him time to buy his way out of
jail."
  "Not unless he pays the rent to Her
Majesty!" Brinton said, much taken with his own
wit.
  Malinda sprang to her feet in fury. "I
remind you, Cousin, that Radgar Aeleding murdered
my father and broke a formal treaty to do it. All
he will buy from me is a stroke of the headsman's
ax and for that I will not charge him one copper mite.
Constable? Go and get him!"

       THE TRIAL, DAY THREE

  "You killed him," the chairman rasped. "The
moment you heard that the King of Baelmark had been
taken prisoner, you dispatched a troop of lancers
posthaste to Lomouth with a royal warrant to seize
him and bring him back to Grandon. Is that not
correct?"
  "Yes," Malinda said wearily. It had been
a hard day, the third of three hard days. Dusk
was settling on Grandon and its Bastion. Workers
must now be heading home to their families, wives
preparing the evening meal, footsore horses
munching oats in warm stalls. On the river
ships rode at anchor. In the Hall of
Banners flunkies were setting out candelabra so
the commissioners could see the witness and clerks
record proceedings.
  The farce was almost over. She had almost ceased
to care. Her first brave illusion of something
approaching a fair trial had been as
ephemeral as a rainbow. With distortions, half
truths, browbeating, and his own lies, Horatio
Lambskin had served her up to his master like a
trussed calf. He had also intimidated the
commissioners until they had abandoned any
pretense of having authority. They asked no
questions now. She was obviously guilty and they would
vote as instructed.
  "So, without even an attempt at a trial,
you struck off his head and stuck it on a spike.
You put your husband's head alongside
your brother's?"
  Some faint remnant of the famous royal
temper stirred--"If Radgar was my husband,
then my claim to the throne was invalid, so why did
you pledge allegiance to me right here in this hall,
Master Lambskin?"
  "The inquiry will take note that the witness
refused to answer."
  "The answer is simple--I followed the
advice of my Privy Council, to which you
belonged. It was you who instructed us, Chancellor.
If we wanted to execute the King of
Baelmark, you said, we must do so quickly, before he
could be demoted."
  "But did I not argue that so important a
prisoner should first be put to the Question, or at least
thoroughly interrogated?"
  "I do not recall." She half expected the
inquisitor jailers standing alongside her to call
her a liar, but she spoke the truth and they
remained silent. "He had been thoroughly
interrogated, in Lomouth, before my men even reached
him. Interrogated most horribly! I did not
see him myself, but I was told that, as Lord of the
Fire Lands, he bore some sort of conjuration that
made him immune to fire. Flame would hurt
him but not burn him. He had already been tortured
out of his wits.
  "Besides, I saw what the Question did to Lord
Roland and I vowed I would never treat any man
so, no matter how evil he was. Am I
charged with being too soft-hearted? The Council
agreed to Radgar Aeleding's execution and you were
present at the meeting." She could not remember which
way he had voted in the end, though. She
certainly remembered the Radgar she had met
briefly on the longship at Wetshore, and her
conviction then that he was not the monster of his
reputation. She remembered her revulsion at the
thought of turning such a man into a gibbering rabbit.
  The chairman peered along the table, first left,
then right. "The honored commissioners may well
wonder whether the Bael's hasty execution was
designed to suppress his version of what exactly
passed between the two of them before her father was
assassinated. A transcript of the testimony
he gave in Lomouth will be placed before the
commissioners in due course."
  "Testimony given under torture?" Malinda
shouted. "Or did you write it yourself this
morning?"
  "The witness will speak only when addressed. But
let us by all means discuss Lord Roland, since
you mention him." The chairman bared yellow stumps
of teeth. "The traitor Roland. Now that one was
put to the Question, whereupon he confessed to treason against
the Council of Regency, the supreme authority
in the land. Before he could make a full and
detailed statement, your agents took over the
Bastion and you ordered the prisoner released from his
cell."
  "I did. I still have nightmares about what you had
made of him. How do you manage to sleep at
all, Chancellor?"
  "You ordered the prisoner moved to--"
  "He was not a prisoner then."
  "Be that as it may, that night he was murdered.
Who killed him?"
  "I do not know." The Blades, of course, but
she did not know which.
  "Who do you think killed him?"
  "My suspicions are not evidence."
  "The inquiry takes note that the witness
refuses to answer. Was he not murdered so he would
not testify to your part in his foul treason?"
  "I do not know why he was killed."
  "The witness is lying!" barked one of the guards
alongside, her chair.
  "All right, he was murdered out of pity!
Murdered by one of his best friends--and I do not know
which--because your horrible conjurations had turned him
into--"
  "Silence! The witness will speak only to answer
a question." The chairman sighed. "Radgar, Roland
--I am sure the honorable commissioners have noted
that witnesses to your crimes had very brief lives.
Now let us consider Pompifarth. You sent the
mercenary troops known as the Black--"
  "You were at that meeting! You know how I fought to have
the terms of engagement restricted! You know--"
  "If you persist in interrupting the court," the
chairman said hoarsely, "then I will have the guards
gag you and allow you to testify only by gestures.
Your seal was on the warrant by which those mercenary
brutes sacked Pompifarth. Those violent men
were ragged and hungry, yet you sent them to storm a
city you claimed to rule. The killing, rapine, and
looting were done in your name and by your authority."
  "Is that a statement or a question? In either case
it is a lie. Souris was strictly
forbidden to enter any part of the city other than the
fortress that abuts it on the north. The
massacre was ordered by--"
  The chairman nodded and a hard, rough-skinned hand
clapped over Malinda's mouth, banging her head
back against the wood of the chair. Other hands
grabbed her arms, immobilizing her.
  "This is your last warning. The next time you
speak unbidden, you will be gagged and bound." The
chairman glanced to left and right. "At this hour
we usually adjourn for the day. Howsoever, I do
believe that we can wind up this tedious business
fairly rapidly now. May I suggest that the
honored commissioners take a brief break
to partake of some of Governor Churle's
splendid hospitality and then reassemble in about
an hour? At that time we can question the witness about the
last and perhaps most terrible of her crimes, the
murder she committed with her own already
blood-soaked hands."

                 

  We see most clearly out of the backs of our
heads.
    FONATELLES

  News of the Pompifarth disaster reached Grandon
early on the fourth of Tenthmoon. Malinda's
first notice of it came while her maids were
dressing her--Chancellor Burningstar was in the
anteroom, begging an audience at Her
Majesty's earliest convenience. She called for a
robe and the visitor and shooed the girls away.
  Burningstar came hurrying in, her flustered
manner utterly out of character. She bobbed a small
curtsey at the door, came close, and then
lowered herself unsteadily all the way to her knees.
  "Something is wrong," Malinda said, offering a
hand. "And that is not a good position for clear
thinking. Here, let me help you up."
  "But I am tendering my resignation, Your
Majesty. I have failed most--"
  "Your resignation is refused. Come and sit
here." Rejecting protests, she led the old
lady over to the chairs by the fire, and only when
they were both seated would she listen. "Bad news,
obviously." Was there any other kind?
  Out it came: Pompifarth, sack, murder,
looting, mass rape ... Within minutes
Burningstar was close to tears, and the redness of her
eyes said she had wept hard and long already.
"Even the Baels are never that bad!" she
finished. "They leave the towns standing so the people can
generate more wealth to be looted the next time. This
was total destruction. I cannot continue as Your
Majesty's--"
  "You will continue." Malinda felt no desire
to weep. She wanted to kill someone. "I think you
have been doing amazingly well, and you know I speak
the truth. Did I fall into the same pit as
Granville, trusting unpd mercenaries?
Souris has switched sides again, obviously.
Who put him up to this?"
  "Fitzambrose himself, of course! The fake
call for an Anti-Parliament ... it was a
trap and I led you into it. His men opened the gates
for the killers, I'll swear! Look at the timing
--Parliament meets tomorrow and now everyone thinks you
made an example of the city."
  Malinda sighed. "You are right, I fear.
Well, write the truth into my speech and let's
hope they believe me." She looked at the
Chancellor's careworn expression. "There is
more?"
  A nod. "A letter from Prince Courtney. I
beg your pardon, my lady, but I forgot to bring
it. If I may send--"
  "Just tell me. I think I can guess."
  "He wants ... he demands that you marry
him, my lady. He wants the crown
matrimonial."
  Malinda sat in silence for a while. It was a
month since Amby died. They had not given her
much of a chance to show how a queen would rule.

  The next day, she addressed Parliament.
  Although she had never met one before, Malinda had
enough experience in public speaking to recognize a
hostile audience. As she paraded after the
sergeants-at--arms with their maces and Blades with
drawn swords, down the aisle between the kneeling
Lords and Commons assembled, she could smell
hatred in the air. When she sat enthroned, with
Audley standing beside her holding Evening, she
looked out over an ocean of angry stares. The
Lords were splendid as kingfishers, robed in
scarlet and ermine, crowned with coronets--a real
crown was a horrible thing, and she was going to have a
deathly sore neck by the time this nonsense
ended--but in back of them the Commons were a flock
of drab sparrows, two knights from every shire and
two burgesses from every town.
  She swore the enthronement oath again. The
ancient promises flew away like bats into the
sullen silence. She read her speech. No one
was rash enough to boo a monarch, but several times she
sensed a low rumble of disapproval--notably when
she mentioned her renewal of the campaign against
evil enchantment. Only her account of the capture
and execution of Radgar Aeleding won a cheer, but
everyone knew that Courtney deserved the credit.
They even knew that Courtney had been
industriously torturing the monster until the
Queen's men stole him away; they thought that a much
better idea than just chopping off his head.
  Courtney was not present. Courtney had not
resisted when her Yeomen seized the captive
Baelish king, but his refusal to appear before the
Privy Council and now his absence from Parliament
were acts of rebellion. How could she denounce
him when chance had made him the greatest hero in the
land? She could condemn Neville, of course, and
did so. She laid the blame for the Pompifarth
massacre on him, but who believed her?
  When she spoke at last of the crown's
desperate need for money, she thought she heard
knives being whetted, but perhaps it was only teeth
grinding. Parliament traditionally demanded
redress of its grievances before voting supply,
and this Parliament was going to pile corpses at her
door--Granville, Pompifarth, the carnage
at Wetshore, Sycamore Square.
Parliaments impeached chancellors quite regularly,
but none had ever tried to depose the monarch. That
record might be about to change. Her Heir
Presumptive was the new national hero, Prince
Courtney.

  Dog came to her that night as soon as Dian
had left, and their lovemaking was even more urgent and
passionate than usual. Either he took his cue
from her or he had worked out the situation for himself.
Later, in the lull after the storm, she broke the
news. "It is nearly over, love. We have very
few nights left."
  He just grunted. He rarely spoke much, and
it was almost impossible to make him speak of bad
things.
  "We always knew it could not last. We
have enjoyed much longer than I expected."
  "I have brought shame upon you," he said
bitterly. "You heard what they were shouting at you in
the streets. They know you have a lover named Dog."
  "Perhaps just coincidence," she said, but not believing
that. "Not the scandal ... Parliament will force me
to marry Courtney so it can make him King. No,
don't offer to kill him for me. I know you would if
I said please, but that would probably mean
Neville succeeding, so killing Courtney would
only make things worse."
  "How can they force a queen?"
  "By refusing me money." She sniffed away a
tear. "He's a lot older than I am.
I'll outlive him, I swear! I'll be older
then, and have some experience, and ... Oh, Dog!"
She started to wail, so he kissed her and went on
kissing her. It wasn't possible to kiss and
blubber at the same time. After that he would not let
her speak about the future at all.

  The following morning Parliament set to work.
At first there was only angry talk, but soon
resolutions were being moved, bills read,
committees formed, petitions introduced, questions
asked. A motion declaring a female chancellor a
breach of parliamentary privilege was defeated, but
narrowly. The crown's appeal for supply was
ignored.
  Day by day Burningstar's reports to the Queen
grew grimmer, until, at the end of a
turbulent week, the first bill cleared both
houses and arrived at the palace for the Queen's
signature. It was very brief and unambiguous,
and exactly what she had feared it would be.
  That evening she held a private party in the
quarters she had occupied before her departure for
Ness Royal, and the participants were those who had
shared them with her--Ruby, Dove, Alys, and
Sister Moment. Laraine had vanished
into matrimony, but Lady Arabel had just
returned from Ness Royal plumper than ever;
and naturally the three surviving Blades of the
Princess's Guard were there. The night twinkled
with music and dancing and brave efforts to be
merry.
  Next morning, Malinda addressed the Guard
--not all of them, but the dozen or so who were then
attending her, for they comprised a fair sampling,
from Fitzroy, the eldest, down to Vere
and Terrible, the most junior.
  "You have heard, I am sure," she said, "that
Parliament has sent me a bill dissolving the
Order. This is a foggy area of law, because ever
since Ranulf, the Blades have been regarded as
being within the royal prerogative. Ironhall
is paid for out of the privy purse. On the other
hand, Parliament does vote taxes to cover the
cost of the Royal Guard, and it did approve the
Charter, which exempts bound Blades from criminal
penalties and so on. I do not intend to sign this
bill."
  They waited in silence. They were bright young men;
they knew the relevant law and history, but they
also knew that when Parliament clashed with the
sovereign, although it might not get all it
wanted, it rarely came away empty-handed. The
most affected were the youngsters, who had been sure of
many years' employment in the Guard, whereas the
seniors would have already been looking forward to release
and private life. Eventually Winter took his
finger from his teeth just long enough to say, "The Commons
will withhold supply."
  "You are right," Malinda admitted, "up to a
point. Since this is the first bill they have passed,
it obviously lies near to the members' hearts.
They will bluster and blather; they will pass bills,
motions, and resolutions galore, but eventually
Parliament and I must come to agreement. The country
is close to civil war; the burgesses know that and
do not want it. In the end I must grant
redress, they must vote supply. If they will not
see reason, then I will dissolve Parliament and
run the government on funds gained by suppressing
evil elementaries." Snake had not clinked any
gold into her hands yet, though.
  "But--" Winter thought better of what he had
been about to say and went back to nibbling.
  "But," she said, "Parliament does not want
me to do that, and knows I would not dare challenge the
enchanters without you to protect me. There are many
layers to this. I assure you that if this matter has
priority with the members, it certainly does with
me. I am as bound to the Blades as you are
to me."
  Fitzroy thanked Her Majesty for her
gracious words. She did not think she had convinced
her troops.

