Sky of Swords

by Dave Duncan

  Yes, she could probably learn to enjoy this. Tonight she would find out what all the rest of the fuss was about.

  Aftermath

  The reading is that you will be Queen of Chivial, Your Grace, although not for very long.

  IVYN KROMMAN, PERSONAL COMMUNICATION TO PRINCESS MALINDA

  It was a fairly typical Firstmoon day in Baelmark, which meant that the sleet moved horizontally, stung like needles, and tasted salt even far inland. The Queen’s route home led her right into the teeth of it, so she could barely see the front of her horse.

  Hatburna was set high on the slopes of Cwicnoll—a good summer home, but not the most comfortable place in midwinter. The family celebrated Long Night there only because it was more intimate than any of the formal palaces. This year, the weather had been so excessively horrible that they had lingered longer than usual, no one wanting to face the ride back to Catterstow. So why was she out in it now? Probably just because it made coming home feel so good. A plunge in the hot spring would definitely be in order, followed by a toasting at the fire, a steaming mug of hot mead and honey, and then perhaps roast boar with apple sauce.

  She was returning from visiting Fosterhof, mother house of the many Queen’s Orphanages she had established throughout the archipelago. She sometimes complained to Radgar that she had a thousand children to worry about. He usually replied that he found their own three more than enough and she shouldn’t try to solve everybody’s problems. But he never stinted when she asked for money for any of her causes.

  Hands came running to take her horse as she slid from her saddle in the stable yard. She splashed over to the door, stamped in the porch, shook herself like a wet dog—of which half a dozen were presently trying to paw and lick her dry. Usually a servant would be there to take her cloak, but not today.

  “Here you are, Mother,” proclaimed a husky treble. “Hot mead and honey, just the way you like it. I put cinnamon on top—that’s right, isn’t it?” Sigfrith thrust a steaming mug at her. Atheling Sigfrith was her youngest, five feet of juvenile cunning clad in armor of pure charm—red-gold curls, huge eyes of emerald green, a million freckles.

  “Well, thank you!” Malinda accepted the drink; it was much too hot to sip at, but the pottery warmed her hands nicely. “You think I will feel better able to cope with your confession after I drink this?” Why was the young rascal wearing a leather rain cloak that showed no signs of wet? Why had he chased all the servants away?

  “Confession, Mother? Me?”

  “Well, I admit that you usually manage to make it seem someone else’s fault, but I really would prefer to be sober when you tell me. You wouldn’t want me to fly into a murderous drunken rage, would you?”

  “Would you?” he asked with interest. Innocence shone in the jewel eyes. Maybe it was someone else’s fault this time, whatever it was.

  “Probably not. Where are we going?”

  He pouted at being outguessed. “Over to the Old House. Would you like me to carry your drink for you, Mother?”

  “Yes, please. We old folk are so clumsy.” She resigned herself to postponing that appointment with the hot spring.

  “Let’s go. I am getting more worried by the minute.”

  The Old House was officially used for servants’ quarters, although it frequently became infested by the ragamuffin poets, artists, and musicians who swarmed around the throne. As she followed her hurrying guide through the storm, Malinda realized that it would also make a very good hideaway for a young atheling wishing to get up to mischief without his parents’ knowledge. Fortunately, Sigfrith was too young to be molesting the servant girls. She thought he was. She certainly hoped he was. His brothers were quite bad enough.

  The building seemed deserted, as it should at that time of day. By the time she had struggled out of her cloak and hat and boots, he was offering her the mead again and her favorite slippers, too, which normally remained in her bedroom. This was becoming serious!

  The great hall there had never been very great, and after New House was built, it had been mostly hacked up into sleeping cubicles. All that remained was an artists’ studio with a gigantic hearth and some large, glass windows providing a spectacular view of the volcano. Spectacular on good days. Today the prospect was of fog and a few misty pine trees. She could smell linseed oil, although she was not aware of any painters battening on the royal hospitality at present. She had certainly not authorized the enormous and extravagant fire in the great hearth. There was a painting on an easel.

