The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades (39 page)

NIGHT HAD FALLEN ON GREYMERE PALACE. The flunkies and minions had gone. Few candles still burned in the offices of Chancery, and most of those were above the desk of the Chancellor himself. He was already late for an important dinner; Kate would be tapping her toe. He must go—as soon as he finished skimming through the late mail, brought by courier or coach from all parts of the realm.

The big antechamber, which by day was thronged with petitioners, was empty now, lit by a single candle. The figure that walked in front of that tiny flicker moved as softly as a cat, yet Durendal looked up.

“Leader!” He stood, as he always did to honor a fellow Blade. “Come and rest your bones, brother.”

Blades guarding their wards could dispense with sleep—Bandit had likely not slept since he was appointed Commander—but they needed rest sometimes. His stride lacked its usual spring, and when he sank gratefully onto the chair beside the big desk, the candlelight showed the dust of the road on his livery.

Their friendship was too deep to need empty greetings. For a moment they studied each other in silence. Duty and friendship could be awkward partners.

“I got your note,” he said, “about Silvercloak being a woman. You believe it?” He had not ridden all the way in from Nocare to ask that.

“No, I don’t. But I thought you should be advised. The inquisitors don’t believe it either.”

The Commander rubbed his dust-reddened eyes. “You asked me to let you know when Fat Man decides to go to Ironhall.”

“And you rode two hours to tell me in person?”

No, he had ridden two hours to ask
why
.

Bandit shrugged. “He proposes to fly a hawk in the morning on the Meald Hills, and set off at noon. He will overnight at Bondhill and reach Ironhall before dark on the twenty-seventh, weather and chance permitting. Assuming the bindings proceed normally, he should start back on the twenty-ninth.”

“The twenty-seventh will suit me very well.”

Pause. “In what way, brother?” Bandit asked softly.

Durendal had chosen him to be his successor as Commander. Although he was an indifferent fencer by Blade standards, Bandit had turned out to be an excellent Leader—adored by his men and capable of handling the King as well as Ambrose could ever be handled. But he was a plodder, not a sprinter. He followed rules, not intuition. Whatever his loyalty to his friend and mentor, he alone was responsible for the King’s safety. He would never bend on that.

“I am not trying to do your job for you, brother,” Durendal said. “I hope you know me better than to think I would try.”

Bandit smiled faintly. “I suspect you may be going to make it harder.”

Kate would just have to wait. Durendal leaned back, crossed his ankles. “Easier, I hope. Do you recall when we had that meeting, the day Chef was killed? Young Stalwart—”

“Suggested that Silvercloak might strike at the King in Ironhall. We all scoffed. You told him, in so many words, that he was a silly kid.”

“I wasn’t that hard on him, surely!”

“But you shut the meeting down right there!” Bandit raised his bushy eyebrows. “Could it be that you’d gotten what you wanted, Brother Durendal?”

“It could.” A good plodder got to the right place in the end. “I admit I am merely playing a hunch, but a good hunch is better than a sword up your nose any day. Remember your Ironhall lessons?—the worst of all errors is underestimating your opponent. If he makes a mistake, of course you take advantage of it, but you never count on him blundering. A swordsman must always expect his opponent to make the best attack available to him. This Silvercloak is notorious for striking where and when he is least expected. He is a master of disguise, so that he has even been suspected of making himself invisible. I tried putting myself in his shoes. I asked myself where I would start. And always I came up with the same answer—Ironhall. When everyone at that meeting scoffed at Stalwart’s idea, that merely convinced me that my hunch was worth playing.”

“And he’s a show-off.”

“Well, he’s young.”

“I mean Silvercloak!” Bandit said. “I’ve read the Dark Chamber reports. He takes on impossible assignments and accomplishes them in showy ways. The Duke of Doemund, for instance—climbed into his coach and was driven to town with his armed escort all around him. He arrived dead, lying inside with his throat cut. Obviously there was sorcery involved, although no one knows how, but his killer went to a lot of trouble and expense and perhaps risk to do it that way. Silvercloak is a show-off! The King of Chivial’s Blades are the world’s finest bodyguards, so he’ll kill the King right there in Ironhall, the Blades’ headquarters….

“I mean he’ll try.”

“You’re right!” Durendal was intrigued. He had missed that point, perhaps because he was not without showmanship himself, whereas Bandit had none at all. Or were the Commander’s Blade instincts sensing danger? To have Bandit believing in the Ironhall theory complicated things considerably. “Well done! I’m glad you didn’t mention that at the meeting.”

“I hadn’t worked it out then. But the next day you ‘borrowed’ Brother Stalwart. Might I suppose he is now back in Ironhall?”

