Sword of Waters

by Hilari Bell

  “I know, but… Never mind.” Edoran cast Arisa a wary glance. “Have you been to the university before? It’s this way.”

  Soon the quiet mansions gave way to shops and craft yards, and the chaotic bustle made Arisa think more kindly of Weasel’s placid mount. Edoran’s mare didn’t give him quite the ride Honey gave her, but no one was trampled—and surprisingly few people recognized the prince, despite his fancy saddle blanket. He’d dressed plainly, Arisa realized. Or at least, plainly for him. Her britches attracted more attention than the prince did.

  As they neared the edge of the city, the traffic thinned enough to let them ride together.

  Arisa had passed the road that led to the university complex several times, but she’d never gone in. It was bigger than she’d thought, almost half a dozen buildings, each reflecting the age in which it was constructed, scattered over the flanks of a low hill. A squat tower perched on the hilltop.

  “That’s the astronomical observatory,” Weasel told her. “Where they study the stars and planets. Justice Holis dragged me up there several times.”

  The drone of lecturing voices came from the barely cracked windows of the building on their right, and billows of evil-smelling smoke surged through the fully open windows of the building on their left. Someone inside that building was shouting, but none of the people walking along the paths seemed concerned.

  “That’s where they do chemical experiments,” Edoran told them. “I’ve found it’s best not to ask what goes on in there.”

  Weasel frowned. “Won’t they tell you about it? That would worry me.”

  “On the contrary.” Edoran shuddered. “If you so much as look interested, they’ll tell you all about it. In detail. For hours!”

  Arisa laughed. “I trust we’re not going there.”

  “No, we’re going to the records room in the library,” said Edoran, gesturing to a large stone keep. Judging by its architecture, it was the oldest of the buildings.

  The servants must have sent word ahead, for a small man, with mousey hair pulled back into a queue, waited on the steps to greet them.

  “It’s been too long since we’ve seen Your Highness here!” He sounded as if Edoran were his favorite grandson instead of his prince. “How may we assist you?” He waved a hand, and a couple of students came forward to take their horses.

  “Master Horace.” Dismounting, Edoran assumed the look of bored politeness with which he responded to similar smiles in evening court. “We want to take a look at the archives. The records of King Regalis’ reign.”

  “At once, Your Highness!”

  Arisa thought Edoran suppressed a sigh, but he did it so smoothly she couldn’t be sure. When she first met him, Arisa had taken that smooth blankness for arrogance, but now… He was different around other people than he was with her and Weasel, and she wondered why.

  “The archives are this way,” said their host, leading them up the main stairs. “And may I say, Your Highness, how pleased I am that you share your father’s interest in history.”

  Edoran and Master Horace exchanged polite comments as they turned down a long hall, lined with small statues and display cases. Arisa glanced at one of them and stopped to gape at the mushroom-mound of gold, jewels, and velvet. “Isn’t that the crown Marfus was wearing?”

  “This is the hall of crowns,” Master Horace told them. “That particular crown was in use from”—he peered at the label— “the reign of King Adan through the reign of King Gerand, so it might well have been—”

  “You’re correct,” said a woman’s cool voice. “Marfus favored that crown, and had two more made in the same style. Those two,” she added dryly, “were in even worse taste than this one.”

  “Your Highness,” said Master Horace. “Allow me to present Mistress Margood, the head librarian.”

  Edoran nodded. The thin dark-haired woman in the drab gown sketched a curtsy, then looked at Weasel and Arisa. “And these are…?”

  “Ah,” said Master Horace. “Prince Edoran’s companions.”

  Arisa bristled, and amusement glinted in Edoran’s eyes.

  “Mistress Arisa Benison,” he told the librarian. “And Weasel.”

  Mistress Margood nodded. “You want to look at some of the old records?”

  “Legal records,” Edoran confirmed. “From King Regalis’ reign.”

  “Humph. Looking for the sword, are you? Well, it’s a better idea than thrashing around at random.”

