Swords: 09 - The Sixth Book Of Lost Swords - Mindsword's Story (13 page)

      
With the benefit of Metaxas’s healing efforts—the beggar made sure to claim credit at every opportunity—Murat’s wound continued slowly to improve. But though this afternoon he was able to walk with only a slight limp, and ride almost normally, he was hardly conscious of relief. The Sword of Stealth was looming ever larger in his thoughts. His fear of that weapon and of Mark’s revenge was increasing.

      
Vilkata, observing the behavior of the Crown Prince intently, and keeping mental notes of all that happened in camp, made a shrewd guess at what these fears were, and considered exerting subtle efforts to exacerbate them. The Dark King wanted the conflict with Mark to go on. Ideally Murat, instead of retreating peacefully to Culm, would stay here until he had enslaved or defeated the Emperor’s son. But still Vilkata kept silent on the subject, fearing that any effort he made to influence the decisions of Murat and Kristin might have the opposite effect.

      
And Vilkata wondered how much longer it would be before the woman recognized him, despite his altered appearance. He discussed this point with the demon when they had another conference.

      
Still the Dark King feared at every moment to be caught by the Sword’s spell if Murat should once more draw it suddenly; some provocation might arise at any time. For this reason Vilkata welcomed the intervals when Carlo took the Mindsword with him on patrol. On these occasions Akbar, taking no chances, continued to spend almost all his time at a safe distance.

      
During each of his clandestine conferences with Akbar, Vilkata reminded his demon to be ready to whisk him away to safety at a moment’s notice.

      
“I shall certainly do so, Master,” the dry voice always soothed him. “Have no fear on that account.”

      
Vilkata even considered trying to browbeat the demon into attempting to seize the Sword—but the man shuddered and again rejected the idea, whose success would be worse than failure. He could not bring himself to contemplate a future in which he would be required, without hope of release, to offer lifelong worship and obedience to a demon. That was one of the most hideous fates that he as an experienced torturer was able to imagine.

* * *

      
During the remainder of the day Murat limped about his camp—the last increments of pain and injury in his leg were stubborn—alternately trying to use and then discarding a cane whittled for him by the cunning fingers of the eyeless man—who else? In the course of his restless movement the Crown Prince reminded his perimeter guards at frequent intervals that they must challenge anyone, no matter who it might appear to be, who approached the camp from outside. Murat also saw to it that everyone in his band was thoroughly briefed on Sightblinder’s powers, and made them all swear solemnly that they would allow no outsider into camp without their master’s approval.

      
For the past several days Carlo had been watching and listening to his father with growing fear and dismay. The Crown Prince, rather than looking better with the healing of his wound, now appeared haggard, with dark circles under his eyes. Over and over Murat declared his determination not to be swayed from his planned course of action whether by fear of his enemies, bad luck, or Karel’s magic. He meant to take the Sword of Glory on with him to Culm, and there to utilize it—as sparingly as possible, of course—to regain his rightful place in his own land.

      
Murat vowed that Kristin, who would stand beside him from now on, deserved no less than a new kingdom in addition to her own.

      
Several times he assured Kristin that, once having accomplished his own rehabilitation in his own land, he would present the Sword of Glory to her, and from that moment he, Murat, would be her faithful servant—as well as her lover, if she would still have him.

      
She answered quietly: “I already worship you, my love. I think no magic is capable of changing that.”

      
Murat was too deeply moved to reply in words.

      
And the Princess Kristin, also silent now, vowed to herself that if her lord ever forced her to accept the Sword as hers, she’d only keep it for him, undrawn, until he someday had need of it again.

Chapter Twelve

      
Toward the middle of the night, Kristin, unable to sleep, was wandering restlessly around the camp, wrapped in a soldier’s borrowed cloak. The mind of the Princess was in turmoil, seeking some way to help Murat, and at the same time struggling against the sadness that engulfed her with every thought of her lost children and her estranged people.

      
In her pacing she frequently passed the tent wherein Murat was resting. Each time the sentry looked at her with sympathy.

      
“He sleeps?” she asked the man quietly, pausing for a moment.

      
“I do believe so, Princess.” The reply was almost in a whisper; no one wanted to disturb the great lord, to deprive him of a moment of his well-earned rest.

      
The Princess took another turn around the camp. As she was considering whether to try once more to sleep, she heard a sentry call, and a quick answer; it was Carlo and the men of his patrol, returning to the camp at last.

