The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades (30 page)

HAVING SPENT A FEW DAYS WITH HER MOTHER at Peachyard, Emerald headed back to her duties in Greymere Palace in the heart of Grandon. Old Wilf, her mother’s coachman, was unfamiliar with the city and took a wrong turning in the maze of narrow streets. Thus he found himself in a shabby alley where there was barely room for the horses to pass and he was in danger of banging his head against upper stories projecting out over the roadway. Street urchins jeered at the rich folks going by; hawkers with barrows cursed as they cleared a path for him. Then his passenger slid open the speaking panel in the roof behind him.

“What’s this street called?”

“Sorry, miss—er, Sister I mean. Have you out of here in a jiffy.”

“I don’t want out of here!” she snapped. She had her mother’s temper. “I want you to turn around somewhere and drive back along this exact same street again. And I want to know what its name is.”

There was no accounting for the lass, and she would bite his ears off if he argued. Seeing a woman leaning out of an upper window just ahead, Wilf tipped his hat to her and inquired the name of the alley as he went by underneath. “Quirk Row,” she said, grinning at his predicament.

He made several right turns and eventually managed to retrace his path along Quirk Row. This time the jeering was louder and some of the gutter brats threw squelchy stuff at him and his highly polished paintwork. He cracked his whip at them, but it did no good.

Another edict from the panel: “Go to Ranulf Square.”

The coachman sighed. “Yes, miss, er, Sister.” Why couldn’t she make her mind up?

He had no trouble finding Ranulf Square, for it was one of the more prestigious parts of Grandon, close by Greymere Palace itself. He enjoyed driving along such wide streets, under the great trees, admiring the fine buildings. His pleasure was short-lived.

“Turn right at this corner!” said the voice of doom at his back. “And right again. Slower…Stop here.”

“But, Sister!” This street looked very nearly as unsavory as Quirk Row. The windows were both barred and shuttered, the doors iron studded, and the few people in evidence all looked as if they had just escaped from a jail, or even a tomb. “This is not a good area, miss!”

His protests were ignored. Before he could even dismount to lower the steps for her, Sister Emerald threw open the door. Holding up her skirts, she jumped down. Her white robes looked absurdly out of place in this pesthole. She reached back inside for her steeple hat, which was too tall to be worn in a coach, and settled it expertly on her head.

“Go and wait for me back in Ranulf Square,” she called up to him, slamming the coach door. “Er…once you’ve made sure I can get in.”

Why would she even want to get in? Spirits knew what might go on behind that sinister façade! But Wilf did as he was bid, watching her run up the steps, waiting until her vigorous pounding of the knocker brought a response. The man who opened the door could not be a servant, for he wore a sword—which usually indicated a gentleman but might not in this neighborhood. He evidently recognized Emerald, for he bowed gracefully and stepped aside to let her vanish into the darkness of the interior.

Whatever would her mother say? Sighing, Wilf cracked his whip over the team and drove off. He did note the number 10 on the door, and he inquired the name of the road, which turned out to be Amber Street. It meant nothing to him.

It meant nothing to most people.

Most people would not even have realized that these rundown barns backed onto the fine mansions of Ranulf Square. Number 10 Amber Street, for example, was directly behind 17 Ranulf Square, which contained government offices. The brass plates listing these bureaucracies included one saying simply HIS MAJESTY’S COURT OF CONJURY. It was to 17 Ranulf Square that people went to lodge complaints about illegal magic—someone selling curses or love potions or other evils. There the visitors would be interviewed by flunkies whose glassy, fishy stares showed that they were inquisitors, with an enchanted ability to detect falsehoods.

Then files would be opened, depositions taken, reports written. Eventually, if the case seemed worthwhile, a warrant would be issued and the commissioners themselves would raid the elementary. That was when things became exciting. Elementaries might be guarded by watchdogs the size of ponies, doormats that burst into flames underfoot, or other horrors. The commissioners were all knights in the Loyal and Ancient Order of the King’s Blades, former members of the Royal Guard and therefore supremely skilled swordsmen.

In her brief career in the palace, Emerald had learned to avoid red tape at all costs. She knew about 10 Amber Street because she had heard the Blades of the Guard refer to it; they called it the Snakepit. Whatever the brass plates of Ranulf Square might say, the Old Blades’ real headquarters was here.

