I also appreciate honesty. It is a quality
rulers treasure above all others--except
loyalty, of course, and I can buy that. Grand
Master agrees that Everman is exceptional, but
he still ranks him well below you."
Durendal's mouth opened and closed a few
times. He could feel himself blushing like a child. He
had never dreamed that the King followed the progress
of the school so closely. "Your Majesty is very
kind."
The King pouted. "No I'm not, I'm
ruthless. I have to be. Just now I have an urgent
need for a first-rate Blade. I wanted you."
Blood and steel! Harvest's death had thrown
Durendal away on the turd, and the King's
reaction at hearing his name today had not meant what
he thought it did.
"Byless and Gotherton--can they endure binding?
Would they snuff out like Harvest?"
Durendal held two friends' lives in his hands
and wanted to scream. He took time to think about his
answer. Mouth dry, he said cautiously,
"Sire, they're good men. I think they'll do
it."
The King smiled. His breath reeked of ale and
garlic. "Well spoken. Repeat this
conversation to no one, ever. Now, I've heard so
much about your ability with a sword ... I'm not
without merit myself, you know."
This night was going straight down and accelerating.
Oh, to be back on Starkmoor! Even to be the
Brat again would be better than this.
"Your Majesty's prowess is legendary, but
I am supposed to be an expert. I hope you
will not humiliate me in public, sire."
"Well, let's see about that! Fair match,
now--honesty, remember? No pandering to my
feelings. Sir Larson! Where are the foils?
Rapiers, I think. The rapier is my weapon.
Even I would hesitate to try this brawny lad
with a broadsword. What do you think?"
A Blade Durendal did not know had already
produced foils and masks, apparently from
nowhere. "I am sure Your Majesty would
massacre him with a broadsword."
The King guffawed. "Be a shame to end his
career so soon, yes?"
Willing hands helped Durendal out of his
jerkin, doublet, and shirt as the audience cleared
back to the walls. Obviously this reeking cellar
had a long history of Blades, ale, and
fencing. Fair match? Did the King always order
what he really wanted? How could he possibly
hope to make a showing against a Blade?
Montpurse's baby face was shooting more
warnings.
Aha! The new boy was being hazed, of
course, and the King was in on the joke. Perhaps hazing
was a tradition for all greenies, but the bright new
star who could thrash all the fencing masters at
Ironhall would be an irresistible target. The
famous expert was going to flounder against a mere
amateur and would never hear the end of it.
No, he wasn't! If His Majesty had
ordered a fair match, then a fair match he
must have. A man could never go wrong obeying his king.
Surely very few monarchs would shed their dignity so
willingly just to play childish games with a band of
guards. But it was with this kind of understanding that a great
man inspired unquestioning loyalty among his
followers.
Stripped to the waist, the contestants raised
foils in salute. Durendal scuffed his feet
in the sawdust to test the footing.
"On guard!" cried Ambrose IV, King
of Chivial and Nostrimia, Prince of
Nythia, Lord of the Three Seas, Fount of
Justice, and so on, who was large and sweaty, with
too much fat under his skin and a pelt of tawny
hair outside it. The most famous face in the
kingdom was hidden behind the chain mesh of a mask.
Right foot forward, left arm up, the King
advanced and lunged like a three-legged cow.
Deciding to play along for a moment or two,
Durendal parried, riposted well wide of the
mark, parried again, and almost struck the King
by accident on the next lunge. The man was slower
than a watched pot. He was trying to use the
Ironhall style and he didn't know Lily from
to Rainbow. It was a ballet of tortoises.
Enough.
"A touch!"
"Ha!" said His Majesty in a tone that sounded
convincingly like displeasure. "It was indeed. Well,
good luck is a valuable attribute in a
Blade. Let us see how you fare on the next
pass, Sir Durendal."
Durendal went to Swan again.
"Have at you!" cried the monarch.
Eagle, Butterfly--"Another touch ...
sire."
The King growled realistically, but he must be
grinning hugely behind the mask. Montpurse
made frantic gestures in the background. If
the victim had not seen through this jape, he would be
getting very worried about now.
"Again, sire?"
"Again!"
Better spin this one out, just for good manners.
Eggbeater. Stickleback. Oh flames!
Cockroach. He hadn't really meant to do that quite
so soon. The King uttered another growl and
swished his foil up and down a few times as if
he were truly surprised and angry at the way the
match was going. He was a marvelous actor. They
all were. Peering through his mask, Durendal could
not see one surreptitious smile in the room.