      
The Princeling, looking tired, rode slowly straight into the center of camp and dismounted near the small watchfire, where he spoke a few words with Captain Marsaci. Then Carlo turned and walked toward Kristin, who stood between him and his father’s tent.

      
Only now did it register in Kristin’s consciousness that one or two members of the patrol appeared to be missing, and another had been slightly wounded.

      
“What happened?” she asked Carlo hesitantly as he was about to pass her. The Princess was well aware that this young man had no great liking for her.

      
The look Carlo gave Kristin as he paused confirmed that idea. Coldly he said: “A skirmish. Such things happen in war. Don’t worry, the precious Sword’s all right.”

      
Then the Princeling moved on, muttering over his shoulder: “I must report to Father.” Carrying the unbuckled Mindsword in its sheath, he went into his father’s tent.

      
Kristin, following slowly, was able to see past the young man through the open flap. Inside, Murat was dimly visible, stirring uneasily on his simple roll of blankets.

      
Leaving the tent flap open, Carlo put the Sword down gently at Murat’s side, and started to shake the older man.

      
“Father! Wake up!”

      
Suddenly Murat started up. His eyes glittering in firelight, he stared at Carlo for a moment as if he did not recognize him.

      
And then, before anyone could utter a word of caution, or otherwise react, the Crown Prince had grabbed the black-hilted Sword and drawn it from its sheath.

      
The faint firelight entering the tent through the open doorway fell upon that bright steel and rebounded, striking the eye like an explosion of live steam. Carlo, inside the tent, fell to his knees, covering his eyes. Kristin, standing just outside, heard herself cry out the name of her beloved.

      
From all the other men in the encampment, sleeping or waking, a muttering went up, a sound compounded of joy and resignation.

      
Inside the tent, the Crown Prince had leaped to his feet beside his blanket roll, newly drawn Sword once more in hand. His clothing was disarranged, the expression on his face wild and confused.

      
Then he bent uncertainly over his kneeling son. “Carlo—is it indeed you?”

      
A pale, drawn face turned up to him. “I’m here, Father. It’s really me.”

      
“Then who intruded?” Murat looked bewildered.

      
“Intruded, Father?”

      
“Someone was here … just now.”

      
The eye of the Crown Prince fell on the smiling figure of Kristin, waiting outside the door, and terrible suspicion overcame him.

      
“Is it Mark, then—?” Murat murmured. In another moment, feeling himself hampered in the awkward space of the little tent, he hurled the scanty camp furniture aside, and waved the Mindsword at her as if in exorcism. Then, pushing his son aside, he leaped out toward the Princess, getting within striking distance, raising the keen, heavy blade.

      
The face of the cloak-wrapped apparition before him paled. The slender figure confronting Murat recoiled from the bright steel, as that god-forged Blade flashed in the air.

      
A voice indistinguishable from Kristin’s burst from her shrinking image, pleading: “My lord—what is wrong?”

      
Knowing only an inner certainty of treachery and betrayal, Murat raised the weapon in a two-handed grip. The Crown Prince shouted at the one who now faced him: “If you, whoever you are, are carrying Sightblinder, I command you to throw it down immediately!”

      
He stared expectantly, but no other Sword appeared, and the woman’s image did not change in the slightest. Other figures, in the background, were huddling in frightened silence.

      
Slowly the realization came that he had been dreaming of horror and betrayal. It was only Kristin, the real Kristin, who faced him now. Kristin, empty-handed, white-faced, wrapped in some soldier’s cloak, her slender body trembling with the knowledge of how close she had come to being slain by her lover.

      
All around them, the camp was silent. Somewhere in the distance a nightbird called.

      
Murat, fully awake now and suddenly stricken, stumbled a step closer to the Princess on his wounded leg.

      
“Oh—my dear—my love—I was afraid that it was Mark. I feared to let him come near you—”

      
Kristin raised her eyes. Wistfully, fearfully, she said: “I do not think that Mark would ever hurt me.”

      
By now a newer and uglier murmur of noise was going around the camp. Men were glaring at one another in mutual suspicion. Their lord had mentioned Sightblinder. Had someone entered the camp by means of the Sword of Stealth? Rumors, challenges, and speculation flew back and forth, hands gripped weapons, and several fights were only narrowly averted.

      
Suddenly a new noise rose above the rest. It was the eyeless man, screaming unintelligibly about something. For the time being everyone ignored him.

      
Murat began shouting orders. In the matter of a few moments, fights had been averted, something like calm had been restored, and Carlo could begin to give the report for which he had awakened his father. For this purpose the two men reentered the tent.

