by Dave Duncan
“You told us the Baron fancies himself as an herbalist, but that he is no conjurer.”
“He isn’t! And neither are you. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
For a moment it seemed she would not answer that veiled accusation. “Ernst is well informed about spiritualism,” she admitted. “He had two younger brothers in the Brotherhood. They both died on faraway battlefields, long ago. Just because he’s an aristocrat and a soldier does not mean he is ignorant! He lost one of the finest libraries in Krupina when his home burned. He’s a clever, educated man. He is not a conjurer.”
“But someone close to him is, Your Highness,” Bellman said. “Wasn’t it curious that the coup came so soon after you had been warned? And even more curious that the report reached you at all—via the Baron? That the imposter’s body disappeared but the locket was conveniently torn off his neck by a bush just as he fell? That the Baron thought to check the locket for enchantment? Who knew about fireflies? Was that him, too? Was he the someone who has been encouraging you to believe in long-distance conjuration? You almost admitted that every time you found a ruler willing to listen to your story, like King Athelgar, you were spiritually attacked. Coincidence? Or betrayal?”
“No!” The Grand Duchess’s shout startled Trudy, who was having trouble keeping her eyes open.
“I am truly sorry, Your Highness,” Bellman said, truly meaning it, “but there are too many flies in the soup. One or two I could swallow, but not so many. Someone close to you is working for your enemies.”
“That’s obvious,” Ranter said. “Tomorrow we’ll get the inquisitors to question all three of them—Baron, Manfred, and Harald.”
Ringwood flashed Bellman a smile. “Well done, brother! Tell us about Manfred, please, Your Highness.”
“Manfred? Oh this’s ridiculous!” She spun around and stalked over to the dais, as if to mount the throne. Then she turned again. “Manfred is devoted to the Baron, devoted! He’s worked for him all his life. He told me his family has served the von Faders for four generations. He left his wife and—”
“And?” Ringwood prompted.
“He left his wife and family behind.” She looked around the worried faces. “But his children are grown…”
“Harald, then?”
She sighed and looked down at her hands. “If it has to be anyone, then it must be Harald. His father is the Baron’s seneschal, as his father was before him, but Harald is one of many sons, all of them huge. He was a novice in the monastery, following his older brother, Radu. Harald told his father about the plot, and Priboi told the Baron. When Fadrenschloss burned, the fire was visible from Vamky, but the brethren were forbidden to ride over and help. Discipline is so strict in the Order that a knight may not even adjust his stirrup without permission. The first thing a novice does is swear absolute obedience. Harald learned later that there had been brethren at Fadrenschloss already, blockading all the roads out, and they had done nothing to help. They just waited, hoping to catch me. Harald was so upset that he walked out of the monastery. He quit.”
The Ironhall men exchanged glances. “That’s allowed?” Ranter asked.
“It’s quite common,” the Duchess said. “Very few recruits make it all the way to knighthood. Once Harald had made sure all his family were safe, he came after us and caught up with us at Brikov. The Baron took him on. He’s educated, well-spoken, and strong as a bull. I’ve rarely seen him without a smile on his face.” She glared around at the accusing faces. “You think he was sent to spy on us, don’t you? Well, I don’t! The Baron would trust him with his life.”
“Frankly, that does not seem wise at the moment, Your Grace,” Bellman said. “Did he arrive at Brikov before or after the attack on you there?”
She hesitated, considering the implications. “Before.”
“Harald must be questioned, but we won’t need to bring in the inquisitors. If the Sister here is willing to help and…Sister Gertrude?”
Trudy was holding one hand against her neck as if she had frozen solid in the process of rubbing it. She was staring fixedly across the room at a tapestry of a lutist and a dancing woman. So far as Bellman could see, there was nothing wrong with the tapestry. Beyond it, on the far side of the great stairwell, would be…the Baron’s room. And the servants’ room next to it.
“Trudy?” Ringwood said. “Sister!”
“Death,” she whispered. “And fire! Fire, fire, fire!”
