King's Blades 01 - The Gilded Chain

by Dave Duncan

  right after, when the ex-Brat had insisted on taking

  the sacred name of Durendal. Master of Archives

  had warned him what would happen if he defied a

  tradition hallowed by three hundred years'

  observance. Well, they hadn't broken him. He

  had survived, struggled to be worthy of the great

  name, won the grudging respect of the masters and his

  peers. And he was worthy--the best of them all.

  By tomorrow night he would be Prime and Byless

  Second. Byless wouldn't be able to handle the

  juniors.

  Not Durendal's problem.

  What was his problem was Harvest's appalling

  silence. He must have been expecting the question, because

  he had been Second when Pendering was called.

  What choice did he have? Did any man ever

  refuse? Presumably he still had the choice

  all candidates had, the dismal election of walking

  out of the gate forever; but to contemplate surrender after

  so many years of effort--it was unthinkable, surely?

  The only sound in the room was a faint

  crackling as Grand Master crumpled a sheet of

  parchment in his massive fist. The wax of the royal

  signet broke off in fragments. After five

  years of learning to read Grand Master's moods,

  Durendal knew that now they were proclaiming

  hurricane! Enforced absence from the feast might

  explain some storminess, but not so much.

  Harvest spoke at last, almost inaudibly.

  "I am ready, Grand Master."

  Soon Durendal would be saying those words. And

  who would be sitting in the second chair?

  Who was there now? He had not looked. The edge

  of his eye hinted it was seeing a youngish man, too

  young to be the King himself.

  "My lord," Grand Master said, "I have the

  honor to present Prime Candidate Harvest,

  who will serve you as your Blade."

  As the two young men turned to him, the anonymous

  noble drawled, "The other one looks much more

  impressive. Do I have a choice?"

  "You do not!" barked Grand Master, color

  pouring into his craggy face. "The King himself

  takes whoever is Prime."

  "Oh, so sorry! Didn't mean to twist your

  dewlaps, Grand Master." He smiled

  vacuously. He was a weedy, soft-faced

  man in his early twenties, a courtier to the

  core, resplendent in crimson and vermilion

  silks trimmed with fur and gold chain. If the

  white cloak was truly ermine, it must be worth a

  fortune. His fairish beard came to a needle

  point and his mustache was a work of art. A fop.

  Who?

  "Prime, this is the Marquis of Nutting, your

  future ward."

  "Ward?" The Marquis sniggered. "You make

  me sound like a debutante, Grand Master.

  Ward indeed!"

  Harvest bowed, his face ashen as he

  contemplated a lifetime guarding ... whom? Not the

  King himself, not his heir, not a prince of the blood,

  not an ambassador traveling in exotic lands,

  not an important landowner out on the marches, not a

  senior minister, nor even--at worst--the head of

  one of the great conjuring orders. Here was no ward

  worth dying for, just a court dandy, a parasite.

  Trash.

  Seniors spent more time studying politics than

  anything else except fencing. Wasn't the

  Marquis of Nutting the brother of the Countess

  Mornicade, the King's latest mistress? If

  so, then six months ago he had been the

  Honorable Tab Nillway, a younger son of a

  penniless baronet, and his only claim

  to importance was that he had been expelled from the

  same womb as one of the greatest beauties of the

  age. No report reaching Ironhall had ever

  hinted that he might have talent or ability.

  "I am deeply honored to be assigned to your

  lordship," Harvest said hoarsely, but the spirits did

  not strike him dead for perjury.

  Grand Master's displeasure was now explained.

  One of his precious charges was being thrown away

  to no purpose. Nutting was not important enough to have

  enemies, even at court. No man of honor

  would lower his standards enough to call out an upstart pimp

  --certainly not one who had a Blade prepared

  to die for him. But Grand Master had no choice.

  The King's will was paramount.

  "We shall hold the binding tomorrow midnight,

  Prime," the old man snapped. "Make the

  arrangements, Second."

  "Yes, Grand Master."

  "Tomorrow?" protested the Marquis querulously.

  "There's a ball at court tomorrow. Can't we just

  run through the rigmarole quickly now and be

  done with it?"

  Grand Master's face was already dangerously

  inflamed, and that remark made the veins swell

  even more. "Not unless you wish to kill a man, my

  lord. You have to learn your part in the ritual. Both

  you and Prime must be purified by ritual and

  fasting."

  Nutting curled his lip. "Fasting? How

  barbaric!"

  "Binding is a major conjuration. You will be in

  some danger yourself."

  If the plan was to frighten the court parasite

  into withdrawing, it failed miserably. He merely

  muttered, "Oh, I'm sure you exaggerate."

  Grand Master gave the two candidates a

  curt nod of dismissal. They bowed in unison and

  left.