“You would be wrong. I have four reports from him, if you want to read them.” While the boy had not said exactly how he spent his days, the Chancellor kept his letters locked in a box with some fragrant herbs. “Briefly, I have posted him on the western road. Look for him on the way and see if you spot him. I doubt that you will, but he will see you. If Silvercloak heads to Ironhall, good as he is, then my bet would be that he will never arrive. As of this morning he had not been sighted. I am much impressed by our baby Blade, brother. I left the details up to him and he has set his traplines beautifully.”

“He is a sharp little dagger.”

The Lord Chancellor groaned. “Don’t you start that! So you now agree with the nipper that Ironhall is a possible danger site?”
Curses
!

Bandit shrugged. “It takes no genius to guess that the King will go there soon. And it is the
only
place he ever goes where we do not have White Sisters on duty. They can’t stand the ambient sorcery.”

“That’s the ancient belief, but there are White Sisters who do not find Blade binding offensive. My own wife is one of them, I’m happy to say. It so happened that I knew of a certain White Sister who had visited the place briefly, without ill effects. That is why, three days ago, Grand Master admitted a boy who bears a curious resemblance to Sister Emerald.”

Bandit jerked upright and made a choking noise. “You’re joking! A female
Brat
?”

“I’ve had two reports from her. She has so far escaped detection.”

“That can’t last! I shudder to think what the rat pack might—”

“So do I, brother, so do I! But Saxon and Lothaire have protected her so far, and it is only a few more days. Already she certifies that there is no illegal sorcery in Ironhall—no bewitched inhabitants, no magic booby traps. She also says the Seniors’ Tower needs dusting, but that’s no surprise. Does this ease your burden, Leader?”

Bandit nodded. “Very much. Some of my men are certain to recognize her, but it won’t matter then.”

“Leave it up to her. If she wants to escape from Brathood, none of us will blame her. If she decides to stay under cover another day or so, then I doubt very much if anyone
will
recognize her.”

“Does the King know about this?”

Durendal winced and shook his head. “He will roast me alive.” If Kate didn’t char him first, tonight, for keeping her waiting.

“Yes, it helps,” Bandit said, mulling over the information. “It’s one less worry.”

Then now was a good time to extract a favor in return. “How many of the Guard will you be taking?”

Bandit frowned suspiciously. “Last time I took them all.”

“That must slow you.” Durendal knew only too well that a large party could never find enough remounts. Besides, the days were short now, roads bad, and there was no moonlight at the turn of the month. He noted that the Commander had not answered his question. Duty and friendship were on collision course.

“In view of the present tense situation,” Bandit said deliberately, “I am tempted to send out a messenger requisitioning every remount in every posting house from Grandon to Blackwater.”

“Fire and death, man! You would shut down the Great West Road!”

“Yes.”

Collision. They stared at each other, each waiting for the next lunge. If Bandit carried out his threat, Silvercloak would have no means of reaching Ironhall before Ambrose left.

“You will block him or scare him away.”

Bandit’s eye flashed anger. “Are you suggesting, Your Excellency, that I
allow
this assassin to attack my ward in Ironhall?”

“To make such a suggestion would be treason.”

“That is how I see it.” Bandit’s only concern was the immediate threat to the King; his nature and his binding were in agreement on that. Could he be made to see the wider possibilities? He leaned forward in his chair as if about to rise.

“What I wanted,” Durendal admitted, “was to set this trap and then send half the Guard there, escorting a man who looks very much like His Grace.”

The Commander smirked. “And Fat Man tore you in half?”

“To shreds.” Ambrose had been adamant—to hide behind a double would make him seem a coward. It would demoralize the Guard. Durendal had rarely seen him more furious. “No, I certainly do not suggest you allow the killer to attack him, Leader! Not in Ironhall, not anywhere. But I
would
let the assassin start slithering in under the door. Then drop the portcullis on him. I do believe that this is our only chance to trap him. If you drive him away, he will simply choose another day, another place. Too much caution now merely increases the long-term danger.”

Bandit’s fault as a fencer was that he was too cautious. Durendal was a gambler. He weighed risks, but he was never averse to taking them when the odds seemed good. His flair had paid off for him many times over the years. Bandit certainly knew that, but could he bring himself to trust his former superior’s judgment? Would his binding let him?

“So you have Stalwart watching the road. You have a White Sister in place. I approve of both those moves, my lord. I have always admired your dexterity. But to invite the killer in…” Bandit shivered. “I can’t…. Convince me! What else? Have you more tricks up your sleeve?”

“I have you. I have the Royal Guard—maybe fifty or so, about what you usually take? Fifty of the world’s best swordsmen alert to the danger? A White Sister to detect sorcery. Flames, brother, that should be enough!”

