Paragon Lost

by Dave Duncan

  Ironhall turned out a single product—a slim, agile, deadly swordsman of standard size, never fat or weedy, tall or short. Beau was shorter than most and did not even manage to look stocky, although he had muscle enough to wield a broadsword. His appeals to Master of Rituals for conjuration to make him grow taller had always received the same answer: “Why?” Sword in his hand, he could butcher any man in Ironhall, even the masters. As the pedantic Master of Protocol put it: If a matter be unimpaired, seek not to rectify it.

  Durendal had argued more tactfully, pointing out that even simple conjurations could have undesired side-effects and there was no harm in letting prospective opponents underestimate you.

  “It’s hopeless,” he said now, waving the boy to a seat. “Tancred and Sewald will never allow you out of here.” Those two were the current Guard fencing champions. “Did either of them give you any trouble this time?”

  “Sir Cedric did,” Beau said modestly. “They’re superb, all of them.”

  “What I heard was that you drove off their herds, sold their families into slavery, and buried their carcases in unmarked graves.”

  “The spectators seemed to believe I won on form.”

  “Which one will take the cup?”

  The contest would be held in a week—in Grandon, of course. Beau’s hopes must have soared to the stars when the King arrived, and then crashed to the depths. “I’d bet on Sir Cedric this year, Grand Master.”

  “I’m not certain I would,” Durendal said casually.

  Steel-gray eyes flashed. “How so, my lord?”

  All Ironhall was agog to know why Athelgar had taken only five seniors when there were so many good men champing bits. The fencing masters had expected to lose at least nine and were delighted to have been proved wrong.

  “Just a hunch. No guarantees. Now to business. Since the King has cleared some of the deadwood out of the seniors’ dorms, we can glorify a few fuzzies. Who do you fancy for promotion?”

  Typically, Beaumont had foreseen the question. He promptly named four fuzzies, six beardless, three beansprouts, and five sopranos. Durendal’s own list was so similar that he just nodded.

  “Go ahead, then. Tell them to move their kit. Help the new seniors choose swords—and do make them start with short ones! Advise Archives and Master Armorer what you’ve done.”

  “Thank you, Grand Master. Anything else?”

  “Well…that hunch of mine…I was thinking I might enjoy a ride up Home Tor this evening—assuming nothing unexpected comes up beforehand. If you and Oak and Arkell would like to join me, I’d welcome your company. We can watch the sunset together.”

  Even Beaumont could not hide his excitement then. “We shall be honored, Grand Master. So, I am sure, will the sun.”

  Not one man in a thousand could get away with a smart-alecky reply like that to a superior, but Durendal laughed.

  “Ask them to saddle up Cricket for me.”

  He had not betrayed the King’s confidence. He knew almost nothing to betray, for Athelgar had been typically grudging with information. He had not discussed the identity of the three men’s future ward, although he had perforce written it on the warrant he left behind. He had not explained why a peaceable, elderly farmer should need a crack team of Blades.

  Two days before that, the King had sauntered into Grand Master’s study and acknowledged Durendal’s bow by offering bejewelled fingers to be kissed. He wore a mud-spattered riding outfit of blue kidskin blazoned over the heart with a royal lion in pearls. His hat sported a white osprey feather.

  Athelgar was thirty and seemed younger, being slim and ever restless. He had come to the throne at twenty and very nearly lost it at twenty-two. His enemies whispered that no smile had graced his narrow, bony face since. They also sniggered that the shock had turned his hair brown overnight, and it was certainly not the Baelish red of his eyebrows and goatee. Granted that he had been born and raised in Baelmark, to label him a foreigner was unfair, for his bloodlines were at least seven-eighths Chivian. Such prejudice and his own youthful follies had provoked the Thencaster Plot, which had been betrayed only in the nick of time. The conspirators had died and he had learned from his mistakes. He was secure on his throne now, but the scare had made him secretive and distrustful.

  “Who is that hairy horror? Have I seen him before?”

