Sky of Swords

by Dave Duncan

  Malinda gaped, dreams shattering. Was that how the Blades knew every year? Had everyone been laughing at her all this time?

  “Don’t tattle scandal, Dian!” Mistress de Fait said sharply. “Widow Nan has a spare room she rents to visitors.”

  Not unless she slept with the pig, she didn’t, but Malinda was not concerned with Widow Nan. The story was improbable anyway, because Blades did not sleep and so did not need beds. “Did he come yesterday?”

  “Late last night,” Dian’s mother admitted. “He needs time to clean up after riding so far, doesn’t he? You wouldn’t want him stomping in here all muddy and stinking of horse, would you?”

  “No,” Malinda agreed, but she still felt betrayed. How many people had cooperated to deceive her? She chose an apple to eat. The apples were almost finished now, and there would be no more until she was almost ten! Nice to think she was in her tenth year now.

  “Just be glad it wasn’t a royal courier,” said Dian, “because he would drag you out of bed no matter what hour it was. Besides, the Chamberlain does give the letter to the couriers, but the Blades deliver it for them just so they can see how my dad and Sir—”

  “Dian!” her mother growled.

  “It’s true! Blades stick together like fish scales, Dad says.”

  Lady Arabel intervened. “That may be a very small part of the reason the Blades deliver the King’s gift, but it’s the Princess they really want to see. Remember that most Blades are only bound to a single ward, but the Blades of the Guard are sworn to defend the King and his heirs and successors. So Princess Malinda is sort of the Royal Guard’s ward, too, because she’s the heir.”

  Malinda considered that explanation and decided it was satisfactory. “Well, what really matters is that the Monster remembers to—”

  Mistress de Fait snapped, “Princess!” just as Lady Arabel barked, “Your Highness!”

  Lady Arabel was the louder. “You must stop using that word, dear. You should always refer to your royal father as His Majesty or His Grace or—”

  “The Queen says—”

  “Your dear mother has suffered a lot of distress in her life, and—”

  “Eight miscarriages, six stillbirths, and twelve years of tyranny.”

  “And don’t repeat that, either!” Lady Arabel rolled her eyes at Mistress de Fait.

  They rarely reacted this way. Suspicious, Malinda tried again. “He thought the Blond Bitch would give him sons, but after seven years she can’t even show willing with a miscarriage or two.”

  “Oh, spirits!” Mistress de Fait muttered. “How long have we got?”

  “Not long enough, that’s certain.”

  There was something wrong, and the remarks Lady Arabel now made concerning omens for a mild winter were clearly designed to change the subject.

  Malinda reached for a slab of bread and the honey pot. Sir Dominic would be acceptable. He was a younger version of her mother’s Blades, except he had golden eyebrows and no eyelashes. His sword was called Bonebiter. He could make his horse walk backward. He could also toss an apple in the air and cut it into four pieces before it reached the ground—although she suspected he made the first cut before he started and the two halves stuck together when he threw them up.

  It seemed years before everyone was ready and assembled in the hall: the Queen on her chair of state, the Princess on a lesser chair beside her, Dian standing alongside as her maid of honor, Lady Arabel on the far side as matron companion, Sir Arundel on guard, and all the servants positioned along the walls as a pretend court. Queen Godeleva wore a jeweled tiara, but her dress was her usual formal scarlet, a bit shabby now, its lace trim bedraggled and limp. She was very thin; her hair was streaked with white and even a child’s eye could see that it needed more care. Her ink-stained fingers fumbled continuously with a heap of letters on her lap. Once in a while she would drop one, and Dian or Lady Arabel would pick it up and return it to her. Every year the heap was larger. The Blade always took them and promised to deliver them to His Majesty. Malinda always wondered why her mother wrote to a monster.

  Whatever had been bothering the other women did not seem to have affected Queen Godeleva. As a change from bouncing up and down on her chair with excitement, Malinda decided to experiment.

  “It is kind of the Monster to remember my birthweek, isn’t it?”

  Her mother uttered a horsey snort. “He doesn’t remember you even exist! When he packed you off with me, he probably told the Lord Chamberlain to send something every year. It’ll still be coming when you’re a hundred years old.”

