Iron Paladin

by Max Irons

  Galeron’s stomach gurgled in anticipation, and he filled his plate with pieces of duck, chicken, carrots and potatoes, and a spoonful of candied mixed fruit. Iven might not like being a lord, but it certainly beat having to settle for a tavern’s leftover stew. The archer had even remembered to provide Galeron his own goblet of lemon drink in place of spiced wine. The food was perfect, and it also reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since early that day. To make up for it, he took a second helping of everything after clearing his plate.

  “What have you been doing?” asked Phoebe. “We’ve heard nothing from you since Marcus’s birthday celebrations three years ago.”

  Iven swallowed. “Going wherever the wind takes me. I met Galeron not too long after I left.” He grinned. “Haven’t been able to get rid of him since.”

  “You and I remember that story a little differently,” Galeron said, taking a sip from his goblet.

  He shrugged. “It all shakes out the same way.”

  “Did he get into trouble, Galeron?” asked Phoebe. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone had to help him out of a foolish choice.”

  Iven glared at her. “We are not talking about the plum incident.”

  Phoebe snorted. “I warned you not to go trekking into those orchards, but you just had to get your little hands on those plums.” She flashed Galeron a quick smile. “He ended up stuck in a tree like some kind of rodent while one of the guard dogs barked and growled at him.”

  “I was only a boy.” Iven sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Wasn’t even old enough to stay out with the sheep past dark.”

  “You did that time,” Phoebe said. “He spent the entire night in a plum tree, and we didn’t notice he was missing until the next morning.”

  “When you had a good laugh at it and finally bothered to call the dog off,” Iven said. “It’s a wonder I turned out as nice and charming as I have.”

  Dianna gave a disapproving sniff and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “We’ll see what the ladies truly think of your charms tomorrow.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Iven, glancing at Galeron.

  Galeron shrugged. Maybe it had something to do with their appearance in the king’s court. Who knew?

  “You’re meeting three potential brides after the ceremonies tomorrow morning,” she said.

  Iven’s face flipped between a heated red and sickly green. “Tomorrow?”

  Dianna nodded. “Tomorrow. Pendegrast, Marduke, and Nyegund all have daughters to offer. You’ll receive them here and treat them for lunch.”

  “We already have a Marduke connection,” said Iven. “Or have you forgotten how much Hadrian paid for Phoebe?”

  “Another marriage to House Marduke is not a terrible thing,” Falco said.

  “Right,” Iven said. “Perish the thought of a union with one of your sisters.”

  “Mind your tongue…my lord,” he spat.

  “Let’s leave the fights for the training yard,” said Hadrian. “Tell us where you’ve been. Surely you have a good story or two.”

  Galeron grunted and winced as Lonni elbowed him in the ribs. “What?” he asked as Iven started recounting their last adventure.

  Lonni didn’t say anything, but her eyes tracked one of the serving girls as she refilled goblets. Galeron frowned. What was so interesting about that? She didn’t look terribly remarkable, sheathed from head to toe in a dark green dress and hair bound into a black coif around her head. She caught Galeron’s eye, and winked at him. He froze, resisting the urge to squint. A wicked smile followed.

  Arlana.

  What was she doing in the Porter mansion dressed as a serving girl? He flicked his eyes toward the dining hall exit twice, and Arlana gave a subtle shake of her head. Galeron gave her an extended blink to acknowledge. She’d contact him a when she was ready, then. What could draw the need for a disguise so quickly?

  And how had Lonni figured out it was her?

  #

  Galeron walked back to his room after dinner, leaving Iven to bicker with Falco and Hadrian over the next day’s procedures and Lonni to Phoebe and Dianna’s ministrations. Apparently, there was a lot to think about when selecting the proper clothing for the morning ceremonies. Dinner tumbled about in his stomach as he rounded the corner to his room. He pushed his door open, only to find Arlana sitting on the edge of his bed.