  Durendal straightened up. “Probably not, sire. It used to hang in West House. For a Long Night amusement we collected all the pictures in the school and redistributed them. The juniors voted that one mine.” As the ugliest, presumably.

  The King strode over for a closer look. “Who was he?”

  “I suspect your ancestor King Everard IV, Your Grace. It resembles the official portrait in Greymere.”

  Athelgar nodded and swung around to inspect the room again. Durendal had remade it since Parsewood’s day, with marble fireplace, new paneling, furniture, carpets, and drapes. Each time the King came, he remarked on every tiny change, although he never offered to pay for any of them. Currently he was balking at providing lead for the school’s leaky roofs. He wandered over to the windows.

  Meanwhile Sir Vicious had entered and closed the door. He stood there like a statue, arms folded, only eyes moving. The Commander was lean and very dark, like a walnut icicle, and had earned the King’s trust so well that Athelgar kept him bound well past the age at which most guardsmen were released.

  “You say you can part with eight?” the King asked the scenery.

  “More than that if Leader needs them, sire, but you know I like to hold back a good man as Prime, so—”

  “Who’s the best man you’ve got?”

  “Beaumont, sire.”

  “I don’t mean with swords. I mean man. Steady, dependable. One who will keep his head no matter what.”

  The old warrior in Durendal pricked up ears. “Still Beaumont. An all-rounder. He’s as good as Ironhall has ever turned out.” And he was there only because Durendal had not been faster out the gate on a spring morning six years ago.

  “How many ahead of him?”

  “Five, sire.”

  The fidgety King toyed with Durendal’s favorite porcelain figurine, tossing it idly from hand to hand. It had been one of Kate’s treasures. “And the two right behind him?”

  “Arkell and Oak, sire. Good men. They’d work well with him. No bad blood there.”

  So Athelgar, who almost never gave away Blades, was about to deed someone a team of three, was he? After the dire experiences of his own youth, Durendal had worked hard to convince successive royal masters that three was the smallest practical assignment of Blades. One to stand watch while the other two kept up their fencing skills was how he usually expressed it, but less than three was unfair to the men in many ways.

  “Forget the order-of-admittance nonsense this time, Grand Master. This matter is dear to our heart. We need the absolutely best trio of Blades you can provide.”

  Durendal waited a respectful but unnecessary moment before saying, “I stand by my recommendation, sire. Idris is excellent, but a team should have one leader and no more. He is abrasive, too. Remember you are chaining these men together for the rest of their lives.”

  The King’s eyes were pale brown, not the amber of the House of Ranulf, but they could freeze a man to the wall as well as Ambrose’s ever had. “Only the next half year or so need concern you. And we do not expect our guards to be distracted from their duty by childish sulks.”

  Durendal bowed. “Your Grace can do no better than Beaumont, Arkell, and Oak. As a bonus, Arkell is a lefty, which might be handy in case of trouble. If you would consider adding a fourth—”

  “I said three, Grand Master.”

  “Oak’s the one with the limp,” said Vicious, who rarely opened his mouth except to eat.

  “A limp, Grand Master?”

  “He had a riding accident about a year ago, sire. His leg was so badly crushed that Master of Rituals barely managed to save it. It healed a little short and there
is no conjuration to lengthen one leg. It kept him from reaching his full potential, no question, but very few can be Beaumonts. Try him out yourself, Leader.”

  “I did. Last time,” the Commander said curtly. “He was acceptable, just.”

  “He has improved a lot since then. He’ll never win the cup, of course, but give him a saber or broadsword and no foe will pass him. The courage he displayed when his leg—”

  “Test him, Commander.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  The King turned back to Grand Master. “I’ll bind the five, then, and give you a warrant for the three. I expect their ward to arrive here tomorrow; if not, then the day after. There is some urgency.”

  Durendal bowed. “You are assigning him three exceptional Blades, Your Grace.”

  “I’d give him all eight if I could.” His Majesty did not explain why he couldn’t.