  Genuinely shocked, Malinda said, “But he writes, and in such a beautiful hand….”

  “No he doesn’t. That’s a scribe’s hand. His own scribble is totally illegible, and he never uses words like that. The Chamberlain would have told a clerk to write something appropriate.”

  “Oh.” Malinda subsided, not looking at Dian or anyone. Looking at the floor. Her eyes prickled. Was there to be no end to today’s disappointments?

  Then a hinge squeaked. It was time! Sir de Fait slipped in through the great door at the far end of the hall, not quite closing it behind him. Malinda’s heart began to race.

  “Your Grace!” he cried. “A messenger approaches.”

  “Open the door and let us see this messenger!” the Queen commanded.

  Last year that order had resulted in a whirl of snowflakes, but this year the sun streamed in. A horseman was galloping furiously up the driveway. When he reached the step he reined in his horse so that it reared up on its hind legs, pawing the air with its iron hooves. The rider sprang nimbly from the saddle, pausing only to hand the reins to a waiting groom. Yes, he wore the blue and silver livery of the Royal Guard! Yes, it was Sir Dominic. He ran up the steps and came striding along the hall, clutching a package under one arm and waving his sword overhead.

  “Princess Malinda!” he shouted. “Lead me to Her Grace, for I bear an urgent dispatch for the Princess Heir of Chivial. Where is the fair damsel? Woe betide any who dares hinder me in this quest!”

  “Stay!” shouted Sir Arundel, drawing his sword and striding forward. “Who dares invade these halls in such warlike mien?”

  A few years ago, when Malinda was just a child, she had been deliciously terrified by this charade, which happened every year. Even now, grown up as she was, she found its make-believe flattering and exciting. The real fun, though, came when it was over, when the swords were sheathed and Sir Dominic was on one knee before her, offering the scroll and the silk-wrapped package. It was too big to be a necklace this year, too small to be another cloak. She took it on her lap with trembling hands. The scroll she handed unopened to Dian. Later she would read whatever the unknown clerk had thought to write.

  She fingered the seal, felt the package all over. “It’s a basket! And it’s heavy, so there’s something in it.”

  “There had flaming well better be,” Sir Dominic murmured. He blinked innocently when Malinda looked at him, and she smothered a snigger.

  She took her time unwrapping the basket. After all, this excitement had to last her a whole year! It was a squarish hamper, beautifully gilded. There was an enameled crest on the lid, bearing her monogram in crimson and silver. Everyone was watching breathlessly. She undid the clasp and lifted the lid. She found lamb’s wool packing.

  “Sir Dominic!” said the Queen impatiently.

  With just the faintest hint of a sigh, he rose and bowed to her. “Your Grace.”

  “Last year I gave you certain missives—”

  “I delivered them as I promised, my lady.”

  Malinda’s probing fingers were detecting crystal bottles, carefully stoppered. She cleared the packing away and lifted one out.

  “Then why has he never replied? Not once!” Queen Godeleva held out the double handful of letters. “I have written more forcefully, perhaps even temerariously—”

  “I brought a dispatch for Your Grace,” Sir Dominic said quietly, producing an envelope that
bore an imposing seal.

  Malinda paused with her fingers on the stopper of the scent bottle. No one was watching her. Whatever it was that was wrong was suddenly here. Even six cut-crystal vials of the rarest and most exotic perfumes were not as important as that letter.

  For a long moment Godeleva seemed shocked to stone. Then, with a piercing cry, she let her own correspondence fall higgledy-piggledy to the floor. “My recall? At last?”

  “I cannot say, Your Grace.”

  Yet the Queen’s hands hesitated above the Blade’s offering as if it were a scorpion. When she took it, she held it very reluctantly, by the edges, and only long enough to read the inscription. “This is not addressed to me!” She tried to hurl it in Dominic’s face, but it was not made for hurling. It fluttered. “There is no Lady Godeleva in this place! I am Queen, do you hear? Queen!”

  Dominic had deftly snatched the letter out of the air. “A scrivener’s error, I am certain, Your Grace.” He offered it again.

