Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda (34 page)

The grand finale of their performance involved throwing at least a dozen lit torches back and forth between the leader and the boy and girl, while the silverhorns took up a low, mournful wail, as though foreshadowing an awful burn.

But the finale came off without injury; one by one, the elder juggler picked the flaming brands out of the air and planted them in the sand at his feet, and then the brother and sister flipped themselves into the air, landing beside him in perfect unison, while the three jugglers bowed to scattered applause.

“Very nice,” the margrave said. “Do you keep these about?”

“No,” Thomen said. “They’re just traveling performers — although I think they are quite good, don’t you?”

“Very good, indeed.”

“But you were asking about our troops,” Thomen said, “so I thought that they might provide a little entertainment, as well?”

“Oh? Do they juggle or sing?”

There it was again. Not quite obviously offensive, but just shy of it.

“Neither, I’m afraid,” Thomen said. He looked over at a servant and gave a signal, and another servant brought out a wicker basket that appeared to be filled with gourds.

“I thought you might enjoy watching some of what our lancers can do.”

The basket was filled with green and purple gourds; the servant lined up more than a dozen on a low table near where the jugglers had been performing, then quickly set the basket down and walked away.

“I am, of course, interested in whatever you have to show me,” the margrave said.

Her son was an idiot.

What he should have been doing was lulling the Nyphs into a sense of security, while as quietly as possible raising armies. It took a preposterously short time to take a shit-footed peasant and turn him into a soldier — as long as you could give him a rifle, and not expect him to learn how to use a sword, or spear, or bow. You couldn’t expect, so Garavar said, peasant soldiers to stand against a cavalry charge, or to close with even a broken army in the field, but the massed fire of hundreds of them could prepare the way for the real soldiers.

Peasant levies, after all, had been instrumental in breaking Holtun.

It was only a matter of time. Guns could as easily be turned on the Empire, after all, and they would be. Right now, they were rare — although she was sure that every aged dung pile in the Middle Lands was being turned over for saltpeter, and there were constantly trains of wagons leaving the Waste of Elrood, piled high with foul-smelling sulfur. It would certainly be a long time before any other country had any quantity of rifles as well made or accurate as those that the Imperial engineers made in their shops, not to mention the more elegant ones that were made in Home, but even this Nyph noble had arrived in Biemestren with a company of Nyph riflemen.

That traitor, Walter Slovotsky, had let the secret of making gunpowder slip from his lips, and now there were rifles — cruder than the Imperial rifles that were manufactured by Home engineers, granted, but rifles nonetheless — and soon there would be cannons all over the Middle Lands, and the whole Eren region, for that matter.

The time to strike was soon, and the sooner the better. Let Thomen grab the border Nyphien baronies, say, and perhaps some of Kiar and Enkiar, and nobody would even dare to think that anybody other than Thomen Furnael belonged on the throne.

Instead, of course, he put on a show.

Hoofbeats thundered from the direction of the front gate. That Greta Tyrnael stiffened, and started to rise, but desisted when Thomen laid a hand on her arm.

“Please keep your seats,” Thomen said, raising his voice, “there’s no need for concern.”

While the nobles forced themselves to sit back down on their chairs on the grandstand that cupped the edge of the inner courtyard, a full dozen of the Emperor’s Own galloped through the open gate and into the courtyard. Save for their helmets, which were lashed to their saddles, they were in full armor, from head to toe, and each of their shields was decorated only with the Imperial dragon.

Hooves beating hard against the gravel, each of the cavalrymen galloped in through the open gates, circled the donjon, and at a full gallop, each one snared a small gourd on the tip of his lance, then brought his horse to a prancing halt in line in front of the grandstand.

It wasn’t quite as dramatic as it should have been — several of the gourds had simply split on the lances, and one had fallen as the decurion had raised his spear, and splattered his right pauldron and haubergeon with orange gourd guts that quickly leaked down onto his greaves.

“Very nice, very nice indeed,” the margrave said. Den Hacza’s hand fluttered at the end of his wrist like a butterfly. “Such precision is impressive.”

