“Your Majesty inquired about the enchantment used to disguise the town and the castle,” Ilingus continued. “This is being accomplished by a more ordinary form of magic called glamour, no doubt the work of Beynor’s coterie of wizards. The spell is so well-woven that I’m unable to dissolve it.”
“So we won’t know what’s real and what’s bogus once we get ashore, is that it?” the king grumbled. “They could be feeding us pig-swill and entertaining us in a mucky pesthole, and we’d never know it.”
“Only the eyes are deceived by glamour, Majesty. The Conjure-King won’t dare to feed us poor food, nor perpetrate any other gross imposture. I’ll be on the alert every moment, you may be sure, and so will my assistants.”
“You’d damn well better be.”
A piping voice cried, “Eldpapa! Eldpapa! See pretty boats? Boats come! Wanna ride pretty boat!” Two-year-old Prince Onestus, son of Crown Prince Honigalus, came running across the foredeck, pursued at some distance by a red-faced nursemaid and his young aunt, Princess Risalla.
The gigantic king knelt, beaming like a jack-o‘-lantern, and held his arms wide. The child leapt into them, heedless of the armor, and squealed with delight as Achardus bestowed a resounding kiss, all but burying the small face in his beard.
“Nesti! So you want a boat ride, do you, lad? But you’ve been riding on the Casya for two days now.”
“Casya too big, like a house,” the boy objected. “Wanna ride little boat like that.”
He squirmed out of his grandfather’s grasp and darted to the rail, which had stanchions dangerously far apart. Risalla and the nursemaid screamed a warning, still too far away to go to the child’s rescue, but the archwizard, moving with surprising speed for an older man, had already laid hold of the tiny prince, scooping him safely up into his arms.
Achardus scowled at the two women, who now bobbed sheepish curtseys before him. The maid took charge of the prince, inspecting him for non-existent harm, while Risalla faced her father’s anger. “Here’s a pretty state of things,” he exclaimed, “letting a wee lad run loose on shipboard! Where’s your brains, girl? Come to that, where’s his mother?”
“I’m so sorry, sire,” the princess said in a tremulous voice. She was twenty years of age, the king’s youngest child and as yet unmarried. Her face was wan and plain, save for eyes as blue as cornflowers, which now brimmed with frightened tears. Her honey-brown hair, partially covered by a thin white veil of sendal and crowned with a narrow golden coronet, was dressed in a multitude of thin plaits threaded with jeweled bangles. She wore a silken gown that matched her eyes and a pelisse of snow-mink.
“Dala and I were minding Nesti while Crown Princess Bryse was putting on her finery. The boy begged to come on deck and I just couldn’t refuse him. It seemed safe enough, now that we’re at anchor, but I tripped coming up the companionway steps and let go of his hand for an instant, and he was off…”
“Why wasn’t the nurse holding him as well?” Achardus demanded.
“Sire, the companionway is narrow, and—”
“That’s enough! You there!” The king beckoned to the nursemaid, who was now eyeing him with terror, while keeping the wriggling Onestus restrained with both hands. “Give the prince over to Her Royal Highness and come here.”
When the woman was on her knees before him, he addressed her in a voice full of quiet menace. “We are about to disembark into a city crawling with sorcerers, where man-eating Salka and God knows what other fiendish beings lurk among the rocks and cessponds. Prince Onestus is your responsibility. If any harm should come to him, you will be skinned alive, then drowned in boiling oil.
Never again let the boy out of your sight and care unless his parents command otherwise. Do you understand?“
The nurse’s voice was nearly inaudible. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Now take Onestus below.” He turned to the archwizard. “Lingo, go with her. Find my sons and their wives and tell Their Royal Highnesses I said to hotfoot it up on deck. The boats bearing the Mossland welcomers are almost here, and I want everyone ready to meet them.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the two of them said. The nursemaid rose, took the child from Risalla, and fled with him. The wizard followed at a more stately pace.
The princess stood with lowered eyes and hands clenched tightly in front of her. “It was my fault Nesti got away, not Dala’s.”
“You dare to take the wench’s part?”
Risalla lifted her doleful face. She had her father’s strong jaw, but her lips were budlike and soft. “Yes, Father, I do. Dala is a good woman who does her duty and loves Nesti with all her heart. She’d give her life for him.”
