The Queen waved her ample arms. “Well if he must remain, at least he should be clean. Lord Peridot, your honour and your courtesy would like arise in our esteem were you to be a gentleman and give this boy your cloak.”
A courtier in fawn- and peach-coloured silks bowed, a smile quirking his thin face, and unbuckled a flowing apricot cloak, trimmed with ermine.
The Queen turned to a lady-in-waiting. “Cousin Lissa, an you will, take the mantle from this gentleman,”—her nose wrinkled—“and have it burned. Ready a chamber, and in it salvers of steaming rosewater, and a ball of soap.” She frowned at Mark. “Perhaps two balls.”
In her place beside the youngest princess, Lissa nodded.
A smile lit Her Majesty’s plump face. “You swear that this is not some prank, set to tease the humour of the Court? ’Tis very like your sense of wit, Lord Peridot, to send a cloddish knave to us, enwreathed in borrowed glories.”
Can’t you hear the sword, you daft awd sow? “No joke, Your Majesty, though I look like a scarecrow and stink like a sty.”
The Queen clapped her hands. “Ooh! And witty to boot!”
O Lord.
Should I have bowed when she yapped at me?
Mark had felt strong and free when he despised them all, all the preening courtiers. But now his moment was slipping away, sinking between the King’s scowl and the Queen’s silly smile. He glanced at Her Highness, trying to guess if she was waiting for him to kneel or something.
…And found his eyes caught by the youngest princess, the one who had grinned when he burst into the room.
Mark had always imagined princesses as tall and willowy, with straw-coloured hair and a distant expression; rather like Lissa, the lady-in-waiting. But Princess Gail was short and stocky; she had a vixen’s face, shrewd and small, with short brown hair and gold-brown eyes. She wore tights and tunic of the royal black, belted with a gold sash at the waist: Too short for the butter-churn style, he guessed. She even had a knife jammed through her sash; no toy neither, but a good dagger like the one he’d left in the Wood, with a broad blade and a worn bone handle.
Gail looked at him like an archer staring down a target.
Mark’s heart stopped; jumped; and died, a stag shot leaping.
“What fun!” the Queen exclaimed. “Lissa, also Master Civet find, and Master Bolt,” she said, as the lady-in-waiting approached to take Mark’s grimy cloak. “By their craft those tasteful gentlemen must turn this Shielder’s Mark from duckling into swan, if he will paddle in our pond.”
Lord Peridot was bowing to Mark. Mark’s jaw snapped shut and with a supreme act of will he dragged his eyes off the Princess.
Peridot was a small man, and slender. As he bowed he held his right hand across his chest; Mark saw that he was missing the index finger. “My greetings, cousin. May I offer you my cloak while yours is…on its way?”
“Th-thanks,” Mark stammered.
“Is something wrong?” Peridot’s thin lips quirked into a sharp smile. “Perhaps, my country cousin, you find in my disfigurement the footprint of the Devil. Do you long to hold your fingers horned to ward against my Eye, or step so that my shadow does not fall across your own? You would not be the first to blanch at my affliction.”
“No, no, not at all,” Mark said, flushing. His eyes fled Lord Peridot’s hand.
Sir William was staring at him.
So was the Princess.
He wished himself under the earth.
…No, goddammit!
He had braved the Ghostwood, and broken the spell not even Aron could undo. Is the man who holds Sweetness to piss himself before a roomful of perfume and ruffles?
Stocky Vultemar and slender Anujel stepped back and stood quietly behind the King. The King stroked his pointed beard with fretful fingers. “Attend us, Shielder’s Mark. Perhaps you have done what you claim. We shall this day a troop dispatch to investigate your tale.” A smile flickered briefly across Astin’s face. “But Sir William have we trusted in farming many boys, and never found a better husbandman to harvest from them rich crops of men. If he believes you, then so will we—for now. And if you speak true, then ancient law is clear: what you ask, the Crown must give.” He laughed without great warmth. “Great will be your name, boy: it will all the honoured titles in this room outlast, including ours. The fourth to bear the name of Astin later years will know but by his gift to you. So tell him: what will you have?”