      
The Princeling, setting up the small folding table that had been knocked over, reported in a distant voice that his patrol had been forced to fight a skirmish with a small Tasavaltan patrol. The fight had been brief but savage, and the enemy had withdrawn before Carlo had been compelled to resort to the Mindsword.

      
Murat was now fastening the sheathed Blade at his own side again, and trying to concentrate on what his son was saying, even as he listened with half an ear to the screams and moans of the blind beggar in the middle distance.Someone was shouting threats at the wretch to shut him up, and the Crown Prince devoutly hoped that they succeeded.

      
He said to Carlo: “Would that you had used the Sword. I gave it to you for your protection.”

      
“I realize that, Father. But I did not need the Sword of Glory to survive. And I could not in any case have saved our two men who fell, the fight began so quickly.”

      
“Very well, I’m sure you did the best you could.”

      
After answering a few more questions, Carlo left the tent. As he pushed aside the flap to go out, Murat was moved by the sight of Kristin, her slender figure still muffled in a cloak, waiting just outside.

      
She came in, without waiting for an invitation, as the young man left. The tent flap closed her in, with darkness and her lover.

      
At first no words were exchanged. For once casting his own Sword carelessly aside, the Crown Prince for the first time embraced his beloved unrestrainedly.

      
Kristin responded with passion.

      
For the time being they were secure against sudden interruption; there was a sentry just outside the tent to see to that. Murat’s lips sought Kristin’s mouth, and then her throat. His hands explored her body freely. Somewhere in the back of his mind, almost obscured by the rising torrent of madness in his blood, was the thought that if he took her now, just after he had once more exposed her to the Sword, he would be violating his own self-imposed pledge. But just now one more broken promise more or less did not seem of great importance.

      
He had lifted the maddening, enchanting woman in his arms and was on the point of lowering her to his humble bed, when they were, in spite of sentries, interrupted.

      
It was the eyeless Metaxas, struggling now with the guards at the very doorway of the tent. The man was still screaming, or trying to scream though he was almost out of breath. Between his howls of sheer emotion he pleaded with the men who held him back and threatened him. He begged that someone must hear his confession, and his words had a coherence and an urgency that made it impossible to simply banish or ignore him; the soldiers were arguing among themselves now as to whether they should disturb the Lord Murat.

      
With a groan he set down Kristin on her feet, and turned to deal with this disturbance.

* * *

      
As Murat appeared in the doorway of the tent, Vilkata tried to throw himself on the ground before his new master. The Crown Prince signed to the soldiers to release his arms.

      
“Great Lord Murat!” the beggar wailed, from the dust.

      
“What is it, man?”

      
“Can you possibly be merciful to me? I am the most wretched, treacherous—”

      
There was no mercy in Murat’s voice. “Get hold of yourself! Speak plainly, and be brief, or by all the gods, I’ll—”

      
Some of the soldiers standing by voiced their readiness to kill this confessed traitor out of hand.

      
Murat ordered them to wait until they had heard what the fellow had to say.

      
Meanwhile, he who had been called Metaxas rolled on the earth, still beating his breast and proclaiming his guilt, tears running down his bearded cheeks.

      
“Forgive me, Lord! I would destroy myself now, to expiate my sins—except that now you truly have terrible need of help, help that only I can give you!”

      
The Crown Prince, losing his temper, savagely kicked the prostrate form before him. The impact sent waves of renewed pain up through his own leg, but at the moment he scarcely noticed.

      
“Are you going to tell me what the matter is, or not?”

      
“Yes, Lord! I am—I must confess that from the beginning I have been in your camp under false pretenses. Even before we met, I was plotting to do you harm.”

      
Kristin had now quietly emerged from the tent, her borrowed cloak discarded, garbed in the dress that she had worn beneath it. She was staring past Murat at the eyeless man, and her face was frozen in an expression of horrified fascination.

      
“Oh?” Murat, bringing his concentration back to Vilkata, could not at first take seriously such a confession from such a source. “You? Plotting how, against me? With whom?”

      
“With Akbar—does Your Lordship know that name?”

      
The Crown Prince stared at the strange figure huddled on the earth before him. “Akbar? No. I have heard no one in this camp called that. Is he a Tasavaltan?”

      
Once more Vilkata screamed in remorse, even more terribly than before. “Alas! Lord Murat, it is not the name of a man!—but of a demon.” And with those words he melted entirely into sobs.