“So she will indeed,” the king said suavely, “if anything happens to the heir of Honigalus during our stay in this benighted land of Moss.” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “Daughter, it’s time you were wed.”
She stared at him, mouth open in horror as she realized what was in his mind. “Not this Conjure-King Beynor!”
“I haven’t made up my mind about him yet, but your brothers seem to believe we’d be well-advised to seek a match.”
“You refused Princess Ullanoth as a bride for Somarus,” she reminded him bitterly.
“Watch your tongue, madam! Sauce me and I’ll flog you myself with a silken lash!”
She inclined her head in a wordless bow of submission. Tears trickled down her broad, pale cheeks.
“It’s not a certainty. We’ll have to see whether Beynor’s as great a sorcerer as he pretends to be. But he did come up with the idea that we peddle warships to the Continent, which helped keep our people from starving, and he claims he can shut off the Wolf’s Breath. What’s more, he’s told your brothers that he can defend Didion in case Cathra attacks us. He wants gold, of course, but he says he’s willing to wait for payment until our national fortunes are restored. A dynastic marriage would cement the alliance more securely than any treaty. It’s the lot of a royal princess, lass. Accept it.”
“Yes, Father.” She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
“If it’s any comfort,” the king said gruffly, “Hon and Somar say the boy-king is comely enough. Tall and skinny, black eyes, blond hair. A bit of an odd fish, but that’s to be expected if he’s a magicker. We’ll make the betrothal contingent on his fulfilling his promise to abolish the Wolf’s Breath, so you won’t have to go to him right away.”
“Thank you, sire.”
The king gave her shoulder an awkward pat, then turned away from her, raising the spyglass to his eye again to inspect the approaching boats. “And if I don’t fancy the cut of young Beynor’s bloody jib, you won’t go to him at all! Now go attend your mother.”
The string of coaches waiting to carry the Didionite royal party to the castle had been scrubbed and polished and fitted with new upholstery. Crystal vases inside held skimpy bouquets of blue gentian, marshmallow, pink heather, and ball-buttercup. Thanks to wizards disguised as coachmen, the horses appeared to be fine matched pairs, all of them glossy black with manes and tails woven with green-and-yellow ribbons. The footmen who assisted the distinguished guests to board wore smart livery of green leather emblazoned with Moss’s heraldic golden swan.
King Achardus and Queen Siry were led by Grand Master Ridcanndal to the lead coach, which was larger and grander than the others and drawn by four horses rather than two. Crown Prince Honigalus and his wife Princess Bryse, and Prince Somarus and his wife Princess Thylla settled into the second coach. The third bore Princess Risalla, Onestus and his nurse, the infant Princess Hyndry, who was the daughter of Somarus and Thylla, and a second nursemaid. Six other coaches accommodated the lords and ladies of the royal retinue, including Archwizard Ilingus Direwold and his five assistants. The Mossland dignitaries were to bring up the rear in open equipages, heavily swathed in festive bunting, that had a suspicious resemblance to gussied-up farm carts. Files of warlock-knights in fearsome black armor and emerald cloaks were poised to ride on either side
of the cavalcade, while phalanxes of the Didion Royal Guard, armed in barbarian splendor and with black-and-white pennons flying, took up marching positions in the front and rear.
Queen Siry arranged her robes and peered out the coach’s window at the banner-decorated buildings along the quay. They all seemed to be in good repair, and the wharves were full of bales and chests of goods, guarded by armed men.
“The place looks prosperous enough,” she murmured to her royal spouse. “And have you noticed that the sky is blue—except where the stormclouds are piled up? There’s no fallen ash on the ground surface or rocks, either. King Beynor told our sons true when he said that he had turned the Wolf’s Breath away from Moss.”
“Apparently so,” the king said sourly. “But remember that the diverted ashfall landed mostly on us! And the young trickster was very evasive when Hon asked why he couldn’t turn off the volcanos immediately, rather than doing it next spring. One might almost suspect that the eruptions are about to peter out of their own accord, and Beynor simply intends to take credit for it.”
