The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades

by Dave Duncan

  Lady Kate noticed the move and pulled a face. “There is snow in the air. I have been expecting it ever since we stopped at Holmgarth. This cold is very unseasonable!”

  Why was she complaining? She was muffled all over in a reddish-brown fur robe with matching hat and muffs, so that only her face and boots were visible. She looked as warm as a roasting chestnut, while Emerald felt half naked. Cold drafts played on parts of her that were usually covered: ears, neck, legs.

  “I hope Wilf is all right.” She had volunteered her mother’s coach for the journey because her companion’s would certainly be recognized by its heraldry. The old man out there on the box had never been this far from Peachyard in his life before, and he might not have thought to bring warm clothes.

  “We’re almost there.”

  Ironhall loomed closer now, grim and black. From this angle it seemed to stand atop a low cliff. It sported a few towers and fake battlements, but it was less like a castle than she had expected. The hard knot of nerves inside her twisted.

  “This is absolutely your last chance to back out, Sister.” Lord Roland’s wife was petite and seemed almost fragile, her golden hair and corn-flower-blue eyes as bright as glaze on fine porcelain. Nor did she look old enough to be the mother of two children, one of them a son as tall as herself. Appearances were deceptive, though. Lady Kate was most certainly not fragile. A former White Sister, she thoroughly disapproved of the devious scheme her husband had devised. For three days she had been trying to talk Emerald out of it.

  “I will not sacrifice all that hair for nothing, my lady.”

  Lady Kate pouted her rosebud lips. “You may lose more than that. Blood and teeth, perhaps. A great deal of dignity, certainly.” Receiving no answer, she asked suspiciously, “Mother Superior did approve this charade, did she not?”

  Three nights ago, after the meeting in Ranulf Square, Lord Roland had offered Emerald a ride back to the palace in his carriage—greatly shocking and offending Mother Spinel by not including her in the invitation. But the hasty private discussion that had followed, as the carriage rattled through the rainy streets, had been his chance to explain his Ironhall plan. Emerald had agreed to play her part. Mother Superior…?

  “I’m sure your husband said so.”

  Kate’s eyebrows rose as a warning that Emerald was not the only White Sister who could detect falsehood. “Ha! I’ll bet he forgot to tell her until after we’d left Grandon and it was too late for her to object. This is an outrage.”

  Her efforts to dissuade Emerald were self-defeating, for the dominant elements in Emerald’s personality were earth and time, a combination that produced extreme stubbornness. Often in the last three days she had almost lost her nerve; left alone, she would probably have backed out by now. Kate’s opposition had helped stiffen her resolve.

  “I cannot imagine how even my glib-tongued husband ever persuaded you to make such a fool of yourself, Sister.”

  “He did find me a challenge, I think. Until he offered me a chance to avenge a man I greatly admired.”

  “Who?” Kate demanded sharply. “Not more deaths in the Order, I hope!”

  Sir Chefney’s death was still a state secret, not to be discussed. Fortunately the conversation was interrupted by shouting outside.

  “Meat wagon!”

  “Make way for the meat wagon!”

  “Raw meat coming!”

  A dozen or so boys on horses pounded past the coach and took up station ahead of it as a ragged guard of honor, laughing and shouting in a mix of treble and baritone. A carriage arriving at Ironhall could be bringing only one cargo.

  These were young, feral males—unpredictable and potentially violent. Emerald had met no boys during her years at Oakendown, and her subsequent life at court could be no preparation for Ironhall. She must expect some unpleasant experiences.

  Kate said, “Ha! Some of your new friends. Wanting you to come out and play, no doubt.”

  Again Emerald was saved from having to answer. As the trail bent close to the compound wall, a surge of elementary power made them both wince.

  “Spirits!” Kate cried. “You cannot endure that!”

  “It is only the Forge, very local.” Already the effect was fading.

  “I still think you are completely insane. You met Sir Saxon, you said?”

