The Gilded Chain

by Dave Duncan

  He shot his visitor a suspicious sidelong glance. “You were keeping things from me!”

  “Nothing important, sire.”

  “Ha! How about this? Gaylea wants to marry this ward of his. He’s thirty years older than she is, or I’m a chicken. But you’ve been sitting on his petition for two months—and he’s a duke! You still bearing a grudge against him because of that King’s Cup thing?”

  “I won, remember?”

  “He can deliver a lot of votes in Parliament.”

  “That’s why I was sitting on his petition. You always told me that want was stronger than gratitude.”

  Ambrose grunted. “So I did.” He threw that document down on the littered bed and took up another to query. The audience continued. His wits were as sharp as ever. It was almost like old times.

  Finally he abandoned the papers and began pacing back and forth. “Your attitude displeases me. I’ve been a good king so far.”

  “A very fine one, sire.”

  “And that crazy daughter of mine knows nothing! She’s been shut away for twenty years on those islands, breeding barbarians. She’s not capable of running a civilized kingdom. Everything will go to pieces.” He waited for an answer. Not getting one, he turned his full royal scowl on his former chancellor. “Well? You deny it?”

  “She may make mistakes at first. So did you. Isn’t she entitled to her turn, just as you were?”

  The King’s face darkened. “Not now we have a better alternative. Now a good king can continue to be a good king forever. What troubles you? You think I’m planning to hunt down innocent people and slaughter my loyal subjects? Nonsense! Felons, convicts—that’s the answer! Kromman estimates that more than two thousand men are hanged in Chivial every year. What you will do, my lord, is explain to Parliament that we have a new conjuration to turn their bones into gold. The corpses will henceforth belong to the crown. Simple, yes? You won’t need to mention rejuvenation yet. That can leak out gradually. I think the Commons will be pleased to hear that their beloved prince is about to abolish taxation altogether, don’t you?”

  “I expect they’ll be happy for a year or two.” Durendal thought of that cellar in Samarinda. “After that your gold will be as common as sewage and worth less.”

  “Bah! Details! The country will benefit. If it’s that pretty wife of yours who’s worrying you, then we can include her. What other persnickety complaints have you got?”

  “Two, sire. First, mortal men won’t take kindly to being ruled by an immortal. I don’t think the country will stand for it.”

  “The country can eat dirt. What’s the second?”

  “Change, sire. Variety. New blood. Anything can go on too long. People go stale, even kings. Even kings who eat human flesh.”

  “Spirits! I could have your head for that!”

  “Then take it. I would sooner die than watch Chivial wither under a permanent tyranny.” Durendal could imagine what the listeners in the garderobe would make of that remark.

  The King dropped his voice to a needling whisper. “Well I shan’t give you that pleasure! At dawn you will be reborn too and then we’ll see how you feel about life and death. You’ve been a good chancellor, I admit—best I ever had—and you can damned well go on being a good chancellor till the sun cools. Get out of here!”

  Durendal went back out to the dormitory. The King thought rejuvenation would change his mind and restore his loyalty. He hoped it wouldn’t. He did not think Kromman and the Guard would give either of them the chance to find out.

  7

  The last many hours were a blank. He had been riding in a daze, letting Byless find the road, letting Twosocks follow Patches. Poor brutes were staggering, but they had come to Ironhall now. The lights were out. Of course. It was after midnight.

  Quarrel roused himself. He was freezing, ice to the core. “That window. Throw rocks.” He was too weak to sit straight in the saddle. He was one agony from top to toe and the world was going up and down, up and down. Twosocks had come to a stop, head down in exhaustion.

  “Think I don’t know the seniors’ nursery?” Byless mumbled.

  He fell flat on the ground when he dismounted, and he needed four attempts to hit a casement. Glass shattered. A moment later a face appeared—Bloodhand’s unfortunately, but then Hereward was there beside him.

  “Quarrel,” Quarrel said. “Need the Queen’s men. Rescue Paragon.”

