The Gilded Chain

by Dave Duncan

  “By the eight, I was right to pick you! A pox on Parliament! This is sumptuous!” The King smacked his lips, but then his habitual suspicion returned. “Who’s going to run this Court of Conjury?”

  “Your Majesty will name the officers, of course, but what I suspect you will need most is a band of fighting men brave enough to storm these lairs of evil. It will be close to war, I am sure. And the obvious men to recruit, sire, are the knights of my order. As you saw on the Night of Dogs, sir, there are dozens of them still fit and strong, loyal to Your Majesty—some married, some not, some rusting away in Ironhall, many of them with no real purpose in life. They will leap at such a chance to serve you.” That was the part of his plan that appealed to him most, and he would give all his teeth for the chance to lead the army. Alas, he knew he could not hope for that.

  The King muttered, “Sumptuous!” a few times. “By fire, we’ll do it!” He seemed about to heave himself out of the chair, then he paused. He smirked at Durendal with his fat little mouth. “I reward those who serve me well. What do you need?”

  Montpurse safely out of the country? Kromman’s head in a bottle? Ten more hours in the day? “I have given you only promises so far, sire. Should not rewards wait until I can show results?”

  The piggy eyes seemed to shrink and withdraw, making Durendal think of two hot chestnuts on butter. He wondered uneasily what was brewing inside the sly, unpredictable mind behind them.

  “Blast honest men!” the King muttered. “I could deed you a county and you’d stuff it in a drawer and forget it. There must be some way to make you fawn like the others!”

  “Your Majesty’s approval is ample recompense for what I have achieved so far.” That sounded like bootlicking, and yet it was true. On his first bout in the political arena, he had impressed this devious, lifelong schemer, and that felt like winning the King’s Cup.

  “Ha! I know what’s wrong with you. Thought you looked peculiar! You’re running around half naked.” Ambrose peered around him. “Guard? Oh, it’s you, Commander, er, Bandit. Get me the Chancellor’s sword!”

  With an understandable blink of surprise, Bandit opened the door and called to one of the Blades in the anteroom, who were guarding Harvest as a minor part of their duties.

  What?

  The King heaved himself out of his chair. “Secretary!”

  Kromman scuttled in like a giant, unwinking beetle. “Your Majesty?”

  “Make out a warrant!” said the King. “A decree of…Oh, make up a name. Addressed to the Guard.” He accepted the sword from Bandit. “Henceforth, at all times and places, Baron Roland may come armed into our presence.”

  Durendal, Bandit, and Kromman all said “What?” simultaneously.

  Then Kromman bleated, “But the readings, sire…”

  Bandit growled, “He’s worth three of…”

  Durendal protested, “Your Majesty, I am not…”

  The King silenced them all with a glare and extended Harvest hilt first to Durendal. “No, you’re not bound now. We reward you with our trust, my lord.”

  Speechless, Durendal hung his sword back in her proper place at his belt. Armed and unbound! It was an honor he could not have dreamed of—the only man in the kingdom so trusted. For once, the Secretary’s face was an open book, and the fury written on it was worth a dukedom. The King was smirking, so probably the Chancellor was being fairly readable himself.

  Moments like those taught a man a lot about loyalty.

  12

  Even the King had underestimated the fury in Parliament. Merely throwing Montpurse in the Bastion did not sate his enemies—it just whetted their appetites. Suddenly the ex-chancellor was the greatest villain since Hargand the Terrible, and neither Lords nor Commons would debate anything except a Bill of Attainder, condemning him out of hand to the Question. Duly passed by both houses, it arrived at the palace one snowy evening to receive the King’s signature and become law.

  The new chancellor slept very little that night and doubted that his sovereign did either. To accuse Montpurse of treason was absolute insanity—incompetence perhaps, for all men made mistakes. Indiscretion in accepting gifts from inappropriate persons was possible, but he could have done nothing to deserve what the act demanded. Yet if the King refused consent, Parliament might cut off his revenues. The decision was his to make; his Chancellor must advise him. By morning Durendal had almost convinced himself that duty to King and country required throwing Montpurse to the weasels. After all, although the Question was very harrowing, it was not fatal and would certainly clear him of the charges.

