Kingdom Of Royth

CHAPTER 16

Blade soon discovered that while being King's Champion of Royth got him and his crew out of prison, it did not immediately solve very many of his other problems. Brora and the other pirates went through a solemn and humiliating ceremony at the local temple of Druk and, after being pronounced cleansed of the taint of the Brotherhood, went to work in the royal dockyards. Blade had a chance for a few words with Brora before the sailor led his men off to their new work.

«Find out who in the dockyards supports Indhios and who opposes him. If you can safely do so, organize the ones on our side for action in a crisis. They may be needed.» Brora nodded and went off without a word. Blade knew the man understood him perfectly and would do as much as humanly possible to win over and organize the dockyard workers.

Brora and the others at least had the consolation of hard, useful work day in and day out. For Blade, the duty of King's Champion proved to entail more show than work, as the countess had warned him it would. It gave him the freedom of movement he needed to play his role in his own (and Larina's) intrigues, and to visit Larina herself occasionally. But otherwise it was a thoroughgoing bore. For Blade it had more and more of a bird-in-a-gilded-cage feeling as the weeks wore on.

And also, as the weeks wore on the winter chill faded from the winds, and buds began to appear on the trees. Blade became more and more impatient. What he had learned in Royth confirmed what he had picked up in Neral-this was the year Indhios would make his move. And the year was pushing onward to the moment when Indhios would be prepared to strike.

Larina drove him wild with frustration as she continued to turn aside all his urgings for quick action, saying that while he might be a fighting man, she knew the intrigues of the Court. It would be folly to risk everything by moving prematurely. Blade was equally convinced it was becoming folly to wait, risking discovery by the Chancellor.

Blade was also becoming more concerned about Alixa. She was still in High Royth, or so it was reported, but any day now the Chancellor might decide to send her to one of his more remote estates, where she could be kept safely for the day when she would be turned over to the pirates. Even if Indhios himself were caught, it would be an easy thing for his henchmen to use Alixa as a hostage for their own escape, and tracking down every one of Indhios' agents would be impossible. Only a quick blow at the count and his leading allies together, beheading the whole conspiracy at one stroke, stood any chance of saving Royth. And apart from that, Blade wanted Alixa safe. In this intrigue-riddled Dimension, she was one of the few whole, sound, sane people he had found. Still, for all the countess' assurances that she was not jealous of Alixa, Blade could not quite trust her reaction if he urged faster action because it would help to save Alixa.

The winds grew warmer still; dawn now came before Blade slipped from Larina's bed and down the stairs to where his horse waited. The buds began to turn to young leaves, and on a blue sea the white, red, and brown sails of ships began to appear. The seas were opening again-to pirates as well as peaceful commerce.

Brora's talents and his previous reputation and popularity had led to his being given full charge of a dock, with the rank of an officer. Most of the other ex-pirates, except for a few incorrigibles, had also done well, in spite of the prejudice against even forsworn Neralers. Brora and his men had learned much and were learning more.

A fair number of the officers of the dockyard and the fleet had gone over to Indhios, who was pouring out money and promises with a lavishness that Blade knew could not be long maintained. These formed a solid, well-organized bloc. There was a smaller group, with some officers but mostly led by the senior warrant officers, foremen and the like, who were sworn to fight Indhios and his allies to the death. These had already done much to organize for action even before Brora appeared. And as always, there was the majority of both officers and men who saw nothing beyond their daily jobs and knew little and cared less of politics.

There was an extensive district of cheap waterfront taverns and sailors' dives where most of the plotting and counterplotting went on. There Blade and Brora met every few nights to exchange information over leather cups of sour wine and scummy beer. Blade disliked the smells of over-aged fish cooked in rancid oil, the guttering torchlight, the shrill-voiced trulls and snarling tavernkeepers that filled the area, but it was by far the best place to meet in safety. Indhios had few if any supporters among the tavern population, and some of those who had been incautious enough to reveal themselves at the wrong time had never been seen again. Besides, Brora had a full twelve-hour day to work, while Blade had little or nothing to occupy his time except his occasional nights with Larina.

