by David Drake
One of the heralds rode to the gate of the royal compound and rapped the butt of his flagstaff on the iron-bound oak. “Open for Prince Garric!” he called in a voice like a silver trumpet.
The complex was on what had been the northern edge of Valles five centuries before. The city had overgrown the district, but the buff stone walls enclosed several acres of gardens and widely spaced buildings.
Royhas ordered his eight-bearer palanquin up on Garric's right side. Tenoctris, in a sedan chair behind Liane's, caught Garric's eye when he glanced around but continued whispering an incantation. On her lap was a limewood board chalked with symbols in a triangle. The line of spear-carrying footmen on either side were to keep enthusiastic spectators from seriously impeding the progress of Garric and his companions.
Garric looked down onto his chancellor, reclining on the palanquin's cushions. “I wish Pitre had come,” he said. “Since he was so close to Valence.”
Normally the gates of the royal compound would have been open with a squad of Blood Eagles on display in the archway. Today and for the past week, the compound was guarded like a fortress.
“Don't wish that,” Royhas said. “The best he'd do is dither. It's just as likely he'd break down and cry here in front of the mob.”
Royhas couldn't ride a horse in the normal way because of his long robes of state. The choices had been a palanquin or a sidesaddle; sedan chairs were for women or images of the Gods at religious festivals, and arriving at the palace in a carriage would break both the law and—more important—tradition.
Garric looked at Liane and they exchanged smiles. He'd like to have squeezed her hand, but he didn't suppose that was fitting. He didn't suppose it was what he ought to be thinking about, either.
The viewport on the right gate-leaf opened. The man inside said something to the herald in a voice Garric couldn't hear over the crowd noise. The herald replied.
Garric wondered what the purpose of Tenoctris' incantation was. She was using a swan quill rather than the bronze stylus to strike the symbols as she mumbled them out. An object gathered power with each use and thereby became harder to control with the precision that safety demanded. Tenoctris couldn't do as much as many wizards, but she never did anything beyond what she intended. No power was truly uncontrolled; what the user didn't control was left to the cosmos to decide, and the cosmos was no friend to humankind.
The herald turned his bay mare and rode back between Garric and Tenoctris. “Your Majesty?” the man said. He came from Waldron's household. “They say you can enter, but it has to be alone.”
“I'll talk to them,” Garric said curtly. He dismounted—he needed Carus' reflexes for better things than keeping his seat on a horse—and strode to the gate, brushing past the herald before the man could back his horse out of the way.
Royhas started to protest, then ordered his bearers to put down the palanquin so that he could join Garric. Out of the corner of his eye, Garric saw Liane's chair also lower, Tenoctris continued to concentrate on the words of her incantation.
They four were the only principals present. Waldron was organizing the first units of household troops arriving from the north of the island, and Tadai said he neither needed nor wanted to meet Valence under these conditions. Tadai's refusal gave Sourous an excuse and Pitre the opportunity to stay away as well.
Because Royhas knew the king's advisors, he could provide Garric with a viewpoint from within the ruling elite. At base, though, success or failure would be up to Garric himself.
He grinned. It was always nice to know where the blame lay if things went wrong.
The eye of a man wearing a nose-guard helmet watched from the other side of the thick panel. Garric was dressed in red breeches, high boots, and a short blue tunic cinched by his sword belt. That was flamboyant garb which had more to do with Carus' taste than it did with that of Garric's upbringing, but it didn't threaten violence.
“I'm Master Garric from Haft,” Garric said, trying to be more diplomatic in addressing the king's men than the herald had been. “My advisors and I have a meeting with the king and his chancellor.”
“Chancellor Papnotis has gone back to his estates,” said the guard. “You can come in, but only alone.”
“I'll come with Lord Royhas, whom you know,” Garric said. His voice took on a grating edge, like ashlars slipping over one another. “Also two women. And I'll enter now, as agreed. I keep my oaths, and I assure you I have a short way with oathbreakers!”
