by Dave Duncan
There were even triumphs, as when Queen Haralda gave birth to a healthy young prince. The exultant king decreed a month’s national rejoicing and named the boy after himself. There were also tragedies. The Queen died a week later, and for half a year Montpurse ran the kingdom until the King came back to his senses.
That shattering sorrow reinforced Ambrose’s virulent hatred of conjuration, whose seeds had been laid by the long-dead Countess Mornicade. No number of assurances from the White Sisters would persuade him that his wife had not been slain by some antagonistic conjurer. This obsession led in turn to the King’s Great Matter and thus to the downfall of Chancellor Montpurse.
8
The epochal meeting of the council at which the Great Matter was unveiled was held in Greymere on a dreary day in early winter, with sleet beating on the windows. Ambrose’s overworked ankles could no longer support his bulk for hours at a time. A couple of years ago, Secretary Kromman had introduced a chair of state into the council chamber, and the King now used it as a matter of course. His ministers remained standing, although several of them were much older than he was and there were empty chairs all around the walls.
The Privy Council was a strange mixture of hereditary nobles with resounding titles and efficient commoners who did the actual work—the High Admiral, the Earl Marshal, the High Constable, the Second Assistant to the Master of Forests. They ranged in age from thirty to eighty and were all, with the possible exception of Montpurse, terrified of the King. Black-clad Kromman stood at a writing desk in the shadows, officially taking notes but in practice fixing every speaker with his unnerving, lie-detecting stare.
The meeting was going poorly. Negotiations for the King’s marriage to Princess Dierda of Gevily had been dragging on for months, growing ever more complex, until now the draft contract included clauses on lumber exports and fishing rights. Montpurse argued for a conciliatory response, the soft line. When no one else objected, the King did. Debate raged until he had his way, and the Chancellor was instructed to send a very hard response.
To the Blade observer by the door, it was quite clear that Ambrose had only opposed the original recommendation to see if Montpurse had done his homework and would defend his position. Once the King began to argue a case, though, he usually convinced himself; he quite often ended by imposing solutions he did not really want. Durendal wondered if Montpurse had foreseen this and therefore had begun by defending the wrong goal. It was possible.
The First Lord of the Exchequer presented a harrowing account of the national finances, ending with a plea that Parliament be called into session to vote more taxes. Chancellor Montpurse warned that there was much unrest in the country and a Parliament would certainly seek redress if given the chance. Redress meant concessions, and concessions were easier to start than finish. And so on. Ambrose had been growing more and more flushed. The chief Blade was laying bets with himself on how soon the thunder would start. He won and lost simultaneously.
“Flummery!” roared the King. “Parliament? I’ll give those pettifogging stall keepers something to redress. Chancellor, why do you not impose our taxes uniformly? Why does a fifth of the kingdom benefit from our rule and justice, yet contribute not a copper mite to the upkeep of the realm? Is this fair? Is this justice?”
Montpurse’s face was not visible to the watcher by the door, but his voice sounded calm. “I regret, sire, that I do not understand to what Your Majesty—”
“Master Secretary, read out that report you gave me.”
Kromman lifted the uppermost sheet of paper from the pile on his desk and tilted it to the gloomy winter light. “Your Majesty, my lords. A preliminary survey of lands held by elementaries and conjuring orders indicates that they constitute in aggregate approximately nineteen one-hundredths of the arable land and pasture of Chivial. As examples, the Priory of Goodham owns more than half of Dimpleshire and large tracts in neighboring counties, the House of Fidelity at Woskin controls one third of the wool trade of the eastern counties, the Sisters of Motherhood at—”
“Sisters of Lust!” the King bellowed. “They sell love potions. The House of Fidelity traffics in mindless sex slaves. Foul conjurations! If you want an enemy cursed or a virgin enthralled, you take your gold to these purveyors of evil. And yet they pay no taxes! Why not? Answer me that, Chancellor!”
