King Pinch

5

Their arrival was well outside the walls of Ankhapur, in the shadow of the Villa of the Palantic Road that crowned the top of Palas Hill, one of six hills surrounding Ankhapur. They appeared at the edge of a grove, as if they had ridden through the woods and emerged to survey the vineyard-filled valley that lay between them and the city. Thus it was that their descent through the fields, while hailed by the peasants with the appropriate concern and homage, raised no questions of wonder or gossip.

Furthermore, they all looked gray, muddy, and spent, even Lord Cleedis himself. Pinch's foreign elegance was all but indistinguishable from the old-fashioned tabard Cleedis favored. Brown Maeve, Sprite-Heels, and Therin the Gur-no one could identify them as any more than merchants or servants among the entourage.

Only the wizards in their white clean shifts stood out from the ordinary, and that too was quite ordinary. No wizard was like the rest of the world, so it was only natural for them to be easily marked. At least that was the reasoning of those who watched the column pass.

In the two hours it took for the column to wend down the hairpin lanes and cross the bridge over the bog-banked Thornwash, a score of petty details returned to Pinch from the life he had fled fifteen years ago. The chill of snow and ice, that in fifteen years in Elturel he had never grown accustomed to, was gone, replaced by the faded green of Ankhapur's winter. The rhythmic lines of grapes were bare vines stretched over frames, the roads were rocky sloughs of clammy mud. To Pinch, the warm sun breathed the promise of spring, fresh grasses, and new growth. After fifteen years' absence, the sun of life was returned to him.

The warmth filled Pinch with a confidence bordering almost on joy, unwarranted by everything he knew, but that was unimportant. He was home, as much as he hated it, with all its memories and pitfalls. He was no longer Pinch, master of thieves, living his derring-do life in the slums and back alleys. By the time he rode through the gates, the ragtag scoundrel was nearly gone. In his place rode a man identical in dress, one who had invisibly traded places during the two-hour ride.

It was Janol, royal ward of the late King Manferic I, or at least some part of him that Pinch had not forgotten, who sat straight in his saddle, giving a supercilious nod to the liveried watchmen who stood at their parade best as the Lord Chamberlain and company rode underneath the whitewashed stone arch of the Thornwash gate.

There was one thing that was no different for Pinch or Janol, no matter his position. As either, the rogue felt power. These guards feared and respected men higher than them: the chamberlain, Janol, even the palace's elite bodyguard. It was the same awe and terror Pinch commanded from the thieves and constables of Elturel. There was in the common folk, he was certain, an innate sense of their betters. Even his gang understood it, though none of them might ever admit it.

To the hoarse cries of the sergeant, bellowing their procession over the squalls of the fruit sellers and the enticements of the fest queens, the company rode as directly toward the palace as the interwoven streets of Ankhapur allowed.

This morning, Ankhapur was alive early with the hurly-burly of market day. Pushcarts rocked like overloaded ferries in the sea of heads, their decks loaded with the glinting round flesh of fall squashes. Tides of serving-cooks and housemaids rippled from one stand to the next all down the shores of the streets. Chains of fishmongers heaved dripping baskets from the boats along the river, their still-twitching contents disappearing into the eager crowd. Children stole fruits and leapt over the smoky fires of the kaff-brewers, who sat cross-legged on their mats, pounding bark to steep in brass pots. The scent of that strongly bitter beverage made Pinch yearn for its rich sourness mixed with honey, a drink he'd not had in his fifteen years of self-exile.

Sated with musing, since too much reflection made a man weak and hesitant to act, Pinch leaned in his saddle toward Therin so that he did not need to shout. "Welcome to home."

The Gur shifted nervously in his own saddle while trying to negotiate his skittish horse through the throng. "Your home, maybe. It's just another ken to me. Although," he added with a smile and wave to the crowd, "one filled with opportunity. Look at all the coneys and marks out there."

"Mind your hands with caution, boy. Take some time to walk the field before you bowl the pins. Besides our game's up there, not in these stews."

Therin's eyes followed where Pinch pointed, to the clean, scrubbed walls that cut the commoners from their masters, the king's palace at the top of the hill.

"Piss and Ilmater's blood!" the enforcer breathed. "Sprite, Maeve-he's serious. He means to have us all in!"

"Gods' wounds, I ain't ever forced a ken like that in all my time," the halfling swore, half-hidden on Therin's other side. "Think of all the plate and treasures sure to be inside."

