by John Barnes
Sir John nodded. In his experience the best answers were that way.
Psyche and the Twisted Man came in together, a few moments later. The arrival of the Prince's Companions seemed to cheer everyone.
The Prince's arrival did not. Amatus and Calliope entered together, Amatus dressed properly for the occasion in half-triolet, trouser, and low court slippers, but seemingly in haste. Calliope was disheveled in a way that nearly shouted that she had just come from a bed. All eyes went to them, and widened.
The old Count strode to Calliope and slapped his purported daughter across the face with a sound like a belt hitting a drumhead. Tears welled in Calliope's eyes, but she stood upright and glared at him, her chin never dipping. The Count turned to the Prince.
"Highness, I have served under your grandfather, and under your father. It would seem my daughter has now chosen to serve under you. For the damage done my body in battle, I have only gratitude to give your grandfather. For the damage done my treasury in preparation for this war, I have only gratitude to give your father . . .
"And for what you have done to my honor, Highness, and that of my family, I give you such loyalty as a subject must. And no more. The friendship between our houses, though I have more to lose than you, is severed, and it will not grow together again. You may have this strumpet sprung from my loins, and use her as you like—she is your plaything to coddle like a poodle or butcher like a pig for your pleasure. I shall not stay to join your counsels."
Then the old Count lifted the medal given him after Bell Tower Beach, of solid gold, of which there were but eight in the Kingdom, from his neck, dandled it by its silk ribbon a moment so that the room fell silent with dread at what they were about to see, spat on it, flung it at Amatus's feet, turned with a great flash of his scarlet cape, and was gone. The heavy oak door thudded shut behind him.
The room went into an uproar, in the midst of which more than one door quietly opened and closed in the Throne Room.
Cedric shouted for order, and bellowed contradictory commands. Calliope burst into tears and collapsed against Amatus. Holding her up with his single arm, he guided her gently out. King Boniface began to echo things Cedric was shouting, especially the contradictory parts. More doors opened and closed.
Standing guard in the corner, as he was apt to be whenever anything important happened, Roderick wept openly with his men, ashamed also because a part of his mind could hardly refrain from imagining this as Act I, scene ii, of The Tragical Death of Boniface the Good.
Among the first to slip out had been Sir John Slitgizzard, and sure enough, as he waited behind the arras in the private room behind the Throne, the door opened again and a beautifully dressed figure stepped quietly out and went up the stairs. Sir John followed him silently to a storage room in the tower.
Then Slitgazzard drew his escree and shoved the door open.
The lord still held his quill in his hand, and the little bits of string used to tie up the message were stuck to his triolet, but it was clear that the pigeon had already flown—its cage was empty. Sir John lunged, putting his escree through the shocked lord's throat. The traitor crumpled to the floor.
Drawing a pismire from his swash, he stepped over the corpse, leaned far out the window, and peered upward. A lone pigeon was still circling its way upward, as they will when they look for altitude and have a long way to go. It was barely more than a speck, and no one knew the limitations of a pismire better than Slitgizzard, but nonetheless he tested the lovelock, cocked the chutney, rested one wrist upon the other, held his breath, and squeezed the trigger very gently. The pismire spat fire.
There was time for a long breath, and then great burst of feathers burst from the bird. Something broken and dead dropped down toward the courtyard. Looking down at one junior lackey who stood staring open-mouthed at it, Sir John shouted, "A gold flavin if you get me that bird!"
The pigeon hit the parataxis and bounced onto the low tiled roof of the clerihew, where it lay still. The boy scrambled up the gutter after it, and Sir John raced down the tower stairs to meet him.
The note on the pigeon's leg described the Kingdom as "on the brink of open revolt," which was not accurate, but it also contained a map and a list of force dispositions, which were. Sir John dug into his purse and tossed the junior lackey a gold flavin.
"They say you're the best shot in the Kingdom," the boy said. "They say that's why the Prince keeps you by him."
"Oh? Eh?" Slitgizzard said, for though normally he was the sort of courteous man who pays attention to children, he had been engrossed in realizing how much had been on this map and in this note. "Oh." He looked into the boy's shining eyes and smiled, for he himself as a boy had worshipped a soldier or two. "Er. That is, this was undoubtedly the best shot I ever made, or am ever likely to make, considering how much of it must be called pure luck. And even if it is not, certainly the most important. I am afraid I must go have a chat with our Prime Minister." He smiled at the boy, who seemed to have grown an inch just by standing near him, and turned to go.
"Sir?" the junior lackey asked.
Sir John turned.
"How . . . how would I make a shot like that?"
Sir John said, gravely, "There are only three things you would have to do: practice daily for twenty years, desperately need to make the shot, and be very lucky."
The boy smiled slightly. "I have been practicing daily for three years, since my father let me start," he said.
Slitgizzard favored the boy with a grin that he was to remember for many years—we know, for we have a letter the junior lackey wrote when he was old, in which that smile is described—and then, squeezing the boy on the shoulder, said, "Oh, well, then, just seventeen to go."