Three-nothing so far. Three times out of four,
Montpurse had said, so the next pass would show
them that their pigeon had smelled the cuckoo. ...
"By the spirits of fire, my liege, the lad is
on form!" shouted a voice somewhere.
The note of desperation in that voice was so
amazingly realistic that it froze Durendal's
sweat. Fire and death! Had he
misunderstood? Did the King really think he could
fence worth a pot of spit? Surely men like
Montpurse would not prostitute their honor
by indulging his crazy fancies?
This had to be a joke!
Didn't it?
Suddenly his new apprehension switched
to anger. If this was a prank, then it was in stinking
bad taste. If it wasn't, then he had already
shown the King up as a deluded buffoon, which was
probably high treason, and Montpurse as a
bootlicker, which meant that all the generous aid
promised to the newcomer would fail to appear.
"Now, by death!" Snarling, the monarch charged his
foe, and Durendal poked him on the belly.
Four out of four.
"Again!" roared the King, and the button of
Durendal's foil flicked him again in exactly
the same place.
The royal chest was turning red, as if all the
hair might start smoking soon. "By the dark,
I'll not quit till I have laid steel on this
whelp! On guard again, sirrah!" That was a
threat. This was no friendly test of
swordsmanship,
it was rank intimidation.
"It is spirituality, Your Majesty!" shouted
one of the onlookers. "He is too fresh from the
Forge for any man to beat him."
Ambrose ignored that ingenious invention. He
took eight hits before he admitted defeat and
hauled off his mask. Inflamed and incandescently
furious, he glared around the room as if searching
for the least trace of a smile. The King was a
stumblebum swordsman, and the Royal Guard were a
gang of sycophants.
Durendal saluted and removed his own mask.
"Permission to withdraw, Your--"
"No! Put that on again, boy! Montpurse,
let us see how you can fare against this superman."
Sending Durendal a look that should have melted his
bones, the Commander began to strip. Of course there
could only be one ending to the coming match--he would have
to lose almost as dramatically as his King had lost.
Anything else would be a public admission that he
was a liar and a toady.
The new Blade could win at fencing, but he had
lost a lot of powerful friends on his first night at
court.
The next day it was the Marquis's turn again.
He called in the tailors. His wife assisted
the discussion with the air of a child given a new doll
to dress. Durendal stood patiently while they
draped swatches over him, trying to match his
hair and eyes. When bidden, he went off and
returned in various absurd apparels. And when
the final decision on cut and color had been
made, he said, "No."
"What do you mean no?" Nutting snapped.
"I will not wear that, my lord."
"You are under oath to serve me!"
"Yes, my lord. I have also been enchanted
to serve you. But you do not buy a bulldog and harness
it to a plow. You set it on bulls. My
purpose is not to look pretty but to defend you,
and I cannot fight in those garments."
"Bah! You will never be required to fight. You
know that."
"Yes, my lord. Sadly, I do know that. But
the conjurement does not, and it will not let me
swaddle myself in a gabardine mattress cover."
"Insolence!" snapped the Marquise.
"Don't let him talk back to you like that,
dearest."
"I will follow you naked, my lord, before I wear
that tabard." Seeing that defiance was going to be
stalemate, Durendal added, "May I
presume to advise?"
"What?" Nutting growled.
"Something more like the livery of the Royal Guard.
It is serviceable and appealing."
The turd considered the suggestion, tugging his little
beard. "You know, that idea has merit! My
colors are blue and gold. Dearest, why
don't we specify exactly the same design
but with gold instead of silver?"
The Marquise clapped her hands. "Why, he
will look beautiful in that, my dear!"
Fire and death! Durendal had been
talking about the cut, not the heraldry. The Royal
Guard would have a hundred apoplectic fits.
Montpurse was furious enough already, as Hoare
reported that evening--but Durendal knew that from the
tongue-lashing he had received the previous night,
after the King's departure. He thought he would carry
the scars to his grave.
But the Commander was not a vindictive man,
Hoare said. His offer of help still stood, which was why
Hoare had appeared at the Nutting suite after
midnight in the company of a beautiful child named
Kitty. He departed quite soon, but she remained.
Durendal discovered that she was not a child, and she was
beautiful in ways and places he had hitherto
only imagined.
Later in that first memorable week, things began
to improve. Even the black glares that greeted
the appearance of the Marquis's Blade in his new
livery came to a sudden end. The Guard's
acceptance of the upstart was promoted by the King himself.
