One for the Morning Glory (14 page)

The Prince nodded. "Suppose, though, that they are coming—then we gain time and preparation. Suppose they are not—then they lose many spies and we gain much in provision, so they will have to put it off longer. So long as we don't yet take men from their work to make them soldiers, the longer Waldo puts war off the stronger we are."

Cedric nodded. "We will do so, then."

Without turning from where she had been standing, Calliope asked, "Tell me again, Cedric: by what right does Waldo claim Overhill? Is it not part of the Kingdom?"

"It was once," Cedric said, for though he knew that Calliope knew everything he was going to say, and did not need to hear it, she had reasons for wanting Sir John and the Duke to hear it—she wanted to make sure the war would not end with sending Waldo's army back into Overhill.

So did Cedric. And if the Prince's friends, loyal tools of Cedric they had so often been, could not be convinced of the necessity of destroying Waldo rather than merely beating him, it would tell Cedric much about the politicking yet to be conducted.

Thus Cedric was carefully neutral in his explanation, as if Calliope were merely a bright, interested student of history: "Lady, some sixty kings ago. King Baldric the Easily Persuaded was King in the city, and he had a younger brother, Pannier by name. Pannier was a difficult sort, more so even than most younger brothers, and it became increasingly desirable to get him out of town and away from the capital, where he caused endless trouble. To this end, King Baldric created the title of Deputy Sub King in Charge of the New Lands, and since Overhill had just been settled, and Oppidum Optimum founded, he gave his brother the title and a seat, which put him many days' journey away.

"This should have sufficed, but Pannier was much more than merely unruly, as it turned out. At first the courtiers around him learned to shorten his title down to Sub King, and then to drop the Sub, and at last he was in most ways the King of Overhill, until he went so far as to have a crown made, and then finally to place it on the brow of his son, Farthingale.

"Now at such a pass, heaven knows, many kings would have gladly fought against encroachment, but Baldric was fond of his brother, and fond of his troops, and saw that there was little to be gained from war and much to be gained from friendship, and so he ceded Overhill to the line of Farthingale, until such time as the line should become extinct, and Farthingale, being just as ambitious but not nearly so proud as his father, acquiesced in this by providing that if his line were to fail the succession would pass back here. Thus no war was fought and friendly relations were established.

"The ambition of the Kingdom was always to reunite the two kingdoms by marriage, so that one child might be born heir to both thrones, and princes and princesses from here often went courting in Overhill. Just as diligently, the Farthingalian dynasty of Overhill married carefully, avoiding anyone of our Royal lineage. And there matters stood—until Waldo seized power there."

Wassant nodded. "But it would follow, from what you say, that since he has slain their whole royal family . . ."

"That he is now occupying a province of the Kingdom, over which Boniface has jurisdiction. Yes. It would follow."

"But then . . ." Sir John was silent, for he was never entirely sure of himself when called upon to reason in words, and liked to chew things over a long time before reaching a conclusion. "It would seem that King Boniface and Waldo ought to be at war . . ."

Cedric shrugged. "Waldo is virtually at war with the human race. He has come close to war with Hektaria and Vulgaria more times than I can count. As for King Boniface, in the days just after Waldo's invasion, other things intervened; Boniface's father had left the Kingdom a mess, his Queen—forgive my saying this, Amatus—though he loved her, had brought him misery, his armies were in the worst sort of disarray. Had we invaded Overhill we should have lost. As it was we barely beat Waldo at Bell Tower Beach. There was much painful effort put into getting ourselves to our present readiness, and I think that now we will be able to deal with him—sufficiently, so that we will only need to deal with him
once.
"

"Well, if Overhill is ours, we ought to take it back, if we can," Sir John said, privately rejoicing because he now knew everything he needed to know, and could leave harder questions to others.

There was another long interval, for the Duke had arrived at that conclusion well before Sir John had, but had been trying to find a way to undo it. To defend both the Isought and the Ironic gaps, with enough reserves to throw Waldo back if a pass fell, would be difficult but not impossible; to that extent Wassant thought they could win the war. But to carry the fight through one of them, and down to Oppidum Optimum, and then to take the city that Waldo had been fortifying for more than twenty years—this was going to be something else altogether.

Not that they could not win, but it would be difficult at the least and just possibly they might lose. In any case many fine young men, who normally should only have to trifle about what their sweethearts wore to the fair and what their rivals might scheme in the way of clandestine meetings, were going to be torn, sliced, or blown to pieces.

