King Fitzwilliam’s gaze flicked my way for only a moment. He looked rather irritated, though more at Sir Ivor than me. Commander Yervan stood behind the throne as usual, but I didn’t see the Court Wizard’s reassuring centaur frame. Lord Ivor wasn’t there either, which was probably why his son, Sir Ivor, was speaking in his stead.
As for the rest of the lords and knights, around half of the looks I received were hostile. Others seemed anxious and worried. Strangely enough, several looked curious. About what, I had no idea.
I spotted three faces I’d never seen before. Each belonged to one of a trio of surly-looking young men, wearing armor draped with loose surcoats of red, green, or blue. All three sat at the table of the Eastern Reaches in a colorful cluster surrounding the spotty-skinned, toothless Lord Alvey. The most sullen-looking one, who had the blue outfit and a strangely-shaped scalp lock, gave me an openly hostile glare.
“We must keep at least one squad of our Air Cavalry in the Eastern Reaches!” Sir Ivor thundered. He pounded an armored fist against the table with a clang. “The lands of my father and his lords lie defenseless as we speak!”
Across at the other table, Lord Behnaz sat up straighter in his chair. The man looked as heavyset and belligerent as ever. But I had to give him a little more credit. Behnaz sported a healing cut and fading bruise along one side of his face from fulfilling his duties as a Lord and fighting at the Battle of the Oxine River.
“Where is your evidence for that, stripling?” Behnaz asked, with a sneer that pretty well wiped out whatever good will I felt. OK, so Sir Ivor was relatively young, but ‘stripling’? The man was built like a cross between a grizzly bear and a linebacker.
“The enemy has tested us in the West and been stopped,” Sir Ivor replied. “They seek our weakest point. The next blow is sure to fall upon our demesnes!”
“And I gather that you’ve been privy to the enemy’s council? Or have you just been visiting the privy? It seems that is where you’ve come up with that idea.”
Behnaz scored with that one. The lords and the few ladies sitting at the Western Reaches’ table burst into hearty laughter. I’d spotted where Yervan had put my chair off to Fitzwilliam’s right, so I made my way behind the table to get to it. I had a full view of Sir Ivor’s angry face as he replied to the taunt with some heat.
“My father has sacrificed as much – if not more than – any lord here to achieve our recent victory. Unlike others, whose realms had to be rescued by the centaurs.”
The laughter was immediately replaced by angry mutters. Now it was Behnaz’s turn to get red in the face. I’d just made my way past him as he made his reply.
“How dare you?” he blustered. “The Western Reaches have been the shield that has protected the East from the horse-lords for over a century!”
“And yet, without their help at the Oxine, your lands would have been laid waste by the Ultari! Could it be that the horse-lords simply let you keep your lands, so long as you behave properly?”
King Fitzwilliam appeared bored more than anything by the infighting. He’d heard it all before. But now he sat up straight in his throne as he listened to the grim undertone from the lords at both tables.
“He’s right. The centaurs are a threat like all others.”
“But they helped us at the Oxine!”
“Yes, but what if they’d turned on us at the Oxine?”
“Maybe they’re waiting for the right time?”
“Bah! You can’t trust them!”
“Enough!” Fitzwilliam proclaimed, and the mutters died away. “These prejudices and fears regarding the centaurs, especially in the Western Reaches, are known to all.”
A few more mutters ran through the room, but the King went on, speaking even more loudly.
“However, I wish all the knights and lords in attendance to recall our recent history. Peace was forged and kept faithfully by both my father and King Angbor. And it was King Angbor who came to our aid, even after his people were nearly attacked by several lords of this land.”
Lord Behnaz looked sharply away as Fitzwilliam reminded him of his perfidy. Me, I managed to take my seat as everyone continued to listen. Maybe if I was lucky, the topic of my presence would be conveniently forgotten.
