by Dave Duncan
DAVE DUNCAN
A CHRONICLE OF THE KING’S BLADES
PARAGON
LOST
This one is for
Tony King,
reader, writer, webmaster,
and (most important) friend.
Contents
I
At Gossips’ Corner
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
II
The Ironhall Road
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
III
The Sport of Kings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
IV
The Sport of Czars
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
V
The Road to Morkuta
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
VI
Journey’s End
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
VII
The Stolen Blade
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
VIII
Paragon Regained
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Dave Duncan
Copyright
About the Publisher
The three “Tales of the King’s Blades” formed a set, although possibly not a true series because they were not sequential. The present book is independent of them and complete in itself. It recounts some curious events that occurred about a dozen years later, during the reign of King Athelgar.
Thousands of swords hang overhead in the great hall, each one a memorial to the Blade who bore it. For his own hand and style it was crafted, into his heart it was plunged in the ritual that bound him, and its touch on his shoulder ultimately released him when the King dubbed him knight. After his death it was brought back to Ironhall, to hang forever with its sisters in the place where it was made. Swords of all types and styles hang there, as fashions have changed through the centuries, but each hilt bears a shining yellow gem as its pommel—with one exception. On one sword alone the cat’s-eye stone has been replaced with a plain white pebble.
I
At Gossips’ Corner
• 1 •
“Isabelle!” Mistress Snider screeched. “Are you deaf?”
Isabelle was not deaf, but she would have had good cause to be, working in this kitchen. On one side of her Nel was chopping up salt pork with a hatchet, on the other Ed pounded dried fish with a mallet—it took hours of pounding and soaking to make it even close to edible. At her back, Lackwit was powdering salt just as loudly. Lids danced and clattered on boiling pots, the pump handle squeaked, drudges were rattling sea coal into the great brick ovens and raking out ashes. The door, left open to admit cool air and flies, led to the stable yard where the farrier was shoeing a horse. Deaf? Not at all.
“And what’re you doing with all that cinnamon?” The old harpy waxed louder and shriller. Mistress Snider was tall and stooped, tapering from grotesquely wide hips up to a small, mean face shriveled around a beak nose.
“I am making a dipping sauce as you told me to!” Isabelle shouted back. “Cameline sauce, with ginger and raisins and nuts, with cinnamon and pepper, but how you expect me to do it with no cloves, no cardamon—”
“Not so much cinnamon! You think we’re made of money here? Stale bread and vinegar, that’s what makes a sauce, girl. Use up some of those herbs before they rot completely. A man wants you! A gentleman is asking for your husband.” The old horror canted her head to peer at Isabelle with one glittery eye, oozing dislike. “And be quick back. I need that sauce done right. And soon!”
With difficulty, Isabelle held back some truths as unpalatable as Mistress Snider’s food. The woman skimped ridiculously, but all Chivians tried to get by with inferior ingredients smothered in peppery sauces. In Isilond, one began with a good piece of meat and used only enough seasoning to bring out its natural flavor. She wiped her hands on her apron.
“Yes, mistress.”
“He’s waiting in the King’s Room. You hurry back. Don’t expect me to pay you when you’re not working.”
No, Isabelle would be paying her for the privilege of speaking with a potential client. She set off on the perilous trek to the door, watching out for scavenging dogs and people hurrying with hot pans, for her balance was not as certain as it used to be. Fortunately, the baby never made her nauseated, although she lived in that horrible kitchen from before dawn until after nightfall. She had nightmares of giving birth there. But a gentleman looking for Beau might mean a client and real wages, instead of the pittance he earned in the yard by day and serving beer at night.
Leaving the reek of boiling cabbage, she went into the big taproom with its smoky fog of yeast, people, and cheap candles. Gossips’Corner was, first and last, a tavern, where beer flowed like water—“and for good reason,” Beau said. Located in the heart of Grandon, not far from Greymere Palace, Gossips’ Corner was a universally recognized address for people to rendezvous or leave messages or even dine, although Isabelle could never understand why anyone who had any choice should choose to do that. It offered rooms by the night or the week or the hour—she and Beau lived there, in a garret five floors up. It provided music and singing and gambling. Those who sought to buy a horse, hire a servant, pick pockets, or contract odd jobs could usually be accommodated.
The City Watch, bought off by Master Snider, turned blind eyes to shadier services: girl or boy companions in the rooms, sinister conjurations not offered by honest elementaries, recovery of recently stolen goods, collection of debts, or other forms of assault. Today the taproom was as noisy as the kitchen, with a dozen carpenters competing in hammering. Riots were commonplace in Gossips’ Corner, but last week’s had been unusually vigorous, climaxing in a party of public-spirited Baelish sailors attempting to burn the place down.
