Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda (7 page)

Erenor shook his head and laughed. He had an easy laugh, a laugh that sounded sincere, a laugh that probably was sincere every now and then, if only by accident. Kethol had just had to get used to that about Erenor, although he didn’t have to like it, and he didn’t.

“Standing orders,” Erenor said, “are often obeyed when they consist of making yourself quickly absent when a flame-breathing dragon plops down out of the sky.”

“Shut up,” Pirojil said. “Just get the bags unhooked,” he added, although it was hardly necessary — Erenor’s nimble fingers were already working on the straps.

*It wouldn’t bother me at all if you were to do that a little more quickly,*Ellegon said.*Or maybe a lot more quickly.*

While there was a good chance that the keep was secure, it was vanishingly unlikely that there was nobody in the town below greedy and reckless enough to try to earn the standing Pandathaway Slavers Guild reward for bringing Ellegon down. Dragons were rare in the Eren regions in general, and unknown — well, almost unknown — in the Middle Lands in particular.

Even now, it was entirely possible that nervous fingers were, somewhere, unwrapping a hidden arrow or crossbow bolt, and dipping its tip in a forbidden pot of dragonbane extract before nervously fitting it to a taut string.

“You’re worried about being shot at, I take it?” Erenor asked.

*No.*The dragon’s head curled on its long neck to eye the wizard, its dinner-plate – sized eyes yellow and unblinking.*I just love getting poisoned, don’t you?*

“I’d say sarcasm ill becomes you, Ellegon, but actually, I must admit that I rather like it.” Erenor stepped back. “And, in this, as in so much else, I think I may be of some help. Are you ready to go?”

*I was ready to go before I came.*

“Then …”

The dragon straightened, and Kethol put his hand on Leria’s arm, urging her back and away, trying not to blush when she smiled, and nodded, and folded her warm, soft hand over his callused one.

Erenor’s eyes seem to lose focus, and his smiling face became distant and almost expressionless. His thin, parched lips parted slightly, and harsh, guttural syllables began to issue forth.

This wasn’t the first time, or the forty-first time, that Kethol had heard a wizard pronouncing a spell. Despite knowing better, he tried to remember the syllables, to put them together into words — if you could remember the words, you could speak the words, and if you could speak the words, you could pronounce the spell, and if you could pronounce the spell, you could work the magic — but the wizard’s words vanished on the surface of his mind, skittering about like drops of water on a hot frying pan before they evaporated … gone, forgotten, not merely unremembered but unrememberable.

The spell ended with a sharp, one-syllable exclamation.

The sunlight, flashing on pools of water left from the overnight rain, suddenly became brighter, brighter than the sun itself, a white light that dazzled not only the eyes but the mind.

The wind from the dragon’s wings beat hard against Kethol, and it was all he could do to keep from being thrown from his feet. His eyes dazzled, he more felt than saw the dragon take to the air.

*Thank you, Erenor,*the dragon said, its mental voice already starting to grow more distant.

“My pleasure,” Erenor said. “And, of course, it’s not merely my pleasure — it would be terribly uncomfortable, at least for a very short moment, to have several tons of dead dragon falling out of the sky and landing on my all-too-fragile flesh.”

*Yes, it would, at that.*

Then, in an eyeblink, the blinding light was gone, and Kethol looked back to see the dragon circling above, gaining altitude as he did, huge leathery wings flapping madly until Ellegon stretched his wings and banked, flying off to the west.

*Good luck,*Ellegon said, his mental voice taking on the muted, formal tone that told Kethol that it was intended for all ears — minds — around, and not only his.

*Welcome home, Forinel, Baron Keranahan — it has been a pleasure serving you. And as Karl Cullinane used to say, ‘the next time you fly, please be sure to consider flying on Ellegon Airlines.’*

Whatever that meant. Kethol — and Durine and Pirojil — had been the only ones of the Old Emperor’s bodyguards to survive Karl Cullinane’s Last Ride, but he had never quite understood half of what the Old Emperor said.

Wings stretched out, the dragon flew low over a far ridge, and then it was gone.

Kethol found that he still had his hand folded over Leria’s, so he let his hands drop down by his sides.

