Swords: 09 - The Sixth Book Of Lost Swords - Mindsword's Story (9 page)

      
A cloud crossed Kristin’s brow. “Mark is where he usually is. Out of the country. Somewhere.”

      
Murat could all too readily imagine Mark’s reaction when the news reached him of what had happened to his wife.

      
The Crown Prince raised both hands to run tense fingers through his hair. “Let me think. I must have time to think.”

      
Everyone respected his wishes.

      
Limping away to a little distance from the others, he sat on a rock and nursed his wounded leg and tried to think. The Sword in its sheath seemed to weigh heavily at his side.

      
His latest mass conversion had caught a beastmaster among the Tasavaltan troopers, who had with him a pair of small winged messengers. So it would be possible to send a written warning to whatever authority remained in Sarykam with the Princess gone. … Murat tried in his mind, without success, to frame a message—from himself? from the Princess? signed by them both? —which would keep that authority from trying to interfere.

      
Next he turned over in his mind the idea of sending Carlo on to Sarykam bearing a flag of truce, perhaps with a few converted soldiers, perhaps alone, to explain how matters stood. If he, Murat, were to go there himself, with or without the Princess, he would only be forced to draw the Sword again, and probably more than once. And if Kristin were to go alone, her people—with good reason—would think her possessed, enchanted, and they would keep her there by force.

      
And naturally he, Murat, would not be able to allow that.

      
He thought he could visualize the ensuing chain of events, as stronger and stronger forces were sent against him, to be converted in turn; and he as an experienced soldier knew how to force battle if an enemy did not wish to give it.

      
Could it really be that easy for one man, with the help of the gods’ Sword-magic, to bring a whole kingdom to its knees?

      
The Crown Prince was beginning to think it could. But perhaps the conquest would have a chance of becoming permanent only if the people of the kingdom were in fact dissatisfied with the rulers they now had, and ready to be conquered. Was Tasavalta—perhaps—in that condition?

      
With a mental shudder the Crown Prince put such temptations from him. He hadn’t come here as a conqueror, but to make amends to the woman he loved, and then to try to win her freely given love.

      
While Murat had sought to be alone temporarily, he had not actually forbidden Kristin to approach him, and it was soon apparent that she had no intention of remaining at a distance. Tentatively approaching her new lord now, she saw from Murat’s slumped posture and woeful expression that he appeared to be deriving no benefit from his interval of silent thought.

      
Advancing more briskly, she broke silence and resumed her efforts to soothe him. “I will go back to our summer lodge alone, my lord, and explain everything to my people there.”

      
Her beloved smiled at her mirthlessly. “But don’t you see, Kristin? Your people love you, and some of them would die for you, but they won’t accept your explanations for such a sudden change in your behavior.”

      
“I can lie to them about the Mindsword. Say only that I experienced a sudden change of heart.”

      
“I do not want you to lie to them. They wouldn’t believe you anyway. And in any case your magicians would soon detect the touch of magic on you.”

      
She sat at his feet. “Then tell me what to do, my lord Murat. I will be happy to do whatever will satisfy you.”

      
The Crown Prince started to stand up, grimaced, and sank back on the rock.

      
Then with a decisive gesture he began to unbuckle his swordbelt. He said: “Then I will simply do what I came here for. I want you to accept a gift.”

      
The man who now called himself Metaxas was twenty meters away, watching with demon-vision, easily observing all that happened from behind his bandaged, empty sockets. Now he held his breath. Was the Mindsword about to be drawn yet again? He was on the verge of hobbling away from the couple and their treasure at a speed that would certainly raise suspicions.

      
And where was his precious demon, who ought to be ready to whisk him from the scene?

      
“What are you doing?” The Princess seemed alarmed at Murat’s actions.

      
“I am giving you this Sword.”

      
Springing to her feet, she recoiled. “My lord! I will be pleased and honored to carry your Mindsword sheathed for you, if that is what you wish. But I will never draw it, never. Not even if you should order me to do so.”

      
He who called himself Metaxas, watching from a distance, began with a hoarse cough to breathe again.

      
Murat could only ask her, feebly: “Why not?”

      
“Because, my lord, I could never draw or hold that Sword. I should be terrified of putting you into a situation where you might worship me. I am all unworthy, and such a thing would be utterly unthinkable. Utterly!”

      
Murat, holding the weighty unfastened swordbelt in his hand, posed slumped on his rock like the statue of a rejected lover, no longer able to think of what to do or say.

      
The Princess continued, “And besides, my lord Murat, there are practical reasons why you had better continue to carry your Sword yourself. Very likely you are going to need to use it again, perhaps quite soon, for your own safety. It pains me to say it, but having thought the matter over I must admit that here in Tasavalta you are still surrounded by real and potential enemies, some of whom will think I am bewitched and refuse to listen to me. It would be good for you to convince them all as soon as possible of the truth.”

      
The Crown Prince said in a tired voice: “I had hoped that would not be necessary.”

      
“Happily we can still hope, Lord Murat. My people love me, and usually they accept my judgment. It is I, and not my husband, who has inherited the throne.”

      
“I think your husband,” said the Crown Prince, “is not the man to accept the loss of his position in meek silence.”

      
Kristin frowned. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “No, Mark will not do that. He is basically a good man, you know. I owe him my life, for on the day we met he saved me from the Dark King.”

      
“Someday I must thank him for that,” said Murat, dryly but seriously.

      
“I fear him now,” said Kristin suddenly. “Not for myself. I fear what he might do to you.”

