by David Drake
“We'll be in sight of the palace when we pass the temple of the Lady of the Boundaries,” Talur said, nodding agreeably but with a slight frown. “That's just ahead, as you see.”
He nodded toward the squat, sandstone building with pillars on the sides as well as along the stepped front face. “But you'll probably be treating with representatives of the new government. Valence remains king, but he's delegated many of the duties of office to his heir presumptive, Prince Garric.”
Ilna didn't speak. She felt the threads of the pattern coming together, but the human part of her couldn't accept what was so much to her desire.
Cashel didn't have any such hesitation. “Garric?” he said. “Garric or-Reise from Barca's Hamlet, is that who you mean?”
Talur turned to look at Cashel for the first time. He said, “Prince Garric was Garric bor-Haft before his elevation. That's what the palace clerks put around, anyway, though I'll admit my concerns were more what his elevation meant in the future than where the gentleman came from.”
“Is he with an old lady named Tenoctris?” Cashel continued. “And a girl named Liane os-Benlo? She's near as pretty as Sharina.”
Ilna winced at her brother's delight and certainty. Both of Kenset's children saw things in simple patterns, but Ilna could only look from a distance on the sunlit beauty of Cashel's world. She saw clearer than her brother did, of that she was sure; but sometimes Ilna thought it would be a relief occasionally to lose sight of the truth in happy illusions like Cashel's.
“Why yes,” Talur said in amazement. “Do you know Prince Garric, good sir?”
“We used to,” Ilna said decisively. “We were on our way to the palace anyway, and—”
She smiled, half in self-mockery. “—I think we should get on with our business.”
“Mannor was Earl of Sandrakkan when Vales the Fifth was King of the Isles...” Liane said as she re-pinned Garric's brown cape closer at the neck than he had. “He used to go out at night in disguise along with his chancellor to learn what his subjects really thought about his rule.”
The two of them stood with Tenoctris in a ground keeper's hut near the main gate of the palace. The compound had a dozen lesser entrances, postern gates as well as spots where the wall had crumbled or been dug away by servants who wanted a quiet route for their own purposes, but so long as Garric was disguised there was no reason not to use the formal one. Tenoctris was too frail to pull herself up a rope to a tree branch, after all.
“That was the story he told for an excuse,” said Garric. “I'll bet what he was really doing was hiding so that he could get a meal or a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, which he knew wasn't going to happen so long as there was anybody who knew where to find him.”
Liane stepped back and surveyed Garric's appearance, critically but with final approval. She smiled and said, “A young drover from Haft, sightseeing in Valles after bringing a selection of blood stock to Ornifal.”
Liane's expression grew more somber. “Are you sure you're up to this, Garric?” she said. “You look awfully tired.”
Tenoctris was going through a case of powders: minerals, herbs, and animal products as well, all ground to the finest dust and segregated within copper-mounted containers made from the tips of cattle horns. She looked up and said, “Garric, someone else could—”
“I don't trust someone else!” Garric said. He blushed. He really was close to the edge when he let his temper out that way.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “Anyway, that isn't really true about me not trusting a couple Blood Eagles to tend you just as well as I could, Tenoctris. The truth is, I just need to get away and feel that I'm doing something instead of—”
Garric's smile spread. “Instead of talking to people about maybe something being done by somebody, someday,” he went on. “Which I know—”
His left hand tapped the coronation medallion on his chest in ironic salute to the king in his mind.
“—is really important and I'm not going to stop doing it. But I'm not going to do only that, because I'll start babbling and dance naked in the street. I need to get away from being king once and a while.”
“Come back safe,” Liane said with a smile that didn't fully conceal the real concern behind it. She'd never argued against Garric and Tenoctris going out unescorted, but she'd wanted to go with them as the three of them had done in the past.
“We'll do that,” Garric said. He hung Tenoctris' satchel over his left shoulder and offered her that arm for support. His right hand remained free—just in case.