Threats of violence wouldn't work against the Blood Eagles. Men who'd remained with Valence this long weren't going to blanch because a boy threatened them with death or torture. But calling them oathbreakers, that was another matter, even though the arrangement had been with the chancellor who'd already fled.
Garric couldn't see what Royhas was doing. “Open!” the soldiers accompanying Garric shouted. “Open! Open!” The crowd bellowed with wordless anger.
Garric turned and raised his hands for calm. Tenoctris, still chanting, stood above all those around her.
Only those in the front of the crowd could see Garric; they continued to shout anyway. That was fine. The whole gesture was playacting to convince the guards that Garric was a force for moderation.
Facing the viewport again, Garric said, shouting to be heard, “Your duty is to keep King Valence safe from attack. Your few swords can't accomplish that. Letting me and my advisors in to speak with His Majesty is the only way to save him.”
The man at the viewport turned to talk to someone who'd arrived behind him. The wicket in the other panel opened abruptly. It was only large enough for one person to enter at a time, which also was fine. The last thing Garric wanted was for the main gates to swing back. They'd draw an uncontrollable mob into the palace grounds like a bass sucking in prey by opening its jaws.
Garric stepped through, ducking to clear the iron-strapped transom. He was ready to hold the wicket by main force if the guards tried to close it before Tenoctris, Liane, and Royhas could follow.
“Let them by!” ordered an officer in gilded armor.
The officer looked Garric over. “I'm Attaper bor-Atilan,” he said. For all the richness of his accouterments, the ivory hilt of Attaper's sword showed the wear of real use. “Legate of the Blood Eagles.”
He nodded to Royhas, entering last behind Tenoctris, then gave Garric a grin of disgust. “My men and I appear to be the entire palace staff, as well. Everybody else ran when Papnotis scuttled away last night. The wizard Silyon comes and goes, so it's probably wishful thinking to believe he's gone for good now.”
A troop of forty Blood Eagles was drawn up at the gate. There were three hundred in the regiment at full strength, not enough to guard the compound's long perimeter if it came under real attack. Garric could see squads stationed at intervals among the plantings and walkways. They wore half-armor that was no less functional for being buffed to a high polish.
“I mean our king no harm, Lord Attaper,” Garric said, speaking words that were only partly his. “And as for you and your men—no kingdom has so many honorable citizens that I would permit those under my control to harm such.”
He grinned, a wolfish expression, veteran to veteran, that took the legate aback to see on Garric's youthful face. “Not that I believed you were afraid. The Blood Eagles stood at the Stone Wall.”
Attaper’s left index finger absently traced a scar that ran from the jaw hinge down the side of his neck. “That was a long time ago,” he said. “A lot of things have happened since then.”
Harshly, though the anger didn't seem directed at Garric, the legate continued, “Come along, then. I'll take you to His Majesty.”
“Shall I...?” Garric said, putting his hands to the buckles of his sword belt. Royhas in court robes wasn't wearing a sword. For anyone but his guards to enter the king's presence armed was an insult even when it wasn't a threat. Either was punishable by death.
Attaper looked at Garric. In a voice that quavered with a disdain shared
between equals he replied, “I choose to believe that you're a man of honor, Master Garric. In the event that you're not, you'd scarcely need a weapon to dispatch His Majesty in his present condition.”
Garric looked over his shoulder and asked, “Are you all right, Tenoctris?” He knew what wizardry could take out of the old woman, and he had no idea how difficult was the incantation she'd performed on the way to the meeting.
She smiled and said, “Quite all right, thank you.” Her voice was pert enough. She turned to twist off a forsythia twig to replace the quill she must have abandoned when she got down from the sedan chair. Liane took the older woman's arm in a comradely gesture.
Attaper led Garric and his three companions down a walk paved with slabs of soft, yellow limestone, worn by centuries of use. The remainder of the guard detachment stayed at the main gate. Grape vines that had leafed out but hadn't yet set fruit covered the trellis overhead.