Because Pinch couldn't, Therin took the pleasure of fiercely berating the little scoundrel with a mindful thump to his shoulder. "Think of the headsman's axe too, you lusker, and let that sink on your wicked heart. Remember our warning of last night."

Sprite did his best to look wounded, but it was to naught on his companions. Further debate on the topic was broken by the need to negotiate an island of wagons that split the flow.

Pinch looked about the rest of the way, marveling at the similarity of the differences he saw. On that corner he remembered a saddler's shop; the building was the same but now it housed an ordinary from which wafted the smell of richly roasted meat. The great square where he used to practice riding was now adorned with an equestrian statue of his late guardian.

The sculptor had been good at capturing old Manferic's likeness, the flaring beard and the leonine mane of the king's regal head. He had molded into the face a sinister and scowling visage that well conveyed the king's savage love of intrigue, though Pinch felt the sculptor had been too kind by a half. In his saddle, the bronze king held the Knife and Cup, Ankhapur's symbols of royal power, as if he still owned them even in death. The Cup was raised in one hand for a bitter toast, while with his other the statue-sovereign thrust the Knife at those who stared up from his feet.

"Stand open for the Lord Chamberlain Cleedis, Regent of the Assumption!" the captain demanded as the column drew up at the gate.

There was a scurry of movement on the palace's ornamental battlement, and then a herald stepped between the merlons and replied over the clank and rattle from behind the doors. "Welcome is the return of our sovereign lord and joyous are we at his safety. The princes four wait upon his pleasure and would fain wish to greet him."

Cleedis, whom Pinch now rode beside, smiled his acceptance of this formality, but from the corner of his mouth he added an aside that only his guest could hear. "Three of those princes would fain see me dead. That's what they were truly hoping."

"Perhaps it could be arranged."

The warhorse-turned-statesman barely raised an eyebrow at that. "Not well advised."

A white dog ran before the gate. Pinch noted it, though it was completely unimportant. The incongruity of it caught his eye, the mongrel's unmarred coat against the scrubby gray of faded whitewash. "You've got me here without a hold. Do you think I care enough about those three you dragged along with me to toe your line? Kill them if you want. I can always find more." The footpad scratched at a dried patch of dirt on his cheek.

Cleedis glanced back at the trio, squabbling among themselves. "What do I care about them? I have you."

"If you kill me, your outing's been a waste."

"Still think I'm an old fool, don't you, Janol?" With a grin the chamberlain prodded Pinch with his sheathed sword. "You're as replaceable as they are. Let's just say I had some hope of bringing you back into the fold. Besides, you're more convenient, seeing as you know the ground of the battlefield."

While he spoke, the brass embossed gates cracked with a faint burst of sparkling motes as the magical wards placed on them were released. The doors swung into a shadowed arch lined by royal bodyguards, resplendent in wine-and-yellow livery.

Just as the horses were about to move, Cleedis's bare blade slapped across Pinch's reins. "One more thing, Master Janol." And then the chamberlain ordered his aide, "Bring the priestess here."

In short order she trotted her stallion to their side. Cleedis slid the blade away and pretended not to have a thing more to say to Pinch, even though the rogue knew every word was for his own benefit. The old man's crabbed body shriveled even more as he gave a perfunctory nod from the saddle.

"Greetings, Worthy. Here is where we must part anon, you to your superiors and I to affairs of state. I wish you to understand that I, Lord Chamberlain, know you seek a thief and extend my hand in any way I might to give you success. Should I learn any morsel that would aid your duty, it will be faithfully brought to you."

"Your lordship is most generous," Lissa murmured as she bowed stiffly in her rigid armor.

The old noble made slight acceptance of her obeisance and continued. "Let our contact not be all duty, though. In these days, I have been charmed by your company. You must consider yourself a guest in my household. I will arrange an apartment for you in the palace. Accept, milady. The approval of your superiors is already assured."

Lissa blushed, a freckled shade against her curled hair. "I'm… I'm honored, Lord Chamberlain, but surely one of my masters here would be of better standing. I've no knowledge of courtly things."

"Precisely my goal-a refreshing bit of air. Besides, your superiors are crushing bores. Now, forward men!" With a cavalryman's bellow, he set the whole column in motion, leaving the flustered priestess behind.