Things were different in the past. Now someone in the palace had to know where Prince Garric was in case a real crisis occurred. Liane was the only person Garric could trust to summon him from the queen's mansion if it was a real crisis, but not to disturb him simply because an envoy from Blaise had arrived or a northern landholder had rolled a royal justiciar in a manure pile before expelling him from his domains.
They walked toward the gate, though Liane let herself fall behind the other two. There was always a bustle at the entrance. The business of government required staff and supplies, including the staff's food and drink. Besides that mundane traffic, more people than Garric could have imagined—though Carus, laughing, had warned him—wanted royal justice or royal monopolies or royal appointments.
At Liane's suggestion, both Tadai and Royhas had provided clerks to screen visitors: the jealousy between the households made it unlikely that a would-be office-seeker would succeed in bribing his way to access. A detachment of Blood Eagles guaranteed that those refused entry took no for an answer.
Besides people trying to enter the palace on business, there were any number of folk who were simply spectators. They in turn attracted small-scale entrepreneurs whose barrows sold everything from meat pies to silver amulets in the shape of the winged monster on which the queen had made her escape (an infallible remedy against violence and defeat in lawsuits, according to the hawker). A woman as lovely as Liane got attention. If Garric was at her side, he was likely to be recognized.
The sun had fallen below the horizon, though the sky still brightly silhouetted the compound's western wall and the tallest of the buildings beyond. The gates were open, as usual; servants had just finished hanging oil lamps from brackets on either door valve so that the entrance clerks had light to work by.
There was more than the usual commotion in the street, though. All twenty Blood Eagles were on their feet. As Garric neared the gate, the officer in command sent a runner back for instructions from higher authorities.
Just outside the gates stood a large body of troops. They'd forced their way through the normal crowd of idlers, but the men in civilian clothes at their head were speaking politely to the commander of the guard detachment. The foreign troops were escorting dignitaries who waited in their litters for the underlings on both sides to reach a conclusion.
“They're from Third Atara,” Liane said. When Garric slowed to take in the situation before getting involved in it, she'd come up beside him again. “See the seahorse and the blue borders on their tabards?”
“I saw them,” Garric said, “but they didn't mean anything to me.”
Reise had given his children an excellent education in the classics, but he hadn't bothered to teach them the details of current precedence and politics. He'd known them, certainly. Reise had been an official in the king's palace and later at the court of the Count and Countess of Haft. Such matters weren't part of a general grounding for life as Reise saw it, and they had no bearing on running an inn in Barca's Hamlet.
The commander of the guard detachment, an undercaptain named Besimon, noticed and recognized Garric standing nearby. The fellow's lips tightened in frustration, but he didn't call out and uncover the incognito prince.
It wasn't fair to leave Besimon in a situation obviously above his rank, however. “I've get to take care of this,” Garric muttered as he stepped forward. He wasn't surprised that Tenoctris and Liane followed him, the older woman leaning
on the arm of the younger.
“I've asked that the chancellor come to the gate, ah, sir,” Besimon said, giving Garric another chance to conceal his identity if he wanted to. The undercaptain was in his early thirties, a younger son from a noble family in the north of Ornifal. “The Baron of Third Atara has arrived with some guests who claim to know Prince Garric.”
“Garric!” Cashel boomed. He pushed his way to through the intervening soldiers like an ox plowing under stubble in late fall. “Oh, I thought I'd maybe never see you again!”
Garric hugged his friend, cocking his head sideways so that the quarterstaff in Cashel's hand didn't rap him alongside the ear. It was a measure of Garric's own sturdiness that Cashel's full-hearted delight didn't completely crush out his breath. Cashel knew his own strength, but when he was excited he sometimes overvalued the strength of other people.
“We didn't see you in the Gulf!” Garric said, shouting because of his own joy and the babble of other voices. “I was afraid...”
He didn't say what he'd been afraid of. Garric hadn't let himself think about what had happened to Cashel and Sharina until this moment when—
When he knew Cashel wasn't a drowned corpse whose flesh was bloated and whose features had been nibbled away by fish. That was the image that had flashed behind Garric's eyes every time he looked at the sea since the moment he'd awakened on the muddy shore of the Gulf.
