by Alex Bledsoe
“What about them?” she said, indicating the passing traffic. “They’re not your concern,” he said. He glared at me, the kind of tough-guy look that was supposed to terrify me into silence. I let him think it had. He said, “What’s in the wagon?”
“Delivery for the palace,” Liz said.
“Really?” he said with a laugh. “A little number like you has something for Crazy Jerry? What is it?”
She smiled. “Nunya.”
“What’s ‘nunya’?” the guard asked.
She smiled even wider. “Nunya business. That’s as much of an answer as you’re going to get. And as much of a toll.”
The other two guards stood up now. I was absolutely certain they weren’t official Mahnoman troops, just petty criminals who’d found an easy scam. Apparently the chaos I’d heard about was true, because no one else even looked our way.
“Sweetheart, you don’t want to make us mad,” the guard beside us said. “We can hurt you more ways than you know.”
“Aw, you called me ‘sweetheart.’ ” Then she slashed him across the face with the ends up the reins. He yelled in pain, but before he could respond, she kicked him under the jaw with the point of her boot. She’d taken a hint from me and put metal caps in the toes, and I heard the man’s jawbone crack from the impact.
I stood up and leveled a crossbow at the other two. They’d been so busy watching Liz, they hadn’t seen me get it ready. Morons.
“You can only shoot one of us,” the nearest of the two said.
“You’re right,” I said. “Who’s it going to be?”
That stopped them. Grinning boy writhed on the ground, his hands to his shattered jaw. Liz calmly gathered the reins, sat down, and urged the horses forward. I kept the crossbow on the other two until we were far enough down the street, we were lost in the crowd. If anyone else noticed, or cared about, what had happened, they gave no indication.
“A free-for-all kind of place,” Liz said at last.
“Those can be the most fun,” I said. “If you know how to handle yourself.”
“I’ll watch out for you,” she said with a wink. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
The castle of King Gerald in Acheron wasn’t as big as the one I knew best, Phil’s palace in Arentia City. For that matter, nothing about Mahnoma was as big, or as elaborate, as Arentia. But it provided a central location for all the kingdom’s power brokers, as well as any outside interests hoping to gather influence. That kept them off the streets, if nothing else.
The day’s market was set up at the castle’s main drawbridge, and highborn nobles mixed with the common folk to peruse food, jewelry, and assorted other acquirables. They didn’t actually buy anything, of course; that task was for servants sent back later. An elaborate language of verbal cues and hand gestures assured that whatever Lord and Lady Whozits selected would be there when their lackey returned, and if the price had mysteriously risen, well, that was the cost of doing business.
“Have you ever met Crazy Jerry?” Liz asked.
“King Gerald? No. I almost joined the army over in Altura to fight him once, back in my mercenary days. But the war got averted at the last minute.” I snorted in mock contempt. “Imagine stopping a perfectly good armed conflict just in the nick of time to save thousands of civilian casualties.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Liz teased with a straight face.
“And I don’t think we’ll meet him today. From the stories I hear, he doesn’t have much contact with anyone. He even sits in his throne room behind a screen and issues his edicts.”
“Then how do people know it’s really him?”
I grinned. “Now you sound like me. I don’t know, and unless someone wants to drop twenty-five gold pieces a day plus expenses into my money bag, I don’t really care.”
We showed our paperwork to one of the drawbridge guards, and he indicated a service drive that went around one huge, featureless defensive wall. A farmer’s cart approached us on it, empty of whatever produce the castle chef had ordered.
“You ever been here before?” the guard asked Liz. He was an older man, with cropped military hair and a worn but well- maintained uniform.
“No,” Liz said. “Why?”
His concern sounded genuine. “Mahnoma has a lot of problems right now. Just do your job and get back on the road, okay? You’re safe enough this close to the palace, but out in the city, well . . . you’re a pretty girl and you might not be.”
“Not be pretty?” she deadpanned.