  • 4 •

  Years flying like autumn leaves had driven Destrier into honorable retirement. His replacement was a young chestnut, known as Cricket because he had never seen an obstacle he didn’t think he could jump—even trees, of which there were fortunately none on Starkmoor. His prancing and innovative footwork kept Durendal busy and amused his companions as the little cavalcade wound up Home Tor.

  Spring was in full ecstasy. The wild landscape that had so recently glowered out of an armor of ice, was softly gowned now in sunlight and bejewelled with wildflowers. Hawks hunted, baby breezes played in the grass, and one last mad Thirdmoon hare bounced up and down on the Blackwater slope. Durendal had chosen High Tor because it commanded a fine view of the eastern road, of course. If Wassail was coming today, he should be visible. If he wasn’t, his future Blades should perhaps be sent to look for him.

  Spirits! Durendal had spent an hour with Master of Protocol, reviewing everything the candidates had been, or might have been, told about the man named on the King’s warrant. He had read everything on him in the library, too. Lord Wassail was Athelgar’s closest confidant, but sedentary and well past sixty. Andy knew him. They exchanged enthusiastic letters on the rearing of cabbages. Granted that the old man had undoubtedly made enemies in the past who might still plot to do him harm, Durendal was left with the sad suspicion that the King’s affection had warped his judgment and three exceptional Blades were going to be wasted.

  An elderly ward was good news for the candidates, of course. If he succumbed to natural causes in a suitably lingering fashion, they should recover quickly. It was when a ward died suddenly or by violence that his Blades were liable to run berserk.

  As he led his troop up the path, Grand Master was hailed by a bleating sheep. She had three lambs with her. Behind him, Beaumont made some comment and Arkell laughed. It was a curious coincidence that all three of Durendal’s current charges were lambs, at least compared to most of the hellions who sought refuge in Ironhall.

  All three had been victims of ill chance and all three were exceptional. Indeed, whatever chance brought Wassail to Ironhall was depriving the Royal Guard of a future Leader in Beaumont. Arkell, too, fitted the popular stereotype of a Blade as a human whirlwind with a steel tooth, but he lacked Beaumont’s overall brilliance. Exceptional swordsman though he was, a kinder world would have made Arkell a scholar. He had read every book in Ironhall’s meager library and many of Archives’ dusty records as well. He used his right hand for a pen and his left for his sword. He had been planning to serve out a standard term in the Guard, then embark on a new career in law; now he must just hope that Lord Wassail would have the grace to die quickly.

  Oak was the quiet one—black-haired, heavy-set by Blade standards, and solid as a tombstone—the archetype Blade defender who held off the assassins while his ward slipped out the back door. His limp would have kept him out of the Royal Guard in any event, so the Wassail assignment would be a blessing for him, a safe and probably brief posting.

  The cavalcade reached the windy summit of Home Tor, casting elongated shadows eastward. Three young men scanned the Blackwater road for traffic. Their silence was comment enough.

  Soon these three would ride away forever along that road. The one thing Durendal hated about his work as Grand Master was its reward. He watched caterpillar boys—often nasty, foul-minded little boys—metamorphose into deadly, butterfly-bright swordsmen. He reared them and shaped them, guided and encouraged them. Then they went away. The Guard kept in touch, but private Blades must stay with their wards, so them he never saw again. He knew he should not let himself become so involved—but if he did not, how could he do his best for them?

  That they were suitably grateful, he did not doubt. He recalled his own masters of half a century ago with affection—Sir Reynard and Sir Vicious (an earlier Vicious) and above all the great Sir Silver, the greatest Grand Master of them all. But he had never guessed how they must have felt about him. Childlike, he had seen them as little more than furniture, for his eyes had been firmly set on the future.

  Like the eyes beside him now, raking the Ironhall road.

  Let’s dance! Cricket said in body language, doing so. Let’s run all the way back down! Durendal cursed and brought him under control.

  “Wild geese and red herrings,” Beau said. “Stretch the varlet out on that boulder. Lucky I brought the horsewhip.”

  The sun burned scarlet close to the western hills. Durendal had instinctively put himself with his back to it and was a little disappointed that none of the three youngsters had thought to do so. Or perhaps they had and were deferring to him. When he spoke they had to squint against the glare.