                                  
  Everything fell apart very rapidly after that. The
Commons began debating the Queen's marriage.
Malinda summoned the ringleaders, including the
Speaker, Alfred Kildare. She left them on
their knees while she roasted them with a tirade on
the royal prerogative. She warned them that any
further discussion of that subject would see them all
in the Bastion. Her father had done it and she would.
She used words she had overheard in stables.
  At the next meeting of the Privy Council,
Constable Valdor gave a review of the military
situation in his bone-grinding bass.
"Fitzambrose is definitely on the march,"
he said. "He's bringing all his father's troops
south from Wylderland, pulling in the garrisons that
support him. I expect the Black Riders
will join him. If he meets no resistance, he
should be here in nine or ten days."
  Studying those coarse and ruthless features,
Malinda wondered whether Valdor himself would stay
loyal that long. "How many men?"
  "Probably less than three thousand in
total, Your Grace, but at least three
quarters of them are battle-hardened
professionals. The rest have been intensively
trained over the last few months."
  "And Courtney?"
  "He hasn't moved yet, that we know of."
  No doubt he was too busy showering the
nobility with blackmail notes. Courtney would
always prefer subversion to overt military action,
in spite of his stunning victory over the Baels
--or even because of it. Malinda was convinced that the
true story of that engagement had yet to be told.
  "We estimate the Prince has five or
six thousand men at his disposal," Valdor
growled.
  "Not close," Grand Inquisitor snapped
with the delicacy of a falling tree. "Less than
half that, and most of them untrained, unequipped
farm boys."
  "How sure are you?" the Queen asked. She
no longer believed much of what he told her, but
she dared not beard the lion until Burningstar
found a replacement lion. Even the Blades
might not be able to defend her if Lambskin's
Dark Chamber supporters chose to retaliate.
  "Courtney had about a thousand when he attacked
the Baels--he only won because he took them
by surprise and caught them with their force
divided. They lost far more men to drowning than--"
  "And the bodies were washed out to sea, of course?"
  "Some of them, Your Grace. Some were washed up
on the beach. A victorious commander never has
trouble recruiting, but most of those who have gathered
under his banner since then are untrained and armed with
pitchforks." Lambskin's insistence on
downgrading the Courtney threat did not
necessarily mean he was not corresponding with
Neville as well, of course.
  "Constable?" Malinda said.
  Valdor growled. "I agree that he needs
weapons. The drowned Baels took theirs to the
bottom with them. You can't buy a good armorer now
for his weight in rubies. Arms are the biggest
bottleneck."
  Malinda had always understood that the problem
bottlenecks were the small ones. Which side was
Valdor on? Having killed Granville, he
ought to fear Granville's son, although Souris
seemed to have made the reverse switch easily
enough.
  "We cannot assume," the Chancellor said, "that
they will kill each other off and leave the realm at
peace. Is it not time and past time, for Her
Majesty to call up the levies?"
  The bitter truth was that the Chivian crown had
no permanent army, other than the Household
Yeomen and the mercenary forces in Wylderland that were
now supporting Neville. To go to war, Malinda
must call on the peers to muster and arm their
tenants; cities would supply money or raise
regiments. She had wide estates of her own, of
course, but Granville had drained them of men
to garrison his strongholds.
  Valdor shrugged. "But how do you arm them? You
have the same problem as the Prince. Will you fight a
civil war with fists and pitchforks?"
  "The lords are already arming," Burningstar said
bitterly. "Half of them have left town. Spirits
know which side they'll be on in the end."
  "I suspect most of them will lean toward
Prince Courtney," Malinda said. "Does
anyone disagree with that? No? So the plan, I
suppose, is that I am expected to appeal to my
cousin for help against my nephew, and the price of
his help will be the crown matrimonial." She
looked around the table, searching for dissent. "I do
not--"
  The door flew open. Audley
jumped like a cricket and came down with sword
drawn, but the intruder was only Sir Piers--
hatless, hair in wild disarray, doublet hanging
open, and half-unlaced shirt exposing an
extremely furry chest. He stopped just inside
the doorway, seeming quite unaware of Evening's
razor edge almost touching his throat.
  "Ironhall!" he howled. "Your Majesty,
they have sacked Ironhall!" By then the Council
was on its feet, everyone shouting at once, so the
rest of his announcement was barely audible. He
rattled off unfamiliar names ... "rode all
night ... drove them into the moors ... burned
... dead ..." He belatedly went down on one
knee, and tugged his doublet closed. Audley
slammed the massive door in the faces of the
Blades gawking outside.
  Malinda alone had remained seated. Again a
Blade had brought her a fateful message.
How many times had that happened in her life?
Dominic bringing her summons to court and thereby
provoking Godeleva's suicide. Lord Roland
telling her of her betrothal to Radgar.
Marlon's frantic ride to Ness Royal
to warn of Amby's imminent death. Now Piers.
She waited until the others sat down again,
abashed.
  Piers said, "I most humbly beg Your
Majesty's--"
  "Repeat your report. Who did this?"
  Courtney's men, of course.
  When he had finished, Malinda said, "Thank
you. You may withdraw. I will address the entire
Guard in the Rose Hall, right after this meeting.
Bring as many private Blades as you can find,
even if you have to drag them there. First I want
to speak with Sir Dog."
  As the door closed behind the Blade, she
surveyed the shocked faces of her Privy
Council.
  "Absolute idiocy!" Constable Valdor
growled. "What sort of military objective
was Ironhall? A few boys and old men? If
that's the best his Isilondian advisors can do,
the Prince is no threat to her Grace."
  "Parliament will be pleased," the Chancellor
muttered hoarsely. "That finishes the Blades.
Popular move."
  "I doubt if that was the main reason,"
Malinda said. "Now you know how to arm an
army of farm boys, Constable--there were five thousand
swords just hanging there for the taking. However, it is
an act of overt rebellion against the crown.
Chancellor, summon Parliament into joint
session. Announce the news and ask for a loyal
address attainting Courtney a traitor.
Better prepare a writ of dissolution for my
seal and take it with you, to be used if necessary, at
your own discretion. If they get the bit between their
teeth, send them home."
  "And call out the levies?"
  Malinda thought of men slain, men crippled and
mutilated, perhaps towns burned, women raped
... just so she could choose who would lie in her bed?
She sighed. "No. I think they would simply
join one rebel or the other, not me. I am not
going to throw the land into worse turmoil than it is
in already. Does anyone have any better ideas?"
  No. Heads shook in morose silence.
  They all knew that it was over.

  When everyone had left, they sent in Dog.
He glanced curiously around the Council
Chamber, strode purposefully across to where
Malinda was standing, crushed her into his arms, and
kissed her. She had not expected that, but she
cooperated.
  Then they looked at each other, still embracing.
  "I want you to go first, love," she whispered.
"They know what you mean to me, so it will help the
others. Can you do that?"
  His ugly face twisted in pain. "Must this
be?"
  She nodded. "I'll explain to them. And then
I want you to do something. This is just as hard for me
... I'm going to send Winter and Dian back
to Ness Royal. I want you to go with them, see
they arrive safely. Wait there. If I need
a place to hide, that's best."
  "And who gets you there safely?"
  "I'll set up something with Snake.
Promise me!"
  Dog argued, of course. He couldn't help but
argue. She won his promise eventually, but she
could not be sure that it would last long enough.

  As she entered the Rose Hall, the waiting
Blades sank to their knees, which was a breach of
normal procedure, a unique tribute. It
brought tears to her eyes. It would not
make things easier. She went to stand behind the red
cushion that lay on the edge of the dais. She
looked over the assembled Order--Snake and some
other knights in the background ... half a
dozen private Blades also. She gestured for
them to rise.
  "Ever since Durendal and Ranulf," she
said, "your Order has been the bulwark of my
house, an unfailing source of honor and duty,
of courage and dedication. More than once it saved
the dynasty. Now, alas, times have changed. The
Litany itself has perished in flames. The sky
of swords has fallen."
  She located Dog, at the back. She could not
read his expression.
  "Worst of all, I must tell you that, through no
fault of yours, you have become a liability. If
you insist on remaining to guard me, I shall be in
greater danger than if you disperse. Your
predecessors protected my ancestors from
death, but the rebels who destroyed Ironhall and
now march on Grandon are intent on marrying me
off, not beheading me." Courtney, yes, but
Neville might prefer to avenge his father. "Forced
marriage is a peril of queens, not kings. From
choice I would not wed either my royal cousin or
my nephew, but unwelcome marriage is a
common fate for women and we survive it. I will
still be Queen of Chivial. On the other hand, if
you stand in the rebels' way, they will slay you to the
last man. It will be a bloody battle, and I
will be blamed for the slaughter. I may even perish
in it, so you serve me best now by disbanding. I ask
you all to make this sacrifice. Companion
Dog?"
  Would he? Could he?
  For a long moment she held her breath. Perhaps
she had been wrong to ask him. All Blades
resisted release, although they were usually very glad of
it afterward. She was counting on Dog's love
to overcome the conjured reluctance, but perhaps it would
make the struggle harder for him.
  Then he shouldered Fury and Winter aside and
strode forward to the cushion. A sigh seemed
to fill the whole hall. He hesitated again,
staring at her in puzzled agony, before he drew his
broadsword and offered it, hilt first. She had
forgotten how much that great slab of steel weighed.
He had refused to name it when he was bound, but one
night at Ness Royal she had teased
him that it must be called "Sword," and later he
had shown her that word clumsily scratched on the
blade near the hilt. She saw it again now:
Sword.
  Dog never did things by half measures.
Instead of fumbling to unlace jerkin, doublet, and
shirt, he just put both hands to his neck and
ripped, hauling the remains down to his elbows.
Shoulders bare, he knelt for the dubbing.
  "Arise, Sir Dog."
  She returned Sword to him. As he backed
away, rubbing his eyes, Audley turned to face
the throng. "Companion Dominic!"
  Dominic hesitated, face twisted in
horror. Bloodfang shoved him and he stumbled
forward.
  "Arise, Sir Dominic ..."
  "Companion Oak!"
  Dog took Oak by the elbow and delivered him
to the cushion as surely as a team of horses would
have done.
  "Arise, Sir Oak."
  Dominic brought the one after, and then the pattern
was set. A few wept, but none of the Guard
made a serious attempt to resist.
  Sir Reynard ... Sir Brock ...
Sir Crenshaw ...
  Most of the private Blades had to be dragged
forward, although not one drew his sword or tried
to flee. Normally only the death of his ward could
release a private Blade, but in this dissolution
of the entire Order, the effort was worth making. It
might work for some of them.
  And last of all: "Arise Sir Audley
...
  "I thank you all from the bottom of my
heart," Malinda said, "and wish you long life and
happiness. The Treasury will distribute some
funds ... not nearly what you have earned, but all
I can spare. I hope some of you will write a
proper history of the Blades to replace the
archives lost in the destruction."
  She stepped down and Dog offered his arm to lead
her out. The knights bent their knees to her as she
went by them, but no one could manage to raise a
cheer. After nearly four centuries, the Blades
were finished. Radgar Aeleding, once himself a
candidate in the Order, had destroyed it with a
single bolt. It was small consolation that his head
now adorned a spike in Grandon.

                 

  I will be your friend, the lion told the
antelope. The antelope replied, Then I shall
not fear my enemies.
    FONATELLES

  On the twentieth of Tenthmoon, Courtney's
army pitched camp on the outskirts of Grandon,
having marched from Ironhall without meeting
resistance. Grand Inquisitor reported that
Neville's forces were scattering and retreating
northward. Parliament had adjourned, with many
members hurrying away to join the triumphant
Prince, and most of the Privy Council had gone
with them. Even the Queen's ladies-in-waiting
had headed home to visit their families, just in
case.
  The palace seemed deserted. As the sun was
setting, Malinda sat in her private withdrawing
room with Burningstar and Secretary Kinwinkle.
They were eating sweet cakes and sipping dry
mead. There was nothing more to be done.
  "How early it is getting dark now," the
Chancellor remarked.
  "Very symbolic," Malinda said. "Tell
me, both of you, what did I do wrong? If I
ever write my memoirs, what lessons should I
pass on to the next queen regnant, if there ever
is one?"
  Burningstar displayed one of her grim little
smiles. "You first, Master Secretary."
  Kinwinkle looked stricken at the thought of
criticizing a monarch, but he plunged bravely
ahead. "I think you did very little wrong, my
lady, nothing to be ashamed of. The dice were
loaded against you right from the start. Lord Granville
ruled badly and waited far too long to face
Parliament, so you inherited a bankrupt realm.
The manner of your father's death ... if you will
forgive me, there is still some lingering doubt about your
part in that. And the Blades' rampage alienated
everyone, so perhaps you should have disowned them instead of
supporting them." He stopped, watching nervously
to see how she reacted.
  "Thank you." Disown the Blades after three
hundred years? Malinda looked to the
Chancellor, who sniffed.
  "I blame your father. He should have either
named Lord Granville as his heir or left him
out entirely, certainly never made him Lord
Protector. Your claim was left foggy. It
was a miracle that you managed to win the throne at
all, Your Grace."
  "And you are too kind to tell me I was too
kind to keep it?"
  Burningstar took a sip of mead in ladylike
fashion. "Perhaps. You should certainly have left
Prince Courtney and Master Fitzambrose in
the Bastion until you had established your rule.
Your leniency was an error, although one that does you
credit. Apart from that, you made no real
mistakes. Your father certainly blundered more than that
in his youth, before he learned that kings must listen to their
councillors and take time to weigh their actions.
Courtney's capture of the Bael was a drastic
interference by the spirits of chance, against which no mortal
can stand. Without that, we might have Neville at the
gates instead of him."
  That was no figure of speech; Malinda thought
she could hear cheering in the distance.
  "I am too softhearted. I did not want
even Granville to die as he did. As one of
my Blades did ... and other men ... I did
not want to cause any man's death."
  The Chancellor emptied her goblet in one
swallow and clinked it down on the table. "If I
may say so, Your Grace, you may still have time
to redeem your final mistake." Her eyes
drilled holes in Malinda. "You admit that you
do not wish to marry your cousin."
  "I always found Courtney amusing, but as far as
being married to him ... I hope he still uses
love potions."
  "With respect, my lady, I have met your
nephew only briefly, but he seemed a
pleasant enough young man, quite ordinary. He ought to be
a lot more malleable than your cousin. If you
really want my opinion, I still believe you should
have headed north to join him--yes, married him and
made him King Consort! That debauched butter
churn of a Courtney will be a hopeless disaster.
There is probably still time."
  "Unlikely, I'd say." Malinda sighed.
The cheering was growing louder. "I have thought much on
this, these last few days. Neville seemed like a
strapping stripling, I grant you, but he thinks
I killed his father. He broke his oath to me.
If I flee to him, I shall be throwing
myself on his mercy and will end up a prisoner, not a
wife or co-ruler." She, too, drained her
goblet. "It would still cause civil war. I do not
want innocent people to die because of me!"
  After a moment she added, "Love potions or
not, I can outlive Courtney."
  The door swung open. Lady Burningstar and
Master Kinwinkle rose. Two burly
men-at-arms entered, Grand Inquisitor peered
over their heads, and then all three went out again.
Courtney came mincing in, resplendent in
gold and scarlet, the feather in his hat as long as
a scythe. He paused to consider Burningstar, who
was halfway to the door already. She offered him a
barely visible curtsey.
  He pouted. "You should have stayed with the wimple,
darling. That neck is an eyesore. I'll
take the chain now." He held out a finely
manicured hand.
  She straightened so she could look down at him
from as high as possible. "Her Majesty gave me
this chain and until Her Majesty--"
  "Let him have it, Chancellor," Malinda said.
"He's spiteful. And thank you again for all you have
done."
  Burningstar angrily lifted the golden chain
over her bonnet and relinquished it.
  "If you are wise, lady, you will now return
to Oakendown and stay there." Courtney turned
away from her and frowned thoughtfully at Master
Kinwinkle, who wilted.
  "Footman? Gardener? Night soil
attendant? No ... You were the herald who read
out Uncle's will so badly. Well, run along
and find something useful to do."
  Dismissing them with a flick of his fingers,
Courtney pranced the rest of the way to Malinda,
bringing a powerful odor of cloves. The door
closed, leaving them alone.
  "I did warn you, darling." He helped himself
to a chair and held the flask of mead up to the
light to see how much remained.
  "You have still not sworn allegiance. I should not have
let you get away with that."
  "No, you shouldn't." He filled Burningstar's
discarded goblet. "But you did. And now you are going
to be swearing wedding vows. I did warn you." He
sipped. "Mm? Too dry for my palate. We
are currently preparing a brief ceremony, at
which you will sign and seal a few simple
documents: our betrothal, a proclamation
announcing it and setting the date for our wedding, a
bill granting me the crown matrimonial--and
precedence--and letters patent appointing me regent
in the meantime with plenipotentiary powers to stamp out
the current unrest." Removing his hat
briefly, he looped the gold chain over his
head.
  She did not bother to hide her contempt. His
face was freshly powdered, the rich red velvet of
his jerkin displayed not one speck of dust, and his
fingers glittered with gems. He smirked like a
satisfied child and took up his goblet again.
  "Can't you at least say you are glad to see
me? Even relatively speaking? Would you rather have that
ghastly Fitzambrose boy sitting here? A
marriage knot is preferable to a hangman's.
He has sworn to post your head next to King
Radgar's."
  "He's no threat now," she said. "He must be
scampering back over the Wylderland border about
now."
  Courtney smirked. "Um ... no, darling.
You have been misinformed. He's south of
Pompifarth, heading this way. But I am advised
that we can meet him and wipe him out before he
disturbs the peace around here. That's assuming he
turns down my final offer, which he probably
won't--it's very generous. He will live in
luxury for the rest of his days, few though those will
undoubtedly be. Forget him, beloved, and think
only of our future together. Tomorrow we shall hold the
formal betrothal ceremony for the peers and
diplomatic corps and so on. Then I will go off
and deal with the Fitzambrose pest. You will stay here
to bake the wedding cake."
  "You must be the only general in history to lead
his army in a coach and four."
  He winced. "Dearest! You are not suggesting I
should ride a horse are you? I leave all the
nasty sweaty, smelly rough stuff to underlings.
Except for breeding heirs, of course. I'll
attend to that in person."
  "And if I refuse this romantic proposal
you ply me with love potions as you did all those
other women?"
  Courtney chuckled, laid down the goblet, and
rose to his feet. He came close, and she
instinctively leaned away from him. She had never
cared for cloves.
  "Daaaarling!" he said, smiling down at
her. "Do you know the nicest part of having an army
at your back? You don't have to keep being nice
to people all the time! It did get to be wearing
sometimes. No, my love, no potions. Have you ever
heard of the Quiet Pool?"
  Something unpleasant was coming. "No."
  "Well, you know those elementaries your father
suppressed so energetically? All their books of
evil enchantments were supposed to be destroyed,
yes? Well, they weren't. Very few, in fact.
The College managed to get their palsied hands
on some, but the Dark Chamber collected most.
The Quiet Pool is a conjuration that used to be
especially popular with henpecked husbands and
bullied wives." He chuckled again, studying her
with bloodshot eyes.
  "You wouldn't dare!" she said, her mouth suddenly
dry with fear.
  Grinning inanely, he nodded and chucked her under
the chin. "Oh, yes I would, kitten! Let's
settle it right now. Which is it to be? Will you be a
good, obedient, and passionate wife, or do I have
Grand Inquisitor turn you into royal jelly?"
  "He wouldn't dare!"
  "No? He drools at the thought. You really
should not have struck him that night in the Bastion, my
sweet. He even dreams of being Chancellor--
we'll let him dream a little longer. Now,
beloved, will you marry me?"
  That it had come to this! She wondered how bad
Radgar Aeleding would have been, really.
  "Yes, I will marry you. I have no choice."
  "With passion and babies and all the
naked-body-in-bed stuff?"
  "I will provide the body, as required.
You'll have to supply the passion."
  He lifted her hand and kissed it. "Tonight,
beloved, I will test your commitment. Until then,
keep me in your heart."
  She had always suspected that Courtney's
cynical mask hid a wounded, sensitive soul.
Now she knew that the inside was much nastier than the
outside.
  He paused on his way to the door. "I'll have
you fetched when we're ready for the signing
ceremony. Meanwhile, stay here, out of trouble."


