by Alex Bledsoe
“Yes,” he said, without any inclination to tell me more about it.
Gerald again offered Liz his arm. “Now that we’re all officially friends, shall we?”
She was sweating with nervousness, and I desperately wanted to laugh; Liz was usually so cool, and totally in control. Instead I dropped into step behind her and the king, the guards behind me, and followed him into the castle.
I was nervous at being in the presence of Crazy Jerry, too, but I’d always assumed the stories about him had been exaggerated. I’d tried very hard to become a good judge of people; he seemed a bit paranoid, but that’s not unusual in royalty. Still, the thud of the inner door as we left the warehouse had a disturbing finality, like the sealing of a tomb. Hopefully that was just my paranoia.
Chapter
SIX
The passageway was narrow, which meant it was designed only for discreet travel by highly placed members of Mahnoman society. Gerald, with Liz still on his arm, led the way, I came behind, and the guards brought up the rear. Somewhere along the route, the decoy king slipped away down a side passage. The air was warm and stifling, thanks to the frequent oil lamps on little sconce ledges, and the total lack of any circulation.
I tried mightily to reserve judgment. This was no sign of Gerald’s paranoia; every castle had secret passages. Not every king used them for normal conduits, but perhaps it was simply the shortest route between the warehouse and wherever we were being taken. Or, of course, we could be walking right into an insane ruler’s diabolical trap, but I could only watch for signs and hope I’d be able to handle it unarmed.
Gerald kept up a murmuring monologue that I couldn’t quite overhear. Liz nodded along, but I knew by her body language that she was no closer to being relaxed. How would I handle it if Gerald made a move on her? He had no queen, and in that situation he wouldn’t be the first monarch to sample whatever feminine morsel crossed his path.
Then I smiled to myself. I wouldn’t have to handle anything. Liz could take care of herself at least as well as I could defend her.
We passed arched doorways that led into branching tunnels, and in one I caught a glimpse of movement. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, because the shape seemed too large to be a man, and was hunched over to fit through the passage. It was quick, though, whatever it was, because even though I spotted it twice and was ready the third time, I never really got a good look at it. And it made no noise at all.
It did, however, carry an odor. It smelled like sweat and urine, human smells but tainted with something lower down the food chain.
No one else noticed, or thought it odd. I glanced back at the nearest guard. “Big rats down here.”
“Just keep moving,” he said dryly.
“You know, you cut some vents in the rock, it would really improve the air quality.”
“I’ll bring it up at the next staff meeting.”
We emerged into a comfortable royal lounge. There were sumptuous couches, top-notch tapestries, and a well-stocked bar. A young, very attractive woman in the kind of outfit you wouldn’t wear outside on a windy day said cheerfully, “Welcome, Your Majesty!” She curtsied, revealing an awful lot of exquisite female flesh. “What would you and your guests like?”
“Hello, Adele,” Gerald said. “Something light, these folks are traveling.”
“Certainly. May I recommend the Rasmillian ale? We have the winter stock, fresh off the wagon.”
“That’s fine.”
The girl poured our drinks and delivered them with a deep bow that displayed her, uhm, assets to great advantage. I made certain not to smile.
A painting dominated the room. Larger than life size, it depicted a beautiful woman wearing a crown, with a boy of about eight standing beside her. Neither smiled. The boy held the woman’s hand and leaned toward her, as if frightened by whatever they both looked at. I was vaguely aware that Gerald had lost both a wife and son, but knew none of the particulars and, given his erratic reputation, wasn’t about to ask.
“My queen and my only child,” Gerald said when he saw me looking. “They both died quite some time ago.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “As am I.”
As I took a drink, I also took note of the exits. One led into the network of corridors we’d traversed to reach the room, the other led, probably, directly to the throne room. Both were guarded on the inside, and likely on the outside. There was bound to be at least one secret passage, but it wouldn’t be obvious and I had no graceful way to search for it, other than assuming it would be behind a tapestry. In this room, that didn’t really narrow it down.