It happened at the Birthday Reception.
Blades at official functions, like the
frescoes on the ceilings, were invariably
present and universally ignored. Thus
Durendal stood by the wall on the far side of the
hall and watched as the Nuttings waited in line
to pay their respects to the monarch. The other
Blades present, both royal and private,
had gathered in small clumps; but he was alone and
likely to remain so.
The Queen was not there. Rumor whispered that she
was with child again. The Countess was in evidence, but she
could not stand at the King's side on such an
occasion. He was attended on the dais only
by Commander Montpurse, Lord Chancellor
Bluefield, the forbidding Grand Inquisitor, and
an imposing matron in white robes and hennin,
who must surely be Mother Superior of the
Companionship of White Sisters.
There were other sniffers present, of course.
About the end of the first dull hour, Durendal
observed the Sister who had accosted him on his first
day at court, standing by herself not far from him. He
eased unobtrusively in her direction; but before
he reached her, she looked around, frowning. He
strolled the rest of the way quite openly and bowed to her,
bidding her good morrow.
Her response was barely civil. "What do
you want?" She eyed the golden squirrel over
his heart with distaste, which meant they had at least one
thing in common.
"I came for reassurance that I no longer
reek of the Forge quite so strongly, Sister."
"We resent being referred to as sniffers, young
man. Your question is both vulgar and insulting."
It was she who had begun the talk of
sniffing by accusing him of having a bad smell.
"I beg pardon, then. I give offense through
ignorance, being but a new-forged Blade, fresh from
the coals. How does one detect a
conjurement?"
"The sensation is indescribable. At the moment
I feel as if I am required to sing a very
difficult song and you are standing beside me humming
another one loudly in the wrong key. Does that
make matters clearer?"
Somewhat. He tried one more smile,
probably a rather desperate one. "And what will you
do if you detect the handiwork of an evil conjurer,
Sister?"
"Call on the King's Blades, of course."
She tossed her head so sharply that no secular
power should have been able to keep her tall hat from
falling off, but it didn't. She stalked away.
A quick glance around the hall told him that
Blades and White Sisters nowhere stood together,
so he had learned something new by offending someone
else. He went back to watching his ward's
progress, a process duller than breeding
oak trees.
When, at long last, it was the turn of the
Marquise to curtsey and the Marquis t
o kiss the
royal hand, he prepared to move with a sense of
relief, although he knew that he was merely about
to exchange this ordeal for another, even longer one
in the banquet hall. Then the King looked up.
The bright amber eyes scanned the room and fixed
on Durendal as if they were measuring him for a
coffin--one that came up to his shoulders might be
adequate.
The King beckoned.
Blood and steel! Was this the end? Exile to some
hyperborean desert? Durendal hastened across
miles of oak floor, conscious that heralds and
pages were heading to block him and stopping as they
intercepted gestures telling them there had been a
change of plan. He arrived at the dais
unchallenged and contorted himself in a full court
bow.
"I have a question, Sir Durendal!"
The Nuttings turned back to see what was going
on.
"My liege?"
The King pouted dangerously. "After our little
fencing match the other evening ... did you by any
chance have a further exchange with Commander
Montpurse?"
Flames and death!
If Montpurse had a weakness, it was that his
babyish complexion could color very easily, and
now it colored very much. The King ought to be able
to feel the heat of it on the back of his neck.
"Yes, sire," Durendal said. "We did
try a few more passes."
For about an hour, with both rapiers and sabers,
withand without shields or parrying daggers.
"And who won that time?"
"He did, Your Majesty." Not by very much,
though.
"Indeed? Isn't that very peculiar, considering that
you had given him such a drubbing earlier? He fared
no better against you than I did."
"Um, well, these things can happen, sire."
"Can they?" The King turned to look at the
Commander. Then back at Durendal. Very slowly,
the royal beard twisted around a grin.
Abruptly Ambrose IV burst into enormous
bellows of laughter, startling the whole court.
He slapped his great thighs in mirth; tears ran
down his cheeks. He thumped Montpurse's
shoulder, and Montpurse blistered Durendal with
another of his bone-melting glares.
Still unable to find words, the King waved
dismissal. Durendal bowed lower than an
Alkozzi and beat a hasty departure, more or
less dragging the startled Marquis with him. And
then, of course, he had to explain, which meant
admitting that he had delegated his
responsibility, shamed the King, antagonized