  “The Prince,” said Master Horace repressively, “will inform us of his intentions when he wishes to do so. We are here to serve, not to quest—”

  “Yes, it’s the sword,” Edoran told her.

  “Then you’ll want to start with the official investigation,” Mistress Margood said crisply. “This way.”

  She strode rapidly down the corridor, not so much as if she wanted to be rid of them, Arisa thought, but as if she preferred to waste as little time on them as possible.

  Something caught Weasel’s eye, and he stopped beside another display case. “Is that the first crown? The one they say is the crown of earth?”

  Arisa looked through the glass at a plain gold circlet resting on a bed of black velvet. The sunlight that came through the high windows couldn’t reach it, but its rounded curves glowed. Nicks and scratches marred the smooth surface.

  “Yes,” said Master Horace proudly. “This is the crown of earth, worn by King Deor himself.”

  “Actually,” said the librarian, “this crown’s origins are ambiguous. There are no records from Deor’s time, and while one legend from that era says that the gods themselves gave King Brend the crown of earth, in return for his father’s sacrifice, there is also a story in which King Deor passed the crown to his son before he was killed. In any case,” she finished dryly, “this appears to have been made by men instead of gods.”

  “So does the shield,” Weasel told her, smiling in response to the humor in her face.

  “Was this really Deor’s crown?” Arisa asked. Manmade or not, its sheer age was awesome.

  Edoran frowned. “I thought Deor’s crown was lost, a long time ago.”

  “That’s yet another theory,” said Mistress Margood. “And there is a jeweler’s bill, presented to King Peremin, for a crown in the old style, a simple circlet of gold. There’s no way to be certain if this crown was Deor’s, or was made later for King Peremin, or came from some other, unknown source.”

  “Can we touch it?” Arisa asked.

  “No!” Mistress Margood yelped.

  “Well,” said Master Horace. “Ah. Technically, it belongs to Prince Edoran.”

  “It was donated to the university,” Mistress Margood said firmly.

  “On loan,” said Edoran softly. “I could command it…”

  He met Weasel’s scowl with a mischievous grin.

  “There’s no need for that,” said Master Horace. “Mistress Margood, open the case for His Highness.”

  The librarian sniffed, pulled a thick ring of keys from her pocket, and opened the lock. She stepped back with a scowl that clearly indicated that if they broke anything she’d break them—prince or no prince!

  Arisa hardly cared. She reached slowly into the case and removed the crown. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it was only a hoop of gold, smooth and cool.

  “What does it feel like?” Weasel asked.

  “Heavy.” She held it out to him, and he braced himself before he touched it. Then his shoulders sagged with relief and he took it from her, weighing it in his hands.

  “It is heavy. And judging by the nicks, it’s soft enough to be pure gold. I might be able to mark it with my fingernail.”

  He cast Mistress Margood a wicked glance, but she refused to rise to such obvious bait. Weasel turned to Edoran. “Put it on.”

  Edoran took the crown and lowered it onto his head. His head was too small, so he tipped the crown back to keep it from falling over his nose. He looked…

  “You look silly,” Arisa
told him.

  “That’s why I don’t wear crowns.” He passed it to the librarian, with an apologetic smile, and she put it back into the case and locked it.

  “Shall we go to the archives now, Your Highness?”

  It seemed they had forfeited the librarian’s goodwill. She hustled them down the corridor—probably to keep them from playing with other priceless artifacts along the way—and herded them into a small room. It held two long tables and a handful of uncomfortable-looking chairs, but the shelves lining all four walls were packed with books and papers.

  Master Horace excused himself, leaving them in “Mistress Margood’s capable hands.” The librarian went straight to a shelf and pulled out a sheaf of papers, bound with a thin leather tie, and laid them down on one of the tables.

  “This is the official report of the investigation into the disappearance of the sword and shield,” she said. “It is the original document, so handle it with care, first making certain that your hands are clean and dry.”