A gust-driven, spattering rain was falling on the huddled waterfront district as Blade made his way homeward toward the palace one night. This was a particularly bad area, and the night was warm, so he rode with his cloak thrown back and his sword openly exposed at his side. There was nothing to look forward to but the ceremonial good-night to the King and a late supper in the boring company of half a dozen other court functionaries, all of them twenty years older than he and with twenty years more of petty experiences to be boring about. The sigh and patter of the storm and the clop-clop of his horse's hooves were the only sounds.

Abruptly a cloaked figure slipped out from an alley to his left and darted at him. His sword was free in an instant, and he was flipping it up for a downstroke when the countess' voice spoke from inside the figure's hood:

«Blahyd! Abandon your horse-now! — and come with me!»

If it had been anybody else but the countess, Blade would have spurred the horse to a gallop and vanished up the hill. But though her presence here in this slum was a surprise, he knew the countess would not be here but for some good and important reason. She had too much common sense to risk herself unnecessarily. He felt the tingling and stimulation that the prospect of action often produced; he had not had a chance to feel this way for much too long.

The horse clattered away up the hill by itself and Blade followed the countess down a pitch-dark alley into a low-roofed shed. Four men, their faces darkened with soot, were sitting around a feeble oil lamp.

«My guards,» said the countess. She turned to Blade and said, «Are your allies in the dockyards ready?»

Blade wanted to cheer out loud, but he only nodded and added, «'As ready as they could be by now.»

The countess smiled. «Well and good. Indhios plans to move tomorrow night. His agents will start fires in the dockyards, destroying the navy's supplies and many warships. At the same time, others of his faction in the garrison will call out their troops to «suppress disorders» and will march on the palace. King Pelthros will be taken prisoner, drugged, and used as a puppet until the pirates arrive. And Indhios is sending Alixa up-country. She and her escort leave tonight.»

Blade subdued a flare of rage at that news and asked, «Do you know the agents in the dockyard?»

She nodded and named several officers who were already on Brora's list, plus others Blade had not heard mentioned. «Let me write a note to Brora,» he said, «and have one of your men take it to him immediately. He will probably still be at the Sailor's Friend on Brandy Street. That should be all we need to make the dockyard safe. Brora has little love for pirates.» He quickly scribbled a few lines on a sheet of paper and folded it into a small square that one of the guards dropped into his pouch.

When the man had vanished into the night, the countess said, «For our part, it is time to go to the palace and alert the King. I have with me all the written evidence needed to convince even Pelthros, including your notes from your stay on Neral.»

«How did you get those? I thought Indhios had them concealed safely.»

«They were safe, until Indhios boasted too long to one of his henchmen. He no longer trusts me enough to speak before me, but his vanity has not changed. The man wanted me to come to his bed, and it was easy to raid his strongbox while he slept afterwards.» She shivered with disgust at the memory. «Once we have Pelthros convinced, it should be easy. Indhios has only a few supporters among the courtiers, and I can rely on you to deal with them properly if they appear. The Royal Guard is mostly loyal to Pelthros. If they are alerted, they can easily defend the palace against Indhios' faction until the loyal troops come up. If we can only convince Pelthros and then keep him alive long enough to give the necessary orders. .» Her jaw set, but her eyes were anything but grim, gleaming with her own joy of battle and the hope of seeing her plans all come to fruition. «But we need no more talking. It is time to leave.»

There were horses for all of them ready in a stable on the other side of the shed. As greatly as he wanted to break into a gallop, Blade kept his mount reined in to a trot all the way to the palace. It loomed high and somber in the night, with only the few gleams of light that marked the sentries' posts still breaking the darkness. As King's Champion, Blade could pass anywhere without question, even into the personal presence of the King with no permission other than the King's own. So the sentries at the outer gates passed them through without question once they recognized Blade.

Once inside, however, Blade kept his hand on his sword as they moved down the long, dark corridors towards the royal apartments. He cursed Pelthros' frugality that led to the palace being largely in darkness. If Indhios had any of his allies prowling in this darkness, they might have to fight their way through against men who knew the palace better than he did. Blade almost wanted to take off his boots and pad forward on his bare feet, as their footfalls echoed from the stone around them seemingly loud enough to shake the whole palace and wake the long-dead Kings of Royth in their tombs far below. But as they twisted and turned their way closer to their goal, the palace might still have been a city of the dead.