“Not be safe,” he said, ignoring her humor. He looked me up and down with disdain. “Even with your hired muscle over there. It’s one thing to just look tough, it’s a whole other when you’re surrounded by bandits.”
“A whole other what?” she asked.
“Thing.” At last he caught on that she making light of him, and smiled wryly. “Ah. Well, forewarned is forearmed, right?”
We drove past him, and Liz said, “You’re supposed to look so scary that people don’t start trouble. I don’t think you’re doing it right.”
“I’m not the sharpest sword in the scabbard,” I agreed.
“Is that how you get out of things? By just agreeing instead of arguing?”
“I just assume you’re always right. You’re my compass, baby, always pointing to true north.”
“But it’s so much more fun when you point north,” she said. We both laughed.
The empty wagon passed us, and we let the horses walk down the road beside the wall. “Wow,” Liz said, looking up at the featureless stone, now marred with elaborate graffiti up to a height of about eight feet. If anyone cared to clean it off, they hadn’t made much progress. Most of the designs were gang symbols, part of the criminal underworld that flourished under the lackadaisical rule of Crazy Jerry. “You really grew up in one of these?”
“No, my best friend grew up in one. I only played in it. We had a manor house a couple of miles away.” And acres of land, and tenant farmers, and a whole lot of other things my father considered essential, and that kept him simmering in annoyance from morning to night. He never mastered the idea of trusting people to do their jobs.
“But you did have free run of the palace, right?”
“Pretty much. Phil was the crown prince, and he could always pull rank on the servants or guards. There were a few people we had to avoid, but for the most part we could do what we wanted.” Truthfully, our only nemesis was Emerson Wentrobe, the king’s chamberlain, but after I grew up I realized he’d looked on it as a game the same way we did. When he did catch us dead to rights, he usually kept silent after extracting our promise not to do it again. And we didn’t—we moved on to some brand-new mischief.
“I just can’t imagine,” Liz said. She shielded her eyes and looked up at the spires behind the wall, where the actual castle rose. We were too close to see more than the very tops, but we’d had a good look on the drive in. It made me smile; Phil and I always said you could tell the country folks in Arentia City because they kept rubbing their necks, which were sore from looking up. Apparently that was true everywhere.
“Your house wasn’t this big, I take it?” I said.
“Ha. Hardly. Five rooms, and two of those were in the cellar. Stone floors, floppy shutters on the windows, and in the winter we shared space with the milk cow.”
“But you were happy there?”
“Most of the time, yeah. Were you?”
I thought, Up until that horrible day when Janet died and I should have, yes. “Most of the time,” I agreed.
By now Liz knew me well enough to understand the distance in my voice. She put her hand on mine and said, “Sorry, Eddie. Didn’t mean to bring her up.”
I lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “No problem,” I said, and smiled. “Just a passing cloud, not a storm.” We reached the service entrance. Two guards in fancy livery stood at the warehouse gate, which was big enough to drive wagons through. They held extra-long lances in th
eir velvet-gloved hands. Unless the men were very good, those lances were too unwieldy to be anything more than expensive decorations. But it was important to put on a show, too. If there was a gap in the castle’s security, it wasn’t likely to be so obvious.
They also checked our paperwork. “Clean up after your horses,” one admonished before letting us inside. “The warehouse steward will take care of you.”
The door opened into part of a big central warehouse where the castle’s supplies were kept on carefully labeled floor-to- ceiling shelves. I idly wondered what they stocked on the top shelves, reachable only by ladder.
The two horses’ steps echoed off the stone walls until Liz gently pulled the reins and murmured, “Whoa.” The door closed behind us.
The steward approached, one of those efficient little toads that liked to rule over his petty kingdom of spare tables and curtains. He reached us just as we climbed down from the wagon’s seat.
“And what do we have in here, hm?” he asked in a tight, superior voice.
“Liz Dumont, Dumont Delivery and Courier Service,” she said.
“I did not say whom, I said what,” he said down his nose.