The man who let her in said, “Sister Emerald, this is a wonderful surprise,” as if he meant it.

She curtseyed. “My pleasure, Sir Chefney.” Chefney was Snake’s deputy and had been partly responsible for her hair-raising adventures at Quagmarsh. In spite of that, she liked Chefney. He was unfailingly polite and good-humored.

“What brings you to our humble abode, Sister?” “Humble” was pure flattery. The hallway reeked of mildew and dust, the floors were scuffed and splintery, much of the paneling had warped away from the walls, but originally this had been a gracious, rich-person’s residence. Somewhere upstairs feet were stamping and metal clinking as swordsmen kept up their fencing skills.

“Someone is performing an enchantment not three streets from here. I detected it as my coach went along Quirk Row.”

Anyone else except possibly Mother Superior would have countered with, “Are you
sure
?” Emerald might then have made a snippy retort.

Chefney did not ask if Emerald was sure. He did not produce a form for her to fill in nor summon an inquisitor to interrogate her or a notary to witness her testimony. He did not even inquire what a lady was doing driving along Quirk Row. He just said, “In here, please, Sister,” very brusquely. As she stepped through the doorway he shouted, “Put away the dice, lads. We’ve got work to do.”

The long room was almost filled by a very large table. The half dozen men standing around it had not been playing dice. They had been rummaging through a wagonload of books and paper, and there were mutters of relief as they turned to greet her. She recognized Sir Snake and Sir Bram and Sir Demise. She was introduced to Sir Rodden, Sir Raptor, Sir Felix…and so on.

They were all very much alike, men in their thirties, still trim and athletic, neither very tall nor very short; they all moved like hot oil and their eyes were quick. They looked like older brothers of the Blades of the Royal Guard who strutted around the palace in blue and silver livery and were ever eager to squire a young lady to masques, balls, hay rides, fairs, or a dozen other festivities. The main difference to Emerald was that the Old Blades did not reek of hot iron, which was how she perceived the binding spell on the guardsmen.

The formalities were brief, and then Snake did not even ask her to state her business. He just raised his eyebrows. She knew she might be about to make an epochal fool of herself. What she had sensed might have a very innocent explanation. Then these men would all smile politely and thank her and go back to the important work she had just interrupted.

“My coachman took a wrong turning, into Quirk Row. I detected someone conjuring. I made him go back the same way and noted the house, number 25. There shouldn’t be an elementary operating this close to the palace, should there?”

She was meddling in matters that did not directly concern her. Her business was watching over the King in whichever palace happened to be his residence at the time. Correct procedure probably required her to report her suspicions to her supervisor, Mother Petal, who would inform Prioress Alder, who would then write a note to Mother Superior herself, who would pass the word down to old Mother Spinel, who handled relations between the Sisters and the Old Blades—red tape!

Snake did not say, “Oh, that’s just the so-and-so Sisters of Healing. They mend peoples’ teeth.” Or, “That’s the Brethren of the Occult Word, where courtiers go for their good-luck charms—they’re harmless, so we ignore them.”

No, Snake’s stringy mustache curled in a leer of great delight. “Absolutely not, my lady!” He was as thin as his namesake and about as trust-worthy—utterly loyal to the King, of course. Almost too loyal, because he had been known to use very sneaky-snaky means to achieve his ends, as Emerald well knew. “Bram, the map! Raptor, ring the bell!”

The swordsman nearest the fireplace hauled on a rope. Instead of discreet tinkle in a distant kitchen, this produced a startling clangor out in the hallway, like a fire alarm. The muffled tap of fencers’ feet overhead was replaced by sounds of an avalanche on the staircase.

By the time another dozen or so men poured in the door, Emerald was bent over a very grubby and dog-eared chart that Sir Bram had spread out over the table litter. Thick swordsmen’s fingers pointed for her.

“Ranulf Square.”

“We’re here.”

“That’s Quirk Row.”

“What does ‘seventy-five’ mean?”

“It was about here,” she said, when they let her do some pointing of her own. “We came along here and then back this way…the elementary’s in this building…a green door next to an archway…about here.”

