Emperor and Clown (54 page)

“You
bring another army like the last one?”

“I
brought no one, but I offer you blades. Now, do the imps hide under beds and
let the jotnar have all the swords?”

“No!”
a few timorous souls somewhere said uncertainly.

“Well,
then . . .” Hononin’s angry old eyes settled momentarily on Rap, and paused.
Inos wondered what message might be passing there, or what sorcery in use. Then
his gaze flickered around the room, and the bent shoulders straightened. “When
you put it like that, ma’am, I wouldn’t mind spitting a couple of those young
brutes myself.”

Inos’s
head swam with sudden relief. She swayed on her perch and felt her shoulders
being steadied. “I appoint you leader, then. Bring your men to the bailey with
the others! Revenge!”

A
shout of “Revenge!” sprang up, but she thought she heard a few of “Gods save
the queen!” also. Then she was on her way to the door again.

“Even
better!” Rap crowed, hauling her along the alley. She was breathless, soaking
wet inside all her cumbersome garments. He almost dragged her up a long flight
of stairs to the Sailor’s Head.

That
was where she first noticed women present, and she added a new command: “Women
come, also, and attend to the girls those animals stole! They must be rescued
unharmed!” And there it was the women who started the shouting.

The
Golden Ship ... The King’s Men ... The Three Bears ...

She
had never realized how many saloons Krasnegar had. She made a note to tease Rap
about his experience with them all. And they were not a third of the way up the
hill yet.

Then
he pulled her into a side corridor and stopped. “Listen!”

She
listened-a deep roar, far away, like surf or continuous thunder. It was all
around them. The town had come alive like a stirred anthill.

“The
men of Krasnegar!”

“Rap!
We’ve done it! We’ve done it! No, you did it.”

“It
was you,” he said softly.

It
was the weapons, mostly. Even an adept should not be this effective, and she
suspected he’d put a sorcery on her, a majesty. But he gave her no time to ask.

“Fasten
your coati Some of them are ahead of us. We’ve got plenty already, and they’ll
collect more. Ready?”

Shock!

Again,
cold and dark like hammerblows ... She gasped and clutched her coat over her
chest. “Rap! You didn’t give me time!”

“No
time!”

They
were standing at the postern gate again, and he was staring back across the
drift-filled yard, awash with moonlight. A narrow track across it had been
trampled clear by many feet, leading from the mouth of Royal Wynd, the covered
way that connected castle and town. A wider opening in the walls marked the
start of the wagon road, but that would be filled with snow, abandoned until
springtime. Yet now it showed a flicker of light, the same yellow glow that
shone on the undersides of the drifting vapor clouds rising from every chimney.

“Gods!”
Rap said. “The whole town’s coming!” And Inos could hear the singing-there was
an army fighting its way up the street, and probably another coming up the
covered walks. She tried not to think of the dangers, of people being crushed.
She had started a revolution and must pay the price, whatever it turned out to
be.

Her
teeth started to chatter.

“Sorry!”
Rap murmured absentmindedly, and at once she was cozy warm all over, from ears
to toes. He was still clad in only the simple pants and halfunbuttoned tunic he
had worn indoors in Kinvale. His boots and shirt were thin, southern wear, his
head was bare.

It
was the postern that was bothering him. For eight months of the year the castle
gates stood closed, drifted shut by thick snow. Only the little postern gate
stayed open always, just wide enough for a man or a horse. An army could not
pass through such a slot.

Rap
stuck his head inside and peered around, then came out again. “Evil-begotten
nuisance, this shielding,” he mumbled. Again he studied the far side of the
court. “If the raiders wake up in time and can get here to hold this door, then
I’ll have to show my hand. I think I’d rather do it this way. Come on!”

He
pulled her back along the snowy track a few paces. Even as he did so, she heard
the gates creak. Slowly, noisily, and occultly, the two great flaps began to
swing forward, crunching mountains of snow ahead of them. When they stood about
halfway open, Rap released them.