As they passed under the gate, the Lord Chamberlain spoke, as if things were of no consequence. "Priests lead such limited, suppressed lives. All those passions and thoughts, penned up in such rigorous souls. If their passions were given free reign, can you imagine the types of punishments priests could devise for apostates and blasphemers? Fascinating possibilities. I think I'll keep the worthy Lissa close at hand."

The chamberlain said nothing more as the entourage passed through the outer palace, exchanged escorts, passed gates, crossed courtyards, and finally entered the cream-white compound of the inner palace. By this time, Maeve and the others were agoggle. They had passed servants in better finery than most of the freemen they knew. In their world, they had seen only glimpses of this life through keyholes, by scrambling through windows, and in the tumbled mass of their booty. Pinch wondered just how well they would be able to restrain their larcenous souls.

At last they entered a small, private courtyard turned off from the main processional route, a guest wing attached to the main household. Pinch remembered this section of the compound as particularly secure, bastioned by a bluff to the rear and deep enough into the palace grounds to make unnoticed departures nearly impossible. Short of the dungeons, it would have been his choice for housing a crew such as his, although Cleedis was wrong to think this would contain them. Pinch and his gang had escaped from lock-ups more determined than this in their years spent looting Elturel.

A resounding chorus of yelps and howls greeted their arrival, and disabused the regulator of any hope that Cleedis had underestimated them. While they handed off their mounts to the waiting grooms, a chaos of sulfurous fire and smoke boiled from dark kennels on the east wall. At first it seemed a wild pack of hounds charged, until one saw the beasts' chops drooling embers and each yelp a belch of flame. The hounds were things of hellish fire, coal-black coats seared with eyes and breaths of flame. The horses kicked and reared with fearsome fright, dragging the boy-grooms with them.

"Gods' pizzle on the heads of the ungrateful!" blurted Therin in an old Gur curse. With a slick hiss his sword cleared the scabbard. "Pinch, strike right. I'll take the center. Maeve, your spells at ready." It was for moments like this that Pinch kept the Gur around, ceding battle command to him.

Just as the four set themselves for the slaughter- theirs or the beasts', they could not be sure-chains clanked as a trainer single-handedly dragged the lunging beasts backward across the smooth flagstones, coiling the iron leashes around his arm. Lumbering from the shadows of the wall, he was a brute, not quite a giant yet greater than a man. He was bare skinned save for a steel codpiece, scabrous fur and warts stretched over grotesquely knotted muscles. Everything about him was disproportionate. His ears and nose-a broad, corded thing-dominated his head, overpowering the weak eyes buried in ridges of bone. His arms were greater than his legs, which were mighty, and his forearms greater than the rest of his arms. Even while straining with the hellhounds, the ogre swaggered with the dim confidence of muscle.

"Surrabak hold them, small chief." It was a voice burned by bad firewine and cheap pipeweed and stretched harsher by three days of carousing, but it was his natural voice.

"Rightly done. Take them back to their kennel." Cleedis boldly stepped forward, holding a hand out to stay Pinch and the others. "Stay your hand," he said sotto voce. "He can be unpredictable."

Although he wondered how much of that was for theatrical benefit, Pinch made a quick gesture to the others, the silent hand language of their brotherhood. With slow, wary care the weapons were put away.

"Surrabak do. Hear small chief come back. Bring Surrabak orders from great chief?" The hellhounds were now within reach of the ogre's cudgel, and he unhesitatingly laid into them until their snarls became yelps of pain.

"The great chief is honored to have a killer like Surrabak. He says you must always obey… little chief." The last words bit against Cleedis's pride. Nonetheless, he pointed to the four foreigners and continued, "Little chief-me, Cleedis-tells you to guard these little ones. Do not let anyone come here unless they show my sign. Do you remember the sign?"

With the hellhounds in a tense pack at his feet, the ogre scowled, flaring his lumpy nose as he tried to remember. Tusks curved out from under his thick lips. His dim eyes sank farther in as he pondered hard.

"Surrabak know little chief's sign."

Cleedis gave a sigh of exasperated relief. "Good. Guard them well, or big chief will become angry and punish you."

"Surrabak guard. No one get in." With that, the ogre barked to the pack and slouched back to the kennels, half-dragging the iron leashes still wrapped around his arm.

"Little chief, big chief… That thing doesn't know Manferic's dead, does it?"