Gerald touched goblets with Liz and said, “So, do you often make deliveries of this sort?”
Liz tried to speak, but nothing came out except her quick, nervous breathing. I said, “Yes, Miss Dumont runs a courier business. I decided to come along with her on this trip as a little vacation from my regular job.”
Gerald’s gaze flicked to me. His eyes were guarded but clear, with none of the haze of madness. But the thing about crazy was that you could never tell when it would show itself. He said, “Really? And what job is that?”
“I’m what’s called a sword jockey, if you’re familiar with the term.”
“Oooh, I love sword jockeys,” Adele said from behind the bar. “They always have such great stories. Much more interesting than soldiers,” she said with a knowing scowl at one of the guards.
“Adele,” Gerald said warningly.
“I know, I know, no flirting,” Adele said, and started vigorously wiping a mug.
“I gave her permission to always be herself around me,” Gerald said. “On some days it’s a bit tiresome. So—you’re a sword jockey.”
“I am.”
“My high chancellor has employed several of your kind over the years. That’s how Adele has heard all those stories. I’ll admit I’ve not been too impressed with them, but I won’t hold that against you.”
“Why did your chancellor employ them, if I may ask?”
“Different things.” Then he seemed struck by a new thought. “Although, now that I think about it, I have never known exactly—”
“Yes,” Liz suddenly blurted, finally answering Gerald’s initial question. Her voice was a tight, choked gasp. “I’m a courier.”
Gerald laughed. “Miss Dumont, please, I promise you the stories about me are exaggerated. I don’t lurk in a darkened room talking to myself. I hold court just like every other king, and if I resort to subterfuge, I assure you it’s neither extreme nor unwarranted.” He took her hand and formally kissed it. “If you’re this nervous, my dear, perhaps I should just let you be on your way.”
She relaxed a little. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, I just didn’t expect to be dealing with royalty today. I’m not properly dressed for it.”
“You are properly dressed for your job, as am I.” He turned back to me. “And where will you two be going next?”
I saw no reason to be secretive, but I could still be vague. “We’re going to meander through some of the spring festivals. Here, Altura, Leonatia. Take our time, enjoy the drinks and the dancing.”
He nodded. “The sheep-shearing festivals are quite enjoyable, so I’ve heard. Certainly they make sure we have plenty of wool for the next winter.” He kept looking back at me, deciding whether or not to add me to the list of sword jockeys who hadn’t impressed him. Mostly I hoped he didn’t, because I was enjoying being unemployed.
Before he could continue, a tall woman with short gray hair appeared in the room. And by “appeared,” I mean just that. One moment she wasn’t there, and the next she was. No door had opened, no tapestry rippled to reveal a hidden passage. And I was almost positive she hadn’t been there when we’d all entered.
“Bloody hell!” Gerald yelped, which actually startled me more than the woman’s sudden appearance. “Don’t do that!”
“My apologies, Your Majesty,” she said with a
deferential curtsy. “I heard you had unexpected guests. I apologize for my late arrival.” She nodded to us. “I am Opulora, high chancellor to King Gerald.”
“Eddie LaCrosse,” I said, “and my associate, Liz Dumont.”
Gerald watched Opulora as if she might bite at any moment. “No one summoned you. Why are you here?”
“I merely wanted to see if I could do anything to make your guests’ stay more pleasant.”
“Opulora’s a sorceress by trade,” Gerald said. “Popping into a room with no warning is one of her favorite tricks. Don’t worry, she won’t turn you into anything small and slimy, despite her reputation. Her skills lie in more . . . subtle transformations.”
The sorceress scowled very slightly at the implied insult, but I was more fascinated by the change in the unspoken power dynamic. Gerald might be king, but Opulora was definitely in charge.