                                  
       THE TRIAL, DAY THREE
              (Concluded)

  The Governor's hospitality must have been
even more splendid than the chairman had
predicted, because Malinda was left to her own
devices for several hours. She paced her cell
frantically, planning what she would say in her
defense. "I know he's vindictive," she
told Winter, "but even Horatio Lambskin will
have to allow me a chance to speak. He must!
Briefly, maybe, but he must let me make a
statement and have an inquisitor tell them I am
speaking the truth. Even in treason trials, they
all get that grace. So what do I deny first?"
  Winter did not answer. Nor did
Horatio, and poor little Moment down on the
floor had been washed away by the fish soup
Malinda had dropped two days ago, or had
fled from it. Malinda had looked everywhere for her.
  Eventually she realized that she was staggering with
exhaustion, weakened by the ordeal of the last three
days on top of the months of physical and mental
inaction. She fumbled in the dark to find her chair
and flopped down on it. She had waited too
long. It seemed only a few minutes before a
chink of light crept in under the door, the lock
clattered, hinges creaked. In came Nightmare,
holding a lantern. Pestilence followed her and
headed straight to Malinda, reaching for her,
one-handed. Malinda leaped up and backed away,
but there was nowhere to go. She was slammed back against
the masonry with fingers at her throat choking her.
A fist pounded into her chest--once, twice.
  She croaked, trying to protest. Her head was
ground against the stonework. She knew better now
than to struggle or fight back. That brought much
worse hurt and humiliation.
  "This is a warning," Pestilence snarled. Her
breath was rank. "Tonight you behave yourself, or tomorrow
we put the men to work on you. You think this hurts?"
  A foot stamped on her instep. Malinda
squealed.
  "That was nothing, nothing at all. Now go!" The
jailer hurled her across the room in the general
direction of the door.
  Obediently, the prisoner limped down the
gloomy, twisted stairs, with Pestilence and
Nightmare and the lantern at her back, giant
shadows swimming on the stonework ahead.
At the bottom the usual squad of men-at-arms
waited to escort her along tunnel-like
corridors, back to Great Hall and her
solitary chair in the center.
  Two of the commissioners already had their heads on the
table. Another three arrived late, weaving along
the walls in efforts to make inconspicuous
entrances. Several of the foreign observers came with
them, in a similar unsteady state.
  "The inquiry will come to order," the chairman
said, folding his snaky hands. He frowned to right and
left, until the sleeping commissioners had been
prodded awake by their neighbors. "We must now
consider the last and perhaps the most despicable of this
woman's crimes. She will describe to the
honorable commissioners her actions on the night of the
twentieth of Tenthmoon."
  Malinda gathered her wits for the battle. "I
went to bed. I had instructed my ladies not
to open the outer door of the suite to anyone or for
any reason short of the palace being on fire.
I bolted myself in, lay down, and went
to sleep."
  "There were how many doors to your chamber?"
  She was not going to let Dog be dragged into this.
She had sent him away days before, and by that night
he should have already been safe in Ness Royal.
She hoped desperately that he was still safe, not
caught up in the web of the Usurper's vengeance.
  "Officially one. There was also a secret door
known only to me, the sovereign, and senior
members of my Royal Guard. The Guard had
by then been disbanded and--"
  "A secret door to a lady's bedchamber would
be for purposes of illicit fornication?"
  "If you say so, Chancellor. It dates from
long before my time."
  "But you had a lover who used it?"
  Malinda stayed silent. She was not going
to implicate Dog in this, no matter what. She
had nightmares of him already chained up in a
dungeon, tortured or mutilated. They might
even try to shock her into some dangerous admission
by producing him here.
  The clerks' pens had stopped scratching.
  "The inquiry will note that the witness refused
to answer."
  "Was that a question?" she said. "It sounded like a
statement."
  "How many lovers came to your bed?"
  She thought she detected a shimmer of
disapproval among the commissioners, although none
protested. "That question is indecent and
irrelevant, and I demand that it be withdrawn."
  "It is not irrelevant, as we shall see. So
there was a second door. Did you also bolt that
or leave it unbarred for your paramours?"
  "The secret door led through to another room and
I made certain that the outer door to that was firmly
bolted also."
  "You claim you slept. When did you awaken?"
  "Around dawn."
  "Who or what roused you?"
  The commissioners had come alert, all of them, and
she suspected that all the foreign observers had,
too. This was the story they had been waiting for, the
mysterious palace murder that must have been the talk
of all Eurania for months.
  "A very bad smell."
  "And the cause of that smell?"
  "A corpse on the floor beside my bed."
Yes, she agreed, it was--or had been--her
cousin, Prince Courtney. Yes, he was
naked, and yes he had been run through by a sword.
How long he had been dead she did not know, but of
course death had loosed his sphincters. In his
final appearance onstage, Courtney had not
smelled of cloves or roses or lavender.
  Being unfamiliar with sword wounds, she did not
know whether he had been impaled from front to back
or back to front, but the chairman was careful not
to ask her that. He and other inquisitors had
arrived at the scene within minutes and had questioned her
then; he knew that her statements had been truthful
and her bewilderment genuine. Wanting now to brand her
a murderer, he must allow her no saving
denials.
  "What did you do?"
  "I screamed for help. For all I knew the
killer was still there." It was a lame excuse; in
fact the scream had been sheer reflex. "I
unbolted the door to let my ladies in. Then
they screamed, too."
  "The secret door?"
  "Was closed."
  "And the outer door to the other room?"
  "I was informed later that it had been found bolted
on the inside."
  "This was a few hours after your betrothal was
announced?"
  "It was."
  "Had you agreed to receive your fianc`e in bed that
night?"
  "He had implied he was planning to drop in.
That was why I had made sure both doors were
bolted."
  There was a pause, as if the chairman was
mapping out his route very carefully. He risked
another question. "You honestly expect the honorable
commissioners to believe that both the Prince and an
assassin entered through a bolted door and then the
killer went out again, bolting the door on the
inside?"
  "No."
  "Inform the commissioners of the names of the lovers who
regularly came to you by the secret door."
  "Again I protest that question."
  "Again I insist that it is relevant and your
refusal to answer is to be taken as admission of
guilt. However, I can inform the commissioners that the
testimony of several former members of the
notorious and disbanded Royal Guard will be placed
before them tomorrow and--"
  "What did you do to them?" Malinda screamed.
"Produce the men themselves and let the commissioners
see what--"
  "Silence! One more unauthorized remark and you
will be charged with contempt of Parliament." In the
murky candlelight and under the brim of his hat, the
chairman's face looked even more like a skull
than usual, and the shadowed eye sockets
directed their ghoulish stare at Malinda in
warning. He meant contempt of Pestilence and
Nightmare, of course: behave or suffer.
  Why did it really matter if he painted her
an assassin when he had hung enough other crimes
around her neck to sink her without a trace? Why was
he risking so much on this last accusation? Because in the
eyes of the other ruling houses of Eurania,
assassination was the great unforgivable, the supreme
villainy, worse even than the trumped up
charges of treason--all dynasties were rooted in
treason if one looked back far enough. It was the
false friend and poisoned kiss that kings really
feared. If she could clear herself of this taint, then
there might still be enough foreign outcry to save her
neck from the block. It was a long shot, but the
alternative was certain death.
  "The witnesses affirm," Lambskin said, "that
the accused accepted at least one
guardsman into her bed every night. She herself has
testified that only members of the royal family
and swordsmen of the Royal Guard knew of the
secret door. So now, mistress, will you admit
that the most logical explanation of your cousin's
murder is that either you murdered the Prince
personally or one of your lovers did and you bolted
the door again after he left?"
  "That is not the most logical explanation."
  The inquisitors flanking her chair did not
accuse her of falsehood. The commissioners
stirred and exchanged glances. She had won a
point! Now the chairman would have to ask her
to elaborate. However much he could and would make
her suffer for it later, tonight she could clear herself of
this, the most dangerous charge.
  He chuckled mockingly. "I doubt that the
commissioners agree with your peculiar personal
logic." His rasping voice was hoarser than ever
after three day's haranguing and badgering. "However
the hour is late, and we are all anxious
to adjourn. Guards, you may remove--"
  "Wait!" said a shrill voice. All eyes
swung to the Honorable Alfred Kildare,
Speaker of the Commons, four seats to the
chairman's right. "I wish to hear the witness's
explanation."
  The chairman scowled. Whether his feelings had
for once escaped his control or whether he sought
to intimidate the Speaker, he scowled most
horribly. "I repeat, the hour is late."
  "A few more minutes will not hurt." Kildare
had withstood King Ambrose in full roar; compared
to him, Horatio Lambskin was an ill-tempered
butterfly. The last time Malinda had seen the
Speaker she had called him a lowborn meddling
upstart and worse; she had threatened to throw him in
a dungeon in the Bastion. But today he was the
only one of them with the manhood to do his duty. Good
chance to him!
  The chairman conceded defeat. "Very well.
Witness, you will be brief. What in your view would
be a more logical explanation?"
  Malinda drew a deep breath and began
to gabble as fast as she could. "First, my ladies
found no weapon in the room, so I could not have been
the murderer." It must have been a rapier or a
stiletto. Dog's Sword would not drill a
hole through an opponent, it would chop him in
half. "Second, I am a light
sleeper and would certainly have heard a struggle or
a body falling, so the corpse was brought in already
dead and placed where I would fall over it;
furthermore it was lying on its back and there were
blood smears on its chest, so it had been
stripped after death--my cousin was killed with his
clothes on. As for the locked door, it is common
knowledge that the Dark Chamber has a device called a
Golden Key that will open any door; whether it will
draw a bolt closed also is something the chairman
can discuss better than I."
  As Lambskin opened his mouth, she rushed on.
"There is no need to invoke conjuration, though.
Prince Courtney may very well have known of the
secret doors--he had been snooping around
court for forty years--but it is absolutely
certain that the Dark Chamber did, because its
records go back before the palace was built, and
therefore the most logical explanation of the paradox
is that there is another secret way into one of those
two rooms."
  The chairman said, "That is the most
absurd--"
  "Let her finish!" Kildare squealed.
  "Thank you, Mr. Speaker," she said. "I
am grateful for a little courtesy. As a final
fact to be weighed, I remind you of the legal
maxim: Who benefits? What good came to me from
that bizarre crime? Within an hour my own Grand
Inquisitor returned with a squad of
men-at-arms and carried me off, prisoner, here
to the Bastion. The case against me is
ridiculous, but the case against Horatio
Lambskin, who was then Grand--"
  "The witness is lying!" one of the inquisitors
shouted at her ear. "The witness is raving!" the
chairman snapped. "Guards, remove--"
  "Wait!" shouted several of the commissioners in
tumult. Truly, it was a night of miracles,
for the spokesman who emerged from the hubbub was the
chinless Lord Candlefen, on his feet, flushed and
squeaking with rage.
  "Your evident bias is unbecoming, Lord
Chancellor. I am quite put off by it, I must
say. You have accused the witness of innumerable rather
unspeakable crimes; it is only fair that she be
allowed to, er ... register a few remarks.
..."
  "Thank you, Cousin," Malinda said as his
outrage dwindled. She could hardly
breathe for the pounding of her heart; sweat ran into her
eyes, making her blink. "You all know that
Lambskin here was my Grand Inquisitor, a
sworn member of my Privy Council. He
betrayed his oath by plying me with false information on
the strengths and whereabouts of both rebel armies, and
probably in many other ways. He was eating out of
all three bowls, and when Prince Courtney
reneged on the promise of the golden chain,
Lambskin had him slain and his body left in my
bedroom to dispose of me also. He then claimed the
chancellorship as his reward from his other traitor
master--"
  "Silence!" The chairman slammed his fist on
the table. "The witness may denigrate me, but this
inquiry will not hear sedition against our Sovereign
Lord King Neville! I trust that none of the noble
lords or honorable members supports such
treasonous remarks?"
  He glared to left and right, and the commissioners
subsided into tremulous silence. The penalties
for treason would cow anyone.
  "I have not finished!" Malinda shouted. "I
claim the right to make a statement in my
defense."
  "This is not a trial," the terrible old man
said sourly, "so there is no such right. However, the
witness will be provided with pen and paper and allowed
to submit a written statement to the inquiry.
  "Silence, mistress! One more word and you will be
removed.
  "Honorable commissioners, over the last three
days you have heard the witness confess that even as a child
she was in frequent rebellion against her father and
liege lord, King Ambrose IV; that she gave
her aunt, Princess Agnes, a conjuration that
caused her death; that she connived at a massive
deception to conceal the true facts of that murder;
that she and the traitor Roland between them arranged for
her father to be at Wetshore at a time known to his
sworn enemy, the Baelish King; that she spoke
with the Bael on his ship and obtained promises from
him, and that he, having allowed her to disembark, then
slew her father, the said King Ambrose of
Chivial; that when Master Secretary Kromman
was murdered shortly thereafter, she was cognizant
of the killers' identity and failed to report it to the
authorities; that she proceeded to Ironhall and
bound a troop of half-trained swordsmen as her
personal Blades upon improper
authority; that while under her direction these
killers caused the deaths of fifteen innocent people
in Sycamore Square the following day; that she
conspired with the traitor Roland, accepting money
she knew to be embezzled; that she suborned the
servants of the crown in raising a private force,
although she was aware that this was a treasonous act; that
she flouted a lawful command of the Council of
Regency by leaving the place where she had been
confined for her protection and coming into the presence of the
King's Majesty, namely her brother, the late
Ambrose V; that she deliberately shortened the
child's life by withholding spiritual treatment from him in his
sickness; that he died very soon after she had fed him
his last meal with her own hand; that she then conspired with
others to slay her brother, Lord Granville, and
did claim the throne of Chivial although she was
excluded from the succession by reason of her
marriage to Radgar Aeleding; that the confessed
traitor Roland was treacherously assassinated
here in the Bastion while her guest, but that she
passed off his death as natural and failed
to initiate a proper inquiry or hunt for the
murderers; that in her unlawful position as ruler
of the land, she committed divers acts, including the
improper execution of her husband, the said
Radgar Aeleding, in a hasty and illegal man-
ner before he could be properly questioned about the conspira-
cy in which they had joined; that it was by her warrant that
mercenary troops sacked the town of Pompifarth,
causing the death of hundreds of people and widespread
loss of property." The chairman paused, and for a
moment even he displayed normal human
weariness. Then he rallied in a final burst of
venom. "You have also just heard her peculiar
explanation of how unknown malicious persons
disfigured her bedchamber floor by leaving upon it the
naked body of her cousin, Prince Courtney.
  "Guards, remove the prisoner. The inquiry
is adjourned."