The King’s Room was a cubicle for private conversation. Furnished with a timber table and two benches, it was just as cramped and pungent as the taproom outside, but the pebbly glass in its diamond-pane windows let in a fair light. The solitary occupant rose as she entered, an unexpected courtesy. A gentleman, certainly. His hose, doublet, and skirted jerkin were of fine stuff and beautifully tailored—not quite in the latest mode sported by court dandies, but quite acceptable on an older man—and his knee-length cloak was a magnificent gold brocade, trimmed with a collar of soft brown fur that tapered all the way down the edges. Yet he was clean-shaven,
in defiance of current fashion, and the silver hair visible below his halo bonnet seemed clumsily cut. He bore his years well, standing straight and tall.
He bowed. “Lady Beaumont? Good chance to you, my lady.”
Isabelle shut the door. “I am Mistress Cookson, may it please your lordship.” People who claimed a rank above their station could land in the stocks. Was he one of the King’s spies?
He pursed his lips in disapproval. “Then pray be seated, mistress. I do believe we have business to discuss. And if you are to be Mistress Cookson, then I shall remain Master Harvest for the nonce. May I offer you some wine, or order some other refreshment?”
He would have paid dearly for the bottle of Snider’s best that stood on the table with four goblets. Isabelle declined the wine, but she did sit down, determined to get her money’s worth. The Sniders would dock half her day’s pay for allowing her a few minutes to meet with this man under their roof, despite having charged him for the use of the room.
The man not-named-Harvest returned to his bench and studied her with coal-dark eyes that age had not dulled. “I need speak with your husband, my lady. The matter is urgent.”
“It is about lessons?” He was too old to fence, but he might have grandsons.
A smile flickered and was gone. From his pocket came a paper that she recognized instantly as one of Beau’s handbills. She had helped him design it and was still furious that Master Snider’s printer had ruined it by setting Available At Gossips’ Corner in the largest type. The visitor spread it on the table and her suspicion flamed higher.
“That is outdated, my lord. We have a newer version. I can fetch one.” She began to rise.
“Pray do not trouble. I have seen that, also. The only difference is that Sir Beaumont’s name was changed to ‘Ned Cookson.’ Will you tell me why?”
Long-smoldering anger made her blurt out the truth. “He was ordered not to claim to be a gentleman, my lord.”
“Ordered by whom?”
“By Blades from the palace! The Royal Guard! They harass him! They threaten to report him to the Watch for wearing a sword when he is not of rank. They frighten his pupils away. Is that why you are here, master? To cause us more trouble?”
Master Harvest shook his head vigorously. “Mistress, I am shocked by this. I thought I had put a stop to it.”
“They are not so bad now as they were last year,” she conceded. “But by any name he is still the same expert fencer, my lord. His time is almost all spoken for just now, but I am sure he would be honored to wait upon your lordship at your convenience.”
The visitor sighed and laid his hands on the table. He stared at them, not at her. “Mistress, I truly believe it is in Beau’s interest that I speak with him as soon as possible.”
“He is currently instructing at a noble house not very far away from here. I could send a boy and have him call on you at your residence.”
Another sigh. “Lady Beaumont, pardon my doubts. Your husband is far from the first man to try teaching Ironhall fencing outside the school itself. In four centuries, very few have succeeded in earning a living at it. It is the best system, of course, but it needs great dedication. At Ironhall we pound the boys’ heads with mallets of honor and service and tradition, day in and day out, all through their adolescence. Anything less than that and it won’t work.”
“He teaches many styles, my lord. Long sword, bastard sword, short sword, sword and buckler, backsword, rapier—”
“—rapier and cloak, rapier and target, two rapiers, rapier and dagger—” the man said, quoting from the handbill.
They finished the list in unison: “—sword and buckler, sword and sword-breaker.”
He laughed. “I am sure he teaches them all very well. The juniors used to fight over him. Unfortunately, fencing is out of style now. Old King Ambrose was a devotee of the noble art, but King Athelgar does not care for it and kings set fashions. Henchmen with staves are in; fencing is out. And now you tell me that the Royal Guard is driving away his clients! Lady Beaumont, has he any pupils at all?”
“If you will not tell me your business, I must be about mine.”
“I wish to offer your husband a job. I will pay well.”
That was more like it! “Pray forgive my suspicions, my lord. Beaumont has served the Duke of Permouth, and His Grace gave him a very good reference. The Earl of Mayewort also—” She distrusted the intelligence behind those penetrating dark eyes.
“Last year. For about a month in each case, just long enough for the King to find out about it and apply pressure.”
“Who are you?” she shouted, heaving herself up. “Why are you spying on us? What harm is he doing, trying to earn an honest living?”
