by Dave Duncan
chamber, making a final curtsey with one hand on
the doorknob and the other clutching files. Her
age was a state secret, for a black gable
headdress concealed her hair and her pale moon
face bore no wrinkles. She turned and began
to cross the anteroom in the shuffling,
flat-footed walk of the grossly fat, black
robes whispering around her ankles. Her fishy
gaze swam from face to face as she went, noting
exactly who was present and who sat next
to whom. No one would look her in the eye except
the Blades, who stared back coldly--a point
of honor, to prove they had nothing to hide.
The Chamberlain gathered up more papers and
hastened in to learn His Majesty's pleasure.
Durendal headed for the desk.
Words whirled in his head: Your Majesty,
I crave a boon. Utterly ridiculous!
Sire, may I humbly beg a favor?
Better. The King would certainly consent. Married
by royal prerogative!--it would amuse him.
He loved to flaunt his power, especially if the
demonstration did not cost the Exchequer anything.
Durendal was, after all, one of his
favorites. Montpurse should have been advised
beforehand, but would understand. Married! To Kate! No
doubts, no hesitation. What a woman! But
first, of course, he must get by the Chamberlain.
"I seek a brief audience with His Majesty
concerning personal business." Personal business
might take months! He certainly must not try
to bring it up when it was his turn to stand guard in the
council chamber itself. That would call down royal
thunderbolts, even on him.
The Chamberlain emerged, but he hung onto the
handle and peered shortsightedly around the
anteroom. "Ah, Sir Durendal!
Thought you were here. Just the man. His Majesty
wants you."
Even for a Blade who prided himself on his fast
reflexes, this afternoon was moving a little too quickly.
He straightened his doublet and his shoulders, then
walked into the inner sanctum.
The council chamber was a square room,
poorly lit by mullioned windows at the far
side and made gloomy by paneling of black
walnut and a dozen dark leather chairs set around
the walls. One of them was piled with an untidy
heap of red dispatch boxes and a snowdrift of
spilled documents. The two high fireplaces
were white marble, but neither was lit.
The chairs were sometimes offered to foreign
ambassadors. Everyone else--ministers,
officials, petitioners; high and low, male or
female--remained standing because the King did.
Hoare, the Guard humorist, maintained that if the
King sat down, you tried to remember when you had
last updated your will, but if he began to pace it
was too late to worry. He was an erratic
worker, driving his ministers to desperation by refusing
to look at a single paper for weeks, then working
them for days and nights until they were half dead of
exhaustion. He could snatch the substantive
points out of a long-winded report like a sparrow
hawk taking sparrows. His memory for detail was
legendary, his temper even more so, his tenacity
infinite. He made the policies. His ministers
found ways to carry them out. Or were carried out
themselves, Hoare said.
The lamps had not been lit. He was brooding
by the window, peering out at the sunset and darkening the
room like a hay wagon. Durendal walked to the
center of the room, bowed to that massive royal
back, and then waited. Never before had he been more
than a single pace from the door.
The King swung around and grunted as if
surprised. He pointed vaguely at a group
of chairs. "Sit. I need to think."
Fire and death and more fire! Durendal
obeyed, although his scalp prickled. He could not
recall anyone sitting when the King stood.
Invalids, no one else, not ever.
The King put his hands behind his back and began
to shuttle--door, window, door. "I made a
mistake once. Now I'm going to make
another."
Silence was the only possible comment.
Window, door ... "I suppose I'm just
pigheaded. Hardest part of being a King--being any
sort of leader--is knowing when to quit. You've
wounded the quarry, you've tracked it all day, and
now night is coming. Do you give up and go home?
Lose all that effort? Or do you push on, knowing
you'll have to spend the night in the woods and may
gain nothing? Hmm? How do you decide?"
He seemed to be speaking to himself, but he
suddenly stopped and peered at his uneasy
Blade.
"Hmm? Well? Which?"
"I've never known Your Majesty to give up
when there was any hope at all."
Grunt. "Pigheaded, you mean. You're
probably right. If I send you, can you go?"
"Huh? I mean--"
The King snarled impatiently. "You will be gone
some time. Can you stand it, or must I release you
first?"
Release? Durendal shivered. Blades
notoriously resisted being released from their
bindings, although most of them were very relieved to be
free of them afterward. Unexpectedly faced with that
dread prospect, he felt a surge of
panic. Of course, he would then be able to snatch
up his barony, marry Kate, do all sorts of
things with his life. ... No, unthinkable!