The northern baron and his two servants had gone out together, heads bowed, walking close to one another, as if deeply concerned or embarrassed, but they no sooner rounded the corner than they were racing full tilt for the Guest Stables. Within moments they were saddling their horses.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, may I help you?" said a chubby, well-dressed groom, approaching them.
The first servant said, "Er, well, yes, I suppose—I'm afraid I'm not very good at this—"
"Oh, shut up, Rufus, I'll get it for you in a moment," the second said. "Sorry, we are in a hurry, and if we're not supposed to saddle our own mounts I hope you won't be in trouble for it but—"
"No trouble at all," said the groom, as he drew nearer. Oddly for a groom, he seemed to be paying a good deal of attention to where he stepped. "But see, this here is important—" He reached for the saddle.
"Oh, well, certainly you can help if you—" The servant died then, his throat suddenly opened by a pongee that seemed to appear from nowhere in the groom's hand. Rufus died an instant later, a kidney torn open with the next stroke, and before the baron quite knew what was happening, the homicidal groom had him backed against a wall, pongee point at the baron's larynx, and the horses were screaming at the scent of blood.
"My lord," said Duke Wassant (for of course it was he) to the baron, "I do apologize for having slain your servants, for I suspect that they were not bad men, but merely fell into your company and became so. You may console yourself that they died quickly, not at all like what is going to happen to you if the tools now glowing red in the dungeon are used with any skill. You will keep your hands where I can see them, and you will come with me."
As the old Count passed through the gateway, a voice whispered, "A man who has been wronged may seek to avenge it."
"He may." The Count's tone was noncommittal, but he stopped walking.
"Where a master does ill the servant may seek another."
"He may do that as well."
The archway was in the oldest part of the castle, so old that no one quite had a name for it anymore, though a few very old people sometimes imagined they had heard people name it when they were small. The stones were encrusted with dead moss of a type no longer known, on which grew live moss of a type now rare.
In the vaguely damp and musty odor, there seemed to have been no breath of air for a century, and the Count heard no sound but the stranger's voice.
"Were you to receive a visitor at your manor—"
"I am hospitable to visitors."
"I see. Then you can expect—" There was a low grunt, followed shortly by the sort of scream one might be able to make if a preternaturally strong being had its entire fist in one's mouth . . . followed by many short screams, and cracking noises that suggested finger bones.
"I will take him from here," said the voice of the Twisted Man.
"Could you not ask him questions first?" the Count said. "He might talk . . . without . . ."
There was a wrenching sound like a wing being torn off a chicken, another smothered shriek, and throttled sobbing.
"I was promised I might play with him until he talks," said the Twisted Man. "I shall take him down to the dungeon for just that purpose . . . and then he will have his chance to talk. It may be he will talk and spoil my fun at that time . . . or it may be that I will have the chance to play more. So I shall play with him on my way down there, to help him think about whether he wants it to stop when we get there . . . or to be only beginning."
There was the sound of dragging, scuffling feet, and a flurry of shrieks, still being forced through the huge fist.
The Count continued on his way to where his horse was saddled. He had no love for traitors. He had been more than willing to accept the scandal when Calliope had approached him about it, so that the traitors among the nobles might be sniffed out.
But he felt just a little sorry he had been part of this.
The next day, after the hangings, the Council of War convened in earnest. Despite the success of his plans thus far, Cedric remained deeply worried, for he knew from a diligent study of stories and tales that tyrants, conquerors, and such generally did fairly well before being overthrown, and sometimes did well for a long time, so merely being well-prepared and having right on their side was going to be far from enough. Indeed, he was also aware of the tendency, noted in all books of lore, for the good side to win out by some lucky chance at the last moment, and for the bad side to have all the luck till then. He was not sure it was even possible to prepare against a side which might well have all the luck, but consoled himself with the thought that he was only called upon to try—success was a matter for the gods to decide.
The others in the room were as grim and as bleak as Cedric, for they well understood that the slaughter of Waldo's agents was as likely to provoke Waldo as anything else, and the sheer numbers of spies and traitors had made Waldo seem more frightening. Moreover, word was from the western shore of Iron Lake that streams were breaking free early this year, so it might well be that the attack from Overhill would move soon.
The meeting began in the dull way that meetings usually do, with Boniface and Cedric running over the lists of who was to do what, how soon it was to be done, and so forth—things on the order of "Check this armory in the East, remove all the good escree blades and bring them to the city, send all the bad ones into the village to be reforged. Send word ahead so that the city may release that many blades to go up the Long and Winding Road to the frontier where they are needed," and "Find a hundred big farm boys—preferably with no ambition for glory—train them, and set them to guard that granary."
For all the color of the swirl of cloaks around the table, and the sunlight dancing upon it from the window, the room was cold, and people seemed to huddle together, and to speak as little as possible.
This meant an uncharacteristically quick meeting. They had almost reached the end of the business—the matter of training recruits part-time so that spring planting might go forward was just being discussed in a very reasonable way by some very reasonable minor nobles—when there was a commotion outside. Cedric's heart sank, for he had spent the better part of the winter reading old tales whenever he could, to assist in his getting ready, and he knew this to be the worst sort of omen in this sort of tale.