Other figures were working their way through the avenue Cashel had cleared. “And Sharina's all right?” Garric said, stepping back and leaning sideways to see past his friend's massive, form. He saw a woman's slim form, streaked by the shadows which the high-mounted lanterns threw across it. “Shar—”
Garric's delight stuck in his throat. “Ilna!” he said, trying to recover and seeing Ilna wince at the obvious falseness of his reaction.
He stepped toward her. She flinched away. Garric put his arms around Ilna and picked her up, despite her struggling.
“Ilna, I thought you were safe in Erdin,” Garric said. He felt her relax; Garric wasn't as strong as Cashel, but in his father's stables he'd brought refractory horses to their knees with bare hands and a grip on their bridles. “I was worried about Sharina, but I never knew you were in danger yourself.”
He set her down. Ilna tilted her face up to look at him. She tried to force a smile.
“Cashel’s safe, and you are,” she said. She tugged a cord from her sleeve and began knotting it to keep her hands occupied. “We'll find Sharina, Garric. We'll find her.”
From somebody else it would have sounded like a pious hope. From Ilna the words were much more.
A young man in travel-stained red brocade wriggled rather than pushed his way to Ilna’s side. He stood with his hands behind his back, glaring at Garric. Garric didn't remember ever having seen the fellow before.
Ilna noticed Garric's bemused glance. She turned, saw the youth, and said, “Garric, Master Halphemos here and his friend Master Cerix are wizards. They saved my life and came with me to rescue Cashel at great cost to themselves.”
She gave Garric her familiar wry smile. “Cashel didn't need much rescuing, but that doesn't affect the price Halphemos and Cerix have paid.”
Garric bowed to the young wizard. He'd have offered to clasp hands, but a glint in Halphemos' eyes suggested he just might have refused. Garric didn't need that kind of awkwardness, especially not right now.
“Anyone who's helped Ilna is a friend of mine,” Garric said. He couldn't imagine what Halphemos had against him. Did the fellow think he'd deliberately left Ilna behind?
“Your Majesty?” Liane murmured at Garric's side. He understood why she thought she should be formal in public, but it was so contrary to the easy relationships of Barca's Hamlet that each “Your Majesty” from a friend felt to Garric like a slap on the cheek. “Another location might...?”
“Yes, of course,” said Garric. He'd known that too, but he couldn't find the place to say so when his friends had arrived. He surveyed the milling crowd.
Royhas and a pair of senior aides were coming up the flagstones, preceded by the runner Besimon had sent to summon them. The chancellor was still cinching his cloth-of-gold sash over the beige court robe he'd thrown on when the message arrived.
Outside the gate with the soldiers, a young man with gilded armor waited stiffly in company with the older aide who'd handled the initial discussions with Besimon. His plumed helmet was under his arm. “Ah—” Garric said to the young man.
“Baron Robilard,” Liane muttered in his ear. Either she'd known the ruler of Third Atara from when she'd been in school in Valles in past years, or—more likely—she'd memorized the names and stylings of the Isles' potentates as part of her current duties.
“Baron Robilard,” Garric said, “my chancellor Royhas bor-Bolliman will see to you and your men.”
He nodded toward Royhas. The chancellor was already opening a wax tablet on which to jot orders to stewards and quartering officers. “I hope at some time of greater leisure—”
Garric's smile was disarmingly politic, but it was an honest expression also.
“—which could have been almost any moment of my life before the past week, you'll let me honor you as you deserve for your kindness to my friends.”
“Brave beyond doubt,”King Carus said in cold assessment. “Not really stupid either, though that won't keep his kind from acting like fools. He's too hag-ridden by honor to take good advice unless it's honey-glazed.”
The civilian dressed in Valles style leaned close and whispered into Robilard's ear. The baron's eyes widened. He bowed low, bobbling the helmet which he'd almost dropped in his surprise. “Your Majesty!” he said as he straightened. “I had no idea!”