“None, mistress. But the King bears Beau a grudge. He had him fired from those positions and probably others, is that not so?”
“No,” Beau said. “I quit because they expected me to eat in the kitchen.”
Isabelle wondered how long he had been standing behind her. The visitor should have noticed—must have done! He looked up now, dark eyes studying the newcomer.
“Where do you eat these days, then?”
“I have given up eating. It is a disgusting habit.” Beau closed the door almost as silently as he had opened it. He sat, pulling Isabelle down beside him, then reached across for the wine bottle. He poured, filling three goblets.
His boots had brought a powerful odor of stable into the room. He was a compact man, and his filthy, shabby leather jerkin and breeches made him seem small compared to the padded and pleated visitor—those were emphatically not the clothes he normally wore when meeting potential clients. He was bareheaded, which no gentleman ever was, but the wind that could never ruffle his ash-blond curls had flushed his fair cheeks. Or his color might be from anger, for certainly his pale eyes were steely as he regarded the stranger.
“I recognized Destrier.” Beau set a glass in front of Isabelle. “He’s too old now for such a long ride. He has an ingrown lash in his right eye that should be seen to.” In a world where every man prized himself on his horsemanship, that was first point to Beau.
The visitor could be just as inscrutable. “He doesn’t live on Starkmoor any more and I’ll tell my son to have the eye looked at.”
Starkmoor was the site of Ironhall, the Blades’ headquarters and school, and now Isabelle recalled this stranger’s curious remark, “I thought I had put a stop to it.” Only three men could hope to stop the King’s Blades doing anything they pleased, and since he was neither the King nor Commander Vicious, he must be Grand Master, the legendary Durendal, Earl Roland, of whom Beau normally spoke with awe and reverence, quite unlike his current biting mockery. Roland had been the finest fencer of his generation and King Ambrose’s Lord Chancellor for another. She had just offered him fencing lessons.
“Are you truly forbidden to use your Blade name?” he asked.
Beau shrugged. “Title. It was always only honorary and a stable hand claiming knightly rank is unseemly. ‘Beaumont Cookson’ lacks euphony, don’t you agree?”
“Some say that you brought much of your trouble on yourself.”
“Who does not cry for just deserts, when all he really wants is pity?”
Grand Master showed his teeth. “You had orders to leave town. That’s what the harassment is about. Why don’t you do as you’re told—go away and start over somewhere else?”
“I enjoy listening to the gossip here.”
“Why didn’t you enter the King’s Cup this year?”
“You came for lessons? A man of your years will find fencing strenuous.”
They were fencing with words—feinting, parrying, riposting, and never quite saying what they meant. His lordship tapped the handbill spread on the table.
“This says that you won the King’s Cup two years ago against competitors from four kingdoms. Last year, of course, you were elsewhere. Why did you not compete this spring?”
“I might have lost. Who wants lessons from the t
hird or fourth best swordsman in the world?”
“Then you need not have mentioned it.”
Isobel sniffed at her wine glass and set it down hastily. She should go back to work. Nosy Mistress Snider would know that Beau was here and selling fencing lessons did not need both of them. But she wanted to know what spite the Blades were plotting against Beau this time.
Lord Roland tasted his wine. Without comment, he set the glass down and folded his arms as if he had reached a decision. “You are not the first Blade to end up working as a stable hand, but you will never convince me that you enjoy it. I came here to offer you a job.”
“I happen to be married.”
“I did not mean an Ironhall post. This would be a favor to me personally, not His Majesty.”
“An assassination, is it?”
Roland glared. “No. I have a serious problem and I believe you may be able to solve it for me.”
Beau rose, ignoring the wine he had not touched. His mocking smile did not waver. “I do appreciate your concern, my lord, but my work is piling up even while we speak.”
Isabelle kicked his messy boot under the table. They needed the money! Men! Why would a man do anything rather than accept help when it was offered?
“Sit down,” Grand Master said. “This is very confidential.”
“Then it would be safer not to tell anyone.” Beau shaped a slight bow. “I must rush and prepare bran mash for my charges, and my wife likewise, for hers. It has been fun reminiscing about old—”
“I have lost a Blade. He has been stolen.”
After a moment Beau said, “That is a totally ridiculous statement!” and sat down again.
• 2 •
“Do try the wine, Lady Beaumont,” Grand Master said. “It is not what its label says it is, but quite drinkable.”
“I must attend to my duties, my lord. And if the matter is as confidential as you—”
“Please stay! I am very happy to meet you at last, and just wish the times were happier. Mine is a very curious problem. It has me baffled, and that snaky grin on your husband was always a sign that he was out of his mental depth. Perhaps you will be able to shed some light on the path for both of us.”