***

Erenor chuckled, leaning his head close to Pirojil. “Not a bad entrance, eh?”

Erenor was far too easily amused, Pirojil decided, with the usual irritation.

Faces were already starting to peek out of windows and doorways, and one immensely fat woman — a cook, by the look of the grease-spattered apron — even went so far as to carry a bucket of something out, to dump it on the slop pile next to the stables before, after a quick glare at the newcomers, scurrying back in.

Whatever it was, Pirojil thought, must have smelled awfully horrid for her to be so willing to venture out. The idea of eating here wasn’t at all appealing, if even the cooks couldn’t stand the smell.

Pirojil wasn’t surprised that none of the soldiers had chosen to come out of the barracks at the far end of the courtyard, or from any of the guard posts at the corner towers. A new arrival was always of some interest in an outlying outpost — and to Imperial troops, an outpost didn’t get much more outlying than Barony Keranahan — but arrival by dragonback suggested that the new arrivals were of some great importance, and it never took even a new soldier long to learn that it was wisest to at least try to be in another place when something important was going on.

Pirojil wished he was in another place.

The front door of the keep stood open, cool, dark, and inviting. Normally, there should have been a pair of soldiers on guard, and Pirojil had been wondering whether they would be standing in the black leather corselets that would have them sweating like hogs in the hot sun. Pirojil had stood his share of watches in that leather armor, which never seemed to lose the reek of the boiling vinegar that had turned the leather stone-hard and solid black.

Not that you minded the smell when it caught the edge of an enemy’s blade.

He had silently bet with himself that the watchmen wouldn’t be in armor, that they would just be dressed in linen tunics and breeches, and he hadn’t decided whether that would mean that the discipline among the occupation troops was slack, or that Treseen was smart enough to insist that his men not suffer to no particular end.

It did mean, of course, that they weren’t of the elite Emperor’s Own, because then they would have been wearing their shiny steel breastplates — or, at least, having them nearby, where lesser men could admire them — although likely not armored head to toe.

Pirojil was beginning to be annoyed at the lack of reception.

Ellegon or no Ellegon, protocol would have called for somebody — somebody important — to come out and greet such visitors, and Pirojil was willing to wait for that to happen … until Kethol — until
Forinel
started to stoop to pick up his own rucksack.

Pirojil snatched it away from him.

Idiot.

“Allow me, Your Lordship,” he said, only the look in his eyes adding:
You idiot — nobles don’t carry their own bags.

He forced himself not to shake his head in disgust. Leria had been trying to teach Kethol how to be a noble, but beyond getting him to learn how to use an eating prong with a proper flourish, and getting him to stop wiping his nose on his sleeve, she had been less than remarkably successful.

For the time being, his awkwardness could be explained away by Forinel’s long absence from Holtun and Bieme, but in the long run, it could easily get them all hanged.

Leria laid a gentle hand on Forinel’s arm, and he met her smile with an expression that reminded Pirojil of a well-trained dog waiting for permission to eat from its bowl.

“Bide a moment, please, Forinel,” she said. “I’m sure it’s just an oversight that you’ve yet to be greeted properly — do let us wait, and send … someone in to announce your presence.”

“A servant, perhaps?” Erenor asked. “It’s always so very pleasant to have a servant, I’ve found. And, well, since the closest thing we have to that is Pirojil, here, I guess he’ll have to do. You may have the honor of carrying the bags, good Pirojil.”

Erenor smiled as he handed his own rucksack to Pirojil, and then loaded Leria’s on top of the pile. Wizards didn’t carry their own gear, either, save for the small black leather bag that contained Erenor’s spell books, and which never seemed to leave his hands.

“I thank you for your help, good Pirojil. We shall meet you inside,” Erenor said.

Pirojil didn’t have to ask how Erenor felt about their roles having been reversed, about how it was Pirojil playing the servant — a captain of march, in theory, but a servant in practice, at least for the moment — instead of Erenor. Erenor visibly enjoyed it. Too much.

Pirojil would have enjoyed beating Erenor’s face into a bloody pulp, but that was not on today’s schedule, apparently.

Pirojil tried to act as though he didn’t much care, which would have been somewhat easier at the moment if he wasn’t trying to balance four bags as he walked.

