The Sword of the Lady (27 page)

And
not
hinting that Matti should leave,
Rudi noted.
Sure, and it will be a great inconvenience if I must snap the man′s neck after all the trouble we′ve gone to, conciliating him. Still, better than leaving it for Matti to do. Hmmm. Given surprise we could
probably
cut our way to the docks . . .

″Tommie′s sleeping soundly now, darling,″ Kate said. ″Annette′s with him.″

These rooms were part of the Emergency Coordinator′s chambers; in the terms Matti′s people used, where the Count of Dubuque usually had his apartments, that worthy being turned out now for his liege-lord′s convenience.

Or his lord′s convenience and his own
inconvenience, he thought wryly, nodding pleasantly at Kate.

One of the ways Sandra Arminger dealt with difficult vassals or ones she suspected of disloyalty was to
visit
them. With the whole court in train, until the hospitality drove them to the brink of bankruptcy, swallowing the resources that might otherwise be spent seditiously. The best part of that jest was that they couldn′t do anything but profess delight at the honor and spend on feasts, tournaments and entertainers as if money were water. Juniper Mackenzie had been heard to say that Sandra knew more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in a bucket of cream.

Rudi didn′t think Anthony was bright enough to come up with that idea on his own, but . . .

He tried to make the thought light, as if it was a joke, but he had a sinking feeling that was what the Powers—some of them, at least—really had in mind.

And I was afraid of the burden of being Chief of the Mackenzies alone! Hmmmm, though. A High King of Montival would
have
to visit about much of the time, wouldn′t he? With so many different peoples, and them separated by wilderness and of such different customs and Gods and laws, he′d have to show himself. But not so as to be a burden . . . unless there was some bad and wicked person of note that called for it . . . later, later.

″And a charming young lad your Tommie is,″ Rudi said, with a smile that was sincere enough.

Children that age usually were, like puppies or kittens; it was how they made people put up with the nuisance and hard work they entailed. Rudi hoped the boy would have a more normal childhood than his father, and come out of it more of a man—not to mention more of a ruler.

Kate Heasleroad smiled back at him, almost involuntarily; at least Tommie would have
her
.

Behind her Matti mouthed:
You′re being
charming
again, dammit!

Rudi′s eldest half sister Eilir was deaf; he′d learned lipreading from her, and it was a useful skill whether you could hear or no.

The Coordinator′s quarters were elegant, in a cool style of pastel fabrics and muted colors and blond wood that was not at all the Bossman′s usual taste, judging by what he remembered of the throne room in the State Capitol; the modifications that had turned this whole second floor into one were skillful, arched ways linking large rooms.

″And for his sake as well as your own, you should have more guards about you,″ Rudi said.

″There are plenty of guards,″ the Bossman said.

He waved a hand and knocked over a glass on the side table beside him. A servant stepped forward noiselessly and swept it away, mopping up the spilled wine and vanishing again.

Rudi had lived several months a year in Portland and Castle Todenangst and other holds of the Protectorate for much of his boyhood and youth; he was used to personal service, if not overfond of it. But while lowly household folk in Portland′s territories were sometimes treated roughly by their lords, they weren′t expected to be invisible. Their presence was part of an Associate′s consequence.

This self-effacement put his teeth on edge for some reason. It was as if they were trying to mimic the vanished machinery of the ancient world, that produced the fruits of work without human hands and will.

Aloud he went on: ″To be sure, but the guards are not
here
within arm′s reach. A dozen yards away can be far too far, if you take my meaning, my lord. I don′t think those men from Corwin are to be trusted.″

″I don′t
trust
anyone,″ the Bossman said, his voice careless and a little slurred.

The which is probably true, and makes you as helpless as a babe. The whole secret of the thing being to know who you
can
trust, as well as who you
cannot
.

″And I don′t like having men in iron shirts clanking about in the same room. Besides, this place is secure,″ the Iowan went on.