Liane missed a step, then skipped over the slab before her. Garric looked back. Frozen in the limestone was the coiled shell of an ammonite. It was small, no larger than a clenched fist, and its dozens of waving arms had rotted away long ages since. This ammonite hadn't been one of the house-huge monsters Garric had seen often in nightmares and once in a storm-tossed sea.
But he noticed that Tenoctris, walking alongside Liane, avoided the fossilized creature also.
Attaper turned into a one-story bungalow with a fanciful roofline and outer walls decorated with blue-figured Serian tilework. It looked new compared with most of the buildings nestled among the gardens. Although the taste that designed the structure was more delicate than Garric's own, he found attraction in the fact that it was designed to an individual's taste rather than as some sort of monument to posterity.
Two Blood Eagles stood at the front door; another peered around the back corner when he heard people approaching, then withdrew when he saw his legate leading the newcomers. The guards stiffened to parade rest, but they'd been attentive even before their commander appeared.
“Any change, Melus?” Attaper asked.
“Nothing to report, sir,” one of the guards said. He and his partner exchanged quick glances. “Ah...” Melus added. “The situation at the gate is...?”
“Is under control,” Attaper said. He grinned crookedly at Garric. “For the moment.”
The guards stepped aside so Attaper could open the door of tiger-striped wood. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I've brought some citizens to see you.”
“What?” said a querulous voice from the interior. “What are you talking about? And where's Papnotis?”
Attaper gestured Garric and his companions inside, then closed the door behind them. His face was perfectly expressionless.
Valence III, King of the Isles, was younger than Garric's father. He looked ancient: thin and gray-faced, with wine stains on his goatee and the cerulean silk tunic he wore.
“Who are you?” he demanded. His eyes glanced over Royhas with a flicker of recognition, but they focused on Garric's sword. “Who sent you?”
He looked at the nobleman and continued on a rising note, “Royhas, who sent you?”
“The people of the Isles sent us, Your Majesty,” Garric said. “We're here to save the kingdom, for you and for all citizens.”
Valence turned away with a cracked laugh. This large room was fitted as a council chamber with tables, couches, and a bare wall against which aides could stand while ministers discussed matters of state. Two doors led off it: one of burl walnut standing ajar, through which Garric glimpsed a bed; and a discreetly curtained portal which probably led to servants' quarters and a kitchen, unless that was in a separate building.
The king appeared to have been sleeping on one of the couches here. Fruit stood untouched on a sideboard, but empty wine flasks lay on the floor. One of them, ticked by the opening door, was still rolling.
The king opened the lower cabinet of the sideboard and peered inside. “Oh, Lady help me,” he moaned. Straightening, he shouted to the world at large, “Bring me wine! How dare you leave me without wine?”
Tenoctris walked to the king's side and brushed his forehead with the twig she'd plucked. “Sit with me, Your Majesty,” she said in a gentle voice. “You'll feel better.”
Valence let Tenoctris lead him to a couch covered in the hide of an antelope with soft taupe fur, but he began to cry. Tenoctris held the twig against his forehead and whispered words Garric couldn't hear. A faint rose glow formed over the king's head like fuzz on a peach.
“I'm going to die,” Valence said. “I was supposed to feed the Beast three days ago, but the servants ran away because of the riots. The queen will come for me or the Beast will come for me—it doesn't matter which. I'm going to die!”
“We've driven the queen from Ornifal,” Garric said. “Tell us about the Beast.”
“It has all power, Silyon told me,” Valence said. His eyes were open but he spoke like a sleepwalker. “It would save me from the queen, he said, and nothing else could. But if it was so powerful, why do I have to feed it? Why couldn't it find girls for itself? It isn't fair!”
Garric saw Liane's face go very still. He hoped he kept his own expressionless, because the disgust he felt wasn't the proper emotion to display to the man whose assent was necessary to Garric and the kingdom.
“Where is he?” Garric said aloud. “The man you call the Beast?”
“Man?” Valence repeated, then cackled another burst of mad laughter. “It, not he. And I don't know where it is, but we speak to it through a well in the ruins of the Tyrants' Palace. There's nothing there if you look down, but Silyon shows me the Beast in his mirror. And the girls, it finds the girls we lower down to it.”