The queen frowned. The second wife of Achardus, she was an austerely handsome woman, very tall and slender, whose golden hair was fading now that she was three and forty years old. Her gown was black with panels of scarlet, and she wore a brocade cloak in the same colors. Her headdress had stiffened wings of red silk gauze springing from a crown glowing with rubies and pearls. Like her husband, she descended from the warrior queen Casabarela, who had subdued the rebellious dukedoms of interior Didion and ushered in a long period of national prosperity that had been unfortunately terminated by the advent of the lengthy Wolf’s Breath.
“Look over there,” Queen Siry said. “That old woman coming toward us! See how the crowd gives way before her? I wonder why?”
Some members of the Glaumerie Guild had noticed the approaching crone as well and were pointing her out to the mounted warlocks in some agitation. The knights in black armor spurred their steeds, as if to intercept the woman, but the animals only reared and wheeled about in place, neighing loudly, while the warlocks flailed the air with magical swords that obstinately refused to burst into flame.
Grand Master Ridcanndal himself came trotting up on a white palfrey when it became evident that his underlings were not going to be able to prevent the hag from approaching the coach carrying Didion’s king and queen.
“Give way!” he shouted at her, brandishing his golden staff of office. His great red nose shone like a ripe apple. “I forbid you to approach, on pain of death!”
“Woe!” the old woman howled. “Woe and wrath! Terror and desolation! Death and perdition!” She held high a small thing that shone brightly green, and at the sight of it, Ridcanndal and his minions shrank back. A gasp went up from the astonished crowd. “Go home, King and Queen of Didion! Leave this place whose splendor is only a hollow sham. Go before it’s too late!”
Capping her admonition with a marrow-freezing wail, she vanished.
The bewitched horses of the warlock-knights at once left off their frenzied whirling and were calm save for the odd snort and rolling of eyes. The townsfolk murmured to one another and snickered, more diverted than frightened by the spectacle. Abashed Guild members, who had tried in vain to approach the troublemaker, retreated to their carriages, leaving Ridcanndal sitting his horse, grinding his teeth in frustration.
“Fewmand me soul!” King Achardus cursed. Then he bellowed, “You, Guild-master! To me! Who the hell was that caterwauling old broomstick?”
Ridcanndal hastened to the coach window. Bowing low in the saddle, he stammered, “A m-madwoman, Your Majesty. Some deranged, malicious creature from the swamps, perhaps one with a petty grievance against the Crown, who had a vain hope of disrupting the Conjure-King’s peace on this historic day.” He smiled in a manner intended to be reassuring, his two oversized upper teeth gleaming horribly. “But as you see, she’s gone now without doing any harm.” He took a deep breath. “So let the procession commence! Onward to Castle Fenguard!”
Trumpeters sounded a flourish, drummers struck up a thunderous beat, and the swords of the warlocks finally burst into flame. With a cracking of whips, the coaches began to move slowly up the lumpy cobblestone street while the populace cheered and whistled. Every one of Royal Fenguard’s burghers, householders, crafters, and slaves who was not sick abed or too enfeebled to walk had been turned out to salute the guests. A few men strategically positioned in the front row of spectators waved Didion’s bear’s-head flag. The others flapped dish-clouts or tossed up their hats as the coaches rolled by and their occupants waved from the open windows.
“Well, that was a bizarre sort of welcome,” Crown Prince Honigalus said, his lips twisting with mirth. “Not exactly the best omen for a coronation. Young Beynor will hang that old biddy by her heels from the battlements when he catches her.”
“If he does,” Prince Somarus said. “Still, you have to admit the little jackanapes brought out a decent crowd.” Like their royal father, he and his brother wore parade armor and white surcoats emblazoned with Didion’s bear.
“The town doesn’t look nearly as decrepit and filthy as I remember it,” his older brother said. “Of course, it was the dead of night when we picked up Beynor for the trip south, and we had no time to waste sightseeing before the tide turned.”