Liz’s eyebrows rose at his tone, but she stayed professional. “A set of Benvolian dining dishes.”
“Is that right? I suppose you’ve taken them out and inspected them, then? You’re an expert on Benvolian tableware?” He turned his attention to me. “And who are you?”
“I’m security,” I said with a genial grin. “Oh, wait, you asked who, not what. My name’s Eddie.”
“You could use a haircut,” he said dismissively, “and a shave, especially if you plan to make this a career. Couriers often meet their betters, and should dress and groom accordingly.”
I just continued to smile. Liz did not need my help with middle men like this one.
“Hey,” Liz said, and snapped her fingers in his face. “You don’t deal with him. You deal with me. I’m the courier.”
“Oh, a redheaded spitfire, how original,” he said disdainfully. “Open up, then, and let me peruse these wonders.”
Liz unlocked the back of the wagon and dropped the tailgate, which also served as a loading ramp. It made a loud, echoey thud against the warehouse floor. In the bed were three wooden boxes, each filled with dishes padded by silk. Around the boxes, protecting them from damage, was a thick carpet of packed hay. The steward pulled one of the boxes roughly toward him, scowling at both the effort and the puff of hay dust.
“Whoa, be careful,” Liz said. “Those things are fragile.”
“I’m certain they are,” he said. He opened the lid and pulled out one of the plates.
“See?” Liz said. “Benvolian place settings.”
He looked it over with apparent expertise. Then he said, “This is not genuine.”
“That’s not my problem,” Liz said. “My job is to deliver them. I have. Your job now is to pay me for it.” She held out the vellum sheet containing her invoice.
He snatched it contemptuously with his free hand and looked down his nose at it. “Hm. I don’t suppose you even thought about selling the originals and trying to pawn off these cheap imitations as the genuine article?” He crumpled the vellum in one hand and smashed the plate against the loading ramp with the other to make his point. “I think I’ll teach you a lesson in manners, peasant.”
I stepped in front of her. “I think you won’t.”
Liz pulled me back. “No, Eddie, I can handle this.” She got right in his face. They were about the same height, but he shrank as she emphasized her words with repeated pokes to his chest. “I was hired by the royal office of Benvolia to deliver these boxes. Their reps loaded them in the wagon right off the boat, and I brought them straight here. They’re the exact same boxes, pal, and the very same contents as the Benvolians gave me. Now, if you intend to start a commotion—”
“Who’s starting a commotion?” a new voice said. It was strong and carried the conviction of someone used to being obeyed.
We all turned. A middle-aged man in a cloak strode down the aisle, followed by six serious-looking guards in cloaks.
The steward gasped and dropped to one knee. “Your Majesty!” he cried.
Liz and I exchanged an uh-oh look, then did likewise. An annoyance had just become much more serious.
King Gerald, also known as Crazy Jerry, stopped before us and made an impatient gesture. “No, not the damn bowing and scraping. On your feet, all of you.”
We did as he commanded. His guards spread out in a practiced formation, unobtrusively blocking us in.
I had my Gadshill Marauder sword at my waist, my trusty knife in my boot, and two other swords hidden on the wagon. Liz was no trained swordswoman, but she had a seldom indulged vicious streak that had claimed more than one wouldbe bandit. We could make a good fight of it, but that’s all. If it came to blows against professional guards, we were screwed.
And if the steward were any more intimidated, he’d melt into a puddle. Even I felt sweat on my neck. The presence of royalty didn’t bother me, but unlimited power in the hands of the unbalanced did. He didn’t seem crazy standing there in front of me, but once you got a reputation as a lunatic, it was hard to shake. King Gerald never had. And Crazy Jerry might do anything.
He looked at the open box of dishes. “Is this the delivery from Benvolia?”
The steward nodded so hard, his uniform cap almost flew off. “Yes, Your Majesty. But these brigands have—”
“Who broke this?” he said, bending to pick up one of the pieces. He saw the piece still in the steward’s hand. “You?”
