The King's Justice (25 page)

They augured only a blank and uninterpretable peril.

A
s though echoing my doom-drenched mood, the morn of my Queen's ball was met with massive thunderheads driven toward the isle by a harsh easterly. Yet the threat of storms remained in abeyance, withheld by some vagary of weather. Nevertheless a fever of haste gripped the Domicile, though only the last preparations remained to provide a vent for the Majordomo's ire. Servants ran they knew not where to complete uncertain tasks. The household guards sharpened their blades and oiled their leathers with a look of madness in their eyes. Chamber-maids made a flurry of unnecessary cleaning in the
apartments and bedrooms assigned to Her Majesty's guests, while cooks and their underlings verified again and again that they would not be tardy in welcoming arrivals with refreshments and treats.

And the guests came, some with the dawn, others soon thereafter. No doubt they had eyed the thunderheads, and had concluded that they required immediate shelter more than they desired dignity after their various journeys. From the vantage of an oriel overlooking the wide flag-stoned courtyard or bailey which lay between the gated walls and the solid bulk of the house, I watched their arrivals.

First to enter the Domicile was Baron Jakob Plinth with a modest entourage including only his wife—a curious choice, considering that his sovereign had offered to marry him—his five daughters, their immediate servants, and no guards. Of his reported army there was no sign. However, the western vistas below the Domicile on its eminence were complicated by numerous hills, any one of which might serve to conceal from sight hundreds or indeed thousands of men. How he proposed to signal his forces, should he determine to strike, was a nice question for which I had no answer.

To all appearances, however, such queries did not trouble Inimica Phlegathon deVry IV. Cloaked against the wind, and smiling at the prospect of civil war, she greeted Baron Plinth with perfect grace in the courtyard. A model of courtesy, she spoke kindly to his wife—a slim woman no longer young clinging urgently to her husband—then addressed each of his
blushing daughters by name. Thereafter she delivered the Baron and his people to the Majordomo, who sweetened her manner to emulate Her Majesty's example as she assembled an escort to guide the Baron and his party to their apartments.

Throughout the encounter, Baron Plinth's manner was at once dour in the extreme and scrupulously correct. By no hint of voice or demeanor did he suggest that he had an army within call. Nor did he deign to acknowledge that any subject of doubt or contention lay between him and his monarch. The only sign of his stance toward Her Majesty's policies was the firmness with which he supported his wife as he followed the Majordomo inward.

An hour later, Baron Praylix Venery approached the gates, surrounded by ten men-at-arms and perhaps twice that many seeming courtesans. Him also my Queen greeted with exquisite politesse, ignoring the obvious affront of his guards while exchanging warm badinage with his women. To his sovereign's courtesies, he replied with a surplus of effusion, simultaneously proclaiming himself innocent in the affairs of the realm and implying that he had much to relate at a more private moment. However, Her Majesty consigned him and his company to the Majordomo without offering him an occasion for his secrets.

Plainly disconcerted, and more than mildly irked, he entered the Domicile speaking volubly to all within reach of his voice.

Hard on Baron Venery's heels came Baron Quirk Panderman. Eschewing some more traditional entourage—apart from a man known to me only as the Baron's companion in drink—
he brought with him teams of drovers to manage five wains laden with tuns of wine. To my Queen's studious warmth, he responding by declaring his resolve to share his finest vintage with Her Majesty's guests. When his wains had been unloaded, and his drovers dismissed, he entered the house reeling, accompanied by the Majordomo's ill-concealed disgust.

Toward noon, Baron Glare Estobate approached on his horse, no doubt delayed in his wonted haste by the inconvenient detail that his cadre of soldiers—a band of twenty men armored, helmed, and armed—marched afoot. By this time, rain had begun to fall. Though the clouds that released it glowered, heavy as a warlord's wrath, the rain itself was little more than a drizzle. It might have resembled a spring shower, kindly and nourishing. Flailed by the chaos of winds within the bailey, however, it stung with the force of small insects. Nevertheless my Queen strode out to meet the Baron as though she were inured to such discomforts. Her only concession to the wet was the hood of her cloak.

Baron Estobate's men did not enter. He left them erecting tents and making camp on the slope below the walls while he rode inward alone. Dismounting before his sovereign, he stood scowling as servants led his horse to the stables. Then he proffered a brusque bow. “In the
rain
, Your Majesty?” he demanded, a man affronted to be greeted thus exposed—or perhaps discomfited by her willingness to stand humbly among the elements.

“For one of my barons?” she replied in a tone that affected
fondness. “I have done as much for Baron Panderman. I will do so much and more for you, my lord Baron.”

Now visibly uncomfortable, he performed a second bow, one considerably improved. “Then, Your Majesty,” he growled in return, “I must encourage you to seek shelter. Such weather is unkind to women.”

Still fondly, she countered, “Yet what of your men, my lord Baron? They will find no relief from the coming storms in their rude camp, and surely no pleasure also. I would welcome all to my festivities. May I not welcome them as well?”