“And I would remind all here that I have every reason to hate the current ruler of the centaurs, King Magnus.” Fitzwilliam thundered. “Yet I have forgiven him, as I bid you all to do. For he has redeemed himself in my eyes. Without him, we would not have the peace that holds to this day. Without him, we would not have a sworn ally in the West, but a deadly enemy. Without him, your land’s King would have fallen in battle, your land’s knights trampled in the mud, your own demesnes burned and laid waste.”
The room was silent. Behnaz continued to look away. Sir Ivor waited patiently until Fitzwilliam finally addressed him. And the King did so in a tone that brooked no disagreement.
Chapter Nine
“You do your father credit, Sir Ivor,” King Fitzwilliam said. “I shall grant your request, and our last patrol of griffins shall leave immediately for the Eastern Reach.”
“Sire,” Commander Yervan stated worriedly, “the rest of the griffins have been sent to the West. The East already retains the only dragons we have left. That leaves us with little but our ground forces.”
“They shall have to be enough,” Fitzwilliam said shortly. “Until we muster more strength, or bargain it from Belladonna’s aerie, we shall make do.”
“Make do, your Majesty?” Lord Alvey spoke up for the first time today. The man’s voice always had a slight lisp, mostly because of his missing teeth. “Must we continue to make do with all of your rash decisions as of late?”
“Watch your tone, and know your place!” Sir Ivor hissed. “My father is your liege lord, which means you serve me. Do not speak to the King in such a manner!”
“I know my place better than you think,” Alvey replied coolly. “Your father is my senior, but he holds his place only because the rents of my lands keep the Western Reaches in food and gold. And I only seek to advise my King.”
“Lord Alvey, your concern is touching,” Fitzwilliam said. “Yet we only have a week or so before the Spring Tournament. Can this not be tabled?”
“How can this be tabled, your Majesty? You have been badly counseled, for you would never have been put in danger had it not been for the senile words of the soothsayer! And an outworld woman’s hysterical shrieking!”
“Shrieking?” I said, in a voice that came dangerously close to a shriek. “Were you even listening when I told the court about the threat from the Ultari? Did you not hear what nearly happened to our knights at the Oxine?”
“None of our knights should have been at that damned river at all! Your wood-headed advice has come within an ace of ruining this Kingdom!”
Shouting broke out across both tables. I heard the usual slurs cast in my direction, but there were at least a couple supporters in there shouting back. Fitzwilliam had to raise his hand to get the din to stop.
“You have served my father for decades,” he said. “Therefore, I forgive your impertinence. Several of us in this room were at the Oxine. We saw what Dame Chrissie did, which was to serve honorably.”
Sir Ivor nodded vigorously. “In truth, she saved both us and the kingdom. She even saved my father and gave him back to me.”
“That is an interesting claim,” Lord Alvey cackled. “If she gave him back to you, then where is he? My eyes are old, I do not see him in his chair.”
Sir Ivor reddened a little more as a few people laughed at the jibe. “He is back at Castle Ivor. He is ill. The doctors say it is an inflammation of the lungs.”
That was news to me. It was worrisome, but not totally unexpected. People who’d gotten water in the lungs – as Ivor did when he came within a sliver of drowning – were at risk for pneumonia afterwards.
“In other words, Dame Chrissie brought him back…only to curse him with a foul disease!” Alvey declared.
Then several members of the court got in on the act.
“Lord Ivor spoke ill of her, this is her revenge!”
“Foul woman!”
“The witch cursed him!”
“She cursed him with her foul magic!”
I put my head in my hands. Whoever made up that saying about good deeds never being unpunished was right. Too right for comfort.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. The din went on, only dying down as the King called for quiet. I stood, and even Fitzwilliam turned to look at me, surprised. I turned to Alvey and his brood before I spoke as calmly as I could.
“Lord Ivor nearly drowned in the Oxine, when many of the knights and lords here were busy seeing to their own estates,” I began. “He inhaled a great deal of water. Inhaled liquid, especially dirty water, can lead to sickness. Specifically, a condition called aspiration pneumonia.”
To my surprise, the court remained silent as I spoke. Normally, my words would have attracted yet more jeers, or at least get a few sneers and eye rolls. But this time…maybe I was finally getting somewhere with the people here.