“Your Majesty, these aren’t real Benvolian table settings, they’re—”
“The table settings my grandmother used in the Siege of Bolingbroke,” one of the guards finished.
We all turned in surprise. The guard was tall and rail thin but possessed the energy of a much younger man. He stepped in front of King Gerald and glared at the steward.
The steward looked from the king to the guard, trying to interpret what was happening. “I don’t, I mean, I didn’t—”
The guard undid his cloak. Beneath it, he wore expensive, tailored clothes and a tunic with the royal seal of Mahnoma. “You want to talk to me,” the guard told the steward with a nod toward the king, “not him. You’re excused, Hector.”
The steward suddenly realized that this was King Gerald, hiding in plain sight in the guise of one of his own bodyguards. His stand-in gracefully backed away to let the true king have the floor, and put the guardsman’s cloak around his own shoulders.
“My grandmother painted these dishes by hand to look like Benvolian porcelain,” the real king said. “They’re a gift from King Dorset and Queen Johanna of Benvolia, who are also my distant cousins. They’re family heirlooms. They may not be genuine, but to me, they’re priceless, and they’re crucial in maintaining strong ties with Benvolia. Particularly when Dorset and Johanna come to visit next month.”
The steward turned white.
“And you broke one,” the king finished.
“I-I- I didn’t—”
“Think?” Gerald roared. He had a perfect voice for shouting, rich and full like a herald’s, and all of us, even the guards and Gerald’s stand-in, jumped. “I’m not surprised. If you could think, you wouldn’t be stuck clerking in my warehouse.” He turned to us. “Has he paid you yet?”
Liz, not accustomed to royalty, let alone ostensibly insane ones, barely squeaked out, “No, Your Majesty.”
Gerald smiled at her ner vousness. Very reasonably, he said, “Don’t be afraid, young lady. I’m sorry about the theatrics. They may call me Crazy Jerry, but I promise, I’m not. I’m just careful.” He turned back to the steward. “Pay them. Give them a ten percent bonus for dealing with you. And then expect that very soon your duties, responsibilities, and pay will significantly change.”
“Y-yes, Your Majesty,” the steward said, quickly counting out gold coins from his purse. Liz took them, recou
nted them, and put them in her own money bag.
Gerald turned and walked away. His guards fell into formation, and his double followed outside the little knot of security, still dressed as a king. That, I reflected, must be the most nerve-racking job ever.
Then suddenly Gerald stopped, turned back in our direction, and pushed past his guards. “Miss—?”
Liz’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. I whispered to her, “Dumont.”
“Dumont,” she blurted. “And this is my associate, Mr. LaCrosse.”
“A pleasure,” Gerald said with a nod to me. Then to Liz he continued, “Would you do me the honor of having a drink with me? I feel the least I can do is try to convince you that my representative here—” He glared at the cowering steward. “—doesn’t accurately reflect Mahnoman hospitality.”
“Oh, Your Majesty, we couldn’t bother—,” Liz began.
“Miss Dumont, it’s a bother if you ask. When I ask, it’s no bother at all.” He offered her his arm.
“A moment, Your Majesty,” one of the guards said. I didn’t recognize his rank insignia, but it was different from anyone else’s, which usually indicated an officer in charge. “We need to check them with Opulora’s stone.”
“Of course,” Gerald said wearily. To us he added, “I apologize for this. Security, you know.”
The officer took a small metal box from his belt, opened it, and withdrew a stone. He held it close to Liz. Nothing happened.
Then he held it in front of me. It began to glow red.
“Take off your sword, please, and place it in your vehicle,” he said by rote.
I did as he ordered. The glow dimmed, but still shone.
“Please place any other weapons in the vehicle,” he said.
The only weapon left was the knife in my boot. I thought it over, then took it out and placed it on the wagon’s seat beside my sword.
The stone’s glow faded. The officer said, “Thank you. No unauthorized weapons are allowed within the castle’s private chambers.”
I nodded at the stone. “That’s a handy thing to have.”