by Dave Duncan
“Watch where you put your feet, Spendero.” She was standing by an irregular hole of unseeable depth.
“What is this, my lady?”
“What does it look like? It’s an unfinished cellar. Your deathtrap bag will be safe enough here, and it won’t be able to kill any more people. There should be some wall staples somewhere...”
Falling into the world’s oldest trap, I looked around for the wall staples. The moment I took my eye off the holdall, which I had set down at my feet, she kicked it. It rattled back and forth for several seconds as it fell.
“It will be even safer down there,” she said smugly. “It’s quite dry. They gave up digging the well when I told them they would never find water so close to the edge of the cliff.”
Surely the loss of the money bag was the final nail in the Bannerville embassy’s coffin. Until then I had hoped that I might still be able to open the holdall by chopping through the leather with Burl’s sword. That might be suicidal, which meant that I would have to do it myself, so my anger was tempered by relief, and that realization made me even madder.
“I am much tempted to send you after it... my lady.”
She snapped her fingers at me, and I reeled back in agony, as if red-hot pokers had been thrust in my eyes. Unable to see, knowing there was a bottomless pit just inches from my feet, I tripped, of course, and fell on the ragged rock floor. Light swirled for a few minutes, and then steadied. Gradually my aching eyes began to function again. I had bruised my left hip and knee, wrenched my sword arm, bitten my lip. Marquisa Desidéria da Eternidade was looking down at me with open contempt.
“You do understand that I could have blinded you and left you here to die?”
I said, “Yes, my lady,” and painfully clambered to my feet. I had dropped the candlestick somewhere and the candles had gone out, so I could not see it.
“Come, then.” She turned and headed for the stairs.
“My lady?”
She paused. “Yes?”
“You do understand that I could have punched you as you turned and hurled you into the pit after our bag?”
Perhaps that second impudence worried her, for she did not answer until we had emerged from the door at the top. Then she raised the lantern to study me. “You are a puzzle, Swordsman Spendero.”
“Do you think I can understand you?”
“That is of no importance. But watch your tongue from now on.”
She did not speak another word until we were back in the reception hall, where a table was already laden with food. Lord Bannerville and Chancellor da Quern rose and bowed as their hostess joined them. I went to stand beside my brother Blades, who were silently salivating in the shadows.
“You’re bleeding,” Burl murmured.
“I very nearly broke her neck,” I whispered. “She had sent men to rummage through our gear. The money bag killed one of them. She threw it down a well, so it’s gone, perhaps forever.” Or, more likely, until the witch ordered it fished out and used her sorcery to open it.
When the three diners had finished their meal, servants emerged from the darkness to remove the table. I followed them to the door and told them to leave it there. They balked and I drew my sword to make them obey. By then, obviously, I had run out of patience with the marquisa and was trampling all over the normal rules of behaviour, but so was she, and a leader has to see that his men are properly fed. After Burl and then Dragon had eaten, there was still enough for me.
It was after midnight before our ward and hostess finished their tete-a-tete. Linkboys appeared to light our way home. I still did not know whether Desidéria controlled her servants by magic or with subtle signals. I did not care, either.
I was relieved to see that Bannerville was quite steady on his feet, and much closer to sober than I had feared. I outlined my night’s adventures to him as we walked, and then brazenly asked him how his conference had gone.
“‘Stord’nary woman! Claims’s civil war‘s ‘bout to explode all over. Calls King Afonso a madman and Cousin Luis a traitor. Got nothing good to say about Francois of Isilond either.”
“So she can’t help you?”
“Hinted she could, but won’t. Need to sleep on it, lad. Talk in the morning.”
Chapter 6
Back at our quarters we left our ward in the care of a sleepy Gudge. Burl and Dragon sank thankfully onto chairs, having been on their feet for hours, but my duties were not over yet. I stripped and washed blood off my abrasions, with some help from Burl in the places hard for me to reach. Blades heal fast, so I had stopped bleeding and did not need bandaging. My hose and pantaloons were ripped and probably ruined. I put the stained garments in our wash basin and dressed in my spares.
Meanwhile I described my story again, in more detail, and we discussed what we were going to do. I was coming around to the opinion that our hostess, although undoubtedly a sorceress, was also as crazy as a rabid bat in a beehive. She might well refuse to let us leave her castle, so I had let my ward walk into a trap. We had no idea whose side she was on, and Fitish politics seemed to have far too many sides. We decided we could only wait until daylight, when we might learn what Chinless wanted.
I had just found a chair and began to relax when there came a tap on the door. Burl opened it and admitted a pint-sized page carrying a lantern.
He glanced around us uncertainly and announced, “My mistress requires the attendance of Sir Spendero,” in a musical treble.
“Better you than me,” Dragon murmured, although he might have been hoping for such an invitation—Burl was ugly, I was plain, but he was beautiful.
My heart sank at the prospect of another bout with Desidéria, but to refuse her summons might harm my ward’s cause, so I stood up—painfully, for my bruises were stiffening. “I am Spender.” I handed Dragon one of the keys and told him to lock the door behind me.