  “Shall I turn down the sheets for you, sir knight?” she asked, her eyes glittering.

  Galeron sighed and stepped in, shutting the door behind him. “So, you heard about that?”

  Arlana shrugged. “It wasn’t a hard thing. Gossip travels far and fast in noble circles. I believe nearly everyone knows of a stout Broton serving as the Porter paladin.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Galeron said, sitting down in the lone chair. “He sprang it on me without notice.”

  “It’s a questionable move, given the current…disagreement, but I take it Iven has never been one for much forethought.” Arlana stretched and arched her back, pressing her dress into eye-catching curves.

  He frowned and tried not to stare. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve already made my presence known to the king’s court,” Arlana said. “Reception was chilly at its warmest. I retired early, donned a disguise, and came down to talk.” She shifted positions on the bed to face him directly. “The current situation has grown worse over the last few weeks. Raya threatens to withdraw from the Tripart Accords, and, from what I determined beneath the king’s words, the country is quietly preparing for war.”

  Galeron blinked. War? “With…Broton?”

  She nodded. “The murder of a princess cannot go unavenged, and since all his missives to Soren have gone unanswered—”

  “Because you’ve been intercepting them,” Galeron said.

  “My brother would only make this situation worse, whether he knew of the spying or not,” Arlana said. “King Balen has issued three demands that must be met: Broton will admit fault for breaking the Accords and issue annual restitution payments totaling ten thousand ardani for the next five years, remove all claims of jurisdiction from the Great Sea outside of a league from the coast, and will send Prince Lattimer to live in Keenan Caffar for five years as replacement for the loss of a member of the royal household.”

  Galeron gaped at her. Ludicrous terms. There was no way King Soren would ever agree to any one of them, let alone all three. What were the Rayans trying to accomplish? Did they want another war?

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Galeron said. “Soren wouldn’t let Lattimer out of his sight in Broton. He’ll never send him to Raya among mages.”

  Arlana nodded. “Broton doesn’t have that kind of restitution money to spare, either. Every nation is in deep debt from the wars, and the Rayan king knows this, but he demands the payments anyway.”

  “How long has he given for a response?”

  “Three days hence, and that time started today,” Arlana said.

  Galeron gagged. Three days—really two—to hunt through Keenan Caffar and find a murderer? That was ignoring the duties Iven needed from him to maintain the disguise. “Why so short?”

  “Mmm, perhaps he hopes to push me into something rash,” she said. “Balen insists he’s given ample time for a suitable Broton response, and we’ve given him nothing to work with. Even if I wanted to, I can’t get word back to Soren about events in time.”

  Likely the point of the ultimatum. “Are you just here to tell me my time’s running out?” asked Galeron.

  “I thought you might like to follow up on something I heard at court today,” Arlana said.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “The court physician has some…unusual practices,” Arlana said. “Some of them, I believe, may even hint at his skills in alchemy.”

  Galeron raised an eyebrow. “The court physician? What makes you so sure?”

  “One of the ladies remarked on his storage of nitrate of potash when she last visited,” Arl
ana said. “It caught my attention.”

  That wasn’t an unusual substance. True, it could be used to produce night dust, but it also had uses in food preservation and curing aching throats.

  “I’m missing the importance,” Galeron said.

  “His supply of nitrate is quite large,” she said. “Unless someone discovered a way for it to ease knife gut, there’s no reason for the back half of his stores to be filled with it.”

  He grunted. She made a good point. A butcher might have need for that much, but not a physician. Not unless the entire court regularly came down with sore throats. Galeron closed one eye.

  In fact, perhaps the court physician was the alchemist the apothecary had mentioned earlier. Both lay in the realms of the alchemist, and it couldn’t have been that large of a jump in skill from one field to the other. Lonni insisted that all realms were interconnected, each borrowing knowledge from the other. Perhaps this was just such a case.

  “I ought to pay this physician a visit, then,” Galeron said.

