by Dave Duncan
Byless was fussing, trying to help him into his shirt, Grand Master was congratulating him, while he was still trying to think of all the people he must thank before…
Suddenly his attention was caught by the Marquis, that green-faced, shivering pimp in the background. How strange! It was as if that pseudo-aristocratic ninny was the only illuminated thing in the room, with everyone and everything else in darkness. Nobody, nothing else mattered. The turd was still a turd, unfortunately—the binding had not changed that—but now he was obviously an important turd. He must be looked after and kept safe.
Most-wondrous!
Sir Durendal walked over to his ward and nodded respectfully. “At your service now, my lord,” he said. “When do we ride?”
8
The Marquis did not ride, he traveled by coach—but that came later, in the morning. First there was the customary small-hours dinner in the hall, when the new Blade and his ward sat with the knights, when juniors went quietly to sleep with their heads among the dishes, when men made foolish speeches. Harvest’s death should have cooled the merriment this time, but it did not seem to.
“We were all so sorry for him,” Master of Archives explained. “Two weeks is average. I only had to endure a couple of days of it myself. But here, this poor little fellow—” The hall guffawed in unison. “—this unfortunate mite had been the Brat for three whole months! And he really wasn’t good at it. He couldn’t grovel. He cringed badly. His whining was just appalling. But, finally, at long last, something crawled in the door, something that Grand Master could in reasonably good conscience accept. No, I don’t mean Candidate Byless; he came later. So the Brat was allowed back into the human race. He came to see me to choose a name. ‘No,’ I said, ‘you can’t have that one. It’s special.’ And he said, ‘But you said…’”
And so on. If it kept the children happy, Sir Durendal could smile tolerantly. It had been the sopranos who had hung that name on him and he had turned the tables on them by keeping it.
Master of Rapiers was next to rise up on his hind legs. “…not true that he could beat me on his second day in Ironhall. Absolute nonsense! It was the third day.”
More howls of mirth. It had been two years, and three before Durendal had been able to do it consistently. He sipped his wine—and almost choked.
“What in the name of the evils is this piss?” he whispered.
Master of Sabers chuckled as if he had been waiting for that. “It’s an excellent vintage.” Other faces were smiling.
“It tastes like—”
“Yes, but only because you’re on duty, Blade. One glass is your limit now.”
Durendal glanced at his ward, who was pouring the stuff down his throat like a dairymaid washing out a churn. He looked at the amused Grand Master on his throne and then at all the other grins.
“When am I off duty?”
“Probably about forty years from now,” said Master of Horse.
The Marquis’s coach bore his arms in cobalt enamel and gold: azure, two squirrels adorsed or. It had padded leather seating, was drawn by eight matched grays, and represented a splendid example of the benefits to be gained by being brother of a woman the King wanted in bed—Olinda Nillway, now Countess Mornicade, the greatest beauty of the age. Gossips whispered that she had enhanced her natural charms with conjuration, but they could not explain how she might have smuggled an enchantment into court without the sniffers detecting it. Not only a great beauty, she was also a shrewd negotiator, who had won titles and estates for all her relatives. A couple of her uncles served the King as minor officials. Her brother was controller of naval provisions and made weevils seem wholesome.
Two hours after leaving Ironhall, Durendal had not raised his opinion of his ward at all. The man wrapped in ermine was a small-minded, vainglorious nonentity. His gossip was pointless, his humor spiteful, and his general conversation utterly lacking in tact. “Can’t you grow a beard yet?”
“Never tried.” But he’d been shaving every day since he ate at the beansprouts’ table. His chin grew stubble like marble-cutters’ grit.
“Try. That’s an order. His Majesty sets the standard for the court, and at the moment it is mustache and full beard.”
Yesterday, while wondering what to meditate upon, Durendal had decided to let his beard grow in. Now, clearly, he would have to keep shaving it off.
“Is your hair naturally wavy, or do you curl it?”
Spirits preserve me! Curl it?
“I asked you a question, boy.”
“I heard it.”
Nutting fell silent, looking puzzled. He could not remain silent long. Soon he laughingly mentioned that a Blade had been his sister’s idea. “She persuaded the King to make out the warrant and gave it to me at my birthday banquet last week—such a lovely surprise!”
Up until then Durendal had hardly spoken, being intent on viewing the world he had not seen since he was fourteen, but at that news he felt a sort of high-pitched twang, like a string snapping on a lute.
“My lord, I am not your servant. I am the King’s. He has decreed that I shall serve him by defending you to the death, so that is what I shall do. How I do it is entirely up to me. I don’t need to pander to your whims. I am a Blade, not a gift from a harlot to a pimp.”
Nutting’s jaw dropped. “You can’t speak to me like that!” he screeched.
“Yes, I can. I won’t do it in public unless you provoke me.”
“I will have you flogged!”
Durendal chuckled. “Try. I’ll bet you I drop six of them before they lay a hand on me.” Three for certain and why not six?
