by Dave Duncan
The sword was free in her hands, dripping blood, but the wound healed before her eyes. Dog and Winter released their grip, leaving white pits on Audley’s arms. The Forge rocked with cheers. Then Audley was standing, beaming at her, holding out his hand for the sword—his own sword, Evening. She wiped sweat from her forehead and returned his smile.
The participants shuffled places, there was more chanting, but briefer this time. Dog spoke the oath in his animal growl, which must be his natural voice. The second binding should be easy. But one glance at the huge broadsword he was holding without visible effort told her that it would weigh more than a horse. As he sprang down from the anvil, she bent to snatch up the steel gauntlet Sir Lothaire had given her for just this purpose. She gripped the monstrous thing by hilt and midpoint; its blade was a handsbreadth wide. But then Dog’s chest and shoulders were giant-size to match. Could Winter and Abel possibly hold him still for her? And how hard must she push to penetrate all that muscle?
Don’t look at his face…. She did, of course, and was amazed to see him gazing back at her with no indication of fear at all. He was flushed, not pale, and his strange eyes were staring at the approaching sword with a sort of hunger, or eagerness. She had stopped—he scowled at her, and she told herself she must not prolong the ordeal just because he was managing to hide his suffering. She put the distant point of the sword at the black smudge and pushed as hard as she could. “Serve or die!” This time she missed bone completely and ran two feet of steel out his back before she realized. A torrent of blood flowed down to soak his britches. His spasm of pain sent Abel and Winter flying, but she hauled the sword out cleanly, steadying it again with her gauntleted hand.
The cheering rolled as loud for him as it had for Audley. It was curious that a character as odd as Dog should be so respected. Even when she returned his huge, dragon-slaying sword, he did not smile. Anyone would think he died every day.
Now she was gaining confidence. But Winter was next, and when she had thought Audley looked frightened, she had not known what real terror looked like. He whispered the oath almost inaudibly, stumbling twice, starting over. Even innocent-seeming breaks like that in a ritual could invalidate it, and she saw Master of Rituals open his mouth to order a fresh start. But Winter got through the oath correctly on the third attempt and stepped down from the anvil. He approached her slowly and flopped down on both knees as if his legs had given way. When he held up the sword to her, she saw the sweat dripping off his chin. Who was she to torture a boy like this? She tried to answer that desperate appeal in his eyes with a smile of comfort and wondered if it would look like blood lust to him.
The sword was a rapier, very light, slender as a needle. Fear he had named it. Audley and Dog held him for her. He closed his eyes and she struck Fear into his heart. There was almost no blood.
As the cheering died away and she returned the sword to him, she saw that he was grinning through tears of relief. She wanted to tell him that courage was not lack of fear, it was overcoming fear, and he was probably the bravest man in Ironhall that night—but she would not shame him by saying so in front of the others, and he must know it anyway.
Young Abel looked scared, but he would be glad to get it over with. Willing was a light, straight sword, nothing fancy. It slid in and out of its owner’s heart with no fuss…willingly, perhaps.
All done.
Screaming with excitement, the juniors swarmed into the octogram, chattering like starlings, demanding to inspect scars and bloody swords. Knights and masters crowded close to offer congratulations. But the four new-forged Blades had eyes only for their ward.
“Sir Audley,” she said, “I appoint you Commander of the Princess’s Guard.”
He bowed, but his smile said that was only to be expected. “I am deeply honored. Your orders, Your Grace?”
“For now, just get me to the food,” she said.
Tomorrow she would lead forth her tiny army to do battle for their sovereign lord the King.
19
These monstrous killers, these bloodthirsty, murdering beasts who are loosed against us.
THE HONORABLE ALFRED KILDARE, M.P.
For the first week or two after his binding, a Blade was notoriously reluctant to let his ward out of his sight. Malinda had to insist that she did not need four guards standing over her while she undressed, no matter how sincerely they promised to keep their backs turned. They inspected her bedroom as if counting spiders—all four of them peering under the bed and in every drawer. She assumed that they all stood guard outside the door till morning.