Montpurse’s voice was less calm now. “I have no idea, sire. The matter has never been put to me until now. As Secretary Kromman has obviously had time to investigate the—”
“Because it has always been done that way!” said the King triumphantly. “Because no one ever had the gumption to suggest otherwise. In my grandfather’s day it didn’t matter. The sickness was a matter of a pox here and a pox there. But year by year these cancers grow richer and acquire more land, until now they are a blight upon the whole face of Chivial. Put that to Parliament, My Lord Chancellor! If we levy taxes upon the orders, we can reduce the impost on everybody else and still raise the revenue. How do you like that idea?”
“It is a breathtaking concept, sire. But—”
“But nothing! Why didn’t you suggest it to me? Why didn’t any of you? Why do I have to rely upon a mere secretary to point out this injustice in our rule, mm?” The King leaned back in his chair and smirked. “You see, not one of you can think of an objection!”
Durendal resisted a strong desire to whistle. He felt a distinct chill up and down his backbone.
“Many of these orders do good work, sire,” Montpurse protested. “The houses of healing, for instance. Others enhance seed corn, end droughts, treat—”
“They can do all that and pay taxes too! I see no reason why they should wax ever richer while the crown goes penniless. Summon Parliament, Lord Chancellor, and prepare a bill to levy taxes on them.”
Montpurse bowed and the rest of the council copied him like sheep.
As soon as the meeting was over, Durendal went back to his office and tore up a recommendation to release eight Blades from the Guard. He consulted the latest report from Ironhall and penned a letter to Grand Master. He wrote another requesting a meeting with the Grand Wizard of the Royal College of Conjurers. Finally he went to call on Mother Superior, who received him in her private withdrawing room, offering him dainty plates of sweet cakes and a glass of dry mead. They were fast friends now.
The writ to summon Parliament was issued the following week, but rumors of the Great Matter had escaped already. Durendal waited upon the King.
Kromman had long since ousted the Chamberlain from the anteroom and assumed his duties there. It was well known that persons not in the Secretary’s favor might need another haircut before they gained admittance to His Majesty, but that restriction did not apply to the Commander of the Royal Guard. Only once had Kromman dared to challenge his right of immediate access and then Durendal had emptied an inkwell over him.
Falcon was senior Blade on duty, with Hawkney assisting. They sprang up as Durendal entered.
“Who’s in there now?”
“His lordship the Warden of Ports, sir.”
That was excellent news. The Warden was a notorious windbag, whom the King suffered only because he was an uncle of the late Queen Haralda. “Poor Screwsley! I can’t let the poor boy suffer like that. I shall relieve him.” Durendal headed for the council room.
Kromman’s dead-fish eyes glittered angrily as he went by the desk. “You can’t interrupt—”
“Then stop me.”
He opened the door, causing young Sir Screwsley to jump like a spooked frog. His lordship the Warden was in full drone, while the King brooded by the window, staring out at frosty branches. He spun around with a glare. What happened next must depend on the King’s reaction. Durendal could merely gesture Screwsley out and take his place—a breach of etiquette but hardly high treason. His gamble paid off, though.
“Commander!” the King boomed. “My Lord Warden, you will have to excuse us. Sir Durendal brings urgent business, which I do believe may take some ti
me.” Laying a meaty arm on the surprised noble’s shoulders, he propelled him to the exit. Then he banished Screwsley with a dagger glance and shut the door himself, chortling.
That left Durendal.
“Lord Warden of Windmills,” the king muttered. “Do you have urgent business?” His jocularity turned to suspicion.
“Vital, sire, if not quite urgent.”
The suspicion increased. “Namely?”
“Majesty, you are about to declare war on most of the conjurers in the kingdom.”
“You are not supposed to know that!”
“Half the population knows it. My job now is to prepare a defense against the inevitable retaliation.”