Hearing her, my ears fairly burned. She invited armed and armored men—surely the Baron's advance force—into her house? Where they would have the freedom to betray her hospitality at any word from their lord? With stealth, they might contrive to unbar the gates, thereby at a stroke rendering moot the Domicile's arduously prepared defenses. Yet Inimica Phlegathon deVry offered her welcome as though neither Glare Estobate nor any conceivable army wielded power sufficient to disturb her composure.

For his part, the Baron's eyes appeared to bulge in his head, and his jaw dropped. When he forced his mouth to close, I imagined that I heard the grinding of his teeth. To his sovereign's gracious smile he returned only silence for some moments. When he spoke at last, it was with the sound of a man humiliated—and denied satisfaction.

“My men,” he announced, “will do very well where they are.
Their purpose here is to watch over the tranquility of Your Majesty's ball. I will not alter their duties, or transgress upon your kindness, by housing them within your walls.”

He may have feared that they would be murdered in the privacy of their bedchambers. Or perhaps he merely felt unmanned by my Queen's impenetrable intentions. In either case, he plainly saw the folly of attempting to match wits with her. Having declared himself, he sealed his mouth. As soon as she conceded with a promising sweetness, “As you wish, my lord Baron,” he strode past her to enter the house, leaving her to follow or remain at her pleasure.

Ere she left the courtyard, she cast a glance directly at my vantage some levels above her—gazed toward me as though she had known from the first that I stood witness. Distinctly she nodded like a woman who had fixed my fate in her mind. Then she passed beyond my sight, returning to the shelter and warmth of her home.

Well, then. My Queen had often commanded me to overhear her private encounters. I chose therefore to believe that she approved my presence now. Were I mistaken, I could do naught to unmake my error.

F
or an hour thereafter, the drizzle became a downpour, a deluge freed from the storm's earlier restraint. When the rains had pummeled the Domicile for a time, however, apparently
seeking to damage the very flag-stones of the bailey, the dark seethe overhead parted strangely, allowing the sun to shed its beneficence over the house once more. To left and right, south and north, fierce rainfall streaked golden by sunshine still beat upon the slopes and hills, yet above us stretched a swath of the sky's clearest azure.

Almost at once, vapors began to coil and sway upward from the drenched stones. They rose in questing tendrils and wreaths until the sun dismissed them. And through these mists came riding Thrysus Indolent, last to arrive of the barons.

He had the air of man who had never in life felt the touch of rain or discomfort. Even the hair of his uncovered head appeared undampened.

He entered the courtyard accompanied by no other entourage than half a dozen seeming bodyguards. They were plain-clad men heavy of arm and wary of eye, with sabers at their hips and dirks at their belts. No insignia—indeed, no form of livery—marked their station. Yet their formation around the Baron made manifest their purpose.

As my Queen strode forward to give greeting, parting the mists by her presence, Thrysus Indolent and his men dismounted in near-flawless unison. With the efficiency of much practice, the men delivered their horses to the Domicile's ostlers. Only then did their formation open so that Baron Indolent could emerge to meet his sovereign.

To Her Majesty's welcome—as warm as any, and as impervious to bafflement or insult—the Baron replied with an
elegant and apparently gratified bow that nonetheless conveyed a suggestion of mockery. “Your Majesty,” he declaimed, “I have come eagerly to your ball, anticipating much of pleasure, and more of interest. I hope that you will indulge an exposed man's caution by extending the hospitality of your house to include my companions.”

Ere she answered, she gazed at each of his bodyguards in turn as though committing their visages to memory. Then she said, “They are most certainly welcome to enter my house and attend my ball, my lord Baron.” After a brief pause to emphasize her words, she added, “Provided that they attire and comport themselves as guests rather than as ruffians.”

To this, he returned an easy chuckle. “They will surely do so, Your Majesty. Indeed, they have come both prepared and strenuously instructed to do so.” He, too, paused for emphasis. “However, they will not set aside their weapons. Speaking freely, Your Majesty, I confess that I fear harm to my person.” His manner did not suggest fear. “Certainly not from any member of your household,” he assured her. “Your hospitality has ever been immaculate, a comfort to even the most timid of your subjects. Yet I have been made aware that Jakob Plinth is wroth with me. As for Glare Estobate, he is at all times wroth with everyone. And Praylix Venery is readily misled by false counsel. I am discomfited by the prospect of a blade in my back while I enjoy your festivities.”

My Queen nodded as though she had expected some such peroration. “Then be at ease, my lord Baron,” she replied. “Your
companions have my leave to retain their weapons. This ball and its pleasures are
mine
”—she stressed the word slightly—“and I will countenance no harm to any of my guests.”

There Baron Indolent proffered a second bow deeper than the first. “You are at all times the very model of graciousness, Your Majesty.”

So saying, he nodded to his nominal companions. Bowing in their turn, they resumed their formation around their master as he led them, positively bristling with delight, past his sovereign into her house.

At his back, thunderheads closed above the Domicile once more. The rains resumed their vehemence. Distant thunders growled in the east, promising lightnings that were for the present blocked from sight by the high roofs of my Queen's habitation. To my mind, they announced that the crisis of Inimica Phlegathon deVry's efforts to preserve her realm had now truly begun.