The Dinosaur Knights (5 page)

Felipe stripped off his linen trunks and the loincloth beneath at one go. Falk averted his eyes. These southerners had a scandalous lack of body modesty.

“Now, tell me, what have you heard of my daughter?”

“Nothing, I fear,” Falk said. “She and her wench are doing an excellent job of hiding from dutiful nobles and their vassals despite our sending alerts throughout the Empire to keep a watch for the fugitives.”

“Good,” Felipe said.

As a devotee of the Creator Torrey, or Turm in his native speech, as well as a firm believer in the principle of
order
, Falk should have spoken right up about how the Empire's own law was not to be taken lightly—least of all by the Emperor himself.

He did not. For one thing, Felipe
was
the Emperor, and belief in order meant belief in the hierarchy: that those above ruled those below by right. Nor was Falk so single-minded in his devotion to his principles as to be unaware that contradicting one's boss isn't always the soundest career move.

But mostly it was because he was thinking,
Good indeed. Better if she isn't captured at all
.

“She
did
escape imprisonment for treason, your Majesty,” he settled on saying. “With the help of her serving-maid, also a fugitive from the law.”

Felipe was just tying up a fresh loincloth. “And I quite agree with you that, drastic as it was, arresting her was the best way to get her out of the bull's-eye lantern glare—and away from the turmoil of Palace intrigue you've so ably been putting to rest, my dear boy.”

So pleased you feel that way, Majesty
, Falk thought. Inasmuch as “putting to rest the turmoil” had so far consisted of personally using his albino Tyrannosaurus war-mount Snowflake to publicly decapitate the Emperor's longtime friend and Prime Minister, Mondragón, and killing several of Felipe's own relatives. Granted, they were scurrilous rogues, and no one would miss them. Nor be the wiser that Falk's rise had entailed actively if briefly conspiring with them. And all that also left aside that Falk had acceded to his current post of chief Imperial bodyguard by the expedient of challenging its former older, also long in Imperial service, to a duel and then killing him.

Amazingly, all is actually going to plan
, he thought.
Or most of it
.

Mother, are you proud of me?
She wouldn't be, he knew.

One of Felipe's trailing servitor-gaggle tossed an elaborate ceremonial yoke of yellow ridiculous reaper feathers over his shoulders.

“There!” Felipe said, plucking the harness more satisfactorily into place as another servant fastened it with a brooch inset with a thumb-sized ruby. “Now I'm suitably Imperial to meet those beastly Trebs this morning. No doubt they'll be whining at me to give them an answer in the matter of marrying Melodía off to their Crown Prince Mikael. Which she's dead set against, not that I blame her.”

He turned his face to grin boyishly at Falk, frustrating the efforts of a servant to place a semiformal crown of gold set with rubies on his head right-way-to.

“Say, they can hardly blame me if my daughter's not to hand, can they? I couldn't hand her over to their fat, unwashed heir, even were I going to. Which the Creators give me strength and wisdom not to, since it's when you have formal alliance with the Basileus that those confounded intriguers find it most convenient to put the knife in. Plus she's not having any of it, of course.”

He shook his head. A second attempt at applying the circlet ended with it tipped at a dangerous if rakish angle forward and over one bulbous pale-green eye. The exceedingly stylized tyrant skull looked like some creature perching on His Majesty's close-cropped head like a cat and winking at Falk.

“Strong-willed girl, that,” Felipe said. “Say, just between you and me and the wall—”

And the servants
, Falk thought.
Who hear everything. And repeat it to
my
servant
.

“—be a good lad and quietly send out a stand-down on the alert, will you?

Falk managed to keep his answering smile tight-lipped, instead of splitting his beard with a foolish grin.

“As you wish,” he said.

Since I can't hope to order the bitch killed without losing my own head
, he was thinking.

Having Falk's head off was the kindest thing that His Imperial Majesty was likely to do to him if he found out what his new security chief had done to his adored daughter while she was in his custody, and the Creators' ban on torture be damned.