The alternative, though, seemed to be to be
absent from his ward for an extended period, and that
might be torture unendurable. But at least it
would be temporary, and the other permanent. He
wiped sweat out of his eyes. "I think I can
trust Commander Montpurse to take care of you,
my liege."
The King beamed. "Good man! Remember
Everman?"
It took a moment. It had been six years.
"Candidate Everman? Three behind me at
Ironhall."
"That one. The one who got the job I wanted
you for."
No reply was required except a faster
heartbeat.
"He's still alive," the King said. "We have an
agent in Samarinda. Sends reports in every few
years. This time he reports that there's a
Chivian-- You don't know any of this, do you?"
He peered suspiciously at Durendal.
Fortunately, it was possible to answer
as truthfully as if he were being put to the Question.
"Nothing at all, sire. There were rumors that he
had been bound to a mysterious gentleman whom no
one had ever heard of and they both disappeared. Nothing
more."
"Master Jaque Polydin, merchant,
adventurer, perhaps a trickster." The King cleared
his throat uneasily. "It's a long story.
Grand Inquisitor will provide you with the
details. There were reports that the knights of
Samarinda owned the p
hilosopher's stone--the
gadget that turns lead into gold and lets you
live forever. If you ever breathe a word of this around
court, my boy, I will have you shortened by a head!"
"I understand, sire." The King had been younger
then, and every man was entitled to a few youthful
follies. He'd been older than Durendal was
now, though.
"Grand Inquisitor will explain. I assumed
they were both dead, but apparently Everman is still
alive, fighting as some sort of gladiator. Of
course, the news is two years old, so he
may be dead now. But I won't have it, you hear?
I won't have one of my Blades turned into a
performing bear! Go and get him back."
"Yes, sire." Durendal rose to his
feet, but he felt as if he were falling.
What else could a man say when the bottom
dropped out of his world? It was the challenge of a
lifetime. Where was Samarinda, that news took
two years to arrive? Not even in Eurania.
Oh, Kate! He could not refuse an order from
his liege. He could protest and explain, but
something as strong as the binding prevented that--pride.
What a fool Kate had been to fall in love
with a Blade!
The King studied him for a moment and then smiled
grimly. "Or at least find out what happened.
Create another legend! I don't want
to lose you, but I can't think of any other man
to choose. Only you. See Grand Inquisitor
in the morning. She'll assign one of her own men
to accompany you. And Privy Purse will
provide all the money you need. May the spirits
favor your cause."
Dismissal--so easily may a prince send a
retainer to his death.
How? When? Where? Who else? Take
what? All those matters were being left to his
discretion. It was Ambrose's way.
Mind racing, Durendal said, "One question,
sire?"
"Ask Grand Inquisitor."
"Your orders, sire? Am I to bring him
back whether he wants to come or not? And further
... what about the philosophers' stone?"
The King opened his mouth and seemed to think better
of what he had been about to say. "Use your own
judgment. I can't make decisions at the other
side of the world. That's why I picked you. It's
your enterprise; do what's best. Oh, yes, before
you go ..." He stalked over to the paper-littered
chair and began to rummage in a flurry of
vellum and parchment.
Kate, Kate, Kate ...
Other side of the world?
He could resign! He had a barony in his
pocket, and the King had given him the right to claim
it at any time. No, his binding would not let him
exercise that right, as the King had known all along.
And to mention Kate now would seem like cowardice and
weaseling out.
"Ha!" The King had found what he wanted
down on the floor. He heaved himself upright again.
"I keep meaning to amend the Ironhall charter.
Allowing boys of fourteen to choose their own names
is utter ... Ahem. Nothing personal, you
understand. Nothing wrong with your name, and you have amply
lived up to it. You may be the Durendal by the time
you're finished."
"Your Majesty is gracious."
"Sometimes. When I have my foot in my mouth,
I am. But what about Sir Snake, for
example? Now we have Candidate Bullwhip.
Young idiots! The current Prime is
Candidate Wolfbiter."
Durendal had planned to be Bloodhand if
they wouldn't let him be Durendal. "I believe
there are precedents for all those names, sire."
"Yes, or Grand Master wouldn't have allowed
them. Anyway, Grand Master says this
Wolfbiter is the best thing they've produced
since you. I've been saving him for something
special. Now he's turned twenty-one and
he's tearing the walls down."
Hardly surprising! "I look forward
to meeting him."
