by Dave Duncan
In the eyes of the Lindorians, Marquisa Desidéria was the cause of all their troubles. It was she who had perverted their king into siding with the Isilondians, their traditional enemies, and had therefore induced him to tax the port’s trade to death.
Men on foot, whether trained soldiers or not, should never attempt to take on cavalry. One bark of command and the lances were couched. A few of the rioters saw the danger and fled, but most either continued their suicidal assault or just came to a halt, undecided. A second command and the lancers charged. In a tumult of screams and a thunder of hooves, men were impaled or simply ridden down. Burl and I dropped our wooden swords and raised our hands to show that we were unarmed, but our livery was probably a more important sign that we were not part of the mob. We were not harmed. The lancers passed on either side of us, then wheeled around to reform for another charge.
I was furious to see that Sir Dragon had answered the door—his post was beside our ward, always. The lancer with the scroll thrust it at him and ran, not waiting for a receipt. In a moment he was mounted again, the Marquisa’s men galloped out of the plaza, and the battle was over. But the emergency was still in force. A dozen screaming casualties lay on the ground, and a rumble from the far side of the square warned us that a troop of the king’s cavalry was on its way.
“Leave it!” I snapped as Burl bent to retrieve his foil. Side by side we ran for home. We did not linger to aid the wounded—our binding forced us to attend our ward, and common sense said that we could do them no good in the few moments we would have before the king’s men arrived to restore order, and undoubtedly create more havoc in the process.
Dragon held the door for us and slammed it the moment we were inside. Bolts and bars clattered into place. We had left our swords there when we went out; I snatched up Fortune and Burl his massive Thunderbolt. Then we ran to the dining room, where Robins and Bannerville were examining the letter that had already caused so much chaos.
It lay there on the table. The penmanship was exquisite, but the text was brief, and written in Chivian: Her Grace, the Marquise Desidéria of Eternidade, humbly requests the presence of His Excellency Everard, Lord Bannerville, at Castelo Velho, to meet with certain interested persons. It was dated the previous day.
Then I knew who owned the colours that had so maddened the crowd. Before anything was said, thunder at the front door announced that the king’s men had arrived. I signalled Burl and Dragon to remain with our ward, and followed Senhor Ernesto and Master Robins out to the hallway, to hear how they were going to deal with this. I need not have worried. They kept the outer door closed and spoke through the grill.
“As you can tell from the flag displayed above you, Senhor Capitão,” Ernesto said, “this house is the Chivian embassy, and as such is sovereign territory. Would you expect to break into the Isilondian embassy?” He was wrong, of course. Lord Bannerville would not be an ambassador until King Afonso had accepted his credentials, but a mere cavalry officer could not be expected to understand that or to argue the point.
“I want to know what those dogs were doing here!” I could not see the man outside, but I could hear that he was a blusterer.
“They were delivering a letter,” Robins said.
“Show me this letter.”
“Certainly not. Do you often get to read that lady’s correspondence?”
Amused and relieved, I left them to it and went back to the conference.
My ward fixed me with a lordly eye. “You have read this footlin’ missive, dear boy?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I am mindful to accept this invitation.”
How could he not? After being left to cool his heels for more than half a year, he must grab at any chance to do something worthwhile. The marquisa was reputed to be the king’s mistress, and her invitation included a broad hint that King Afonso was one of the “persons” he would meet at Castelo Velho. King Afonso himself was juggling his relationships with two other monarchs, Ambrose of Chivial and Francois of Isilond, so he might not want to let his left ear know what his right ear was hearing while he kept both eyes on his rebellious cousin, Luis.
I said, “Aye, my lord.”
Bannerville looked relieved that for once I was not going to argue. “We can leave tomorrow at dawn, then?”
I had never yet seen him vertical at that hour. “A little before that, my lord. After today’s events, the city riffraff will have you branded as a Desidéria confederate, so it would be unwise to let them catch you out of doors. With your permission, I will send Gudge to attend you about one hour before first light.”
He pulled a face, and then nodded. He had come to rely on my advice in matters of security because I always had reasons to back it up. Besides, I would never let him overrule me, and he hated arguing with a servant, which was how he saw me.
At that moment Senhor Ernesto walked in, with a smirking Master Robins close behind. Bannerville said, “Master Secretary, pray write, accepting this invitation post haste.”
The inquisitor bunched his cheeks in a smarmy smile. “From the manner in which it was delivered, my lord, I don’t see any easy way to do so other than to turn up at the lady’s door. I suspect that she regards it as a royal command anyway... Er, I took the liberty of asking the officer in charge of that troop of royal hussars to post guards on this house for the next couple of days. After what happened this morning, it may become the target of more mob violence. Her Grace is known around town as the Cobra, you will recall. Also, her Old Castle has a sinister reputation. Rumours tell of witchcraft, and visitors vanishing without trace, never to be seen again.”
His Excellency blinked a couple of times as he absorbed this discomfiting information. “Um, yes” He glanced at me to see if I was going to change my mind but I just offered what I hoped was a sceptical smile. He said, “Well, we cannot let wild tales keep us from our duty, can we? But I will dictate a report to His Majesty and seek to send it before we leave here.”