                 

  I told you so.
      SIR DOG

  Back up the twisted stairway she went,
back to her cold, cramped, and lonely little
cell. The men-at-arms thumped the door closed
behind her, clattered the lock shut, and
doubtless then marched away. There was no sign of
Pestilence or Nightmare, but a stub of candle
stood upon her chair, flickering a tiny flame in
the windy darkness, and beside it an inkwell, a
quill, and a single sheet of paper. Exhausted,
the Queen flopped down on the pallet and huddled
herself up small to stare at this wonder.
  The Chancellor had kept his word! She could
write out her defense. She had only one page
and perhaps one hour left on that candle; no doubt the
paper would be removed at dawn, ready or not.
She wondered whether it was Lambskin or his master
who was so spiteful--whether she was being punished for
slighting the grim old man or for the death of
Granville. Neville might not be the master in
that team, only the puppet. After so long in her
solitude, she could not even guess.
  The lock clattered again, hinges squeaked, and
she cringed, fearing it would be Pestilence and
Nightmare coming to carry out the Chancellor's threat
to hand her over to "the men." They had not
specified whether they meant the Bastion's
professional torturers or miscellaneous
ruffians. She had gambled that their intimidation was
only bluff. They would gain nothing by maltreating
her now. All the same she was relieved when a
single man-at-arms entered and closed the door
quietly behind him. He seemed no threat so she
ignored him.
  After three days she still did not know what the
trial had signified. That brief intervention
by Mister Speaker--may the spirits favor him forever!
--suggested that Parliament was not totally under the
Usurper's heel yet. Alas, the powers of the
crown in dealing with treason were almost unlimited.
More than likely the inquiry would wind up its
parody hearings tomorrow ... approve a report the
day after ... allow one day for each house
to debate. ... Probably they would move right
after that, before foreign governments could lodge
protests.
  "Five days!" she told Winter. "In
five more days they'll come for me and cut off my
head!"
  "Over my dead body," Dog said.
  She hit the far door with a bruising crash and
turned around to scream at the apparition--not
madness! Not that! She was not going to go crazy like
her mother--
He caught her in his arms and ended the
scream before it properly got started. He had
sounded like Dog. His kiss tasted like Dog's.
He hugged like Dog. He smelled like Dog.
He was much lumpier than she remembered Dog;
under his peculiarly flimsy cloak he seemed
to be studded with a variety of odd packages and
hung about with a coil of rope--but he was Dog.
  Eventually they came apart one finger width.
"You're all bones!" he growled.
  "You're all sharp edges." They kissed again.
  "You're trembling."
  "You're real! It's really you. Not a
prisoner too?"
  "Hope not. Brought you this." He fumbled under his
cloak and pulled out something that had once been a
flower. It was badly mangled and smelled more of
him than of rose; she could not see it in the dark,
but she did not need to. She choked on tears.
"Oh, Dog, Dog, Dog darling! No one
has ever given me anything more welcome."
  "Better go now. Finish this later. What's
outside?"
  "Just a walkway."
  He grunted. "How far are we from
Rivergate?"
  "Right above it. The walkway is, I mean."
  He made a pleased sound. "Couldn't be
better. Let's try that."
  "But--"
  He eased her aside, although she wanted to cling
to him like ivy. He did something to the lock, and it
clicked.
  "Golden Key?" Her voice was lost in the
squeak of the hinges. Of course there had to be
enchantment involved when a rescuer appeared like this.
It was not illusion! It was really Dog! "They
have White Sisters!" That use of spiritual power
might have been detected.
  "Didn't meet any." Dog strode out and
stopped to survey the iron bars overhead. Even
as he did so, the moon fled behind a silver-edged
cloud, leaving him in starlight. The wind ruffled his
cloak, his hair shone like milk. "Was afraid
... might have to kill some. Where does that other
door lead?"
  "Don't know." She was staying very close,
unable to keep her hands off him. "The
Rivergate's just below us." And if that conjurement
he had just used had been detected, then the
Yeomen would be on their way already. Tower
windows overlooked this walkway.
  He pulled off the lumpy cloak and the coil of
rope he wore over his shoulder, dropping them
both. He jumped, caught hold, went up,
swinging his boots up to hook in the bars farther
along. He clung there like a bat, face up and
back down, with Sword dangling below him like an
icicle. He grunted, came down again. "Any
of these bars loose? Rusted? Need to move two,
maybe three."
  Her mind was muddled by shock. She could think of
nothing except DogDogDog ... loose,
rusted? "Along here," she said, and took his hand--
that big, hard, familiar hand--to lead him to the far
end, where water dripped off the other tower and moss
had crumbled the mortar. "Try here. I'll get
the chair."
  The moon peered out cautiously, just enough to give
her a shadow as she ran to her cell and hurried
back with the chair. Dog stood on it, peered,
fingered. Then he said, "Stand clear!" and went up
again. The moon vanished as if it disapproved,
leaving him only a dark shape against the shining
clouds. He grunted. She realized he was
trying to pry bars loose, pulling with hands, pushing
with feet. In a moment he came down and rubbed his
hands, muttering angrily under his breath.
  "It can't be done!" she said. "We'll have
to leave the way you came. Let's go, love!
Let's hurry, not waste time here."
  "I would if I thought you could use the cloak.
Here." He lifted his baldric over his head and
handed her Sword in its scabbard. "Keep this
handy." He went up again to try another place.
"Must have been given these muscles for a reason
... ah!" Something scraped, metal on stone.
  She hugged herself, shivering, wishing she had her
blanket but terrified to go and leave him again in
case he vanished like a bubble. Besides, she was
guarding Sword. Somewhere in the distance men's
voices spoke loudly in the still of the night. Not
shouting, not raising an alarm. Probably just
changing the guard. Another bar scraped ...
  Escape, escape, escape ... It
might have taken half an hour. It felt like
years. At the end of it, Dog stood upright
to catch his breath, rubbing one bleeding hand on his
cloak and hugging her to him with his other arm. He had
pulled two bars completely out, but they were not
adjacent. He had loosened several
others at one end only and bent them down, but he
had not yet made a hole large enough for an
escape.
  "Need more light," he muttered, and kissed her
again. "They've been starving you," he mumbled when
they broke loose.
  "Not really. How did you get here?"
  "Walked in the gate. Followed them when they
took you back to your cell. We weren't certain
where you were being held, see?"
  "This is conjuration!"
  "The cloak is. It's a Dark Chamber
secret, but the College has copied it. ...
Lothaire stole one for us ... not really
invisibility, just unimportance. You knew I was
there and paid no attention."
  "I was sure I was seeing a man-at-arms."
  "It does that." He hugged her tighter.
"I'd put it on you and send you out, but it
doesn't work for smart people. Ah!"
  The light was brightening as the moon headed
bravely for a wide expanse of black sea between
cloud islands. Dog knelt to fumble through the
cloak.
  "Got more tricks in here ... You're sure
we're right over the Rivergate?"
  She nodded, then said, "Yes."
  "Going to send a signal ... Got a boat
standing by, but the Yeomen may get here first.
I'll lower you on the rope to the dock. Do
whatever I say, no arguing. Ready?"
  "Yes. Oh, I love you!" She kissed
him, but he cut it off.
  "And me you." He stepped up on the chair and
reached out through the bars. He must have thrown something
down to the dock, because a moment later a
brilliant flash lit the towers overhead. A
ball of white fire sailed up from the landing into the
sky, brightening the entire Bastion before it faded and
disappeared.
  Dog grabbed Sword from her hands, unsheathed
it, and repeated, "Stand back!" Then he swung
it against one of the bars he had bent down.
Clang! Clang! Like a woodsman loping
branches, he chopped iron, abusing that
magnificent weapon, treating it like an ax.
Clang! Clang! Clang! After the third
blow there was a quieter ring as the bar broke off and
hit the flagstones. But the racket must have been
audible all over Grandon; and voices
were raised now, candles flickering in windows,
sounds of men running. Then a drum, rousing the
Watch. Clang! Clang! Ring. Another
bar fell.
  "There!" Panting, Dog dropped Sword and
grabbed Malinda in both hands. He almost threw
her up through the gap he had made. Voices high
overhead showed they had been seen. She felt her
dress tear on a jagged end, found a purchase,
doubled over on the ladder to haul herself up, and
Dog transferred his grip to her feet, pushing
her. She scrambled onto the bars and rolled to the
flat top of the outer wall, which was four or five
feet thick. She turned to help Dog and a
coil of rope was thrust in her face. Then
Sword in its scabbard. Then Dog himself, who
did not need help. Voices were shouting all
around, the drum beating. She heard the hard
thwack! of a crossbow, but could not tell where the
quarrel went.
  "They're coming!" Dog said. "There, see?"
  Moonlight glimmered on a sail. Heeled
over by the wind, a boat sped toward the landing
stage, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever
seen. Thwack! again and now the clink! of the
quarrel bouncing off stonework, much too close.
  "They're shooting at us!"
  "Let them," Dog said, looping rope around
her, under her arms, knotting it. "Lucky to hit
a tower in this light. Got you. Go!"
  Trusting him, she stepped backward off the edge
and began walking down the wall. The rope cut
into her ribs. It was hard to keep herself away from the
rugged, abrasive stonework--she had not realized
how weak she was. Unexpectedly her feet
met air and she swung free, striking her shins
against the capstone of the Rivergate arch. Then she
spun, banging a shoulder against iron-studded
timbers as Dog lowered her the rest of the way.
She landed in a heap at the base of the gate. The
rope went slack. She freed herself and jumped
up.
  The landing stage was a stone shelf along the base
of the wall. It was closed off at the ends by the
protruding towers and could be reached only from the
Rivergate or the river itself. The tide was in,
so waves slapped foul-smelling spray up
onto the paving.
  Time had stopped. The boat was coming, but
painfully slowly. It had seemed much
closer when viewed from above. She could see
faces, though, and light flashing off steel.
  Dog was visible against the clouds, climbing over
the top of the wall, starting to work his way down the
rope. Crossbows sang their death song,
thwack! thwack! and the quarrels replied from the
stones: clang! clang! Fortunately
crossbows took time to reload. The archers were up
in the towers, shooting, she supposed, at Dog.
The great Rivergate itself was still closed but even as
she stood up, a smaller postern beside it swung
open and a Yeoman ducked through and straightened up.
Moonlight flashed on the spike and blade of his
pike. She turned to flee on legs that suddenly
felt like reeds. A quarrel rang off flags
at her feet.
  She came to the end of the quay, right under her
cell, and there was nowhere left to go. She turned
at bay. A dozen Yeomen had emerged now, and the
leaders were on her already. A hand grabbed her arm.
She tried to claw at the man's face and that
wrist was seized, also, and twisted up behind her
back.
  "Take the bitch back to her kennel!"
  They pushed her forward so she almost fell. That
seemed like a good idea, so she let herself go
limp, and as a result dropped to her knees.
She screamed and went on screaming. She tried
to kick, without much success.
  "Behave, bitch!" one said. The rest of the
troop arrived and got in the way. The two
holding her hauled her upright, took her by the
arms, and began to run her back toward the gate.
She screamed, yelled, tried in vain to struggle,
but they kept her moving. Despite all her
efforts, she was too weak even to slow them down.
  The boat caught an eddy of wind off the
Bastion. The sail went limp, then rippled.
Voices cursed. It rolled, momentarily
helpless. Slowly it regained way, but it was not
coming fast enough for the men on board to save her. Once
she was through the postern, she would be lost. She was
too weak; they were too many. They were at the gate.
Feet stumbled on the unneeded coils of rope.
  She looked up. Dog had stopped halfway
and had somehow turned over, so that he was looking
down at her and the Yeomen. He had his feet against
the wall and the rope over one shoulder; he was
stretched out from the stonework like some bizarre
gargoyle. As the two men holding her were
about to push her in through the postern, he howled at the
top of his lungs and let go. It was deliberate
--he threw himself down on them. Several of the men
were hurled to the ground, including one who was gripping
her. She went with them in a tangle of limbs and
bodies and pikes. A couple were flung into the
river. There was shouting, screaming, confusion. As the
boat swept in, a dozen swordsmen leapt
across the gap, some falling on the stones, two in the
water, the rest landing on their feet. Battle was
joined--but briefly, because a Yeoman against a
Blade was a very unequal struggle and the
newcomers had the advantage of numbers.
  Malinda was not interested. She was on the ground,
tending to Dog. Blood was jetting from his chest, a
black fountain in the moonlight. His eyes were
wide, stark white.
  "They're here!" she said. "You've saved me
... Dog? Dog?"
  He tried to speak and made horrible grating
noises.
  "What?"
  It sounded like, "Told you ..." but more blood
gushed from his mouth and the sentence was never finished. It
was probably, "Told you I would die for you."
  "Come quickly, my lady!" Audley shouted.
"Oak, Fury, get him aboard--"
  "No!" Malinda screamed. "No! I will not
allow this."

                 

  The invoked are in no wise to be trusted and
assuredly will seek to bend the vaticinators to their
purpose, for they hold firm to the desires they
held at their dissolution, yet know not the gentler
prospects of the living, viz., not pity, love,
nor hope.
    ALBERINO VERIANO, INVOCATION OF
    THE DEAD

  Judging by its smell, the boat's normal
business was something involving fish. Caught in the
lee of the Bastion walls, crammed to the
gunwales with the living and the dead, it responded
reluctantly to its rudder, tipped dangerously
as it scraped along the tower's masonry, and
took several more hits from quarrels before it broke
free to open water. After that it was out of danger.
  Shivering, Malinda crouched on the
boards with Dog a dead weight in her arms and his
lifeblood cold all over her. No tears, not
yet. Perhaps never. This could not be true. He must
not be dead. It was some horrible illusion, some
torture Horatio Lambskin had dreamed up.
  "We must go to an elementary quickly," she said.
"Dog needs healing."
  Audley beside her: "He's dead, my lady."
  "He must not be!"
  "He fell on pikes, Your Grace! It
was quick. But he is dead."
  "No!"
  He sighed and looked up at the faces gathered
around. "What's the tally, other than Dog?"
  Men's voices answered from the dark.
"Bullwhip."
  "Reynard."
  "Victor's missing. Could he swim?"
  "Lothaire took a bolt through the gut, needs
healing soon."
  "Brock?" Audley said. "You bring those
conjured bandages?" "Be all right," said a shaky
whisper.
  "Mercadier and Alandale need healing too."
  "Piers has concussion, can't be sure how
bad."
  "Jongleur's wrist is broken."
  "Just sprained," said another voice nearby.
"Nothing serious."
  Then others still: "And a dozen Yeomen!"
  "I only counted eight."
  "Not enough of the bastards, anyway!"
  More chorused agreement.
  The words were slow to line up and make sense
to her. So many men dead or injured. Just to rescue
her. And many of the enemy, who had only been
obeying orders. She struggled to free herself of
Dog's dead weight; willing hands helped her.
They sat her on a thwart, wrapped her in two
blankets, and gave her a flask of strong wine
to drink. The boat rocked on over the dark
waves. The moon had gone, but the helmsman
seemed to know where he was headed.
  "Thank you." It was hard to talk, her teeth
kept wanting to chatter. "I am very, very grateful
to you all. I am heartsick at the losses. It
may not be so bad, if we get them to an
octogram right away."
  Audley said, "They all knew the risks.
They all came freely, unbound."
  "How did you do it? I know Dog had a
conjured cloak." Why had they sent Dog into the
worst danger?
  They were huddled around her, anonymous shapes in
the dark, about a dozen of them. Some of the names she'd
already heard were of much older men than Audley,
yet he still seemed to be Leader.
  "We knew we couldn't do it without spiritual
help," he said. "Lothaire ... you remember
Master of Rituals? He'd gone back to the
College. We got his help, and Sir
Jongleur's. You may not know him ... older
knight, senior conjurer--"
  "Yes, I know him." A pompous
graybeard, and she had left him on his knees in
the mud.
  "Well," Audley said, "between them they
provided us with all sorts of gadgets, mostly
inquisitors' tricks, like that light and the cloak.
Trouble with the cloaks is that they're pissy hard
to use. Most people never get the hang of them. Dog
did it first try."
  "Why?" Why must chance be so cruel? Why
Dog of all of them? Why couldn't she think?
Her mind was a tub of slop.
  "It needs a special sort of courage,
Your Grace," Jongleur said. "The cloaks
require total concentration, so any hint of fear
in the wearers disables them. Sir Dog didn't
seem to fear anything. We had him walk right in the
Bastion gate and out again in broad daylight and the
guards never batted a lash."
  "Explains a lot," someone murmured.
  She would never forget him on the anvil,
calmly waiting for her to put Sword through his
heart. Even their first kiss had taken courage
after what had happened to Eagle. "Tell me about
Chivial. I know absolutely nothing since I
was put in that cell. Neville took the throne--
I know that much, but that's all."
  "Winter?"
  "Smaile put him on it," Winter said.
"Lord Smaile, the former Lambskin, who was your
Grand Inquisitor. Suddenly Courtney was
dead, Smaile locked you up for murdering him, and
Neville was the only candidate left.
Lambskin put Neville on the throne;
Neville made Lambskin an earl and
chancellor, and now he's running everything."
  "Is he doing a good job?"
  "No!" voices shouted.
  Audley said. "There's a lot of unrest,
Your Grace. They deal with it roughly--
bloodshed, torture, mock trials,
executions. Lot of peers are in the Bastion and
others have fled overseas. Of course, you're the
rightful queen, so nobody could do much while they had
you in their clutches, but Blades are being hunted
down--Snake, Grand Master, Felix. ...
Half of Parliament seems to have gone into hiding."
  She recalled how easily
Lambskin-Smaile had cowed the commissioners at
her trial. "Has Eurania acknowledged
Neville?"
  The boat was into the Pool, now, where the
oceangoing ships anchored. The helmsman changed
course through the swaying forest of rigging; spray
whipped over the boat. Lights twinkled and
flickered.
  "Some countries have. Isilond, for one. Some
are still considering. Baelmark ... They did end the
Baelish War, but that was the new king in
Baelmark, mostly. Now you're safe, we
expect people to start declaring for you."
  Civil war? There had to be a better way out
of this. She thought she knew what it was. Whether
she could persuade anyone to try it was another
matter altogether.
  "Where are we going?"
  "To a ship. Thergian. Seahorse. You have a
friend."