And though after all everyone must die, and keeping Waldo out of the Kingdom and ending his threat forever was about as good a thing to die for as was apt to come along, it was surely a good thing not to die right away. In the service of his Prince, Wassant had probably killed forty-five or fifty men, almost all of them at close range, and he had seen them die, often been the only comfort they had (how odd, he thought, that he had held a dying man's hand and whispered that his mother would be there soon if he wanted her, and he had done this a dozen times, always for men whose lifeblood he had just let out with his pongee). Wassant knew how dying was done, at least in principle, and he knew that whether you did it screaming and weeping like a coward, or merely bowed your breast and succumbed with the soft sigh of a stoic, you ended up dead.

He thought that Calliope, who must be thinking the same thing, was also sad for the slaughter of young men. He certainly knew that she liked young men. But her real thoughts were of the tradition of her family, of never permitting Overhill to be reabsorbed, and how because she had not grown up among them she could feel none of the power of that tradition.

She was wondering if her butchered family would approve of what was going to happen, for she could think of no one save Amatus that she would want to marry, and that would be the end of Overhill as a separate kingdom. The common people of Oppidum Optimum, whom she had never seen—who had no idea that she had ever existed, for what had saved her life had been the laxity in record keeping at the time Waldo had seized the castle, so that her nurse had been able to flee with her by pretending to be a vegetable seller—would doubtless rejoice at anything that put an end to Waldo. And the people of the Kingdom, who had gotten proud of their good King, and his princely son with the interesting affliction, would undoubtedly be happy to make patriotic speeches and otherwise rejoice at the readdition of lands, especially since the slaughters Waldo had wreaked upon Overhill meant that much good land stood idle and unclaimed there.

But in all truth, could she claim to be upholding anything of her family's tradition, other than its bloodline? She had read both books in the Royal Library about Overhill custom, tradition, and court etiquette, but for all her knowledge, she would never feel it deep in her bones, as a proper queen should. As well, then, to let it all fade . . . but if it were as well to let it all fade, then why not give up her notion of being royalty, which could only endanger her life, and merely hope Amatus would marry her out of a foolish and unpolitical whim? And would she not—if she admitted the truth to herself—rather be married because he liked her than because the political situation demanded it?

Which brought her to that dark question itself, and just as she was thinking it, she felt Amatus's warm arm slide around her waist.

"Well, then," Amatus said, "it seems that what must be, will be. Cedric, I can ask you only one question that truly matters—in your judgment, best of counselors and judges, are we going to win?"

Now, where there had been no debate at all in Sir John, and only some regret in the Duke, and a full-fledged argument within Calliope, there was a virtual panel discussion within Cedric. As General of All the Armies, he knew that one is never ready enough and that anything one is doing today will bring its fruits later than expected, and so he wanted to say they were utterly unready. Yet in that same role as General of All the Armies, he knew just as well that his forces were in as fine and ready a condition as they had ever been, and that the odds, matching only troops against troops, were all in his favor.

And yet again, as General, he did not like to see his troops die—he had lavished too much care and attention on them to see that calmly.

And then as Prime Minister, a dozen more considerations of state intruded; and finally because he was sensitive as well as intelligent, Cedric was troubled personally by even more issues, questions, and things not known to us at this late date.

So it was only slowly that he brought himself to say, after a long sip of Gravamen and a moment to savor the quiet safety of the day, "Highness, it depends on several things. If the roads dry on his side before they dry on ours, then he might take the forts in the passes, for we cannot adequately garrison and supply them against that. But dry springs are rare in Overhill . . . unless he has worked some powerful magic, in which case we must also fear that he will have found allies of the old and foul sort, perhaps the goblins to mention the obvious, but there are older and fouler things than goblins farther under the earth. And finally, he may have allies we know nothing of; new lands are still opening and new peoples coming into them. The Hektarians and Vulgarians to his north are friendly to us, and even might offer us alliance, but we cannot be sure he does not have some people of whom we have not yet heard ready to march with him to plunder us."

Amatus nodded calmly. "Many things may go wrong and many surprises may be in store. But can we win, as far as you know?"

"We can beat what we know him to have, Highness, thoroughly enough to permit us to march across the mountains and take Oppidum Optimum. But I cannot say whether his moves are afoot now because he has found a new source of strength, or because he has come to fear he will grow weaker with time. Either could be the case."

Amatus nodded gravely, and—knowing he was imitating his father and no longer embarrassed by the fact—he added that Cedric's advice was particularly good because it was given with particular caution. And then, because he was still young, and so were his friends, he added, "And is there anything we can do tonight?"

