The Gilded Chain

by Dave Duncan

  Evaluating her husband’s expression in the light of long experience, she tactfully informed Caplin that they would serve themselves from the sideboard. As the steward went out, Durendal was very tempted to call him back, just so his wife could not talk business, which was what she obviously had in mind. They had never quite agreed on suitable topics for breakfast conversation. He poured himself a beaker of cider.

  “I read your book, my lord,” Quarrel announced cheerfully.

  Durendal roared. “You what?”

  The boy did not flinch an eyelash. “I read your book about Samarinda.”

  “I expressly forbade you to do any such thing!”

  “Yes, my lord. I heard you.” He shrugged.

  “Dearest,” Kate said gently, “you look just like the King.”

  “The King? I look absolutely nothing like the King! What do you mean?”

  “I mean you are glaring at Sir Quarrel merely because he has been attending to his duties with exemplary diligence.”

  With even greater diligence, Durendal took himself off the boil. Perhaps there was some justice here; he was being given a dose of the medicine he had prescribed for Ambrose often enough. He glanced at his wife’s amusement, then at his Blade’s polite stubbornness. The boy must have had a busy night. “I apologize. Of course the book is now relevant to your responsibilities, and you did right to read it. What did you conclude?”

  Quarrel eyed him warily for a moment. “That I have even higher standards to live up to than I feared. I—I wept, my lord.”

  That was absolutely the most effective thing the damned kid could have said. Was he really an incredible actor, or could he possibly be genuine? Durendal grunted.

  Kate made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a smothered snigger. “Would you care for some ribs, Your Maj—my lord?”

  “No thank you! And stop making jokes about me and the King. Did you gain any valuable insights into our problem, Sir Quarrel?”

  “Just that that enchantment is the most evil thing I ever heard of. Immortality supported by endless murders!” He stole a quick look at Kate, as if hoping for support; but she had risen and gone to the sideboard to clatter the silver covers. “You know His Majesty better than anyone, my lord. If Kromman offered him that conjuration, would he have accepted?”

  Durandal almost yelled, “Why do you think I couldn’t sleep all night?” He said quietly, “Not the king I have served all my life.” The silence festered for a moment—was he being dishonest? “But when a man sees that last door opening before him, the one that has nothing on the other side…when his life’s work is threatened—Blood and steel, lad! I don’t know! And he may not have had any choice. You must have read what Everman told me, how they addicted him to the monstrous feast with one mouthful. He was not the Everman I knew at Ironhall—he looked just like him, but his mind was twisted out of shape somehow. If Kromman prepared the conjurement and then gave it to the King…But how would Kromman have known the ritual? Can we reasonably suppose that he sent another expedition back to Samarinda to steal it? He’s only the King’s secretary.”

  “Face facts, dear.” Kate thumped a heaped plate down in front of him and resumed her seat. “He has had a quarter of a century to arrange it. He is very close to the inquisitors still, and if anyone can steal a secret, they can. Perhaps the King himself—”

  “No! I will not believe that of Ambrose! And I’m not hungry.”

  “You need to keep your strength up. His health began to fail about five years ago. That’s just time for someone to make a round trip to Samarinda.”

  “Rubbish! If anyone had organized such an expedition for him, I’d have heard of it.” He glared at her. If it had happened, it must be Kromman’s fault, not Ambrose’s!

  “Pardon me,” Quarrel said. “You met Hereward—he was my Second, ma’am. His grandfather was an inquisitor. He told me once how the old man used to tell him stories. He didn’t read them—he remembered them. He could repeat any book he had ever read, word for word. Inquisitors are given a memory-enhancement conjurement.”

  When the cold, sick feeling had waned a little, Durendal said, “I apologize.”

  “Nothing to apologize for, my lord.”

