Impossible Odds

by Dave Duncan

  Hazard rubbed his hands. “Thank you, thank you! Do remember I am available if you decide to put skill ahead of youth.”

  “The news?” Bellman demanded.

  The Blade turned to him, eager to spread his latest scandal. “You know that even a bonfire as hot as Quamast cannot destroy bones. And you know that five men died there—four Blades and the Baron? Wrong! The coroner’s men have turned up six skulls. Who was the sixth, mm?”

  It had to be Harald, didn’t it? Who else could it be?

  “I don’t know,” Bellman said coldly. “I can’t see how an intruder could have sneaked in through the Yeomen cordon, but then I couldn’t see how Harald had escaped unseen. Was he found in the same area as the Baron?”

  “That I do not know.”

  “I expect the King will tell His Highness. Have you any new news?”

  Hazard pretended to take that question as an insult and huffed off, no doubt eager to hedge his bets on the Trudy Stakes.

  Trudy had lost all appetite for lunch. “But if Harald was not the traitor, who was?” Everything connected with the Krupinese seemed absurdly obscure.

  Bellman sighed. “You tell me. The inside and outside of that suite were being watched. If an intruder flew in or made himself invisible or disguised himself as a bat, you would have sensed that much spirituality, wouldn’t you?”

  “Likely.”

  “Then the bones were Harald’s. He arranged the rope for his escape and killed himself loosing the firefly. That would be possible, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’d think so.”

  “Or perhaps Sir East killed him, but too late. I’ll ask Grand Wizard’s opinion. I have other things to ask him for Ringwood. Can you direct me?”

  “I’ll take you there,” Trudy said. “I must find a dressmaker.”

  Manfred was working his few remaining teeth, frugally scavenging the duck that Ringwood had not had time to finish. Bellman turned to him and indicated in mime that he wanted the forester to stay and guard the clothes. The old man grinned and nodded, gesturing that he would continue to look after the food, too.

  Bellman offered Trudy his arm and they went out together. She must not let Hazard see her like that, although she would be long gone from Nocare before the Trudy Stakes were decided. The winner would not be a member of the Guard. Even odds he would not even be a Blade.

  • 3 •

  The open road! With a strong horse between his thighs and Bad News slung at his saddle, Sir Ringwood, Commander of the Grand Duchess’s Guard, was thundering along a country trail and loving every minute of it. There had been trouble and there would be more trouble, lots of it. One day he would die, because everybody died, and it might be soon in his case, but today he was alive and young, and life was very sweet.

  Ahead of him the trail wound through the ripening late-summer countryside. It carried little traffic, which was why they had chosen it, but a few minutes ago their cavalcade had swept past a tinker and a skinny boy leading a donkey. Ringwood’s eyes had prickled as hard as the poor man’s would when the dust settled on him. It’s me, Dad! I’m a man now, a gentleman, and what I’m doing is important.

  He was doing it quite well so far, he thought. Better than most people had expected of him, he suspected. Certainly better than he had feared. It could not last, of course. He was good enough with a sword, but he lacked all the strategy training Blades normally received. Sooner or later he would make some monumental blunder.

  The Grand Duke rode at his left, although now he was merely Sir John Schale and would revert to being Mistress Johanna Schale as soon as they got rid of their guide. Their guide, riding on Johanna’s far side, was Sir Rivers, recently released from the Guard and hired by Leader to help out the greenhorns. No doubt he was competent and would see the Krupinese party safely to Brimiarde and aboard a ship, but there was something about Rivers that rankled. Although he was not such an all-over scrag as Ranter, he was smarter, so the way he put people’s backs up seemed more deliberate.

  Behind them rode Ranter and Trudy, who was a surprisingly convincing boy, and then Manfred, who was obviously an expert on horses. Must learn from him. Bellman was bringing up the rear, leading a pair of sumpters. Remember to spell him off. Remember, too, not to let Ranter monopolize the best company. And here came a chance, for the trail ahead narrowed to cross a cornfield; unkind to trample the crops by riding three abreast.

  Ringwood dropped back. “Take over the string from Bellman, please, Sir Ranter,” he said sweetly.

