A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  “Not much, dear.”

  “Four of us got prophecies. Hardgraa, here, didn’t want to get his feet wet. We had the choice of the good or the bad, and only old Umpily had the sense to choose the bad.”

  Eigaze remembered that she was supposed to pour the coffee, and spasmed into action. “Yes?”

  “I think its forecasts were probably sound,” Ylo said, smirking at the centurion’s continuing scowls, “but the poor thing was limited to a single picture. If it could have talked, it would have done better. And dangers are easier to illustrate than opportunities, aren’t they?”

  The count nodded, although he seemed to be barely listening. No one said anything. Again Eshiala sensed devilment lurking under those long lashes. Surely even Ylo would not drag her into this, naked among the daffodils? She did not trust him, though. She did not trust him at all.

  “I think we tend to take such things too literally. No cream, thank you. Aunt. Sir Acopulo described the visions as signposts, and for once I think the old crab had a point. Umpily saw a dwarf on the Opal Throne, but as far as we know, he hasn’t seen that actual scene, not in reality. It was a symbol, a warning—a signpost. Acopulo himself was directed to Doctor Sagorn, of course, who could have identified Krasnegar for us right away.”

  “I wonder what good such a device can do,” Eigaze sighed.

  Ylo beamed, and again glanced momentarily at Eshiala, to see how she was taking this. “It helped me! I saw a woman. But again, you see, she was only a signpost”

  “To whose bed?”

  “Centurion!” Eigaze protested.

  “Away from the grave!” Ylo said dramatically. “Without the prophecy, I would have accepted the honor of Rivermead when Shandie offered it to me.”

  “So?”

  “So I would now be very dead! The goblins overran it. It was still burning the following dawn.”

  He was saying that he no longer believed the vision of Eshiala among the daffodils? That the assignation was not preordained after all? She had never really believed in it, but she had thought he did. He might have invented the whole thing. What woman would ever be fool enough to believe Ylo?

  “And what good did Shandie’s prophecy do him?” Hardgraa asked.

  “None. It led him to his death. But you see, he waited too long. That’s what I realized on my stroll in from Woggle. Remember we got back to Hub a day or two later—after the pool business, I mean—and found the Impire falling apart?” Suddenly Ylo was starkly serious. “Acopulo failed to track down Sagorn. Shandie failed to track down Krasnegar. He didn’t act on the warning soon enough! If he’d gone off to talk with King Rap last summer, then things might have been different, a lot different. You can’t blame the poor old pool; it did its best.”

  He sipped coffee, eyeing them all over the top of the cup.

  The count had been sitting hunched forward in his chair even more than usual; now he roused himself with an effort. He seemed frail. “So what do we do now?”

  Ylo raised eyebrows in astonishment. “I have no idea what you do, my lord. I know what I’m doing. I’m just passing through.”

  “Going where?”

  “Oh, somewhere with a warm climate.” He glanced around to judge reactions. “I’ve played my part in this. I find history-making a very stressful occupation. I’m going to give it up. Now I shall find me a beautiful rich heiress and settle down. I have a couple of candidates in mind.”

  Eshiala was not a rich heiress. She was a penniless refugee, bound to a child who belonged to the Imperial government. She must either surrender to the Covin or flee, abducting the lawful impress, which was at least a capital offence. She could see no escape, no road that did not end in disaster.

  But of course her decision would be made for her by the count and the centurion. Shandie had left them in charge.

  Hardgraa’s dislike and distrust of Ylo were palpable. “He’s still an Imperial soldier, my lord. You can give him orders. We don’t know that he’s telling the truth.”

  Ionfeu nodded. “If he is, then the news will certainly reach Faintown very soon. Ylo, you will remain here at Yewdark until I give you leave to depart.”

  “As you command, sir. I have no desire to walk anywhere for a while yet. Is there any coffee left. Aunt?”

  “We must review our options,” Ionfeu said.

