by Dave Duncan
There was a gate in the fence, closed by a huge lock. Beaumont had said, I can open doors. Although he some-times forgot his manners, the swordsman was admirably resourceful. He had insisted he would not stoop to assassination, yet he must have some trick in mind, and Dimitri was shocked to realize that he hoped it would work. His acquaintance with King Athelgar had made him aware of the Czar’s shortcomings. Yet even thinking such thoughts was treason.
“The stains on the grout look like blood.” Beaumont was down on one knee, examining the paving. “Is this the famous torture chamber?”
“No, those quarters are elsewhere,” Saltykov responded, deferent as a flunky greeting important guests. “They contain much specialized equipment. His Majesty uses this room for training and feeding his dogs, and for entertaining visitors.”
“Or entertaining himself with visitors?”
The castellan smiled without comment and coughed thinly. Beaumont straightened up, leaving his sack on the floor. He had untied the thong around its neck.
Side doors opened under the balcony and streltsy began filing in, carrying crossbows. They lined up along the arcade, and Dimitri realized that they were behind yet another steel fence. There they had a clear field of fire at the visitors but could not emerge to aim their weapons at the throne above them. Igor trusted only his dogs.
“His Majesty will be here shortly,” Saltykov said. “He is most anxious to meet you.”
“Tell him not to hurry,” Beaumont retorted. “Our allies need time to get into position.”
“How many allies?” asked the Czar. He hobbled along the balcony, trailing one hand on the railing, followed by two great hounds. The sword that had killed his son hung at his side with its gold jewel gleaming, and his silvery beard shone in the shadows.
Very conscious of his wet and filthy clothes, Dimitri dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor, close by Beaumont’s sack. The moment Beau tried to use the mirror as a weapon, of course, it would be shattered by a crossbow bolt. The stains on the grout did look like dried blood.
“Answer!” The Czar stood before his throne while the two great hounds sniffed around the gallery, showing little interest in the visitors below.
Dimitri rose to a kneeling position. “About fifty Baels, sire. Beaumont’s allies, not mine, I assure you! I was kidnapped. I have no idea what they are doing at present.”
“And Beaumont,” the Czar muttered. “What a pleasure! The beautiful Beaumont once again.” He removed his sword so he could sit, laying it across his lap. “Anfrei, Vasili, down.” Then he took a longer look at the prisoners in the center of the hall.
“So what are your Baels doing, Beaumont?”
“Driving off your horses, sire. As a preliminary to other mischief, I expect—you know Baels.”
The Czar’s eyes glittered. He wiped his mouth. “Horses are unimportant. I have plenty of men to handle fifty Baels.”
“Well trained in firefighting?” The Blade wore his customary confident smile.
“The raiders have no bows with them!” Dimitri shouted. But slings and spears were easy enough to make and would have enough range to make a fire attack under cover of a snow flurry.
“Was it you who killed my son?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Beaumont said. “Fedor killed himself.”
Igor screamed, “That is a lie!” and the hounds leaped to their feet, snarling and growling.
“He struck at a man guarded by Blades. One of us made appropriate response.”
“You will pay.” Igor wiped his mouth again. “For years you will pay. Down!” he snapped at the dogs. “But this is not your sword. Why are you here, associating with Baelish rabble?”
“Ah,” Beaumont said, changing mood. “I regret the necessity, Your Majesty. I wish I did not have to be the agent, but spirits of chance and death have decreed that—Oh, spit!”
Arkell had entered through the door behind the throne. “Mine!” He said. “Reason! Mine!” He snatched for the sword.
The hounds sent him flying, landing on top of him simultaneously. Igor jumped up, screaming at them, lashing them with the rapier. Beaumont put a whistle to his mouth and blew a long, shrill note.
“To the Czar!” Saltykov yelled hoarsely. “Quickly! Help His Majesty!” The bowmen started disappearing out the way they had entered. Saltykov himself ran to a side door and pounded on it.
Wild-eyed and foaming, the Czar continued to rage. “Back, brutes! Back! His death must be epic.” He beat the dogs away from Arkell; they retreated, snarling and growling.