“That
should be enough,” he said. “I wonder if anyone will ever think to ask who
opened the castle?” The noise of singing was louder now, the chimney smoke was
glowing brightly overhead. A line of lights came into sight up the hill-men
bearing torches, twenty or more abreast, floundering through the snow, cursing
and stumbling. They were being propelled by the rank behind them as inexorably
as Rap had moved the gates, and that rank by more behind it. The steaming mass
advanced up the hill as irresistible as moving pack ice. Any man who fell was
going to be trampled, but those first brave leaders were having the worst of
it. The rest were finding easier going, and the singing came from them. Another
mob suddenly erupted from Royal Wynd, a darker company against the snow, men
without torches. They continued to pour into the courtyard, and now the main
mass was at the top of the road.

“Come
on!” Rap took Inos’s wrist again, and they ran before the advancing
horde-through the barbican, past the guardroom door, into the bailey. Her
father had fought a losing battle every winter to keep the bailey as clear of
snow as was practical, but this year no one seemed to have tried very hard. She
floundered through drifts as Rap pulled her over to the armory steps.

“Stand
up here!” he said. He was not even panting; his stupid boots were probably full
of snow. “Here they come-hold this!”

Somehow
Inos found herself teetering on top of a wall and clutching a monstrous torch,
hissing and spluttering, with leaping flames as long as her arms. It was so
heavy she almost dropped it.

Before
she could complain, the archway flickered and rumbled. With swords shining in
the light of their torches, with their feet crunching on the hard-frozen snow,
with voices raised in defiant song, the men of Krasnegar stormed into the
bailey.

Inos
felt her heart swell and tears prickle at her eyes. She had summoned her
people, and they had rallied to their queen! Her speech was ready on the tip of
her tongue as the vanguard reached her perch. She raised her flaming brand in a
heroic gesture and cried out, “My loyal subjects-”

The
army went right by her without an, upward glance. Nothing she could say was
going to be heard anyway. Echoes boomed from the walls as the bailey filled up
with roaring men, their leaders already past the kitchen quarters and the
stables and the wagon sheds, advancing’ remorselessly on the Great Hall. More
and more poured past Inos, the forgotten leader.

She
peered around for Rap and found him below her, in the corner between the steps
and the armory wall. He was doubled over, helpless with laughter. She could not
recall ever having seen Rap laugh like that. She hurled her torch down at him
in fury.

“Idiot!
There are people being killed in there! Do something!”

He
sprang up beside her as nimbly as a grasshopper. He had stopped laughing, but
the old familiar half grin curled around the corners of his mouth. “You want me
to call them back to listen to your harangue?”

“No-of
course I was wrong! But let’s get in there!”

“Right,”
he said cheerfully, and moved them both to the Throne Room. Shock!

It
was a good vantage point. The revelers in the Great Hall had just awakened to
their peril. There was shouting and confusion. The jotnar were pulling on
helmets and sword belts-even clothes in some cases. The orchestra wailed into
silence. Then the great doors crashed open and a foam of swords and smoking
torches rolled into the hall, the crest of a tidal wave of men.

Inos
hauled off her thick coat, discarding mitts and boots in the same flurry of
movement. “Shoes!” she demanded.

“Just
like that? How about some proper respect?” But Rap ensorceled shoes onto her
feet. They pinched her toes.

The
young jotnar were no cowards and as trained fighters they knew how to deal with
a trap. Hastily forming a wedge, they charged the invasion, but they were too
late to take the door. Servants, musicians, and girls all fled screaming from
the developing battle, and the only place that offered even temporary shelter
was the Throne Room. Behind them the Great Hall rang with clashing swords. Men
howled curses and roared defiance. Tables and benches went over, dishes rolled
and smashed; bodies were falling on top of them.

The
first naked girl to arrive was Uki, the miller’s youngest. Inos threw her coat
to her and scrambled up on a chair, raising her arms in welcome to the rest.
The panicking mob stumbled to a halt, staring in disbelief.

Voices
cried, “Inos!” and “The princess!”

