Master and Fool (11 page)

The man fell to
the floor. "Sire, I would spill an army's worth of blood on your
saying."

Kylock nodded
softly and gestured for the man to rise. "Your loyalty will not be
forgotten."

The man bowed and
walked away.

Kylock smiled.
Every day he discovered new powers that were made for kings alone. The ability
to inspire unquestioning loyalty was a gift straight from the gods. What men
would not do for money, they would do in an instant if it was a matter of
belief. His men had faith in him: he won wars, took risks, and was hated by his
enemies. He promised his men spoils and made sure that they got them: women or
children, whatever their tastes. Gold, grain, appointments ... destruction if
they fancied. A town set alight in a frenzy of blood-lust was often the best
reward after a day on the field. Nothing inspired greater contempt for the
enemy than watching them burn.

Kylock broke the
wax seal. Yes, he had the loyalty of his men, and the contents of this letter
proved it.

Tonight, just
before dawn, his mother would meet her death. Her castle in the Northlands
would be raided by a rogue Halcus war party. None would survive to tell the
tale. Kedrac, Maybor's eldest, had planned every detail, right down to the rape
and desecration of the dowager queen. The truly inspirational part had been his
own, though. The queen's body, when it was done with, was to be laid out on an
Annis banner. The implication would be that Halcus was working in conjunction
with the mountain city. The kingdoms would be outraged when the news came to
light, and support for his next move-which just happened to be the invasion of
Annis-would be all but guaranteed. What country would let the rape and murder
of its beloved, and so recently bereaved, queen go unavenged?

Of course the
invasion of Annis would be merely a feint. His army would be needed elsewhere,
but it suited him to let his enemies believe that they were too entrenched in a
siege of honor to be moved. Kylock's eyes searched out the dark lines of the
battlements of Bren. It would be quite a surprise to all when his plans took
their final turn. Of course Annis would be his eventually anyway-a few months
here or there would make no difference in the end.

Kylock read on.
Kedrac was clever enough to write in code. Not only had he arranged the queen's
demise, he'd also timed the conquering of the last Halcus towns to perfection.
Kylock was well pleased with Kedrac's work. It meant that the day he married
Catherine, he could present her with Halcus as her own. A magnificent gesture,
but an unworthy gift: nothing was too precious for Catherine.

He couldn't wait
to meet her. He would come to Catherine as a free man. With his mother gone he
would be bound to no one. He would give himself wholly to his new bride, and
when he came and knelt at her feet, she would cleanse him forever of the taint
of the womb.

Kylock turned back
toward the camp. His manservant knew him well enough to have heated some water
in his absence. He was dirty and needed to be clean. His hands and clothes
stank, and it wasn't fitting to even
think
of Catherine whilst he
smelled of the whore he'd just killed.

Jack was dreaming
about Tarissa again. His thoughts, which so carefully avoided her during the
daytime, seemed to gang up on him at night. She was always there; one moment
laughing, tempting, merry as a dairymaid, the next she would be crying,
pleading, falling on her knees and begging him to take her with him.

Always, even in
his dreams, he walked away. Only tonight he heard her footsteps following him.
Jack's heart raced to hear them. He turned to face Tarissa, but she wasn't
there. Still the footsteps came, nearer than ever now. Jack spun around. Where
was she? The footsteps were so close the ground vibrated with their resonance.

"He's in
here," came a voice.

Not Tarissa's
voice. Not a familiar voice_ Not even a dream. Jack jumped up. His senses came
after him. He was in the baker's lodge and the light peaking in from the
shutters told of a new dawn.

The door burst
open. Four men fully armed barged into the room. Nivlet, the one thin baker in
the Baking Master's Guild, stood behind them.

"That's
him!" he cried. "He's the one the Halcus are looking for."

Two of the men
came forward. Jack's hand was already on his knife. His mouth was dry and his
thoughts were still reeling with sleep. As he moved to meet the guards, he cast
his gaze from side to side, taking in the details of the room. Searching for
distractions. The wood shuttle lay to his left, well-stacked with logs. Jack
made a jump for it, kicking it toward the guards. The logs went careening
forward, forcing the two guards to step back. Jack sprang with them. His knife
was ahead of him, drawing ever decreasing circles in the air. The blade caught
one of the guard's arms. Jack put his weight behind it and sliced through
muscle as well as skin.