“I’ll report you to…to…”
“Yes?”
“To the King!”
“He can bring me to heel, I admit. But I shall be with you when you tattle, because from now on I am always going to be with you. I advise you not to have too many other witnesses.”
The rest of the journey was more peaceful.
Still the coach continued to bounce and rattle through fields and pasture, with no sign of Grandon. Just as Durendal realized it was not going to the capital at all, a bend in the road revealed gates ahead and a high stone wall that stretched almost out of sight. Over it showed glimpses of fine trees, gable roofs, innumerable tall chimney pots. A Blade should be a saturnine, silent, menacing sort of person, but there would be time enough for that later. Not today.
“This’s the palace?”
“Oldmart Palace.” The Marquis shrugged. “It’s better than most. Newer, for one thing.”
“The King’s in residence?” Flames and steel! He was babbling like a child. Why else would they be going there?
His lordship curled his shapely mustache in a sneer—he had been complaining again of the grand ball he had missed last night. “Today he’s hosting a reception for the Isilond ambassador. It will be a very august affair.”
A man could relax, then. He would not be invited to…but where the Marquis went, his Blade went. Mustn’t ask. Didn’t have to.
“Of course,” said the turd, “correct protocol requires a new Blade arriving at court to be presented to His Majesty as soon as possible. I imagine even the Lord Herald will not object if I change first. Can’t do much about you, though. It is regrettable that you have nothing decent to wear.”
Durendal glanced down at the smart new hose, doublet, and jerkin Ironhall had provided for his departure, much as a merchant might package an expensive purchase leaving his premises. “These are the finest garments I’ve ever worn, my lord.”
“Bah! Rags! Disgusting. Those slashed sleeves went out two years ago. As my Blade, you will have to be suitably arrayed, but we can’t help that today.”
“If I may presume, my lord…you could take me into town, dress me, and present me tomorrow.”
“No! It must be today.”
Obviously the Marquis could not wait to flaunt his new symbol of greatness before the court. Durendal sank back on the bench in silence.
; An hour or so later, he followed his ward down marble steps and out into the palace grounds. Ironhall had taught him the basic skills he would need for court—protocol, deportment, etiquette, and even how to tread a reasonable minuet or gavotte. This was all real, so why did he feel like a child playing make-believe? He surveyed acres of lawns and flower beds and little ornamental lakes, all divided by waist-high hedges and paved paths, with striped marquees and bright flags in the distance. Orchestras played under the trees. It was grandiose and fairy-tale, but it was real. The weight at his side was Harvest, a real sword, his own personal sword.
His eyes picked out other Blades right away, the distinctive blue and silver livery with a royal lion emblem over the heart, the uniform of the Royal Guard, which he would give all his teeth to belong to and now never would. Soon he was close enough to recognize some of those who had been ahead of him in the school and others who had accompanied the King on his visits there. Two of the former noticed him and beamed a welcome from a distance. They must know the man he was warding. Would he have to live with their pity all his life?
There were also men-at-arms holding pikes, wearing helmets and breastplates, probably secular, although he must never assume that a possible opponent was not spiritually enhanced. There seemed to be more servants than courtiers. The women in white, wearing high white conical hats trimmed with muslin—those must be the White Sisters, the sniffers.
Nutting plunged straight ahead through the throng of silks and satins, jewels and ermine, ruffs and gold. He smiled and waved and cried out greetings to those he deemed worthy of his notice. Heads turned, which was the whole idea. Had he no shame, no sense of rightness? Had he never heard of subtlety? The better Durendal came to know him, the worse he seemed.
As the Marquis led his Blade through a gap in the final hedge, entering onto the lawn where the royal party stood, he brushed past two men-at-arms, undoubtedly without seeing them. Even Durendal assumed they were ceremonial, for they were chatting earnestly with a sniffer, but suddenly she shouted, “You—stop!” and there was an emergency.
The men-at-arms began to level their pikes to challenge, but Durendal had already thrust the Marquis aside, drawn Harvest, and was just about to spit the first man through the eye when the woman screamed.
“No! Stop! Stop! It’s all right!”
He managed to halt the sword about an inch from its target and retain his balance too. Which was good.
The sniffer waved both hands at the guards, who had not finished reacting to her original shout. “I made a mistake.”
Fortunately there was no one else close enough to have noticed. Even more fortunately, the woman had retracted her challenge extremely quickly. Now came reaction, analysis, reproach—he had erred. He had been too quick. There had been no threat to Nutting, only to him, but he had almost slain two of the King’s men-at-arms on the King’s lawn.
“My lady, your mistake was nearly fatal!” He slid Harvest back into her scabbard, noting with unworthy pleasure that his potential opponents had both turned almost as white as the stupid woman’s antique clothing.
She was about thirty, old enough not to make such dangerous errors. Her face was pleasantly plump, the scarlet blush of embarrassment intriguing. The towering hennin made her seem much taller than she actually was.
