by Paul Kidd
"You may return to the ranks, Blade Captain Ilego. I shall bring Colletro's offer to the council anon."
Ilego swept up his visor with a smooth wave of his hand. Beneath the green metal mask, a narrow face gazed at his prince with a jackal's hungry eyes.
"Then we may declare the season's campaign at an end, my lord! Another brilliant victory for Sumbrian arms-and for your own generalship, of course." Ilego's words, like his armor, were pure polished venom. The copper-green horse edged slightly forward as he spoke. "A reputation I am sure you will see fit to build upon."
"That the entire state may build upon." Prince Mannicci locked his helmet into a chill gaze at Ilego's face. "A unified state, Ilego, as I am sure your votes will continue to reflect."
"Certainly, my lord. Unlike many, I lack private family affairs that might distract me from the business of the state." The serpent gave a smile. "But then a daughter's wedding can be such a time-consuming thing…"
By way of reply, Prince Mannicci merely jerked his clamshell gauntlets tight. A Prince of the Blade Kingdoms-the master of three thousand swords-had nothing if he lacked his dignity.
Gilberto Ilego, Blade Captain of Sumbria and lord of a mere two thousand swords, coolly ignored the dismissal and turned to gaze upon the narrow pass back through the mountains.
"If you wish, my lord, I can prepare the orders for our withdrawal? Perhaps my own contingent should remain as rear guard?" Ilego's dark eyes framed themselves into a mask of genteel concern. "Surely it would facilitate your swift return to the city?"
Mannicci closed his visor with a crash of steel and coldly jerked a faceless glare at his counsellor.
"A prince is first to enter the battlefield, and last to leave it." A mace reached out to prod against Ilego's armored breast. "Your own troops may lead the withdrawal, Ilego; at the fore, where they belong."
Trumpets signaled the parley's opening. Prince Mannicci raked back with his spurs and sent his mount hammering across the field, sparks flying from its burnished hooves as it threw its mass of flesh and metal through the air.
Left to his own devices, Ilego deliberately brushed his visor down until the steel locked tight. Turning his back upon prince and enemy alike, he drifted back into a forest of pikes and slowly disappeared from view.
"Kill them! Now, while their captains stand exposed!" Ugo Svarezi, Blade Captain of Colletro, roared in incoherent rage. "Do you fear Sumbrian steel? Charge! Charge and bring us victory!"
The captain almost foamed in anger. Beneath him, his svelte black hippogriff hissed in a dark rage of her own, seething with pent-up hate as she felt her master's spurs. The creature took an experimental lunge at a war-horse's withers, sending its victim caracolling in alarm.
"Svarezi! Control yourself. Control your beast!" Colletro's Prince Ricardo sat stiff as a wooden doll atop his gleaming silver stallion. "This is a time for wits, and not for bloodshed!"
"Then use your wits! Charge them before the army loses heart!"
"You are not our warlord yet, Svarezi." Prince Ricardo glared down a long, aristocratic nose at the other man. "I remind you that the council voted not to accept you as our Grand Captain of Arms!"
Colletro's dense-packed ranks of soldiers made a black ocean about their prince; hearing his words, a surge of anger washed through them like a tempest on a bitter sea. Prince Ricardo jerked at his reins, ignoring the currents crashing hard about him, and spurred hard at his horse.
"We are aware of your disappointments, Svarezi." The prince bartered insubstantial baubles with a wave of his hand. "Sumbria will want to seal a peace. I shall bespeak the hand of Mannicci's daughter for you. A princess in your bed will be acceptable to us all."
The prize of a princess would bring power to Svarezi's hands; more gold, more votes. His face sheathed within a wine-dark helmet, Svarezi glared at his prince through eyes grown black with hate.
"I will take her, and then we shall vote again, my lord. Colletro needs a Captain General. It is time Colletro ceased playing games with war."
The prince rode away without deigning to answer. Svarezi watched him go, while underneath him, the hippogriff shook out her black feathers in a venomous dance of rage.
Young cavalry commanders clustered about Svarezi; plain men in plain armor, who kept themselves well distanced from Colletro's golden courtiers. Soldiers gathered closer as one officer wrenched open his visor and rode closer to his lord.