Beaumont drew a gasp of breath and began blowing another long, piercingly painful note. Arkell tried to sit up, but the Czar was standing over him. Igor turned in wild alarm to the bowmen who had appeared at the both sides of the balcony. “Scum! Vermin! Get those weapons out of here! I will flay every man of you. I will impale you, feed you your own tripes. You down there!—stop that accursed noise!”
Castellan Saltykov had left the hall, leaving the door open. Swithin was cursing in some tongue Dimitri did not know, Beaumont continued to blow, and now the hounds joined in with eldritch howls. From behind the throne came more muffled yowls, sounding like a whole pack of them. Arkell punched Igor on the back of one knee, toppling the old man. They rolled together on the floor, wrestling for the sword. The bowmen stood at the sides and watched uncertainly.
“Stop that!” Dimitri yelled in Beaumont’s ear. “Open this door!” He rattled the barred gate.
The Blade did stop whistling, but the hounds were making so much noise that the difference hardly mattered. “Good idea, Your Highness. Grand Wizard will be pleased to hear how well this worked.”
The hounds were writhing as if in fearful pain, their baying growing louder and somehow less doglike. The black one, the giant one named Vasili, reared up on its hind legs. It was changing, melting, shedding hair.
Arkell, having struggled to his feet without releasing his grip on the sword, had succeeded only in hauling the Czar upright also, and still they wrestled for possession—Arkell mostly yelling, “Mine! Reason!” over and over, Igor now screaming in terror as he realized his peril.
The Vasili thing lurched unsteadily at them and all three toppled back to the floor. Castellan Saltykov appeared on the balcony also and stopped to stare in horror.
This time Arkell broke loose and rose, holding the sword. He drew it, then just stood there idiotically, admiring it and ignoring the frenzied struggle at his feet. The former hound was halfway back to being Vasili Ovtsyn. It tried to pick the Czar up. Unable to grasp yet with its paws, it swung a punch, discarded that approach, and went back to teeth. The Czar’s screams bubbled horribly. The other dog-man, whom Dimitri now recognized as Anfrei Kurtsov’s grandson, stumbled over to join in.
Beaumont did something to the lock, opened the gate, and then paused. “Where now, though?” he said. “I don’t think we can do much to help up there.”
“Might be hard to choose sides,” Swithin said. “Hate to make a mistake.”
“Let’s just watch for now and decide later.”
Dimitri could not tear his eyes away. Saltykov and the bowmen were clearly in no hurry to rescue a man who had so recently vowed to impale them. Anfrei still had to make do with teeth, but big Vasili had the use of his hands now, and was methodically breaking every bone and joint he could find. Several naked and patchily-hairy monsters shambled in from behind the throne and tried to join in. Vasili snarled at them to back off. He picked up the imperial corpse, lifted it overhead and hurled it over the balcony. Then he jumped after it, landing on it with both feet. Igor did not even twitch.
Dimitri felt a nudge.
“Say it, Your Highness!” Beaumont said. “Quickly! ‘The Czar is dead—’ ”
Dimitri croaked out the words. “ ‘The Czar is dead, long live the Czar!’ ”
Other voices picked up the refrain: “Long live Czar Boris!”
• 4 •
Several other dogs, now recognizab
ly young men, followed Vasili down to worry the corpse. Swithin was not sure whether to cheer or be sick, so he did neither. He even resisted the urge to put himself between his ward and the bowmen on the balcony, because that would spoil the very necessary performance the dazed-looking Dimitri was now attempting, prompted by Beau’s whispers.
“As the Czar’s only male relative, I—”
“As the Czar’s only male relative, I—”
“…will undoubtedly serve him as regent—”
“…will undoubtedly serve him as regent…during his minority…so I am certainly in charge here now…is that understood?”
“Of course, Your Highness.” Castellan Saltykov bowed. His emaciated face did not reveal how he felt about this change of rule.
“You all bear witness…that the late Czar Igor…died when assaulted by his own dogs…”
Swithin’s problem had been solved. Igor was no longer a threat, and he had not been assassinated. He had died in a horrible accident. So there would be no SWITHIN, 402 to bedevil the seniors at Ironhall, and yet there might well be a
SWITHIN, 405 or a SWITHIN, 415, because now he was sole Blade to the Regent and Heir Presumptive, and had his work cut out for at least the next twenty years, or even forty.