The Blades jumped like crickets. Ranter bounded from his chair to the wall and grabbed a heavy tapestry of peacocks and flowers as if he wanted to climb up it. Ringwood yelled, “The locket!” looking ready to grab his ward and shake her. “Put on the locket!” Bellman was already unlocking the door.
He peered out, resisting a temptation to draw his sword. No fire in sight. He emerged on the gallery and blinked in the dimness. No emergency. Below him, Blades were rolling dice in a pool of candlelight, but they had heard him and every face looked up. False alarm? Everything seemed very innocent.
“Fire!” he yelled. “Probably deliberate.” He began running around the gallery to reach the far side. “If you see a bright white…dancing flame…don’t move! Just freeze. It’s alive.”
A thin sliver of light showed under the Baron’s door, shining through trails of smoke trickling out. He slid to a halt. If there was a firefly in there—or even just a burning room hot enough to glow like that—then he would die if he opened the door. The fire would explode the moment it was given air. But if only the medicine chest had burst into flames and the Baron was still asleep, then there might just be time to rescue him. Sir East was supposed to be in there, too, guarding the chest, and he would not be asleep.
Bellman’s momentary hesitation saved his life, because it gave him time to realize that the door itself was about to fail. The panels were starting to glow faintly red, becoming transparent, with spreading streaks of fire shining through. Sir Valiant was coming up the stairs at the double with three other men at his heels. Before the wood dissolved completely in a gush of ash and smoke, Bellman yelled a warning and dived into the room adjoining, just in time to escape the unbearable rush of heat. For a moment he could see nothing except the afterimage of that ghastly brilliance, but the roar of flames was obvious now. Smoke bit his lungs, made him cough.
The room seemed dark compared to the brightness outside. It held four servant beds—just cots, not the four-posters of gentry. Manfred lay on the floor, wearing only breeches. A window stood open. Smoke was streaming in under the connecting door. This was no place to linger.
Shouts of alarm made him spin around. Ringwood and Ranter had just emerged from the audience room with Grand Duke Rubin between them, wrapped in a tapestry. If necessary, they would throw a fold over their ward’s head and carry him out like a parcel, but they had stopped at the sight of the tiny white brilliance hovering above the stairs. Valiant and the others must have understood Bellman’s warning, because they had halted also.
Then the heat became too much for them. “Back!” Valiant shouted. They all turned to run—and the firefly swooped.
Bellman turned away in time to avoid witnessing the results. He closed the door and surveyed his immediate problem.
Manfred was alive, with a swelling bruise on his chin and a cut on his head still oozing blood, suggesting he had been knocked down and had struck the corner of the bed. A rope tied to the bed led over to the open window, showing how the killer had made his escape. The trees and shrubbery of the park were illuminated by the glare, meaning flames already had broken through the roof. Where were the Yeomen who supposedly guarded the place? Bellman could feel heat from the wall and connecting door. Quamast House would collapse in ashes in a very few minutes.
The window was too high to risk dropping an unconscious man, but he pulled up the rope and confirmed that it had been knotted at intervals to make a crude ladder. He dragged Manfred close, tied the free end around his chest, and heaved
him up on the sill. Then he sat down, braced his feet against the wall, and nudged Manfred out. It was fortunate that Manfred was small and Bellman well above average Blade size. On his first day as the Brat he had been taller than anyone in Ironhall except Master Armorer, and he had grown meat on his bones since then. Even so, he could not have managed without the knots, both to grip onto and to ratchet over the sill, braking the descent.
By the time the rope went slack, his hands were cramped and he was choking in the smoke. He scrambled out and began to climb down.
Halfway down he pushed free and dropped the rest of the way to the lawn. He cut Manfred loose and dragged him a safe distance from the inferno just moments before a blast of fire from the window they had left rained debris over the ground beneath.
Bellman made sure the forester was breathing, then sprinted around to the far side of the building. Everywhere seemed bright as day. He arrived in time to see Ringwood jump and land safely in the outspread tapestry being held by a rescue team of Yeomen and Blades. He was the last. Ranter, Trudy, and the Grand Duke were all safely down already.