"Highness," Cedric said, "your job is the difficult one of pretending that nothing is going on, and of scheduling a busy social schedule with a number of rounds to a variety of embassies. You might take the Lady Calliope with you."

"He might indeed," she said, smiling. Now that evenings had more light and warmth, she had been longing to be out and about.

"And what will it accomplish?" Amatus asked.

Cedric fought down his wish to say, "It might get us an unusually fine queen, one of these years," and instead replied, "It provides opportunities, Highness. You will force spies to move to follow you, and to communicate with each other, and this will expose them to the weapons of our friends here."

"So you will face danger while I attend parties? I won't hear of that—"

Sir John, to everyone's surprise, including his own, spoke first. "Highness, we will face those dangers because
we
must.
You
are the only bait that will draw them. The Duke and I could not lure four flies to a pile of manure. And though I trust it will not offend you, you are not the pismire shot I am, nor the Duke's equal with the pongee, nor do you truly match either of us with the escree. The work must be done, and my lord Cedric has been accurate about how and by whom."

Had it been as recent as a year ago, Cedric wondered, or had it been more like five, since he would have expected Prince Amatus to quarrel in defense of his honor? Now the Prince did no such thing, but nodded and spoke softly. "I shall try to be worthy of such service. And here, Duke Wassant, take this silver whistle from me, just for tonight, and blow it if you or Sir John are in trouble; it summons help, as you may recall."

And then, just as if the whole conversation had not passed at all, they returned to drinking wine, singing, and gossiping about the new wave of ladies in waiting, some of whom were not waiting very long.

The Hektarian Embassy, since time immemorial, had been noted for the quality of the tea given there; it was given late in the afternoon so that people would be all the hungrier, for the Hektarian Ambassadors wanted people to enjoy it, and Hektarian aesthetics are built around contrast.

The Hektarian Ambassador, who was unusually genial even among Hektarians, was particularly delighted today because Prince Amatus and the Lady Calliope, quite unexpectedly, turned up. Since the Hektarians serve tea as a buffet, so that people can converse and mingle more freely, there was no difficulty in handing them another plate, and it was with some delight that the Hektarian Ambassador also noted that Amatus, after accepting a plate of protons and simile and a glass of Gravamen, seemed to go out of his way to converse quietly with the Ambassador.

True, it was only pleasantries about the weather and family matters and so forth, but since one major aspect of the Hektarian foreign policy was to try to marry off one of their available princesses to Amatus, for the Ambassador to talk to the Prince about anything at all was desirable. And besides, he noted with some pleasure, one reason the conversation went on as long as it did was that one rather rude young man who seemed to be trying to work his way toward them—no doubt to petition for some favor or other—was intercepted by the Lady Calliope, who practically threw herself at the young fellow, standing very close to him and leaving him no courteous way to get closer to the Prince and the Ambassador. This was not the behavior of a woman who thought she was going to be Queen, and so some decision had plainly been made, which might account for the Prince's visit here.

If so the Prince was not rushing matters, whatever matters might be, for not long after he vanished from the party, collecting the Lady Calliope as he went.

As the two stepped through the archway, just out of hearing of the Hektarian guards, Calliope said, apparently to the air, "Young, blond, taller than Amatus, blue cloak and red boots, yellow star on the cloak, calls himself Miharry."

She said it softly, tenderly, as lovers do, and Amatus gently kissed her, so that even if the Hektarian guards had heard (and they did not) they would have thought the words they did not catch were endearments.

The two climbed into the Royal Coach and drove to the evening reception at the Vulgarian Embassy. The echoes of the clatter of their wheels were still sounding as Miharry himself strolled casually out through the gate.

He turned left, not in the direction the carriage had gone, and now he walked more quickly. As he did, he occasionally—at odd intervals—changed his gait, or turned around, but he saw nothing. If anyone had been looking back over his shoulder when Miharry was not, they might have seen a shadow that suggested a heavyset man, moving in a way that seemed improbable for one so fat, as gracefully and lightly as one of the girls who dance for flavins in the taborets.

Miharry stepped sideways into an alley. After a time he jumped out suddenly, looking wildly about him. There was nothing there. He stood in the dark street and sighed.

He was tilted backwards by the jaw. Something big was against his back. A blade as sharp as a razor lay on his throat.

"Where is your meeting?" a voice asked quietly.

Miharry did not speak.

"It does not greatly matter to me," the voice that went with the great bulk behind him added, softly. "You may struggle and die here, not struggle and be tortured until you speak, or speak. It is time to decide."