Valence tried to rise to his feet. Tenoctris' touch, gentle as a kitten's, thrust him back onto the couch. “Oh, dear Lady help me,” he said. “Please give me wine. Please.”
“Tenoctris?” Garric said. “Is there anything else we need to know about the Beast?”
The old wizard continued to whisper her incantation. She shook her head minusculely in negation.
“Your Majesty,” Garric said, “for your own sake and for the kingdom, you must go out to the gate with us and tell the citizens that I am your son and successor. Then we can keep you safe from the queen and from other enemies. Even the Beast.”
“Nothing can save me!” Valence shouted. “Are you a fool? You don't understand: the Beast has all power! I thought it would save me, but now I know it never meant to do that. But if only I could feed it, perhaps it would eat me last. Do you see? It would eat me last!”
“I see, Your Majesty,” Garric said. He held his hands open in front of him, but in all truth he had no wish to grip his sword. He felt toward Valence as he would feel toward a roach scuttling across the floor of his mother's pantry.
“Come, Your Majesty,” Royhas said, offering Valence his hand. “Prince Garric will save you. You'll tell the people that you've adopted him as your son and heir, and then we'll take care of all the rest.”
“What?” the king said in a return of his original peevish tone. “Who is he, anyway? And why is he wearing a sword! I'm King of the Isles!”
“Indeed you are, Your Majesty,” Garric said, taking Valence's other hand. Gentle pressure from the two men brought the king to his feet like a child learning to walk between its parents. “My sword is here to defend you against all enemies. Tell the people to obey me in your place, and we'll do the rest.”
“There's riots,” Valence said as they walked him slowly forward. “They'll kill me! They know I couldn't protect them from the queen!”
Liane silently opened the door. Tenoctris followed behind the three men, still chanting softly but no longer stroking the king's forehead. The glow had faded to what might have been a flush on Valence's skin.
“We've dealt with the queen in your name, Your Majesty,” Garric said. “We'll keep you safe.”
He found he couldn't hate so abject a coward. Hates are formed to react to cha
llenges—and a broken reed like Valence was no challenge to anyone, however much evil the king might have done in his weakness.
Attaper led them. At his signal the four guards followed, their eyes scanning for threats in the plantings to either side.
“Loyalty can't be bought or even earned, lad,”a voice whispered in Garric's mind. “It has to be given. And it really doesn't matter that Valence is unworthy of it. As the Gods know he is!”
They reached the gate and the larger detachment of Blood Eagles. The crowd rumbled through the masonry and thick wood, like a nearing storm.
“Let me out the wicket,” Garric said to Attaper. “I'll order them to stand back. Then open both leaves wide and bring His Majesty through to make the announcement.”
“Make it so,” Attaper said to the soldier with his hand on the wicket's separate crossbar. Garric noticed that the legate hadn't so much as glanced at Valence for confirmation.
Garric stepped into the street. The noise was deafening. The guards from the conspirators' households stood two deep. Their spears were crossed before them to bar the press of people.
Garric hopped onto Tenoctris' sedan chair and said to the bearers, “Lift me up so that I can be seen!”
When Garric rose into general sight, barely wobbling, he raised both arms. The crowd roar redoubled, then fell away slightly. He'd never seen so many people in one place before—except in the memories he had from King Carus, similar gatherings and similar occasions.
“Citizens of the Isles!” Garric shouted. Some of the people could hear him. They would tell others, and anyway the most important thing was to be seen. “Your king has an announcement to make!”
The main gates opened. Garric motioned the other sedan chair to the side of his, then risked a look backward.
The Blood Eagles were drawn up five ranks deep and eight files wide, filling the archway with their armored bodies. Between the fourth and fifth file tottered Valence, wearing the circlet of gold Royhas had brought for him: they hadn't been sure they'd have time to find the ornate crown of the present dynasty. Tenoctris followed the king, leaning on Liane. She continued to chant the words that kept Valence from collapsing in blubbery incapacity.