The next few minutes were at least as stormy as he had expected. On one hand, the King refused to believe that anyone would dare attack him by conjuration. On the other, he had a deep-seated dread of exactly that. He detested his Guard’s attempts to mother him, although this was its duty. He had no lack of courage, except that he feared being thought a coward. If Parliament heard that he had increased his personal guard, it might refuse to pass the bill. And so on.
Eventually Durendal went down on his knees. “My liege, I must humbly beg you to relieve me of my duties as com—”
“Blast you! Double blast you! No, I will not relieve you of your duties. Get on your feet. Why do I tolerate your stubborn impudence? There isn’t one man in the realm who defies me the way you do. I ought to fire you!”
The glare stiffened and then slowly melted. The King guffawed. “That wasn’t too logical was it?”
Tricky. “It was too subtle for me, sire.”
The King boomed out another laugh and thumped his Blade on the shoulder. “I just hope I don’t cut off your head one day before I change my mind. How can I get rid of you this time? What’s the absolute minimum you will accept?”
“Sire, I have always kept the Guard below official strength. In normal times, this keeps them on their toes. I do think times may not be normal for the next little while. There are eight seniors ready at Ironhall.”
“Eight? Last report I saw said three.”
“Grand Master will approve eight, sire. Mother Superior can obtain another dozen White Sisters…”
“At what price, mm? Blasted women bleed the treasury dry.” The little amber eyes peered suspiciously out of their caves of fat. “If I go to Ironhall and let you hire six more sniffers, will that shut you up?”
Durendal bowed. “For the moment at least, sire.”
“Go!” As his Blade reached the door, Ambrose shouted, “I’m only humoring you because you got that warden windbag out of my hair, you understand?”
Impulse…“Sire, when is his next audience?”
“Out!” roared the King.
The King rode to Starkmoor four days later, and that time Durendal went with him. He had warned Grand Master in advance about the cheering problem, and the word had been passed down the ranks. His Majesty and the Commander entered the hall together, receiving a memorable ovation. Eight excited new Blades swelled the King’s escort when he departed.
Durendal, meanwhile, had quietly investigated the next crop. He urged that they be brought on as fast as possible. He held a long meeting with the knights, laying out his concerns for royal safety in the days to come.
Parliament convened. Durendal stood beside the throne while the King read his speech to the assembled Lords and Commons. Things began to go wrong very soon after that.
The Lords were quite amenable to the Great Matter. As major landowners themselves, the peers disliked the way the elementaries were gobbling up the countryside, so if the King thought he could bring them to heel, they would willingly cheer from a safe distance.
The Commons had other ideas. Taxing the conjuring orders was low on their scale of priorities, even dangerous, not necessarily advisable. The elementaries were good for business. Everyone needed healing magic, perfectly respectable burghers changed the subject when there was mention of love charms or aphrodisiacs, and many an honorable member wore a good-luck amulet under his shift. The Commons were much more interested in curtailing monopolies, raising import duties, reducing export duties, and especially in ending the accursed Second Baelish War, which had been dragging on now for more than a decade. Nor had the Commons forgotten the Treaty of Fettle.
As the voices droned, day after day, a consensus emerged—the Commons decided they particularly disliked the King’s first minister. The Chancellor’s duties included bullying Parliament into carrying out the sovereign’s wishes, but now the Commons began to bully the Chancellor. It was his fault that taxes were so high and the cost of building the palace of Nocare had drained the treasury. He was to blame for the monopolies and perhaps the bad harvests, too. He was certainly responsible for the Fettle humiliation and the Baelish monsters turning the coasts to desert.
No decision had been reached when Parliament recessed for the Long Night festivities. The King was furious. Durendal relaxed a little.
Montpurse promised action as soon as the holiday season was over, and he was as good as his word. With flagrant intimidation and wholesale bribery, he jostled the bill along. It passed second reading in the early days of Firstmoon. One more vote would bring it to the palace for the royal seal.
If anything was going to happen, it ought to happen before that.
