Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  She rode beside him, almost knee to knee. "Erenor has this puzzled look on his face."

  "Oh?"

  She shook her head. "I think he sometimes prefers not to look beneath the surface of things, don't you?"

  Kethol shrugged. He didn't know what she meant, but he didn't want to admit that out loud.

  "I mean," she went on, "here Durine and Pirojil are heading off to take on a barony by themselves, and both of them warn him about not letting you get hurt."

  Kethol nodded. "Yes," he said, taking her meaning. "I get the feeling he has never heard a man say good-bye before."

  Her lips pursed tightly. "I have," she said, "and I've never much cared for it."

  Part III

  Chapter 20

  Uneasy Lies the Head

  The emperor of Holtun-Bieme dreamed of rivers of blood coursing down his body, leaving his soil dark and fouled.

  Or was it his body? When had his body merged with the rocks and trees and dirt of Bieme or Holtun?

  Armies, huge and tiny at the same time as they could only be in a dream, fought up and down across his chest. A troop of cavalry hid in the greenery of the Prince's Woods, while a battalion of riflemen crouched in the badlands near his left armpit.

  Some waited in hiding, and some moved into position, ready to attack or defend, but mostly they cut and hacked at each other one-to-one. Their battles raged up and down his land, doing only minor damage to his body - a nick in the skin here, a burned field there, an ache between his toes or some mild injury to his streams - but mostly they bled, and their blood soaked him to the bone, chilling him thoroughly.

  He had to remain still. He was the land, and if he moved, if he turned over to brush aside the tiny battling ones, he wouldn't crush just them, but the others, hiding in their thatched huts or crouching under siege in their tiny, delicate castles.

  Perhaps if he moved slowly enough?

  No.

  To do anything, or to do nothing, it was all the same. Blood coursed down him, and the cries of the innocent fought with the clang of steel against steel, with him knowing, every moment, that whatever he did would make it worse, and if he did nothing that would make it worse, too.

  And, eventually, he would move. Some village set afire on his kneecap would cause him to move suddenly, shaking all loose, killing everyone.

  Wait. There was a way.

  It all stopped and went quiet. The battling armies paused in their carnage, while the people crouching behind castle walls or in their ragged huts stopped shaking for just a moment and listened, waiting for him to speak.

  He knew how to stop it, suddenly, easily, with the clarity that could only come in a dream. All he would have to do was -Thomen sat up in bed with a jerk. It was always the same. That was the way dreams were for him. Just when he had the solution to a problem, be it big or small, it would snap him out of his sleep.

  He threw off the light blankets that he'd chosen against the chill night air, and got out of bed, bending to turn up the small oil lantern he'd left burning on the nightstand. He didn't like waking in a totally dark room.

  His nightshirt was cold and clammy against his body. Well, sweat was better than blood, and even real sweat was better than dreamed blood. He was sweat-soaked all across his chest and back, where the warring armies of his dreams had fought, and when he felt the soft mattress, it was soaked through in spots, too. No wonder his throat was painfully dry.

  His hand shook as he poured himself a mug of water from the silver pitcher on his nightstand, and only steadied after he drank it quickly, greedily, then poured himself another and drank it more slowly. His bladder was tight as a drum now, and while there was a garderobe not twenty steps down the hall, Thomen didn't like leaving his rooms at night. His guards were always sleepy-eyed, and embarrassed about that, as though Thomen was going to report them to General Garavar for being tired in the middle of the night.

  But there was a thundermug on a stand behind a screen at the far corner of the room, and he moved through the darkness, the carpet soft beneath his feet, found it, and relieved himself, carefully directing the stream of urine against the inner side of the mug to keep the sound down, just as he would have if he hadn't been alone.

  It would have been nice not to sleep alone so often, but that was something he had to be careful about. His mother had the bad habit of reshuffling the upstairs maids if she suspected - accurately, more often than not - that one or another warmed his bed every now and then, and any show of favoritism was guaranteed to cause some sort of trouble.

  And not just among the house staff, either.