  Almost convinced himself.

  That must have been the right decision, though, because Montpurse agreed with it. Even then he served his King or his former friend. His signed confession arrived not long after dawn, leaving Durendal no choice. He took the bill into the King’s bedroom to be ratified.

  Later that day he rode to the Bastion, accompanied by a squad of Blades. He had adamantly rejected the King’s offer to assign personal Blades to him—quoting a precedent set by Montpurse—but he could hardly refuse an escort. The lads enjoyed the unnecessary outing with their former leader.

  In less than a month, Montpurse had aged ten years. His scalp showed through his hair, his face was dragged down in pouches, his arms were thin. Much more surprising was an apparent serenity quite improbable in a man confined to a dark and malodorous cell with chains on his ankles and only a prison shirt and britches between his skin and the cold.

  “You have absolutely nothing to fear,” Durendal said. “You will throw their charges back in their faces.”

  Montpurse smiled sadly. “Everyone has secrets, my lord. When will it be done?”

  “I’m hoping I can hold them off until the King prorogues Parliament.”

  “No, no! Get it over with, please. As soon as possible.”

  “As you wish. I’ll see to it.”

  Knowing the man, Durendal had anticipated that request and had already given the necessary orders. He did not need to countermand them, as he would have done had Montpurse wanted a delay. He sat with the prisoner and talked about the good old days, although to him all past days must seem good now. And when the inquisitors came, Montpurse was taken by surprise.

  He drew one sharp breath and then said, “You are efficient, my lord! Thank you for this.”

  In a case of high treason, a member of the Privy Council must attend when the suspect was put to the Question. Durendal would not delegate that terrible duty, but if it was not the worst experience of his life, he could never decide what else was. It went on forever. The elementary in the Bastion was just another stinking dungeon, so small that he must lean against a slimy wall with his toes almost on the lines of the octogram. Montpurse sat bound to a chair in the center, his face mercifully concealed by the near darkness. Halfway through the ritual, Durendal realized with fury that one of the chanting conjurers was Kromman, but by then the spirits were gathering and he dared not interrupt.

  The conjuration invoked water and fire, but mostly air, until the silences seemed to whistle with hurricane winds. Montpurse whimpered a few times and writhed against his bonds. At the end, he sat with his head slumped forward.

  “Have you injured him, you fools?”

  “He has merely fainted, my lord,” Grand Inquisitor said calmly. “Quite normal. Do you wish us to throw a bucket of water over him?”

  “Of course not, you idiot! Put him to bed and call a healer.”

  “I hardly think that is necessary, Chancellor.”

  Interpreting the regulations as liberally as he dared and telling himself that he was merely being considerate of his patiently waiting escort and Montpurse’s own feelings, Durendal left and returned to the palace.

  Having to waste time on sleep was a nuisance. Being deprived of it was a torment. Two days later, he went to the King feeling as if his head had been marinated overnight in vinegar. He dropped an inch-thick statement on Ambrose’s lap.

  “Drivel!�
� he said. “Claptrap! Picayune maundering! There is nothing in here to convict a fox of stealing chickens. He accepted gifts—but they never influenced his decisions. He spoke harshly of you behind your back—what sort of a man would he have been if he had not? I have said much worse myself. He delayed carrying out orders in the hope you would change your mind—which you did, several times. He let you beat him at fencing. When did flattery become a capital offense? Sire, this man is innocent! You can never have had a truer or more faithful servant.”

  The King scowled at him with his piggy little eyes. “Go and talk with him!”

  “What?”

  “Go and talk with the prisoner! That is a command, Chancellor!”

  So Durendal rode back to the Bastion.