They saw nothing to start at but their own shadows when they passed through an area lighted by a feeble torch or a few candles and finally reached the small, square chamber that lay at the foot of the stairs leading to the actual private chambers of King Pelthros. Four soldiers were on duty in the chamber, tough young men in chased silver cuirasses and open-faced helms, officers from the elite Royal Guard. Now, though, the light of the bronze chandelier hanging from the roof of the chamber showed the hard, tanned faces as bored and inattentive as those of any sentry walking his post on a cold night in a rear-area garrison. One of them yawned in Blade's face as he led his party into the chamber.

Blade had no authority over the Royal Guard by law, but he had contrived friendships (or at least mutual trust) with some of the officers. Unfortunately, none of the ones he knew well were among the four on duty. The one who had yawned was a captain he knew only by name; the others he had never even seen.

«Good evening, Captain Tralthos.»

«Morning, rather, Champion Blade. It's well on toward the second hour. What brings you here? And who are these people?»

«The Countess Indhios and three of her household.» Tralthos' eyes widened at the name. «We have urgent business with His Majesty.»

«Hand the message over and I'll see that it gets delivered to him the first thing in the morning,» said Tralthos wearily.

«It must be delivered to His Majesty personally. And immediately.»

Tralthos looked openly truculent. Blade could hardly blame the man. Or perhaps Indhios had managed to suborn some of the Palace Guard after all? A distinctly unpleasant thought. For a long moment Blade and Tralthos glared at each other in a direct confrontation of will power. At the end of that moment, it was Tralthos who gave way.

«All right,» he grumbled, unable to manage his surrender with grace. «I'll go on up and wake the King.»

«Do that,» said Blade shortly. «And hurry, if you love your King!» He was feeling distinctly edgy. No premonitions of trouble-yet-but they could still be confounded and slain if a dozen of Indhios' bravos charged out of the darkness. He turned back to look at the long corridor. Nothing moved in it, out to the end of the torchlight where walls, floor, and ceiling all merged into blackness. Not yet.

Tralthos vanished up the stairs to the royal chambers. They saw his torch flicker its way up to the small door at the top, heard him knock, listened as he did for the response, then heard a door latch disengaged and a squeak of hinges as the door opened and he vanished through it.

Although they almost stopped breathing, in the vague murmur of words floating down the stairs to them they could still distinguish neither voices nor words. It occurred to Blade that it would be a monumental jest of the gods if the Kingdom of Royth were to fall to the Neraler pirates because its King objected to being awakened at two in the morning.

Then his speculation ended abruptly as Tralthos closed the door and came back down the stairs. «His Majesty will receive Champion Blade and the Countess Indhios, but the others must remain here.» Blade nodded. «Also, you must leave your weapons down here.»

Before Blade could explode in a futile and disastrous outburst of rage against all this timidity and bureaucracy, the countess laid a hand on his arm and said swiftly, «We agree. Lead us to the King,» to Tralthos, and in a half-whisper to Blade, «Silence! Would you smash everything when we are so close?» Blade's temptation was to point out that they were not yet so close that they could not be interrupted-permanently-but Tralthos was already on his way back up the stairs and motioning them to follow him.

They found the King sitting on the edge of his bed, the blankets thrown back and the pillows shoved into a massive white pile in one corner. The bed itself was a huge canopied affair easily large enough to accommodate five people, hung with black brocade embroidered with red silk castles. Pelthros had pulled on a dark green chamber robe and belted his sword on over it. Otherwise he was barefoot, unkempt, with his thick salt-and-pepper beard and his not-so-thick gray hair sticking out in all directions, red-eyed and baleful in the glare he threw at the two visitors.