I was instantly on my guard. Magic—or at least the science so subtle and advanced, it was accepted as magic—was an uncommon thing. The best-known practitioners, the moon priestesses, carefully screened applicants and preferred to raise new priestesses from girlhood, the better to inculcate them in the rules of their order. It wasn’t a foolproof method, because sometimes a priestess did go rogue on them. I’d met one, who single-handedly managed to bring down the Kingdom of Grand Bruan over a perceived slight to her mother.
But the true freelance magic practitioner was a lot like a sword jockey: answerable to no one, and available for a price. Of course, you also had no quality control, and someone could call themselves either a sword jockey or a sorcerer with no one to dispute it. Well, until it came time to put up or shut up.
Many royal courts had magical counselors who hovered in the background and made vague predictions that carried weight only because royals desperately wanted to believe. Luck made some guess right often enough that they amassed power. More often, they perfected the art of the elaborate excuse for their errors.
And then there were the special cases, like Opulora.
She said to us, “I hope your visit to Mahnoma has been a pleasant one.”
That meant that our visit was, in fact, over. I bowed slightly, making sure it wasn’t as far as I’d bowed to Gerald. “The king’s been very generous. But we really must be going.”
“Yes,” Liz agreed quickly. “Thank you so much for the drinks.”
“Before you go, may I see your hand?” Opulora said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s her idea of security,” Gerald said dismissively. “She thinks she can sense harmful intent in people. Go ahead, it won’t take a second and then she’ll be satisfied. Right?” he added in annoyance.
“Don’t,” Adele blurted from behind the bar. She stood very still, and the cockiness was entirely gone from her voice, replaced by a pleading desperation.
Opulora turned to her. “Adele,” she said gently, “be quiet.”
Adele started to say something else, then thought better of it. Or, if you were so inclined to believe in such things, she couldn’t speak because Opulora had magically silenced her. Either way, she quickly resumed wiping down the counter with so much force, I worried she’d wipe off the wood grain. I wasn’t sure if she’d been warning me, or the sorceress.
“I give you my word,” Opulora said to me, “I mean you no harm, and I will only look.”
I let her take my right hand, palm up. I knew the basics of palmistry: how the way the lines in them could tell a skilled reader all sorts of things, from your trade to your age, and from them he or she could extrapolate a future. I also knew most of the time they were completely inaccurate. Lots of people trusted them, though, including people like kings, who really should know better.
Her own hands were soft and dry, and she ran her index fingernail lightly over the lines on my palm. I wondered if she could pick out the two old scars from the normal folds and creases. She was about to say something noncommittal when she suddenly tightened her grip and stared. I was on the verge of pulling my hand away when she looked up at me and said softly, “You get around, Mr. LaCrosse.”
“Yeah? What was your first clue?” Liz said a bit possessively. That made me smile.
Opulora said, “I’m sorry, that was needlessly cryptic. I meant simply that I sense a great deal of traveling in your past, including through this very region.”
There was an urgency in her eyes that betrayed her casual tone. What was she after here?
“May I get a second opinion?” she asked. Before I could reply, she produced a small glass ball from somewhere in her gown. With one finger and thumb, she held it daintily over my palm. The faintest of blue glows appeared inside it.
(Okay, I know what you’re thinking: I should have immediately realized that this glass ball was identical to the one the man tried to give me when I rescued Isidore. You have to remember, though, that was sixteen very eventful years prior to this. Actually, the blue glow reminded me most of the flickering light I’d once seen in a dragon’s mouth, which was more recent and, ultimately, made a great deal more of an impression on me. So cut me some damn slack.)
She looked from the ball up to me. Her brow furrowed, then she turned to the king. “When were you last here, Mr. LaCrosse?”
“Never,” I said. “This is my first time in Mahnoma.”
“What about Mazeppa? Or Altura?”