There was something to that. The windows facing out a story over the street were broad, intact pre-Change plate glass panels that ran on grooves set in little wheels, but the wrought-iron scrollwork over them was more recent. It was ornamental, flowing designs of vines and flowers, but it also gave no space wider than a man′s arm, without blocking too much of the light in daytime, and it was set very solidly indeed into steel plates bolted around the openings.

All the windows in this building were like that, except the ones on the ground floor; they′d been bricked in until they were narrow slits, and there was nothing on that level but storage and guardrooms, workshops and kitchens and armories. It wasn′t quite a fortress, but it would do fine against a rioting mob, particularly with people shooting crossbows through the openings at anyone on the ground outside.

The Bossman′s voice was slurred and his plump face was flushed and sweaty, despite the coolness of the damp air that came through the open panels.

″Always guards,″ he said, and there was suddenly a wistful note in his voice. ″Gotta have ′em. Must be nice not to have to, like you guys. Just going where you want, doing what you please.″

″Oh, sometimes I′d have been glad of a few guards,″ Rudi said cheerfully. ″And there are drawbacks to being footloose and fancy-free, your Majesty. Why, I remember—″

The sound was faint, but Rudi recognized it instantly; an arrowhead or crossbow-bolt striking in bone. The breath hissed out between his teeth; that was
not
part of the plan. The Cutters should have been
stopped
outside, with Rudi′s friends—and the Heuisinks, Ingolf′s allies—doing the stopping and the State Police swooping down to halt the brawl. Then the Bossman would wash his hands of them and expel both . . .

Something went wrong
, Rudi thought, as his hand went to the hilt of a sword that wasn′t there.
But as Sir Nigel says, something always does. Or as Sam Aylward puts it, sodding pear-shaped is the shape to expect.

″Your Majesty, I think you′d better call those guards of yours,″ he said quietly, but his voice was pitched to the level of command. ″Call them
now
.″

Anthony Heasleroad was no fool; Rudi had reluctantly come to that conclusion some time ago.

But if those who had the raising of him had set out to ruin him, they could have done no better. If I was a Christian, I′d attribute it to the sins of the fathers. Or if I were a Buddhist like the good Rimpoche Dorje, I′d conclude he must have been a
monster
in some previous life.

He watched the warning sink through layers of drink-fuddled incomprehension, and then through a gauze of arrogance deeper still.

″Butler!″ the Bossman called.

Then as Rudi began to move: ″What the hell are you doing, you red-haired beanpole?″

A long scream came from below, where the stairs gave on the main hall. Then a shattering clash of steel on steel, and the sharp hard banging of blades on the leather of shields, and a war cry that made his lips peel back from his teeth:

″Cut! Cut!
Cut!
″

And another scream: not of pain this time, but of horror, an animal cry of disgust rising into the squeal a rabbit gave when the talons closed on it. Rudi leapt to the door and struck it with his shoulder. There was no time for subtlety now. It crashed open, and revealed a man falling backward with his arms flailing; he met another at the head of the stairs and both tumbled down them.

Rudi′s hand moved with blurring speed, sweeping their swords out of the rack the guardsmen had been standing sentinel over and leaping back in a ten-foot bound from a standing start. By then Odard and Mathilda were by the door themselves, slamming it shut again and shooting home the bar; the baron of Gervais whirled a heavy chair over and jammed the top home beneath the brackets. Anthony Heasleroad was looking at them blank-faced, then with a dawning suspicion.

The bundle of weapons in Rudi′s hands included the Bossman′s shete. It had a good deal of silver and niello filigree on the sheath, and jewels set in the guard, but the blade was steel as good as any Rudi had ever seen. He tossed the weapon at the Iowan ruler, still in the scabbard. The heavyset young man gripped it clumsily, staggered back into his chair and rose again, drawing the weapon with a flick of the wrist that showed some skill.