  “Grand Master? Once, my lady.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “I was not much impressed. To be fair, he was in a difficult position that night. Stalwart was there, baiting him mercilessly. He was armed with his commission from the Court of Conjury and eager to pay off four years’ resentment.”

  “That Stalwart wanted to do so says a lot about the man. Durendal never mentions Saxon at all, and I am sure that is because he dislikes speaking ill of people. A mean little politico. Water and chance, I thought.”

  That was a question, one White Sister to another.

  “I thought so too, my lady.”

  “An awkward mixture. Makes him moody and capricious.”

  And untrustworthy. “You know him well?”

  “No. He came to court briefly a couple of years ago. I don’t expect he will remember me.”

  Nonsense! More than just an important man’s wife, Kate was memorable in her own right. Her dominant virtual element was love, and everyone at court approved of her or even adored her, from King Ambrose down to the lowliest flunky. In the rat-eat-rat world of a palace, that was highly unusual. Nevertheless, her manifest element was fire, and there were tales of people who had crossed her and discovered that the kitten had claws.

  More hooves thundered past the carriage window and a man’s voice bellowed at the self-appointed honor guard, uttering dire threats of extra hours of stable duties. Screaming with laughter, the boys cantered off and vanished like a cloud of gnats.

  “Follow me, master coachman!” the horseman shouted.

  The trail divided, the left branch curving around the compound to an arched gateway. In the paved quadrangle within, several dozen boys and men were paired off, jumping back and forth and clattering swords. Voices were calling out comments and instructions. The guide led Wilf and the team around the perimeter, to an archaic building with towers and battlements. There he reined in and dismounted. He wore a sword, but was probably no older than Emerald.

  He shouted angrily at some of the younger fencers who had broken off their lessons and come running to inspect the new arrival. “Back to work! All of you! If he’s admitted you’ve got lots of time to pick on him. If he isn’t, then he’s none of your business. Go, or I report you all to Second!”

  They retreated, but not far. Clutching foils and fencing masks, they waited to inspect the visitors. Stray snowflakes swirled in the air.

  The boy with the sword called to someone named Lindore to look after the horses. Then he dropped the steps, opened the door, and handed Kate down. “Good chance, mistress.” He had recognized that the arms on the coach included no crown or coronet and therefore did not belong to a noble. “Prime Candidate Marlon at your service.”

  About to make a dignified, ladylike descent after Kate, Emerald recalled her new role and jumped instead. Her overlarge shoes almost betrayed her; she stumbled and recovered. The watching boys hooted and jeered. An applicant who fell flat on his face on the doorstep would not go far in Ironhall.

  Marlon smiled doubtfully at her and said, “Good chance,” again in a kindly tone. Then he offered his arm to Kate. In an all-male world, a lady was much more interesting than yet another boy. “If you would be so kind as to let me guide you, mistress, I’ll find Grand Master for you. What name should I tell him?” He was trying out the courtly manners he had been taught.

  “Mistress Dragonwife,” Kate said sweetly.

  “Dragonwife?”

  “Exactly.”

  His eyes gleamed with amusement. “I am sure he will be eager to meet you, Mistress Dragon-wife.”

  Emerald slouched along behind, trying to look surly and danger
ous, but feeling a freak. This was not her first experience of wearing male clothing, a ruse the White Sisters found expedient on long journeys. They usually did it in groups, though, and Emerald was very much on her own. She was hoping to masquerade as a teenage boy for several days in a jungle of teenage boys. Neither Oakendown nor royal palaces were adequate preparation for that. What did boys talk about among themselves? What sort of table manners did they have? What did they wear in bed and where did they change? And so on.

  Although Kate thoroughly disapproved of Emerald’s mission, it was typical of her that she had been unstinting in her help—help with hair, with clothes, and with rehearsing the fictitious life story an imposter must have ready at all times. Emerald’s breasts were tightly bound inside a coarse linen shirt and stiff leather doublet. Her jerkin and britches were shabby and several sizes too large for her, like hand-me-downs. She had been impressed with her first sight of herself in a mirror, but now fright and the critical stares of the audience made her feel desperately unconvincing.