"Well, you will. Here." The King thrust out a
parchment sheet bearing the personal signet.
"He's yours."
Durendal bowed and closed the door. For a
moment he just stood there, staring at the oak panel
in front of his nose, sick with the thought of what he
had done. Oh, Kate, Kate, Kate!
He had given the king the best six years of his
life and owed him nothing more. By any sane standard
he should have demanded his release then and there and carried
his beloved off to whatever that estate of his was called
to happily ever after. The knowledge that his binding had
overruled his own desires and judgment was no
consolation at all.
But what was done was done. He turned and
beckoned the nearest page. He bent to whisper
into a none-too-clean ear. "Go and find two
Blades. I want them, the first two you see.
Say please if one of them is Commander
Montpurse, otherwise don't."
The lad bowed and hurried off, impressed with his
sudden ability to give orders to Blades. The
Chamberlain bustled away into the King's presence.
Durendal sat down at his desk, ignoring all
the curious and disapproving faces. He selected
a blank sheet of parchment and wrote out his will,
leaving everything to Kate. Most Blades would have
nothing to bequeath, but he owned a manor he had
never seen. He had no idea what it was worth.
Then he took another sheet.
Grand Master:
You are hereby authorized and requested
to prepare Prime for binding on the night of the
fifteenth instant.
Done by my hand and in the King's name this
fourteenth day of Thirdmoon, in the three
hundred and fifty-seventh year of the House of
Ranulf.
Durendal, companion.
He folded the papers, held wax in the candle
flame, sealed them with his ring. He wandered over
to rejoin Scrimpnel and Parsewood, enjoying
their baffled stares and hoping his own face was not too
scrutable.
"Whose throw?"
"Yours, obviously," Scrimpnel said. There
were two groups in the Guard now, and he was one of the
young ones, those who had not been in on the
Nythia campaign. Good man with a rapier,
though. "May spirits of chance favor you wherever you're
bound."
"Writing out your will?" asked Parsewood, who
was newer yet, but a powerful saber fighter and
clearly another good guesser. "You won't tell
us a thing, you big bastard, will you?"
Before Durendal could frame a reply with enough
scathe, the door swung open to admit the most
recent Blade of them all, although even he had
several months' experience now--a reminder of just
how long the King had kept the respected
Wolfbiter dangling. Despite His
Majesty's disapproval, Sir Snake's name
was apt, he being about as long and as slender as a
Blade ever was. He affected a thin mustache,
a supercilious manner with a nose to match, and he
sat a horse like the shine of its hide. He would
do very well.
Durendal sprang up and intercepted him before
he could join the group. He passed him the letter.
"Deliver this to Grand Master, no one else."
The kid raised his eyebrows. "The Moor?
Tonight?"
"Yesterday. And keep your mouth shut, totally.
Report to Leader when you return."
"But tonight is the--" Snake took another
look at the deputy commander's face. "At
once, sir."
As he went out, Chefney came in.
Excellent! His luck was holding.
"Take over from me here, please, brother?"
Chefney nodded, curious but not questioning.
Durendal followed Snake out, almost colliding
with the returning page. Kate was no longer in the
hall, but that was to be expected.
He tracked down Montpurse as he left
the fencing gym. A distinctly frosty stare
suggested the Commander already knew there was something
afoot and he had not been informed. He still looked
no more than fifteen.
"I've been detached for special duties,"
Durendal said. "May be gone some time. Will you
hold this for me--it's my will--and see my things are
put in a safe place? The cups are worth a
fair bit."
The Commander's face went bleak. "Talk
to Chancery. That's their job, and Blades can't
always keep promises. Friend ... I'm going
to miss you."
"These things happen. He's the boss."
"Yes." Montpurse's ice-pale eyes were
asking how bad it was.
"I'd like you to wear my sword breaker for me,
though."
"I'll see it's kept safe." He was not
going to wear it, obviously, any more than his
deputy would say where he was going. "Is this
good-bye?"
"I'll leave tomorrow." Durendal told him about
Snake and the changes that would be needed in the duty
roster. Then there was nothing more to say and nothing left
to do except go and find Kate.
He headed first for the White Sisters' quarters.
Crossing the western courtyard, he saw her coming
toward him. They both began to run, shocking
several elderly sniffers and a few grandly
dressed courtiers. Before they even met he
watched the hope die in her eyes and wondered if
his face was as readable to everyone or if women were more
perceptive than men.
They embraced in an impact that should have