  Somehow they carried him into the dormitory without waking any of the masters, the servants, the knights, or even the juniors; and they laid him on a bed. They reluctantly let Byless accompany him, goggling at the idea that this filthy, staggering scarecrow had been Second to Paragon, as if Paragon hadn’t needed a Second like any other Blade. Byless flopped down on the nearest bed and was asleep at once.

  A dozen of them gathered around in the candlelight, most of them half naked, rubbing their eyes and stretching. Someone fetched a few fuzzies who ought to be seniors but were being held back. Quarrel flogged his brain awake to explain as much as he must: the King locked away in Falconsrest, Samarinda, the book, Paragon’s secret mission before they were born—which everyone had heard of but knew nothing about—Wolfbiter likewise…terrible conjuration, eating human flesh, evil Kromman, the King changed into a monster, dispossess the Queen, rescue Paragon. His voice would die away in a croak, and they’d give him another drink and he would go on. A couple of them read rapidly through the book.

  “He’s raving,” Crystal said.

  “He didn’t cut his shoulder himself,” said Hereward, red brows clenched down in a frown.

  Another voice. “Paragon’s book confirms what he’s saying.”

  “Paragon must have needed a Blade for something, after all these years.” That was Crystal, who was Second now.

  “He’s an old man,” Willow suggested.

  “He beat you at rapiers, didn’t he?”

  Passington next. “If we try anything like this, they’ll fart the lot of us.”

  “Queen’s men,” Quarrel whispered. “Won’t ever be a Queen.”

  “You left your ward in a fight?” That was Bloodhand, who was a dog’s backside.

  He explained again about Destrier bolting and him being wounded and Paragon thrown and Dragon wanting him alive. And eating human flesh.

  “Got go,” he said, heaving himself upright. The room spun and would not steady. “You come or not, I got be there a’ dawn.” He had been dreaming—they weren’t companions like him, just kids. They hadn’t had the sword through the heart, the final forging. But they were all he had or could have had, because they weren’t bound to the King and all other Blades were.

  “I’ll come with you,” Hereward announced, “for Paragon. Anyone else wants to come, stay close. The rest go back to the wall there.”

  One or two began to move away. Then they shuffled closer again. All of them. The Queen’s men. Quarrel wept with impatience while they dragged on clothes and slung on their swords and planned how they would break into the stables. Falconsrest was hours and hours away and the night was flying.

  8

  The King’s coach arrived an hour or so before midnight to transport him down to the village. Most of the Blades went with him, but three remained behind to guard Lord Roland and the despised Lyon. Durendal slept, making up for two sleepless nights. The weather turned stormy, rattling the casements and blowing smoke from the fireplace.

  The King’s return seemed to fill the whole lodge with noisy men, laughing and joking. Obviously the public appearance had been a great success.

  Dragon and Bowman helped the aging monarch up the stairs. His bulk was as great as ever, yet softer and flabbier now. His head was bald, his white beard wispy, and he had trouble walking, even while leaning on the Commander’s shoulder. At a guess, he was the equivalent of about eighty. He paused to catch his breath at the top of the stairs, rasping like a water mill.

  “Chancellor Kromman back yet?”

  “No, Your Majesty.” Bowman s
houted, as if the King were now hard of hearing.

  “He’s late! Send some men out to look for him.”

  “It’s a nasty night, sire. I expect that’s slowed him.”

  The antiquated monarch mumbled toothlessly. “What time is it?”

  “About three hours until dawn, sire.”

  “Get the octogram ready. I need some sleep first, but remember to wake me in plenty of time.”

  “So’s we can carry you down as usual?” muttered a resentful voice in the shadows, but the King did not hear. He lurched into his chamber, leaning on the doorjamb as he went through. Dragon followed, closing the door.

  “What does he look like by dawn?” Durendal inquired of the dim room.

  “Like a dead pig,” someone said.