Sir Piers and his men had ridden away before the binding began, but he had left a fat purse with Dian to cover homeward expenses. Malinda had never touched money in her life, so next morning she handed it to Sir Audley and told him he would have to account for it all; he swelled up like a puffball at being given this responsibility. They ate a leisurely breakfast and set off on the Blackwater road. Winter was the only man she saw look back even once.
Audley was good company: respectful, poised, and witty without being too addicted to puns. He tended to pull rank and ride on her right, leaving space on her left for someone else only if the trail was wide enough. In farmland it was usually just a wide expanse of mud across unfenced fields, but in the forests it could narrow to little more than a bridle path, and then Malinda was preoccupied with low branches and her Blades worried about ambush. Since Ironhall’s political instruction had not yet caught up with the new reign, she outlined for each man in turn her concern for her infant brother’s safety, her distrust of the Lord Protector, and the various strategies she thought he might try. They should know their enemy. They were shocked to realize that the Royal Guard itself would not necessarily remain on her side.
She soon learned that the only political thinker among them was Winter, who went swiftly to the heart of the problem, and stopped chewing his nails long enough to ask, “If the Lord Protector can persuade Parliament to legitimize him, then he would be the lawful heir? Would you try to contest that?”
“I would not expect you four to fight the entire country, no. I hope my brother and I would be decently treated, as minor royalty. I strongly suspect we would not be, though. We and our descendants would remain a threat to the Granville line.”
Winter gnawed a pinkie for a moment. “But we already have a king. When you start deposing rulers you create precedents, don’t you? Next time Parliament doesn’t like the sovereign it can change the laws again. Pretty soon you’ll have an elective monarchy like Baelmark’s.”
“I thought the Baels did it with swords, but that’s still a very astute argument. Thank you!”
“The Baels’ way is quite complicated,” Winter said earnestly and proceeded to give her a lecture on Baelish government. After enduring that, she felt justified in asking him how he was going to hold his sword when he had eaten his fingers off completely. He looked hurt.
Dog’s reaction could not have been more different. He kept his blind, white eyes on her as she outlined the problem, then he growled, “I will deal with him for you, Princess.”
“Deal with who, er, whom? How?”
“This Lord Protector. It is easy to kill someone if you don’t mind being caught. I will kill the Rector for you.”
“You will most certainly do no such—”
“I am your Blade. I will do anything you want, Princess. That is what I am for. They told us at Ironhall that a Blade is born to die.”
“Well, I am telling you—”
“I will obey any order you give me, even if I must die doing so. You can destroy me if you want.”
“I do not want, you great”—Malinda restrained her vocabulary—“man. You are not going to kill anyone, you hear? Not unless I am in danger. Or you are, of course.”
If she had been scraping the bottom of the Ironhall barrel, she had done very well, she decided. They were naive and undertrained, but they all showed promise. Audley was personable, Winter clever, and Abel just neede
d time to grow up. Dog would probably be a good solid guardian once she learned to ignore his bizarre remarks. Their origins were humble and they would not be mistaken for nobility, but part of the Ironhall miracle was that they could now behave as the nobility expected its retainers to behave, fit to serve in its palaces and mansions.
On the rare occasions when she got one of them alone, she pried gently into his past, which was absolutely none of her business. The tales she heard were standard—boys abused, orphaned, or abandoned. Abel had been a vagrant, dumped in Ironhall by a sheriff who did not fancy sending a child to the mines; Audley had fled his home village after beating up a drunken and violent stepfather; Winter had been tossed from foster home to foster home until he was so wild that no one could tolerate him. Dog, inevitably, was different. He rasped, “I don’t have to tell you that,” and reined in his horse so that she rode on without him.
The weather was perfect. She saw no urgent need to cripple herself with another marathon ride. A leisurely journey would be a valuable chance to get to know her Blades before she put her life in their hands.
“Where shall we overnight, Your Grace?” her Commander inquired as the western sky began to redden.
