A Fistful of Elven Gold

by Alex Stewart

  “Not like this,” Oaktwig said, with what Drago had to admit was justified chauvinism.

  “Bit different from Fairhaven,” he admitted. If nothing else, his horizons had been well and truly expanded by his travels. But he was beginning to weary of novelty, and feel nostalgic for the fetid back alleys of his home. One last effort, though, and he’d be done, and able to return there. He began to look for a place to moor the boat. “Where do you want to land?”

  “Over there.” Ariella pointed toward the other side of the river. “That’s the nearest dock to the palace.”

  “Of course it is. The one with all the soldiers on it.” Sighing, Drago leaned into the tiller, bringing the boat hard about. “Mind your heads.” To his relief, all the elves ducked in time, avoiding the swinging boom. He’d been exaggerating the number of guards waiting for them, but not by much; there were four armed and armored elves stationed on the jetty Ariella had indicated, already bending bows at the sight of the lightless watercraft bearing down on them. That was a Marcher habit he’d be glad to get away from.

  “Leave this to me,” Graymane said, getting unsteadily to his feet. The boat wallowed, the gunwales dipping uncomfortably close to the waterline, and Meadowsweet yelped. Ignoring him, Graymane cupped his hands and hailed the guards on the shore. “Stand down! We’re on the king’s business!”

  “But not for much longer,” Ariella muttered.

  “Identify yourselves, or we shoot!” the officer in charge called back, with the air of someone who’d heard it all before and hadn’t believed it the first time.

  “Graymane, emissary of the king!” Graymane shouted back. “And Caris Silverthorn, the slayer of Gorash. His Majesty is expecting us!”

  “Advance and be recognized!” the officer called back. His troops slackened their bowstrings, but kept the arrows nocked, and suspicious eyes on the boat as it drew in to the jetty. Moved more by a sense of mischief than any expectation of cooperation, Drago threw him a mooring line, which the surprised elf caught by reflex, handing it to the nearest soldier with a muttered imprecation.

  “Take us to His Majesty at once,” Graymane ordered, clambering onto the jetty with evident relief, and producing his letter of commission once again. The officer glanced at it, squinting as he tilted it to catch the light of the nearest torch, then at the rest of the elves as they scrambled onto the wooden planking. Meadowsweet was tugging at his tunic, trying to get the creases out, with limited effect.

  “You and you, take them to the palace,” the officer said, gesturing to the two closest guards. He took a step closer to the boat, barring Drago’s way as he started to disembark. “Not you, shortarse. You stay where you are.”

  “He comes with us,” Graymane said, “or you can explain his absence to His Majesty in person. And take it from me, he will not be pleased.”

  “If you say so,” the officer said, with a further grimace of distaste at Drago. “Just keep an eye on him. Anything goes missing or gets grubby fingermarks on, it’s down to you.”

  “That goes without saying,” Graymane said. He waited for Drago to join the rest of the group, and gestured impatiently. “Shall we go?”

  “The sooner the better,” Ariella agreed, following the soldiers without waiting to see if anyone else joined them. Oaktwig, Moonshade and Meadowsweet looked distinctly uncomfortable, but followed, after glancing at one another for mutual reassurance.

  “Don’t get left behind,” Graymane said, and Drago trailed in their wake, keeping a wary eye out for trouble. The vague sense of foreboding that had hung over him since his forgotten dream was intensifying, and the strangeness of the environment he found himself in wasn’t exactly helping to overcome that. “If you got lost, we might never find you again.”

  “That I can believe,” Drago said. There was a surprising number of people around, given the earliness of the hour, all of them elves, and all of them staring at him as they passed as though they’d just found him on the sole of their shoe. Most of the ones out of uniform were servants or artisans by their dress, although a few inebriated aristocrats tottered by giggling inanely, no doubt returning home from a night’s carousing, the gender of several indeterminate under the extravagant fashions they wore.