O, fine fields and orchards heavy with fruit; tall stone walls walked by men in blue and silver livery. Mark drew his breath. “Your Majesty, I thank you. An you will, I’ll take…”
He faltered, feeling a pair of narrow eyes trained on him. “I’ll take…”
Half against his will, he turned to face the Princess.
Like a spear her gaze passed through him, heart and soul, and he was lost.
“You’ll take what?” she asked, her eyes aflash with triumph.
“Hush, Gail!” the Queen fussed. “No time is this for boldness!”
“The King is waiting,” Anujel said.
Mark’s life, his whole life and all his plans, went spinning out from under his feet. He was a wild man in this Court, shaggy-haired and stinking of the road. A keen wind blew through him, lifting him up like the spring breeze under a hawk’s wing. Daring, he felt; fresh and brave as rainbows. “Your Majesty,” he said, bowing with a flourish of his borrowed apricot cloak, “I guess I’ll take your daughter.”
The crowd gasped. Lord Peridot stiffened. Slender Anujel bent to whisper outrage in his sovereign’s ear. The Queen stared at Mark’s travel-beaten gear, then looked anxiously to her youngest daughter.
The Princess smirked. “Which daughter, bold stranger? The King has three.”
“Shall I say the fairest?”
Gail laughed. “Oh no! That would be my oldest sister Teris, and she’s already married to Duke Gerald.”
When Gail laughed, her narrow brown eyes got even narrower, shrewder, and more mischievous. Mark felt as if he and she were two children sharing a joke no grown-up could understand.
The King’s councillors conferred in anxious whispers. A thunderhead was building on the brow of his August Majesty, Astin IV.
Mark didn’t care; he had eyes only for Gail. “Then I’ll marry the cleverest,” he said.
Gail shook her head. “That would be Willan. She reads three books a week, if you’ll believe it, and talks to the Bishop about, ooh, deep things. But alas! She is married to Count Laszlo.” Gail pointed to a portly man of middle years, who bowed coldly in return.
Mark threw up his hands. “Well, then, I guess I must ask for the boldest daughter of Astin IV.”
“Ah!” Clad in matching black hoop-skirts, the two older princesses nodded drily. “Now that,” said Willan, who was slightly pregnant, “would be Ered’s Gallant’s Reynold’s Ferdinand’s Royal’s Gail.”
Gail curtsied as well as a short woman in a tunic can.
There was a long, tense silence.
Lord Peridot, resplendent in peach, his slight chest gleaming with his grandfather’s medals, caught the King’s eye and coughed, twice.
The King shook his head. “Now listen, Shielder’s Mark. While we are charged to offer you the choice and pick of this our kingdom, what you ask exceeds the bounds of all impertinence. You cannot require the last unpluck’d fruit from the royal tree, our daughter, she to whom the kingdom’s greatest men years of anxious courtship have addressed, to wed—forgive us—so far beneath her station.” He glanced at Lord Peridot. “Though you could not know when first you made this startling request, there have for years been…expectations in this matter. Gail is to another purpos’d; stealing her beneath the sable cloak of hoary statute were no honour nor no credit to you, and could not help but foul that pure baptismal water that your deeds have earned to cleanse away your commonness.”
Slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, Mark spat on the floor of Astin the Munificent. “Is the lass engaged or isn’t she?”
&nbs
p; “Well—”
“No, I certainly am not,” Gail snapped, glaring at her father.
Behind the throne, Vultemar and Anujel were shifting like nervous hens. Astin stilled them with a wave of his hand. “Consider, boy: imagine us reversed, you King, and I petitioning the hand of your last daughter. Ask and we will grant you what you will, but girlish hearts are not ours to give.”
“But your daughter’s girlish hand is,” Gail said. Smiling. Lethal.
Mark bowed as coldly as he could. How dare, how dare they treat him like dirt, the man who broke the Ghostwood’s spell! “The Princess is not engaged. I’ve asked for her hand and now you get to grant it. Or has some witchery turned the King’s gold word to lead? If your daughter can’t marry an honest man without a title, then make me Prince o’ Pigsties.”
The Court held its breath, shocked.