Cleedis ignored Pinch's question and stopped at the entrance to the wing, a small cluster of rooms once the queen's summer rooms. "The servants will show you to your quarters." As Sprite and the others stepped to go inside, the royal bodyguards stopped them. "Not you three. There are other rooms in the west hall for you." As if to reassure them, the chamberlain nodded across the way to another colonnaded building.

"We should be with him," Sprite snapped. "We're his friends and it's up to us to stay together."

"Objections, Pinch?"

For a moment nobody said anything as Pinch looked to his companions. The Gur had his hand to sword, ready for the word if it were given. Maeve looked to Pinch for protection, while Sprite glared back with cold defiance. The Lord Chamberlain let a devil's smile seize his lips and turn up the corners.

"Well?"

"Take them. They're not a damn to me."

The bodyguards sidled forward, eager for the fight. If the wind had blown a leaf a different direction across the courtyard, there might have been battle, but it didn't and there wasn't. The three stood frozen as their regulator turned his back on them and went inside.

"We're not done with you, Pinch, you bastard!" Therin bellowed as the door slammed shut.

Inside, Pinch paused, waving off the valet who hustled forward. He strained his ears for the sounds of trouble, fearful there would be a fight. It was part of the playact to turn his back on them, but as he pressed himself against the wall, the rogue was assailed by doubts. Was he playacting? He might need them; that was as much as he understood friendship. The thought of risking his life to save them simply because they were his gang… They know the game, he reasoned to himself. They'll know the playacting from the real. And if they don't…

Pinch didn't know what he would do.

Finally, when it was clear nothing would happen, Pinch followed the servant to his rooms. A bath had been drawn and clothes already laid out: a fine, black set of hose with burgundy and white doublet and pantaloons of the best cut.

It wasn't until he was washed, shaved, trimmed, and dressed that a runner arrived from Lord Cleedis with orders to attend in the west hall. The timing was no accident, Pinch knew. No doubt the servants assigned him reported directly to Cleedis's ear. The rogue had no illusions about the degree of freedom and trust the Lord Chamberlain was allowing him.

Sauntering through the halls, the rogue took his time. No doubt everyone expected his appearance with whatever eager maliciousness they possessed. Certainly his dear, dear cousins were hardly reformed; kindness, love, and generosity were not survival skills in Manferic's court. The rogue guessed that things were only worse now; while he was alive, the fear of Manferic had always been a great restraint.

So Pinch ambled through the halls, refreshing his memory for the layout of the palace, appraising old treasures he once ignored, and admiring and appraising pieces new to him. It was almost fun, looking at his old life through the eyes of another. Portraits of the royal line, with their arrogance and superiority, were of less interest for him now than the frames that held them. Vases he rated by what a broker would pay, furniture by the amount of gilt upon it. Always there was the question of how to get it out of Ankhapur, where to find the right broker.

The tip-tap of feet across the age-polished marble broke Pinch's reverie. "Master Janol, the court awaits you in the dining hall," said the prim-faced Master of the Table, a post identified by his uniform.

Let them simmer in their pots. Without changing his comfortable pace, Pinch nodded that he would be coming. He was not about to be dictated to by a petty court functionary-or by those who sent him. He would arrive late because he chose to.

Then the stone corridors echoed with a crackling chuckle as Pinch laughed at his own conceit. There was no choice for him. He would be late because they all expected him to be late. Anything else and the royal ward Janol would not be the prodigal scoundrel they all envisioned-rebellious, unrepentant, and unsubtle. Let them imagine him how they wanted; he'd play the part-for now.

By the time he pushed open the ridiculously tall doors and strode into the magically lit dining hall, the diners had dispensed with acceptable gossip and were now trapped listening to the Lord Chamberlain describe his journey. The old chamberlain looked up as the doors creaked open and, barely breaking his tale, nodded for Pinch to come to the center of the great curved table and present himself to the royal heirs.

The old rogue, a man of steady balance on a rooftop, icy nerve in a knife fight, and sure wit to puzzle but a magical ward, felt the thick, slow-motion dread of stage fright. It was a decade and more since he'd last been in such company, and suddenly he was worried about forgetting all the subtle niceties and nuances of courtly etiquette. It's not that he minded insulting some portentous ass, it's just that doing so accidentally took all the fun out of it.