Blade let the countess explain their visit. She was more fluent in the Court formulas of speech, and had a strong personal incentive for making herself as conspicuous as possible in the King's eyes. Blade had no particular interest in politics any longer except insofar as it was necessary to convince Pelthros of the threat. After that, he wanted only to work his way through the ranks of the enemy with his sword, starting with Indhios.

«Your Majesty,» began the countess. «When your late brother, the Grand Duke Khystros, brought an accusation against Count Indhios, that the Chancellor was plotting to betray the Kingdom to the Neraler pirates, he spoke the truth.» That, at least, gained her the King's attention. Then she moved into a rapid summary of what Indhios was plotting, what the pirates were plotting, who was allied with them-and how she and Blade had found out what they knew.

«And if you seek evidence that would stand before a Grand Court, then consider this-and this-and this,» hauling notes and documents from the flowing sleeves of her gown. Blade could not help admiring the countess at this moment as she stood there, rendered formidable by her keen wits as well as by her beauty. If by some strange chain of events she did mount the throne of Royth beside Pelthros, then perhaps the Kingdom would finally have the political skill in high places that it so sadly lacked and so badly needed.

Pelthros remained silent and motionless, staring at the pile of documents she was laying beside him on the bed, either unable or unwilling to react. When the countess had finished and stepped back-almost posing, it struck Blade-the King raised his head and said:

«My Lady. If what you say is true, you are laying your husband's head on the block.»

She sighed. It was a marvelously dramatic sigh. «I know that, Your Majesty. But-would you ask me to keep silent about such treason?» Her tone of voice was that of a person who has been driven after long hours of agonizing self-doubt to a yet more agonizing decision. It was also, it seemed to Blade, the tone of a person who hopes to see her remarks someday recorded in history books for the edification of children. If Blade had not known the quality of the mind behind this series of poses, he suspected he would have been either appalled or disgusted or both. As it was, the countess' acting was so splendid that Blade almost forgot the deadly stakes in the game they were playing.

Seconds later he was abruptly reminded of them. Feet clattered on the stairs and the door burst open so violently that it crashed against the wall. One of the countess' guards tumbled into the bedroom, gasping incoherently, blood pouring from his mouth. Behind him other noises poured up the stairs-the clang of steel, furniture crashing over, Tralthos shouting, «Treason! To the King!» at the top of his lungs. Blade grabbed for his sword, remembered as he encountered an empty scabbard that Tralthos had disarmed him, cursed, and charged down the stairs.

As he came down the stairs at a dead run he met four men with drawn swords charging upward at a pace only slightly slower than his own. Before he could ask who they were, two of them answered the question for him with wild lunges at his chest. They were too excited and hasty to aim properly. He flung himself aside, pivoting on one leg as he bounced off the wall and kicking out in a savage stroke with the other foot. It caught one of the swordsmen off balance, hurling him down the stairs to land with a scream and a thud. Blade chopped the next man across the side of the neck with the edge of his hand, plucked his sword out of the air as the man's hand went limp and released it, then engaged the other two. They were better swordsmen than their comrades, but far from good enough to match Blade. In a matter of seconds he met one with a stop-thrust, kicked his legs out from under him, thrust the other through the chest while his swing was blocked by his toppling comrade, then slashed down at the fallen man, lopping his head off as neatly as a bunch of grapes. Without waiting to check whether all four were dead, Blade snatched a dagger from the belt of the headless corpse and bounded down the blood-slick stairs.

He arrived perhaps five seconds after a sweating, swearing gang of nearly a dozen men had backed Tralthos into the entrance to the stairs, where for a moment they could only come at him one or two at a time. Some of the men wore plain tunics whose borders and rich sheen yet indicated high rank; some wore the leather and wool of hired bravos, one the uniform of a Guardsman. Behind them in the chamber Tralthos' three companions, the countess' other two guards, and half a dozen more assassins sprawled silent or groaning amid a litter of dropped weapons, smashed furniture, and bloodstained carpeting.

Blade stormed down the stairs and crashed past Tralthos into the ranks of the assassins with the force of an avalanche. They gave way. In sheer terror at the gigantic bloodspattered figure, eyes incandescent with fury, two of them turned and ran headlong down the corridor, pursued by curses from some of their comrades. Others silently turned to face Blade, wasting none of the breath needed for fighting.