  Even from the lowly aspect of the approaching
fishing boat, Seahorse did not seem much of a
step up. Winter said, "In Thergy they call this
a staten jacht, Your Grace, a sort of
dispatch boat. Also used by important people in a
hurry." It was single-masted and sat low enough in the
water to be boarded without the need for unpleasant
rope ladders. A sailor on board dropped a
set of steps, and Audley handed the Queen up
to the deck in her regalia of two very smelly
blankets.
  A man bowed to her. "Welcome aboard
Seahorse, Your Majesty. You do us honor."
  "I am infinitely more pleased to be aboard
than you can possibly be to welcome me."
  "Sir Audley? You were not followed. I
hope?"
  "Not that we could tell," Audley said
warily. "This is Sir Wasp, Your Grace."
  "I should prefer to sail at once, if that be
possible," Malinda said.
  The Blades at her back were passing up the
bodies. The crew was a vague group of shapes
in the background, watching and waiting to see what
decision was reached.
  "Your Majesty will understand," Wasp said, "that
navigating a winding river like the Gran at night
in a half gale without a local pilot would be a
somewhat desperate endeavor. We are showing no
lights and you left no footsteps. Here, in a
crowded anchorage, we should be safe from
detection."
  "No," she said, nettled. Did he think she
was some halfwit female scared without reason?
"The Dark Chamber has a conjuration called a
sniffer. I have slept for the last six months on
the same straw mattress. It should bear enough
imprint of me for spirits to track me down."
  "Your pardon, my lady. I was not aware
..." He spoke in a tongue she supposed was
Thergian and one of the sailors replied at
length. "Captain Klerk says we can ride the
tide and carry only enough canvas to maintain steering
way, but we still risk running aground, and then we
shall be in the pillory when the sun rises."
  And then there would be more deaths. Too confused
to make the decision, she said, "Leader?"
desperately.
  Audley said, "I think the Usurper will go
to any lengths to recapture Her Grace. We
must get our injured to an elementary soon and
nowhere near here will be safe. Weigh anchor, if
you please, Sir Wasp."
  The man sighed and spoke again to the captain.
  Malinda said, "You are still Leader, Sir
Audley? This does you great honor."
  "Indeed it does, my lady, but they are
loyal to your cause, not to me. We are
pitifully few now, the last of the Blades. We
call ourselves the Queen's Men."
  Wasp said, "This way, if it please Your
Majesty ..." He led the way aft--only a
few paces--then rapped on a door. After a
moment it opened and he stood aside to let her
enter.
  She stepped into darkness with Wasp and Audley
at her heels. After the door closed someone
unshuttered a lantern, then another and
another. She screwed up her eyes against the
golden glory. The cabin was no larger than her
cell in the Bastion, yet it must occupy the rear
third of the ship. After the night outside it seemed
numbingly warm and bright with soft rugs, gleaming
brass, fine paintings on the walls, furnishings
of bright leather and polished wood. The benches would
make into bunks; they concealed chests and
cupboards. Important people were rich people, of
course, and this was real luxury, all the more
imposing after half a year in a stone box.
Clearly the whole purpose of Seahorse was
to move this cabin and its occupants wherever they
wished to go. So into this sumptuous place came a
deposed queen wrapped in bloodstained rags and
stinking blankets, with her hair in rattails and a
reek of wine on her breath.
  The woman curtseying to her was Chancellor
Burningstar in robes of sapphire blue. She
rose with fury in her eyes and surged forward
to clasp the visitor in a very informal embrace.
"How dare they! Come and sit here, Your
Grace. How dare they treat you so? I am
overjoyed to see you free again. You are
hurt?"
  Malinda shook her head. Feeling dizzy,
she sank gratefully on the bench and huddled herself
in her blankets. Voices shouted outside in a
language not Chivian, feet pounded on the
ceiling, the anchor chain clanked.
  "Then whose blood is that?"
  "Sir Dog's," Audley said. "We also
lost Reynard, Bullwhip, probably
Victor. Lothaire took a bad one. A
couple of others hurt a bit, but the rest of us
came back still breathing. I won our bet, Your
Excellency."
  "You think I care about losing?" the old lady
snapped. "I never thought they'd get Your
Majesty out at all. Wine, Your Grace?
Food?"
  Malinda shivered. "Not wine." She hoped that
they were taking proper care of Dog.
  "Wash that blood off? Clothes? We have some
garments, better at least than those."
  "Not yet. Soon."
  "Then what? Sir Wasp can produce any
miracle you want on this boat of his."
  "Ship!" he said sharply. He was around
thirty, with lines starting to show in his
face. Short and trim, he had the rapier look
of a Blade, yet he did not wear a sword.
What he was wearing was obviously worth a tidy
sum, and she would not have expected any man less
than a duke to own a vessel like this. Just the
emerald at his throat would buy a coach and four.
  "Ship then."
  "If you can manage some hot soup," Malinda
said, "I will believe in miracles."
  "That one's easy." He blew into a speaking
tube, listened for acknowledgment. "A jug of hot
soup right away." He replaced the tube on its
hook.
  "Majesty," Burningstar said, "may I have the
honor of presenting Sir Wasp? He owns this
floating palace. He claims to be Your
Grace's loyal servant and I can detect no
falsehood in him."
  "I am greatly in your debt, Sir Wasp."
  He bowed low. "Nay, Your Majesty, I
owe you great redress, whatever I can ever do
to make amends." He took a quick step to catch
his balance as the ship heeled.
  "Please be seated, all of you," she said.
"Sir Wasp, you are a Blade?" Why would a
Blade have trouble with balance?
  All three of them settled on the bench
opposite her.
  "I was, Your Grace. I would still be a
companion in good standing if the Order had not been
dissolved." He shot a smile at Audley.
"I am honored to be included in the Queen's
Men."
  "I am grateful to them all. Where will you take
me?"
  "Drachveld, by your leave. Queen Regent
Martha promises Your Grace asylum with
full royal honors. You can be Queen in
Exile while your supporters prepare to wrest
your crown from the Usurper."
  Again the awful prospect of civil war
loomed. No, she would not go to Thergy. The answer
lay at Ironhall. Could she hope to convince
them of the truth she had worked out over the long dark
months? Would she even have the courage to face it
herself if Dog were here with her now? And who was this
cryptic ex-Blade who wallowed in such wealth?
  "Who was your ward, Sir Wasp?"
  "Radgar Aeleding, Your Grace."
  They all watched for her reaction.
  "Sir Piers told me that my father had not
only allowed the Baelish heir to slip out of his
fingers but also had deeded him a Blade. It was
fear of ridicule, I am sure, that made him
insist on keeping the matter so secret." Even
male monarchs could make mistakes. She
glanced around her other companions, especially
looking at Burningstar, who claimed to find no
untruth in the man, but who still seemed unworried.
"You know it was my signature that bereft you of your
ward, Sir Wasp."
  "Not so, Your Majesty. I was released from my
binding many years ago, under very unusual
circumstances, but Radgar and I remained close
friends. Until a year ago." The ship heeled,
Wasp shifted position, and Malinda saw that there
was something wrong with his left arm. He was not using
it, and that doubtless explained the awkwardness she had
noted earlier.
  "Two years ago, my lady, when I was
Baelmark's consul general in Drachveld, Lord
Roland came calling with a proposal to end the war
by a marriage between you and King Radgar. I took
that proposal to Baelmark and talked Radgar
into it. I thought I had talked him into it. When the
day came, you know what he did." Wasp sighed.
"Believe me, Your Grace, I was appalled!
I had no inkling that this was what he intended. I
would almost swear he did not know it himself. Even the
earls and thegns were horrified at the breach of
faith, and it takes a lot to scandalize
Baels. For the first time in his long reign, his
hold on the throne was put in doubt. If it
please you, you may suppose that his treachery
destroyed him, for I strongly suspect that his
attack on Lomouth was betrayed."
  "I am certain of it. Someone provided my
cousin with money and information. The quarry was not I,
but Radgar."
  Wasp nodded grimly, accepting that theory.
"I had always known he could be a hard man,
brutal if necessary, but in all the years of our
friendship I had never appreciated the depth of his
bitterness against your father, whom he blamed for his own
father's murder. You know the story, I am sure,
so I need not tell it again. He was obsessed by that
foul act. Yet one treason does not justify
another. I broke with him over it, Your
Grace. I took my wife and children and walked out
of my fine house in Drachveld and went
to serve another master. I told Radgar to--"
  "What other master?"
  A flicker of a smile lightened Wasp's
somber mood. "The King of Thergy. We had a
longstanding rivalry to see who could drink whom under
the table. He usually won. I lost two royal
friends in short order last year." Another sigh,
a shrug. "So my sacrifice was not as
dramatic as I made it sound. And Radgar
never gave in easily. He sent me the deeds
to the house and its contents, the papers of this ship,
everything. I sent them all back to him. He sent
them back to me. And so on. When he died, they were
in my hands, so chance decreed that I kept the
ill-gotten gains of my friendship. When I heard
of your misfortune, I resolved to see what I
could do to make amends, because much of the blame rests
on my shoulders. I misjudged Radgar."
  Malinda sat for a while, struggling to think her
way through a thicket of weariness and sorrow and
confusion. Likely she would trust this Wasp even
without Burningstar's endorsement. He had an air
of competence and frankness, of simplicity even, and
yet there were depths to him. No lightweight,
certainly, this friend of kings.
  "You admit you were Radgar's friend, yet I
cut off his head."
  The former swordsman met her gaze steadily.
"Should I seek revenge for that, Your Grace?
From what I heard I had rather be grateful to you for
ending his suffering. If I did want vengeance,
would I not leave you where you were an hour ago?"
  She nodded dumbly. "Then I gladly
accept you as one of the Queen's Men and I am
grateful to you for your service this night, as I am
grateful to the others. But I will not go
to Drachveld, much as I appreciate the Queen
Regent's kindness in her own sorrows."
  The other three exchanged worried glances,
perhaps wondering what her captivity might have done
to her thinking. They would have much more to worry about
soon.
  "Then where would you have us go, my lady?"
Audley demanded.
  Not yet. She must be certain. "First let me
speak with Sir Winter and Sir Jongleur."

  The lanterns had to be shuttered before the door
could be opened, and it was several minutes before the
cabin was bright again. By then the others had
arrived and Malinda was sipping a mug of meaty
soup, which seemed to boil all the way down her
throat and burn through every vein. Sir Wasp had a
skillful cook, although anything would have tasted good
after prison fare. The cabin was crowded; she had
moved to the chair and left the benches for Burningstar
and the four men.
  Winter's fingernails had grown in and his chin had
sprouted a whimsical little beard, so being an
ex-Blade must agree with him. He beamed when
asked about Dian. "Safe in Ness Royal,
Your Grace. The gatehouse is unmanned and
there is not even a seneschal just now." He grinned
bashfully. "She is counting the days until
Ninthmoon!"
  "Congratulations! I am sure Dian will be a
wonderful mother. That is wonderful news." It was
terrible, horrible news. It was going to make things
much harder. "Sir Jongleur? Considering my
intemperate language to you the first time we met,
I am doubly in your debt for your gallant
service tonight."
  "Your remonstrance on that occasion was well
deserved, Your Majesty. I am glad to have had
the chance to redeem myself." Jongleur's beard
seemed grayer than she remembered, and his left
arm was in a sling, but he was as pompous as ever.
  "You do recall the subject of our discussion
upon that occasion?"
  "The query posed in your letter?" he said
cautiously. "Yes, of course."
  "Six months in the Bastion have provided me
with unlimited time to think over what you said then."
  He paused a moment as if to plan his words.
"I shall never again make the mistake of
underestimating Your Grace's learning in the spiritual
arts."
  "I am only an amateur, but perhaps my
lack of formal training allows me to see paths that
have never been adequately mapped. And in my
dungeon, I was free to let my mind roam,
if you understand that expression."
  He nodded warily. "Of course."
  "A certain inquisitor once revealed to me
that the Dark Chamber obtains prophecies, which it
refers to as readings, by a sort of inverted
necromancy. It summons the spirits of the dead from
the future instead of the past."
  "That is a gross simplification of ... Your
Grace has stated a very generalized
view of a very complex process, which rarely works as
well in practice as it does in theory. Few
authorities would place as much faith in the
procedure as the Office of General Inquiry
seems to."
  "But the point I wish to make is that spirits,
unlike material objects, can be in two
places at once! Minds can roam! Don't
you agree? Please do not digress into the distinction
between spirit and mind."
  "We can agree that both may wander freely in
space and time, certainly."
  "So why is the translation Dog wanted not
possible?" Alas, Dog's spirit was gone,
disassembled, returned to the elements.
  Jongleur seemed as genuinely puzzled as the
others were. "You are talking now only of the mind
going back to a specific date and time in the
past, not a corporeal body?"
  "A mind--a word--an idea." Malinda
resisted the temptation to grab the man's broken
wrist and twist. The ship was winding and turning as it
edged its way down the river, but Captain Klerk
was probably having much less trouble than she was
trying to extract a straight answer from this
pompous oaf. "Do go on, Sir Jongleur."
  "The hypothesis would seem to have some theoretical
merit, but I still believe that such a conjuration is
impossible in practice."
  "Why?"
  Jongleur stared very hard at her for a moment.
"You are still speaking of the dead boy, Your
Majesty? You are not contemplating essaying this for
yourself?"
  "Just list the difficulties."
  "There is a saying, my lady, that a little knowledge is
a dangerous thing."
  "I could hardly have any less knowledge than I have
managed to drag out of you so far. Are you loyal
to me or the Usurper?"
  Jongleur's plump face turned very red.
"I am Your Majesty's man."
  "Then answer my questions. Is what Sir Dog
wanted possible or not?"
  Audley looked completely lost. Winter was
frowning, hanging on every word. Burningstar was
probably keeping up also, for although the White
Sisters' knowledge of enchantment was more empirical and
empathic than theoretical, the former Mother
Superior was a very bright lady.
  "Even if it were," Jongleur protested,
"it would be futile. When the subject went back
in time, he would be faced with the same situation he
had met before, so he would act in the same way as
before, and nothing would change. Unless, of course,
he was possessed of the experience and memories he
had gained in the future. Since he has not yet
lived that future, that cannot be. You create a
logical circularity, and the Prohibitions of
Veriano still apply."
  Malinda said, "Are you familiar with
Hoffman's Uncertainty Principle?" She
saw Winter jump and raised an eyebrow
to invite him into the conversation. "You are?"
  ""Chance is elemental," my lady?"
  "Meaning?"
  He put a finger to his mouth and hastily
removed it. "It's why no conjuration works
perfectly every time. The Destroyer General
doesn't always hit the target. Ironhall
bindings can kill."
  "But in this case, the uncertainty is an
advantage. Right, Sir Jongleur?"
  Hating to admit anything, he muttered,
"Possibly ... You imply that translation
might not be instantaneous. True, there could be a
slight overlap, a few seconds or minutes
when the subject should be regarded as existing in both
times. If so, he would carry a transitory
memory of the future and of his reasons for making the
translation. Do I correctly comprehend Your
Grace's hypothesis?"
  "Those few moments might be enough for his
purpose."
  "Perhaps so," the conjurer agreed, adding with a sour
hint of triumph, "however--with all due
respect, Your Majesty--the same uncertainty
must apply to the overall translation, and on a
larger scale. Even if we could invoke time
elementals to carry us back, we cannot hope to aim
them like crossbows. The boy would have had to revisit
one exact instant in his past, because an hour too
late or too early would make the exercise
futile. Going back many years, as he wished,
might introduce an error of weeks. Chance
wins again. He presented an intriguing problem,
but not one with any practical applications."
  "That is the only objection you can raise?"
  "It is enough, my lady."
  Winter had turned as white as snow.
He had seen the next step in the path.
  "You have a suggestion?" she asked.
  He gulped. "Necromancy?"
  Sir Jongleur sat bolt upright,
Burningstar muttered, "Oh, no!" and everyone
stared in horror.
  "The moment of death," Malinda said. "The
deaths of many men occurring very close together. Instead
of invoking elementals to send you back, Sir
Jongleur, consider invoking compound spirits, the souls
of the dead, to pull you back to that climactic
moment. And, yes, you could trust their aid in this
instance, because what you want for them is what they
want--a chance to live again!"
  Pompous or not, Jongleur must be clever to have
won admittance to the College after a career as a
swordsman. His eyes glazed as he weighed the
possibilities. "You mean Wetshore, of
course ... But the risk, Your Grace!
Invocation of the dead is the only conjuration I know
where the enchanters stand outside the octogram. For
what you propose, the--subject? the traveler?
--would have to be inside with the reassembled souls.
The danger of death or madness ..."
  "I am on intimate terms with danger. What
other objections can you raise?"
  "One spirit likely would not be enough ... as you infer,
you would have to invoke several, but those men did not all
die at the same instant. You might be
scattered. ... Then there is the problem of a key,
or bait, as it is vulgarly called. Some
object the soul can recognize and crystallize
around, something long familiar to--"
  "Their swords?" Winter wailed. "It would have
to be their swords. But Ironhall was sacked,
Your Grace! All the swords are gone."
  "I doubt if the swords of the Wetshore dead
were ever hung in the sky of swords. Sir
Lothaire will know. Assuming we can find them,
would it work? I never loved my father, but he was
a strong and capable ruler. Chivial has suffered
greatly since he died and seems doomed to suffer
more. If--and this is what I need to know--if the
souls of the lost Blades can call me back ...
all I need is a minute! Just one minute!
If I can be returned to the moment when I left
the longship and walked along the jetty; if instead
I can run along the jetty shouting a warning to the
Guard ... Surely if I just cry,
"Crossbow!" to them they will bury my
father under a mountain of flesh and Radgar will lose that
easy shot. All our troubles come from my father's
death. One word of warning--"
  She had grown too emphatic.
  "More soup, Your Majesty?" Burningstar said,
reaching for the jug. "This is a fascinating concept you
spring on us. Don't you agree, Sir
Wasp?"
  Winter and Jongleur were staring hard at each
other. Then the older man turned again to Malinda,
but now he spoke without patronizing.
  "It is a terrifying concept! I need to think
about this."
  She found no satisfaction in being right, having
had so long to work it out. "Time may be something we do
not have! Lambskin--or Smaile or whatever his
name is now--will be searching for me already. If his
spies and arts gain him one whisper of what we
plan, then he can block us utterly." Every day
they delayed was one more day when Dog was dead. "The
answer lies at Ironhall. When Seahorse
has cleared the river, Sir Wasp, pray set
course for Ironhall."
  Into the frigid silence stepped Countess
Burningstar. "Your Grace, you have just emerged from a
terrible ordeal. A few days' rest to regain your
strength will--"
  "No!"
  "Sir Lothaire is in grave need of an
elementary," Audley said. "We did bring
conjured bandages, but he is still in great pain. And
we have funerals to arrange."
  "No!"
  "Your Majesty," Jongleur protested, "you
are proposing a major innovation in conjuration. I
would expect to take months to finalize the
invocations and revocations required, and many
trials before it would work."
  "You can have all night. Get to work."
  Worried glances were passed around. Sir
Wasp tried next.
  "We lack adequate supplies for that
voyage, even if we do not expect to return.
Furthermore, although Seahorse is very
close-winded, we should have to tack off an unknown
coast, lacking both charts and pilot."
  "Stop making excuses!"
  Winter said, "If Lambskin has spirits
seeking you, then you must not head for Ironhall. A
day or two in Thergy will put him off the
scent."
  Malinda turned away from the look of horror
on his face and felt her resolution deflate like
a pricked bubble. "I suppose I am being
hasty. To Drachveld then, Sir Wasp, if you
please."