Bellman went to the closest Blade, who happened to be Silver, and poked him in the back. “How many?”
Silver turned and gave him a sick look. “Valiant, Yorick, East, and Clovis.”
“There’s an unconscious man around the far side. He needs a healing right away.”
Silver said, “Done!” and started shouting, no doubt glad of something to do.
Unwilling to let their ward stay close to the inferno or be silhouetted against its light, Ringwood and Ranter were hurrying the Grand Duke over to a decorative gazebo. It was an ugly latticework thing containing a bench and a marble table. The Duke flopped down on the bench and doubled over, sobbing. Trudy was there already. Bellman joined them.
Ringwood looked a question at him and he shook his head.
“Your Highness,” he said, “I regret to inform you that Baron von Fader must be counted among the dead. Manfred had been stunned, but he is safe and will be all right, I am sure. I saw no sign of Sir East or of Harald, except that someone climbed down from the window on a rope. I suggest that the Watch be informed right away and every effort be made to find Harald Priboi. He should be described as very dangerous.”
The Grand Duke straightened up and wiped his eyes with the bank of his hand. “Dangerous? Harald dangerous?”
“I believe we must issue that warning,” Bellman said. It did not feel right to him either, though. “He is big and he does have military training.”
“Do that, then. Sir Ringwood, will you, please? Warn them he does not speak Chivian.” As Ringwood ran off, Rubin gasped a few times, as if breathing had become difficult. “How did it happen?”
Bellman told what he had seen. “I assume Manfred woke up and saw him at his foul work,” he concluded. “I do not know how he killed the Blade on watch, but he must have done so. And King Athelgar will certainly want to know how he climbed down a rope and ran away without the Yeomen seeing him.”
“Conjury?” Trudy said angrily. “It is my fault! If I hadn’t been half asleep I would have sensed all that happening. I could have given more warning.”
“You were not asleep,” the Grand Duke said. “You saved all our lives, for if you had not been there we should have had no warning at all. But your King was right. I do need a White Sister or two with me on my—” He looked at Bellman. “Do I have a quest?” he asked softly. “Will my Blades let me go back to my son?”
Ranter was standing in the doorway, apparently intent on watching the fire, but possibly eavesdropping as well. Walls were cracking. The last of the roof went down with a roar. Trudy moved over to the doorway to see better.
Bellman sat down beside the Grand Duke on the little bench. “You still have a quest, Your Highness,” he said quietly. “Now, if your Blades balk, I can talk them into it.”
“Thank you. His Majesty will be eager to see the last of me after this.”
“I fear so.” The toll was mounting—four more guardsmen dead made six, plus three Yeomen and the Baron made ten, and a mansion destroyed. Also a desperate killer on the loose. Good-bye, Duke, and good riddance!
“You will come with us, or do you want to be released from your promise?”
“I’m with you all the way, sire,” Bellman said. It was his memory of the Duchess that sealed his loyalty, though.
Ranter wrapped an arm around Trudy and hauled her close. “You’re sort of cute,” he said.
• 2 •
It was almost noon before Trudy located the Krupinese contingent, and by that time she was ready to strangle someone. She had been interviewed three times by teams of inquisitors—an even worse experience for her than most honest folk, because she sensed the snoops’ enchantment as a nauseating stench of week-old fish. She had done battle with Mother Evangeline, who maintained that Sister Gertrude should have called for immediate inspection of the suspect medicine chest instead of waiting until morning, should not have stayed on in Quamast House, and should not now be refusing to answer questions about what she had learned from or about the Grand Duke. A tour of duty on the west coast of Nythia would be arranged to encourage her to mend her ways.
Trudy had refused to be made scapegoat for the latest tragedy and the Fellowship’s overall incompetence. The battle had continued with Mother Tranquility, Reverend Mother Meadowglory, Very Reverend Mother Lettice, and other ancients up to and including Mother Superior. In the end Trudy had given that worthy lady very specific instructions on what she could do with her antique robes and stupid pointed hat. As a result, Sister Gertrude was no longer Sister anything, nor was she employed.