Both those countries bordered Mahnoma; in fact, we’d traveled through the boot heel of Mazeppa on our way here. And the name Altura rang a bell, but I couldn’t dredge up the memory. Besides, I didn’t know what made her so interested, and that made me suspicious. “I’m not sure,” I said, deliberately vague. “It was a long time ago, that’s all I can say.”
“Do you remember anything unusual happening when you were here?”
“Like I said, I’ve never been here.”
Her eyes narrowed. She knew that I knew that she was fishing. Then she released my hand and smiled, all trace of suspicion gone. “They’re perfectly safe, Your Majesty.”
“I knew that,” Gerald snapped.
“But I do understand your need to be going,” she finished with a slight bow. “Safe travels. And please—don’t add to the gossip about King Gerald. He’s been a gracious host, remember that.”
“We’ll say nothing but good things about him,” I said, and took Liz’s hand. I bowed, and Liz curtsied. “Thank you for the drinks.”
“Thank you for delivering my heirlooms with such care,” Gerald said.
“I’ll show you the way,” Opulora said. She gestured at the door, and the guard made a smooth lateral move. “If you’ll follow me?”
Now I was worried again. Like I said, Opulora was a special case. If Crazy Jerry had a dubious reputation, she, as the ostensible power behind the throne, was considered rock- scorpion dangerous. Stories circulated as far as Neceda about how the king’s enemies often vanished after encountering her, or went as mad as Gerald himself supposedly did. The consensus was that she had been the one who drove Gerald crazy all those years ago and arranged the deaths of the queen and crown prince, and now kept him on a very short leash. I couldn’t speak to the former, but the latter didn’t seem far off the mark. She was the white crow, the one real sorceress who disproved the rule that all magicians were frauds. At least, according to her reputation.
I glanced at Adele. She watched us, still silent, still with an expression like we were about to fall off the edge of the earth. But what else could we do but follow Opulora?
When we were in the tunnel leading to the warehouse, Opulora stopped and faced us. The guards dropped back to give us privacy. I made sure to position myself between her and Liz.
She said, “Thank you for not making a scene with the king.”
“Why would we?” I asked.
“Come now, you know his reputation. ‘Crazy Jerry’? I can’t tell you how many people have tried little digs and taunts, just trying set him off.”
“Has it worked?”
She contin
ued to look at me strongly. “I don’t feel it’s my place to answer that.”
“He seemed fine to me.”
“In small situations, he is fine. In moments where nothing crucial is at stake. But he’s still the same lunatic who nearly destroyed the kingdom sixteen years ago. I was able to contain the damage then, and I’ve worked very hard to keep it under control ever since. Do you ever wonder why there’s no queen or crown prince? There once were.”
“Why are you telling us this?” I asked.
The mannered pose left her demeanor, replaced by the urgency of truthfulness, or a very good facsimile of it. “Because I’m tired of being vilified. I did not curse Gerald; he did that all by himself. He drove his queen, and their young son, to their deaths. Have you any children, Mr. LaCrosse?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t imagine the loss. And not just to the family: the kingdom lost its heir.”
“Why hasn’t he remarried, then?”
“Because I won’t let him,” she snarled, then drew back. I could tell she hadn’t meant for that to slip out. The wounds might be old, but they were still unhealed. “I apologize. You’re very good at asking things so that people want to answer. The king, of course, is free to do as he wishes, but he has asked my opinion, and has been content to be guided by it.”
“Is that what he’d tell me, too?” She started to reply, but I held up my hand. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. We’re just delivering some plates and cups, you know? It doesn’t matter to us. You want me to say nice things about you, then I will. You’ve been nothing but kind and polite to us anyway, so I won’t have to lie. But I think it’ll take more than a sword jockey and a delivery driver to rehabilitate his reputation.”
“You’re a sword jockey?” she said. She hadn’t been in the room when I’d discussed it with Gerland, and a whole new sort of interest showed in her eyes. “Have you always been?”
“No one starts out as a sword jockey. You just end up as one when no other work suits you.”
“Then I’ll not delay you any further.”