Something nicked
him from behind. Spinning around he came face-to-face with the third guard. He
had red hair, a large red mustache, and the longest knife Jack had ever seen.

"Come and get
some, boy," he encouraged. His sideways glance gave him away. He was
hoping to distract Jack long enough to enable the second guard to slice him
from behind.

His eyes never
leaving Red Hair for a moment, Jack took a guess at where the second man stood.
He pivoted his weight to his left leg and then kicked back with his right heel
like a horse. He caught the man's knee dead-center. Groaning, he fell forward.
Jack made straight for Red Hair's blade. At the very last instant, he pulled
sharply to the side. Red Hair was already in motion, and his momentum carried
him forward. He went smashing into the second guard, who was rocking over his
knee.

Jack had no time
to watch the outcome. The air burned in his throat and his lungs seemed ready
to burst. He turned his attention back to the first guard with the wounded arm.
The fourth was still in the doorway, biding his time. Wounded-arm had gotten a
spear from somewhere. He teased Jack with it, stabbing wildly at his chest and
thighs. Jack grew angry at the man's cowardice. Keeping a safe distance between
himself and the spear tip, he raised his knife to his face. Wounded-arm's blood
was still drying on the blade.

"Hmm,"
said Jack, hoping to get the man to look down at his wound. "I'd see a
physician if I were you. Your blood looks a strange color to me."

The man smiled.
"I'm not so easily fooled, boy." He jabbed his spear forward.

Jack was forced to
step back. He realized he couldn't go any farther, as he was now backed up
against the wall. Something had to be done. He returned the guard's smile.
"I still think you may have to see a physician after all, my friend. About
that terrible slash near your eye."

Just as the man's
face registered confusion, Jack tensed his knife arm like a spring and then
shot his wrist forward. He released his grip on the haft and the blade went
shooting straight for the man's eye. Once again, Jack didn't wait for the show.
Now unarmed, he sprang away from the wall. Red Hair had recovered, but the
second guard was on the floor. There was blood on Red Hair's blade. The fourth
guard had moved to his side, and both of them now blocked Jack's path to the
door.

Two men, armed and
ready, faced him. Jack knew it was time for sorcery. He concentrated on the
metal in the blades. He felt it dense, rigid, resisting with all its might.
Doing exactly what he had been taught, he entered the cool-metal hardness. This
wasn't one of Stillfox's training sessions where the dangers were mostly
imagined and the outcome carefully monitored like an experiment under glass.
This was real.

Split seconds were
all he had. There was no time for straining or finesse, no time to be entrapped
by the substance he entered. Jack fed off the urgency and the danger.

His mind conjured
up an image of Tarissa. She was there in a blink of an eye, Rovas in front of
her, and gently she raised her hand to feel the heat from his forehead. Jack
felt sorcery build. Shame was underneath, but he had no time to deal with that
now. He let the power flood up from his belly whilst his thoughts swept down
from his mind. The two met in his mouth and the metal bite of sorcery slithered
down along his tongue.

Straight to the
blades it went. Jack's mind formed the intent as it raced through the air. He
molded the sorcery like a sculptor, and once it hit it was fully formed. It
passed with his thoughts into the substance of the knife, and just as it did
what it was made for, he pulled himself back from the blades. The knives became
red-hot pokers. Both men screamed, opening their fists and dropping the blades
to the floor.

Jack felt a wave
of weakness sweep over him. Fighting it off, he pushed past both men toward the
door. Neither Red Hair nor his friend had any desire to stop him. They were
both holding up red, raw palms and looking wildly around for some way to cool
them.

Jack stepped over
the threshold and walked straight into Nivlet. Frallit had once said:
"Never
trust a skinny baker, "
and it seemed that he was right. Jack punched
Nivlet squarely in the face. Nivlet fell to the floor and Jack stepped over his
body. "See to it those guards get some water for their burns." He
didn't wait to hear the man's reply; he turned his back and walked away.