He must tread carefully—more so now than ever, precisely because of his powerful position. Most particularly he had to guard against a tendency to take Felipe for a rambling, ineffectual fool. Which error had led the Electors to choose to place his broad buttocks on the Fangèd Throne, under the misapprehension he'd be safe and do nothing to upset the Empire. Or the death grip his family, Torre Delgao, had held on the Empire's rule since its inception.

In fact the Emperor was highly intelligent—and highly ambitious to exercise the power latent in the throne in the face of centuries of calculated inaction. His activism had sparked a rebellion among the nobles of Alemania, among them Falk himself. And his nature, impulsive yet easily led—and not eager to reconsider an action, once taken—had also set Falk on the path to his present status, once he'd presented himself at court to repent theatrically of his error and throw himself on Felipe's mercy. Felipe did love his grand gestures.

He also loved his daughters, even though he tended to forget they existed when distracted by matters of state or his love for hunting, say. Falk's excess, drunk with triumph as well as wine—and the sly words of his manservant—could yet cost him and his mother everything they'd worked for over the years.

Still, Falk was well-pleased with the situation. Albeit not smug.
And that hada Bergdahl will prevent smugness from ever gaining a foothold in me
.

*   *   *

Rob jumped. Karyl sat up crisply.

A man stood in the doorway. He had a heroic paunch, with chest and shoulders to match or more. Coarse dark-blond hair was swept back from sun-reddened features of the sort called leonine, after the bestiaries of fabulous animals of First Home that were a favorite of every child. His green-trimmed brown tunic, tan hose, and brown suede boots were plain but clearly of expensive make. A belt supported a scabbarded broadsword. From the wear visible on the hilt it was no prop.

The town guards at the door stood deferentially away. Clearly, Rob noted, here stood a man of Consequence. Although his sheer presence would command attention regardless of his standing.

“Merchant Évrard,” Violette said. “I thought I sensed an unsavory smell.”

“Insult us as you wish,” Évrard said with a smile. “So long as you continue to pay us in the Count's good silver, we'll continue to feed you. Now, if it pleases the Council, allow me to rephrase: will you hear, not me, but my son, who fell sorely wounded protecting us all?”

For a moment Melchor, Longeau, and Violette looked ready to refuse. A feral growl rose from the crowd. Gaétan was popular to begin with. Whatever they felt about Karyl, the mob was eager to seize upon his unquestioned heroism despite the Blueflowers debacle. Perhaps the more so because of it.

Not leaving time for the hostile Councilors to object, youthful members of the merchant's extended family carried in a litter. On it lay Gaétan, still deathly pallid except for a fever-flush on his cheeks. As his kinsfolk bore him to the front of the hall, the onlookers packed into the central hustled aside, not scrupling to knock one another onto those seated on the benches.

Who muttered curses but made no effort to thrust them back toward the pallet and its being carried forward. So deeply ingrained was the terror of disease, even though everyone knew the kind that sometimes followed injury wasn't infectious. Ignoring them, the bearers set the litter on the open maroon tile floor at the foot of the dais.

“I want to give my testimony, if I may,” Gaétan croaked. He struggled to sit.

“Please, brave boy, don't trouble yourself,” Bogardus said.

“No. I won't lie like a lump. I need to speak. You need to listen.”

Like an eel through rocks his sister Jeannette made her way through the crowd to kneel at his side. With the help of his litter-bearers she helped him sit, half upright and propped in her lap. The thin sheet that covered him fell away from the bandages wound about his chest.

Violette said nothing. But her lips compressed to the vanishing point and her eyes turned briefly to slits.
Brave girl
, thought Rob, to risk the wrath of that one.

He knew the powerful Council member could make his sometime-lover's life in the Garden into Old Hell on Paradise. But he feared worse, somehow. Violette and her supporters had taken on an edge, recently. Something he couldn't put a name to.

He couldn't see Violette lowering herself to wielding a dagger herself. But she and her cohort Longeau had been willing, eager even, to adopt a rabidly aggressive strategy even as they continued to mouth words of pacifism. He didn't find that reassuring.

Haltingly, Gaétan spoke. “We'd marched a kilometer or two west from Pierre Dorée, that village abandoned last year after the bastard Guillaume sacked and burned it. Master Rob's scouts reported they'd found Salvateur's forces not far past a rise just ahead. Captain Karyl ordered us to take up positions blocking the road, in and in front of the woods we were just passing through, where the goblins couldn't all come at us at once.