“Aspiration pneumonia is simply an infection in the lungs. It produces mucous, which leads to coughing, wheezing, fatigue, and chest pain. The infection causes inflammation – that is, a swelling of the air sacs that make up the lung tissue. That’s all it is. It’s not magic, foul or otherwise, and it’s certainly nothing that involves me, as I have no magic at all.”
A quiet murmur ran through my audience as they paused to take in my well-reasoned points.
Then a black-bearded man wearing a brown mantle stood up at the table with the knights and lords of the Western Reaches. I recognized him from Fitzwilliam’s council and the battle at the Oxine as Lord Ghaznavi. He said the one thing that could torpedo me at that very moment.
“Do not let Dame Chrissie fool you!” he cried ecstatically. “She takes far too little credit for her gifts, for she has the most potent magic of anyone I have seen. I was there, I saw with my own eyes. Lord Ivor was dead, his lips were blue and his skin like that of a corpse. And the blessed Dame Chrissie brought him back from death with a spell she called ‘The Kiss of Life’!”
Oh, crap.
The court went wild.
“Liar! Her magic is evil!”
“No, she could save us all!”
“The Dame has no magic!”
“She must have learnt from the Court Wizard!”
“Nay, nay!” Lord Ghaznavi insisted, to that last shouted point. “She must have learnt it from her other friend, the Protector of the Forest! She is blessed by nature itself, I tell you!”
“Be quiet!” Lord Behnaz shouted back. “Enough with her praise before I have you silenced!”
“You seek to silence me for telling the truth?”
“If you seek to disobey your liege, then I shall silence you by taking your head off at the neck!”
At that threat, two knights at Ghaznavi’s side stood alongside their Lord, their hands going to the hilts of their swords. Four more knights near Lord Behnaz stood next, their faces grim and ready for action.
“Commander Yervan!” King Fitzwilliam bellowed. “Strike down the first knight that dares draw another’s blood in my presence!”
Yervan’s golden armor flashed as he moved into position. His sword came free from its scabbard with a steely schlick. His eyes had gone deadly earnest. As earnest as I’d seen them during the assault by the owls of the Noctua.
“Say the word, your Majesty,” he gritted, “and their heads shall decorate your battlements.”
Immediately, the shouting returned to a dull murmur as everyone fixed their attention on the table of the Western Reaches.
“Sit down, you fools!” Behnaz snapped. His men did so, and he followed suit.
Ghaznavi’s men looked to their Lord for guidance. He nodded, and all three took their seats without comment. Yervan backed off and returned to his position by the King’s side, sheathing his sword in one smooth, practiced motion.
Fitzwilliam’s fingers drummed in irritation on the arm of his throne. The King normally allowed his nobles a great deal of leeway expressing themselves at court. But the knights and lords at both tables seemed subdued at their monarch’s display of temper.
All except one. The blue-surcoated knight with the odd hair sitting near Alvey stood, speaking in a calm, rational tone that I didn’t buy for a second.
“Sire, I believe we should be wary of this court’s ‘Dame’,” he said. “She may have influenced your Majesty to put himself at risk without thought to the rest of your kingdom’s welfare.”
“Lord Alvey,” Fitzwilliam said, ignoring the young knight for the moment. “Who is this that challenges the wisdom of his monarch’s decisions?”
“My apologies, your Majesty,” Alvey said. “This is Sir Kagin, my eldest boy. The others are Sirs Urson and Norrel. I felt it time for them to learn the ways of the court.”
As Alvey introduced them, each young man made a slight bow. Kagin face was brash and arrogant, and his flattish, mohawk-style scalp lock didn’t soften things. In contrast, Urson was thick-bodied, with sleepy, half-lidded eyes. Norrel looked like an asthmatic teenage hood. The kind who’d slit someone’s tires as soon as look at them.
“Are your younger sons as impertinent as the first?” Fitzwilliam asked pointedly.