  Harvest clattered quickly down the stairs and

  strode off along a corridor that led to nowhere

  except the library. Durendal, with his longer

  legs, had no trouble keeping up with him. If the

  man wanted to be alone, he could say so; but if

  he needed support, then who else should offer it but

  Second?

  The glow of a lamp appeared ahead as someone

  approached the corner. Harvest muttered an oath

  and moved into a window embrasure. Leaning on the

  stone sill, he thrust his face against the bars, as

  if trying to fill his lungs with fresh air.

  "You go back to the hall, Second.

  Take--" His voice cracked. "Sit in my

  chair. So they'll know."

  Durendal thumped a hand on his shoulder. "You

  forget that I have to fast also. Look on the bright

  side, warrior!" You can always cut your throat,

  which is what I would do. "You might have been gifted

  to some tinpot princeling in the Northern Isles.

  As it is, you'll live at court, romancing

  all the beautiful maidens. What a sinecure--

  wenching, dancing, hunting, and not a worry!"

  "An ornament?"

  "A long, quiet life is better than a

  short--"

  "No, it isn't. Never! Five years

  I've slaved here, and I'm being wasted.

  Utterly wasted!"

  This was so obviously true that

  Durendal found himself at a loss. He turned

  hopefully to the lamp approaching and saw that it was

  being carried by Sir Aragon, who was even older

  than Grand Master. He contributed nothing

  to Ironhall these days except
a glorious

  reputation, for he had been Blade to the great

  Shoulrack who had pacified Nythia for

  Ambrose III. He was reputed to have been the

  general's brains as well as his personal sword

  and shield.

  "Leave me," Harvest howled to the sky. "For

  spirits' sake, Second, leave me, go away, and

  let me weep like a crazy woman. Like that

  dissolute, useless namby who is going to own my

  soul."

  Durendal stepped back. Aragon came

  shuffling closer with his lamp in one hand, a cane in

  the other, and a thick book under his arm. He was

  frail, but he had not lost his wits. He took

  in the situation at a glance.

  "Bad news, lad?"

  When Harvest did not answer, Durendal said,

  "Prime is a little shocked, sir. He has

  been assigned to the Marquis of Nutting."

  "Who, by the eight, is he?"

  "The brother of the King's current mistress."

  The old man pulled a hideous face, all

  wrinkles and yellow stumps of teeth. "I trust

  you are not implying that a private Blade is in

  some way inferior to a member of the Royal

  Guard, Candidate?"

  Huddled in his cloak of misery, Harvest

  mumbled, "No, sir."

  "It is a rare honor. There are a hundred

  Blades in the Royal Guard all going mad with

  boredom, but a private Blade has his work

  cut out for him, a lifetime of devotion and

  service. I congratulate you, my boy."

  Propping his cane against the wall, he held out a

  gnarled claw that would never again draw the sword

  hanging at his side.

  "Congratulate?" Harvest shouted, swinging around

  but ignoring the proffered hand. Two red lines

  framing his face showed where he had been leaning on

  the bars. "Nutting is a nothing, a bag of

  dung! What need has he for a Blade?"

  "The King must think he has need, Candidate!

  Do you presume to overrule your King? Do you know

  things that he doesn't?"

  Nice try, Durendal thought, but it

  wouldn't console him, were he in poor Harvest's

  half-boots.

  Prime shuddered and made an effort to control

  himself, although he was obviously close to tears now.

  "The King knows what he is doing! Grand

  Master's told him I'm not good enough for the Royal

  Guard, so he's palming me off on a worthless

  buffoon, a panderer. He isn't even a genuine

  noble."

  Aragon's shock seemed genuine enough. "You

  are raving, Prime, and you know it! Neither Grand

  Master nor anyone else ever passes judgment

  on the candidates like that. Anyone who fails

  to measure up is thrown out long before he becomes

  a senior--you know that, too. I am well aware

  that you can't fence like Durendal here. Who can? That

  does not mean that all the rest of us are useless!

  The reason the King always takes the first in line is

  because even a below-average Blade is fields

  ahead of any other swordsman anywhere. It

  doesn't matter how you rank in Ironhall,

  you're first-class by the world's standards. Now stop

  making a fool of yourself." The rheumy eyes

  glanced briefly at Durendal. "If Grand

  Master were to hear of this exhibition, he might

  indeed change the assignment--but he would do it

  by striking you off the roll completely!"

  Then Durendal would have to take his place, but

  he was more concerned for his friend than he was for himself--or

  hoped he was. Harvest's trouble was that he

  wasn't quite ripe. He did not have his emotions under

  adult control yet. He needed to do some more growing

  up.

  He had twenty-four hours to do it.

  Durendal said, "You're an Ironhall

  Blade, the deadliest human weapon ever

  devised--loyal, fearless, and incorruptible.