  “Indeed,” Arlana said. “We should move quickly, before someone notices you or I have been gone too long.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “You’re going, too?”

  She smiled at him. “Of course. Sea-faring doesn’t agree with the Broton princess, so a visit to the court’s best and wisest will not look out of the ordinary.” She arched one brow and stood. “And, if I wanted the company of a worthy guard, Lord Porter would have had no qualms about lending me his paladin for a short jaunt.”

  Galeron shook his head. “You always think of everything.”

  “Certainly, sir knight. It is, after all, what I do.”

  They left Galeron’s room at intervals, Arlana departing first to wait outside the mansion’s outer gates and Galeron arriving a few minutes later. They set off up the road, Galeron pulling the hood of his cloak up to keep his face obscured.

  “Are you terrified someone will recognize you?” asked Arlana as they walked.

  “No, I like the dark and mysterious aura it gives off,” he grumbled.

  “Oh, you do that without the hood,” she said. “Eyes like steel and an unreadable expression. Unreadable to everyone but me.”

  Galeron scowled. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Flattery requires a stretching of the truth.” Arlana gave a throaty chuckle. “I’ve been able to see through you since we first met.”

  He shoved the memories of his first days as an informer to the back of his mind. They passed by larger, more opulent mansions of the other houses. One, a shimmering white structure of pure marble, roared with the sounds of merriment. Someone was having fun tonight. The road turned sharply and angled back, though rising higher on the mountainside. The mansions disappeared behind them, replaced by lower, squat stone buildings constructed more for utility than appearance. Torches in braziers still flamed outside some of them, but others sat completely darkened.

  They turned to a building of granite and small slits for windows. A wooden sign hung over the doorway, adorned by a white bird with squared and solid wings.

  “A thunderbird?” asked Galeron. “That’s the symbol of medicine in Raya?”

  Arlana shrugged. “I believe it comes from the skylander traditions. Thunderbirds are supposedly beings of great power, not birds at all, but Great Spirit in disguise, protecting his people.”

  “I like ours better.”

  “We don’t have one. Our signs just say ‘medicus.’”

  Galeron nodded. “Simple and easy.”

  Arlana smiled, pulled the black coif from her hair, and shook out her long locks. She knocked on the door, adopting a slightly stooped look. Her face, while it didn’t go green, had the distinct look of one struggling with indigestion, screwed up eyes and brows creating a scattered pattern of wrinkles across her face. The door opened, and the physician’s gut greeted them. Someone had hit the ale barrel a few too many times. The ale-gut, combined with a typical Rayan’s tall and lean look, gave him a distinctly unbalanced appearance, as if he might tip forward under his own weight.

  The physician swallowed as he stared at Arlana with watery eyes. Galeron groaned inwardly. Everywhere they went, progress halted for men to ogle. He couldn’t blame them, but it was still inconvenient. Once the man blinked several times and regained his wits, Arlana smiled at him.

  “Have you a cure for sea-sickness?” she asked. “I’m afraid my travels over the waves have disagreed with me rather violently.”

  “Of course, my lady,” he said, bowing awkwardly and sweeping off his poufy black cap, revealing balding gray hair. “I am at your service. Come in.”

  He wheezed and coughed once into his hat as he backed away from the door. Arlana swept into the room, and Galeron prowled in behind her. Several candles lit the interior, a few on the surgery table closer to the back, and others on low tables nearer to the door. Shelves lined the back wall, cluttered with metal instruments and glass jars containing herbs and other substances Galeron didn’t recognize. The distinct scent of copper hung in the air, though he couldn’t place its source.

  The physician seated Arlana in a chair next to one of the candle tables. “Now, gentle lady, whom do I have the pleasure of treating?”

  Arlana clutched at her stomach with one hand. “Arlana, sister to King Soren of Broton.”

  “Your highness,” he said, bowing low. “I am at your service. There is none better in Keenan Caffar than Remus, not a one.”

  She gave him a faint, pained laugh. “Then I am in good hands.”