Feeling strangely
elated, Jack made his way from the lodge.
He had done it!
He had made
sorcery do his bidding! It was exhilarating. He felt powerful, confident, ready
to take on all comers. As he walked through the banquet hall, Jack swept all
the remains of last night's food from the table. Loaves, chickens, and fruit
went flying into the air. He threw his head back and laughed out loud. Finally
he had done something right.

Footsteps again,
either Nivlet or one of the injured guards. Time to move on. Jack's smile fell
from his face. It looked like he wouldn't be seeing much of Annis after all, as
he'd be going out the same way he came in: by the back door. Jack picked a
particularly nasty-looking carving knife from the rushes, filled his tunic with
bread and cheese and, as an afterthought, downed a cupful of ale in a toast to
himself. Grimacing-sitting around all night had done little for the ale-Jack
turned on his heel and slipped out into the dawn.

"Your Grace,
may I present His Royal Highness King Kylock, Sovereign of the Four
Kingdoms." Baralis stepped back and let Kylock come forward to meet
Catherine.

Kylock looked
magnificent. Dressed in black silk and sable with spun gold at cuffs and collar
he looked more than the king he was. Tall and fine-limbed he carried himself
with casual pride. His features were harder to judge; strangely shadowed
despite the sunshine beaming down from the windows, they eluded both words and
light.

He stretched out
an elegant hand and Catherine raised her own to meet it. He brought her pale
fingers to his lips. His breath was cool, cooler even than his lips. A tiny
thrill passed through Catherine. She hadn't intended to curtsy when she met
him--the mistress of Bren bowed to no man-yet she knew how very becoming she
looked from above: how enticingly the cleft of her bosom deepened, how full her
bottom lip became when gilded with light.

"It is an
honor to welcome you to our fine city, Your Majesty."

"The
honor," said Kylock, "is mine."

They stood in the
great hall surrounded by courtiers. Garlands of summer roses decked the walls.
The windows were glazed with stained glass and the sun's rays shining upon them
were converted to the colors of state. Royal blue, midnight blue, purple, and
scarlet: colors her father had chosen. The colors of the cloth they had wound
around his corpse. Catherine shivered despite the warmth of the sun.

Kylock still had
hold of her hand. "Say the word if you are cold, my lady," he said
softly. "And I will burn a city to warm you."

Catherine's sharp
intake of breath was not the only one. The courtiers who heard Kylock speak
shifted uneasily in their places.

Baralis stepped in
to fill the awkward silence. "Your Majesty must be tired after your long
journey. If you will permit me, I will show you to your chambers."

Kylock did not
look at him. He did not take his eyes from Catherine. Still he had hold of her
hand. His forgers pressed against her bone, stopping the blood from flowing to
the tips. "You are right, my chancellor, I must rest. Today I have seen my
future wife, and the sight has all but stolen my breath." Abruptly he let
her hand drop.

Catherine had
willed him to let it go, but now that he had she felt lost. There was such power
to him, and while he held her hand it was as if she was party to it. She spoke
to hold him an instant longer. "My lord, I trust you will ford your
chambers to your liking. I saw to the furnishings myself."

He moved swiftly
forward. Catherine panicked for a moment and took a step back-for some reason
she had thought he meant to strike her. He bowed instead, dipping his head low
and exposing the white flesh on the back of his neck. His nostrils quivered as
if he were taking in her scent. "My lady's thoughtfulness is matched only
by her purity."

Catherine dug her
fingernails into her palms to stop herself from blushing. Purity? Such an odd
word to use. She began to feel uncomfortable. Bowing her head, she murmured,
"I trust I will not disappoint you."

Kylock's eyes met
hers. Dark, they were, but the color escaped her. He smiled, showing even white
teeth with a slight inward slant. "My lady will not disappoint me."
He moved away from her so quickly that she was unable to focus on his form
until he was still once more.

Turning to
Baralis, he said, "Chancellor, lead me to my chambers." Baralis came
to the king's side and began to guide him from the hall.