“At the King’s Head in New Cinderwich.” She had noted it on the way to Ironhall, amused that the picture on the sign looked so unlike Amby. She was being perverse, because there were several royal hunting lodges within reach, and so was Bondhill Palace, all of which would have caretaker staff. Any rural gentlefolk would be ecstatic to grant her hospitality. But an inn would be a novel adventure for her.
Audley frowned. “As you wish, my lady.” Then he laid down conditions. She must not reveal her identity, her rings and bracelets must be put away out of sight, she would be addressed as Mistress Ward, cat’s-eye pommels would be kept hidden under cloaks, and so on. She hid her amusement and agreed to her guardian’s terms. He chose a room at the end of the corridor for her and Dian, plus the one opposite, from which his team could watch her door without standing in the passage all night.
Only Dian did not enter cheerfully into the game. “I’ll take the fleas if you’ll feed the bedbugs!” she said grumpily. “Have you smelled the dining room yet?”
True, the food was a nasty shock, but the stink in the dining room was mainly that of old ale. It was large and dim, busy and rowdy. Soon all six of them gathered around a plank table to fight with the grease soup and roast gristle. After the novelty wore off, Malinda noticed she was no longer the sole object of interest in her companions’ universe. Conversation had died; eyes roamed, mouths forgot to chew. There were girls present—wenches! They swaggered and flounced; they flirted with the male customers; they had certainly noticed the four Blades. Only gentlemen wore swords, and all gentlemen were rich by their standards. Innocent though Malinda was in the ways of the world, she knew what was being offered. She knew that the King’s Head was very different from the King’s palace. She exchanged grins with Dian.
“Master Audley?”
“Er…Mistress?”
“You may issue each man one crown apiece as an advance on wages.”
Eight eyes stretched very wide, then three young men grinned wildly and even Dog brightened. Abel turned an astonishing shade of excited pink.
“Beg pardon, er, mistress,” Winter said, “but how much will you be paying us?”
“I have no idea. What’s the going rate?”
“Room, board, and livery are standard,” Audley said glumly. “Some wards don’t give their Blades money at all. The Guard pays one crown a month.”
“Is that what it’s always paid or has it been raised since the Monster War started?”
“It hasn’t changed in a hundred years.”
“Then I think two would be about right for a smaller, elite force.”
At that they were ready to roll on their backs for her or let her scratch their ears. The Commander of the Royal Guard might have words to say, but if Treasury disallowed her extravagance she could make up the difference from her privy purse.
Bugs or not, Malinda slept well, undisturbed by whatever exciting events might be occurring next door. In the morning Dian, self-proclaimed expert and self-appointed snoop, reported seeing an altogether different swagger to the Princess’s Guard. “Any man has to check it out at least once before he’s quite sure of it,” she explained. “Look at Abel! He’s two inches taller! He’s got a chest!”
Malinda could see no difference at all. “How about Dog?”
“Dog,” Dian said in an awed whisper, “spent all of it.”
They reached Grandon about noon. The capital was by far the largest city in Chivial, with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants; and that day at least half of them seemed to be hurrying through its narrow, shadowed streets, dodging wagons, pushing carts, jostling, and shouting. The racket of wheels and hooves on the cobbles was almost drowned out by the bellowing of livestock and the shouts of hucksters. None of Malinda’s Blades had ever seen real crowds before, and they closed in around her like human armor—Dog out in front, Audley and Abel flanking her, Winter as rearguard. Poor Dian was left forgotten at the back, in spite of all Malinda’s protests.
They came at last to Sycamore Square, which should have been an easy open space, but this was market day and the other half of the population had packed itself into a single teeming mass studded with stalls and barrows. Shouts to clear the way were ignored; people were jostled by the horses; someone recognized the distinctive arrogance of those young swordsmen and then spotted the cat’s-eye hilts. A yell of “Blades!” was rapidly followed by a shower of missiles—vegetables, fish, filth from the cobbles. Hands reached up to grab reins or bridle.
