by Dave Duncan
woebegone Aylwin. "I could never say this
earlier, but Wasp really isn't old enough to be a
Blade. I should have warned him that I was going
to refuse binding, but I didn't and he jumped
right in the swamp beside me without thinking. He's a
great kid, but he's still just a kid."
Aylwin scrunched up his nose in thought. "So
why did you bind him? Was that a good idea?"
"No, a very bad one." Radgar looped the
baldric over his shoulder and adjusted the hang of
Yorick's sword at his thigh. "I had no
choice. The alternative was probably chains in
a dungeon. Wasp was ecstatic and I hadn't
the heart to refuse." By the time he had realized his
mistake there had been a dead man on the ground.
"Wasp was my best friend in Chivial, the first friend
I made there, my Aylwin substitute." The
kid brother he had never had. "Now he's
snapped like a wet bowstring. My fault, not
yours." If Wasp had killed Wulfwer, why
wasn't Radgar himself already in chains awaiting
trial?
Leofric threw open the door. He shot his
son a glare of disgust as he entered. "He's
gone," he told Radgar.
"Gone where?"
"Inland. He went to the stable and demanded a
horse. The thralls started saddling up Cwealm
for him, but then a ceorl asked to see his warrant
and he drew his sword."
Oh spirits! "He drew on one of the King's
hengestmenn?"
"Worse," the ship lord growled. "The man
sent a thrall to fetch a house thegn, and the house
thegn drew on Wasp."
"No! Didn't Wasp warn him?" This was beyond
belief! Probably the Bael hadn't listened,
or didn't know what a Blade was. Just a
bragging boy ... "What did Wasp do?"
"He put that needle of his through the
man's wrist, made him drop his sword. It
wasn't really a fight."
"I'm sure it wasn't."
"He rode off inland. Don't know where. That's
all."
"He didn't harm Wulfwer?"
"Didn't go near him, apparently."
Leofric sighed. "The King's declared him to be in
unfri`ed and Ro`edercraeft's sent a posse
out after him. This won't do your cause any good,
Atheling."
Murder his name and murder his nature. At the
stable, Wasp had demanded Cwealm because he had
been Radgar's own horse and should not provoke
any trumped-up charges of thievery. Good
idea, but it had not worked--the idiot hand had
talked back anyway. Cwealm wanted to argue,
too. He disliked having a stranger on his
back, and the brief sword fight in the stable yard
had upset him. He set out to be difficult and
was doubtless surprised to find himself working off his
rage by heading up the hill at a full gallop.
As a rider Wasp was not in the same class as,
say, Dominic or Wolfbiter, but he had
grown up around horses and this Baelish mule was
going to do what he wanted, like it or not.
"Don't be mad!" Wasp told him. "I'm
mad enough for both of us. Don't you know that?"
Cwealm flicked his ears and continued to pound
hooves.
Cwicnoll was hidden above a roof of pewter
cloud, but the eruption was growing louder, more
violent. The rumbling was almost constant, and teeming
rain had become a deluge of white mud.
Black horse Cwealm was a white horse
already. The lines of bent thralls planting
vegetables in the fields were lines of smoky
ghosts in a snowy world.
Cwicnoll was the threat now.
No Blade in the history of the Order had ever
deserted his ward like this, and the pain of it made him
want to scream. Perhaps gallant young Sir
Wasp truly had gone crazy. He could
believe it himself. But even if he were certain of
it, he still would not be able to resist the compulsion
driving him up the mountain. Back at
Ironhall he had been contemptuous of
Sir Spender's distress when he was separated from
his ward. Now he marveled that the man had not been
screaming his throat out. He had even doubted
Sir Janvier's proclaimed instinct for
danger!
Food and a few hours' rest in a chair
outside Radgar's door had helped restore
him. It had certainly cleared his thinking, which had
been badly muddled by the fumes in
Weargahlaew, as well as by sheer exhaustion.
Long before that musclebound Bael came rolling
along the corridor babbling about Wulfwer,
Wasp knew exactly where the tanist had gone.
He had worked it out by mulling over the ghost's
testimony.
Pension, Yorick had said. Ambrose held
Cynewulf on a golden chain. Paying the King
of Baelmark a personal pension must be cheaper,
probably very much cheaper, than fighting a war or
honoring all the onerous terms of the treaty.
Cynewulf used the money to bribe the earls ...
some of the earls ... enough of the earls ... to keep him
in power. And when Radgar had turned up in
Ironhall, Ambrose had seen him as a threat
to a very convenient arrangement. Had Radgar gone
on to Bondhill, all unsuspecting, he would have
found the doors locked behind him. No one but
Ambrose himself and a few of his Guard would have known
that the missing atheling was missing no more.