  In a while the Commander came out of the other room, having presumably tucked His Majesty into bed. He disappeared downstairs. Half a dozen men remained, sitting around the dormitory, exchanging comments on the night’s events. They were vastly more cheerful than they had been all day, confident that the deception had been successful and might continue to be so in future. Gradually they fell silent, waiting for dawn and the daily conjuration. Young Sir Lyon cowered alone in a corner, ignored and terrified. The pump squeaked in the kitchen below as men attended to their toilet.

  Durendal wandered over to the fire and stacked more logs on it. The watchers watched, but none objected. He had slept on his problem and found an answer—not a very satisfying one, but one that his conscience would accept.

  Even now, he could not kill the King outright. After a lifetime of service, that was an impossible thought. But he could block another rejuvenation—he was certain he could bring himself to do that much, and he knew how to achieve it. He might be choosing a particularly horrible death for himself, but he was going to die anyway, as soon as Kromman returned.

  The conjuration was evil. True, the use of convicted felons was more acceptable than the Samarinda swordsman lottery. A hanged man had no use for his corpse, and the rotting bodies that dangled from gibbets all over Chivial were disgusting eyesores. True, Ambrose was a fine ruler and might continue to rule well for many years—unless immortality changed him. It had changed Everman. Equally true, his daughter was an unknown quantity. Durendal bore no especial love for Princess Malinda, nor any great personal loyalty either.

  So why did he feel he must play traitor now and destroy his king? Who was he to oppose this grand scheme? Was he wrong to think it wrong? No, for he had one advantage no one else had—he had seen the evil in full flower in Samarinda. He wished he could discuss it with Kate and benefit from her practical common sense, but he was sure she would agree with him. Kate could not even tolerate healing, so it was not surprising that the rejuvenation conjurement repelled her so strongly. In a strangely perverted sense, that was another advantage he had. He could not be tempted by rebirth when she could not share it.

  No, the answer lay in something Grand Master had said to him when he went back to Ironhall: “We’ll all be the Queen’s men one day, I expect. The bindings translate, because we swore allegiance to him and his heirs.”

  Several times in his life, Durendal had sworn to be true to Ambrose IV, his heirs and successors. That Ambrose was dead. The person who inhabited his body was someone else, an imposter who looked like Ambrose, talked like Ambrose, and wore the crown that ought now to descend to the Princess and eventually one of her sons. This was slippery huckster talk, not the sort of creed a former Blade should follow, but his conscience needed a crutch.

  The fire was starting to crackle and blaze brighter. Then a thumping of hooves and a rattling…

  “The spider’s back,” a Blade muttered.

  Durendal rose. All eyes turned on him, but the prisoner walked away from the stair and the royal bedchamber, over to a window. He peered out. The carriage he had seen depart that morning squeaked to a stop below him, its two lamps casting a bleary light through blowing snow—the ground was coated white already. A couple of Blades emerged from the lodge to greet it. They opened its door and pulled down the steps.

  Kromman would be as old as the King, now. He would probably have to be carried in. No. Surprisingly, the black-clad figure was coming out by himself, teetering unsteadily and not using his left arm. He kept his head down, hardly showing his milk-white face between his collar and his hat. He reached the ground, staggered, and recovered, pushing away an offer of help. A man in Guard livery appeared behind him.

  The two outriders had dismounted. Three footmen leaped down from the back of the coach, the driver and another from the bench. The King’s men shouted and reached for their swords, and the newcomers jumped them, bearing them to the ground. More passengers sprang out of the coach, others were emerging on the far side and running around. Several raced for the door of the lodge.

  Whatever was going on, that was not Kromman who had arrived, and obviously it was time for Durendal to make his move. He took three swift strides to the fireplace and grabbed up the tongs. He lifted a glowing log and hurled it across the room to land in a cascade of sparks. Then another. Blades leaped up with howls of fury and shock. Another, another…A sword came flashing toward him and he parried it with the tongs: Clang!

  “Stop him!”

  “Never mind him—help me here!” shouted another.

  “Fire!” roared another.