  “Please!” Ylo raised a hand. “I don’t want to hear them! I don’t want to know! I don’t want to be involved. In fact, if you will excuse me, I think I’ll retire and catch up on some more rest.”

  The others watched in rockbound silence as he climbed painfully to his feet. He looked them over disdainfully. “Don’t forget the other prophecy.”

  “What other prophecy?” Ionfeu snarled.

  “The Sisters, when I was a baby. I told you on the boat, remember? It happened as they said. My family was destroyed. Now the Impire, also. The millennium has come, and the world you know is being stood on its head! Remember that when you make your plans, my lord!”

  He bowed, then turned away and hobbled toward the stair. Eshiala wondered how she could ever have thought him charming, or amusing, or attractive. Only—damn him!—handsome.

  5

  He had left his door ajar and a light showing. She pushed it open without a knock, closed it and leaned against it, her heart thumping as if lions pursued her. Her palms were wet with fear.

  He had been reading, or pretending to read; lying on the bed, still wearing his doublet. He laid down his book and regarded her with affected surprise. His lower half was under a coverlet, and she supposed he might have stripped down to his bandages for comfort. But he was respectable, even if this meeting was not. Whatever would her mother say if she knew?

  She was too frantic to care about propriety…

  “I must talk with you!” she said.

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “The count has gone crazy!” She realized she was shouting and lowered her voice. “And Hardgraa seems to agree with him. They’re talking of handing Maya over to the Covin!”

  That awful news did not appall Ylo as she had expected. He shrugged.

  “I thought they might come to that conclusion. There’s this mystic thing about the blood that some people have, the line of descent from Emine. Gods, but they have a lot of faith in fidelity, don’t they?”

  “He says Prince Emthoro will be regent.”

  And that remark did surprise Ylo. “But… But of course you don’t know about him, do you?” He yawned. “Well, it won’t change anything. In fact it will probably make them more determined. Never mind. I’m too tired to explain now. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  His indifference stunned her. Did he not understand? Maya was in danger! Whom else could she appeal to? Somehow she had always had a sense of Ylo as a friend in the background. She had been misled by his bantering and flirting. Perhaps she had not truly expected friendship, but assumed that because he lusted after her, she could use that desire as a lever. Now he was revealed as the selfish lout she had been warned of, and her disappointment was no one’s fault but her own.

  Or was he playing some sort of rake’s double-game? Was she supposed to plead now—to grovel? Help me save my child and I will submit to your advances? How much humiliation would he demand?

  “Why did you come here?” she asked. “To Yewdark?”

  He ran a hand through his curls, pretending to be at a loss. “I was in the neighborhood. And I did promise you I would return in daffodil time. I hate to disappoint pretty ladies.”

  “The daffodils have gone. You should have come sooner.”

  Devilry danced in his eyes. “Should have come sooner for what?”

  “That prophecy you described to me so graphically.”

  “Ah! Then I return your question—why did you come here—to my bedroom?”

  She felt the sweat on her palms again. Her heart thundered and her mouth was dry. She had come because she must have help and she thought she would pay whatever price he d
emanded for that help. Was he going to make her put it into words?

  “I… I thought you cared.”

  “Cared for your daughter?”

  “Cared for me!”

  Ylo shrugged. “But I told you. Shandie and I became friends. I tarried too long. I might not have come at all if the goblins hadn’t intervened. I’ve changed my mind about seducing you.”

  “Your imperor’s wife is all right, but your friend’s widow is not? You have strange values.”

  “No.” He cocked his head on one side like a bird, and it was mockery. “I always look out for me, you know that. I’ve decided that ravishing you now might get me involved in more affairs of state, and I’ve had enough of those. Sorry, you’ll have to do without.”

  Her fear turned to burning anger without warning. She restrained it with a real effort. “You are a boor!”

  “Oh, you’re better!” he said admiringly. “You are a lot better! The old Eshiala was a timorous little thing, who never argued, never went skulking into men’s rooms in the middle of the night. What happens next, I wonder?”