      
“As to that, I have a long history of being able to protect myself.” Still, Murat was more concerned than he allowed himself to sound. He had nothing against Mark, and no wish to hurt the man, but still less would he care to be destroyed by him.

* * *

      
By mid-afternoon, Carlo and his scouting party had returned from their latest effort, and there was still no word of Stephen. Murat, trying to ignore the undiminished pain in his leg, was sitting by himself, staring at his sheathed Sword, and thinking.

      
An hour ago, when he had tried again to denounce his own behavior of a year ago, none of these faithful people around him would listen. Respectfully they insisted on howling in protest. And in fact Murat’s apologies were now beginning to sound mechanical in his own ears. All these Tasavaltans, from Princess down to private soldier, now saw the matter of Woundhealer’s removal from the realm in a much different light. They could marshal arguments that seemed convincing. A year ago the Crown Prince of Culm had only been following his Queen’s orders, and had shown commendable loyalty by so doing. He had wanted and needed the Sword of Love only to heal the intolerable difficulties in his own royal house.

      
Once the subject had been raised, Kristin quickly proclaimed that last year’s difficulties over another Sword had been her own fault, and not at all Murat’s. There was no excuse, she insisted, for her not allowing this admirable Prince to have Woundhealer, when he had come asking so decently only to borrow it!

      
The same Crown Prince today was slow to reply. At length he nodded. “I think I must agree with you there, my lady—even if it is only Sword-magic that now compels you to view the matter in so favorable a light.” Murat held up a hand, forestalling her objections. “Not that I was right in stealing the Sword when you refused me, but—”

      
“Please, my lord, don’t call what you did stealing! Of course you were right to take the Sword when I so stubbornly refused to lend it. What else could you have done?”

      
He sighed. “At the time it seemed to me that I was dealing with a bad situation in the best available way. Later, of course, I came to repent my choice.”

      
There was another chorus of objections. Kristin and her compatriots all repeatedly assured the Crown Prince that last year’s difficulties were not his fault but hers; she had been very wrong in not letting him have the Sword. Of course she should never have denied him anything he wanted!

* * *

      
Near sunset there came another moment when Murat and the Princess were more or less alone. She took this opportunity to ask him softly: “Is it true that my lord wants me?”

      
The look in her eyes made it very plain to Murat that he had not mistaken her meaning. When he tried to frame a reply, he found himself stumbling and stuttering like an inexperienced youth.

      
“I—how could I ever possibly answer no to that?”

      
Happiness glowed in Kristin’s eyes. “Then I am yours. Completely. I hereby divorce my husband.”

      
The Crown Prince looked bewildered on hearing this; but Captain Marsaci and some of the other Tasavaltan soldiers, near enough to the couple to have heard at least part of what Kristin said, were quick to rejoice. They also joined their Princess in explaining to Murat a certain provision in the ancient traditional law of Tasavalta.

      
By this custom it was in the power of any reigning monarch, be it king, queen, prince, or princess, to achieve a very quick, legal and formal separation from a spouse. The provision had been invoked only two or three times in recorded history, and its use required certain conditions. As Kristin saw the current situation, these conditions now obtained.

      
Prolonged absence from the realm by the unwanted spouse was one of the conditions.

      
On every level of his being, Murat was greatly pleased that this woman he loved was ready to abandon everything for him, even though he knew it was the irresistible magic of the gods which made her do so.

      
But, as an honorable and practical man, he was horrified at the idea of her invoking this old law now. He saw a bloody civil war looming as a distinct possibility.

      
A new thought struck Kristin now, and she dared to question Murat indirectly, about his own wife. “Lord, does there exist in Culm any obstacle to our union?”

      
Struggling with the feeling that events were moving too fast, the Crown Prince experienced a certain relief as he explained that he was still married. He hastened to assure Kristin that his wife no longer meant anything to him. They had not truly lived together for many years.

      
Carlo, who had recently joined the other listeners, was looking very thoughtful now.

      
Murat said gently to Kristin, “The Queen and those around her have been angry with me for a long time. For various reasons. And our adventure last year did not help matters. You know, I suppose, that after all my efforts, Woundhealer never reached Culm?”

      
“We have heard as much in Tasavalta—but few details of the failure reached us.”

      
The Crown Prince could not provide many details either. Last year someone else, troops serving a power still unidentified, had ambushed Murat’s troops who were carrying Woundhealer toward Culm. The Sword of Mercy had been stolen enroute from those who had stolen it from Tasavalta.

      
“And so,” added Murat now, with assumed lightness, “it would seem that all the treachery I practiced here was quite in vain.”

      
“Treachery!” Kristin was truly outraged, really appalled. “I will not hear that word applied, not even by you, to your behavior, to anything you’ve ever done. Treachery, indeed! Who dares to call it so?”

      
Not long ago she herself had been using that word, and others just as bad, quite freely. But he was not going to remind her of that fact now.

      
The Princess also expressed her outrage against the unknown aggressors who had taken the Sword of Love from the Culmians. “We shall see about them! We shall hunt them down, and retrieve your property.”

      
Even as Murat pondered the futility of arguing with Kristin in her present enchanted condition, it crossed his mind—perhaps not for the first time, but for the first time of which he was fully aware—that his own wisest course might be, after all, to retain the Sword of Glory for a short while to use it at home. Kristin would only be the better pleased if he kept possession of the weapon long enough to obtain justice for himself in his own house and his own country. Besides, his position now in Tasavalta looked intolerable; something like a full-scale war seemed inevitable if he were to remain.