Princess Thylla said, “I heard Ilingus tell Queen Siry that there’s sorcery at work, making the old buildings and the crumbling castle look as good as new.” She was an elegant young woman of fastidious habits, quick to find fault, and unlike her full-fleshed sister-in-law, she had not let childbirth deprive her of her willowy form. Her hair was russet, caught up in a fantastic headdress of gold net and pearls, and her gown was particolored velvet in fiery hues, embellished with jewels and trimmed with costly green vair. “Somarus, I insist that you have the archwizard inspect our quarters thoroughly before we settle in. If we’re being hoodwinked and the rooms are dirty and full of spiders and mice, then I’m taking myself and our daughter back to the flagship at once—and to blazes with royal protocol!”
“I heard Ilingus speak of glamour, too,” Crown Princess Bryse added. She was ordinarily easygoing and pleasant, but the harridan’s tirade had shaken her composure badly. “I feel exactly the same as Thylla. How can we be sure that some Mossy necromancer won’t smite all of us with infernal enchantment while we’re sleeping? You men may have put your families in danger insisting we come with you to this dreary hole. Our own palace is cheerless enough these days, but at least it’s safe.”
“Now, love, don’t fuss!” Honigalus was conciliatory, as usual. He was thickset and swarthy, like his father, but lacked the king’s massive stature. Although his clean-shaven features were coarse, he had an equable disposition and an astute mind. Achardus had placed him in charge of Didion’s navy, while his more volatile younger brother Somarus commanded the army.
Bryse sighed. “I’m not fussing, my darling. Only begging you to be cautious.”
He gave her a comforting smile. Like himself, she was not physically imposing, nor was she fond of extravagant dress. Her gown and headdress were black trimmed with white, as befitted the Crown Princess of Didion, but she was only modestly adorned with jewels. Her marriage had been an arranged one, intended to secure the loyalty of the mighty Vandragora clan of Firedrake Water. But it had soon become evident that the prince and princess were actually a perfect match of intelligence and physical warmth. By the time Onestus was born, they were steadfast in their devotion to one another.
“I intend to be cautious,” Honigalus told her. “Every bedchamber will be guarded by a squad of our own warriors and by Ilingus’s assistants, on the lookout for black magic. But nothing bad will happen, be assured! Young King Beynor needs our approval and wants to impress us. That’s the only reason he magicked up his town. God knows Holt Mallburn could use some serious reconstruction work after three years of the Wolf’s Breath. Why, if magic could restore our capital city and lift the people’s spirits, I
’d bring adepts of the Glaumerie Guild back home with us in an eyeblink.”
“You would, too,” Somarus muttered. “Without a second thought of what else the bastards might get up to.”
“Brother, let’s not quarrel. You know we have no intention of allowing alien wizards inside our realm, nor has Beynor asked us to do so.”
“You’re too trusting,” said Somarus. “I’ve said that from the beginning of our dealings with the boy.”
“And you’re too suspicious. We’ve already signed the Treaty of Alliance with Moss. Now it’s up to Beynor to prove his worth to us. Abolishing the Wolf’s Breath is all-important, but we’re also counting on him and his coterie to use their scrying talent to alert us to any surprise attack by Cathra—a clear and present danger, as well you know. The Conjure-King has magical resources for oversight that poor old Lingo and even Fring can only dream about. He’s already proved that to us—and to the corsair captains down in Stippen and Foraile, too.”
“Oh, you’re right, as usual,” Somarus replied ill-naturedly. “But we ought to guard our backs every inch of the way dealing with him. And the very thought of sweet little Risalla being bedded by that uncanny twerp—” He shook his head in disgust.
Queen Cheyna Garal, Thylla’s second cousin and the first wife of King Achardus, had died bearing Honigalus. Somarus and Risalla were the issue of the king’s second marriage to Siry Boarsden, and the brother and sister loved one another dearly in spite of their opposing temperaments. Somarus had his mother’s towering, graceful form and her chiseled good looks. Like Risalla, his eyes were bright blue. He had wavy sandy hair, a drooping reddish moustache, and eyebrows to match. His impetuous nature and ferocity in battle had caused him to be idolized by the quarrelsome warriors of the Forest Realm. Some of the dukes and robber-barons had even dared to say that he would make a better king than Honigalus…
“Father agrees that Risalla won’t wed Beynor unless he does what he’s promised,” the Crown Prince said. “If our dear sister does have to go to him, we’ll be sure she has a personal retinue of strong warriors to keep her secure.”