  The road, if that was quite the right word, rose in lazy spirals around and through the trees, splitting and merging with others, following branches wide enough to support it, or soaring over vertiginous drops on sturdy wooden bridges. All the buildings they passed seemed to be made of timber, like the causeway underfoot, larger and more lavishly decorated the higher they climbed. Used to the relatively level streets of Fairhaven, Drago soon found himself tiring and short of breath, which only became worse on the few occasions their way diverged from the main thoroughfares into shortcuts up flights of steps intended for elf-sized legs, but which were knee high to him.

  “Won’t Stargleam still be asleep?” he asked, pausing to catch his breath at the top of one such flight, as they regained the main street again. A high wall of smoothed timber, patrolled by sentries, ran along one side of it, a guarded gate about halfway along its length. It seemed they’d reached their destination at last.

  Ariella shook her head. “He’s probably not even gone to bed yet, if I know him.” Abruptly conscious of the eyes suddenly on her, she shrugged theatrically. “If the rumors are true, of course.”

  “In my experience, rumors about people like that generally are,” Graymane said, puncturing the awkward silence. He cleared his throat. “Perhaps we’d better get on. The quicker this business is concluded . . .”

  “Quite so,” Oaktwig said. “We should get back to the Barrens and start rounding up the rest of the brigands as soon as we can. I still don’t see why you insisted on dragging us all the way here, instead of leaving us to get on with the job right away.”

  “No, I’m sure you don’t.” Graymane let the words hang in the air for a moment. “But you will, I can assure you.”

  “Here you are,” one of the soldiers from the dock said, breaking into the conversation with scant regard for either the social niceties or their relative status. “Palace gate.” His companion was already talking to the sentries, who glanced across at the group of visitors without much visible interest. “The guards will take you on from here.”

  “Is that it?” Moonshade glanced at the plain wall facing them with an air of faint disappointment. “I was expecting something a bit more spectacular.”

  “Then go round the front.” The soldier glared at Drago. “Service entrance is good enough for traits and their pets.”

  Moonshade’s hand went to the hilt of her sword, but before she could draw it, Meadowsweet reached out and forestalled her, gripping her wrist tightly. Moonshade glared at him.

  “Move it or lose it. Your choice.”

  “This isn’t the time or the place,” Meadowsweet reminded her. After a moment Moonshade nodded curtly, and let go of the weapon. She turned to the soldier, who was looking a little less arrogant all of a sudden. “Be somewhere else when I leave. Because if I ever see you again I’ll run you through where you stand, you jumped-up little prole.”

  “And if she doesn’t, I will,” Oaktwig said. “If you spoke like that to an officer of good family in my command I’d have you hanged for sedition.” Turning his back on the now thoroughly cowed guard, he strode toward the gate. “Let us in at once. His Majesty is waiting.”

  “Exactly. What he said.” Seemingly taken aback by Oaktwig’s sudden decisiveness, Graymane followed, attempting to retrieve the initiative. He rounded on the sentries. “Get this gate open at once.”

  “I can’t do that, sir.” The elf in charge of the gate detail rallied, adopting the tone of obstructive politeness common to minor functionaries throughout the known world. “I’ll need to send word to the palace that you’re waiting, and require an escort.”

  “I need no such thing,” Graymane said, waving his letter of commission for what Drago devoutly hoped would be the last time. “I’m here
by the express command of the king, who is expecting us. Do you think I don’t know the way to his private chambers?”

  Which may or may not have been true, Drago reflected, but Ariella most certainly did. He glanced at her, catching a glimpse of anger and impatience on her face before the fading enchantment erased her expression again. The spell was fading fast: it was now or never. But before he could intervene, the sentry backed down in the face of Graymane’s forceful manner.

  “Very well, sir. If you insist.” He stood aside, with visible reluctance, allowing them to enter.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Not dead. That’ll do.”

  It seemed Graymane hadn’t been exaggerating about his familiarity with the layout of the palace, even Ariella having to hurry to keep up with him. He set a brisk pace through a labyrinth of richly carpeted floors and wood-paneled walls, cluttered at intervals with portraits and tapestries. Every now and again an occasional table or glass-fronted cabinet displayed expensive and over-ornamented knickknacks, which Drago passed too quickly to notice properly. The elves were walking so fast he had to jog to keep up, and even then he found himself lagging. So it was that he was a handful of yards behind the others when they turned and vanished through one of the doors leading off the corridor.