Instead of waiting for the Emperor to speak, that annoying Lord Miron fluttered his own wrist back at the margrave.

“It’s not precision, I would say, as much as it is the … intensity of it all. It’s one thing to see it on a nice, sunny afternoon — but I remember, as a boy, seeing the Emperor’s Own bearing down on our good Holtish troops — and I’ll tell you, Margrave, that our own Holtish troops were every bit as good as any you’ll find in Nyphien — and watching men turn and run that I and my father had sworn would have stood steady in the face of anything.”

He was sitting close — too close — to both Leria and that annoying Greta Tyrnael, leaving Thomen looking more abandoned than regally alone.

If that Greta chit carried, as she did, a feminized version of her father’s good looks, she had none of the focused intensity that Beralyn had always admired in Willen Tyrnael. Beralyn would have rather that her every move be calculated, from the polished sardonyx stones that bedecked her hair to the way that the hem of her dress revealed too much smooth, shapely ankle, but Beralyn had the distinct impression that it was all just random, mindless, like the way she giggled loudly — too loudly — at every one of Miron’s japes.

It had taken no great effort for Beralyn to say a few unkind words about that Greta to Thomen, although she had had to be careful to not be too transparent. This Greta would be an acceptable match — and if Thomen didn’t choose her, there were easily a dozen young ladies of perfectly acceptable lineage in the capital at the moment, and more available on demand. Leria Euar’den had, surprisingly, been very useful in helping to arrange social occasions for visiting young nobles — she seemed to have quite a knack for it.

“Oh,” Greta said. “I so dislike hearing talk of war on such a pleasant day.”

Thomen smiled, and reached out and rested his hand on hers. “Then we shall have no more talk of war,” he said. “Peace is not nearly as good for building legends, but much better for the building of nations.”

The margrave mirrored Thomen’s smile as he reached for his glass. “That’s worth inscribing on the castle gates, if you don’t mind my saying so. Still, that was very impressive.” His hand fluttered again toward where the horsemen still stood in line.

The goo from the shattered gourds still dripped down the side of the decurion’s face, but he stared unblinkingly ahead, as though not noticing.

“That aside, there are much more pleasant things to talk of than war,” Miron said, “and even more entertaining to talk of than trade and treaties, if the Emperor doesn’t mind me saying so.”

“Like, for example, the various marriages that are in the offing?” the margrave suggested. “I understand that the lovely Lady Leria is soon to be married to your brother.”

“Yes, the Dowager Empress was kind enough to summon her here to discuss the arrangements.” Miron nodded. “It’s quite a touching story. They were childhood sweethearts, you know, and Forinel took it into his head to abandon his duties in the barony, and hared off to the Katharhd, having all sorts of just wonderful adventures, although I’ve never quite heard all the details, and if there’s some reason why they have … decided not to wait until the autumn Parliament, I —”

“I don’t think you have ever asked your brother for any of the details,” Leria said. “I think you’ve been far too busy complaining to everybody with a title, here and in Keranahan, that Forinel is unsuited for running a barony, and that you ought to —”

“Enough.” The Emperor raised a hand. “I have no objection to us airing our minor disputes out loud. In fact, I insist on it — although I also insist that we don’t do it in front of Margrave Den Hacza. After all, I wouldn’t want any of you to give the margrave the impression that Holtun-Bieme is other than united.”

“Of course it is not,” Miron said. “It’s utterly clear that the margrave is far too wise to not fail to think anything other than otherwise.”

Miron’s compounded double negatives were hard for Beralyn to follow, which was no doubt intended.

“Please.” The margrave waved the issue away. “It’s of no import — in fact, I find these open discussions something of a relief from the … strictures of King Belerus’s court. It’s far more free, and frankly more interesting, here. We have all these visitors from Pandathaway, Kiar, Enkiar — it seems that one can hardly take a step without tripping over some visiting envoy, delegate, or ambassador.”

The fact that the margrave was mentioning that meant that he knew that the Emperor knew about those visitors. Not that Thomen had seen fit to mention so much as a word about it to his own mother.