  “Like it?” her youngest son said gleefully. It was a portrait of Sigfrith himself, curled up small in a chair with two puppies and a kitten. “Surprised?”

  “Astonished! It’s superb. I don’t recognize the artist.”

  “Thomas of Flaskbury.”

  She had never heard of the man and felt warning prickles on the back of her neck. There was more than a boyish prank involved in this.

  “It drowns me in cute. Who planned the composition?”

  “I did,” Sigfrith said proudly. “We all did. See over here?”

  He led her to two more easels, and predictably they bore portraits of Æthelgar and Fyrbeorn. Someone had gone to considerable trouble and expense. Æthelgar had the money, but only Radgar himself was capable of pulling this off without her finding out. This was not just a belated Long Night gift for her.

  “They chose their own designs, too, did they?” she asked while her mind raced. She took a sip of the scalding mead.

  “Oh, yes,” Sigfrith said eagerly, too young to catch all the implications. “Master Thomas said he wanted to make us look just the way we wanted to look. He is good, isn’t he!”

  Obviously. Sigfrith and his kitten—Radgar always said that their youngest would never make a pirate because he would only have to ask for loot and his victims would give him everything they owned.

  The pirate was their middle son, Fyrbeorn, shown in full war regalia on the deck of a dragon ship. At sixteen he was already taller and wider than his father, and the artist had made him look even larger. The pink fuzz on his chin had become a bristling copper beard; his muscles bulged. This was Fyrbeorn as the throwback warrior he dreamed of being, sword drawn, steel helmet, fearful green stare, the terror of all the oceans. With brawn like that, brains were redundant. Piracy was out of fashion these days, but he and a crew of young terrors were planning to sail off to ravage the coast of Skyrria and get themselves blooded as soon as the weather turned.

  Æthelgar, the eldest, had chosen to be shown with a falcon on his wrist, standing beside his favorite horse and hound. In reality his hair was redder than that diplomatic auburn and his eyes not so yellow and he rarely chose to dress in such grandeur. To the best of her knowledge he owned no garments like that cloak, jerkin, doublet, ruffled shirt…. The artist had caught the inscrutable smile perfectly, though. Clever—or even sly…Fyrbeorn would take anything he fancied by brute force, Radgar said, and Sigfrith by charm, but Æthelgar would just prove to you he had been its legal owner all along. The sword at his side was a gentleman’s rapier, a Chivian gentleman’s rapier.

  So why was their mother being let into this secret now? She skewered her last-born with a menacing royal glare. “Your father put you up to this!”

  Sigfrith Radgaring was innocence personified. “Up to what, Mother? Don’t you like the pictures?”

  She eyed the gaping door to the sleeping quarters. “Radgar!”

  He emerged smiling. There were depths to that smile. He came to her as if intending to embrace her, and she backed away a step.

  “Explain!”

  He shrugged, discarding most of the smile. “They were made for your father.”

  There were depths to that sentence, too—Firstmoon was churning the ocean like a cauldron. So why now?

  “Shouldn’t I have been consulted?”

  “Twenty years ago you told me you wanted to have nothing more to do with him.”

  Had it been that long? Close enough. Those years had been k
ind to Radgar Æleding. There were few threads of silver in his beard; he was almost fifty, but a stranger would have guessed ten years short. In all history no man had reigned in Baelmark half as long as he, and even the fire-breathing terrors of Æthelgar’s set were still loath to challenge the Ironhall-trained king. The moot always voted him a champion to fight in his stead, but he preferred to do his own dirty work—and the last contender had lost his right thumb in less than a minute.

  Radgar shrugged. “I never promised that I wouldn’t, though, did I? I have to keep up with what’s going on in Chivial.”

  She shivered and moved closer to the fire. “What is?”

  Of course she had not been able to remain totally ignorant. Dian wrote regularly—Baroness Dian since Bandit became Sheriff of Waterby—still popping out children with no sign of even wanting to slow down. Little Amby had died only a few months after her marriage and Queen Dierda about five years ago, still childless. Ambrose would be over seventy now…in poor health, the last she had heard. Things must have gone beyond that.