  Ranter scowled and reined back without a word, which was both relief and surprise.

  Ringwood smirked at his new companion. “That’s better. Much better!”

  “Are you telling me or asking me?” Trudy said.

  “Telling you. I wouldn’t dare ask.” He won a smile! “I just can’t tell you how happy I am to have you with us, Sister. You saved our lives last night, I’m sure, and you will again. Or I’ll come back and haunt you!”

  “Don’t call me Sister,” she said. “And yes, you are a welcome change. What is it about Ranter? He seems to have wasps in his doublet all the time.”

  “Ranter is always the lowest bat in the cave. He’s sore because he had older brothers who dumped him in Ironhall to cut him out of the inheritance. It wasn’t very fair.” Ringwood did not want to talk about Ranter.

  “I had older brothers, too. I don’t go around irking people, do I?”

  He gave her a soulful look. “Oh, no, my lady!” Big sigh. “Quite the reverse, my lady!”

  “Idiot!” She was amused! She filled that male jerkin in interesting ways.

  “Yes, my lady.” Be businesslike, now. Stop smirking like an idiot. Manly. “I do have a query, my—”

  “Call me True.”

  “Yes, True! My friends call me Ringworm and I hate it. In Brimiarde we’re going to be conjured to speak Fitainish and probably Isilondian. I just wondered…I know some Sisters can’t stand conjuration. Will you be all right?”

  “I’ll tell you when the time comes and I know what it smells like.”

  “Is that true, True? Do you smell spirits, sniff them?”

  She had a lovely smile. Her face was not remarkable normally, but her smile made him think of stars and blossoms and violins. “Depends on the conjuration and the sniffer. I can smell an inquisitor at fifty paces. Like bad fish.”

  “How about Blades?” he asked carefully.

  “For me Blades glow.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she said.

  “You can see us in the dark?”

  “Certainly. Ranter’s pale yellow. You’re sort of bronze.”

  She was teasing him. She must see him as a mere boy compared to Ranter. Ranter had muscles and fur on his chest—as he had been careful to show her that morning.

  “Could be handy if you ever wanted to read in…” Oh, horrors! “…bed.”

  Why, why, why had he said that?

  “I doubt if you’d be bright enough unless you took all your clothes off.”

  “Happy to oblige,” he said quickly, but it was no good. She had done it to him again. What sort of swordsman blushed?

  They spent two nights at the home of Sir Martin, another former guardsman. He had married so well that he owned two villages, but both he and his fox-faced wife were discreet, asking no questions. A royal courier caught up with them there and delivered passports, bankers’ drafts, and letters of introduction that the King had promised Johanna. Most of the documents were genuine, but some were Dark Chamber forgeries. Kings were handy friends to have.

  The next day they reached Brimiarde and put up at the Sign of the Turtle, which just happened to be run by another former guardsman, Sir Panther. Brimiarde’s elementaries had a reputation for language conjuration, as would be expected in a major port. Sir Rivers handled the negotiations, with Bellman watching, and successfully haggled one group of brothers into including Bohakian at no extra charge. Trudy declined Bohakian and Isilondian, accepting only
Fitainish, but even that put her to bed for two days with headache and nausea.

  Then everyone could speak with Manfred and include him in the group. He turned out to be taciturn, with a cynical view of the world and a dry sense of humor. He mourned the Baron deeply, and admitted he was happy to be going home to his wife and family.

  By good chance a suitable ship was in port, a squat little cog named Conqueror that specialized in shuttling back and forth across the Straits and had facilities for passengers. As soon as terms were agreed and entered in the log, with Bellman’s signature alongside Captain Howie’s, Sir Rivers had completed his mission and could ride off with good wishes ringing in his ears. He did, but no one was really sorry to see him go. Trudy just wished he had taken Ranter with him. Ranter fancied himself as front runner in the Trudy Stakes. He was certainly trying hardest. Very trying.

  Conqueror needed another four days to finish loading her cargo of wool, pickled fish, and cider. After that the weather was reluctant to let her go, but one morning the sun rose in a clear sky and the summons came. Six men left the Turtle; four men and two women boarded the ship.