                 

  I just wish his wife wasn't quite so crazy about
seahorses.
    RADGAR AELEDING

  Drachveld, the capital of Thergy, was laid
out on a perfectly flat surface with the
precision of a formal table setting. Seahorse
sailed right through the city on a busy canal and
continued a mile or so inland, to Sir Wasp's
desirable waterfront residence; there she tied
up at the edge of the rose garden. His house was
smaller than a royal palace but few dukes
would have spurned it. The designers' flair was
evident everywhere from the water lilies by the dock
to golden cupolas on the roof--wealth and good
taste in perfect unison. Even a queen could be
impressed, and an escaped prisoner who had
spent half a year in jail was overwhelmed. Had
she been compelled to find fault, Malinda would
most likely have criticized an excessive
use of seahorses as a motif. The gateposts
were marble seahorses of more than human height;
lesser seahorses appeared on china, towels, and
cushions; in mosaic, fresco, and tapestry;
as doorknobs and bedposts.
  Lady Wasp, who greeted her guests at the
front door, combined the beauty of a porcelain
figurine with the sparkle of diamonds. Her
earrings were jade seahorses.

  Sir Lothaire and the other wounded were rushed to an
elementary for healing. The other Blades set to the
sad task of acquiring lumber and building a
funeral pyre for the dead. Burningstar made
repeated attempts to tuck Malinda into bed, but
Malinda refused to be tucked. She greeted
other members of the Queen's Men--Fox,
Jarvis, and several she knew less well.
Informed that certain other exiles driven from
Chivial by the Usurper dwelt in the city, she
insisted on summoning them. She tried
to help with the funeral preparations or at least
assist Sir Jongleur with the incantations he was
outlining. By the time she had been persuaded that her
help was actually a hindrance, the pyres were
ready, the wounded had returned healed, and the
funeral could proceed. They let her light the
balefire.
  It took several hours to burn out, but she
stood watch there with the swordsmen. Many of them
wept, but she shed not a single tear. She could not
regard Dog's death as permanent--she was
resolved to go to Ironhall and revise the course
of events. He would live again; they would all
live again. When at last the evening shadows
lengthened, Burningstar managed to drag her
indoors and feed her. She still refused to go
upstairs, or even sit down for more than a few
moments at a time. She wanted to talk
politics with Winter, inspect the conjurers' work,
see to the outfitting of Seahorse--anything at
all except rest.
  It was then that Queen Regent Martha arrived,
coming incognito and without ceremony. The two
queens were left alone to talk and Malinda found
herself talking--as she never had before, even to Dian
--about the man she had loved and had now lost. The
storm broke. She fell into Martha's arms and
wept inconsolably until the recently widowed
queen joined and wept with her.
  She barely remembered being led upstairs and
put to bed.

  It was about noon the next day when she met with
her council-in-exile: Burningstar, Audley,
Wasp, Jongleur, and Lothaire, who was now
healed but obviously still shaky. They were all
grim-faced. Yes, the conjurers admitted, what
she proposed seemed possible.
  "The risks of outright failure," Sir
Lothaire put in, "are less than the risks
of disaster--death or madness. With respect, my
lady, you would be utterly crazy to stand within that
octogram."
  "If I am already crazy, that halves the
risk." Dog had gone into danger to rescue her;
could she do less for him?
  Jongleur had been up all night and was having
trouble smothering yawns. "But we must have the swords
and we don't know where they went."
  "I am sure they were returned
to Ironhall," Lothaire said. "The law
required that. I don't remember them being
mentioned. What happened to them would be up to Grand
Master. He was hanged a month ago, so we
can't ask him. Master of Rituals or Master
Armorer would know, but where they are ..." He
shrugged. "Seventy swords? Even if they
hung them in the sky without a ceremony, I'm
sure I would have noticed. Most likely they were
taken to the Forge and disassembled, blades and
hilts melted down separately, cat's-eyes
put in storage. ..."
  "The blades alone might suffice,"
Jongleur said without much confidence, "but the rebels
may have taken them also."
  "I know where they are," Malinda said. "When can
we leave?"
  Before she could be questioned, Audley intervened. "As
soon as possible! If you are adamant that you must
try this, Your Grace, then we must move as fast
as we can. Sir Wasp, can we sail tonight?"
  Wasp shook his head in disbelief. "Captain
Klerk has not stopped gibbering after that trip down
the Gran. ... Yes, if we must, but why?"
  Audley stared glumly at the floor, meeting
no one's eye. "Because we have almost certainly been
betrayed."
  "Winter?" Malinda asked quietly.
  "He or others. Jarvis and Mercadier
disappeared right after the funeral. They may or may
not have learned what Your Majesty proposes. But
Winter certainly knew, and he has gone."
  No one spoke for a long, hurtful moment.
She had started with four Blades, and those four had
seemed special even after she inherited the rest.
But Abel had gone very quickly, then Dog, and now
Winter. "I cannot blame him. He knows that if
I succeed, Bandit will not have died, so Dian would
not be a widow and the child she is now carrying will never
be. If I can undo disaster for myself and my
country and for the Blades, then I must undo good
fortune for others. How will he try to block us?"
  "Chivial has a consulate here," Burningstar
said. "The Dark Chamber will have agents watching this
house and your supporters in general. His hardest
job will be to make them believe his story. Once
he does that, then they must send word to Grandon and
Grandon must dispatch troops to Ironhall."
  "We can be there before them?"
  Wasp sighed. "Depends how much
start ... But the wind is fair. Yes."
  "Can we muster enough men?"
  "Yes," Audley said, "but only just."
  "Have you completed your rituals, conjurers?"
  Jongleur tried to speak and was caught by a
yawn. Lothaire nodded.
  "Then let us sail tonight, and go to Ironhall."

                 

  Home is where journeys end.
      FONATELLES

  Newtor, the nearest port to Ironhall,
comprised a dozen cottages around a fair
natural harbor. It was much too small a
place to support a livery stable, but it had always
had one, secretly subsidized by the Order and
run by a knight who was thus well placed to send
advance warning of visitors arriving by sea.
Ancient Sir Cedric, the last incumbent, had
never had cause to do so. Now, with the Order
dissolved and Ironhall itself in ruins, he had
resigned himself to never setting eyes on another
Blade. Common sense dictated that he should
close down the business, sell off his few
remaining nags, and go to live with his daughter in
Prail, but either sentiment or inertia had so far
stayed his hand. Hence his joy, that early morning in
Fifthmoon, when a young man sporting a
cat's-eye sword turned up on his doorstep
demanding his nine best horses and no questions asked.
As luck would have it, his nine best were also his nine
worst, that being the exact number he had in the
meadow, but he parted with them all most cheerfully and
was almost reluctant to accept the gold coins
proffered in payment. He took them, though.
Later he noticed a small craft of
unfamiliar lines heading out to sea and a line of
riders heading off over the moor; he wondered
what strange nostalgia drove them.

  Much the same question spun in Malinda's mind.
These men were not being moved by loyalty to obey her
commands--she was certain they considered her crazier
than Queen Adela had ever been. Rather, they must
feel a desperate yearning for the Blades themselves,
the old Order, the ideal that had shattered so
horribly at Wetshore. If her mad plan
succeeded, she might save them from that.
If it failed, they would have lost very little. She, of
course ... but she would not think about that.
  The Queen's Men, last of the Blades. They
were down to eight on this final outing. The conjurers,
Jongleur and Lothaire, were both in their forties,
but the rest were youngsters, with Oak the oldest, at about
thirty. Audley was not quite nineteen yet, although
he tried to keep this shameful fact a secret;
Savary, Charente, Fury, and Alandale fell
somewhere between. Wasp had very much wanted to come, but the
conjurers had forbidden it. He was too closely
associated with Radgar, they said, and his presence
would enrage the invoked spirits. While it was
unlikely that they could escape the octogram
to attack him, they might well vent their fury
on Malinda.
  The mood was somber as the nine rode up the
gentle rise above Newtor, but once the sea was
out of sight and sunlit moorland lay all around,
Audley increased the pace and a mood of
brittle humor began to show. Savary started a
song that would not normally be heard in the presence of
royal ladies, and some of the others joined in.
Malinda wondered if they would sing on the way
back tomorrow, if there was a tomorrow. It all depended
on the swords. Had they been stolen or melted
down or what? This whole expedition would be a
futile waste of time unless they could find the
swords.
  Or it might be a trap. When they came within
sight of Ironhall, Audley called a halt
and sent Fury forward alone to scout. Malinda
thought he was being absurdly cautious. Even if
Winter had betrayed them, the government could not
possibly have reacted quickly enough to have troops there
already--governments never did. Even so, it was a
relief when a chastened-looking Fury returned
to report that the coast seemed clear. They rode
back with him in silence. From a distance the complex
seemed much as it always had, and only when the
pilgrims drew close did their eyes start
to pick out missing roofs and daylight showing through
windows. Then an eddy in the wind brought a rank
stench of disaster. All burned buildings smelled
bad, and Ironhall had been so meticulously
burned that many buildings had collapsed. Even the
moorland sheep and ponies seemed to shun it, for
weeds already grew in the courtyard.
  Without a word spoken, the Queen's Men
dismounted. Audley handed Malinda down.
In silence the group walked up the littered steps
and into Main House until their way was blocked
by piles of ashes and fallen masonry. From there
they could just see into the open court that had once been
the Great Hall. Half-melted fragments of
chain still hung from the blackened walls, but any
swords that had been overlooked by the looters were
certainly buried deep under the ruins.
  "Come!" Jongleur growled. "Let's try the
Forge."

  The Forge was in better shape, because it contained
nothing flammable except stacks of charcoal for the
hearths, and those had not been touched. The tools had
been stolen and windows smashed, but the gloomy
crypt itself was little changed. Water still welled up
in the stone troughs, overflowing into gutters, and
finally trickling down the drain. The heaps of
ingots and scrap metal were scattered as if
someone had picked through them; they certainly did not
contain seventy-two ownerless swords. The very few
blades the visitors could find were obviously
unfinished blanks or discarded failures.
  "The spirits are still present?" Oak demanded
suddenly, his voice echoing.
  Fury, Savary, and the two conjurers were shivering
as if about to freeze to death. No one bothered
to answer. Instead, everyone gathered around the hole
where the gutters ended as if to listen to its
monotonous song.
  "Surely not!" Savary said. "They wouldn't do
that, would they?"
  "If someone thought it up three centuries
ago, they'd still be doing it last year," Lothaire
answered, reasonably enough.
  "It's what Durendal told me," Malinda
said. "And he would know." But he had only been
talking of one instance, Eagle. They struck
him off the rolls, dropped his sword down the
drain, and impressed him as a deckhand on a
square-rigger trading to the Fever Shores.
  Now she must gamble everything on that chance remark.
Roland might have meant some other drain, real or
figurative. Or that ultimate disgrace might
be reserved for those who betrayed their loyalty--as,
for example, by kissing their ward's daughter.
Perhaps the Blades who rampaged and died at
Wetshore had been seen as less despicable and
their swords had been hung in the hall for
Courtney's army to steal. She
remembered the hole in the floor as being covered
by a bronze grating, but that had gone. The hole
itself was barely a foot across, too regular to be
entirely natural, not regular enough to be
completely artificial. What lay below? Did
it twist down into the earth as a bottomless
crevasse, or did it widen into a cavern?
  If, if, if ... If she succeeded, Dog
would not be dead.
  Charente said, "I'll get the chains." He
trotted out and Alandale followed. Audley sent
Savary after them, to stand first watch.
  Charente and Alandale returned, weighted down
with saddlebags that clinked as they were dropped. From
them came long lengths of fine brass chain and a
selection of hooks.
  "Who's the best angler?" Alandale said
cheerily. No one answered. It was Charente who
lowered the first hook down the hole, and all the rest
stood around him, listening. Clatter, clatter
--no clink, clink. The hole swallowed it
all. Oak went to help him. They attached the
second chain to the first and began to feed that down also.
  "Fasten something to the other end," Jongleur
suggested. "We don't want to see the whole
contraption disappear."
  Lothaire fetched one of the unfinished sword
blanks, knotted the chain around it, then stood on
it.
  "Anyone hear something?"
  The running water sang its own song and no one
would admit to hearing anything else. Soon there was
almost none of the second chain left in view. The
chasm seemed to be bottomless.
  "Know something?" Oak said, puffing. "This isn't
getting any heavier! It's piling up on something
down there."
  "Go to the end anyway," Audley said. "Then
haul it back up."
  "Your lead, Leader!"
  With good grace Audley stripped off his
cloak and jerkin. Alandale copied him and the two
of them began to haul the chains back in. They
retrieved the second chain, then about half the
first.
  "Listen!"
  Under the chattering of the water, something rattled,
clanged, and faded away. ... When the hook
came into sight, it was empty.
  Jongleur stated the obvious: "You
caught something and dropped it! Try again."
  On the second try they failed to gain even that
much satisfaction. By the third try, the chain was
allowed to feed itself into the ground, which it did with great
speed. It came out no faster, of course, but this
time the hook emerged from the waterfall with a catch.
Many hands grabbed for it--a rapier, snagged by its
finger ring. The superb Ironhall steel was as
shiny as new and a cat's-eye still gleamed on the
pommel.
  Fury ran it over to the nearest window for
light.
  "Suasion!" he read out, and the Forge rang with
cheers and whoops of triumph. Where Bandit's
sword lay, so would all the others. Surely it
was an omen that Leader's sword had come first?
Audley so far forgot himself as to grab his Queen
and hug her.
  Her heart fluttered with sudden terror. She
had been proven right, so now she would have to go through with
this.

  Necromancy must be performed at night.
Audley ordered Savary off to Blackwater
to alert the Order's agent there, if he was still at
his post.
  It took the rest of the day to retrieve enough
swords. The conjurers said they wanted eight and
then slyly withdrew to a quiet place to go over
their rituals once again. The five younger men
stripped off jerkins and doublets and took turns
at the backbreaking work. Most casts came up
empty, but not all, and each time another sword was
recovered its name was read out and identified in a
bittersweet mixture of sorrow and joy by those
who had been friends with its owner.
  Farewell? "That was Fairtrue's!"
  Justice? "That was young Orvil's, wasn't
it?"
  Inkling? "Herrick's!"
  Gnat? No one was familiar with Gnat. It
might belong to some other century. It was laid
aside. Doom the same ... Malinda hoped
that they would not find Stoop, which had been
Eagle's. It was in there somewhere.
  Lightning? "Falcon's."
  "I'd rather not use that one." Malinda had
killed Falcon with that sword, but they would not
believe her if she said so. She ignored the
puzzled glances.
  They laid Lightning aside also.
  And Finesse, too, because no one could identify
its owner.
  It was Malinda who attributed Master
to Sir Chandos. Dian had told her.
  Savary returned to report that old Sir
Crystal was now keeping watch on the
Blackwater road; he claimed his grandson could
outride anything that ate grass and would bring word of
any suspicious travelers heading west.
  As the light began to fade, the swords stopped
coming. Then Screwsley's Leech broke the
drought. That made six in all. After that, again
nothing. ... The men took turns eating while
others kept the hunt going. The two conjurers were
shamed into helping. Malinda made herself useful
with the tinderbox, building charcoal fires in the
hearths, adding scrap wood and brush to give
light.
  They tried casting only halfway down; they
tried different hooks, singly or clustered, but it
seemed that the rest of the swords must lie either
deeper than they could reach or around bends where their
chain would not go. The men's hands were swollen by the
icy water and cut by the chain; midnight was fast
approaching, the best time for necromancy.
  "It's useless." Jongleur said. "Six?
Or seven?"
  "Seven," Malinda agreed. She would have
to risk Falcon. "Let's give it one more
try!" She picked up the hook and kissed it.
"Please," she said. "Go find me a man."
  The weary men all chuckled, as she had hoped
they would. She tossed the hook into the hole and
watched the chain pour after it until stopped by the bar
at the end. She even tried to start the pulling and was
appalled by the effort required. Audley and
Fury eased her aside and took over, but even
they ran into trouble. The chain had jammed. More men
went to help and managed to pull it free. Three
times the same thing happened, and when the hook finally
came into view, it was holding two swords--
Mallory's Sorrow and Stalwart's
Sleight. They had eight without a need to invoke
Falcon.
  "I suggest we take a brief break,"
Jongleur said. "We suspect that closer
to dawn might be advisable in this instance. And we
all need to rehearse our--"
  Oak was on watch and now he came
clattering down the steps; his voice reverberated
through the crypt. "The boy's here! Says they're
coming ... about fifty Yeomen, right on his
heels."