"Captain, will a marriage bring you into command?"
"It will give me my command. It will hasten us to a new age of war."
Blade Captain Svarezi curbed his hissing mount and stalked her back into the crowd.
"And if not-then there are other ways to seize an army. One way or another, you shall have your victory."
Followed by an ebb of silent soldiers, Svarezi rode back into the ranks.
Standing his horse on open ground, Colletro's Prince Ricardo glared back at Svarezi and discarded all thought of mere promises. Svarezi's lust for power was an appetite best left unfed. The prince gathered up his reins, left all thoughts of betrothals lying just where they belonged, and rode slowly forward to the grim business of the day.
2
"Miliana?
"Miliaaaa-naaaaaa!"
The last syllable stabbed through Sumbria's palace like an ice pick gouging through an eardrum. Propelled by feminine lungs strengthened by untold years of gossip and complaint, the summons pealed out through the corridors and palace towers until it set the chandeliers shivering like autumn leaves.
"Miliaaaa-naaaaaa!
"Miliana! Where are you, child? In the names of all the gods, will you just learn to simply answer when you are called?"
Locked up in the third story of the palace's most obscure and ill-regarded tower, Princess Miliana Mannicci Da Sumbria heard the summons and went into an instant frenzy of activity. Slim, dusted with freckles and half hidden behind a vast pair of owlish, expensive spectacles, the girl whipped through page after page of a great, ill-smelling book inscribed on toad skin. She desperately searched for the phrases of a spell-a process hampered by the fact that her rubbery book had been written in a language that she could scarcely understand. The fact that the author had barely understood the language either simply served to make the whole process as chaotic as imaginable. Miliana hastily scanned for key words, cramming bookmarks into pages that she hoped to study in greater detail later on.
"Miliana? Miliana! Pray, do not make me walk all the way up these accursed stairs!"
A lady of the Blade Kingdoms-a real lady, complete with demure expression, flowing gown, and tall pointy hat-most decidedly did not dabble in magic. And although Miliana's expression was more often irritable than demure, and though her gowns were somewhat more ink-spattered than fashion allowed, she admittedly did have a very pointy hat. The heavens only knew what would happen if her assorted guardians, tutors and watchdogs found out that she had ambitions for a mere craft such as magic; some vague, horrid punishment involving pruning onions or tending the sick. Miliana avoided the awful prospect of ever finding out by keeping her studies safely hidden, deep inside her lair.
Miliana's secret hoard of spellbooks had been found while digging about in a moldy old crypt in the rose gardens; each volume now had beautiful hand-stitched covers proclaiming them to be parts one through five of Lady Faveretti's Cookery Handbook for Erudite Young Girls (with an appendix on Poisoning for Beginners). Only the eerie fishy smell remained-a stench Miliana blamed on the nesting cormorants in the eaves of her tower.
After three solid years of practice, Miliana had still not yet managed to master a single sorcerous skill. The palace was continually beset with odd little accidents that she had thus far managed to explain away-although the recent fire in the west wing had stretched her powers of misdirection to their utter limit.
Three years of study! And now, finally, at the very moment of breakthrough, the very instant of casting her first spell, her idiotic stepmother had chosen to come l
umbering up the tower stairs! Miliana searched for the badly scrawled syllables she needed, her freckles rippling as she screwed up her face in furious concentration.
"Miliana? Miliana-I am coming up!"
Damn! Dressed only in a silken shift, a chemise, three petticoats and a pair of fluffy slippers, Miliana scuttled crabwise about her desk, trying to dress herself while keeping her eyes riveted on her books. Sparing a quick glance for the door, Miliana hopped up and down on one foot and tried to draw a stocking up her leg while reading her spellbook upside down. She tied the stocking into place with a silken ribbon, holding one end of the bow between her teeth as she contorted herself like a mad fakir across her cluttered desk.
Although being a princess locked within a tower had a certain romantic charm, the locks in this case were all fastened from the inside, rather than from without. Even with a double drop-bar, the security was not enough; the tower door shuddered to a massive blow as an operatic female voice rose to a pitch of outrage just outside.
"Miliana! Miliana, open this door at once! I have never seen a child so willful, so incorrigible, and so ungrateful! Miliana? Miliana-this is beyond belief!"