“Aha!” said Snake, and spread himself full-length across the table so he could hold a lens over the tiny scribbles. “Number twenty-five. There’s the archway,
there
. Hand me a crayon, someone. Leads through to a mews, or a pump court. So one gets you a thousand there’s a back door, even if there aren’t any secret passages through the cellars. And there’s four ways out of the court, see? That’s a fine location for a nest of traitors. What’s this ‘seventy-five’ written here for?”

“Sighting report,” said a man in the back-ground, rustling paper. “Must have been recent. Someone claimed he—”

“That was me,” said a familiar voice. Stalwart squirmed in through the crowd. “I saw Skuldigger.”

Snake sat up on the table and crossed his bony legs. “So you said.” He had collected ink stains on his silk hose.

Everyone else made eager
go on
! noises. Skuldigger was the maniac sorcerer genius who had created the chimera monsters. Those had killed many Blades, and more than once endangered the King himself. Skuldigger had escaped at Quagmarsh, but every Blade dreamed of adding Skuldigger’s head to the trophies above his fire-place.

“Good chance, Em.” Stalwart flashed Emerald a joyful smile. They had not seen each other for several weeks and she had forgotten how boyish he looked, especially when surrounded by men twice his age. If he had grown in the last month, she couldn’t detect it. His straw-colored hair was not quite as tumbledown shaggy as before, but still absurdly short.

“Good chance to you, Wart. I hear you’re still collecting sorcerers’ heads to hang on your wall.”

“Oh?” he said casually. “Who told you that?”

“The King. He praised you highly.”

His face reddened in anger. “Fat Man has a funny way of showing his gratitude.”

She had intended to flatter him in front of the others. She had forgotten how much he wanted to be a
real
Blade, a member of the Royal Guard. Valuable though it was, the undercover work he was doing for Snake seemed to him like cheating, and unworthy.

“
Skuldigger
, guardsman!” Snake snarled. “We’re waiting!”

“Er, yes, brother. If I’d had my sword with me, I’d have nailed him to a post and called the watch.” Wart was not joking; he was deadly when he had to be. “But I didn’t. Saw him on Cupmaker Street, heading toward the palace. Two days ago. I followed him. He turned into Long Bacon Road and I lost him near the Silk Traders’ Guildhall.” Snake started to speak, but Wart drowned him out. “I’m
certain
he didn’t see me. And look on the map—There’s an alley there leads into that same pump court!”

“So that was a shortcut for him.” Snake leaned over to thump Wart on the shoulder. “He was just going the best way home. Well done!”

“So now do you believe me?”

“Do you think I ever doubted you?” Snake asked in outraged tones, scrambling down off the table in a shower of paper and a couple of writing slates.

“Yes.”

“What sort of conjuration?” asked a new voice.

The men cleared a way for a tall, elderly lady in White Sister robes and high hennin. Emerald had met Mother Spinel only once, but knew her reputation as a battleaxe second only to Mother Superior herself. Behind her very upright back she was known as “Sister Spinal.”

Emerald struggled to recall the elemental spirits she had detected. “Mostly air, my lady, a trace of fire, I think, and maybe some earth, too…I was in a moving carriage….”

Sister Spinal’s face had more wrinkles than a basket of walnuts and they all seemed to deepen in disapproval. “Not threatening, then?”

“Um, no, Mother. It gave me no sense of evil.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Snake snapped. “Unlicensed conjuring near the palace is forbidden and we have a Skuldigger sighting. That’s enough. We’ll do this the way we did Brandford Priory last week. Sir Dagger, you’ll handle the door for us again.”

Wart pulled an angry face. “Yes, brother.”

“By the time you get there, we’ll be in place. If there’s no back door, use the front.” Snake smirked. “Don’t get stepped on!”

Scowling, Wart headed for the door. Emerald noticed grins following him. His earlier exploits had made him a hero, but now the others were treating him as their mascot or water boy. He must hate that.

Snake was barking orders. “Head over there in twos and threes—leisurely stroll, don’t hurry, don’t dawdle. I want everyone in position when the palace clock chimes three. Chefney, you and Demise take the Quirk archway next to the house itself. Blow your whistle when the kid gets in. They may make a break out the front. Felix and Bram, take Quirk Row on the palace side. Raptor and Grady…” When he had assigned everyone he grinned. “Any questions?”