Bandit shook his head. “Sorry. Ironhall may not be impregnable, but it’s not so pregnable that I’m going to leave the welcome mat out.”

Durendal sighed. He had counted on Bandit cooperating just because he thought the whole idea ridiculous. Now he took it seriously, he would deliberately frighten the fish away from the net.

The spider had one last string to his web.

“There is also Princess Vasar of Lukirk.”

Bandit said, “Who?”

YARD BOYS WERE THE LOWEST. THEY SLEPT IN the hayloft and ate scraps from the inn dining room, and the stinking clothes on their backs were the only pay they ever saw—rags far too skimpy for this unseasonably cold Tenthmoon. All their lives they had been starved of education and intelligent conversation. They had never strayed outside Holmgarth and never would. Their ambition, if they had one, was to become stablemen one day, earning hunger wages eked out by tips from rich travelers. Yet they had no curiosity about the shiny coaches and splendid horsemen who streamed through their squalid little world.

They found Stalwart frightening because he had a sword and a lute hidden away in the loft and could make music on the lute. He washed his hands every single night and he wrote letters that went off on the morning stage. He seemed more than human.

Like them, he rose from the hay before first light, shoveled and wheeled all day, and slept like a doorstep all night. His only visible difference was that he looked better fed and he wore a whistle on a string around his neck. He also took mental note of every traveler who entered the yard. But it was not until the fifth day of his yard torment that he saw anyone interesting going by, and even then it was not Silvercloak.

His daily reports held less meat than a roast sparrow. He mentioned seeing Lady Pillow’s coach returning, with a single passenger. The same day he noticed Sir Mandeville, an Ironhall knight who often carried letters from Grand Master to Leader or the King and so earned a brief stay at court. Two days later he saw Sir Etienne, another Ironhall knight. If Emerald was at Ironhall, as Stalwart suspected, she would be sending in reports, just as he was.

Two days after that, Sir Etienne and Sir Mandeville returned together. They had known Stalwart for years, fenced with him scores of times, but neither recognized the stinking urchin with the barrow who walked past them as they stood waiting for horses. That was comforting…sort of….

They paid their respects to old Sir Tancred and gave him a private letter from Lord Roland. Toward evening, after they had left, the letter was handed to Sheriff Sherwin, who showed it to Stalwart. The part that mattered was very brief:

Pray inform my agent that his Peachyard friend suspects the person we seek may actually be a woman
.

Peachyard was Emerald’s family home, of course.

“You believe that, Pimple?” the fat man asked uneasily. “Still want us to hit him—or her—with quarterstaffs?”

“He didn’t look like a woman to me,” Stalwart said, and fortunately could add, “but I did warn you that he might disguise himself as a woman, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“So remind your men. Man or woman, if in doubt, hit to hurt. We’ll apologize later.”

Mandeville and Etienne had also passed on the latest news from court. Grandon, they said, was agog over a mass trial of the sorcerers who had been arrested at Brandford. Testimony from Snake and his helpers was sending gasps of horror through the capital.

Interesting! Stalwart had been in on the Brandford raid. He had not been scheduled to testify, but he knew the trial had not been due to start for several weeks yet. The only person who could have changed that date was Lord Chancellor Roland.

It might mean nothing. Or it might mean that the Old Blades were being kept in the public eye so that Silvercloak would know he need not worry about them just now. One more piece of cheese in the trap.

On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, a wagon came rumbling in. Stalwart noted first that it held a few wooden crates but could have carried a much greater load. Having been a driver in his time, briefly, he disapproved of such wasteful loading on a long-distance haul. A short haul would not require posting. Then he realized that the man on the bench was Inquisitor Nicely—sinister, squat little snoop. Stalwart had enough respect for inquisitors’ powers of observation that he did not risk going close—indeed Nicely was already peering around as if sensing unfriendly eyes on him.

Instead, Stalwart wheeled his barrow over to a corner where Norton was talking with a couple of hands. Or listening to, more likely. Earthworms were chatterboxes compared to Norton.

“The wagon driver,” Stalwart said.

Norton reached out a lanky arm. It came back holding a quarterstaff. There were staffs cached all over the yard.

“No, no, he’s not the one! I’d like to know which road he takes out of town, though.”

Norton shrugged, nodded, replaced the staff, and walked away.

He did speak, an hour or so later. He said, “West.”

Stalwart said, “Thanks.”

Was Master Nicely heading for Ironhall? Not certainly but probably. It was something to put in tomorrow’s report, but not something likely to surprise Lord Roland. It might mean that things were about to happen at last.