Miharry swallowed hard, and said, "I am sworn—"

"You are released from any oath at death," the Duke said, slicing Miharry's carotids and jugular and letting him fall forward, then wiping his blade on Miharry's triolet. He had always hated torture, and he hated to see honorable men break their word, and no doubt Miharry had some sort of honor. Spies usually did.

He made sure the spy was dead, and crept down the alley. Sure enough, he found a loose stone in a corner, behind which there was a piece of paper. He pocketed the paper and waited; from where Wassant sat, whoever moved that stone next would be silhouetted against the alley opening.

Then he drifted into the light sleep he had long practiced. Duke Wassant dozed pleasantly, his jaw tied lightly with a ribbon from his hat, because he knew that fat men often snore and even though he hadn't yet, he couldn't be sure when he might start. He woke without a start when there were footfalls in the alley.

The figure was muscular and well-built, and Duke Wassant knew it at once. He waited until the pismire was pointed off to the side, so as not to risk a snap shot, and said, "Sir John."

The figure did not move, except to let the pismire creep back toward the source of the sound. "Duke?"

"Yes."

"Give some sign."

Damn Sir John for his overcautiousness, anyway, Wassant thought, and then said, "No,
you
give sign. What birthmark does the Lady Calliope bear on her inner thigh?"

Sir John stood up straight. "I don't know
that!
"

'Then you are undoubtedly Sir John Slitgizzard. Anyone else would have made something up, being sure that you would know."

Chuckling, Sir John slid the pismire back into his swash—and then suddenly asked, "But we've only established that I'm me, Duke, what about you?"

"Who else would have asked you such a question?" The Duke came forward. "How was hunting?" he asked, putting his arm around Sir John's shoulder.

"Two of mine lying on top of your one. I'm ahead. I imagine mine were coming for a message from yours?"

"Very likely. Where did you pick them up?"

"The first at the Vulgarian Embassy, following the Prince out; the second joined him at a tavern. I left a man to watch at the tavern, a fellow named Hark . . ."

"I remember him, a great deal of experience, and often there when things that matter a great deal happen." The Duke and his friend walked back up the alley, still alert, and the Duke said, "If you noticed the time—"

"A bit past the shank of the evening," Sir John said, "by the bell clock."

"Then we might go to the playhouse. The torchlight show should be beginning, and Amatus was planning to see it."

"Good, then," Sir John said. "Let us catch a carriage . . . we shall be less conspicuous and there will be fewer rumors flying about us that way than if we are seen walking the streets."

The Duke nodded, and at the next big corner they found an old carriage, much battered but clean enough inside, and told the driver to go to the Sign of the Rambunctious Gazebo.

"The Prince's own company is performing tonight, and several of his favorite troupials are in the principal parts," Sir John observed.

Duke Wassant had never much cared for the theatre, for it was a vulgar place, where like as not one might encounter a pickpocket or cutpurse. Besides, he loved good music, and theatrical orchestras were raucous; fine dancing, and theatre dance was anything but delicate; and truthfulness, and everyone in the theater was pretending to be someone they were not. Sir John, on the other hand, was passionate about theatre, and babbled on as they rode, of the fine troupials they were to see.

"It is really a surprise, I understand, to everyone except Cedric, that Roderick should turn out a playwright, but apparently he has been quietly pursuing it for years and they say that this is a remarkable piece of work," Sir John said. "It is called The Masque of Murder, and it is said to be about—"

"Please, Sir John, don't get yourself into a fret about it; what if we have to pursue someone before the show is over? You'll only be disappointed." The Duke shifted his bulk around, looking for a more comfortable spot on the bench seat of the carriage.

Sir John nodded. "Of course you are right. But it is hard not to, after what I have heard of this play—and to think that the artist was under our very noses—" But then Sir John sat bolt upright; in the dim light of the flaring candle sconces, reflecting from the oilpaper windows, he had a haunted, shadowed look.

"What is—"

Sir John gestured for silence and turned to raise the oilcloth shutter a crack. Keeping his head well back, he peeped through the opening, and whispered, as softly as he could above the din of the carriage wheels on the cobblestones, "We've just crossed Wend. Wherever he's taking us it's not to the Rambunctious Gazebo. I'm afraid that—"

The carriage lurched and stopped; Sir John leapt sideways, and there was a thud. Wassant saw the blade of the escree stuck through the oilpaper into the cushion where Slitgizzard had been, and was drawing his pismire before his mind said what had happened . . .
kidnapped.