As Beau had said, he might easily have drawn a shorter straw than Dimitri. Old Flabby was doing very well already—he certainly made a splendid ventriloquist’s dummy.
“…lower the flag to half mast…as a signal to the Baels…in the area that…keep the guard on alert…proclaim Czar Boris…”
In a few minutes the Castellan came down from the balcony to attend the Prince in proper fashion. Commands passed from Beau to Dimitri to Saltykov and then one of the streltsy, who raced off to see it obeyed.
“…prepare His Majesty’s body for immediate transportation to Kiensk…”
“Prince Dimitri!”
Swithin recoiled and almost drew Sudden. A naked, black-haired giant with a bloody mouth towered over him and his ward like a stallion over rabbits.
Dimitri was glassy-eyed, past blinking at anything now. “Welcome back, Vasili! It is a joy to see you restored.”
“I killed the Czar!” The giant pointed a thick finger at the badly tattered remains. Some of the other dog-men were still tearing bits off.
Dimitri tried an unconvincing smile. “The bells of Kiensk will ring for you, Vasili. I expect to ride there very shortly and will be honored if you will accompany me as my aide.”
Wild emotions twisted the big man’s stubbled face in gargoyle shapes. “I’ll need, er…clothes? That the word? And…horse?”
“Of course,” Dimitri said. “Relax! It will take you a little while to recover from such an ordeal. Your parents were well, the last I heard.”
“Prisoners, Your Highness?” Beau whispered.
“What? Oh, yes, Castellan, tell me about prisoners—”
“You’re Swithin!” said yet another new voice. “Have I shrunk?” Arkell’s eyes flickered alarm and bewilderment. “What year is this?”
Swithin smiled down at him. “It’s 402, brother, Tenthmoon. You had a bad experience, but I think you’re going to be all right soon.”
Arkell glanced around, puzzled. “I don’t remember this place. Is it Morkuta? My ward…yes, I think I remember that. Fedor? Viazemski? Where are we now?” Gory gashes on his face and neck showed how narrow his escape had been.
“Czaritsyn, brother. You lost your, er, sword…Lace up your lip and listen. Beau’s making history.”
The critical meeting came soon after, out at the gate, in sunshine and slush. Sigfrith and his Baels were drawn up outside, Dimitri and Saltykov and others inside, and Beau had deliberately taken up position under the lintel, between the two forces. He was no longer playing ventriloquist; he was dictating a settlement. Swithin watched in admiration from behind his ward’s shoulder.
“We have no time for arguments, Your Highnesses. Voevode Stenka and his horde are on their way to Treiden, looking for Baels. If they hear of Igor’s death, they will either return here or head for Kiensk, hoping to seize the new Czar. Prince Dimitri must be first with the news to High Town. You, Atheling, cannot take time to besiege this stockade, for you must return to Eadigthridda before the river starts to freeze, or she will leave without you. How many horses did you collect?”
“Thirty-two,” Sigfrith said.
“The Castellan says forty-four.”
The Bael shrugged. “Details.”
Smiling, Beau shook his head. “Horses are the key. We must not allow any Stenka loyalist to ride out of here. There aren’t enough mounts for you to ride back to your ship, so your men must walk; all you need are pack animals, for food and booty. So twenty-two for you, twenty-two for us.”
The pirate guffawed. “And what do you pay me for these horses of mine?”
“We open the gates of Czaritsyn and let you help yourselves. Castellan, will you give him the bag, please?”
Saltykov walked out and handed Sigfrith a weighty sack.
“Just a sample,” Beau said cheerily. “That alone will make your entire werod rich men. Twenty-two horses can carry enough to sink your longship. Or you can fight and take casualties.”
The Atheling peered into the bag and then skeptically tipped out the contents. Jewels fell in a torrent of rainbow to the snow. He looked shocked when he realized that there were gems all the way to the bottom. His men screamed in excitement.