Odds of ten to one (or ten to two, counting Tralthos) were long but not impossible, since Blade knew himself to be stronger and three times angrier than any of his opponents. He beat down his first opponent's guard by sheer force and thrust him through the throat, then picked up a second opponent as easily as he would have picked up a wine bottle and hurled him onto the sword point of a third. Two more came at him together. He blocked, backed away into the stair opening, and smashed one man's weapon down so that he was unguarded long enough for Tralthos to run him through the body.

There was a moment's pause as the surviving assassins backed away into the center of the wrecked chamber and stared at the two opponents standing in the doorway-standing between them and the King. Blade was not relieved by this pause. The men were desperate, their lives already forfeit, and if it occurred to them to plough through by sheer weight of numbers the seven survivors might break through the two. Then it would be up to Larina's dying guardsman and King Pelthros himself. Blade hoped the King knew how to use that sword he had put on.

Blade saw two of the men look at the others and point to a wrecked table, saw four others go over and pick it up, raising it on end to act as a shield. A human battering ram with the table as its striking end! Blade looked at Tralthos and grimaced. They would have to back up the stairs. If they stayed put, they would be smashed and stunned by the coming charge.

It seemed to Blade that all the sights and sounds in the room were coming to his senses with incredible clarity-the hacked-off hand still clutching a wine cup flattened by a boot heel, the long splintery sword scar across the polished top of the table facing them, the heavy breathing of the men lifting it to the vertical. Then suddenly a gurgling scream floated down the corridor. The assassins whirled around to look behind them, dropping the table with a crash-and Blade and Tralthos charged out of the doorway.

Blade vaulted over the table into the midst of the enemy, scattering them, knocking one man clear off his feet so that Tralthos could run him through a split second later. Then he was whirling around, both sword and dagger weaving a deadly pattern, and the assassins were no longer trying to stand and fight, but scattering. Blade sprang aside from one frantic lunge, tripped over a body and went down. His emboldened opponent thrust again, missing Blade's shoulder but laying open his tunic. Blade dropped his own sword, rolled over like a log straight into the man, took his legs out from under him. Before the man could rise, Blade snatched up the leg of a chair and laid it across the back of his head. The man went limp:

Blade was conscious of Tralthos skewering one more man with contempt in every line of his thrust. Then there was a tremendous uproar in the corridor, with flaring torches and thundering boots and screams as the last of the assassins went down before a charge of the Royal Guard, a whole company coming down the corridor at a dead run. Tralthos had to stand over Blade waving the Guardsmen away, or they would have laid into him also.

Blade rose and took Tralthos' hand. The captain had redeemed himself twenty times over for the little moments of pettifoggery, with four assassins at least to his personal credit. The captain grinned, then quickly knelt down as King Pelthros appeared in the doorway, sword in hand, followed by the countess.

Not much to Blade's surprise, the lady found words for the occasion. «Your Majesty, look at this chamber. It is filled with the bodies of men who were coming to kill you-and of faithful servants who died in your defense. Now say if my reports of plots are imagination only!»

Pelthros, less nimble with his tongue, was silent for a considerable time. Then he said slowly, «It seems that some of it at least was the truth. I think it is time that I spoke to the Chancellor.»

«If you can find him, Your Majesty. He may well be fled to the camp of the Ninth Brigade, which he intended to lead into the city once you were dead or captive.»

«A whole Brigade of my army in Indhios' pay?» The King looked appalled. «This is beyond reason!»

«Perhaps beyond reason, Your Majesty,» said the countess, «but not beyond Indhios' deviousness and treason.»

«Yes, yes, I understand, I think. Now, my Lady, let me retire to my chambers and peruse these documents you have offered me. After that I will send for Indhios and ask him to explain his doings of late.»

One does not, with impunity, lose one's temper and berate a King like an erring schoolboy, but Blade felt himself on the edge of doing so. From Larina's expression he judged that she did not feel differently. But they could only bite their tongues and shrug their shoulders as the King disappeared up the stairs and shut the door firmly behind him.