  Radgar shrugged. “He wanted to see his grandsons. Durendal sent an artist.”

  “And a good one,” she admitted. “That slime bucket is still around is he?”

  “Roland? Still chancellor…well, he was.”

  “Why did you say wanted, not wants?”

  Radgar hesitated long enough to convey the news without words. He did not say he was sorry. “About a week ago. He’d been failing for some time, but the end seems to have been…peculiar. Worth looking into.”

  She turned and walked over to the window to study the fog. She could not mourn Ambrose. After so long she could no longer find it in her heart even to hate him. She had done so once, but mainly for forcing her into marrying Radgar, who had turned out to be the finest man she knew. She could not imagine what her life would have been without him. He was ruthless to his enemies, yes, but infinitely generous to friends; a doting father and husband, yet so astonishingly self-disciplined in his own life that he often seemed indolent or uncaring. When the time came, he acted as required, berserk or icily rational.

  However sordid her father’s motives might have been, to bear a grudge for her marriage would be impossibly petty. He had let another man break the news to her, and that she would not forgive. Probing her feelings, she realized that what hurt most at the moment was purely self-ish—her life had passed a milestone. She was next up. She had become the old generation and her sons the new. She resented that.

  “Peculiar how?”

  Radgar was right at her back. She had not heard him approach. “According to present information, Durendal murdered him. I find that a little hard to swallow.”

  “And who succeeds?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  “You know who.”

  No! Ambrose was trying to mess up her life again, just by dying, and she would not allow it. “Chivial won’t accept a queen regnant. It tried two and they were both miserable failures.”

  “You’ll be different.”

  “In what way?”

  “First, he’s left you a land prosperous and at peace. Second, you’re supremely well qualified. You’ve had practice. The witan say the country’s much better run when I leave you in charge than when I’m around to do it myself.”

  “That’s nonsense!”

  “And third,” Radgar continued, unruffled, “the House of Ranulf has fallen on hard times. There really isn’t anyone else. Everyone expects you. They’re reconciled to it.”

  “You put it nicely.” But she knew Radgar always had his own sources of information and drew his own conclusions. He would have made it his business to keep track of Chivian affairs. “And if I refuse?”

  “No one seems to know. More women, I think. I may even be the closest male. I suppose the real answer is ‘civil war.’ ”

  She spun around to face him. “No! Baelmark is my home now. I am not qualified. I have a family to care for here, quite apart from the orphanages, the hospices, arts schools, and a dozen other important projects that will all crash into immobility if I take my eyes off them.”

  Radgar grinned. She had not presented a very convincing argument.

  “Oh, they may put the crown on me,” she said, “but there’ll be all sorts of people lurking around trying to take it away from me.”

  Radgar laughed aloud.

  “What is so fiery funny?” she barked.

  “I know you too well, Malinda! If they try that sort of game with you, you’ll turn the world upside down and shake them off before you admit defeat.”

  “Burn you!” she said. And burn that old blackguard Ambrose for dying at such an inconvenient time. A couple of years from now,when…Ha! She was overlooking something and apparently Radgar was, too. He had been hiding over there…. She turned more toward the draperies on the other side. “I shall refuse the throne on behalf of myself and my descendants forever!”

  Young Sigfrith’s eyes stretched wide with astonishment, but she saw movement in the shadows. Sure enough, Æthelgar stepped forth—slim, subtle, and sardonic.

  “My sympathies on your bereavement, Mother.”

  Radgar scowled, but he should have guessed that their eldest son would know what was going on. Eels were brambles compared to Æthelgar. On the other hand, there was no use shouting for Fyrbeorn—he would be off fighting, hunting, or seducing; politics were not his sport. To Æthelgar there could be no other sport. As a child he had ruled the rat pack of Catterstow. He had thought to have himself painted as a Chivian gentleman, expecting that King Ambrose would see those portraits and perhaps display them to Parliament.