  How long since anyone died in a binding, Sir

  Aragon?"

  "Before my time. Sixty years ago, at

  least."

  "There you are. You're not afraid, are you?"

  Harvest flinched. "Curse you, no! I'm not

  a coward!"

  "It's beginning to look like it."

  "No!"

  "Well, that's all right, then." Durendal

  laid a friendly but powerful arm around Prime's

  shoulders and propelled him bodily along the

  corridor.

  Aragon stared after them wistfully.

  The secret, sacred heart of Ironhall was

  the Forge, a vast and echoing crypt watered by its

  own spring. The eight hearths around the walls--

  each with its own bellows, anvil, and stone trough

  --were where the magnificent cat's-eye swords

  were made; but the focus of power was the coffinlike

  slab of iron in the center, for there the human

  Blades were tempered. Puberty alone would have

  transformed the boys into men, but few of them would have

  become the superb swordsmen who graduated. The

  King's Blades were all stamped with the same die

  --lean, well-muscled athletes. When Harvest

  had stopped growing too soon, conjuration had

  coaxed his body into another effort. When

  Durendal had been in danger of growing too

  big, then he in turn had lain on the anvil

  while Master of Rituals invoked the

  appropriate spirits to come to his aid. The final

  drama, the binding of a Blade to his ward, must

  inevitably be consummated among the fires of the

  Forge.

  On the day of a binding, the echoing cavern was

  relinquished to the participants, who were required

  to meditate there, starting before dawn. By the end of a very

  long day, Durendal was still not sure he had

  succeeded, because meditating wasn't something he'd ever

  tried before; but if boredom was the measure of

  success, he had done splendidly. Harvest

  sat and chewed his fingernails to the elbow, while the

  Marquis paced, fretted, and whined about hunger.

  Once Master Armorer came in and asked

  Harvest what he wanted to name his sword.

  Harvest muttered, "Haven't decided." The

  man shrugged and went away.

  At sunset Master of Rituals appeared and

  ordered the three of them to strip and bathe in four of the

  eight troughs, in a particular order. After poking

  a finger in the icy spring water, the Marquis

  squawked and refused so vehemently that a pathetic

  smile briefly warmed Harvest's pale face.

  Alas, offered alternatives of calling off the

  binding or being forcibly stripped and dunked by four

  smiths, Nutting decided to cooperate; but he

  must have set a record for the shortest bathing on

  record.

  Close to midnight, the knights and the rest of the

  candidates filed in to begin the ritual.

  Bright flames frolicked in the hearths, but the

  shadows of six score men and boys made the

  crypt dark and creepy. As the chanting soared

  amid strange acoustics and the metallic beat of

  hammers, Durendal sensed the spirits ga
thering. Some

  spirituality always lingered there, for any forge sustained

  all four of the manifest elements--earth from the

  ore, fire from the hearths, air from the bellows,

  water from the quenching troughs. Of the virtual

  elements, the swords attracted spirits of death and

  chance, while time and love were essential

  ingredients of loyalty. Binding was a very potent

  and complex conjuration.

  His fast had left him vaguely light-headed,

  yet he was buoyed up by the surging powers. Hard

  to believe after so long that his life in Ironhall

  was almost over. Soon he, also, would be bound and

  stride out into the world behind his ward, whoever that might

  be. He could not possibly draw a shorter

  straw than poor Harvest had.

  The procedure was very familiar. He had first

  played a role in a binding on his third day in

  Ironhall, because one part of the ritual was

  assigned to the Brat. As the spirits of chance had

  caused him to remain the Brat so long, he had

  assisted no less than eight Blades at their

  bindings, which might be a record, although a petty

  one to be proud of.

  Now he had emerged from the chorus to play a

  major role once again, gathered with the other

  participants inside the octogram. The locations

  were obligatory: Prime stood at death point,

  directly across from his future ward at love and

  flanked by Second at earth and Byless, the next

  most senior candidate, at air. Chance point was

  always given to the Brat. The three who performed

  most of the conjuration took the remaining points--

  Master of Rituals as Invoker at fire,

  Master of Archives as Dispenser at water, and

  Grand Master as Arbiter at time.

  Dispenser chanted the banishment of death, casting

  grain across the octogram, grain being a symbol

  of life. Banishing all death spirits when there was a

  sword present was an impossibility, of

  course; and the element of chance was fickle

  by definition. When he had completed that second

  revocation, Invoker began summoning spirits

  of the required elements. The onlookers joined in

  the triumphant dedication song of the Order, a

  paean to brotherhood and service that made the

  Forge throb like a great heart. Although the chamber was

  stiflingly hot, Durendal felt the hair rise

  on the back of his neck.

  Grand Master went forward to scatter a handful of

  gold coins on the anvil. He peered at their

  distribution and seemed satisfied that they hinted at