  Bedding was bursting into flames all over the room, spewing smoke and a reek of burning feathers. Men dived on the blazes, trying to smother them with blankets, but Torquil and Martin drew and lunged at Durendal. He parried them both, tongs in one hand and poker in the other, standing at bay with the fireplace at his back. Clang! Clang! This was going to be it—once he might have had a chance against two, but not these days. Not unarmed. Clang! How many strokes could he survive?

  “Leave me, you fools!” he shouted at them. “Save the King!”

  His assailants were too intent on vengeance to listen. Clang!—close one. Then Lyon smothered Martin from behind with a blanket over his head, dragging him down to the floor. Startled, Torquil let his attention waver; Durendal cracked the poker down on his sword hand and heard bones break. Torquil screamed.

  “Thanks, lad!” Durendal raised his voice. “Everyone save the King!”

  Coughing, spluttering, frantic Blades were trying to stuff burning quilts and mattresses out through the windows. The wind blew flames back in their faces. But Bowman had hurled open the door to the King’s room and disappeared inside. Others followed.

  Durendal stumbled, choking, to the stair. Lyon dived ahead of him, making his escape. They went down the precipice in a slithering rush and ended on the guardroom floor. Half a dozen more Blades were trying to fight their way out through the invaders, but there was room for only two at a time in the doorway. Whoever the newcomers were, they had efficiently caught the Royal Guard with their pants down—literally so in a couple of cases—and bottled them up in the lodge.

  “Fire!” Durendal scrambled painfully to his feet. He wanted only to make the octogram unusable, not burn anyone to death. “The lodge is on fire! Save the King!”

  The Blades spun around and ran past him, up the stairs, all except the pair battling in the entrance.

  “Put up your swords!” he roared. “In the King’s name, put up your swords, all of you! Stand aside and let me deal with them.”

  The defenders stepped back, and he took their place, peering through the whirling snowflakes at a dozen unknown and inexplicable swordsmen.

  Their leader shouted, “Come out with your hands up!”

  Durendal dropped the tongs and raised his hands. “No more fighting! We must let them rescue the King. Put up your swords, I say!”

  “It’s Paragon!” a voice cried.

  Overhead, part of the roof collapsed, blasting flames skyward and making the scene bright as noontime. Coughing, he emerged into the storm. He wiped his streaming eyes and then stared with stunned disbelief at the stocky boy clutching the scimitar. He had lost his
hat, and his red hair shone like gold in the light from the blaze.

  “Hereward!”

  “Lord Roland!”

  He looked around at all the other youthful, nervily grinning faces, and knew he was seeing the seniors from Ironhall. Fire and death! What were they doing here, battling the Royal Guard?

  “We came to rescue you, my lord,” Hereward said. “Looks like we arrived just in time.” He laughed. “Stand clear of the door there.”

  Durendal obeyed and impudent hands thumped his shoulder as he went by. Two bodies lay in the snow—dead or unconscious? More of the roof collapsed. The horses panicked at the flames and smoke, taking the coach off with a rush into the night. A moment later it overturned on the hill in a rending crash and screams of terror from the team.

  “My lord!” croaked a voice. The counterfeit Kromman lurched forward, a flutter of black garments and a white face, one arm in a sling. By the eight, it was Quarrel! He fell into his ward’s arms and buckled.

  Durendal hugged him, taking his weight, although he seemed to weigh nothing at all. “You’re alive!” Blasted stupid thing to say! And was it even true? How could any man look like that white skull and live? “You’re hurt!”

  “Been hurt a long time,” Quarrel whispered. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine. But what happened?”

  “Went for help. Got the Queen’s men.” He tried to smile.

  Durendal lowered him to the ground and knelt there, supporting his shoulders. “Ironhall? You rode there and back?” That was not humanly possible, and yet a dozen boyish faces were grinning proudly down at him from man height all around. Even with the benefit of surprise, who else could have given the Guard a fight? They seemed to be waiting for his orders.