  “The very best, highness. Now, tell me, what are your symptoms? There are several different kinds of sea-sickness, you know.”

  Arlana began rattling off a long list of symptoms, taking time to pause and appear to swallow down bile or deal with a belly’s churning. Galeron turned away and scanned the room. A curtain hung on the wall behind the surgery table. He glanced back. Remus the physician was too entranced by Arlana to pay him any heed. Galeron passed through the curtain.

  The overwhelming stench of urine smashed into his nose. He clenched his jaws shut and swallowed a sneeze that might have alerted Remus. Huge burlap sacks, some leaking a granulated white substance, sat piled in against the far wall. Ordinarily, nitrate of potash didn’t have a scent. Why did this collection stink? Galeron examined the rest of the room. Barrels of sulfur, crates of bandages, and wooden stakes for who knew what also sat in the room, yet the only thing he could smell was the nitrate.

  Galeron stepped around the sulfur barrels and stooped, examining one of the sacks. He scooped up a handful of the tiny crystals and rolled them around in his hand. Slightly damp. Freshly manufactured with some sort of treating agent?

  He frowned. They should have brought Lonni along for this. He didn’t know enough about alchemy to make any sort of guess as to what any of it meant. He pulled his knife out and cut open one of the sacks closer to the back. Carving out a large square, he dumped a handful of the white granules into it and tied a four-cornered knot before stuffing it into his mostly empty coin purse.

  He took a last look around. There didn’t appear to be anything else of note. Time to get out. Galeron slipped out of the storeroom just as the front door opened. Four figures, completely hidden in black hoods and cloaks, glided into the physician’s building. Dark cloth around their noses and mouths obscured most of the face, leaving only the eyes exposed. All of them focused on Remus, who held a steaming goblet out to Arlana.

  “Remus Albo,” hissed one of the figures. “You haven’t delivered on your promise, so we will.”

  Galeron swallowed. Whoever these people were, they didn’t look like they needed healing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Galeron dropped a hand to the hilt of his blade. They hadn’t noticed him yet, attentions focused solely on Remus. Not professionals, then. Any true fighter would have examined his surroundings, identified the threats, before making some of his own. This was good. Another thought hit him as he inched forward. He was in Keenan Caf
far, and magic was legal. They could be mages. A man just never knew.

  I should’ve brought Lonni. Not that he’d ever admit it, but a few well-placed firelocks would make him feel more comfortable about now.

  Remus stared at the figures, his eyes growing larger, and he dropped the goblet. The liquid hissed as it steamed on the stone floor. He swallowed, massive paunch shaking in time with a trembling hand that extended in front of him.

  “No, I did as you asked. To the letter, in fact,” Remus said.

  “Yet you failed all the same,” said the lead figure in a raspy voice. “We do not forgive, Remus, and we do not forget.”

  Galeron continued to inch along the opposite wall, out of their line of sight. He slowly pulled his black blade from its sheath, letting the weapon hang loosely in his hand. One on four. Terrible odds. They didn’t seem to acknowledge or care that Arlana sat next to Remus. They hadn’t even asked her to leave. A shard of ice wedged into Galeron’s heart. Whatever the cloaked people had planned, they didn’t mind if someone else saw it.

  Or they were going to kill everyone.

  If he could get behind them, strike the first one down and draw their attention, Arlana could drive a few knife blades into their backs. She never went anywhere without at least four on her person.

  “How was I to know?” wailed Remus, tears brimming in his eyes. “I just mix things. Every round is a little different.”

  “It matters little,” said the lead hood. “Your time is up.”

  Arlana cocked her head to one side and gave the lead cloak a wicked smile. “Such mystery. What are you hiding under that cloak?”

  The lead turned his eyes to her. “Quiet, woman. This is none of your concern.”

  “Mmm, I think you’re making it mine,” she said. “The good physician was mixing a potion for me, and you’ve interrupted him. It’s my business now.”