  Who would have ever thought that being the emperor would be so awfully lonely? he asked himself once again.

  Deven Tyrnael was probably his best friend among the barons, but as Baron Tyrnael, his claim to the throne and crown of Bieme was technically better than Thomen's - and having Deven spend too much time in Biemestren would be a signal to the other barons that Thomen didn't trust him. Jason Cullinane had abdicated the throne in Thomen' s favor, and had the sense to stay away from the capital except when called. And Thomen liked Jason. There was some of his father in him.

  He sighed. He was actually looking forward to Parliament meeting, even though that was a dozen tendays off. It wasn't just the barons; there would be minor and major lords and ladies accompanying them, and that would, at least, give him somebody to talk to. And, no doubt, with the aid of General Garavar's guards, some lovely young lady would be allowed to sneak into the imperial bedrooms late one night, in hopes of getting herself with the emperor's child.

  That, he had to admit, was fun. There were benefits to being emperor, after all. Thomen chuckled. It wasn't only a woman who could visit the Spider, after all. Thomen didn't like to threaten - just about the worst thing a ruler could be known for was making any threat he didn't mean - but if Keverel, the local Spider, ever let it out that the emperor was seeing him to keep himself temporarily infertile instead of treating a chronic shoulder ache, he would live to regret it.

  There would be an heir - his mother was right; he ought to marry - but that would happen when he decided on it, and not before. He had lost his father and his older brother; he wanted the empire to be more stable before he left any son of his open to being orphaned so easily.

  He stripped off his nightshirt, toweled off his chest and underarms, tossed it toward a far corner of the room, then shrugged into the soft robe he had left draped across the foot of his bed.

  Well, he could go alert the guard to get a maid to change his blankets and sheets, but the new night maid, while not particularly attractive, was particularly good at seeing to his needs without fawning over him all the time, and it took less time for him to strip the bed and flip over the down mattress, carefully checking the flintlock pistol that he kept within reach.

  It was unlikely, of course, if some assassin or invader reached the donjon at all, much less got up to the third floor and Thomen's rooms, that he would still be asleep, or that one shot from a pistol would make much of a difference, but Pirondael, the former occupant of these rooms, had, after all, used a hidden weapon to kill Thomen's father in just such a circumstance.

  The ancient chest at the foot of the bed provided a change of pillows, sheet, and a fresh nightshirt, and after another drink from the water pitcher and another quick use of the thundermug, he slipped back into bed.

  Maybe he would have quiet dreams, for once. That would be nice.

  He pillowed his head on his hands, and closed his eyes. The flickering of the lantern bothered him now, so he blew it out, turned over, and fell asleep.

  This time, thankfully, he didn't dream. Not exactly. But his sleep was a cold, icy thing that seemed to go on forever ...

  ... ended by the touch of a sword tip to his chest.

  His eyes snapped open to see two dark shapes looming over him. He started to reach for his hidden pistol, but stopped himself: it was now sticking out of Walter Slovotsky's belt, and it was Bren, Baron Adah
an, who was putting his sword away.

  "Good evening, Your Majesty," Bren said, striking a match and lighting the bedside lantern. The light hurt Thomen's eyes, but it didn't seem that complaining about that was the thing to do.

  The thing to do was probably to shout for the guards, but that would only turn an awkward and annoying situation into a dangerous one. You could always start a battle or a fight, but turning it off so that it stayed off was another matter entirely. Walter Slovotsky was an annoyance at times, a help at others, but he and Bren Adahan were hardly here in the middle of the night to assassinate Thomen, and if Walter Slovotsky insisted on some grand gesture rather than simply waiting for an audience in the morning, well, Thomen would oblige him, and only wish that he had arrived earlier, when his dreams had been all red and sharp-edged.

  "We've come about a couple of jobs," Walter Slovotsky said. "I think you need a pair of special representatives for difficult political problems. Care to review my qualifications?"