  He was about to follow, when it suddenly occurred to him that they hadn’t seen anyone since leaving the guards at the gate. In a building this size, even just before dawn, that couldn’t be right. The servants would have their own doors and passageways, of course, so they could go about their business without disturbing their betters, but a few of them should have been abroad in the main part of the building, lighting fires and preparing for the day ahead. Come to that, there should have been guards in the palace, unobtrusive, to be sure, but not entirely absent. The sense of unease which had oppressed him since waking redoubled, and he slipped quietly into the room the others had entered, remaining close to the door. Fortunately it was well supplied with more of the cabinets he’d noticed in the corridor, which, for someone his height, meant he could easily be overlooked if he was quiet enough.

  His sense of unease redoubled. The room was crowded with well-dressed elves, both men and women, most with visible weapons scabbarded at their waists. Two exceptions stood out: one whose paunch and general air of dissolution, not to mention a remarkable resemblance to his sister, identified him unmistakably as Stargleam, and a senior cleric, soberly and expensively dressed, who seemed surprisingly young to have reached such eminence in his calling.

  Sudden understanding hit Drago like a footpad’s bludgeon, an instant before Oaktwig caught sight of the ecclesiast’s face, and his eyebrow twitched upward with surprise. “Rowanberry?”

  “Your old chaplain indeed,” Stargleam said. “Now my personal spiritual advisor.”

  “Oh.” Oaktwig seemed as perplexed as his subordinates. “Then I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  “An advancement well merited,” Stargleam said, as though the cleric had just won a prize for good penmanship which he’d found himself unexpectedly having to present. He held out his hand. “Show me the head.”

  “Of course.” Ariella proffered the satchel, with its grisly contents. Stargleam winced, seemed about to take it, then changed his mind at the last minute, recoiling fastidiously after the most cursory of glances inside.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Graymane said. “That’s not Gorash. But I know where his camp is now. I’ll return to the Barrens at first light and raze it to the ground. He won’t escape twice.”

  Oaktwig, Moonshade and Meadowsweet all looked equally stunned. Ariella probably did too, but the enchantment was still holding, hiding whatever she felt.

  “Your message was quite explicit,” Stargleam said, frowning at Graymane. “You said he was dead. I don’t appreciate being made a fool of.”

  “He couldn’t do that,” Ariella said, “nature beat him to it.” Most of the elves surrounding them scowled or muttered, a few reaching for their weapons, but before anyone could act Graymane broke in again.

  “A necessary stratagem, Your Highness. Your sister still lives. If that became generally known, the threat to your rule should be obvious.”

  “Ariella’s alive?” Stargleam blinked, as though he’d just caught his head on a low beam he hadn’t noticed was there. “Where? How?”

  “Right here.” Ariella reached into her pocket, pulled out a small leather bag, and threw it away. Instantly the illusion was dispelled. Oaktwig looked even more stunned than Stargleam, if that were possible, Moonshade and Meadowsweet bowed to her reflexively, gaping like freshly landed fish, and the background murmur of concerned muttering from the assembled elves intensified. Several grasped the hilts of their blades, seeming on the verge of drawing them, waiting only for someone else to take action first before committing themselves. She gestured imperiously to Oaktwig and the others. “Don’t just stand there. Arrest these traitors!”

  “I don’t think so,” Stargleam said, as Graymane’s sword hissed from its scabbard. Emboldened, several of the others drew their weapons too. “You’re the traitor, Ari, not me.”

  “Sorry, not quite following your reasoning,” Ariella said dismissively. “But that’s nothing new. If you can’t drink it, eat it or sleep with it, it doesn’t really cross your mental horizon, does it?”

  “Lamiel knows his duty,” Graymane said, “and that doesn’t include polluting the royal blood line with goblin mongrels.”