  “There is much. I should have seen that years ago. If Kromman followed me into the monastery in his invisibility cloak and witnessed the ritual, he could have remembered it…” Blood and fire! Was that why Kromman had tried to kill both him and Wolfbiter—so that he would be the only one with the dread secret? Had the King known Kromman knew the ritual, all these years? Or even suspected? Could that be why he had put up with the odious slug for so long?

  “What are you going to do about it,” Kate asked, ever practical, “in all this rain?”

  That was the question. He considered his options. Run away, go abroad? Not now. Tell someone? Who? Who would not just assume that he was spreading such impossible lies about his successor in the hope of getting his job back? If he had no one but himself to consider, he would go and find Kromman and kill him, as he should have done years ago. But Chivial was not Altain. Killers were hanged, so Kate would be a murderer’s widow; and if Quarrel guessed what he was planning, he would try to beat his ward to it.

  “If Kromman’s doing what we suspect, he has to murder someone every day. How can he possibly get away with that? Who would help him?”

  “The Guard, of course,” Quarrel said angrily. “If a ward needs a body to save his life, his Blade will provide a body.” His face paled, and he laid down the rib he had been waving. “Or volunteer?”

  “Oh, no,” Kate muttered. “No, no, no!”

  The King eating his way through his Guard?

  “They couldn’t possibly get away with it,” Durendal said, trying to convince himself as much as his listeners. “People don’t vanish in Chivial without being missed. If the King is doing that, then he can only meet outsiders once a day, when he’s at about the right age…” A little after sunset, when he had received Durandal himself? No, the stink of his leg had been genuine. It had happened later—if it had happened at all.

  If the answers were anywhere, they must be at Falconsrest.

  Quarrel knew that, too. “You’re under house arrest, my lord. Kromman has a spy in your household.”

  “I expect he—You know this?”

  “The housemaid Nel, my lord.” Actor or not, he couldn’t quite hide his delight at being so efficient a bodyguard.

  “And who told you it was Nel?”

  “Er…Marie, my lord. And Gwen.”

  “Both? Separately?”

  “Oh, yes, my lord, of course! I mean…” He was blushing at last.

  Kate slammed a hand on the table. “I shall have a word with Mistress Nel!”

  “She more or less admits it, my lady,” Quarrel muttered, even redder.

  “What? Are you debauching my entire staff, Sir Quarrel? Because—”

  “Don’t nag the man,” Durendal said, “just because he has been attending to his duties with exemplary diligence.” And incredible stamina.

  Quarrel grinned sheepishly.

  “Men!” Kate glared just like the King did. That was not very fair, because her husband had warned her exactly what would happen if they brought a Blade into the house. She had even agreed that they would have to take financial responsibility for any unwanted results. “Very well! I shall drive to Oakendown and lay the problem before the Sisters.”

  Quarrel said, “But…” and looked at his ward.

  “No need for you to go, dearest.” Durendal realized he had cleaned his plate and tried not to show how annoying that was.

  “I see it as my duty. I shall take Nel with me for company, and I may stay there a few days to recover from the journey. What you men get up to while I’m gone, I shall probably be happier not knowing; and what I don’t know, inquisitors can’t get out of me.”

  Incredible woman!

  “Sir Quarrel, would you wait outside for a moment, please?”

  His Blad
e frowned, then rose obediently and headed for the door—checking the windows on the way to make sure they were securely locked. The heavy oak door thumped shut behind him.

  Kate waited defensively for her husband to speak. She looked tired already, although it was only morning; her thinness was more than just an illusion of the current fashions. He had been working fourteen hours a day during the King’s illness, but he should have noticed. Even more galling was the obvious fact that the servants knew what he had missed.

  “When Quarrel went to your aid last night, my dear, he made a remark about healers. I didn’t pick up on it then, but now I know what he almost said. He knows you cannot tolerate healing.”

  “Many White Sisters can’t.”

  “But not all. How does he know you’re one of them? Obviously he has been gossiping with the maids. Joking aside, part of his duty is to understand my household. But why should they have told him that about you?”