Though I′d swear he lacks the endurance to use it for more than one or two strokes. But at least it′ll convince him faster than words that
we′re
not out to kill him.

″What′s the meaning of this?″ he said as Rudi followed the throw by handing the two Portlanders their blades, then raised his voice: ″Guards!
Guards!
″

The sound of fighting had died away, far faster than it should have; the sudden coppery smell of blood was shockingly strong. The prickling along Rudi′s spine intensified, and his scalp crept, as if his hair was trying to bristle as did a lion′s mane before battle. Everything looked normal, but he could feel
gaps
about him, as if bits and pieces of the world were vanishing from the edge of sight, only to reappear when his eyes moved in that direction.

I′ve felt something a little like this
, he thought.
On Samhain, and in some of the rites.

Not often, and never so strongly. He was no great loremaster, for all that the Otherworld had touched his life often. He knew little more than any Initiate.

But this feels
wrong
, so it does. Someone is using Art, but without any thought for the order of the world, or the Law of Threefold Return. That will fall upon him in the end, but before then what evil may it do!

″The guards—″ he began.

A crash came from the door. That barrier wasn′t the massive fortress-style portals that closed the exterior of the building. Carved panels splintered under the blows of heavy blades—at this moment you remembered that the shete had started out as a chopping tool a mere generation before. The steel flicked through in glimpses of brightness against dark oiled ornamental walnut. When the upper panel was a sagging mass of splinters a man′s helmeted head completed the ruin,
butting
through the remains.

Heasleroad cried out in relief. ″Captain Butler! What is going—″

The guardsman looked at him, smiling through the gashes the splinters had cut in his flesh; one eye leaked clear matter down his cheek, running in thick threads through the red of blood.

″
Kill,
″ he said, his grinning teeth wet. ″
Kill—them—all. Kill—
″

″Happy to oblige,″ Odard de Gervais snarled, and struck.

He was a man of middling size, but strong and very quick. The longsword blurred down in a silver arc; there was a heavy wet sound, and underneath it a crack of parting bone.

″Haro!″
he shouted, and then the war cry of his House: ″Face Gervais,
face death!
″

The head sagged free, held by only a shred of flesh. Blood spurted out into the room, but for one long instant the body′s hands scrabbled beside the severed neck, trying to enlarge the hole through the broken wood. Then it went limp, and other hands pulled it back.

A billhook smashed through; Odard cut again, but this time the blade skidded with a shower of sparks off a sheath of steel wire wound around the wooden shaft behind the business end of the polearm. The weapon jerked back and then probed at him, thrust two-handed with a savage, skillful snap. He skipped back just in time, or a little later than that; the sharp point of the spike touched his breast, and a dark stain spread on the colorful cloth of the jupon.

″Here!″ Mathilda cried.

She tossed him a shield; there were two, done up for Anthony Heasleroad′s amusement in the Lidless Eye of the Armingers, with the baton of cadency across one, and the
mon
symbol of the House of Liu—the Chinese ideograph for
Poland
, for his father′s mother, silver on red on black on the other. There hadn′t been any reason to make the shields genuine, but there hadn′t been any reason not to, either, and Mathilda had taken full advantage of the Bossman′s expense account.

So these were the real article, elongated triangles four feet from rounded point to curved top, made of plywood and bullhide and covered in thin sheet metal, with the padded loops on the inside parallel to the length.

″Bless your foresight, Matti!″ Rudi said. ″Flank me—not in plain sight of the door!″

The two Associates took up the stance Portlander men-at-arms used for fighting on foot; left fist at chin height, which put the upper edge of the shield just under the eyes and the point at shin level, and swords over their heads with the hilts forward. Rudi had no protection but the little buckler clipped to the side of his longsword′s sheath. He took that in his hand, some part of him wishing they had all their fighting gear at hand; with a western knight′s head-to-toe panoply the three of them could hold the doorway in turn, and only be badly hurt by accident.

You fight with what you have, when you have to
, he thought.