Cursing silently, unable to see his own feet, Pirojil staggered up the steps, almost falling when he reached the top one.

Old Tarnell was waiting for him just inside the door.

He was overdue for some new clothes: his tunic fit him too loosely over the chest and bulged at the belly enough to threaten popping buttons.

But a shiny new bit of silver braid along his shoulder seam proclaimed him the governor’s aide, and it matched the silver captain’s braid on his collar. That and the two officers’ pistols on his belt were the only changes that Pirojil could see: the deep creases in Tarnell’s lined face hadn’t deepened, nor had the plain wooden pommel of his sword’s wire-wrapped hilt been replaced by something more gaudy.

It was a standard barracks joke that the only thing that moved across the ground faster than a good Nyphien warhorse was a newly made captain on his way to the armorer to buy a proper officer’s saber, but Tarnell had kept his own weapon with his new rank.

Pirojil sympathized with that — if he was Tarnell, he wouldn’t have fucked with something that had served him that well for that long out of anything this side of necessity.

And, in fact, he hadn’t, and he had no intention of doing so. The sword at Pirojil’s own waist was still the one he had carried for years: straight and double-edged, not a curved officer’s saber. Its hilt was wrapped with brass wire, instead of some flashy lizardskin that might slip under a sweaty palm, and the pommel was made of plain brass shaped like a walnut. Expensive as it had been, it was still a line soldier’s weapon, not an officer’s. Not flashy, but effective — the blade had been made of good dwarven wootz, and was kept sharp enough to shave with.

You killed with the point much more often than with the edge, of course, but that was no excuse for not having a proper edge. Yes, a sharp edge could chip on armor or steel or even on bone, but if you survived the fight, there was always time to sharpen a chip out.

“I can’t decide whether you’ve come up or gone down in the world, Pirojil,” Tarnell said, as he helped to unload the bags to the floor. “Last time I saw you, you were with the other two —” He raised an eyebrow.

“Kethol and Durine.”

“Yeah — those two. And then you had your own servant — that big fellow, the one who never smiled. This time, you’ve no servant or comrades, and if you had some sort of Imperial warrant, you’d have shoved it under my nose by now — which says you’ve fallen in state. But you’re accompanying two nobles and a wizard, which suggests just the opposite. And isn’t that a captain’s braid on your collar?” he asked, smiling, fondling the captain’s braid on his own collar.

The last time Pirojil had seen Tarnell, Tarnell had been the decurion in charge of the stables, not the governor’s aide. The governor’s aide had been a weasel-faced little man with an annoying way of looking slantwise out of his eyes at you, and Pirojil didn’t miss him very much.

“What happened to Ketterling?” he asked.

“You hadn’t heard?” Tarnell frowned. “Hanged,” he said. “The general — the governor found that he had been peculating.” His face was studiously impassive.

Well, that was not much of a surprise.

“Occupation brings opportunities” was an unofficial byword in the Imperial service. Pirojil had never heard of a former occupation officer — particularly not one who acted as a governor’s bursar — having to beg in the streets for his next meal, or, for that matter, having to take up service as even a minor noble’s retainer after leaving office. Somehow, they all seemed to have saved almost miraculous multiples of their salaries.

It was amazingly sticky stuff, gold and copper and silver.

Minor corruption was commonly acknowledged, but only irregularly, if severely, punished. After all, more than a few of the older occupation officers had already taken retirement in the barony they had occupied, and if nothing else, the hostility that they had earned from the local lords and wardens guaranteed that they would remain loyal to the Empire long after the occupation was ended, and control of the rest of the Holtish baronies restored to the Holtish barons.

Yes, every once in a while, an embezzler would be discovered and hanged, and it was probably hoped that that would keep theft down to a minimum, but Pirojil didn’t think that anybody ever got drunk enough to think it would ever be eliminated.

The timing of this was interesting, though.

Coincidental that Ketterling was conveniently dead just as the new baron was returning home?

Pirojil didn’t much believe in coincidences. What was it that Walter Slovotsky said? “I don’t know whoever said that the first time is an accident, the second time is a coincidence, and the third time is enemy action, but whoever it was must have had one shitload of incompetent enemies, and me, I’d like to trade.”