Finding a postal carrier would be the hard part of that program, but could be left to Senhor Ernesto. I nodded to Dragon to follow me, exchanged glances with Burl to see that he would remain with our ward, and led my errant subordinate off to the withdrawing room, which was fortunately empty. There I turned and halted.
Dragon closed the door, drew himself up straight, tapped his sword hilt, and said, “Leader, I was seriously in error when I left our ward and went to answer that knock on the front door. I admit my fault.”
“Then name your punishment,” I said, as required by Blade tradition. I would still have the right to amend whatever he thought appropriate— halving or doubling were the most commonly used changes, but I had unlimited discretion in the matter. A Blade can be put on twenty-four-hour watch for days on end, but I had decided that half pay for two weeks would be about right. He surprised me.
“No woman for three nights.”
Not what I expected, but then I recalled Commander Montpurse’s scathing comment on Dragon’s interests. Fair enough, if that was what mattered to him, but how had he ever survived those celibate weeks aboard Fair Voyage?
“Doubled,” I said. “Six days and nights starting now, but tomorrow I may suspend the sentence until I say otherwise.” If there were no vulnerable women at Castelo Velho, that time of abstinence must not be included.
Dragon went so pale I thought he would protest, but then he saluted again and said, “Aye, Leader.” He was glaring furiously as he opened the door for me.
Arranging for our departure, I had my work cut out for the rest of that day and the following night. It was much later than usual when I arrived at Graça’s room. She failed to move. Assuming she was asleep, I stripped and slid in beside her as quietly as I could. Then I realized that she was sobbing. I knew she tended to dramatize everything, so at first I wasn’t too worried. I slid an arm underneath her, and spooned tightly. She began to gasp, th
en squirmed around to face me, and I felt real tears on her face, and thus on mine too.
“Tush!” I said and kissed her. She responded wildly, and the resulting mating was even more frenzied than our usual couplings, which were as energetic as they come.
This time, though, making love failed to make peace. Graça’s sobs resumed, louder and faster than ever.
“I have no choice, love,” I whispered. “I warned you months ago that my life is dedicated to my ward. I have no choice.”
“That’s what my husband said, every time he sailed away.”
“I’ll be back, I promise. We must come back through Lindora on our way to Chivial.”
“For a few quick ones while you’re finding a ship? Well, you won’t find any rivals bouncing on me. No one else wants this fat old hag.”
Hugging her in her misery, I came to understand how much I was going to miss her, and then I began to cry too. A nineteen-year-old trained fighter blubbering? I had not wept since I was seven and my mother died. I said the words I had never expected to say.
“Graça, I love you. I want you. I’ve told you often enough that I love you, and I do.”
“Stop it! Men always tell lies like that.”
“I want to marry you.”
“No you don’t! You’re leaving me.” More wails.
“When we come back to Lindora, I will marry you, and you will come to Chivial with me.”
“Liar liar liar! Men always make promises. You just want to bounce me again.”
“I don’t have to lie to you to do that. You can never refuse my caresses, and you know it. Lord Bannerville adores your cooking. He will hire you as his cook, because he will be setting up his household again.”
Sniff... “You really mean this?”
“I swear it by the elements that made me. So stop blubbering, Future Lady Spender, because I am now going to give you a month’s worth of bouncing, as you call it, to keep you happy until I return.”
Chapter 2
By first light we had the baggage assembled at the front door, under guard of course. We had acquired quite a pile of chattels since our arrival in Lindora. I worked my way along the line, lifting each item briefly as if checking the overall weight. Most important in my eyes was the battered red holdall that contained our money. When I gripped the handle, I felt a strange shiver run up my arm, reminding me of the Forge at Ironhall and the elementary in Brimiarde. I was detecting the enchantment that Master Robins had boasted of. The bag was heavy, but not heavy enough to be full of gold. If it still held the expedition’s funds, then they were mostly in the form of bankers’ scrip.
Senhora Ernesto was not the only one who had been spending King Ambrose’s money. Lord Bannerville had purchased a magnificent carriage and a team of four matched horses. The carriage had glazed windows, silver lanterns inside and out, and had been repainted with his armorial bearings displayed on the sides. The horses had remained a shiny chestnut. He had hired a postilion, Donato, and footmen Xande and Silvio, all of whom had been decked out in his livery. None of them had ever been allowed inside Senhor Ernesto’s house, ostensibly because it was overcrowded, but in reality because all three of them were spies. Robins had warned me of this when they were hired. Inquisitors can recognize lies.
“They were not corrupted when his lordship interviewed them,” he said with a wry little smile. “Two days later Silvio was in the government’s pay. The Marquisa’s agents bought Donato soon after that, and Xande hung out a day longer before accepting the rebels’ coin.”
“Do they know that you know this?”
He drew himself up indignantly. “Certainly not!”
Chinless had wanted to hire a troop of men-at-arms also, until I pointed out that their loyalty would always be in doubt, so if we ever ran into serious trouble, they would be the first people his Blades would have to kill. That ended that argument.