  “Political lesson time. Let’s begin by reviewing what the class knows about the Thencaster Plot.”

  An exchange of puzzled glances elected Arkell spokesman.

  “On his accession, King Athelgar made numerous injudicious decisions—bestowing multitudinous honors on foreigners, alienating the Commons with demands for incremental revenue, and provoking belligerent communications from Thergy.”

  “Gracious, what big words!” Oak murmured, but of course Arkell was parodying Master of Protocol, who taught such matters.

  “You ought to mention the lady,” Durendal said. “Never forget that young men can get in trouble faster over women than anything else.”

  “We just want the chance, Grand Master,” Arkell said earnestly.

  “Finish the story.”

  “The King announced his betrothal to a woman of low birth and even lower reputation, with numerous hungry relatives. Realizing that he had alienated two-thirds of the nobility, he sent her packing and thereby upset the rest. The opposition rallied around Neville of Thencaster, who would have had a superior claim had his escutcheon not been marred by the bend sinister. Treason had penetrated the court and even subverted the Office of General Inquiry, whose inquisitors silenced several efforts to betray the conspiracy. Fortunately the plot was exposed and suppressed, but with considerable bloodshed.”

  I’m going now! Cricket suggested. While bringing him under control, Durendal was able to sneak a glance at the Blackwater road. There was movement there, in the far distance. His companions’ younger eyes would make it out better than he could, but they were watching him, waiting to hear what this ancient Thencaster history had to do with them. Probably none of them remembered those days at all.

  “His Majesty did not tell me what service he will require of you.” But Durendal thought he had just guessed, and now the King’s concern made excellent sense. “He did hint that the danger to your future ward is real and immediate. I assure you that you are not just the three left over, although you happened to come in that sequence. He was adamant that he wanted the very best team that I could supply, and I nominated you three without hesitation. Whatever service he requires of you will not be merely ornamental.”

  They brightened at that news.

  “No more hints?” Beaumont said wistfully. “Why Thencaster? When I was a kid I saw Neville’s left hindquarter displayed on a bridge. It was well rotted then. He can’t be much of a thre
at to anyone now.”

  The travelers had vanished into a dip.

  “Who let the rat out of the bag?”

  “Wassail?” Arkell howled. “You’re not going to bind us to him?”

  In the ancient traditions of Ironhall, a candidate was not told the name of his ward until they met. Although Arkell would not have expressed himself so forcibly were the noble lord present, Durendal had seen that horrified look before. That was why he had abolished the silly tradition.

  “Lord Wassail has served his country well,” he said stiffly. “You cannot question his loyalty to the crown.”

  Last of an ancient but now insignificant line, Wassail had been invited to join the group conspiring to oust the upstart foreigner and instead had betrayed it, thereby gaining the young King’s favor and trust. As a judge in the Vengeance Assizes, he had condemned a dozen former friends to death. Until his recent retirement, he had been the King’s do-it-all odd-job henchman—mending fences as ambassador to Thergy, chairing countless committees and commissions, investigating encroachments on royal forests, enforcing maintenance of highways and bridges.

  The wind blew. Silence ruled the Tor. Dreams were crumbling.

  “If there is one man the King trusts above all others, gentlemen, it is Lord Wassail. I can tell you that he always refused the King’s offer of personal Blades, even during the Vengeance, when he was beheading powerful landowners right and left.”

  That was a little better—he needed them now? Why?

  “He’s old, isn’t he?” Oak growled.

  “That has its good side.”

  “But what are we to protect him from? Rampaging lawyers?”

  “Rampaging rams, perhaps. He is well known for sheep breeding.”

  Three young faces managed to smile.

  “And—this is in strict confidence—the King hinted that he would prefer to assign his lordship more than just you three, but couldn’t. If you can find out what is stopping him, I’d be interested to hear.”

  Better yet. “I’d like to see what we three can’t handle,” Oak growled. “Send them up in sixes.”