Since even a career in cadging or turnspitting would be preferable to going home and having her brothers tell her they had told her so years ago, she had decided to seek a position with the Duke. He might be pompous and fleshy, but he was also his own charming and admirably tough-minded wife. That personal ambiguity seemed an excellent arrangement, offering endless possibilities. The poor woman could certainly use Trudy’s talents. Her considerable talents. No one had ever accused Gertrude of modesty, especially her brothers, and she had always known she far outshone her classmates at Oakendown, but one of the bleating crones that morning had let slip just how high she scored on the Sisters’ rating. It had surprised even her.
Besides, the Duke-Duchess was now accompanied by two shiny new-minted Blades and the intriguing Bellman, who would not be distracted by ward problems as Blades were. A long journey with that threesome should prove educational.
Trudy’s first problem was that she was no longer authorized to dress as a White Sister and was required to leave the palace forthwith. Fortunately those edicts cancelled out, because she owned no alternative costume. What could they do about that?
The second problem was finding the ducal person. Quamast House was a stinking ruin, still oozing smoke. The Krupinese had been moved to parts unknown and were being held incommunicado, no doubt with inquisitor troubles of their own—her inquiries were met with blank stares or smiles of apology, although she did learn that her quarry was still within the Nocare Palace complex. Searching that would be a lifelong task without something to go on, but she had lots to go on. Although the Duke’s seeming was not especially detectable, a Blade’s glow was, and Blades in large numbers glowed brighter still. Inquisitors likewise showed up well when they swarmed, or clotted, or whatever the correct expression was.
Even so, she walked the corridors for an hour before she detected a constellation of Blades. Homing in on that spiritual signal, she climbed two flights of stairs to an area she had never visited before and there found a room full of them, a dozen or so sitting around a table rolling dice. They looked her over with interest, as Blades always did. The one who rose and came to the door to speak with her was Sir Tancred, the Deputy Commander, which showed how seriously the Krupinese affair was now regarded around Nocare.
He was too old for her, and married, but he had a lovely smile. “A
pleasant surprise, Sister Gertrude. How may I help you?”
“What?” Baskets of rolls and cheese on the table were shouting reminders that she had not eaten all day. “Oh—I came to see the Grand Duke.”
“May I ask on whose business?”
“His business. I work for him now. Didn’t you know?”
That was hardly a fair question when the Grand Duke himself did not, but it worked. Tancred led her to an inner room, where Mother Violet was reading poetry to Mother Giselle. Trudy wondered how they could stand the reek of inquisitor, for the snoops must have been using the place very recently. Perhaps these two could not detect that residual taint. They looked up suspiciously as Trudy’s cheerful smile went by, but they obviously had not yet heard of her dismissal.
Tancred rapped on another door. A moment later it was opened by Bellman, looking extremely dapper in a gold and green jerkin, with cap, hose, and short cape in darker green. His eyes lit up gratifyingly at the sight of her.
“There has been a mixup,” Trudy explained hastily. “The Guard has not yet been informed that I work for the Duke now.”
“Paperwork takes forever here!” Bellman said. “I’m sure I told Sir Florian. His Highness has been waiting for you. Come in.”
“In” was yet another anteroom, empty of people this time, but the far door did lead into the ducal presence. A typical palace bedroom of tennis court size, with windows on two walls, a garderobe door in one corner, and too much flesh tint on the wall tapestries and ceiling frescoes, had been furnished with a long table and high-backed, gilded chairs to make a council chamber.
The first thing she noted was food on the near end of the table. A heap of clothes occupied the other, and Manfred sat unobtrusively near the middle, munching a bread roll and a chicken leg, wearing the bemused look of someone who had recently been through a healing. She could sense it on him. The Grand Duke stood in a window embrasure, staring out. Ringwood, in crisp new blue and gray, was buckling a shoe. Ranter, stripped to his shirt and hose, was pulling yet more garments from a bag. Clothes were heaped everywhere.