The Princess’s Guard reacted with superhuman reflexes, impeccable training, and a complete lack of preparatory instruction from their ward. Audley yelled orders and grabbed Malinda’s reins; Abel slapped the rump of her horse with the flat of his sword and the entire troop plunged forward, abandoning Dian, who was of no importance in their world at that moment. In perfect formation, five horses plowed through a turmoil of fury and terror. People screamed; swords flashed and slashed. Across the great square went the Blades and off down the most convenient street, emerging from the spreading riot without taking casualties or suffering damage to anything except their dignity.
Even then they did not slow down. Malinda, of course, yelled that they must go back and find Dian. Audley did not refuse; he just kept demanding, “Which way? Which way?” Ironhall would have been proud of him. He brought her safely home to the gates of Greymere, where the Yeomen men-at-arms gates swung down their pikes at the sight of this unruly troop of plunging, lathered horses.
“Her Highness and escort!” he roared, fighting a rearing, panicky mount. The Yeomen gaped at these shabbily clad youths flaunting cat’s-eye swords.
“We did it!” Abel screamed. “Our second day and we blooded our swords! Most Blades never do that in their entire—”
“Shut up, you idiot!” Winter shouted, just as Malinda said something much less polite.
In escaping from Sycamore Market, the Princess’s Guard had ridden down everyone who’d gotten in their way and slashed at anyone within reach. Undoubtedly they had rescued their ward from a hostile crowd as they had been taught to do, but they had also caused the second Blade massacre in less than a week, and this time within the heart of the capital.
20
You have to learn your way around the palace.
SIR DOMINIC
From the main door, Malinda ran all the way to Chancery with her Blades at her heels, leaving a trail of gawking, scandalized courtiers. The Lord Chancellor, she was informed, had ridden north that morning with the rest of the Council to meet the Lord Protector. She ran then to the King’s quarters and there, as she had hoped, found Acting Commander Dominic. He was playing dice with some others in the antechamber—the King being engaged in having his nap. As he was rising to greet her, she gasped out the bad tidings and he flopped back on his sto
ol. She had never seen a Blade turn chalky white before.
“First you must send men to look for Dian!” she finished.
Sir Dominic shook his head and went on shaking it while he spoke. “I have none to send. We can ask the Chamberlain’s office if they can spare any Yeomen. But almost everyone’s gone north. Oh, spirits, Your Highness, how bad was it?”
She glanced around at her four crestfallen guardsmen. “Did any of you not hit anyone?” Four heads shook. “It was my fault, Commander. I heard Blades being booed when I was on my way back from Wetshore. I did not warn Sir Audley. I gave him no instructions.”
“I’d better alert the Yeomen. There may be a mob at the gates pretty soon.”
“Your Grace?” Winter asked, without taking the finger out of his teeth. “On whose authority did you bind us?”
“Durendal’s,” she said.
“But if the Lord Protector hasn’t even—”
“I don’t think we need discuss that now, Sir Winter. Sir Dominic, I’d like to introduce my guards to you, but I think I’d better go and tell the Chamberlain’s men about this trouble right away. You are not really concerned.”
But the Lord Protector would be.
Dian turned up unharmed very soon after and located Malinda in her quarters, where Lady Ruby and Lady Dove were watching in alarm as the four Blades trotted around like excited dogs, sniffing every corner. Seething with anger, Dian gave Malinda a generous piece of her mind. Dozens of casualties, she said—mostly women and children crushed in the panic, but some sword cuts, many injuries, blood on the cobblestones. There was a mob on the way.
Sir Audley drew his sword and sank to his knees to offer it to her. “Your Grace, I have failed. My errors have exposed you to—”
“Idiot!” Dog grabbed him with a mighty hand and hoisted him bodily out of the way. Flushed with anger, he thrust his blind marble eyes close to Malinda’s. “What did he do wrong? Was he supposed to let them kill you or hurt you? We were just going through. They attacked us. What did he do wrong?”