Consequently, to hide the feeling of self-conscious care, Pinch studied those at the table as hard as they studied him. Passing the outer wing, the rogue gave only cursory interest to faces that confronted him, concentrating on guessing rank and position by their dress and badges. These were the minor lords of the court, those who wanted to be players in the intrigues but were only being used by the masters. For the most part these factotums and their ornaments were dull as cattle, unaware of who he was and content with their petty positions and their ordained superiority over the common masses. They worried over who sat next to whom, dripped grease into their ruffed collars, and catted about whose looks had been enhanced tonight by some illusionist's hand.

Still, here and there, a pair of bold eyes met Pinch's or a snide comment was whispered to a neighbor as he passed. Pinch took special note of these: the forthright showed some hopes of cunning or fire, the gossips were clued enough to have heard already who he was. Both might be valuable or dangerous in times to come.

Past these room-stuffers, invited mostly to fill the table, was the second tier, and now Pinch's interest became keen. Here the rogue noted faces and made brief nods to ladies and lords he remembered. Every lord and lady sitting here was a prince's ally. Pinch recognized the proud Earl of Arunrock, commander of the navy, by the out-of-fashion goatee he still kept trimmed to a point. Farther along, the rogue almost gave a start to see the merchant Zefferellin, who used to broker loot from an inn near the market. Judging from his robes of severe opulence, business must have been good enough to buy respectability. Next there was a lady he didn't know but definitely wanted to. She had a refined elegance that suggested she could break the spirit of the purest man. Finally, there was the Hierarch Juricale, a woodcutter-sized man whose black eyes glowered at people over his long bent nose and spreading white beard. He was a man whose word could inspire the faithful to kill for his cause. Even at the table he sat aloof, apart from all the others as if he alone were above all this. It was a lie, Pinch knew. There was no man more directly involved in the court's intrigues than the Red Priest.

These were the hands that held the knives of the princes and the Lord Chamberlain. There was nothing to distinguish them in dress from the pawns of the lower tier-who believed that clothes determined rank through the strange alchemy of fashion-but this inner tier knew where the true power lay. They had chosen their sides. Which wing, which side, how close to the center of table, all these were clues waiting to be deciphered.

At last the regulator reached the center, where he turned to the table and casually bowed. Along the opposite side of the curving main table sat the princes four, their backs safely to stone walls. Interspersed between them were the rest of the family: Duke Tomas and Lady Graln. At the very center, in the king's normal seat, sat Cleedis, Lord Chamberlain and Regent of the Assumption.

Pinch waited to be recognized, but now it was their turn to make him wait. Cleedis continued with his story.

Unlike the others, Bors the idiot prince, was the only one who seemed to show interest. He was still an idiot, that was clear. Flabby faced and jaundiced, he dumbly mouthed Cleedis's words, barely understanding most of it. His napkin, tied under his chin, was awash in soup spill and crumbs, and it seemed to take most of the First Prince's effort to get his spoon to his lips. Every once in a while, he would giggle softly about something that amused only him.

Next to Bors, and looking none to happy for the seat, was Duke Tomas. Had he been two seats over, Pinch would have mistaken the duke for Manferic, his late brother, even though the duke was gleamingly bald where the late king had had a full head of hair.

"Dear coz, the years have made you forget your manners." The jab brought Pinch back to the front and center, and he bowed quickly before even looking to see who had stung him. It didn't matter; even after fifteen years it was impossible not to recognize the voice, a baritone of biting silk ripe with arrogance.

"Quite true, Prince Vargo. Otherwise I would have remembered your impatience, too."

Across the table glowered a muscular man, Vargo, second son of Manferic. He was several years Pinch's younger, although his face was hard and sharpened to a point by his impeccably trimmed Vandyke. His casually tossed blond hair offset the red of his beard, and he easily could have been a dashing cavalier if it weren't for the unsatiated savagery that twisted even his brightest smile.

"I present myself, Lord Chamberlain," Pinch-now-Janol continued before his adversary could recover from the rogue's bon mot. "I am Master Janol, royal ward of the late King Manferic."

A susurration of muted surprise trickled from the outer wings, as those guests previously clueless of Pinch's identity grasped the import of his arrival.

"I… beseech… your permission to join you at table as was the courtesy my late guardian extended to me." This part of the ritualistic greeting came hardest for the regulator. It was galling to go through the show of asking the favor after the old man had forced him here in the first place. Hiding a grimace, the prodigal courtier bowed once again, this time with more flamboyance. The fear that threatened to paralyze him was fading as the familiarity with the air around him grew.