Tralthos looked at Blade. «Gods above deliver us from our King's lust for justice above everything else,» he groaned. «While he sits like a clerk in his chambers, Indhios may even now-«

«Of course,» said Blade. «But we need not join the King in sitting idly. Captain, could you take a few of these men and go to Indhios' apartments? He will not be there, but there may be some of his henchmen to be found who can be made to talk.»

Blade saw from the expressions on the Guardsmen's faces that he had struck the proper note and responded to a widespread desire for action. None of the Guardsmen shared Pelthros' scruples about going straight into action against whoever was responsible for the heaped corpses lying about this very chamber. Tralthos picked out a dozen of the toughest-looking soldiers and led them off at a noisy trot, while Blade mapped out his strategy and snapped out his orders. Actually they were only urgings rather than orders, for he had no more legal authority to command the Guard than he had possessed an hour before. But he had the far more effective authority of a man who sees what-needs to be done and has already risked his life doing some of it. His words were obeyed as readily as if they came from the King or the Commander of the Guard, and squads and sections marched away in all directions.

Some went as messengers to alert the rest of the Guard-all twenty-two companies-plus the three Brigades of the army barracked in and around High Royth, the city constabulary, and the Wardens of the Port who helped patrol the dockyards. (Blade hoped Brora had properly dealt with any trouble there but could not be sure.) Some went to patrol the corridors of the palace and keep the innocent from roaming about and the guilty from escaping by shooing everybody impartially back into their chambers. (Blade hoped the soldiers would not be too quick with their swords.) Some went to reinforce the guards on the walls to make absolutely sure that Indhios could send no one into the palace for a second attempt at storming the royal apartments. And some remained with Blade, clearing away the bodies and wreckage as much as possible, with eyes flickering constantly down the corridor in case it spewed out more surprises.

Except for Blade's orders, affairs hung in their royally decreed state of suspended animation until well after dawn. It was then that Pelthros came down from his chambers, even more red-eyed than before, with the crumpled papers under his arm, and took the countess by the hand. «My Lady, you have done the Realm and Our House a great service.» He had recovered his wits enough to have reverted to the royal «we,» and Blade felt it appropriate to bow.

«And you too, Champion Blahyd. Never in the four centuries there have been Champions for the Kings of Royth has a Champion so well earned his name.» He swept his arm around the chamber in a gesture as theatrical as anything the countess had ever used. He was obviously about to launch into another fulsome sentence when an officer of the Guard appeared, leading a party of a dozen men dressed like sailors and carrying two large brass-bound sea chests.

«From the dockyard, Your Majesty. They say-«

«Ay-y-y, Blahyd!» shouted a familiar voice from among the sailors, and Brora dashed forward and grabbed Blade by the shoulders. «I see ye've had a rare good night, aye?»

«Yes, we have.»

«As was w' us,» said Brora with a grin. «Your Majesty, there were some traitors among your officers i' the dockyard. Here they be.» He motioned the men behind him to set the chests on the floor, then strode over to them and flung open both lids.

The King gasped, the countess gave a little scream and reeled against him; even Blade found his stomach churning. Each chest held a dozen human heads, neatly or not so neatly severed, lying on blood-drenched sailcloth. It was quite a long time before anybody recovered his voice enough to thank Brora, who stood beaming at them over his handiwork. Remembering Festival and Cayla's hobbies, Blade could not find it in him to become too indignant over Brora's methods.

«Well, Brora Lanthal's son,» said Pelthros finally, then paused again. «You are a-a-thorough man, indeed.» He was apparently trying to find some way of phrasing a compliment, when the countess as usual stepped in (although Blade noticed she kept her eyes averted from the heads).

«A good spectacle indeed, Your Majesty,» she said. «And perhaps some day soon we shall see all your enemies both here and abroad in a similar state. That would be an even better spectacle.»

One of these days, thought Blade, Larina was going to overreach herself in seeking for dramatic comments to make at key moments, offend the King, and see all her hopes go up in smoke. Meanwhile, however, she provided a certain amount of entertainment in a situation that promised little besides a long, grim struggle.