“I’ll trade you a shovel for two more horses,” Beau said brightly.
“Just a moment,” said the spidery voice of Castellan Saltykov. “What happens to me and my men?”
Beau swung to face him, confident as ever. “The streltsy are finished. You know that, just as Stenka will when he hears the news. They will be disbanded, but I doubt many will ever be brought to justice. You and your men can help yourselves to whatever the Baels leave. Last one out burn it.”
“I shall need a horse.” The Castellan coughed painfully.
“We leave no horses here. We will send some once the government is secure, but Prince Dimitri will give you a written pardon before he leaves here—obviously it will be worthless if he does not reach Kiensk safely.”
“I will?” Dimitri muttered, but probably only Swithin heard.
The Castellan shrugged as if his future did not matter very much any more.
“And I get Lackwit!” Sigfrith shouted.
Beau turned again to him. “Lackwit is dead. You know Eadigthridda lies nor’-west by a point west. Arkell, which way is Kiensk?”
“How the vomit should I know?” Arkell said indignantly.
Beau laughed. “It is so good to have you back, brother! My lords, time flies! Do we have a treaty?”
• 5 •
That a bound Blade needed no sleep did not mean he was tireless, and the ride to Kiensk taxed Swithin to limits he had never tested before. Dimitri, a superlative horseman, set a breakneck pace that even the three Blades were hard put to match. None of the restored dog-men and the prisoners rescued from Czaritsyn’s dungeons were in fit shape for such an ordeal, so they were left to follow as best they could.
The going was hard, with sunshine turning snowy trails to quagmires. Skyrria had no system of post houses as Chivial did, but Igor had not completely wiped out the princely families and Dimitri called in on several on the way, breaking the news to men he trusted, gathering fresh mounts and promises of support. Close to curfew on the second day, he and his weary swordsman rode in through the gate of Kiensk unchallenged. Swithin was too tired even to gawk at his first sight of a great city.
So far so good. They had outrun the news and the capital was calm; but the entrance to High Town was guarded by streltsy. Although they recognized Dimitri, the sergeant insolently refused admittance to an armed band lacking an imperial warrant.
The Prince backed his horse away and waved the Blades forward with a bellow: “Swordsmen! On the count of three, kill that trash for me. One!”
This was no
t the aristocratic rabbit the sergeant knew. He gaped. Three swords flashed from their scabbards, three horses advanced.
“Two!”
Some of the onlookers cheered.
The trash took to its heels, with the sergeant well out in front.
So the news that streltsy were no longer sacrosanct was out, and the firestorm lit by that spark went flaming across the capital, somehow even racing ahead to the doors of the Imperial Palace itself, where the guards of the Household Regiment cheered the Prince. A rising tide of supporters and excitement swept him along corridors toward the imperial quarters and the Czarina. All the way there, Dimitri barked orders at any page or herald who came near enough: Fetch the Chief Boyar, summon Marshal of the Army Sanin, inform my wife, get Boyar This, find Boyar That…
A page opened the final door, but Swithin claimed his right to enter ahead of his ward, stooping through the tunnel. The appearance of this muddy vagabond set off a chorus of alarmed shrieks from the ladies within, who had obviously been amusing a group of small children. The children added their startled cries to the hubbub and fled to their respective mothers.
Swithin stopped dead in his tracks, blocking the doorway. Women! It was years since he had been in a room full of women, and never such splendid scented ladies in silks and jewels. He gaped. He gawked. He picked out the Czarina instantly, for she was not merely the best dressed and incomparably the most beautiful, but her authority glowed like a sun. She caught up a small, flaxen-haired boy, drew breath to hurl a thunderbolt at the intruder, stayed it in shock when she saw his cat’s-eye sword.
Dimitri thrust him aside and strode forward. He started to speak, stuttered, and then, overcome by the unexpected sight of the Czar, fell on his knees and touched his face to the floor. That was not the most tactful way of informing his sister that she was now a widow, but it served. The other women cried out and sank down also. More men came scrambling in and followed suit. Pale but calm, Sophie stood in the center of the chamber holding her son high as the number of upturned buttocks multiplied.