A moment later the doors opened, and a man came in. He had been tall once, but now he was stooped with age; handsome once, but sun and wind had played on his skin a long time. He was dressed from head to toe in the soft hide of zwieback and gazebo, and a bushy beard fell almost to his waist. His blue eyes seemed locked in a permanent squint.
There was a great rattle as he came in, for on his chest he wore crossed swashes of pismires, and on his back he carried a festoon and a great double-bladed ax. There was an answering rattle from the corner, for at the sight of so much armament headed directly for the throne, the Twisted Man had stood up and flung back part of his cloak, exposing many weapons—and something more fearsome, for those who saw quickly looked away and never told anyone what they had seen of his body.
The man dressed in hides bounded up the aisle and knelt, and it was only then that they saw the many stains of blood on his zwieback leggings and gazebo shirt.
Cedric rose and said, "Majesty and Highness, permit me to present Euripides—our chief of scouts."
The scout bowed low, and then drew a deep breath, and then said, "All my news is bad. I was a month escaping from Overhill, with all of them hunting me, and carved the skis on which I came myself, and have found a high pass I have named in my own honor. And what I saw there was a mighty army by day, and mightier by night for it is more than half goblins—and things worse than goblins—for those men of Overhill who would not fight for Waldo and could not flee him are dead, but they stand in his ranks, and men who once stood against him return from their graves as his minions."
The room seemed to shudder. Those who had fought vampires or goblins felt their hearts sink, for they knew that though a man was more than a match for one, numbers would tell. Moreover, those who had been in battle knew too well what it would mean to face an army strong by day and stronger by night.
"The news is grave, indeed, and yet I am bound to thank you for it," Cedric said, and took out one of the medals that he always carried for such occasions, to bestow it upon the scout.
But old Euripides remained kneeling, and now he sighed with a heartbreak so deep that there were those who claimed afterwards that the Twisted Man had shuddered. "My lord, that was prologue, for while I fought to find my way forth, the melt came early this year on the other side of the mountains, and they moved swiftly; often indeed I was in danger of being pinned between Waldo's scouts and the advance of his army. They have been on the move, my lord, for at least three weeks, and they are well-armed and ready."
Cedric grew pale, and nodded to Sir John Slitgizzard, who raced to the roof to sound the Invasion Bell, to let the city know that it would be war, this spring, in earnest, and to get every muster out. Then he turned back and reached to place the medal about Euripides's neck.
"My lord," Euripides said. "Do not. What I have told you thus far, I have told you only so that you will believe what I must say now."
The room held its breath.
"The fort in the Isought Gap is fallen, its armory there in Waldo's hands, and all the men made undead and brought into the Usurper's ranks. They are but scant days from here by easy marches, now. My warning has reached you too late, and I have failed you."
4
The Storm and What It Blew Before It
Before the early spring sun had quite set that evening, the quickest-moving of the refugees were already coming into the city. And because the goblins would have taken a fearful toll of crowds waiting outside the city for the dawn, King Boniface gave orders that the gates that faced west be kept open in the night, and a dozen reliable witches and two hundred guards got no sleep as they examined each traveler coming in.
About every ninth one burned and died at the touch of rosewood and garlic. Sometimes the enemy had been particularly clever, finding some family too shocked to notice, making a beloved grandmother or a small boy undead, and leaving the rest untouched. There were fights in the lines at the gates, and by dawn there were several seasoned soldiers
sobbing in the infirmary. This one had cut down innocent people who had panicked at shadows behind them on the brink of safety, that one had pried the remains of an undead infant from its living mother's charred arms, all had found some hideous prank in the train of refugees.
Roderick himself, most reliable of troopers, had felt his gorge rise when he had discovered twin undead girls, not more than two years in age, clinging to the bottom of a tumulus, their hands and feet wedged into cracks on either side of the single axle. They had flown straight at him; he had barely struck them with the white-magicked wand in time, and as he had done so he had looked up to see the shocked eyes of the parents who had buried them by the roadside only hours before.
Gwyn told her granddaughter, who told a later chronicler of the Kingdom, that Roderick did not sleep until late on the following afternoon, though he was off duty at sunrise. According to the chronicle we have, he did not move or stir, and told her nothing of what he had seen, but sat in his accustomed chair, tears trailing down his nose, while Gwyn rubbed his neck and sang things she had heard Psyche singing to Amatus.
There is a claim that he finally rose from the chair, undressed, and went to bed after she thought to sing "One for the Morning Glory," the song that Psyche never sang until Amatus was already asleep, which Gwyn thought must be some good charm. The better scholars of the Kingdom always doubted it, for you can sing it yourself and you will see that it makes no difference.
As the sun rose, the refugees grew more numerous and more desperate. Now that witches need not be employed, it went faster, for guards need only insist that everything be opened or turned over in the sunlight, but there were so many of them that the wait still grew longer and longer, and the great horde of refugees waiting outside the town all looked fearfully over their shoulders at the horizon, for they feared to be caught outside the gates of the city.