  • 4 •

  It is wonderful to be a woman again!” the Grand Duchess announced dramatically.

  Trudy was not so sure. The two of them were standing on the aft castle near the helmsman, staying out of the way of the crew as Captain Howie bellowed orders through a speaking trumpet. Conqueror leaned before the wind, heading for open sea. Landward the view was spectacular, with hills showing the golden tints of harvest and morning sun gleaming on the roofs of Brimiarde, but the ship itself was cramped and shabby and stinky, as Sir Panther had promised them it would be; all ships were. With luck they would reach Isilond in a couple of days; without it they might take weeks, or drown. Every sailor wore at least one good-luck charm to rattle Trudy’s teeth whenever he came close; she wondered if she would ever be able to sleep in the midst of so much spirituality.

  “You have been deprived of that pleasure much longer than I have,” Trudy said tactfully.

  Grand Duchess Johanna had good reason to celebrate her true appearance. She was a spectacularly feminine woman, slender and golden, even if sorrows had shadowed the finecut lines of her face. With the wind tugging her burgundy gown tight over her breasts and often whipping up the hem to reveal her ankles and calves, she was a shipping hazard. Captain Howie and the helmsman could not keep their eyes off her. At the far side of the deck, Bellman, Ringwood, Ranter, and Manfred were all leaning on the rail, but they had their backs to it so they could savor the view in this direction.

  Trudy secretly preferred the freedom of being a man. She looked like a man. No classical aristocratic beauty she, just a big-boned country wench with too much jaw and not nearly enough nose. Years of milking cows as a child had given her oversized hands and forearms like a blacksmith’s. The Mothers at Oakendown had always been after her to keep her elbows in and stop walking as if she were wearing boots.

  Johanna would probably have made a good White Sister, because an eye for people was usually a good clue to sensitivity. She caught Trudy’s reservation and looked quizzically at her. “You have another freedom, one that I lack.”

  “I do?”

  “You can let the moths circle your flame. I am a married woman and must behave as one.” She was almost certainly a widow, but no one said that.

  “I just wish my flame burned as brightly as yours,” Trudy said.

  “Nonsense! It is fortunate that my Blades’ bindings force them to behave, or they would be at each other’s throats over you. I would be down to one bodyguard.” Undertones of deceit jangled like bells. Johanna was after something.

  “With respect, mistress, I believe you are mistaken. They only notice me when you are hidden by your locket.”

  “Oh, no. I have seen how they look at you.” Johanna chuckled, pretending to be playful, which she was not. “Leaving Manfred out of consideration, how do you rank the others?”

  “For looks? Ringwood is the best looking. No argument. Then Ranter. Bellman’s jaw’s too big.”

  “I would agree with that ranking.” Clang! A lie.

  “Below the neck,” Trudy said, knowing she would never shock Johanna as she so often managed to shock Ringwood, “the reverse. Ringwood’s a stripling, Ranter’s much too meaty, but Bellman’s about perfect, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Perhaps,” Johanna sighed, love elementals caroling like larks. “But as enjoyable company? Poor Ranter would come last on any woman’s list, and most men’s, too, I fear. Ringwood can be witty, but he lacks confidence. Bellman? Do you find him amusing?”

  “Dependable.”

  “Is that a fault?”

  “Dependable at twenty will be a bore at thirty.”

  “Shame! Cynic!” The Duchess’s laugh tolled Trudy’s alarm bell again. “And what do you care what he will be like at thirty? We are talking flirting, not marriage.”

  “We women must be practical. How do we rank their financial prospects?”

  Johanna sighed. “None of them has any real prospects at all. Ranter and Ringwood are bound to a penniless exile, so even their lives are at risk. Bellman has a much better chance of being alive a year from now than they do. He has considerable talent. He should do well in the world.”

  Now Trudy saw the problem clearly. “But he is so homely.”

  “Not at all. Bellman may not be strictly handsome, but there is a rugged strength to his features.” No clangers. The love elementals soared to a crescendo.