                 

  Seconds matter more than years do. One
instant can change your whole life forever.
    SIR DOG

  "We must leave!" Malinda said. "We have the
swords. Any octogram will do."
  "Not as well!" the two conjurers said in
unison.
  "Not nearly as well," Lothaire added.
"They will answer a call from here when they might
not--"
  "Besides," said Jongleur, "other people handling the
swords will weaken the personality imprints."
  "Then start!" Audley shouted. "No
arguments!" That command was directed at Malinda.
  It was crazy. The lancers might arrive before
they had finished their first attempt, and a new
invocation almost never worked on the first try. The
Queen's Men would be trapped; she would be taken
prisoner again or just quietly murdered. Flight
was the only sane course. But Audley rushed
her over to the center, where Savary and Charente were
busily wrapping rope around the great anvil.
She sat on it, then changed her mind and knelt
instead. The conjurers wanted the swords upright; and
as it was obviously not possible to plant them in the
ground when the floor was solid rock, they set
them in the rope binding. She sat back on her
heels within a wall of steel: Sleight,
Sorrow, Suasion, Leech, Farewell,
Justice, Master, Inkling. She thought of
Sword, which had been lost in the confusion and was
probably somewhere at the bottom of the Gran. The
men lined up as they had been rehearsed, one at
each point; outside the octogram they should be
relatively safe. Lothaire handed out the
scripts. There was some cursing as the men peered at
them in the uncertain, flickering light. For some
clandestine reason, sorcerers always wrote
spells on scrolls, which tended to roll up at
inconvenient moments.
  "I will summon Bandit to Suasion,"
Jongleur said. "Please read off the
names you are assigned."
  "Sir Chandos to Master ..."
  "Sir Stalwart to Sleight ..."
  And so on around the octogram.
  "Thank you. Face toward me, if you please,
Your Grace. This is death point. You have your
lines ready?"
  She nodded. "Even if this doesn't work--and
even more if it does ... Thank you all."
  "It is for us to thank you, Your Majesty,"
Audley said. "We--"
  Jongleur cut him off, bellowing in a highly
discordant voice. The s@eance had begun.
  Malinda had nothing to do until--unless--the
dead appeared. Not being sensitive to spirits, she
might have very little warning. The Forge was cold. Its
bizarre acoustics sometimes made the eight
voices reverberate and echo, and at others
swallowed them like a winter's night. The men
invoked time, revoked death. They summoned the
dead by name, each in turn. They revoked death
again, invoked air and fire to reassemble the souls.
On and on, singly or in unison, back and forth
across the octogram.
  She had memorized her invocation; it was very
simple, little more than a plea to be taken back
to the moment before the rampage began, before Radgar
squeezed the trigger on the crossbow. That scene
was burned into her memory--the Blades clustered
around her father at the top of the steps, making him an
impossible target, and then opening a way for her,
exposing him. No one had thought of archery,
Radgar had cleverly distracted all of them, as
Durendal had pointed out.
  He had been a despot, King Ambrose, but
Chivial had needed him, his iron will, his supple
hand, his very devious mind. One word from her would
save him and see Radgar sail away
frustrated. Princess Dierda would become
Queen Dierda and produce countless litters of
princes to secure the succession, while she, the
disgraced Malinda, rejected by a common pirate
... well she must just face a furious father and be
married off to some other horror--not that Radgar had
impressed her as a horror at all in the few
minutes they had spoken. Queen Regent Martha
had spoken very highly of him.
  The fires were dwindling. The Forge was growing
darker and colder, very much colder. Goose bumps
marched on her skin.
  The voices seemed locked in endless wheels of
invocation, repeating and repeating the names: Chandos,
come! Screwsley, come! Stalwart, come! Time
had been revoked; perhaps it would never return.
Heat had been revoked; she was freezing.
  The chanting had faded into the distance and the trickle
of water had stopped. The glow of the fires had
faded away, and yet the Forge was not dark, rather it
seemed ... foggy? Was this what it was like to be blind?
Even to recognize darkness must be a kind of
seeing. Everything seemed hidden behind smoked
glass, as if the very air were becoming opaque.
She could not see the chanters, only ... only
eyes looking down at her. Disembodied. A
pair of eyes, a faint outline of a hand resting
on Suasion's hilt ... More eyes, to right and
left. Behind her? Yes, some there, also, staring down
at her.
  Her mind went blank. She fumbled with the
scroll with her invocation on it. Inevitably it
rolled itself up; she unrolled it, and an icy
breeze lifted it from her hand.
  Traitor! The voice was no more than a thought
in her mind.
  "No!" she cried, struggling to remember what
she must say. "Blades, you must save your
ward--"
  This is the traitor.
  She betrayed us, said another.
  They were faint, insubstantial, no more than
reflections on water, clustered menacingly all
around her, hands on swords.
  Kill her. Take her mind. Twist,
rend, scatter ...
  Icy touches, wind or fingers ...
  "No!" she screamed. "Save the King!
Save your ward! There was a massacre. You
died. Hundreds died." She had forgotten her
text. She gabbled. "The baby prince died
later and I was dispossessed." She wondered why
the chanters were still wailing away in the distance. Could
they not hear her screaming at the ghosts? "Take
me back with you! Back to that moment and before. When
I was walking back along the jetty--I will
shout--"
  Traitor, traitor!
  Make her plead.
  Make her scream.
  She slew our ward. ...
  "I did not! I want to save him
now, save you, all of you. Start again. I will shout
a warning. You cannot shout, but I can. Take me
back--"
  Make her suffer, suffer, suffer. ...
  "Sir Bandit!" she yelled. "Dian was
left a widow. She wept for you, but she married
another man."
  Dian? Must I remember Dian? That
silent thought was Bandit's voice, all that was
left of a fine man.
  "Take me back to the jetty! I will save you
all."
  Ghostly anger.
  Brothers, she also was our ward, our ward's
heir. That was Bandit. We swore,
brothers. Let us trust her a little. If she
fails us, we can still twist and rend.
  Ghostly murmurs of complaint ...
  "Yes, yes, please!" she shouted. "Quickly!
To the jetty. The Usurper's men are coming."
  She betrayed Eagle! That was Chandos.
  "I didn't! Aid me and you will live again, the
Blades will live again."
  Let us do what Leader says, brothers.
... That was young Stalwart. Remember our
oaths.
  A surge of giddiness, of nausea ...
Light? The fog brightened. A scent of water, the
sea. A faint memory of rain. Grass under
her feet.
  And screams, screaming people, screaming horses.
  "No!" she yelled. "This is too late. This
is when you were dying."
  Ghostly moans and wails of despair:
See, we fall! Madness! Shame! The
eight wraiths were still with her, figures of mist
around her, and apparently too engrossed in viewing
their own deaths to heed her pleas.
  "Take me back! Back farther, before my
father died. Back, farther back ..."
  Somewhere a new voice shouted, "Surrender in
the name of King Neville!" and the distant chanting
became shouting and clashing swords. The Yeomen
had arrived at the Forge. More blood, more death.
Malinda was in two places at once, two
times at once. She was going to go mad. The
conjurers had warned her. ...
  "Quickly!" she cried. "Spirits! Save the
King! These are the last of your Order, save them.
Take me back to give the warning!"
  Brothers, we must help her! Again, that was
Bandit, and then she felt Chandos add his silent
voice. And again Stalwart: She can save us.
  Another surge of giddiness, the anvil
rocking, the grass moving under her feet, a misty
rain in her face ... A smell of the sea
filled her nostrils, and she stared up at two
brilliantly green eyes.
  "How kind of him!" Radgar said angrily.
"Such was not his opinion when we met twelve
years ago. It seems he came very close
to lying to you about our acquaintance. Would you agree that
he was trying to deceive you?"
  Too soon! The spirits had placed her back
on the longship as it still drifted aimlessly on the
rain-speckled water. The crew sat in silence,
watching their king interview his new bride. The
oars were spread out like wings, motionless. She could not
disembark yet.
  "An honest answer, my lady! Did your father
deliberately hide from you the fact that he and I
know each other personally?"
  She heard her own voice reply. "Perhaps he
forgot--" In some far corner of her mind she could
still register the screams and swords, back in ...
in the Forge! Hard to relate to that and to this other
place. Two places at once. Must not forget
why she had come back. Soon she would disembark and
warn her father that this green-eyed pirate was a
monster. Must remember.
  The eight shades would be no further help--
Killer! Monster! Oath breaker!
Murderer! They were still there, but now their attention was
all on the hated King of Baelmark. Liar!
Deceiver! They flitted and flickered around him in
frustrated, transparent fury, slashing at him
with ghostly swords. Traitor! Traitor!
Obviously neither Radgar himself nor any of the
crew could see or hear them as Malinda could.
Her mind was being ripped in pieces.
  "I am sure he did not!" Radgar
snapped. "What other tricks did he use on
you? What threats did he make to force you into this
marriage?"
  Again her voice spoke for her--the other
Malinda spoke for her. "Your Majesty, I
wrote to you! I testified before the--"
  "Yes, you did, because I would not sign the
treaty until I was given assurances that you were not
being forced into a union you found distasteful.
I must still hear it from your own lips."
  Thwack! Clang! Those were the terrible sound
of crossbows. The Yeomen were shooting through the
windows at the men trapped in the Forge and at
Malinda herself. The quarrels rang from the stones.
She was going to die there. The last of the Queen's
Men were going to be picked off like fish in a
barrel, dying around her corpse.
  "Your Grace ..." The multitude onshore
had fallen silent, staring at the longship. They
did not know what was going to happen, which was, er
... which was a murder. Someone, yes, her father ...
  "Why did you not wait for your two ladies
to board?"
  "My lord husband, why don't we sail?"
  "Later!" he said angrily. "Because you knew
they did not want to come? Because they had been forced
into accompanying you? So what about you? You are
happy at the prospect of spending the rest of your
life in Baelmark bearing my children?"
  "I am honored to wed so fine a king!" Could this
man really be as bad as he was painted? Yes,
yes! That was why she had come back! Back from
where? Remember! She was fading. The real
Malinda was driving out the wraith from the
octogram. She seemed to be losing power. She
wanted to scream. Perhaps she was dead. Was that
Audley screaming?
  "Oh, rubbish!" Radgar said. "You may be
terrified or disgusted or shivering with excitement.
You cannot possibly feel honored. I'm a
slaver and a killer of thousands. But my mother was forced
into her marriage, and I will not take you as my
wife unless I am convinced that you are truly
happy at the prospect. I think you were
bludgeoned into it. Speak! Persuade me
otherwise."
  He was bullying her, just like her father. "You
call me a liar?" Without thinking, she swung.
Her hand struck his cheek with a crack like an ax;
with all her strength behind it, the blow made him
stagger.
  The crew whooped and roared approval. The
crowd ashore rumbled. She gasped with horror
at her folly.
  The wraiths had gone.
  Radgar straightened up, rubbing his face, which was
already turning pink. His eyes were wide with
astonishment, and yet they shone with devilment. "Do
that again!"
  The eight had gone; the chaos in the Forge
continued. Yes, Audley screaming, and
Lothaire ... and Malinda. Pain! ... More
dead. And all of this was ultimately Radgar's
fault--
  "Your Grace, I beg your--I can't
imagine what--"
  "Do it again!" he said. "Go on, I dare you!"
He offered his face.
  Dare her? How dare he dare her?
Crack! Right hand last time, left hand this time.
  The sounds of the Forge stopped instantly, and she
had a sudden vision of History like a huge
rambunctious scroll breaking loose and rolling
itself up. ...
  Radgar had been expecting the slap, but she was
still fast enough to connect. He reeled back against the
side of the ship. Her hand stung. Spirits! What
would he do to her?
  The pirates cheered, howled, stamped feet, and
shouted obviously lewd suggestions. The King
reached out and gripped Malinda's shoulders. The
marks of her fingers were clearly visible on his
face, yet he was grinning widely, like a boy.
"You have convinced me! No one bullies you
into anything. Make a wake, helmsman! I have
a bride to take home."
  Leofric yelled, "Yea, lord!" and something
else in Baelish. His mallet hit the rail,
the oars dipped and bit. The ship leaped forward.
Malinda staggered. Radgar folded her into an
embrace and kissed her. He was not Dog.
  The scroll, rolling faster, ever faster, ever
shorter ...
  But the ship was moving! She had not done what she
intended, but she had done enough. Radgar had
discarded his planned assassination. SHE HAD
WON! It was enough. Ambrose would live. There
would be no Wetshore Massacre. The eight
wraiths would live again. All of them would live.
Dian would stay married to Bandit. There would be no
massacre at Sycamore Square.
Granville would never rule. Horrible
Lambskin would never rise above Grand
Inquisitor. Courtney would rot away in
Mayshire. Neville would never rule.
Malinda would never rule, but she had beaten them
all in the end! TRIUMPH! Ambrose might
go on for years. Dog would live again--she would
never meet him and even if they did
meet, they would mean nothing to each other, but he would
not die for her. Take back your life,
darling, and find happiness. ... The man kissing
her was not Dog, but it was with a sense of farewell that
she returned his embrace, putting fervor and her
heart into it. Good-bye ...
  Click! The scroll closed.
  Radgar released her, eyes like green fire.
"My lady, you honor me!"
  "Your Grace, I am so ashamed!" Surely
ladies did not behave like that when they were being
kissed? What an astonishing slobbery business!
And her fingers digging into him like that! What must he
think of her? "I swear I will never--"
  He misunderstood. "Don't swear! Any time
you think I deserve a good whack, whack away!
Always, always tell me when I am wrong, because that
is what I need more than anything. Even the friends
of my boyhood will not tell me what they really
think now, because they all have too much to lose. Be
my conscience, Malinda." He released her, but
carefully, for the ship was pitching as it cleaved the
swell in the open river, heading toward its two
sisters. "Such fire can only be honored with
fire." From a pocket he pulled a rope of
rubies like a snake of flame. "I am sure
these were stolen from somewhere, but they have been in my
family longer than the crown of Chivial has
been in yours."
  "Oh, they are magnificent!" she said,
completely bewildered by this extraordinary man and
also annoyed that there was something niggling at the back
of her mind that she could not quite put a finger on ...
something she must at all costs remember. ... But
whatever it was, it was good. Mostly good.
  He hung the rubies around her neck and
kissed her again. Evidently he wanted more of the
tongue contact and hands-on-the-back procedure,
so she cooperated hungrily. The crew cheered
even louder.
  Radgar paused in his wooing to glance back at
the vanishing shore. "If you want to wave
good-bye, Wife, you had better do it now."
  "No! If you will grant me a single wish in
all our marriage, Husband, it is that I need
never more have anything to do with Ambrose of Chivial.
I have paid any debt I owed him a thousand times.
I despise him!"
  "Well, that's certainly something we have in
common," the pirate said cheerfully. "But
you don't need my permission for that, my lady.
Short of bearing children for the wrong man--and even that can
be negotiated sometimes--a Baelish wife can do
pretty much anything she pleases. I have far more
important worries than making my wife
answer her father's letters."
  He hugged her to him and beamed at her. He was
taller, but not by much, just right. A powerful man.
"There's a wind coming, or I'm a Thergian. I
have a carousel standing by off the mouth. We can
transfer to it for the trip home."
  "I don't mind a longship!" she said
bravely, although the prospect was more daunting when
seen firsthand.
  Radgar chuckled. "I do! I was conceived in
one, but I don't intend to subject you to that."
He regarded her quizzically. "There is an
alternative. If the weather does as I
expect, we can be in Thergy before midnight."
  "Yes?"
  "Then ..." He laughed and shook his head as
if changing the subject. "Taking a girl
home? You know, you make me feel like a boy
again, my Malinda? Mael-lind! You shall be my
Mael-lind!"
  "Meaning?"
  "Mael is "time" and lind "a
shield." You will keep me young."
  He was certainly not acting as if old age was
a problem yet.
  "What were you going to say about Thergy?"
  "Ah. My consul in Drachveld has built
himself an emperor's palace there--at my
expense, of course, but he did a fine job of
it."
  "Seahorses!"
  The coppery eyebrows shot up. "What about
seahorses?"
  "I don't know," she said, confused. "I must
have dreamed about ... It's nothing. It's gone.
Carry on." It had felt like relief so perhaps
it was just the knowledge that this bridegroom she had been
dreading for so many months was turning out to be a very
pleasant surprise.
  "As it happens, I just wish his wife wasn't
quite so crazy about seahorses, but it's fit enough for a
royal honeymoon. We could spend a week or
two there--incognito, of course." His tone was
wistful, almost pleading. His arms were iron bands
around her. "Let you learn to be a wife
before you have to practice being a queen as well.
Drachveld's a fair enough town, a bit dull,
but we could have a few days there to get to know each
other and then perhaps have a proper wedding, with both of us
present. King Johan and Queen Martha are
wonderful people; I'm sure they'd love to be
witnesses."
  She studied his angular face for a moment, that
juvenile gleam. She recalled Dian saying that
eagerness never failed, and no one was going to question his
virility. Built like an oak keel, her father
had said. He felt like an oak keel.
  "I thought we were married this morning," she said.
"Do we have to waste time going through it all again?"
  That was definitely the right answer.
  "Helmsman!" Radgar roared. "Can't you
move this bathtub any faster?" He kissed his
bride again, even more thoroughly than before.
  Yes, she could probably learn to enjoy this.
Tonight she would find out what all the rest of the fuss
was about.