Hunched in his great plush-covered chair, Astin the Magnanimous chewed moodily on his moustache. At last he sighed. “We will not be forsworn, boy; king’s words are gold, and must be honoured more than any coin. Our statutes clearly state that we must give you what you ask. But they do not force respect, nor amity, nor friendliness between us. Nor do they ask us to rejoice in wedding our great line to yours.”
“No doubt we’ll get on better once I’ve won your daughter’s heart,” Mark said, shrugging.
Gail looked a flight of arrows through him. “My heart cannot be won,” she snapped. “It’s mine to give.”
Mark gulped.
Beside him, Lord Peridot allowed himself the pleasure of a thin smile. “Young man,” he murmured, “time I think will prove to you that woman’s heart is harder won than castles: and far more difficult to keep.”
Turning to the King, Peridot bowed with a flourish. “My liege, were Duke Richard here, my noble patron and my lord, sure I am that he would want to make the first congratulations on this startling felicity! How glad, how happy must a father be, to graft a noble daughter to such a legend-making tree!” His eyes lingered on Gail. “From so fair a bud, what ripe fruit must swell!”
Willan and Teris glanced away, shivering with distaste; Gail looked to be throttling Peridot in her imagination, slowly and with great thoroughness.
The courtier continued unperturbed. “And too I must confess a certain satisfaction for my master. Sweetness, so long lost from Stargad’s line, has now returned against all hope, fetched hither from the Ghostwood by your future son-in-law.” Turning, he made another deep bow to Mark. “Duke Richard will be pleased indeed to meet the man who found his long-lost property!”
Mark started, his hand straying to the precious sword belted at his side. “What do you mean? Sweetness is—”
“You need not be concerned,” Lord Peridot said, dismissing him as if he were a stable boy. “The Duke is known for his munificence: your pockets will be heavier by a flock of Swans, no doubt. Or payment can be made in any form which better suits your needs: raiment, beer, or what you like.”
Mark felt himself go white with rage. “I am not a village beggar, lord. I won this sword fairly, and if your precious Duke Richard wants it, he’ll have to take it from me.”
“We will no longer stand these threats!” the King roared. “Shall you now add banditry and boasting to the tally of indignities you thrust upon this Court? We have no assurance how you came upon this blade, by theft or duel or dicing. We do know Sweetness was for Stargad made, and Stargad’s line. Your one request you made and we will grant it should your tale prove true. Now unless you wish to face the peril of our direst wrath, yield up the sword, that it may straight unto its lawful owner go!”
“Straight into would be more like it,” Gail muttered.
Carefully Mark drew Sweetness from his sheath. The room fell deathly quiet but for its lonely steelsong. Tension danced like lightning round the ancient blade. “Make me. Sire.”
The King looked to his champion.
Sir William sighed. “Well, sorry am I, Shielder’s Mark, but I am sworn to act for Astin and his Court. A fine blade, Sweetness is, and finer too I guess the man who won her: but give her up you must.” He stepped down from the royal dais, making no move to draw his sword.
“You know this is crooked as a witch’s back,” Mark cried. “I won it fair!” He and Sir William were suddenly alone: Lord Peridot and all the other be-medalled men had melted back, to watch from the edges of the room. Mark gestured at Sir William to keep his distance. “I know how to use this,” he warned.
“I’m sure you do, my lad. And I know how to use mine.” Sir William shrugged. “And if we fight, perhaps I win: then you give up the sword. Or perhaps you win, and wed, and hang for killing me. Either way, this rashness leads to death, for your pride may stand no stiffer than the honour I have pledged my King. That honour owns the last drop of my blood: does your pride cost you so much?” A small smile showed in Sir William’s beard. “Too old am I, and you too young, to die for a yard of hammered steel. Humour me, lad, and give it up. What honour comes from killing old men with grey beards and creaking joints?”
Mark flushed with shame. “I…That isn’t what I wanted.” He looked at Sweetness, and its song filled him with longing. He ached to grasp it, and the high, noble, magical world it meant, so different from his village past. It seemed to him now, even surrounded by princesses and palaces, that in this one blade, clean honest steel that sang of battles gloriously fought, and nobly lost, was all that he had striven for those cold mornings in the Commons. Was everything his heart had longed to be.