Down the stairs we went with the linkboy, and for the third time that night I made the trek to the Striped Tower, the one that signified Time. All I could see of the guide at my side was the top of his cap.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Joel, senhor.”
“How long have you worked for the marquisa?”
“Two hundred years, senhor.”
“Don’t you ever grow up, then?”
He glanced up with a sweet smile. “Why should I want to?”
I could have told him that he didn’t know what he was missing, but he might have good counter arguments, so I didn’t. Instead I tried to think of reasons why he might have been told to lie to me that way. I had found only two, neither of which made much sense, by the time he halted at a golden door. He rapped on it, opened it, stepped aside for me to enter. The room was lit and emitted a scent of roses.
I went in, and found myself in a bedchamber, as I had feared—gold and black and many mirrors, floors layered with lambswool rugs like thick snow. I advanced three paces and heard the door close behind me. Beeswax candles twinkled in golden holders, yet the space was so large that the temperature was pleasant and the overall effect was one of shadowy, romantic intimacy. Desidéria, clad in a loose robe of golden silk, was standing at a side table, pouring wine.
“I am told that you Blades never sleep?”
“Not while we are on duty, my lady.”
“Are you on duty now?”
“Yes.”
She handed me a crystal goblet filled with blood-red wine, and then took one like it went back to the bed. She sat on the edge, leaving me standing. Her hair hung unbound, in heavy cataracts of shiny jet.
“Propose a toast, Sir Spendero.”
“To friendship between Fitain and Chivial.”
“And to friendship between men and women.”
We drank.
She regarded me the way a prospective buyer regards a horse on first viewing. “You intere
st me. You are completely without fear. I have never met a man who feared absolutely nothing. Your lackeys are both terrified of me, although they are hiding it well. Most people could not tell.”
“They are Blades and will do their duty whatever the cost, so their fear does not matter, as it might with other men. You like men to be frightened of you?”
“It is so long since I met one who wasn’t that I have no way to judge.” She smiled sensuously. “You think you are good, don’t you, Spendero?”
“The hour is late, my lady. What do you want of me?”
She chuckled, as if we were playing some childish game, then crossed her legs so the silk fell back to expose them from the knees down. “What do you want of me?”
“My leave, so that I can go and rest after a hard day.”
“Don’t be impertinent! Make a wish.”
I was not enjoying this conversation at all, but I, too, must do my duty whatever the cost. If she was truly willing to buy my body as she was hinting, and if her sorcery was as potent as it seemed to be, then there might be a chance that I could save the Bannerville mission from utter disaster.
“I want my ward to be officially received by King Afonso.”
“How dull!” She sipped more wine without taking her midnight eyes off me. “I can arrange that. My price is that you strip to the waist so I can admire your manly chest.”
So far so good, or at least not so bad. I set my goblet down on the drinks table. The wine was so powerful that I wanted no more of it anyway. Then I set my hat down on a chair, followed it with my jerkin. I untied my shirt and added that to the heap. I was young and exceedingly brash and not at all ashamed of my body. Quite the reverse, in fact, although I was nowhere nearly as vain as Dragon.
“Oh, very nice,” Desidéria purred. “Chest hair to match. I wondered. Turn around.”
I performed for her—turning around, flexing muscles. “If brawn is what excites you, senhora, you should send for Sir Burl. He has three times as much as I do.”
“That lop-faced ox? Don’t be ridiculous! What’s your second wish, you lovely swordsman?”
She had dropped the top of her robe to expose her breasts. Since they were being displayed so blatantly, I did not hesitate to stare, and they were breathtakingly lovely. The rose colour of her areolas seeming to blaze in the otherwise colourless room. I could see where this was heading, of course. I had left my innocence behind in a Brimiarde brothel.
“I want King Afonso to lift his absurd tariffs on seaborne trade.”
“He won’t do that, not even for me. Over his dead body, he says. Wish again.”
“Then I want my ward to meet with Prince Luis.”
She smiled gleefully. “I can arrange that, too!”
“But will you?”
“If you strip naked for me, yes, I will.”
“Meeting first, strip later.”
“Strip now. I give you my most solemn oath that I will produce Prince Luis to meet with your insipid Lord Bannerville.”
I did not trust her oaths, but I could see that pretending to believe her would be much safer than refusing. Provoked, she might do terrible things, like blinding me. I was quite convinced that she expected to have me gasping with desire so that she could refuse me. I intended to refuse her first. I kicked off my shoes, dropped my pantaloons and hose, hauled them off, leaving myself in nothing but my drawers, with all my scrapes and bruises revealed. “Everything, my lady?”
“Every stitch.”
I obeyed and straightened up mother naked. I rotated without waiting to be told. I had an erection like a granite monolith, which I did not try to hide. I was sure that she had seen plenty of those, despite her apparent youth.
“Wonderful,” she said. “The same all the way down to your ankles. The golden man. How you must sparkle in sunlight!”