  “He’s right, you know. You brought this on yourself.” Stargleam shook his head sorrowfully, and waved his hand at the elves surrounding him. “You think I wanted this job? I hate it. It’s nothing but sign this, decide that, decree the other, and I never have a minute to myself. If it wasn’t for the Council of Ministers telling me what to do, I’d be completely lost.”

  “And they suggested you have me murdered?” Ariella asked, with a pointed stare at the oldest and most richly dressed among the onlookers, who returned it unflinchingly.

  “What? No! I cried for days when they told me you were dead.” Stargleam frowned. “Anyway, you made them do it.”

  “I did what?” Ariella almost shouted.

  “Marrying that—that—goblin. So long as you were just talking to him, they might have grumbled about it, but you were queen, you could do what you liked. But making him your heir, possibly even bearing his children—”

  “Absolutely intolerable,” the well-dressed elf confirmed. “Which is why we sent Graymane to discover who else knew about this marriage, and bring them back here to ensure their silence.” Oaktwig, Moonshade and Meadowsweet exchanged grim looks.

  “I can see Rowanberry has done very well for himself by telling you about the marriage, and keeping the secret from anyone else,” Oaktwig said, stepping forward. Still concealed behind a credenza of staggering tastelessness, Drago silently nodded his agreement; it was the same conclusion his subconscious had been trying to prod him toward through the dream of his own wedding. If none of the three elves they suspected had been the one to betray the queen’s confidence, the presiding priest had to have been the one who carried the news of the queen’s marriage back to Sylvandale. “But I can assure you, my loyalty can’t be bought so cheaply. My allegiance is to the crown, and to its rightful holder, while either of us still draws breath.”

  “Not for much longer then,” Graymane said, lunging at Ariella with his sword as he spoke.

  Drago leaped forward, with the horrified conviction that he was going to be too late, but Stargleam was closer and quicker.

  “No,” he shouted, shoving his sister off balance, and stumbling forward into the path of the blade. It pierced his chest with the hard, moist slapping sound Drago was all too familiar with.

  “Lamiel!” Ariella shrieked, as her brother’s blood sprayed across her face, and whirled, drawing her own sword. But before she could engage Graymane he was down, felled by the full weight of an angry, fast-moving gnome cannoning into his knees.

  “P
rotect the queen!” Oaktwig yelled, drawing his own sword, while Moonshade and Meadowsweet followed suit.

  Drago drove his forehead into the bridge of Graymane’s nose, seeing momentary stars and hearing a surprisingly satisfying crack! Not that the Fairhaven kiss would slow someone like Graymane for long, of that he was certain, but the elf would stay down for a moment or two, and at the moment that was enough.

  “Good luck with that,” the elf who’d spoken before said, while more swords were drawn around him. “This entire wing has been cleared.” He glanced dismissively at Stargleam, who was convulsing on the floor in a slowly widening pool of blood. Drago didn’t give much for his chances; the stricken elf could only have minutes left to live. “You’ve got nowhere to go, and no one to help you.”

  “Run!” Stargleam gurgled, before his eyes rolled up in his head, and he said no more.

  “What he said.” Drago reached up, grabbing Ariella’s arm, and yanked her into motion. “Unless you want what he just did to be futile.”

  “I swear my brother will be avenged,” Ariella said, but fortunately she didn’t seem inclined to hang around and see to it in person, much to Drago’s relief. At his renewed urging, she hurried toward the door.

  “Stop her! Kill them all!” the ringleader shouted, hanging back. The conspirators looked uncertainly at one another, while Oaktwig, Meadowsweet and Moonshade formed up in front of the door, barring their way. Clearly most of them considered swords as little more than badges of rank, and the idea of attempting to use them in earnest against trained soldiers held little appeal. But on the other hand, so did the prospect of being hanged for treason. Any second now they’d nerve themselves up for a concerted rush. Graymane, too, was beginning to rouse, lurching unsteadily to his feet.

  Drago hesitated, wondering if he should stay and help in what was clearly going to be a pitched battle against overwhelming odds; he’d been in too many brawls not to know that with nothing to lose, sheer weight of numbers went a long way toward countering skill.