                Aftermath

  The reading is that you will be Queen of Chivial,
Your Grace, although not for very long.
    IVYN KROMMAN, PERSONAL
    COMMUNICATION TO PRINCESS MALINDA

  It was a fairly typical Firstmoon day in
Baelmark, which meant that the sleet moved
horizontally, stung like needles, and tasted salt
even far inland. The Queen's route home led her
right into the teeth of it, so she could barely see the
front of her horse.
  Hatburna was set high on the slopes of
Cwicnoll--a good summer home, but not the most
comfortable place in midwinter. The family
celebrated Long Night there only because it was more
intimate than any of the formal palaces. This
year, the weather had been so excessively
horrible that they had lingered longer than usual, no
one wanting to face the ride back to Catterstow.
So why was she out in it now? Probably just because it
made coming home feel so good. A plunge in the
hot spring would definitely be in order, followed
by a toasting at the fire, a steaming mug
of hot mead and honey, and then perhaps roast boar with
apple sauce.
  She was returning from visiting Fosterhof, mother
house of the many Queen's Orphanages she had
established throughout the archipelago. She sometimes
complained to Radgar that she had a thousand children
to worry about. He usually replied that he found
their own three more than enough and she shouldn't try
to solve everybody's problems. But he never
stinted when she asked for money for any of her
causes.
  Hands came running to take her horse as she
slid from her saddle in the stable yard. She
splashed over to the door, stamped in the porch,
shook herself like a wet dog--of which half a dozen
were presently trying to paw and lick her dry.
Usually a servant would be there to take her
cloak, but not today.
  "Here you are, Mother," proclaimed a husky
treble. "Hot mead and honey, just the way you like it.
I put cinnamon on top--that's right, isn't
it?" Sigfrith thrust a steaming mug at her.
Atheling Sigfrith was her youngest, five feet of
juvenile cunning clad in armor of pure charm--
red-gold curls, huge eyes of emerald
green, a million freckles.
  "Well, thank you!" Malinda accepted the
drink; it was much too hot to sip at, but the
pottery warmed her hands nicely. "You think I
will feel better able to cope with your confession after
I drink this?" Why was the young rascal wearing a
leather rain cloak that showed no signs of wet?
Why had he chased all the servants away?
  "Confession, Mother? Me?"
  "Well, I admit that you usually manage
to make it seem someone else's fault, but I
really would prefer to be sober when you tell me.
You wouldn't want me to fly into a murderous
drunken rage, would you?"
  "Would you?" he asked with interest. Innocence
shone in the jewel eyes. Maybe it was someone
else's fault this time, whatever it was.
  "Probably not. Where are we going?"
  He pouted at being outguessed. "Over to the
Old House. Would you like me to carry your drink for
you, Mother?"
  "Yes, please. We old folk are so
clumsy." She resigned herself to postponing that
appointment with the hot spring. "Let's go. I am
getting more worried by the minute."

  The Old House was officially used for
servants' quarters, although it frequently became
infested by the ragamuffin poets, artists, and
musicians who swarmed around the throne. As she
followed her hurrying guide through the storm,
Malinda realized that it would also make a very good
hideaway for a young atheling wishing to get up
to mischief without his parents' knowledge. Fortunately,
Sigfrith was too young to be molesting the servant
girls. She thought he was. She certainly
hoped he was. His brothers were quite bad enough.
  The building seemed deserted, as it should at that
time of day. By the time she had struggled out of her
cloak and hat and boots, he was offering her the
mead again and her favorite slippers, too, which
normally remained in her bedroom. This was becoming
serious!
  The great hall there had never been very great, and
after New House was built, it had been mostly
hacked up into sleeping cubicles. All that
remained was an artists' studio with a gigantic
hearth and some large, glass windows providing a
spectacular view of the volcano.
Spectacular on good days. Today the prospect
was of fog and a few misty pine trees. She could
smell linseed oil, although she was not aware of any
painters battening on the royal hospitality at
present. She had certainly not authorized the
enormous and extravagant fire in the great
hearth. There was a painting on an easel.
  "Like it?" her youngest son said gleefully. It
was a portrait of Sigfrith himself, curled up
small in a chair with two puppies and a kitten.
"Surprised?"
  "Astonished! It's superb. I don't
recognize the artist."
  "Thomas of Flaskbury."
  She had never heard of the man and felt warning
prickles on the back of her neck. There was more
than a boyish prank involved in this.
  "It drowns me in cute. Who planned the
composition?"
  "I did," Sigfrith said proudly. "We
all did. See over here?"
  He led her to two more easels, and
predictably they bore portraits of
Aethelgar and Fyrbeorn. Someone had gone
to considerable trouble and expense. Aethelgar had the
money, but only Radgar himself was capable
of pulling this off without her finding out. This was not just a
belated Long Night gift for her.
  "They chose their own designs, too, did
they?" she asked while her mind raced. She
took a sip of the scalding mead.
  "Oh, yes," Sigfrith said eagerly, too
young to catch all the implications. "Master
Thomas said he wanted to make us look just the
way we wanted to look. He is good, isn't
he!"
  Obviously. Sigfrith and his kitten--
Radgar always said that their youngest would never make a
pirate because he would only have to ask for loot and his
victims would give him everything they owned.
  The pirate was their middle son, Fyrbeorn,
shown in full war regalia on the deck of a
dragon ship. At sixteen he was already taller
and wider than his father, and the artist had made him
look even larger. The pink fuzz on his chin had
become a bristling copper beard; his muscles
bulged. This was Fyrbeorn as the throwback
warrior he dreamed of being, sword drawn,
steel helmet, fearful green stare, the terror of
all the oceans. With brawn like that, brains were
redundant. Piracy was out of fashion these
days, but he and a crew of young terrors were planning
to sail off to ravage the coast of Skyrria and
get themselves blooded as soon as the weather turned.
  Aethelgar, the eldest, had chosen to be shown with a
falcon on his wrist, standing beside his favorite
horse and hound. In reality his hair was redder
than that diplomatic auburn and his eyes not so
yellow and he rarely chose to dress in such
grandeur. To the best of her knowledge he owned no garments
like that cloak, jerkin, doublet, ruffled shirt. ...
The artist had caught the inscrutable smile
perfectly, though. Clever--or even sly ...
Fyrbeorn would take anything he fancied
by brute force, Radgar said, and Sigfrith
by charm, but Aethelgar would just prove to you he had
been its legal owner all along. The sword at
his side was a gentleman's rapier, a
Chivian gentleman's rapier.
  So why was their mother being let into this secret now?
She skewered her last-born with a menacing royal
glare. "Your father put you up to this!"
  Sigfrith Radgaring was innocence personified.
"Up to what, Mother? Don't you like the
pictures?"
  She eyed the gaping door to the sleeping
quarters. "Radgar!"
  He emerged smiling. There were depths to that
smile. He came to her as if intending
to embrace her, and she backed away a step.
  "Explain!"
  He shrugged, discarding most of the smile. "They
were made for your father."
  There were depths to that sentence, too--Firstmoon
was churning the ocean like a cauldron. So why now?
  "Shouldn't I have been consulted?"
  "Twenty years ago you told me you wanted
to have nothing more to do with him."
  Had it been that long?. Close enough. Those
years had been kind to Radgar Aeleding. There were
few threads of silver in his beard; he was almost
fifty, but a stranger would have guessed ten years
short. In all history no man had reigned in
Baelmark half as long as he, and even the
fire-breathing terrors of Aethelgar's set were still
loath to challenge the Ironhall-trained king. The
moot always voted him a champion to fight in his
stead, but he preferred to do his own dirty work--and the
last contender had lost his right thumb in less than
a minute.
  Radgar shrugged. "I never promised that I
wouldn't, though, did I? I have to keep up with
what's going on in Chivial."
  She shivered and moved closer to the fire.
"What is?"
  Of course she had not been able to remain totally
ignorant. Dian wrote regularly--Baroness
Dian since Bandit became Sheriff of
Waterby--still popping out children with no sign of even
wanting to slow down. Little Amby had died only
a few months after her marriage and Queen
Dierda about five years ago, still childless.
Ambrose would be over seventy now ... in poor
health, the last she had heard. Things must have gone
beyond that.
  Radgar shrugged. "He wanted to see his
grandsons. Durendal sent an artist."
  "And a good one," she admitted. "That slime
bucket is still around is he?"
  "Roland? Still chancellor ... well, he
was."
  "Why did you say wanted, not wants?"
  Radgar hesitated long enough to convey the news
without words. He did not say he was sorry.
"About a week ago. He'd been failing for some
time, but the end seems to have been ...
peculiar. Worth looking into."
  She turned and walked over to the window to study
the fog. She could not mourn Ambrose. After so
long she could no longer find it in her heart even
to hate him. She had done so once, but mainly for
forcing her into marrying Radgar, who had turned out
to be the finest man she knew. She could not
imagine what her life would have been without him.
He was ruthless to his enemies, yes, but
infinitely generous to friends; a doting father and
husband, yet so astonishingly self-disciplined in
his own life that he often seemed indolent or
uncaring. When the time came, he acted as
required, berserk or icily rational.
  However sordid her father's motives might have
been, to bear a grudge for her marriage would be
impossibly petty. He had let another man
break the news to her, and that she would not forgive.
Probing her feelings, she realized that what hurt
most at the moment was purely selfish--her life
had passed a milestone. She was next up. She
had become the old generation and her sons the new.
She resented that.
  "Peculiar how?"
  Radgar was right at her back. She had not
heard him approach. "According to present information,
Durendal murdered him. I find that a little hard
to swallow."
  "And who succeeds?" she asked, knowing the
answer.
  "You know who."
  No! Ambrose was trying to mess up her
life again, just by dying, and she would not allow it.
"Chivial won't accept a queen regnant.
It tried two and they were both miserable
failures."
  "You'll be different."
  "In what way?"
  "First, he's left you a land prosperous and at
peace. Second, you're supremely well
qualified. You've had practice. The witan
say the country's much better run when I leave
you in charge than when I'm around to do it myself."
  "That's nonsense!"
  "And third," Radgar continued, unruffled, "the
House of Ranulf has fallen on hard times.
There really isn't anyone else. Everyone
expects you. They're reconciled to it."
  "You put it nicely." But she knew Radgar
always had his own sources of information and
drew his own conclusions. He would have made it his
business to keep track of Chivian affairs.
"And if I refuse?"
  "No one seems to know. More women, I think.
I may even be the closest male. I suppose
the real answer is "civil war.""
  She spun around to face him. "No!
Baelmark is my home now. I am not
qualified. I have a family to care for here, quite
apart from the orphanages, the hospices, arts
schools, and a dozen other important projects
that will all crash into immobility if I take my
eyes off them."
  Radgar grinned. She had not presented a very
convincing argument.
  "Oh, they may put the crown on me," she
said, "but there'll be all sorts of people lurking around
trying to take it away from me."
  Radgar laughed aloud.
  "What is so fiery funny?" she barked.
  "I know you too well, Malinda! If they
try that sort of game with you, you'll turn the world
upside down and shake them off before you admit
defeat."
  "Burn you!" she said. And burn that old
blackguard Ambrose for dying at such an
inconvenient time. A couple of years from now, when
... Ha! She was overlooking something and
apparently Radgar was, too. He had been
hiding over there. ... She turned more toward the
draperies on the other side. "I shall refuse the
throne on behalf of myself and my descendants
forever!"
  Young Sigfrith's eyes stretched wide with
astonishment, but she saw movement in the shadows.
Sure enough, Aethelgar stepped forth--slim,
subtle, and sardonic.
  "My sympathies on your bereavement, Mother."
  Radgar scowled, but he should have guessed that their
eldest son would know what was going on. Eels were
brambles compared to Aethelgar. On the other hand, there
was no use shouting for Fyrbeorn--he would be off
fighting, hunting, or seducing; politics were not
his sport. To Aethelgar there could be no other
sport. As a child he had ruled the rat pack of
Catterstow. He had thought to have himself painted as a
Chivian gentleman, expecting that King
Ambrose would see those portraits and perhaps
display them to Parliament.
  "Have you something to contribute to this
discussion?" Malinda demanded.
  He displayed the cryptic, conspiratorial
smile that Thomas of Flaskbury had captured
so surely. "I'm a thegn now. I won't be
bound by your renunciation."
  "And I'm still king," his father growled. "You'll be
bound what I tell you to be bound by."
  They scratched like blade and grindstone, those
two. Malinda intervened.
  "All right, Radgar Aeleding! What solution
will you impose?"
  "I impose nothing on you," Radgar said
softly, "as you very well know, my lady. But I
have always believed that royal blood brought royal
duty. Can you in good conscience let your homeland
collapse into chaos just because you're too busy
to bother?"
  She shrugged angrily. "I have enough to do here."
  For the first time a ripple of worry disturbed
Aethelgar's serene confidence. "Any
sword-wielding thug can make a try for the throne
of Baelmark, Mother, but Chivial goes
by primogeniture. Even if you bar me from putting
in my claim now, my sons and sons' sons will
always be a threat to them." He had worked that out years
ago.
  So had Radgar. He sighed. "I'm afraid
he's right. Spirits help Chivial! If you turn
it down, love, then we'll have to send them
Snakeblood."
  But Snakeblood wasn't old enough yet.
Aethelgar was about the age she had been at her
marriage, a brash but inexperienced child; like her
then, he thought he knew everything. Burn
Ambrose for dying just now!
  "You won't consider abdicating and coming with me?"
  Radgar laughed. "With my past? My existence
will be extremely brief if I ever show my
face in Chivial. Besides, I do want to put
Fyrbeorn up here, and he isn't quite ready
yet. You see that painting? You'd think we
whittled him out of oak just to be King of
Baelmark." A very fond, very stupid smirk
disfigured his face. He actually kept the
Baelish thegns on very tight reins these days, but
Fyrbeorn inspired brainless attacks of
piratical nostalgia in his father.
  In Malinda's opinion, while that big lunk
looked the part, he lacked the wits to rule
Baelmark for long. Radgar's sons
had shared out his talents between them, and she often wished
she had borne more of them, just to see how many varied
chips the old block could produce. None of the
three could match him for versatility yet. Perhaps
when they were older ...
  "What about Sigfrith?"
  Radgar chuckled. "This one? This one with the big
ears flapping? He'll get whatever he wants
out of life and let the other two do all the work."
  Sigfrith squealed with laughter and hurled himself
into his father's arms, which was perfectly typical.
  Radgar spun his youngest son upside down and
deposited him gently on the floor. He
turned to embrace his wife instead. "You don't
think I want to lose you, do you, love? I'd
come if I could."
  "What do you suggest?"
  "Give it two years. You go home
to Chivial now; take Aethelgar with you and set him
up as Crown Prince. They'll love him, may
the spirits have pity on them. In two years he'll have
the whole kingdom marching to the beat of his drum.
Fyrbeorn will be ready to take over here.
We'll retire together and live happily ever
after."
  She laid her head on his shoulder while she
thought about it. Queen Malinda the Brief?
Malinda the Unwilling?
  "You promise?"
  "I promise. Do you?"
  "I'll have to think about it for a day or two."
  "Can I come with you, Mom?" Sigfrith asked
excitedly. "Can I?"
  "In the spring, maybe. The sea's too
dangerous just now. How did you hear?" she asked
Radgar's collarbone.
  "Durendal warned me months ago it was coming.
I posted Ealdabeard in Lomouth with a fast
ship. This morning he unloaded Commander Dragon
of the Royal Guard on the beach at Catterstow,
breathing and rational, if only just."
  Malinda chuckled to herself at the thought of a
Chivian crossing the ocean in midwinter in a
longship. Even a Blade would not come through that
ordeal unscathed. And she remembered that twice
before in her life she had received bad news from
Blades--from Dominic at Ness Royal when
she was a child, and when Durendal came to tell her
of her betrothal to Radgar. Well, she had
thought it was bad news, and both times
things had turned out well in the end.
  "I might add," Radgar said acidly, "that
if Sir Dragon is the best your father could find
to be Leader, then either the Blades have slipped a
long way from my day, or else it was past time the
old man moved on."
  "That makes you sound old yourself." She
straightened up, kissing his cheek in passing.
"Where's he now--Dragon?"
  "Over at New House, eating the
furniture until you return from your outing
to unknown parts."
  "And Durendal killed my father?"
  "So he says."
  Malinda sighed. "I suppose if anyone
could outwit the Royal Guard it would be that one.
Well, I'll think about it."
  She was fairly sure she would agree, though.
She could stand anything for two years, even the
agony of being separated from Radgar. And she had
a score to settle with Sir Durendal.

  Note: The ensuing encounter between Queen
Malinda and Lord Roland is recounted in the
closing pages of The Gilded Chain.

               THE END