She stood up also, dropping her robe to a heap around her feet, leaving her wearing only those elbow-length bicoloured gloves that I distrusted. Naked, she seemed little more than a child—slender, vulnerable, gorgeous, and yet much more than a child, the epitome of man’s desiring.
“Excellent! What else do you want of me, pretty man?”
“Nothing more tonight, thank you, my lady. I will cherish the memories. You are very beautiful.” I began to dress again.
“How insulting. Should I send for Joel, then?”
“I did not mean to insult your body, senhora. I have never seen a better, but I am the bastard son of an army whore, and unworthy to tup you, even if ordered to do so. But I give you my solemn oath that if you grant my two wishes you can have whatever else you want of me.”
“Insolent! I know you’re not one of those men who just wants boys. Graça says you’re the best lover she’s ever known, and she should know.”
I paused in my robing to scowl at my tormentor. “Graça is your spy in the Ernesto residence?”
Taunting smile... “Of course. Has been for years.”
“Well, I happen to be betrothed to Graça, and that’s why I’ve given up whoring.”
Finally, I had scored. Desidéria paled and showed her teeth at me, which were as perfect, as the rest of her. “Graça? That fat old kitchen slut? Over me?”
“Yes, Graça. I love her and am going to marry her.”
She stalked forward like a hungry panther. “I can force you.”
That might not be true. Blades’ bindings are resistant to other enchantments, but I did not want to put mine to the test against a sorceress of her skill. “Forcing me would be no fun. You really wanted me to grovel and plead so you could refuse me, didn’t you? Present my ward to the king and Luis, and I will play your game, whatever vile humiliation you demand.”
I slid my rapier through the loop, crammed my hat on, and bowed my farewell. Marquisa Desidéria just stood there, nude except for her gloves, staring disbelievingly at me as I departed, taking a candelabra to light my way home. Not a real home, of course, because I had never had one of those.
Chapter 7
“That was quick,” Dragon remarked as I locked the door with me inside. “She didn’t want seconds?”
“She didn’t even want firsts,” I said truthfully. “She’s a cock-tease, a witch, and a lunatic. I think she was testing our binding conjuration, but it won—I didn’t touch her. But I did get her to promise to arrange for Chinless to meet with the king and the prince. Whether she’ll deliver I don’t know.” I sat down and sighed over the worst day of my life so far.
“Look at this. Bruno brought it.” Burl threw a brown garment at me, and I recognized Master Robins’s hooded gown. When I held it up, I saw the tiny hole made by the arrow. The bloodstain around it was no larger than a man’s palm.
“It was delivered just after we left, so Gudge says,” Burl continued. “He claims that the pockets were empty then, but he could be lying.”
“We counted thirteen pockets,” Dragon said.
So I had another failure to add to my dismal tally. I should have remembered that Dark Chamber snoops always carry nasty little conjurations around with them. I’d been told so often enough at Ironhall. I ought to have searched Robins’s body before anyone else got near it.
I moved my chair so I could lean my head against the wall. Blades don’t sleep, but they do need rest and I felt that a couple of years would be about right. “Tomorrow I resign as leader,” I said with my eyes closed. “I have imperially fucked up.”
“Not a chance,” Burl growled. “Even if you got us into this mess, you’ll do a lot better at getting us out of it than Drag or me or Chinless would.”
That was true, so I would have to keep on trying.
The only bright thought that came to me before dawn was that, while someone had certainly been spying for Desidéria in the home of Chivian Consul Ernesto, she might well have been lying when she implicated Graça. Anyone else in that
household could have reported that I was Graça’s regular lover. Someone had reported that Master Robins was the crux of the Bannerville mission, so that it must collapse without him. Reported to whom? No data. Who else had been spying, and for whom? Again, no data.
The game was between Afonso and Luis, and Desidéria was a wild card. She might be a third, independent, player, or she might be working for either man. Or both, as she pleased. Even had my binding allowed me, I could not have slept a wink that night.
Morning came, and a light snack of wine and fresh fruit was delivered to our door. The boys who brought it both looked about fourteen, and both had the correct cheeky grin for that age. I thanked them and idly asked how long they had worked for the marquisa.
“Since I was nineteen, senhor,” said the first.
“Feels like forever,” the second added.
Burl lunged to his feet. “Want some heads cracked, leader?”
The prospective victims did not cringe in terror from the monster, but instead raised their chins and faced him calmly.
“No,” I said. “They’re trained not to answer questions. Let them go.”
They left, smirking.
Chinless was usually a rabid tomcat in the mornings, but that day he was relatively mellow, probably because he had not drunk much the previous evening. While Gudge was shaving him, we had an all-hands conference. I reported that Desidéria had promised to arrange meetings for him with both Afonso and Luis.
He made pleased noises. As soon as the razor moved away from his throat he added, “Then you did better than I did. What did you give her in return, dear boy?”
“Promises are only worth other promises, my lord.”
Dragon muttered, “The man is out of his mind.”