  “May I assist, Your Majesty?” Lady Arabel took the letter, broke the seal, unfolded the heavy paper, and handed it to her mistress. Malinda sat forgotten, still clutching a scent bottle, frozen like everyone else.

  The document trembled and crackled in Godeleva’s hands. She seemed to have trouble understanding the words, although Malinda had seen that the text was very brief.

  The Queen emitted an ear-splitting scream. “No! He shall not have her! Mine! Leave me alone in this awful place?” She leaped from her chair and grabbed Malinda up into her arms. The royal gift crashed to the floor in a carillon of breaking glass. A choking fog of scent billowed up, nipping eyes and choking throats. Godeleva screamed again, even longer and louder. So did Malinda.

  The women rescued Malinda. The former Queen fled howling from the hall with Sir Arundel in pursuit; Lady Arabel and Mistress de Fait trailed after them.

  Sir de Fait carried Malinda outside, well away from the hysterics, confusion, and sickly stench of perfume. Sir Dominic seemed about to follow, but then changed his mind. The two of them went on alone, up the grassy hill until they stood on the crest of the cliff, staring out over the blue sea. There the Blade set her on her feet and knelt beside her. The salt wind ruffled their hair and made the weeds dance. He put an arm around her.

  “That was a shame about your gift. I’m sure the King will replace it when he hears what happened.”

  Malinda was still sobbing too hard to argue, so she just shook her head. What need had she of perfume?

  “Did you understand what was in your mother’s letter?” he asked.

  “I won’t go!” She turned her back on him. But she didn’t run away.

  “You’re a princess, my lady. Your destiny is to marry a prince and live in a palace. You can’t rot away in this backwater pigsty any—” He broke off with a cry and leaped to his feet.

  Blades were incredibly fast, but de Fait was not quite fast enough to grab Malinda and turn her away or cover her eyes. She saw her mother fly from the terrace and plunge down to the surf far, far below. And then it was de Fait’s turn to scream. “Idiot! Criminal!” His curses faded as he raced for the house, leaving her alone.

  Bereaved Blades had been known to run amok and slay bystanders indiscriminately, but in this case they merely went for each other. The only man who might have stopped them, Sir Dominic, reached the scene too late. Arundel died within minutes and de Fait the following day, apparently more of a broken heart than of his wounds. It was tragic, but it could have been worse.

  The day after that the royal coach arrived with a six-Blade escort to conduct Princess Malinda to court.

  2

  The Princess is of a stature uncommon in women, but of pleasing form and in no wise unfeminine, being as graceful in the minuet as she is nimble in the galliard. Her features are illuminated by a wondrous complexion and unmarred by any unseemly asymmetry, although they denote firmness of character rather than humility, and it is said that her blushes stem more often from spirit than maidenly shyness. She is a daring equestrian, favors the falcon over the spindle and archery above the spinet, and is capable of drawing a full war bow as well as any man-at-arms, having once felled a stag at near eighty paces before several witnesses of quality. The sharpness of her wit has caused much merriment but also some offense, regarding which her royal father has seen fit to chide her betimes.

  FROM A DISPATCH FILED BY THE ISILONDIAN AMBASSADOR, FIRSTMOON, 368

  Deprived at a stroke of friends, family, and the only home she knew, Malinda entered upon the most miserable year of her life. At Ness Royal she had rarely seen a stranger from one month to the next; now she was buried in an ants’ nest of strangers. All eyes were on her, all ears at her door. Worse, her ogre father was everywhere, striding through his palaces at the head of his retinue, huge in his silks and furs, resplendent with gems and gold, piggy little eyes missing nothing. Great lords shivered when he frowned and guffawed in helpless merriment at his slightest quip. He regarded Malinda with distaste. Even the fact that she was tall and strong merely reminded him that she should have been a boy.

  The only person she knew at court was Sir Dominic. Kind though he was, he could spare little time for the King’s child, and he was too intelligent to give the court vipers cause to hiss.