  Kate’s chin came up stubbornly. “Bah! Pillow talk. I expect they were discussing childbirth.”

  “I am quite certain Quarrel was not discussing childbirth.”

  “You must ask him—he is a man of many talents. Meanwhile, my dear, we both have duties to attend to. When the present crisis has been resolved, I trust we shall have leisure to discuss our future together.”

  “Oakendown is—”

  “I am quite capable of journeying to Oakendown, Durendal. I want that future of ours to be as long as possible, you understand? So you will please deal with Master Kromman—finally and expeditiously!” She rose, defiance in every inch of her. “I do not expect you to sit here warming your hands at the fire while I am gone.”

  He caught her in his arms before she reached the door. “Won’t you tell me?”

  “Later. Your problem is much more urgent than mine.”

  “Then take care, my dearest!”

  She laid her head against his shoulder. “And you, my love. Come back safely. I don’t want to be alone.”

  7

  The answer lay at Falconsrest, so there he must go, although he could not guess what he would do there.

  If a watch had been set on Ivywalls, the drenching rain would be worse than a thick fog for the watchers, and it had removed the snow that would have held tracks. Leading the way on foot through the orchard and the coppice, Durendal was virtually certain that he was departing undetected. On impulse, he asked Quarrel if he thought he could handle Destrier and received the inevitable answer. Annoyingly, the big black seemed equally enthusiastic about the new arrangement—fickle brute!—and the two of them were beautiful together, moving like a single dream animal. That left Durendal on Gadfly, who had no great turn of speed or agility but would thump along all day without complaint. A long, miserable ride it would be.

  As the first cold trickle penetrated his collar, he mused that the previous day he had been effective ruler of all Chivial, and today he became a felon just by leaving his house. For a lifetime he had served his King with all his heart, but now he was contemplating murder and treason. Kromman…if he had Kromman within reach, would he kill the new chancellor? Perhaps. He had owed Wolfbiter a death for too long. Only thoughts of the inevitable consequences to Kate and Quarrel made him doubt his own resolve now.

  He stayed clear of the main Grandon road, lest he be recognized by some passing royal courier—incredibly unlikely but a risk that need not be taken. He had decided to avoid Stairtown for the same reason, going south to Great Elbow, which was slightly closer to Falconsrest anyway.

  The weather made conversation on the road difficult. It was only during a most-welcome break for a meal in a wayside inn that he told Quarrel what he had decided.

  “We need a base, even if it’s only for one night, and an old friend of mine runs a tavern just outside Great Elbow. He calls himself Master Byless Twain, but he’s really Sir Byless. He was my Second, so he’s another broken-down old ruin like me. Don’t smirk at your ward like that; it’s disrespectful. He may be able to help us and certainly won’t stand in our way. I warn you now—he’s more than a little odd. He’s usually friendly enough with me, but he has no love for the Royal Guard or even the Order.”

  Quarrel waited for an explanation, but it did not come.

  “It’s a couple of years since I saw him…. He has a very pretty daughter. Let your conscience be your guide, of course, but in my hunting days I regarded other Blades’ daughters as off limits. They’re not so easily impressed by the legend, anyway.”

  “I understand, my lord. If I gave offense at your house—”

  “No, I expected it. I did exactly the same at your age. The legend’s a side effect of the binding conjuration.”

  Furthermore, being a Blade was a job that deserved its compensations. Of Lord Bluefield’s four Blades, one had died resisting his arrest. The other three had been waylaid successfully by Montpurse, but only Byless had survived the reversion conjuration, and even he had not brought all his wits back with him. Quarrel would be happier not knowing the story, for Bluefield had been only the first of King Ambrose’s chancellors to fall from favor.

  Another reason to use Byless’s tavern as their headquarters was that the King’s Blades shunned it. They disapproved of its name, The Broken Sword.