He held the sword out, hilt first. Sir William took it from him, but beneath greying brows his eyes were grave. He smiled and shook his head, gripping Sweetness with the ease of a man well-used to weapons. “Good work, lad.”
A queer, shaky gratitude filled Mark’s breast. That smile and those three words from a man like Sir William almost made up for losing Sweetness.
Almost.
The Queen clapped her hands. “Oh good! I do like weddings more than funerals!”
The King nodded coolly at Mark. “Our third and youngest daughter is engaged, and stands to wed the man who—perhaps—has lifted up a curse that has upon our kingdom lain from grandfather days. Whatever were our differences, tonight we should rejoice! Prepare the Halls for banqueting, that we the pledge our ancestor swore may redeem in coin of meat and wine.”
Buzzing and glittering like a nest of wasps, gentlefolks swarmed from the Spring Room, scrambling to prepare for the unexpected ball.
“Princess Gail is famous for her…spirit,” Lord Peridot murmured, suddenly at Mark’s elbow. A delicate honeysuckle scent clung to his neatly trimmed beard. “I am sure that were my patron, Richard Duke of High Holt here, he would be the first to wish you well.” Peridot’s thin, elegant face crimped into a smile as he watched the Princess stride off behind Willan her sister. “Indeed, coz, I admire your boldness. I shall savour your progress like a work of art: it promises to enlighten while it entertains.”
Mark’s heart sank. He had always imagined they would hold a banquet in his honour. But now that he was here, he was getting the feeling that nothing that happened in the Palace was going to be much fun. Watching the courtiers mince and flounce and slither away, he knew they must think him a village fool, not the Hero he had always longed to be.
Well, at least the damn food should be good.
3
Palace Entertainments
“I’m a hero, not a whore,” Shielder’s Mark snapped at his unhappy valet, striding from his room without so much as choosing his epaulets or pinning up his hair. “I’ll wear my worth on my heart and hands, not my back!” And damned if I’ll pull a village around my shoulders, or belt a town about my waist, he thought, stalking off to dinner.
And yet…And yet, when he reached the Dining Hall where supper was to be, and saw the glistening throng within, he found himself lingering at the threshold. He was dressed in a cinnamon-coloured cloak and tights, and a fawn-coloured tunic. All his clothes smelled of hibiscus flower
s, and they’d put rosewater in his shaving bowl. Rose ower dung-heap still smells like sweet shite, he thought sourly.
He’d never given a tinker’s damn about his clothes—until now. But watching the courtiers bow and chat, he realized there was an art to dressing that he didn’t grasp, a way of standing to advantage, of moving well. There were no pockets in his tunic and he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
Without military medals, he pulled out the talisman Queen Lerelil had given him and let it dangle on his breast. In this room of twittering birds, the ruby-eyed serpent seemed old, cold, and brutal.
You’re in ower your head, lad. You know less than nowt about this world, and you haven’t made many friends since you got here.
It went against all his instincts to fight on his enemy’s terms. And so he hesitated under an archway, studying the gentlemen of fashion for some clue as to what to do with his hands, his movements, his words.
To Mark’s left, Anujel and Count Laszlo met and bowed. The Count had changed into a tunic of red-brown velvet with gleaming gold buttons. Ribbons and medals adorned his chest. His round, high-browed head sat atop a platter of lace. “My dearest Anujel: how fares your honoured father?”
“Well, well. I only hope to be as fit as he is now, when I at last permitted am to drop the load of Policy, and retire to that good garden that the ancients of my line maintain upon our small estate.”
“A happy man is he who turns his back upon the fray,” the Count said mechanically, as if he didn’t believe his words and didn’t particularly care whether anyone else did either. He was married to the middle Princess, Mark remembered. The clever one: Willan.
“Of your honoured father I must ask in turn: how fares he?” Anujel inquired.
“Splendid, I believe. Angling is his passion of the moment.” Count Laszlo’s fingers toyed with the jewelled hilt of a dagger that hung at his hip. He glanced at Mark, then away. The tiniest hint of a smile crept to his lips. “So: the last and boldest Princess is to wed. The King must be a happy man.”
Anujel’s eyebrows rose. “I doubt his happiness outstrips your own in any way, or that of Gerald, Duke and consort to his eldest heir,” the councillor remarked.