  He found Montpurse in the same dark, stinking cell as before, frantically trying to write in the near darkness—on the floor under the narrow shaft that admitted what little air and light there was, because he had no table. Heaps of paper surrounded him.

  “Lord Roland!” He scrambled up eagerly, rattling his shackles. “I am so glad you have come!” He sounded close to tears.

  “I have read your statements and—”

  “But there is more, much more! So many things I wanted to include and they would not let me! Oh, my friend, I welcome this chance to tell you how I betrayed you. I was jealous. I hated you for your skill with a sword! When you defeated me in the King’s Cup I wanted to come after you with a real blade. When you fenced with the King on your first night at court, exposing us all as toadies and lickspitters, I said such awful, dreadful things to you! I detested you for my own shame, the disgrace I had brought upon myself and the whole Guard. The first time we ever spoke, on the night of my binding, I came and thanked you, but not because I was in any way grateful to you. No, only to make me feel gracious and lordly. I was a detestable person in those days. Do you know I played with myself, back there at Ironhall? Oh, I know every boy does, but that doesn’t excuse all the lecherous images and unclean thoughts…Wait, I have it all in writing here.”

  He began to scrabble among his papers. He would not, could not, stop confessing to every imaginable sin or fault he had ever committed or even contemplated, no matter how trivial. In minutes Durendal was pounding on the door and yelling for the guards to let him out. The change, he was informed, was permanent.

  He went back to the palace. In silence he took the death warrant to the King, and in silence the King signed it.

  KATE

  VI

  1

  The coach crawled interminably through the snowy night, following the lackey who walked ahead with a lantern to keep it out of ditches. Shivering even with two of the three rugs wrapped around his old bones, Lord Roland was tempted to reach for the third also, because his young companion did not seem to need it. Pride would not let him.

  He was brooding again. He must say something.

  “You know, it’s almost exactly twenty years to the day since the King made me his chancellor—Firstmoon, 368. About the time you were born, I suppose?”

  “Roughly.” Quarrel’s face was invisible. His tone implied that it was shameful to be so young, so another topic was required.

  “Not very far to go now. Ivywalls is nearer Nocare than Greymere, of course.”

  “It’s a beautiful place. I look forward to seeing it in spring.”

  Would the malevolent new chancellor allow either of them to see spring? Worry about that tomorrow. “When the King suppressed the elementaries, it was my share of the loot.”

  “My lord!” Quarrel sounded almost comically shocked. He would have been only a child during the suppressions.

  “I speak crudely but not inexactly. It was never used as an elementary itself, or my wife couldn’t go near it even now, but it was a fairly typical case. The land had belonged to the Curry family since the previous dynasty…. The house is much more recent. In his last illness, old Lord Curry called in healers from the Priory of Demenly. While they were supposedly enchanting him back to health, they enchanted him to leave his entire estate to the priory. His wife and children were thrown out in the fields.”

  “Spirits! What? That’s outrageous!”

  “Oh, we uncovered much worse things than that—children turned into sex toys, men and women enslaved or deliberately addicted so that they would die or suffer horrible pain unless they paid for fresh conjurations every day. Some of the ways the orders used to fight back were equally vile. It wasn’t called the Monster War for nothing. Had you been my Blade in those days, Sir Quarrel, you would have had your work cut out for you. The assassins usually tried for the King or Princess Malinda, but they honored me a few times.”

  The Night of Dogs had been only the start. Fortunately, Ambrose IV had never been a coward. The more they attacked him, the more determined he became. No chancellor ever had better backing.

  “I’d like to hear some of those stories, my lord.”

  “Ah, old man’s rambling! Ancient history. The point is that we won. The King brought conjuration under the rule of law, and a lot of other countries envy us now. He did very well out of it, of course. He sold off the lands, usually; but sometimes he made gifts of them, and Ivywalls was one of those. He gave it to me like a huntsman throwing the entrails to his dog.”

  “My lord! No! You weren’t his dog. You were his army.”