“Then suddenly the town lords were out in front of us, asserting their ancient right of command, so-called. Longeau gave a rousing speech about how we had to attack at once. And most of our people went charging forward, obedient as dogs.”

Gaétan paused. His face twisted briefly. Rob could only guess at the pain from his wound stabbing through his chest.

“I wanted to go with them,” Gaétan said. “I really did. But Karyl ordered us to hold back. I obeyed.”

The audience recoiled, with a joint hissing inhalation. “Stop helping us,” Rob muttered under his breath. “Any more such favorable testimony and the mob'll forget all about hanging or beheading and jump straight to pulling us apart with nosehorns.”

“And Karyl was right,” Gaétan said. “We felt the awful terremoto that broke our brothers before they got within bowshot of the enemy. Watched them stream back over the rise toward us in panic flight. Watched them ridden down by a couple dozen of Salvateur's cavalry and a handful of dinosaur knights. With nothing in the world we could do.

“You all know Lucas, the genius lad who painted this place? He was Karyl's special student at swordsmanship. He learned fast and well. I saw him empty a courser's saddle of a Crève Coeur knight. Then another one killed him.”

Seeing an opening, Sister Violette slid in words like a silver knife. “So Karyl lured our greatest painter away on this mad errand of his, got him killed—and didn't even avenge him?”

Rob saw Karyl flinch as though struck. His face tightened, went pale and stark. A scar Rob hadn't noticed before glowed like a white thread down the right side of his forehead.

Grief throbbed in the silver-haired Councilor's voice as well as anger. And they're both genuine, he thought in surprise, or she's as great an actress as ever Lucas was an artist with a brush.

He wasn't sure he liked knowing what that told him. Easier by far to think of Sister Violette as nothing more than a cynical foe, a viper coiled in the ground cover, awaiting the opportunity to strike.

Gaétan shook his head, grimaced again. “No. Karyl didn't avenge Lucas. I did, for all that's worth. Shot the Brokenheart bastard who speared him right out of the saddle.

“No, all Karyl did then was save us all.”

Yannic was glaring through his bandages as if deranged. His lips opened as if to speak. Melchor grabbed his arm to silence him. The fat man's grip must have been unexpectedly strong; Rob could see his fellow lord wince through his bandage-mask.

“Karyl shot the leading morion through both cheeks with his hornbow,” Gaétan said. “She threw her rider and turned right about, knocking over two other duckbills who were following too close behind. The dinosaur knights were all clumped together, you see.

“That stopped them cold. As for the Crève Coeur chivalry, few wore full plate—why put themselves to the heat and bother, to trample a handful of peasant scum like us? Instead most wore chain and open helmets. So as they closed with us, even our shortbows were able to hurt them. Karyl and I emptied some saddles with our Ovdan bows. The crossbows may have gotten some too.”

He shook his head wearily. “Then I got stuck. I—I can't tell any more. But if Karyl hadn't kept us archers back, none of us would be here now. That … I know—”

His blue eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped against his sister. Rob felt like applauding. If that was genuine—and it certainly appeared so, especially the way Jeannette cried out and began to weep—Gaétan's body, at least, had a Fae's own sense of timing.

Into the silence that gathered like spirits of the dead around the young woman's sobs, Bogardus said, “Who can tell us what happened next? You, you—”

He gestured at Reyn and Pierre. “Come close, my friends, if you please. What happened after gallant Gaétan fell?”

Despite his earlier defiance, Reyn shot Yannic a fearful glance. But he complied. Pierre strode forward as forthrightly as his limp would allow.
There walks a man who feels he's little left to lose
, thought Rob.

“Some of us who'd run rallied behind the archers, took up a stand in the woods,” Pierre said. “We were afraid, still. But we—I—I saw the rich boy Gaétan fall, and the lord Karyl stand. They could've run away as soon as they saw us come over that cursed hill with Old Hell on our heels. Instead they risked their own lives to give us a chance to keep ours.”