Radgar had escaped.
Radgar had escaped because his Blade had an
instinct for danger! Cling to that =! It had worked
once, so this journey back to Weargahlaew
might not be madness. ...
Balked, Ambrose had sent his accomplice
a warning that trouble was on the way home.
Cynewulf had sent his son to consult the family
conjurer, crazy Healfwer, who was to the King of
Baelmark what Grand Wizard of the College was
to Ambrose.
Healfwer was the source of all the evil
conjurements. Radgar would have guessed that without
saying so. Wasp had been distracted by the brandy,
the potion that Cynewulf had used to enslave
Queen Charlotte. That one had come from Chivial,
part of the traitor's payoff. Either Baelmark
conjurers did not know how to make love potions or
Healfwer granted such favors only to the
reigning king, which had been Aeled then, of course.
Which of the two sons had been his
favorite? He probably did not properly
understand how his evil conjurements were being used. This
time Wulfwer would have explained that there was another
uppity challenger coming on the scene, but he would not
have revealed that the new threat was Aeled's son.
So the old lunatic would have chanted up another
booby trap for him.
If Healfwer was still capable of any normal
human emotion, he must have been horribly
shocked when his next visitors appeared. In his
confused, crazy, fashion h
e had tried to tell
them about his earlier client, complaining about double
duty, mumbling about wanting wonders wrought. There
had been footprints in the ash around the
octogram! Ward and Blade would have picked up
those hints if the fumes in the crater had not
stupefied them.
By the time Aylwin arrived at Radgar's
door, Wasp had worked it all out; he had known
where the missing tanist had gone and knew he must have
brought back something deadly from Outlaws' Cave.
That was the message he had told Aylwin to pass
on to Radgar: Accept nothing from Cynewulf or
Wulfwer--drink no fancy brandy, pet no
cuddly fox cubs.
But by that time, Wasp had lost interest in the
tanist. His instincts were howling that the real danger
was somewhere else and much more urgent. He had no
evidence or logic to support that belief, but it
had been growing on him steadily until he was
ready to scream. He knew that all common sense
argued against it. Alas, just as Ambrose and
Cynewulf in turn had registered as dangers,
so now the threat was Cwicnoll. That was why, for
perhaps the first time in more than three hundred years,
a Blade had deserted his ward and gone riding off
chasing ... chasing what? Wild goose or wild
fire?
Wind and a deluge of mud ... he was already
almost into the clouds. The volcano was invisible, just
a constant angry thunder.
His ward was in danger. Somewhere up there he must
do battle against someone.
Or some thing?
Leofric wanted to put on a show. He
wanted Radgar to march up to the door of Cynehof
with a werod or two at his back. He
wanted to plant supporters inside to cheer his
entry.
Ceolmund disagreed vehemently, spraying
spit at the floor. "Stay out, stay out!
Attend the moot, certainly. Be seen taking an
interest but do nothing more. They'll argue and quarrel
and achieve nothing, and you mustn't be associated with
failure."
In this case Radgar had agreed with the old
wita, but mostly to avoid exposing his friends to any
more danger than he had to. The sinister Marshal
Ro`edercraeft would be noting names, and if the
Radgar movement collapsed--as seemed
inevitable--then retribution would certainly
follow.
Not in living memory had the witenagemot been
called into session to censure a reigning monarch.
The dim hall was already full when Radgar and his
supporters gave up their swords to the
cnihtas and went in. They stood back against the
right-hand wall to watch. The earls were there with their
thegns--mingling, whispering, and plotting--and Big
Edgar was a landmark all by himself. Rows of stools
had been set up on the floor for the witan; the
empty throne sat on the front of the platform.
Radgar noted the seating arrangements with
disapproval, for the earls would be facing the moot
reeve like children before a teacher. They would not even be
at the front, for the first two rows were already occupied
by the witan of the king's council.
"Who presides?" he asked Leofric.
"Wulfwer?"
The ship lord snorted in derision. There had
been no overt demonstration of support, but
Radgar had his own party now, led by a score or
so of witan collected for him by Ceolmund,
older men and women who wielded power in
Baelmark--rich merchants and landowners, some of
them specially summoned from outlying areas and other
islands. They appraised him with shrewd green
eyes, cautiously restricting their conversation
to reminiscences of how they had served his father in the
war or, rarely, his grandfather in the days of the
shameful triumph over the Gevilian invasion.