  It was all Thomen could do not to laugh. Moving slowly - there was no need to get anybody excited – he poured himself another mug of water. Maybe it was just as well they hadn't woken him early; this time his hand didn't shake. "I had thought I'd offered you such a position not too long ago." That matter over in Keranahan did need investigating, after all, even though it sounded minor - but you could never tell when some minor problem could flare up into something worse, and Thomen had wanted Walter Slovotsky to look into it. Well, no: Mother had wanted Walter Slovotsky to look into it, and Thomen hadn't seen any reason to overrule her.

  Instead, as he could have, should have, predicted, Slovotsky had ducked out in the middle of the night, stealing Thomen's candelabra either just for practice or to show that he could get past the guards.

  Slovotsky shook his head. "No. I'm not talking about running around playing catch every time your mother finds something who likes to throw spears. We may have other projects in the fire every now and then."

  "Seems likely. When things quiet down in Pandathaway, I intend to kill whoever it is that sent assassins after Kirah and her daughters," Bren said, without heat, in the quiet way that a death sentence is passed.

  Thomen would have asked about that, but it could wait: if any of Walter Slovotsky's family had been harmed, he and Bren Adahan would not be standing here casually chatting in the middle of the night, and it wouldn't do for the emperor to advertise his ignorance.

  Bren Adahan raised a palm and nodded, confirming Thomen's thoughts.

  "Make that 'we intend' - but save the details for later," Walter Slovotsky said. "We'll work for you, not your mother; and that means we report to you, and not to your mother."

  "Whenever we want to," Bren put in. "Even in the middle of the night."

  Thomen tried not to laugh. "You seem to have arranged that part of it already."

  Theatrically -Slovotsky did everything theatrically – he rubbed at the small of his back, as though it was hurting him. Thomen was skeptical. Not that he would have minded if Slovotsky was hurting. There was something about the arrogance of Walter Slovotsky's smile that made Thomen - even though he really liked Slovotsky - often want to hit him with a stick until he stopped smiling.

  "I'm starting to get too old to be jumping in and out of windows," Slovotsky said. "Next time I get to walk in, through the door. Anytime, night or day. That's for a starter."

  "And?"

  "And him." Slovotsky indicated the baron. "He sits in for you when you're taking some time off."

  "The Biemish barons will love that," Thomen said sarcastically. Bieme had been on its way to not only defeat but destruction during the war, and feelings still ran hot and deep. Thomen shared some of those feelings, but an emperor's feelings weren't allowed to matter.

  Walter Slovotsky shrugged. "I've been thinking about that, and I've got a few ideas about how to make them like it better."

  "You do?" Slovotsky was always full of ideas. But some of them might even work. Still, Thomen would love to hear how a Holtish baron as his deputy would work.

  *Oh, I think the idea can be sold to them,* sounded in his head.

  Ellegon!

  *I'd say 'At your service, Emperor,' but the fact is that I spend more time than I'd like at your service as it is.* There was a serious, almost accusing undertone to the dragon's mental voice, but Thomen didn't let it bother him. Thomen didn't really understand why most people were so frightened of the dragon.

  *Well, there is the fact that I can bite people in half or flame them to a crisp. Some folks are just nervous about such things.*

  "I do," Slovotsky went on, as though he hadn't heard the dragon.

  *Which he hadn't. He asked me to find a perch nearby in case you decided not to take having your sleep interrupted well. Finish with him, and we'll talk.*

  "In any case," Slovotsky went on, "you do take some time off - all work and no play makes Thomen a dull emperor. You need to spend more time with your butt in a saddle and less with it in a throne. Bren will keep the throne warm for you."

  "And you?"

  "I'll run important errands for you, with Bren when he's available, but with whatever support I think necessary: a few bodyguards, a troop from the House Guard, or a baronial army. And a nice title - imperial proctor, maybe. Something that suggests it'd be real unhandy if anything were to happen to me."

  "I take it there's more."

  "Sure. Our families live in the castle here, under your protection, when we aren't based out of Little Pittsburgh and Castle Adahan. They come and they go as they please, with imperial troops for their security, too." He turned to Bren. "What next?"