  “I’m only concerned with my daughter’s welfare!” She could not say it more directly than that.

  “But that interests me not at all.” Ylo untied his cravat. “I told you the first time we talked that I was an unscrupulous liar.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “That’s still true.” He tossed the cravat to the floor and began unbuttoning his doublet. “Hardgraa thinks I deserted Shandie and came back here just for a romp with you. I did consider it, I admit.” With the doublet open, he began unbuttoning the shirt underneath. “At the moment you really don’t know if your husband is dead or not, because you have only my word for it, and that’s worthless. Now, if you came here to be bedded, get your clothes off, and I’ll see what I can do. But don’t expect any favors for it. Otherwise, good night, your Majesty.”

  Monster! Eshiala stamped out, wishing she could slam the door.

  6

  The Impress and her mother had been down at the lake all morning, feeding ducks, throwing rocks, and hunting for wildflowers. By the time they made their way home for lunch, her Imperial Majesty was hot, tired, and grumpy; and wanting to be carried.

  Eshiala was not much less grumpy herself. News of Shandie’s death had shattered the fragile shell she had developed at Yewdark. Her safe little world had collapsed under her feet like ice on a pond. Friends and accomplices had suddenly become jailers, and she felt surrounded by enemies. There was no one she could trust to help her. Down at the water, she had been tormented by a sensation of being watched—that was one of the first signs of madness, wasn’t it?

  On the way back to the house, though, she noticed tracks in a muddy stretch of the path, with larger prints overlaying Maya’s and her own. So she had been followed, she had been watched, she was not suffering delusions of persecution! In one sense that was good news. In another it was very bad. Centurion Hardgraa could be assumed guilty until the Gods testified otherwise in Person.

  Continually persuading Maya to walk just a few more steps on her own feet, she emerged from the woods. Peering over and under the wilderness of runaway shrubbery, she spied Ylo sitting on the terrace in the sunshine like an unpredictable watchdog dozing before the door. Had she been alone, she could have gone around the long way to avoid him, but Maya was too tired and too heavy for such evasions.

  At breakfast that morning, he had hurled another thunderbolt as casually as Maya dropped rocks in lakes. The reason the Impire had not reacted to Shandie’s disappearance, he explained, was that a fake imperor ruled in his place, with a fake impress at his side. If Eshiala walked into the Opal Palace now, she might meet herself face to face.

  Since both her sister and Shandie’s cousin had disappeared from sight, the impostors’ true identities were not hard to estimate. As soon as Eshiala’s first stunned surprise had worn off, she had shocked everyone by laughing aloud. Ashia would be enjoying herself enormously. She would make a far better impress than Eshiala ever would, and have the fun of a lifetime doing so. She had a low opinion of Prince Emthoro, but likely she would put up with him in a good cause—not that either of them could have had any choice in the matter. They would be doing whatever the almighty Zinixo wanted.

  Later though, down at the lake, she had realized that Ashia had been a potential ally and now was not.

  “’Lo, Beautiful!” Ylo smirked cheekily. He seemed very relaxed and comfortable in a soft chair that he must have ordered brought out specially. His sore feet rested on another.

  Eshiala ignored him, leading her daughter across the terrace, but she had to pass very close to him.

  He ignored her ignoring. “What’cha been doing?”

  “Feeding the ducks.”

  “Ah! Nothing tastier than a fat duckling.”

  She was almost past him when he said, “Eshiala?”

  She thought his tone had lost its banter, and stopped. “Yes?”

  He was squinting up at her, against the sun, but the contempt and arrogance still gleamed under the long lashes. “Auntie’s back.”

  The countess had ordered up the gig that morning and had herself driven into Faintown. If she was back already, she had not stayed long.

  “So?”

  Ylo smiled his most perfect smile, oozing self-satisfaction. “She reports the place is a madhouse. The news is out. It’s even worse than I thought—goblins grinding up legions like coffee beans.”

  “You seem strangely pleased.”