  For a moment Arisa thought they’d have to hold up their hands for inspection, but Mistress Margood went on.

  “No food or drink of any kind is allowed in this room, and no documents leave this room. If you need additional records, come to my office and I will find them for you. Is that clear?”

  In other words, keep your hands off my documents.

  “Yes, Mistress Margood,” said Weasel, in a schoolboy singsong.

  The librarian glared at him. “Don’t get the pages out of order. Leave it on the table when you’re finished; don’t try to put it back yourselves. My office is two doors down this hall.” She swept out, closing the door behind her.

  “Witch,” Weasel muttered.

  “She’s only doing her job.” Irony dripped from Edoran’s voice.

  Weasel’s glare faded to a slightly shamed grin. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”

  They started with all three of them trying to read at the same time, and soon found that Weasel, the law clerk, read far faster than Arisa did, and that she read faster than Edoran. Soon they worked out a system where Weasel read a page and then passed it to Arisa, who passed it to Edoran when she’d finished. The pile of unread pages between her and Weasel grew at about the same rate as the pile between her and Edoran, which silenced any comments she might have made about slow readers. Besides, if Edoran had been taught to read in the same way he’d been taught to fence, it was a miracle he could read at all.

  Time dragged past, but even through the tedium of the long-dead justice’s formal prose…

  “There’s something wrong here,” said Arisa. “It’s like… It’s like the justice is going through the proper moves, but he doesn’t care if the sword and shield are found or not.”

  “It’s worse than that,” said Weasel, who was nearing the bottom of the stack. “He’s doing things that are useless, and skipping things that would have made sense.”

  “What do you mean?” Arisa asked.

  “One of the first things the city guard does after a robbery,” said Weasel, “is send men out to try to find a witness. But no one looked for witnesses around the palace.”

  “Or asked the palace servants who cleaned that room when someone first noticed the sword and shield were missing,” said Edoran. “According to this they were mounted on the throne room wall, and while that room is used only for formal events, the servants keep it clean. If the sword and shield suddenly weren’t there to be dusted, they’d have noticed.”

  “And why question people at the docks, when he says just a page later that he thinks the sword and shield were stolen for ransom?” Weasel asked. “You wouldn’t have to take them out of the city for that.”

  “So what does it mean?” Arisa asked.

  “No one could be this incompetent by accident,” said Weasel. “This investigation is fake.”

  “And no one could have ordered a fake investigation,” Edoran added, “except Regalis himself. At least, that’s what my father said. No one but the king would have dared.”

  “But why?” said Arisa, frustrated. “I mean, Regalis was king.”

  “That was the problem,” said Edoran. “What do you think the country folk of Regalis’ day would have thought of a king who lost the sword and shield? Or sold them. Or whatever he did.”

  “The country folk already hated him,” Arisa replied. “If they knew he’d been careless with the sword and shield… rebellion. Not like the one the Hidden priests led, a real rebellion with every farmer and goodwife in the realm….No, surely it wouldn’t have gone that far. The shield and sword mattered to the country folk, but to rise against the king for that alone…”

  But it wouldn’t have been for that alone. It would have been for the years of drought that impoverished the whole kingdom. Impoverished it to the point where Regalis had sent the city guard to raid the countryside to feed the city’s starving poor. If he really had done something stupid with the sword and shield, it could have proved the final straw.

  “And we know Regalis did something to lose them,” said Arisa slowly, “because they disappeared. But why was the shield still in the palace?”

  “At a guess,” said Weasel, “someone under Regalis’ orders hid it there.”

  “Why?” Arisa demanded. “Losing the sword was bad enough. Losing both of them—”

  “Was actually better,” said Weasel. “How about this: Regalis gambles away the sword—or loses it some other stupid way. Then one of his brighter advisers points out how the already-angry country folk are going to feel about that. But if he can convince them that the sword was stolen for ransom, by a burglar who for some reason never contacted him, they’d have to see that it wasn’t his fault. He investigated, he offered a reward. What more could he do?”