  "Next, we need to arrange a divorce," Bren said. "And a marriage, as well. Or is it two marriages?" He looked over at Slovotsky.

  "I haven't exactly asked her yet," Slovotsky said. "I sort of figured I'd have to dispose of one wife before I take on another one, eh?"

  Bren laughed.

  And, after a moment, so did Thomen. "Imperial proctor, eh? Well, true enough, I could find some work for you."

  "Some work of noble note, eh?"

  That was a strange way to put it. "Rather." What am I going to say, I'll give you pointless jobs with useless risks?

  *He's going to be insufferable if he gets away with this, you know. Sneaking into your rooms in the middle of the night and then walking out the front door like nothing's wrong?*

  It was worse than that. Thomen would have to get the door for the two of them and calm the guard, or the alarm would be raised.

  Which probably wouldn't have bothered Walter Slovotsky a whole lot, but Walter Slovotsky probably didn't care if anybody got a good night's sleep. He probably slept easily, softly, happily every night, and most times with some new female companion.

  *And would you trade places with him?*

  It was all Thomen could do not to snort. No, he thought. Being emperor is my responsibility. You can't just give away a responsibility.

  *I know.*

  Thomen smiled. "One thing, though?"

  "Yes?"

  "I don't care where it is," he said firmly, as though the whole deal depended on Slovotsky's agreement, "or what happened to it, but I want my candelabra back. Soon."

  Slovotsky pursed his lips. "Done." Thomen walked to the door, and opened it slowly, carefully.

  Outside, the guard across the hall leaped to attention. He had been leaning against the wall, which was the sort of thing that General Garavar objected to but never bothered Thomen.

  "Your - "

  "Shh." Thomen held up a hand, then beckoned to Walter Slovotsky and Bren Adahan. "Would you call for your replacement, and make sure these two don't get themselves killed by some overeager guard?"

  "But - "

  "Please." It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't going to remember the guard's name, and that was embarrassing. "I'm not sure you've been introduced," Thomen said, gesturing at Bren Adahan and ignoring Walter Slovotsky's knowing smile.

  *He only is good at w
omen's names, so he's got no reason to smirk.*

  The baron drew himself up straight. "Bren, Baron Adahan," he said, "greets you."

  The burly soldier was fighting to keep his composure. Even a trooper assigned to the house didn't expect to be treated as a human being by nobility, and what was supposed to have been a quiet shift in the middle of the night outside the emperor's quarters had just turned strange. Soldiers didn't like strange. "Palton, son of Palton," the guard said. "I am at your service, Lord Baron."

  Walter Slovotsky stuck out a hand, as though offering to seal a bargain. Palton took it. "Walter Slovotsky, son of Stash and Emma. I'm the new imperial proctor," he said. "And it's my job and privilege to get in to see his imperial muchness whenever I want to, so you don't need to concern yourself with how the baron and I slipped by you."

  Home soldiers weren't necessarily the brightest of men; loyalty and skill were a higher priority. It clearly hadn't occurred to Palton that he had failed, somehow.

  Thomen nodded, and reached for the thin bell rope, the one that rang down in the servants' quarters. If he was going to summon some guards, it was best to have one of the servitors do it, because ringing the guard bell would get a troop of heavily armed soldiers up here spoiling for a fight that nobody wanted. There would be time enough in the morning to issue the proper orders. And deal with Mother. That would be the difficult part, but - enough for one night.

  The emperor returned to his rooms.

  Outside, Ellegon perched on the far wall of the inner keep. In the flickering light of the blazing torches that lined the walls, a few of the younger soldiers stood and stared, although the senior ones had seen a dragon before, and knew the value of a good night's sleep.

  "Enjoying scaring the young ones?" Thomen asked. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, but the dragon wasn't listening to his voice.

  *They wouldn't be the only ones scared.* The dragon's broad wings curled and uncurled. *Things got a little... scary at Castle Cullinane while I was gone. A team of assassins made a try for the family.*