  Never having called there in winter, Durendal was dismayed to see how bleak and depressing it was, a thatched hovel cowering by the road under dark and dripping trees. He was even more dismayed to realize how many years must have passed since his last visit, for the woman in the doorway could only be the formerly pretty daughter. She had lost most of her teeth while gaining a great deal of weight and at least three children, two of whom clung to her like burls. She was suckling the smallest and might be going to have a fourth in the foreseeable future. Both her face and her hair needed washing.

  She looked at Durendal without recognition. “I can give you a meal and a bed, sir, if you won’t mind looking after your own horses. The men have gone out. There’s only me and the brats here.”

  He agreed they would stable their own horses. As they went to do so, Quarrel remarked acidly that his conscience was in complete control so far.

  Despite her unprepossessing appearance, their hostess produced a passable meal between cuffing and scolding children, and the ale was tolerable. Having served her guests, she dropped platters for herself and her oldest at the far end of the long table and she set her remaining teeth to work at a gallop.

  Durendal talked horses with Quarrel until the meal was done and then explained that they would be making an early start in the morning but might return to spend another night. He slid a gold coin along the planks to her. He asked for directions to Stairtown, thereby confirming his impressions of the local roads and the way to Falconsrest without actually mentioning its name. Finally he asked, “And where is Master Twain on this wretched day?”

  “Went with Tom, sir. My man.”

  “Where to?”

  She wiped her platter with the last of her bread. “Hunting for Ned, sir, over at Great Elbow. Disappeared. They’re all out looking for him. He’s simple, you see. Must have wandered off.”

  Ward and Blade exchanged horrified glances.

  8

  Durendal slept. Quarrel wakened him when the second candle was two thirds gone. He wrapped himself in his cloak and trudged out into the night, shivering and still half asleep, to find that his efficient Blade had already saddled the horses and brought them to the door. Although the rain had stopped, the night was dark as a cellar. That should be an advantage when they reached Falconsrest, because skulking around any place guarded by Blades was a very dangerous occupation; but it made their chances of ever arriving there much slimmer. As it was, the horses could go no faster than a walk.

  They were on their way before he realized that he was astride Gadfly again. Quarrel had held a stirrup for him without a word and he had accepted without looking. A very neat maneuver! He would not be petty enough to make an issue of the matter now, but if Junior thought that
Destrier was to be his mount from now on, he was grievously mistaken.

  “Just reconnaissance?” Quarrel asked as they rode into the wind.

  “I hope so. If they’re doing what we fear they’re doing, then it must be done in the lodge itself. It has two rooms up and two down, separated by chimneys, garderobes, and a stair. An elementary has to be on the ground, of course, and there used to be an octogram laid out in the room they now use as a kitchen. It’s probably still there. The outside door’s in the other, the guardroom. Ideally, I’d like to creep up to the kitchen shutters at dawn and listen. If I hear chanting, we’ll be certain. If I don’t, we’ll know we’re wrong.”

  “You better let me do that, my lord. No point in both of us going.”

  Blast that binding!

  Receiving no reply, Quarrel muttered, “Must we do this at all? That simpleton’s disappearance seems like pretty strong evidence to me. If we asked around Stairtown and learned of any other people gone missing, then we would know, wouldn’t we?”

  “You’re right, I suppose, but I…Curse it, this is the King we’re accusing! We’re saying he’s turned his Guard into a wolf pack. I just can’t be as logical as you, I suppose.”

  “It must be another side effect of the binding,” Quarrel said indignantly. “I never used to be logical or cautious or anything like that!”

  “Nothing wrong with logic, and you’re only cautious where I’m concerned. You’ll be rash to madness with your own life.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Not necessarily. A good Blade uses his head. There’s a time to lunge and a time to recover, a time to thrust and a time to parry. When Wolfbiter and I were trying to escape from the monastery, I didn’t stop to argue that I was the better swordsman and ought to bring up the rear. I let him do his duty and ran like a rabbit. It’s where you get to that matters, not how.”