The Marquis had begun to splutter predictably. “What is the meaning of this outrage?” He kept trying to dodge around Durendal, and Durendal kept moving in front of him.
“My lord, I apologize!” she said. “Your Blade is very recently bound, my lord?”
“What of it? Confound it, boy, get out of my way!”
“The smell of the Forge on him is very strong, my lord.”
The Marquis flustered like a mad duck. “That’s no excuse! Don’t you know who I am? You dare accuse me of practicing conjuration, and against His Majesty at that? You almost provoked a major scandal, sister!”
“I was merely doing my duty, my lord, and what I almost provoked was a lot worse than scandal.”
Good for her! She was not going to take any nonsense from the turd, even if she had made unpleasant allegations about Durendal. She nodded stiffly to him. “My apologies to you also, sir knight.”
He bowed. “Mine to you for startling you, sister.”
“I shall complain to Mother Superior!” Nutting snapped. “Now come along, Blade, and let us have no more embarrassing scenes.”
He strode off huffily. Durendal risked a wink at the sniffer and followed his ward.
He had seen the King often at Ironhall, although to the King he would have been just one of dozens of faces. He would not have known the Queen from any other well-dressed lady in the land. He took note of her features, realizing that they were singularly nondescript and someday he might meet her by chance in a hallway. Godeleva was a slender woman, but she might not have seemed so frail and colorless had she not been standing next her vibrant, domineering husband. In eight years of marriage, she had not yet brought a baby to term, which might explain her air of worry and sorrow.
But the King…Ambrose IV was thirty-four and had reigned for two years already. He was taller than any other man around him, monolithic in his sumptuous attire of fur and brocade and jewels, blazing brighter than the rosebushes behind him. His hair was tawny, the cropped fringe of beard closer to red. He broke off what he was saying to frown at the Marquis’s brash intrusion.
Nutting could bow gracefully, give him that. But he did not wait to be acknowledged.
“My liege, I have the great honor of presenting the Blade Your Majesty so generously assigned to me. Sir Durendal has—”
“Sir Who?” The royal bellow could be heard all the way to the hollyhocks. Every head turned.
The Marquis blinked. “Durendal, sire.”
Ambrose IV stared at the young man kneeling before him. “Stand up!”
Durendal rose.
“Well!” The famous amber eyes raked him up and down. “Durendal, hmm? A descendant?”
“No, Your Majesty. Just an admirer.”
“We all are. Welcome to court, Sir Durendal.”
“Thank you, sire.”
“Very impressive! I don’t believe,” the King said loudly, “that I intended to be quite so generous.”
Amid the thunderstorm of laughter, the Marquis turned redder than the geraniums. A royal jest like that one would linger around the court for days, like a bad smell.
9
The Marquis, surprisingly, had a marquise he had not thought to mention. She was even younger than Durendal—although not younger than he was feeling by then, which was about seven. She was another gift from the King, having been a ward in chancery, but her husband seemed genuinely fond of her. She was very pretty, impeccably well mannered, incapable of rational thought. Her family tree was as tangled as a briar patch and blighted by inbreeding; and her only serious interest was clothing.
In the Marquis’s absence, his establishment had been moved to a vast new suite in the main wing of the palace. He preened at this additional evidence of royal favor, ignoring his wife’s complaints that the servants were laughing at her for not having enough gowns to fill all the closet space. She told her husband’s Blade to stand there. And there. And there. Look at the window. Perfect. When company called, would he please lean against the mantel with his left profile to the door. She assumed she was giving an order, so he did not need to answer the question.
He thought he could detect invisible hands at work on his behalf, though, because the new quarters had obviously been designed with security in mind, having but a single entrance and windows accessible only to bats. Any midnight intruder must pass through the outer rooms, where he would be. The servants were billeted elsewhere. There were ropes available in case of fire. What else need he worry about?
Two things. The first was that no assassin in the world had the slightest interest in harming Tab Nillway, Marquis of Nutting. The second was that Durendal knew that and could no more stop himself behaving l
ike a real Blade with a real ward than a sheepdog could resist herding sheep.
Fortunately on this, his first night on the job, his ward announced that he was incredibly exhausted by the hardships of his visit to Ironhall and was going to bed early. The Marquise went with him; valet and maid departed. Durendal locked and barred the door, checked every cranny for concealed murderers, and then settled into a comfortable chair in the outermost salon. There he chewed over his problem while he stropped Harvest into the sharpest sword in the known world.
As he had not been warned of all the side effects of a binding conjuration, he must be expected to work them out for himself. He already knew he could not drink more than one glass of wine. Now, after two nights without sleep, he felt as fresh as a new-laid egg. Bizarre! Blades were normally assigned in pairs or larger groups, and he should have realized that sooner. He was all alone, but he already knew that he could not bear to let the unspeakable Marquis out of his sight. How were the two of them going to stand each other for the next thirty or forty years? How was he ever going to take exercise, make friends, and even enjoy a little romance?