  “Spirits!” said a childish voice from the gallery. “What’s he got in those pants?”

  “Blubber!”

  “Ham? Two hams?”

  Emerald was not fat! Although her dominant earth element did make her large boned, her mother kept telling her she was too skinny. But she was female and fully grown. Ironhall would not accept boys older than fifteen and preferred them younger, so few newcomers would be her height yet. Those that were would be built like fishing rods. She was not. She needed a bonier face, more chin, and the hips of an eel.

  “Hasn’t got a hope,” said another.

  “Grand Master can’t be that desperate.”

  “Have to keep that one away from the swill.”

  “Run him up Black Tor and back every morning….”

  “Aw, the sopranos will soon sweat it off him….”

  Emerald’s feet froze to the ground, a giant hand of terror crushed her insides to rock, and a voice that sounded very much like Mother Superior’s screamed silently in her ear: Stop! This is madness! You are crazy! She stood there, watching Kate’s back disappearing through the doorway. The urge to turn and race back to the carriage made her quiver like a violin string. What was she dreaming of? Why was she doing this? Not for fat, blowhard King Ambrose, certainly. No, for Sir Chefney—for his gracious bow, his smile of welcome when she turned up at the Snakepit. She had sent him to Quirk Row to die. That was why she was doing this! Revenge, justice!

  She stuck out her tongue defiantly at the jeering gutter trash, raised her chin, and marched after Lady Kate and young Marlon into Ironhall.

  8

  The Prettiest Little Parlor

  LOW CEILINGS AND TINY WINDOWS MADE THE old building dark and uninviting. Prime escorted the visitors along a corridor and up a stair to a gloomy passage furnished with a single crude bench. He threw open a door.

  “If you would be so kind as to wait in here, mistress, I will inform Grand Master of your arrival.” He stepped back for Kate. Emerald almost made a serious blunder, but remembered in time to let Marlon precede her. As she shut the door, he gave her a wink and a whispered, “Cheer up. It’s not as bad as it looks.” He crossed the room and left by another door. She decided she approved of Marlon.

  The room was grim enough. Snowflakes drifted in through two windows, barred but unglazed, and the hearth was cold and bare. The only furnishings were a table, two hard chairs, and a bookshelf. Lady Kate inspected one of the chairs carefully for cleanliness before trusting her furs to it. Emerald headed for the other.

  “I don’t think that one’s meant for you, boy.”

  “Oh, probably not.” Emerald went to a window instead, clumping in her absurd shoes. The moor was barely visible through flying snow.

  A few moments later, Grand Master entered by the second door. He shut it and advanced, rubbing his hands. “I am Grand—” He stopped. “Lady Kate!” He spared Emerald only a brief glance before twisting his beard into a smile. “By the eight, what brings you to Ironhall, my lady? You come incognito?”

  Kate offered a hand to be kissed. “Royal business, Grand Master. Royal monkey business in my opinion. My husband is behind it.”

  “The Chancellor’s skill at politics is as admired as his swordsmanship.” His words were not quite a lie, but they were so close that Emerald felt the chill of death elementals. Grand Master was jealous of men more successful than himself. Like all Blades, he was of average height and slender build, yet somehow he seemed small. His cloak, jerkin, and britches were shabby. He bore a cat’s-eye sword.

  In a sudden flash of memory, he swung around to look at his other visitor. “I know you!”

  “I was presented to you as Luke of Peachyard, Grand Master.” Emerald did not want to antagonize him, but she had already roused painful memories.

  “You were with Stalwart that night!”

  “I was traveling with him, but I was present here as an unwilling witness only.”

  That was not the speech of an adolescent male hellion. Grand Master sat down, looking suspiciously from one visitor to the other. In a typical sudden change of mood, he turned a mawkish smile on Kate. “And now you want to enroll him in Ironhall? Or has Lord Roland some more devious prospect in mind?”