Ulia Mannicci-fondly referred to as "The Hammer of the Gods" by half the Sumbrian court-had finally reached Miliana's lair. Speaking with a stepmother's authority, she shook and pounded imperiously at Miliana's door.
"Miliana? Miliana-I know you're in there! I am giving you until the count of ten, and then I shall fetch a wizard to knock this door down!" Ulia's voice warbled onward with scarcely a pause for breath. "I shall knock it down-and you shan't be allowed to have another! We shall send you to finishing school where you belong!
"I'm counting! I am counting-I swear!
"One…!"
Miliana spat out a curse and jammed a plain blue gown across her freckled limbs. Adjusting her lenses, she suddenly spied the spell she had been searching for-the perfect thing to grace a palace ball! Frozen to the spot, Miliana laced her bodice about her scrawny ribs and read the spell icons in breathless fascination.
"Eight…! Nine…! Nine and a half!"
With a groan of frustration, Miliana closed her eyes, tried to fix the spell in her mind's eye, and then buried the spellbook beneath sheet music and half finished embroideries. The girl hastily splashed her face with hot water from the kettle, threw yet more water on the tiles and artfully tossed towels across every chair-back in line of sight. As her stepmother's count reached nine and eleven sixteenths-and since further fractions were well beyond Lady Ulia's intellectual capacity-Miliana flung herself to the door, somehow kicking her fluffy slippers out of sight. She ripped aside two iron bolts, a padlock and three security chains, then heaved open the door and assumed a mask of absolute, innocent surprise.
"Why Ulia! Dear Ulia-why ever didn't you knock?"
Lady Ulia Mannicci, wife of Prince Cappa Mannicci, stepmother to Miliana, and First Lady of Sumbria, sailed into the room like a gilded pleasure barge. Dressed in half an acre of silks and proceeded by a shock-front of perfumes, Lady Ulia bore her stepdaughter aside and made a stately royal progress about Miliana's rooms.
"Miliana! Miliana, what in the world are you doing sitting here like a haundar in its lair when there are visitors to be entertained?" Fanning at her face and exhausted by her journey up two whole flights of stairs, Lady Ulia heaved her mountainous bosom and tried to catch her breath. "I must say-in my youth, such things simply were not done! The daughter of a noble house-a Blade House, a princely house, and an ancient house at that-took her duties seriously! To think what would happen to this palace if the worst ever overcame me! Disaster! Disaster!" A silk fan stirred up a wild, perfume-sodden breeze. "Have you not a thought for your poor stepmother's peace of mind?"
Braced against a wall to weather the onslaught of Ulia's self-pity, Miliana heaved a tired breath and pushed out into the room. An irritating stepmother seemed to be an integral part of the "princess" lifestyle; Miliana wearily prepared to keep the peace.
"I am getting ready for the party! I was in the bath."
"The bath? The bath!" Ulia surged forward in a tidal wave of indignation. "Bathing will avail you no advantages, my girl! I have it on good authority that water against the skin introduces rude humors into the bloodstream!"
Princess Miliana-perhaps the best example of rude humor in the kingdom-stabbed a surly glance at her stepmother's back and muttered seething curses under her breath. Had Miliana's skill at magic been a thousandth the equal of her temperament, Ulia Mannicci would have immediately ended up as a startling new design splayed across the apartment walls. Instead, the huge woman shifted the ponderous bulk of her case-hardened corsets and wheeled about to face her scowling, scrawny little ward.
"Every gargoyle on the roof-ridge has broken clean in two! Would you believe it? Would you believe it? Thieves on the loose, my emeralds stolen, half the army looking for stable space, and I don't know what all these spurs are doing to my carpets!" Ulia Mannicci zoomed about the room with her skirts stirring like a restless jellyfish; never once did she pause for breath or cease roving her eyes across the room. "Now do get ready for the palace ball, there's a dear! Your father's fanfare is just about to be rung!"
Miliana's toilette was essentially simple; she ran a comb through her great streams of long brown hair and polished up her spectacles; a sparrow perfectly happy with her simple plumage. The girl tugged her bodice straight, hid the ink stains on the elbow of her gown, and clapped her favorite hat upon her head.