Around this cozy gathering stood a living palisade
of Faro`edhengest muscle. The energetic
youngsters among them were grinning as they discussed the
possibility of some action later. It was not
unknown for meetings of the witenagemot to break
into riot.
Radgar was about to comment on the number of house
thegns present when war horns announced the
approach of the King. Spectators moved back,
clearing a center aisle. Earls broke off their
intriguing and filtered forward to take their seats.
One stool was left empty in mute tribute
to the slain Ae`edelno`ed of Su`edecg, whose
tanist was still foering in distant Skyrria and
thus could not know of his accession.
Another wail outside the doors brought an
approximation of respectful silence. Those who
had seats rose to their feet as the fat villain
himself strolled in wearing his crown and a scarlet,
fur-trimmed robe. Ro`edercraeft led a
dozen mailed house thegns before him and a dozen more
brought up the rear. They made a leisurely
progress straight down the center, past the
hearths, and at last to the dais. Cynewulf
settled on his throne and the guards lined up on either
side of him, extending almost the full width of the
hall.
"That's disgusting! My father never brought a
bodyguard to a moot."
Leofric said quietly, "Perhaps he should have
done."
"And he never retained that many house thegns!"
"Yes, he did," Leofric said, even more
quietly, "but he never let me parade them around
in public like that."
Oh? Greenhorn had much to learn! "Where's
Wulfwer?"
Nineteen earls had settled on their stools,
but the king's tanist was always an honorary member
of the witenagemot. In this case, his absence was
especially noteworthy. Even a surly and
none-too-bright thrall-born like Wulfwer ought
to know that he should be there, supporting his father.
"Well, ealdras?" Cynewulf did not
bother to raise his voice. "You called this
moot." He took a small scroll from inside
his cloak and pretended to consult it. "Sixteen
signatures, the minimum required under the law
of Radgar the Great. Earl Aelfgeat is here with
our safe-conduct to answer any questions you may wish
to put to him. Who wants to start throwing the dung?"
He tossed the scroll away and leaned back
contemptuously on his throne, bored already.
"Now!" Leofric whispered. "If they're
going to!"
This was the moment for challenge, which would
take precedence over all other business. The
hall held its breath, but the moment one earl
began to rise, two others jumped up also and the
chance was gone. It was a fair guess that these were the
three with royal ambitions, but clearly none of
them had been able to muster the necessary votes, so they were
all just hoping to gain notoriety by proposing the
motion of censure. Before Cynewulf co
uld even
point a finger to recognize one, a war horn
wailed again. That was definitely not a scheduled part
of a witenagemot debate. Heads snapped
around.
Crowds stood taller in Baelmark than in
Ironhall, and for a moment all Radgar could see
coming in the door was a double line of shiny helmets.
The spectators roiled back, once again
clearing an aisle along the length of the hall, and
then the intruders drew close enough for Radgar
to make out Wulfwer in the lead. He had not
changed a bit in five years, except
to increase in bulk and sheer ugliness. Hulking
would be flattery, lummox only reasonable. Like
a two-legged ox, the tanist rolled forward bearing
a naked sword. He halted when he reached the
hearths and scowled brutishly at his father on the
throne. The hall erupted in furious roars of
protest.
"This is madness!" Leofric whispered in
Radgar's ear. The only challenge that could be
delivered in the middle of a witenagemot was an
earl's challenge to the King; not a tanist's
challenge to his earl. Even Wulfwer must know
that.
"It's a trick," Radgar answered. "It
has to be." But what trick?
The protest roared on until Cynewulf
rose to his feet and held up a hand for silence.
He was frowning, but that meant nothing. He could have
set this up with his son, planning to deflect any
formal protest from the earls.
Now Wulfwer was free to recite the formula.
"Ni`eding!" he roared. "Ga recene to
me, wer to gu`ede! Gea, unscamfoest
earming `edu, ic @thoet gehate @thoet ic
heonan nylle fleon--" * The rest of the
ancient call to combat was lost in renewed howls
from the onlookers.
* Worthless one! Come quickly to me, man
to battle. Yes, shameless wretch you, I
this swear: that I from here refuse to
flee--
Cynewulf stood with raised hand, seemingly
waiting for silence, but his little eyes were scanning the
crowd. He located Radgar and no doubt noted
who was with him. At last he was able to shout over the
noise.
"Drunken lout! Thrall-born oaf! Why
did I ever think I could make anything of you? You
can't even issue a proper challenge and you try
to do it in the middle of a witenagemot. Well, the
fyrd will make judgment between us, but it must wait
until after the nation's business is completed.
Let the thegn moot assemble on the day after the
