by Dave Duncan
“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?”
15
Have Barrow, Will Shovel
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.
16
The Invisible Brat
WHEN EMERALD AWOKE, SHE NEEDED A FEW moments to realize that she was back in Queen Estrith’s bed in the turret room and that first light was showing gray beyond the windows. Her breath smoked, and yet the rest of her was cozy. On her first night in Ironhall the bedroom in the Queen’s Tower had been squalid lodging—cob-webbed, deep in dust, and its bed not aired for a hundred years. Since then Grand Master had opened the suite and sent the servants in to clean, light fires, and make it worthy of the mysterious Princess Vasar. Knights and masters had been trooping through in small hordes ever since to admire this rediscovered treasure. The Brat had found herself safer lodgings in the royal suite and slept in the King’s bed instead.
Last night she had been cut off from that refuge by a hunting pack of sopranos, so she had returned to Queen Estrith’s hospitality. Which was a reminder that she had things to do before the carnivores awoke. Although she had found no illegal sorcery, she had a duty to keep looking.
She slithered out from the warm quilts, washed her face hastily in the bucket she had brought with her, and dressed warmly. Then she went out on the battlements to give her wash water to the moor.
Only the kitchen drudges would be awake yet. She was safe—there was light enough for her to see but not enough to make her conspicuous against the sky, no wind, and not enough frost to make the stones slippery.
She still hated heights. As a start, she made herself walk all the way around First House—past the Observatory with its stench of magic, past Grand Master’s turret, and the Seniors’ Tower. That one had no access to the parapet, but four names and years had been scratched in the stonework: “Despenser 95,” “Eagle 119,” “Aragon 282,” and “Stalwart 365.” In three centuries only four boys had found a way up. Or dared it, perhaps.
So she came back to the Queen’s Tower and the task she had been putting off. The curtain wall began here, curving gently across to the bath house, with its bizarre battlements and turrets. The turrets showed no windows and had no access to the upper floor. She knew that because the infirmary, laundry, and linen rooms were directly below them and she had explored those thoroughly. Grand Master and Sir Lothaire insisted that the turrets were only dummies, but a conscientious White Sister always looked for herself.
Frightened her nerve would fail completely if she dallied longer, she set her teeth and walked out along the top of the curtain wall. The semi-darkness helped a little, but she must hurry before the light grew any brighter. It would need only one boy glancing out a window in West House and the sopranos would have a much better idea of where the Brat disappeared to at night.
The curtain wall parapet was much scarier than the walkway around First House. Instead of a sloping roof on her left, she had only a long drop to the paved quadrangle. On her right the fake merlons gave her a slight sense of security, but the drop on that side was much farther, down into the hollow they called the Quarry. Perhaps the low cliff she had seen from the coach had always been there and the builders had set their pretend castle along the brink for effect. Or perhaps they had quarried right up to the base of the wall. If she fell into the court-yard, she might just possibly escape with broken bones. Anyone falling through a crenel into that rocky pit would have no hope at all.
She stared straight ahead, trailing one hand along each merlon as long as possible, reaching out for the next as she crossed the gap. Her heart wasn’t really in her mouth—it just felt that way. If she stopped she would freeze to the spot.
She lived. Knees shaky, head a little giddy, she came to the bath house. There was nowhere else to go. The battlements there were even more fraudulent than those on First House, with the fake merlons set directly against the gutters. There was no walkway behind them and none around the towers, either. She was close enough to the nearest turret to know that it contained no sorcery. Wart might be able to scramble over the roof to the others, but she was not Wart.
Relieved, she turned around and stalked back along the catwalk. Now she could honestly report that she had inspected every corner of Ironhall she had been able to reach.
The residents were divided on the subject of the current Brat, who had achieved some-thing no other Brat had ever come close to. For four days now he had evaded the juniors’ rat pack. He had been hassled a few times, but never seriously—never dunked in horse troughs, battered in fistfights, shaved bald, painted green, or made to turn somersaults until he was too giddy to stand. The majority view was the lad deserved credit for quick wits. The contrary opinion—which was held by all the sopranos and many others, including some of the old knights—was that those experiences were salutary and character building and the Brat was a sneaky coward for not submitting to tradition.
This Brat had unique advantages, of course. She carried tokens from both Grand Master and Master of Rituals, so when cornered she could always claim to be on business. More important, she also possessed a magic key. She did not enjoy carrying it around, because it made her feel as if she were in the middle of a tornado, but it would open any of the numerous locked doors in the s
chool. This made vanishing fairly easy.
She did not escape completely. Crossing the courtyard at sunup, heading for the kitchens, Emerald heard the pitter-patter of overlarge feet behind her. A voice cried, “Brat!”
She turned to face five sopranos. As long as none of the older, meaner boys was present, she did not mind indulging them sometimes, especially in public places like this. Even Grand Master’s sacred token might lose its power if it were brandished too often.
“Brat, where are you going?”
She knelt and bowed her head. “I was going in search of breakfast, O Most Mighty and Glorious Candidate Chad.”
“Very well, then. You have our pernishon to proceed.”
“Thank you for this kindness, Most Mighty and Glorious Candidate Chad.”
She rose, took two steps….
“Brat, where are you going?”
Turn, kneel again. “I was going in search of breakfast, O Fearsome and Terrible Candidate Constant.”
“That’s Most Fearsomest! Ten somersaults for getting my name wrong.”
She was quite sure she had not, but she performed the penance anyway. She promised her-self that one day there would be retribution for all those bruises along her backbone.
After she had satisfied the Sinister, Uncanny Candidate Lestrange and the Fearful, Dangerous, Ferocious Candidate Travers, it was the turn of her former guide, Intrepid, who was showing pink stubble on the bald half of his scalp. She noted uneasily that some older boys had joined the group and one of them was Servian, sneering nastily over heads.
“I was going in search of breakfast, O Dauntless, Audacious, Presumptuous Candidate Intrepid.”
“Then you must go on your hands and knees!” Intrepid said triumphantly. This suggestion was greeted with whoops of approval.