  “Have you something to contribute to this discussion?” Malinda demanded.

  He displayed the cryptic, conspiratorial smile that Thomas of Flaskbury had captured so surely. “I’m a thegn now. I won’t be bound by your renunciation.”

  “And I’m still king,” his father growled. “You’ll be bound what I tell you to be bound by.”

  They scratched like blade and grindstone, those two. Malinda intervened.

  “All right, Radgar Æleding! What solution will you impose?”

  “I impose nothing on you,” Radgar said softly, “as you very well know, my lady. But I have always believed that royal blood brought royal duty. Can you in good conscience let your homeland collapse into chaos just because you’re too busy to bother?”

  She shrugged angrily. “I have enough to do here.”

  For the first time a ripple of worry disturbed Æthelgar’s serene confidence. “Any sword-wielding thug can make a try for the throne of Baelmark, Mother, but Chivial goes by primogeniture. Even if you bar me from putting in my claim now, my sons and sons’ sons will always be a threat to them.” He had worked that out years ago.

  So had Radgar. He sighed. “I’m afraid he’s right. Spirits help Chivial! If you turn it down, love, then we’ll have to send them Snakeblood.”

  But Snakeblood wasn’t old enough yet. Æthelgar was about the age she had been at her marriage, a brash but inexperienced child; like her then, he thought he knew everything. Burn Ambrose for dying just now!

  “You won’t consider abdicating and coming with me?”

  Radgar laughed. “With my past? My existence will be extremely brief if I ever show my face in Chivial. Besides, I do want to put Fyrbeorn up here, and he isn’t quite ready yet. You see that painting? You’d think we whittled him out of oak just to be King of Baelmark.” A very fond, very stupid smirk disfigured his face. He actually kept the Baelish thegns on very tight reins these days, but Fyrbeorn inspired brainless attacks of piratical nostalgia in his father.

  In Malinda’s opinion, while that big lunk looked the part, he lacked the wits to rule Baelmark for long. Radgar’s sons had shared out his talents between them, and she often wished she had borne more of them, just to see how many varied chips the old block could produce. None of the three could match him for versatility yet. Perhaps when they were older…

  “What about Sigfrith?”


  Radgar chuckled. “This one? This one with the big ears flapping? He’ll get whatever he wants out of life and let the other two do all the work.”

  Sigfrith squealed with laughter and hurled himself into his father’s arms, which was perfectly typical.

  Radgar spun his youngest son upside down and deposited him gently on the floor. He turned to embrace his wife instead. “You don’t think I want to lose you, do you, love? I’d come if I could.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Give it two years. You go home to Chivial now; take Æthelgar with you and set him up as Crown Prince. They’ll love him, may the spirits have pity on them. In two years he’ll have the whole kingdom marching to the beat of his drum. Fyrbeorn will be ready to take over here. We’ll retire together and live happily ever after.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder while she thought about it. Queen Malinda the Brief? Malinda the Unwilling?

  “You promise?”

  “I promise. Do you?”

  “I’ll have to think about it for a day or two.”

  “Can I come with you, Mom?” Sigfrith asked excitedly.

  “Can I?”

  “In the spring, maybe. The sea’s too dangerous just now. How did you hear?” she asked Radgar’s collarbone.

  “Durendal warned me months ago it was coming. I posted Ealdabeard in Lomouth with a fast ship. This morning he unloaded Commander Dragon of the Royal Guard on the beach at Catterstow, breathing and rational, if only just.”

  Malinda chuckled to herself at the thought of a Chivian crossing the ocean in midwinter in a longship. Even a Blade would not come through that ordeal unscathed. And she remembered that twice before in her life she had received bad news from Blades—from Dominic at Ness Royal when she was a child, and when Durendal came to tell her of her betrothal to Radgar. Well, she had thought it was bad news, and both times things had turned out well in the end.

  “I might add,” Radgar said acidly, “that if Sir Dragon is the best your father could find to be Leader, then either the Blades have slipped a long way from my day, or else it was past time the old man moved on.”