  “Not I, lad, nor the Guard, either. It was the Old Blades we called back who were his army, and Lord Snake was his general. I was just the spider in the attic, plotting where we would strike next. In time we ran out of enemies and life became much less exciting.”

  After a moment, Quarrel coughed politely. “It wasn’t exciting this evening?”

  “Indeed it was!” Durendal said, abashed. “Please don’t think I am not grateful. You may have set an Ironhall record—saving your ward only three days after your binding.”

  “I didn’t even draw!”

  “You did exactly what was required, neither more nor less. Few Blades ever draw in anger. No, I am very grateful when I think where I would be now without you.”

  Emboldened, Quarrel said diffidently, “Then…I know a Blade should never question, but it does seem…I mean I don’t see…”

  The poor kid wanted to know why he was going to have to die.

  “You’re wondering why the King assigned a Blade to me last week and today sent Kromman to charge me with treason?”

  “It puzzles me, my lord, if you don’t mind my—”

  “I don’t mind at all. It puzzles me, too. Being unpredictable is an attribute of princes, I suppose. His Majesty certainly did not mention assigning me a Blade the last time I saw him.” To leave the story there would be a snub. “I went to visit him just before Long Night. You know he’s at Falconsrest.”

  “I’ve been told of it, my lord. There’s a house on a crag and some other buildings below it in the valley.” Quarrel was demonstrating that Ironhall’s political lessons were up to date. “Only the King and his intimates stay at the lodge.”

  Only idiots went there at all in midwinter, but Ambrose had shut himself up at Falconsrest a month ago. Was that the action of a completely rational man?

  “He did not mention Blades. To be honest, he was not at all pleased with me. Bestowing honors on me was very far from his mind. He was rather curt, I’d say.”

  He was also dying, but no one said that.

  2

  As Sir Bowman came twitching and shambling across the scenic spread of the Chancellor’s office, Durendal rose to greet him. He honored any fellow Blade that way, and the deputy commander was always amusing company. He was a gangly, sandy-haired man, who gave an impression of extreme clumsiness, as if all his limbs were moving in different directions; but this was pure illusion, as he had proved by twice winning the King’s Cup. He usually seemed ready to burst into tears, yet he had a sense of humor to rival Hoare’s—whom no one remembered anymore, of course.

  “Pray be seated, brother.”

  “How may I
assist, my lord?” Bowman flopped into the chair as if he had tipped himself out of a sack. He peered morosely across the desk at the Chancellor.

  “A couple of things. First, I’m trying to locate a place called Wizenbury. No one seems to know where it is. But you have Guards from all over, so if you wouldn’t mind asking around the—”

  “Appleshire,” Bowman said gloomily. “I was born near there.” Blades never discussed their past, but he had still a trace of the west in his voice.

  “Ah, thank you.” The Chancellor had found the sheriff he needed for Appleshire, and he suspected that Bowman knew perfectly well why he had asked that absurd question. “The second thing is a little harder. I must go and visit the King. Do you think you could find a couple of patient souls who might bear the tedium of walking their horses beside my palfrey?”

  Bowman uttered a moan of ironic disbelief. “Suicidal daredevils who might just be able to keep up with you, you mean? I think I have some crazies who may accept the challenge. The entire Guard,” he added with an abrupt descent into ever deeper melancholy.

  Five days before Long Night, the palace of Greymere ought by rights to be bespangled with decorations and throbbing with jollity. This year it was a drab barn of boredom, and the longest faces were the Blades’.

  “You miss His Majesty. We all do.”

  “Mice don’t play when the cat’s away, my lord. They die of irrelevancy. I wish Dragon would let us rotate the men, but he’s stopped doing even that. Useless wear and tear on the horses, he said. He doesn’t think of the rust on the men.”

  “Would you consider a suggestion?”

  “Very happily, my lord—from you.”

  “Your livery’s frowzy and old-fashioned. I can say so, because I designed it myself, but that was years ago. Something more modern would make them feel better, liven them up.”