  Bellman was bewitched by her, and she knew it. Just what did she think Trudy could do about that? Bellman was not the type to be distracted by a heifer like her throwing herself in his path with a dahlia in her teeth. He had his heart set on Johanna, and Johanna’s own response was driving her close to panic.

  Crossing the bar, Conqueror began to roll and pitch. By the next day she was bucking like a mad horse, with the wind still rising and the largest swells coming aboard amidships, washing through the waist. The world was gray, filled with mist and spume-flecked waves. Bellman, Manfred, and the Duchess had disappeared below to the cabins. At least a third of the crew hung over the rail on the forecastle.

  Trudy was gratified to discover that she was quite immune to this fashionable distemper. She wrapped herself up warmly and stayed on the aft castle, where the air was at least fresh, even if present in excessive amounts. Unfortunately Blades were immune to anything, and guarding their ward at sea did not require two of them. Ranter had Trudy to himself.

  “Your body really excites me,” was one of his better lines, although “Girls can never resist Blades,” came close. “Blades make the best lovers,” was reputedly true, if you believed Blades. And, “You know you cannot refuse me much longer,” was horribly credible. Even in oilskins, Blades glowed for her, and she kept remembering how he had blazed without his shirt. If she leaned back against the rail he stood in front of her, cutting her off from the rest of the ship. If she faced the sea he put an arm around her and squeezed.

  “Is your Leader feeling seasick?” she asked, meaning, I wish you were.

  “No, he’s looking after Her Nibs.”

  Trudy already knew where Ringwood was, because she was standing directly above the poky cabin the two women shared. Ringwood and his ward were certainly not doing what Ranter had in mind, not while the Duchess remained the bright green color she had been an hour ago.

  “So he’s busy,” Ranter added. “Me ’n’ you can go down to our cabin and not be interrupted.”

  “Why does he have to stay with her? No one’s going to hurt her here.”

  Ranter scowled. “He holds the bucket. She might choke.”

  “I didn’t know Blades were nurses.”

  “For our wards we’re anything we have to be. For pretty girls we’re great lovers.”

  She hoped desperately that help would arrive soon. Bellman would intervene if he saw what was going on, but Bellman was prostrate, too. The sailors would not intrude on a Bla
de.

  “Sir Ranter, it is midmorning in a howling gale. I am not in the mood for romance.”

  “Come downstairs with me and I’ll put you in the mood real quick, I promise. You’ll love it. The girls in Brimiarde all said how good I was.”

  “No!”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing.” He was genuinely puzzled by her refusal.

  “Yes I do. I’m a farm girl.”

  “There’s hay in my mattress.”

  For Ranter, that was a very good line indeed, and she laughed.

  Error! He leered. “Then you agree?”

  There were no love spirits caroling around Ranter. Red flames of lust, yes.

  “I need time to think about it.”

  “Let me help.” He tried to kiss her.

  She doubled over backward to avoid him. She considered screaming. She was starting to wonder if this fight was worth the effort—give up, let him do it, and maybe he’d leave her alone for a while. But that was just the binding conjuration eating away at her resistance. Next time surrender would be even easier, and in a couple of days she’d come running if he wiggled an eyebrow at her. No woman ever could resist a bound Blade. Why else would men consent to be bound? Why struggle?

  Ringwood! His glow had moved, left the cabin.

  “Stop!” she said. “Your Leader’s coming.”

  And so he did, emerging from the hatch and staggering across the deck in the teeth of the gale. Ranter’s scowl should have hurled him overboard all by itself.

  Ringwood grabbed the rail. “Take over for a while, brother. I need a break.”

  Ranter stamped away, cursing into the wind.

  “Good chance,” Trudy said with feeling. She was shaking. About one more minute would have done it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She turned away, looked out at the waves.

  “Tell me. Please, True?”

  “Nothing.”

  He laid a hand on hers where she held the rail. Nothing like Ranter’s savage hug for him and no fires of lust, either. Not even birdsong, just a very distant, plaintive note like the cry of a curlew on a moor. “Is there anything I can do?” His hand was warm on hers.