Stepmother Ulia watched the entire process with an exasperated frown.
"Don't you have a pointier hat than that, dear? We do have company."
Unhappy with her stepdaughter's grooming, Ulia began to tug and wrench at the poor girl's clothing. Miliana suffered it with ill grace, muttering and cursing silently under her breath.
Miliana never ceased to be an embarrassment and a mystery to Lady Ulia. In Ulia's day, young women had taken pride in their appearance; they had rehearsed the social graces, flirtation, wit and repartee with an intensity that put the martial arts schools of the Do Jang monks of Koryo to shame. They had been flowers fit to grace the most discriminating court. Miliana, on the other hand, seemed more of a nettle than a flower-a speckled sprat of a thing with far more spleen than was good for her. For three years, Ulia had tried to teach the child the elements of courtly grace; her stepdaughter's lack of progress was apparently due to a complete vagueness and an utter misunderstanding of the real ways of the world. Nevertheless, Lady Ulia persevered; after all, a peacock was merely a pigeon with the right feathers added to its tail.
"Very well, Miliana my dear, it is time we were on our way." Miliana's hat seemed at least six inches too short to meet the latest fashion. Despite the girl's protests, Lady Una plucked it from her head and tossed the thing away. A replacement was soon discovered lurking about at the bottom of a cupboard-a golden cone fully three feet high. Ulia advanced upon her stepdaughter holding out the hat; Miliana retreated away with revulsion gleaming in her eyes.
"I don't want it! I'll wear the other one!"
"The other one simply won't do, Miliana! A princess should excel all other ladies in grandeur."
"I don't want it!" Miliana glared at the ridiculous hat with a scowl. "It knocks against the chandeliers!"
"Now don't be silly! Just put it on and please your mother."
Ulia was not Miliana's mother-a fact which Miliana growled, sotto vocce, as she took hold of the ridiculous hat. She found herself swung helplessly around and deposited before a mirror as her new hat was firmly jammed down into place.
"There! Now that's better!" Ulia beamed a smile of pure, brainless satisfaction. "How on Toril do you plan to catch any of those nice young noblemen if you don't wear a pointy hat?"
Miliana could think of several ways of catching the aforementioned noblemen-techniques mostly involving nooses, spring-steel jaws, or pits lined with spikes. One fine, slim eyebrow lifted as suspicion lit her eyes.
"What
noblemen?"
Ulia beamed a smile which spoke of a great, majestic sweep of dreams finally rushing to conclusion.
"A betrothal, my dear! Your father has arranged a new betrothal-and he shall be here tonight! If the young gentleman approves of you, then the match is made!"
Miliana had thus far been betrothed at least three times. Her advantages included a cute snub nose, a sharp wit, and sole heirship to the votes owned by Prince Mannicci-meaning that potential fiances were never in short supply.
Their plagiarized poetry, feigned sobs and sighs availed them nothing. Miliana had sent her suitors packing through the use of a rare combination of deviousness and malice; it was marvelous what a well-placed bucket of earwigs could achieve. A husband would curtail Miliana's plans to become a sorceress. A husband meant a mundane fate, and an end to Miliana's passionate little dreams. Miliana tugged her clothing straight like a warrior checking his armor straps before a battle, planning her counterattack, as Lady Ulia went into raptures behind her.
"He's from dear, peaceful little Lomatra, and from a very good family! The Utrelli clan, no less. They have votes on Lomatra's Blade Council-oh, and when you're married, it will give us all access to some marvelous little vineyards!"
The marriage would also give Prince Mannicci the ability to control votes within Lomatra's Blade Council-or better still, would allow him to syphon troops from Lomatra to swell his ranks (and votes) at home. Miliana's father played a subtle game, forever struggling to edge Ilego and his cronies out of power.
Disposing of a new suitor meant an evening of tedium. Hours of study lost, and all for nothing! With an ill-tempered growl, Miliana hitched up her hems and stomped down from her little tower.
The palace halls buzzed and bustled like a broken hive of bees, spilling multicolored servants all about the tiles. Miliana's passage was marked only by a cloud of palpable ill temper, a stream of muttered profanities, and the passage of her pointy golden hat.