Lord Cleedis raised a glass of amber wine as if this were the first time he had seen Pinch in years. The gold elixir sparkled in the light from the mullioned windows that lined the base of the dome above.

It was all a conceit. Everyone at the table knew the old man had gone to fetch the errant ward, though the thief couldn't imagine why the chamberlain had risked absence from the court for so long. Gods knew what the princes had done-or might have done-in the regent's absence.

"Truly we are pleased to see our long-absent cousin. I, who was your guardian's servant, will not dishonor his name by sending you from this hall. Prepare a place for Master Janol where he can sit with honor."

In an instant the servants silently swooped on the diners, producing a chair, linens, goblet, and trencher. It had all been prearranged, of course, so there was no need for direction as they uprooted the foremost noble of the second tier and laid a place for the rogue. This displacement triggered a chain reaction of shifting and squeezing as each noble vainly refused to relinquish his position in the chain of importance. At the very end of the semicircular table, the lowest courtier of the lot found himself dangling off the end, trencher perched on his knees.

Pinch squeezed himself into place between Prince Marac and a glistening courtier simmering at the insult of being supplanted by a mendicant relative. The man sipped his wine through clenched teeth and eyed Pinch in way that was reminiscent of the lizards he used catch. Pinch considered being friendly, but the man was a reptile and hardly worth the effort. Instead the rogue ignored him, because it made Pinch's presence all the more stinging and that made Pinch happy.

"Prince Marac…" The rogue's cup raised in a genial toast.

Marac, youngest of Manferic's sons and the one Pinch liked the best of the slippery lot-because the youth had been easy to intimidate-eyed Pinch the way one neighbor eyes the other when his best hound has disappeared. He tried to look for the evidence of a bloody knife while trying not to seem like he was looking.

Marac was no longer the ten-year-old youth that Pinch remembered. That one had been replaced by a poor imitation of Prince Vargo. His face was fuller and rounder than sharp-cheeked Vargo, and his beard had the thin, brushed softness of youth, but already the eyes were hidden barbs. His straw-blond hair was longer than his brother's and straight where the other's was tangled. With all these differences, there was still a foundation that was Manferic's bloodline. Perhaps the two weren't Manferic progeny, but unfinished duplicates the wizard-king had fashioned in some long-forgotten laboratory, and their lives from childhood to death were one vast experiment. It would be so like the way he raised me, just to see what he could build, Pinch thought.

Prince Marac acknowledged the toast, and the glow of his face melted into a lipless smile. "Your unexpected return is a pleasure, cousin Janol."

That was all lies, from front to end.

The prince sipped at his scented wine while the servants dished out the next course, a sweetly stewed, steaming joint of some meat beyond the rogue's ken.

"An excellent cut, isn't it, Your Highness?" suggested the lizard-eyed noble at Pinch's other hand. The man was determined not to be left out of the conversation.

"Quite good hunting on your part, Lord Chalruch."

As if the words were a signal, the table that had been so quiet while Pinch sat himself roiled into gossip and banter once more.

"Thank you, milord. I bagged him in a perfect-"

"So cousin, how fares it you've come back here? How long has it been?"

"I've been abroad on fifteen years, Prince Marac."

"Not long enough," Vargo suggested from the other side of the pearly Lady Graln.

She laid a hand on his. "Vargo, you're being unkind."

"And what possessed you to return now?"

"— shot at a range of a good hundred rods-" the bore continued to a young lady on the left, who being reduced to helplessness by the seating struggled to feign interest.

"Indeed, what?" spoke a new voice from the other side of the Lord Chamberlain. Pinch had to lean out to get a clear look at his interrogator. It was Throdus, the sharpest thinker of the princes. In looks he was coal to his brothers' bonfires: dark hair, smoke-filled eyes, lean, and pale-as unlike Manferic as the other two were like him. Only the icy rigor of his manner showed the true family line.

"I brought him back," Cleedis intervened while chewing on a piece of bread. "It was your father's request, one of his last. He wanted his ward reunited with the rest of the family. Toward the end, he greatly regretted certain events of the past. It was for his memory that I tracked down and brought back Master Janol."

"Father's mind went soft," Vargo stage-whispered to Lady Graln.

"And now Cleedis's, too. It must be contagious," added Marac.