Den Hacza took a pastry off a tray and nibbled at it. “Still, I’m curious as to the subject of this demonstration, if you don’t mind my saying so. It’s long been understood by all that the Empire’s cavalry are perhaps even the equal of our own — our horses are better, of course, and I think I see more than a little Nyphien breeding in some of their mounts — but as for me, I’d find it much more entertaining to see a demonstration of rifle marksmanship. I think that my own troops have taken quite well to this new thing — although I must tell you that we’ve now more than a few deaf decurions; it’s quite noisy.

“But one hears so much about your soldiers’ accuracy with rifles, and while I’m not a skeptical man, I’ve always thought that it’s much more interesting to see something myself than it is to hear tales.”

Thomen nodded. “If you wish it, then it can surely be arranged.”

“I’d like that very much,” the margrave said. “Could we arrange for that, perhaps, tomorrow, before I have to take my leave? I —”

“Why not now?” Thomen pushed himself to his feet, and smoothed his tunic down around him, then held up a hand, fingers spread, when the rest started to rise. “Please, sit — this is just for …” He stopped himself, and shook his head. “No, perhaps everybody should see. It might be entertaining.”

He turned to Beralyn. “Mother, would you be kind enough to lead anybody who is interested up to the ramparts — the eastern walk?”

He turned about, picked up another gourd from the table, and walked over to where the horsemen were still waiting.

***

Beralyn plodded slowly up the steps. Let the others follow at her pace. Everybody in the courtyard had, of course, decided to be interested, which was just as well for them.

The margrave was quickly at her elbow. “May I offer my arm?”

She forced herself to smile. “Why, of course, and I thank you.”

She took hold of his offered arm, but didn’t rest any weight on it. She was perfectly capable of walking, after all. She was old, yes, but she wasn’t a cripple. She would have snapped at any Biemish who had dared to suggest that she couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs by herself — she had had to do that once, only — but if somebody was going to offend the margrave, it wouldn’t be her. Control was important.

What was Thomen doing, though?

The margrave asked the same question out loud. “I’m curious as to what the Emperor has planned. Would you consider enlightening me?”

She forced a smile. “I think that the Emperor would have told you, if he didn’t want it to be a surprise.” She tried to nod knowingly. “My son is a very straightforward man, generally, but he does like his little surprises.”

The margrave didn’t make any comment.

The party spread out on the walkway, looking down into the courtyard. They had passed the rampart where she had, far too long ago, scrawled Derinald’s name in chalk, and she watched carefully to see if anybody glanced down toward it.

“You seem preoccupied,” the margrave said. “If you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Not at all,” she said.

“To which?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you not as preoccupied as you seem, or do you not mind my observation?”

Smiling at him was easy. It was nice to be flirted with, as though she were a girl. It would have been nicer if the margrave weren’t distracting her from watching the rest of the crowd that had spread out across the ramparts.

Nobody seemed to pay much attention to the buttress, one way or the other, as far as she could see. Which was unfortunate — if Tyrnael’s agent in the castle was one of the local nobles, or one of the visiting ones, he or she was well disciplined. Which, she supposed, was to be expected.

The horsemen still stood there, and the servants were moving about, removing glasses and plates. What was Thomen up to? And where was he?

“Your attention, if you please,” Thomen’s distant voice called out from — from
behind
her?

It took all her self-control to force herself to turn slowly and look out onto the outer bailey.

Braying and snuffling, the herd of goats scattered madly as Thomen brought his borrowed horse to a prancing halt at the far end of the bailey, almost under the outer wall.

“Your attention all, if you please,” he said, again. His voice carried easily over the light breeze. “I’m pleased that my friend the margrave Den Hacza has asked to see a demonstration of Imperial marksmanship.” He held up the gourd, off to one side. “I’m even more pleased to be able to provide him with one that I hope he will find entertaining.”

No. He couldn’t be.

“
Now
!” Thomen shouted.

A shot rang out, and the gourd exploded, fragments splattering Thomen’s purple tunic.

There was silence. Thomen reached down and pulled a cloth from his belt, and wiped his face.