  “But if a burglar took the sword,” said Edoran, “why would he leave the shield behind?”

  “Exactly,” said Weasel. “Regalis himself had the shield hidden away, for the same reason he ordered the fake investigation—to support the story of a burglar, and to get himself off the hook. He probably intended to get the sword back. Then he could dig out the shield and claim he’d recovered them both from that nasty thief. But he never found the sword, so the shield stayed where it was.”

  There was a long, thoughtful silence.

  “It fits,” said Arisa.

  “It fits,” Edoran agreed. “And that was further than my father reasoned, though he didn’t know that the shield was hidden in the palace.”

  “But where does that leave us? All these records”—Arisa gestured to the crowded shelves—“are useless. Any official record will be useless.”

  “Then we check the unofficial records,” said Edoran promptly. “That was something my father thought of, though he never had time to pursue it. You may not know this,” he added, “but lots of the court ladies, and some of the men, keep diaries.”

  “And giggle over them,” said Arisa glumly. “And tell you they’ve written something nasty about you, that people will be able to read for centuries. As if anyone would bother.”

  “I know,” said Edoran cheerfully. “But they’re right about one thing—those diaries last. When someone’s great-aunt or grandmother dies, their relatives often donate their diaries to the university archives.”

  “Given what most courtiers write about, why would the archives want them?” Weasel asked. “Who cares who flirted with someone else’s fellow sixty years ago?”

  “No one,” said Edoran. “Though the relatives go through them pretty carefully before they turn them over, just in case. But the archives take them, hoping they’ll also mention things that are important.”

  “Such as gossip about the disappearance of the sword and shield,” said Arisa slowly. “They would have gossiped, wouldn’t they?”

  “They gossip about everything,” said Edoran. “And if you think reading this report was boring…”

  His gaze met Arisa’s. Moving as one, they turned to stare at Weasel.

  “Oh, no you don
’t,” said Weasel. “Justice Holis gives me more than enough boring reading.”

  “But you’re so fast,” said Arisa. “Much faster than either of us. And smart, too. Really smart about documents and things.”

  “I’m smart enough to keep the two of you from dumping this job on me,” Weasel told her.

  “But you have legal training,” Edoran said. “You could sort out anything important much quicker than…” He paused, frowning. “Much quicker…”

  He rose to his feet and stared toward the south.

  “Is it the weather?” Weasel asked.

  “No. No, it’s not.”

  “What do you mean?” Arisa asked. “It’s still clearing up, I think.”

  “It is,” said Edoran. “This is something else.” His frown deepened. His expression was that of someone groping through a dark closet, but his hands were still.

  “What are you talking about?” Arisa demanded.

  “Edoran can sense the weather,” Weasel told her. He watched the prince with curiosity but no alarm.

  Arisa snorted. “So can dogs and horses. And every goodwife whose big toe aches when a storm’s coming in.”

  “Maybe,” said Weasel. “But I’ve never seen a goodwife who can tell you it’ll start raining at midnight, rain hardest between two and four, and stop three quarters of an hour before dawn.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Arisa. “No one can do that.”

  “Edoran can,” said Weasel. “And I’ve never seen him get it wrong.”

  “Then it’s creepy,” said Arisa. “If it’s true, which I don’t—”

  “We should go,” said Edoran abruptly. “We should go now.”

  “But we haven’t even looked at the diaries,” Arisa protested. “Whoever’s going to read them.”

  “We’re leaving,” said Edoran. “I command it.”

  The old arrogance rang in his voice, and Arisa scowled.

  Weasel kicked the prince’s ankle, and he yelped and hopped a few steps. He glared at his friend.

  Arisa was relieved that he no longer stared toward the south.

  “Justice Holis and I are trying to break him of his habit of snapping out commands,” Weasel told Arisa. “It annoys people.”