9
Durendal had gone to bed. He went to bed every night, on principle, to make love or just snuggle. Even after six years of marriage, it was almost always the former—a man had to uphold the legend—and he was frequently back at Kate’s side again when she awoke, for much the same reasons. While she slept, he attended to less important matters, like business, fencing, reading, or carousing. Poised on one leg, he had just put one foot into his britches when she screamed. He regained his balance and ripped the curtains aside. She was sitting up, but he could not make out her face in the dark.
“Where?” he said.
“Everywhere!” She screamed again. “It’s terrible! Stop it!”
He snatched up his sword and an enchanted lantern—one of a score that he had bullied out of the College—and dashed for the door. Any normal man who abandoned his wife and children like that would be a despicable poltroon, but a Blade had no option. Kate knew that. It was shock that had made her react as she had, never fear. She would cope.
He raced across the children’s room, where a five-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy were just waking in terror at the noise. He shouted, “Look after your mother and sister, Andy!” and was halfway across the salon. Those three rooms comprised his personal world when court was at Greymere, and they were much more luxurious than any other member of the Guard enjoyed. As he reached the corridor beyond, he realized that he was wearing next to nothing. Had the alarm come five seconds sooner, he would not have had even that.
By the wavering light of the lantern, he sprinted for the King’s quarters. The palace was dark and silent, although he assumed that every White Sister would be reacting as loudly as Kate had—the building was just too huge and solid for him to hear them yet. He had a long corridor to traverse and two staircases to climb. Common sense might suggest that the Commander should be billeted close to the King. That was the case in most of the other palaces and had perhaps once been the case in Greymere; but the old building had been extended and modified a hundred times, until now it was a labyrinth and any such convenient arrangement had been lost. Moreover, Blades did not sleep, so common sense did not apply to them.
He was not greatly concerned, even yet. The royal suite could only be reached through a guardroom where three Blades were always on duty. For the last three months, that number had been increased to twelve as soon as the King retired. Nor was Ambrose aware that rooms just outside the royal suite held another dozen swordsmen and more kept vigil in the grounds below his windows. The entire Guard, now comprising eighty-seven men, was on high alert and should be able to rally within minutes. Seventy-two knights had been called back from reti
rement and smuggled into the palace. If the king learned of them before they were needed, he would roast Durendal whole.
The problem, of course, had been to know what form the assault might take. If it involved an attack on the building with the sort of thunderbolt power wielded by the Destroyer General and his Royal Office of Demolition, then swords would be useless. Defense against fire and air was the responsibility of the conjurers of the College. Durendal had alerted them, nagged them, and—he hoped—persuaded them to take all possible precautions. The Guard was concerned only with personal assault by people, probably crazed people roused to killer madness by enchantment, like the assassins who had cut down Goisbert II.
Or so he had thought.
He had just reached the bottom of the staircase when something hurtled out of the darkness into the light of his lantern, coming straight at him. He thrust out Harvest instinctively and skewered it through its chest.
It was only a dog.
There were scores of dogs around the palace, every palace. They varied from enormous deerhounds to the cute little bundles of fluff that the ladies cuddled when they had nothing better to cuddle. This one was about the size of a sheep, of no discernible breed. No, it was not only a dog. It had been coming on its hind legs, so he had struck it as he would strike a man, and it ran right up the sword at him. With a yell of horror, he let go of the hilt just before the monster sank its teeth in his hand. It fell to the floor, snarling and yelping while he jumped clear of the snapping fangs, wishing he was wearing boots, thick boots.
Now he could hear uproar in the distance, two floors above him. Spraying blood around Harvest’s hilt, the dog hauled itself upright, then reared on its hind legs and came at him again. He beat at it with the lantern, and it went down again. He rammed the lantern into its jaws so he could snatch the hilt and drag Harvest free. In sudden gloom, the dog rallied and attacked again, this time going for his legs. Now he knew better than to stab—he slashed, splitting its skull through one eye and one ear.