He was an excellent horseman, so the carriage was just for show, but it came in handy for carrying the baggage. It rolled up to the door shortly before sunrise. I left Dragon and Burl to supervise the loading while I went upstairs and chivied a valet and a half-shaven earl downstairs—now!
In a feeble effort to mislead our foes, whoever they might turn out to be, I had told Donato that our destination was the king’s seaside villa, Casa Maritima, because I knew it lay in the same general direction as the marquisa’s Castelo Velho. And so we drove off, out the city gate the moment it opened, and westward, with Burl and I leading the way, Donato riding the nearside lead horse, Master Robins on the box of the carriage, our ward and Gudge inside, and Xande and Silvio standing on the back. Dragon rode in the rear, looking as dashing as ever and blowing kisses to any young women he saw whenever he thought I wasn’t looking.
The weather was changing, signalling the end of fall, although I knew Fitain’s winter would not compare with bitter Starkmoor’s. Dark clouds had replaced the eternal blue I had grown used to, and the olive harvest was well underway. The roads were narrow, often bounded by high stone walls. I suspected that Master Robins had known this and had chosen to sit on the box so he would be high enough to see over those, but I saw enough to recognize olive groves and vineyards. The houses were all of grey stone, with red tile roofs, and most had a few fruit trees or date palms. It was a rich and pleasant land, and I hoped the civil war would never reach it.
The carriage cabin was suspended on leather straps to ease the bumps, but the roads grew steadily rougher the farther we travelled from the capital, and I could guess that his lordship would be regretting his decision to put pretension ahead of practicality. He would have been much more comfortable on a horse, but he knew how nobility went calling, and I did not. I could see Robins being bounced around, hanging on grimly, and looking so miserable that even a Blade could feel sorry for him—a little.
By noon we had reached the hills and his lordship called a halt for dinner. Graça had packed an ample spread for all of us, and our footmen displayed their skills at laying it out on the grass; Donato freed the horses to roll and graze. The sun had come out, so we could enjoy our feast. Our three servants especially did, as if they had never tasted better food or wine.
As we prepared to move on, I went over to our postilion. “There’s been a change of plan,” I said. “Take us to Castelo Velho instead.”
Donato was a smallish desiccated man of around thirty with a droopy moustache that gave him a perpetually mournful expression. He was a good horseman, as I already knew, but so hopeless at deception that he took the news with obvious relief. He had known where we ought to be heading. His clandestine mistress had summoned us and was expecting us. He smiled rather toothlessly and said, “Si, Capitão. Not so far, then.”
“Will we make it there by sunset?”
He glanced at the shadows. “Si. Or soon after.”
“That was a good meal we just had. Does the marquisa keep a good table?”
Alarm. “I don’ know, Capitão. I never bin there.”
“Then how do you know where to turn off?”
“Because there is big gate that nobody goes in. Bad place. Ghosts.”
“Do the ghosts wear clothes?”
His eyes widened to an owlish stare. “Clothes, Capitão?”
“I’ve always wondered why ghosts would need to wear clothes. If you meet any ghosts in Castelo Velho, ask them for me, will you?”
He laughed uneasily, having decided that I must be crazy.
Not long after that, I caught a whiff of the sea. The coast there is high and rocky and much less fertile than the lands around Lindora. Most of it is given over to goats and sheep, but eventually we came to a high stone wall on our left. It looked ancient, dividing the road from a thick forest, whereas the landscape to our right was scrubby moorland, quite deserted. When Donato slowed the team, I saw a gateway ahead, and could guess that we had reached the entrance to Castelo Vel
ho.
Although once there might have been an actual gate, now there was merely a gap in the wall, flanked on either side by a high stone pillar. Whereas the wall was built of the reddish local rock, much weathered and crumbly, the pillars were of some imported black stone that must once have been polished and impressive but was now coated with moss and lichen. A massive serpent was carved into each, twining up until the fanged head rested on the top of the monolith.
“Not very welcoming,” Burl said as we two rode through. The dense forest ahead seemed even less friendly. I reined in my horse off the track and turned to watch Donato maneuvering the carriage through the narrow entrance. Master Robins looked down at me with a cynical smile, and opened his mouth to say something, probably some comment similar to what Burl had just said.
He never uttered it. He slammed back against the carriage box, with his mouth gaping wide in surprise and the feathered end of an arrow protruded from his chest. I was certain that it had gone through his heart as surely as Fortune had gone through mine when I was bound. His limbs twitched a few times in his death throws, and then his head slumped forward.
I was close by the offside lead horse, on the opposite side from Donato. I whipped out my rapier, whacked the nearest horse on the rump, and roared, “Drive! Go like the wind!” The team lurched forward. Xande and Silvio managed to hang on. Lord Bannerville had opened the window and put his head out to see what was happening. He fell back out of sight. Master Robins’s corpse also stayed where it was, being nailed in position. And we three Blades urged our mounts to follow as the carriage went bouncing and rocking along the stony trail, into the forest.