  If Godeleva had been a bad mother, Sian was a hundred times worse. After seven years’ marriage, she remained incorrigibly barren and terrified of the King’s growing displeasure. With His Majesty displaying more than usual interest in the debutantes, everyone knew which way the wind was turning.

  Sian appointed Lady Millet to be the Princess’s governess and assumed she had done all that was necessary. Lady Millet was about the worst possible choice—she was young and giddy, and her main interest was spicing up her diary with Blade stories. Blades were notoriously promiscuous, but Millet seemed intent on collecting the entire Guard.

  Surprisingly, it was almost a year before Sian was caught trying to rectify her infertility with the aid of her own Blades, although whether just Sir Wyvern or all four of them by turns was never clearly established. Convicted of treason, she was beheaded one chilly morning in Tenthmoon. After lunch the King married Lady Haralda.

  The new Queen was little older than Malinda, a dainty child of sylphlike beauty, silken manners, and iron will. Having been well coached by a regiment of harridan aunts, she tolerated no bullying from her royal master. She was reported—on very dubious authority—to have remarked that husband management was merely a question of learning to sleep with one’s knees together.

  Although she had the King appoint one of her many elderly aunts, Lady Wains, to be the Princess’s governess, in effect she handled most of a governess’s duties herself, treating Malinda like a younger sister. She brought the impoverished Lady Arabel to court as Malinda’s Mistress of the Robes. She arranged for Arabel to bring Dian with her, so the Princess would have a friend—Mistress de Fait was already remarried and content to remain on Ness Royal. The Queen worked hard to bring father and daughter together, starting with their mutual interests in music, dancing, and fine horses. If her success was limited, the fault was not entirely Malinda’s.

  There was, notably, the spring morning when the eleven-year-old Princess was playing the spinet for the Queen and her ladies. Torn between an intense dislike of performing like a trained dog and an innate determination to master anything she attempted, Malinda made heavy work of the new piece. Having struggled through to the end, she was intensely annoyed by the applause that she knew she had not earned. At that moment, a Blade threw open the door and the King marched in. Of course the women all sprang to their feet and then curtseyed, so possibly he did not notice that his daughter was present. He raised Haralda and bussed her cheek.

  “Good news, my sweet!” he boomed. “I’ve just betrothed that daughter of mine to the De Mayes boy, Ansel. We must have a family dinner tonight to celebrate.”

  Malinda squealed, “What?” and came charging through the ladies-in-waiting to accost he
r father. “That little toad? That pustule?”

  Stupefied by such insolence, the King roared. “You don’t speak to me like that!”

  Malinda was too angry to heed the danger. “I am a princess—I must marry a prince!” Recalling a scrap of conversation that had certainly not been intended for her ears, she added, “Are you skimping on my dowry?”

  Predictably, the result was a disaster. She was whipped and confined to her room for several days. Ansel was actually an inoffensive lad of royal descent, her second cousin once removed. Although even the notoriously plainspoken Duchess of De Mayes never raved about her son’s good qualities, he did not deserve to be classified as either amphibian or sebaceous cyst. His real defect in Malinda’s eyes was that he was five years younger than she was.

  Another memorable catastrophe followed a few months later, when the King learned that she had taken to riding astride again, instead of sidesaddle. That was how she had been taught to ride by Sir Arundel, but at court the practice was regarded as unladylike, fit only for peasant women on donkeys. She had been repeatedly forbidden and had repeatedly disobeyed. Ambrose exploded in a memorable tantrum.

  “You brazen, self-willed brat!” he roared. “You think you can get your own way all the time. You think you can have anything you fancy!”

  Alas! Malinda again forgot how to address a monarch. “Tiger’s a stallion!” she shouted. “I’d like to see you try to ride him sidesaddle!”

  The King almost choked. “Anyone else would be sent to the Bastion for that.” He turned the royal fury on Sir Hoare, Commander of the Royal Guard. “You knew this was rank defiance! Why did you not see that our commands were obeyed?”

  Of course Malinda went nowhere without a Blade or two in attendance. She got along well with them, and she especially liked Sir Hoare, who had an impish humor and treated her with the respect due the Heir Presumptive. Now he even defied the King for her.