  “Much more devious, I fear.” She handed him a packet she had been hiding in her muff. “And he has won a free hand from His Majesty.”

  Grand Master scowled as he recognized the King’s privy seal. He broke it to read the letter. Emerald knew it contained a blanket command to follow Lord Roland’s instructions. Without that royal edict he would not be bound to do so. Chivalrous orders were under the direct rule of the monarch and no one else.

  Sir Saxon folded the paper, his lips pale with anger. “And what instructions does his lordship have for me?”

  In silence Kate handed him a second letter, this one bulkier. As he read it, the women exchanged glances. More than the premature winter weather was causing the icy chill in that room. Once he looked up briefly to stare at Emerald. By the time he had finished reading, he was livid with fury.

  “Sister Emerald?”

  “I am.”

  He threw the letter on the floor. “This is madness! You cannot hope to get away with this deception.”

  “Of course she can,” said Kate, who had been arguing the contrary case for the last three days. “She has fooled you twice.”

  “For minutes only! Your husband talks of days, perhaps two weeks.” He returned his glare to Emerald. “You cannot have the slightest idea what you are letting yourself in for! Ironhall collects sweepings of the gutter—thieves, outlaws, arsonists, even killers. These boys are wild and brutal, rejected by their families, often convicted felons whose only hope of escaping the gallows is to be bound as a Blade. That brings an automatic pardon, because by then we have civilized them.”

  “I know,” Emerald said hoarsely, although what he said was not true of all Blades. Marlon’s studied manners might hide a seamy past, but Wart had been a minstrel and tumbler, not a criminal.

  “Do you know what happens first?” Grand Master thumped the table. “The newest boy is always just the Brat, without a name, without a friend, fair game for anyone. The juniors’ recreation is tormenting and hazing him, because they all had to put up with that in their day, so they think they are entitled to do it to others. It weeds out the weaklings, and often it shocks the others into making a fresh start. They can take pride in having survived the worst the rest can do to them. A girl cannot possibly expect to—”

  “Sister Emerald,” Kate snapped, “is a courageous and resourceful young woman, who has several times performed incredible feats of clandestine investigation in His Majesty’s service.”

  Grand Master swallowed as if at a loss for words.

  “I am not without experience of rough-housing,” Emerald protested. “I did have two older brothers.”

  “Roughhousing, girl? Even the smallest of these young thugs is probably stronger than you.
When your brothers were adolescents did they ever give their sister a thorough pounding? Get you in a corner and pummel you black and blue, throw you on the ground to kick and stamp you?”

  “You permit that?” Kate demanded.

  “No, but it happens, my lady. Master of Rituals has to perform a healing on almost every Brat at least once, mending flattened noses or broken ribs. I always understood that White Sisters were unable to tolerate healing magic?”

  Kate’s eyes widened, as if she had not foreseen that problem. Emerald shivered. She thought she could endure a healing if her injuries were serious enough, but she was not sure.

  “Some of us can.”

  Grand Master bent to snatch up the Chancellor’s letter again. “Sister, you cannot get away with this hoax! In the bath house? The latrines? You are tall, so you will certainly be challenged to fights. Throwing the Brat in a horse trough is a good start to an evening. Then what? And if the juniors ever have the slightest suspicion, they will have the clothes off you in no time.”

  “Then what?” Emerald barked, louder than she had intended. As usual, opposition was making her dig in her heels. “Will I be assaulted further?”

  He stared down at the letter for a few moments, crackling it, while his face turned red and redder yet. At last he muttered, “I don’t know. I think and hope that that will be the end of it. I am guessing, because this has never happened.”

  “Well, then.” She rejected her last chance to escape. “If extreme embarrassment and some bruises are the worst I have to fear, I consider the importance of my duties justifies the risk. Does the Chancellor not explain? I must begin by making sure that no sorcerous devices have been smuggled onto the premises and that no residents have been enchanted.”

  Kate said, “My husband would not be proposing such drastic measures if he did not have real grounds for concern. How long do you suppose that will take you, Sister?”