There was thumping on the carriage roof—the driver climbing back, or someone getting up there with a pismire to shoot them in the back if they burst out through the doors. With a slash of his escree, Sir John extinguished both sconces, and now it was darker inside the carriage than out.

In the pitch blackness there was nothing to see except the oval windows themselves shining through the oilcloth shutters, leaving a little square ring of light around themselves where the edge of the oilpaper was. There was no sound for a long moment, and then, very, very softly, the door lock began to turn.

Sir John cocked the chutney on his pismire, moved near the door whose lock was turning, and placed his hand upon the ceiling. He felt a little shift of weight, and now he knew where one of the foemen's feet was; pressed firmly along the ceiling, found the other by its resistance, and placed the pismire, muzzle against the ceiling, squarely between them. All this took far less time than it takes to tell, and during the bare quarter of a breath while it was happening, Duke Wassant had been cocking the chutney of his own pismire, and pressing his ear to the door to make sure that he knew from which side the unseen foe was turning the handle.

When he was sure, he placed his pismire close to the handle, in the spot where he knew the wrist must be, and watched the handle turn farther. It seemed to creep along, no faster than the minute hand upon a clock.

Wassant felt the soft tickle of a breath coming into his nose, and realized he was about to sneeze. He bit down on his lower lip as the door handle reached its full rotation.

So lightly as not to disturb him at all, and yet so firmly as to leave no mistake for its intention, Sir John's index finger touched upon the Duke's shoulder. With no jerk or tug to put the pismire the least off its mark, Wassant pulled the trigger, and both pismires bellowed like cannons in the enclosed space, their reports exactly overlapping.

The Duke kicked the door open, returned his pismire to his swash, and leapt through, drawing his escree in one smooth movement. He had footing on the cobbles and was whirling to check all sides before he realized that in the moonlight he had seen one man staring at the stump of his arm, and another slumped on the carriage roof, facedown, his hands jammed between his legs.

A dozen figures, all with escrees drawn, formed a semicircle around this side of the carriage.

A moment later Sir John was at his side. "Surrounded," Sir John breathed beside him. "All around the carriage. Wheels have been spoked—can't get it free and drive through."

Wassant nodded. Every one of the men facing them was hooded, and there were no torches to light them; they might have been statues.

They stood and waited, expecting the fight to begin at any moment, and when it did not, the Duke listened as the man who had lost his hand slipped into unconsciousness behind them, and then stopped breathing; listened longer as the ragged breaths of the man lying on his face faded away; listened and watched, and still the circle of silent swordsmen did not stir or speak.

His eyes had adjusted to the dark now, and he could see that their cloaks—gray-blue as all things were in the moonlight—were thick and hung with great weight on what seemed preternaturally slim bodies,

"What do you want with us?" Wassant demanded, when he began to fear that his attention might flag, yet did not want to begin the fight, for the numbers were so far against them that they would surely lose. "We are servants of the King and true liegemen to Prince Amatus. You have no right or power over us. Flee lest we slay you now."

The circle of men—if they were men—about them did not move or make a sound. Many fast heartbeats went by, and then all of them stepped forward, as if in unison, with their left feet first, and took a single step forward and to the side, so that the circle constricted by half a pace and rotated a few degrees. The line of escrees pointed at them never dropped.

Sir John drew a pismire and said, softly and casually, just as if he were debating a minor point in politics, "Since you have had ample opportunity to shoot us, and you have not, your behavior seems to suggest to me, my friends, that you have been ordered to take us alive. Would any of you care to elucidate on that point? It is plain from the deaths of our coachmen that you have been ordered not to avenge any comrades, or perhaps it has even been made clear to you that our lives are more valuable than yours. Perhaps we can just find out to what extent this holds."

Then he leveled his pismire at the figure most nearly facing him, cocked the chutney, took aim on a spot in the very middle of its body (for he had begun to wonder if it were anything human he faced), set the lovelock, and pulled the trigger.

The flash of the pismire's discharge seemed bright as day, and surely, Duke Wassant thought, this ought to bring help, and perhaps in any other part of the city it might—but this was the worst part, a place that few admitted was there, the section along Wend that was on no one's way to anywhere, where the houses had long since been abandoned because of fear of thieves and murderers, and whence the thieves and murderers had fled because things whose names they feared to speak had come to live in the houses, and gunge leaked up through the very pavement.

The figure before them bowled over backward, and lay still for an instant. Then it seemed to raise its head, and then to writhe peculiarly as if its neck were broken. It lay twitching upon the ground for longer than it seemed it should have been capable of twitching.