Garric remembered he wore an unadorned cape with a simple, sturdy tunic under it. “Yes, I was off on private business,” he said. The Lady knew what Robilard would make of that, but the varied possibilities would prevent him from pursuing the matter. “But if I may suggest, my friends and I will adjourn to my quarters while Chancellor Royhas attends to my honored guests from Third Atara!”
Zahag climbed up Cashel's side, planting his feet on the youth's left hipbone and wrapping a long arm around his shoulders to hold himself in place. “What're you doing?” Cashel said. He didn't mind the burden, but it surprised him.
“I'm not staying here without you, chief,” the ape said. “I told you, there's something hanging over this place and I'm no going to face it alone!”
Ilna prodded Cashel in the ribs. “Get Cerix,” she said, nodding to the cripple, who'd just loaded himself onto the wheeled chair that had shared the litter with him. The soldiers watched but didn't get involved one way or the other. They didn't have orders to, Cashel supposed.
“My sister told me to help you, Master Cerix,” Cashel said politely, transferring the quarterstaff to his left hand. Zahag was holding on for himself, after all.
Cashel bent and reached over the wheeled chair, lifting it and the man together. Cerix snarled “Put me down!” but he didn't struggle. That might have tipped him headfirst onto the pavement.
Waddling a little from the weight of ape and man together, Cashel started through the gate. His sister gave him a look of disgust and said, “You're bragging. You don't have anything to prove to this lot.”
“Well...” said Cashel. Women—females, better—didn't always see the world the way males did.
“You!” said Ilna, fixing Zahag with her eyes. “Get down immediately. Carry the chair while my brother brings Cerix.”
It didn't really surprise Cashel that the ape hopped to the ground and gripped the little vehicle in both hands. Cerix held Cashel's shoulder for a moment while Cashel shifted his arm to support the legless man as a mother would an infant.
The Blood Eagles within the gate closed ranks when Ilna followed Zahag and Cashel into the compound. The fellow Garric had called his chancellor was talking to the baron who'd brought Ilna here.
Garric'schancellor; Prince Garric. Ca
shel shook his head in wonder.
Zahag walked with a rolling gait, holding the chair high over his head. It looked comical, but the ape wasn't putting on a show deliberately. His short legs just didn't work the way a man's did.
Garric and Liane guided the party into what looked from the outside like a flat-roofed windowless building. Within there was a colonnade around an open court where purple and white pansies were planted in the pattern of an eagle. Lamps hung in shades of colored paper.
Cashel looked around. Tenoctris was talking to Halphemos. If she'd seen anything in the young wizard to worry her, she'd have been polite but wouldn't have chatted in such friendly fashion. Halphemos must be all right.
Zahag set the chair on the terrazzo pavement, then caught the gutter with one hand. He swung onto the inward-sloping tile roof. Besides the ape and Ilna’s two wizards, it was just Garric and people he'd known in Barca's Hamlet present. None of the soldiers and officials bustling about the grounds had followed them inside.
“I can't get used to all these people being up after sunset,” Cashel said, shaking his head. He'd seen the same thing in Erdin but it still felt wrong to him, as if they all sat on the ceiling instead of the floor. “It's not as though they have sheep in the open to watch, after all.”
“That's very much what we do have to do, Cashel,” Tenoctris said with the familiar quick turn of her head and quick smile. “Or what comes with the darkness will be worse than ever wolves were.”
“Sorry,” Cashel muttered, feeling silly. He couldn't get his head around the notion that so many people were working on the same thing. Working together.
“I don't know how much you've heard about what's happening in Valles,” Garric said to the whole group. Cashel noticed that though Garric didn't rest his left hand on the pommel of his sword, he hooked that thumb in familiar fashion over the belt beside the scabbard. “The queen is a wizard and very evil.”
“Consciously evil,” Tenoctris said. “When the forces increase the way they have in these days, a careless wizard can do harm without meaning to. The queen isn't careless, and she's done a great deal of harm.”