  “I don’t like to be disbelieved when I’m telling the truth. I do it so rarely that I want to have it appreciated! Now you can believe my story. Now you can surrender to lust without worrying about Shandie ever turning up to complain.”

  Contemptible clod! Dragging her daughter by the hand, she swept past him into the house. Somehow she could not be angry with Ylo, merely sad that he was not the debonair rapscallion she had believed him to be. She had never approved of him, could never have trusted him as an ally, but he had been amusing once. Now he was merely disgusting.

  * * *

  The image of ice on a pond came to her again. She had barely seen Maya happily arranged at the tasty end of a spoon when her footing cracked and tilted some more.

  In the gloomy, ill-proportioned room the proconsul used as a study, she faced him like an errant pupil called out by the teacher. Ionfeu was old; his crippled back tormented him. He was badly shaken by the dread responsibility now thrown upon him, and looked as if he had not slept since Ylo’s arrival. He was nonetheless still a count, still an Imperial politician and officer, and still very certainly the ruler of Yewdark. He was gracious and implacable.

  He was behind a desk. She was expected to sit before it. She could not believe that her sister, as duchess or impress, would ever tolerate that from a mere proconsul.

  Eigaze was there, too, still wearing the finery she had assumed for her trip to Faintown, also wearing a very strange expression. Her fat lips were pursed white; her thick fingers moved restlessly on her lap. Eshiala needed hear no words to guess that Lady Eigaze disapproved of whatever message was coming.

  The centurion stood in a corner with his arms folded. Two nights ago old Ukka had called him dangerous, and Eshiala had disbelieved, seeing in him only a trustworthy guardian, as she had for months. Now he was her jailer. He spied on her movements. He was the proconsul’s instrument and weapon, and as open to argument as a razor. He was more than dangerous.

  She perched on a chair, clasped her hands to still them, and regarded Ionfeu with her best Imperial stare, poor thing though it was.

  He began delivering sentence, deliberate and lucid and cold. “The signifer seems to be telling the truth, ma’am. News of the goblins has reached Faintown. The imperor addressed the Senate yesterday. As we know that… know that he could not have been the real imperor, I must accept that Ylo is also telling the truth about the substitution that has been made. In other words, I have decided to accept all aspects of his sto
ry. Do you disagree with my conclusions?”

  She could say that Ylo was a notorious liar, but the count would not see that sort of lying as being the same as this sort of lying. Lying to men was a crime; lying to women only a sin. And she did believe Ylo’s tale. She nodded her head to agree.

  Before the count spoke again, Hardgraa’s iron growl intervened. “I’d still like to know why he’s here at all.”

  For the first time in two days, a faint smile appeared on the old aristocrat’s face. “Perhaps he’s telling the truth there, too, Centurion. I think he met with a little divine justice at Woggle. He certainly wouldn’t be the first young man to wake up naked and penniless in a strange bed. Normally he would have appealed to the army for rescue and retribution, and would have suffered no more than ridicule. But this time he daren’t. Yewdark was the only refuge within reach, that’s all.”

  “I expect you’re right, my lord.”

  “And we might give him credit for wanting to break the news to us. He has a sense of duty, too, you know. His record shows that.”

  “I suppose so.” But Hardgraa seemed unconvinced. “His record reveals other abilities also.” He sneered at Eshiala, and her temper exploded, taking her completely by surprise.

  “How dare you!” she shouted. “How dare you suggest that there is anything between that lout and me? You actually dare suggest that Ylo came here for my sake? That… that… lout?”

  Ionfeu’s smile had faded like the winter snows. “I certainly hope that he was not implying any such thing, ma’am! Centurion?”

  Hardgraa muttered, “No offense intended, your Majesty!” He seemed suddenly puzzled. Perhaps he had just realized that no sane suitor would behave as Ylo had been behaving.

  The count coughed diplomatically. “We are all a little overwrought. Now, ma’am, with your husband dead, your daughter is titular ruler of the realm.”