“I
am your queen, and Krasnegar is liberated!” Their replies were hardly audible
over the hubbub of battle out in the hall. Inos waved an arm at the door to the
stairs. “The room above here is- warm!” she yelled, hoping Rap would take the
hint. “Women upstairs!” The closer girls heard her and raced that way. The rest
followed, piling up in the entrance in a squirming mass of bare flesh. The men,
including Rap, watched the performance with interest.

Inos
was more concerned with the fight beyond the arch. She could see blood,
shockingly bright in the flickering torchlight, and men were going down. No one
had armor. But sheer weight of numbers was starting to carry the day, and the
citizens were roused now, even imps screaming jotunn war cries back at the retreating
brigands. In a moment it would all be over.

She
lifted her skirt and leaped from the chair. She ran for the throne, trusting
her court sorcerer to follow. As she jumped up on the scarlet cushion, she
wondered what her father would have thought of all this. She hoped that Kade
was right, and he would have been just a little bit proud of her now.

The
tide of battle died out as one last half-naked jotunn was hacked down almost at
her feet by three imps simultaneously. The shouting in the hall was fading,
although a huge multitude outside still bellowed its eagerness enter.

Rap
was with her, standing alongside the throne. She reached out and tousled his
hair. There was frost on it. “Bell?”

At
once the great bell of the castle boomed.

“Gods
save the queen!” a voice cried. Others began to pick it up in refrain: “Gods
save the queen!” Boom! “Gods save the queen!”

Boom!
went the bell in the distance.

Bloody
swords were being waved overheaddangerously. Pale faces and brown faces were
grinning at her in a dazzling sea of faces. But her troubles were only
beginning. Somehow she must gain control over this beast mob she had roused.
They had swords. Most of them were reeling drunk-if not from beer, then from
excitement. There had been few weapons in her father’s kingdom. If imp and
jotunn fell out now, there would be a much greater bloodbath.

She
held up both arms for silence, and the noise began to dwindle.

But
not fast enough. “Quieten them, please,” she said softly, and a hush fell.

“If
there’s a body near you, and it’s one of the Nordlanders, please drag it out
and throw it over the north battlements!” That command brought a brief cheer
and some turbulent movement within the throng. “Help the wounded over to the
fireplace!” She wondered how many of her followers had died in the last few
minutes, and decided not to mention those. “I am Queen Inosolan, and I claim
this throne by right of inheritance!”

Another
cheer, not quite so loud. “Money” she whispered.

“Money?”
Rap echoed, looking up at her in astonishment.

He
had told her himself that there was no money left in the town. She could not
guess how the people were surviving without it-by some form of barter,
presumably.

She
peered over the nearby faces, and the only one she recognized was the old
hostler. He was small and stooped, with both hands in his pockets, but his
gnarled old face was grinning at her. Evidently he had given his sword to some
younger man, but he was honest and respected.

“Master
Hononin! Set up a table by the door. I have brought money. Buy back the
swords-five crowns per blade.”

His
jaw dropped. “Five?” Boom!

“Five
crowns per blade! Here, Sergeant, give this man the coin.”

Rap
snorted, but he held out two huge leather bags. The old man pushed forward
grumpily, tried to take one in both hands, and dropped it. It fell with a
metallic crash that silenced the returning tumult.

Boom!

“All
surviving members of my father’s council pray attend me!” Inos shouted. “Help
him, Rap!” she whispered.

But
Hononin was already snarling orders to recruit assistants, and in a moment the
money was heading for the door. Now the important thing was to clear the hall
while she still had control.

She
saw another familiar face. “Mistress Meolorne! The girls we rescued are
upstairs in the Presence Chamber. Will you please take care of them-see they
are clothed and returned to their families?”

Boom!

Quietly:
“You can stop that accursed bell now, thank you.”

Louder:
“Tonight the beer is free! Tell every tavernmaster in town that when you toast
your queen tonight, the crown will pick up the tab!”

The
resulting cheer shook the castle, and a whirlpool developed near the door as
eager subjects began hurrying off to drink to her health before the supplies
ran out-as they surely would, unless Rap chose to intervene.

Inos
paused to consider her next move, rubbing her throat.