“They’ve each got their own temperament, your Majesty. Each comes from one of my last three wives.” Alvey got slowly to his feet, followed by his sons and retainers. “But sons and wives are not all that I have. I do not approve of Dame Chrissie’s presence at court. And I must remind you that I am the richest of all your lords. It is my prompt payment of all his Majesty has asked that keeps this Kingdom solvent at all.”
And with that, Lord Alvey tottered off, pointedly leaving the court with his miniature army of sons and retainers in tow.
Chapter Ten
Once Alvey and his brood walked out on the Royal Court, the infighting resumed as if it had never stopped. In fact, I think it even picked up a bit. All I remembered was that Fitzwilliam called an early end to the meeting. The King left in a huff, while the court chatterers went into full-tilt gossip mode.
“Disgraceful! Just disgraceful for Alvey to leave like that!
“The King’s right to be angry!”
“He’s worried, he needs Alvey’s money!”
“Ha! It’s not like Dame Chrissie has any to give him!”
I’d had enough as well. I shook my head and left shortly after Fitzwilliam. No one noticed. Which was ironic, because I’d been hoping that no one would notice me when I arrived.
Percival appeared at my side as I made my way down the long, winding passages back to the Dame’s Tower. Noticing my sour mood, the young page cleared his throat and did his best to sound cheery.
“Dame Chrissie,” he said, as we continued walking, “if you’re concerned about what just happened, it’s really not that bad.”
My voice dripped with skepticism. “It isn’t?”
“Other lords have left the Royal Court when it was still in session.”
“Really? Who?”
“Well, there was Sir Fothgill, for one. And…and Lord Kazmi.” He scratched his shiny helmet of blond hair in thought. “Of course, Sir Fothgill was being dragged out for a well-deserved flogging.”
I sighed. “You’re not helping things, kid.”
“Oh, and Lord Kazmi was dead when he was taken out. His heart gave out in the middle of one of Good King Benedict’s drinking contests.”
“Drinking contests? During the King’s court?”
“The Good King did keep a more, uh, lively kind of palace.” Percival’s nose wrinkled at bit as he added, “I didn’t like being the youngest page back then. I always had to empty out the vomit and piss pails when they got full.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I threw a glance his way to make sure he wasn’t pulling my leg. From what I could tell, the little blond page seemed p
erfectly serious.
“Those were bad times,” Percival said. “Not like now, where things actually get done!”
Good lord, I thought. This catty, high-school level, bar brawl of a court was an improvement?
“Anyway, since you were last here,” he continued, “I took out your Tower’s rugs, hung them on the line, and beat them.”
“You got them clean?”
“Yes, I had to! There were muddy hoof prints on them, as well as a skein’s worth of lion fur. Oh, and the kitchens were baking fresh berry muffins this morning. I left a platter of them on your desk.”
We finally reached the door to my Tower Room as I said, “That was a lot of work. Do I need to…ah…give you a tip or anything?”
He shook his head. “Of course not, it’s worth it just being your personal page! That is, now that I don’t have to fight and get killed in the Spring Tournament to win your honor.”
Percival bowed to me and headed off to finish the rest of his morning duties. I made a mental note to check in on him sometime. Maybe I could do something to help advance him.
The scent of baked goods laced with fresh blueberries greeted me as I pushed my way through the door. An asymmetrical stack of muffins sat on my desk atop one of the palace’s silver platters. The reason it was asymmetrical was that a man with the build a scarecrow might have envied sat next to it, popping the last bite of a muffin into his mouth.
“Herald!” I exclaimed, and he sat up, startled. The Lord of the Pursuivant straightened his eggplant-purple hat as he finished chewing and swallowing. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”
“Ah, quite,” he said, as he brushed crumbs off the multicolored front of his doublet. As usual, Herald’s outfit looked like a grab bag of colorful clothes he’d pulled out of a closet while blindfolded. “I do hope you’re not irate at my decision to wait for you inside your demesne. Upon reflection, perhaps I should not have consumed your page’s leavings, but I missed breakfast in order to–”
Trafficking in Demons Page 5