"— clean through the slug's heart." The bore prattled on, apparently determined to slay his trapped audience as surely as he had the beast. Tired of the man's determination to plow blindly onward, Pinch deliberately jerked away from Marac with staged indignation.

"They wrong you, Cleedis!" At the same time, the rogue banged his elbow against the bore's arm just as the other was about to sip his wine. The yellow liquid splashed all over the man, soaking his white silken doublet an off-color stain.

"Sir, you've bumped me!" he blurted out, seizing Pinch by the arm.

Pinch gave the lord a cursory scan. "A terrible accident, indeed," he said with a fraudulent sympathy. "If I were you, I'd go change or people will think I didn't have time to go out back and pluck a rose."

"Pluck a…?" The indignant bore stopped when he followed Pinch's gaze to the honey-hued stain that spread over his hose. His face reddened. "Perhaps that's sound," he said as he slid away, holding his napkin strategically in place. "But you'll hear from me again, sir, and soon I promise!" With that dreadful parting threat, the man hurried away.

"I'm sure I will, though any time is bound to be too soon."

A sigh of relief rose from those who'd been audience to the man's court.

"I must say cousin Janol has at least livened conversation at the table," the Lady Graln smirked from her seat. "These dinners were threatening to poison us with dullness." She held up her goblet to be filled from the fresh bottle the servant was pouring down the line.

"Better poisoned words than poisoned wine," Pinch suggested. He raised a fresh glass in toast. Everyone automatically lifted their glasses, only to hold them just at their lips, suddenly alarmed by the rogue's hint. Each watched for someone else to take the first sip.

"Come, drink!" urged Pinch once again raising his glass high, cheerfully stinging the group like a sandfly. "Drink to… oh, the memory of King Manferic! A toast to the late King Manferic!" he offered loudly so that no one could ignore it.

"To Manferic!" echoed the room. Glasses tipped back as the lesser tiers drained away their cups, while at the main table, indecision still paralyzed the lords. Refusing the toast meant a loss of face, drinking required trust. For a long moment, nobody did either.

Finally, disgusted or courageous, Vargo gulped down his portion. As he thumped his goblet down on the table, there was a long swallow from the others as they followed suit. It was only when they had all set their goblets down that they noticed Pinch had not touched his.

The rogue smirked a know-everything smile. "No taste for the bub, I guess."

"We were wondering why Father had you here," said Throdus from down the line, "and now we know. You are dear Father's last cruel jest. This way he can mock us even from beyond the grave."

"Enough of this!" Marac blurted with all the grace of a master-of-drill. "Cleedis, when do we hold the ceremony of the Knife and Cup? Things have gone long enough without a true king."

"Hear, hear!" chimed in Throdus. "You've been stalling four months now, first saying one thing and then another. I say we have the Hierarch declare the date today."

"There should not be haste," Vargo countered, sounding uncharacteristically statesmanlike.

The Second Prince was stalling, Pinch realized, until he could get other plans realized. That was important knowledge, since it meant the Second Prince was a man to be watched.

"Prince Vargo speaks wisely," defended Cleedis. "Rushing the ceremony will bring evil luck to the whole kingdom. The Hierarch has chosen the date-the first day of the Money Festival. He says that is the best day to guarantee profit and prosperity for the new reign."

More time was not a bad idea by Pinch either, since he wasn't even sure of his own part here. Cleedis had dropped enough hints for the rogue to know his job involved those instruments of the succession. Whatever he was to do, after the ceremony would be too late. Thus it was the rogue weighed in, "Fools spend a copper and hurry themselves to the gaol, while sages spend an ingot and buy the judges."

"What's that supposed to mean?" sneered Marac.

In his years abroad, Pinch had faced witnesses in a score of trials and, as was the obvious testament of his being here, had yet to feel the noose. "Patience for fools."

At that, Marac abandoned the table with a snarl. "If that's the decision, then I see no cause to remain here!"

"Nor I," calmly added Throdus. He stepped away from the table. To Vargo he added, "You have a plan and I will find it out."

The creaking thump of the great doors marked the pair's departure. After they were gone, Vargo, too, took his leave. As he left, he laid a hand on Pinch's shoulder and whispered a word in his ear.

"I don't know what your game is, dear coz, whether you're sided with Cleedis or another, or whether you're just a fool to come back here. But remember this: Cross me and you'll cross no one else in Ankhapur."

With that, the cruel huntsman left, leaving Pinch to enjoy the rest of his meal.