The Gilded Chain Read online

  The Gilded Chain

  A TALE OF THE KING’S BLADES

  DAVE DUNCAN

  This book is dedicated with

  all my love to my grandson

  Brendan Andrew Press

  in the hope that one day he

  will find pleasure in it

  Contents

  Prologue

  1 Harvest

  2 Nutting

  3 Everman

  4 Wolfbiter

  5 Montpurse

  6 Kate

  7 Quarrel

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Dave Duncan

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Grand Master looked even older than the Squire, but he had a hard trimness that age had not softened, as if he would still be deadly with that sword he wore. There was a ferocity in his gaze that the boy had never seen before in any man’s; so he forced himself not to flinch when those terrible gray eyes turned on him, meeting the stare as impassively as he could, determined not to show any sign of the tumult in his belly. While the two men discussed him, he stood in silence, clutching his cap in both hands. He had never seen the Squire be so most-wondrous polite to anyone before, fawning at Grand Master the way the goose wife did to him.

  The boy had expected the famous Ironhall to look like a castle, but it was just a cluster of buildings all alone on barren Starkmoor, black stone walls and black slate roofs. The inside was even bleaker: bare walls, plank floor, wooden ceiling; a cold wind sighing in one unglazed, barred window and out another. Two big chairs, a table, a shelf of books, a grate so clean that it was hard to believe any fire had ever burned there—no prison cell could be grimmer. If this was Grand Master’s room, how did the boys live?

  “Vicious!” the Squire said. “Intractable. Don’t suppose even you can make a man out of such trash.” He had been telling everything—the boy’s entire life from his shameful birth out of wedlock fourteen years ago to last week’s attempt to run away and the subsequent whipping, with not one prank or misdeed overlooked. That was no way to sell a horse. After that catalogue of wickedness there could be no chance at all of his being accepted. He was going to be sent home to Dimpleshire most-wondrous fast.

  Grand Master drained his wine and replaced the goblet on the table. “You will withdraw, please, while I speak with the lad.”

  The boy watched uneasily as the Squire rose, bowed low, and departed. What was the use of prolonging the matter? Why not throw them both out and be done with it? The iron-studded door thudded shut.

  He was not invited to take the vacant chair. He met the gaze of the terrible gray eyes and steeled himself not to twitch, fidget, or even swallow. After several long minutes, Grand Master said, “Why did you steal the pony?”

  “It’s mine. My mom gave it to me before she…long time ago.”

  The old man smiled grimly. “If it was only this high, couldn’t you have walked faster on your own two feet?”

  The boy shrugged. “They’d always caught me on foot. Thought it might confuse the dogs.”

  “Worth a try,” Grand Master admitted. He reached his left hand into his doublet and brought out a bag. It clinked. Now what? “You don’t get to keep this money—I take it back. Put your cap on the table.”

  The boy obeyed suspiciously.

  “Go back to where you were standing. Catch!”

  The boy caught the coin. Most-wondrous!

  “Can you throw it into your cap? Good. Ready?” Another coin.

  The boy caught it and tossed it beside the first. The next throw went wider. Then higher, so he had to jump—and there was another coming already and he was throwing and catching at the same time. Soon he was going in four directions at once, grabbing and throwing with both hands.

  The barrage stopped. He had put every one in the cap.

  “That was impressive. Very impressive!”

  “Thank you, my lord.” It wasn’t bad. Kids’ stuff, though.

  “Call me Grand Master. Your grandfather was certainly correct when he said you were agile. But he did tell me one untruth, didn’t he, although he uttered no deliberate falsehoods? What is the real story?”

  The boy resisted a need to lick his lips. Would he rather be thought wicked or stupid? The old man must be using some sort of conjurement to detect lies, so stupid it would have to be.

  “The girl, Grand Master. That one was not me.”

  The old man nodded. “I guessed that from your reaction. The rest don’t matter—only signs of a spirit caged. Violence against women is otherwise. Yet you took the punishment without protest? Why?”

  Because I am stupid! “He’s a serf’s son. They’d have hanged him. She was only scared, not real hurt.”

  “And suppose the next time he does rape someone? Won’t that be your fault?”

  “I don’t think he’s truly evil, Grand—”

  “Answer my question.”

  The boy thought for a moment. “Yes.”

  “Do you regret your decision now?”

  “No, Grand Master.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t think he’s truly evil, Grand Master.”

  “You have confidence in your own judgment. Good. Well, the choice is yours—not mine, not your grandfather’s. Yours. If you wish to stay, I accept you. If you do not, then I shall tell your grandfather that I refused you. I warn you that you will be embarking on a whole new life, a life of complete obedience. It will be made a hard life, deliberately, for we have no use for the soft. For the first few weeks you will not even possess a name; you will be only the Brat, the lowest of the low. You will be free to leave at any time—and many do—but what happens to you then will be no concern of ours. You will walk out of the gate with nothing and never return.

  “On the other hand, if you survive your training, you will have achieved a position of some honor in society. You will very likely live at court, one of a very select brotherhood, the finest swordsmen in the known world. Again, you will be embarking on a life of complete obedience. You will serve your King or whomever else he decrees. You will have no say in the matter. Indeed, this decision you take now is in a sense the last decision you will ever make of your own free will.”

  And the first one, too. The boy had not expected to be offered a choice.

  Grand Master said, “Have you any questions?”

  “Who picks my new name?”

  “You do, usually from the list of former Blades, although other names are sometimes accepted.”

  That was fairer than he had expected. If he left, he would never know whether he could have been man enough. Being the Brat in Ironhall could not be much worse than being a bastard son in a family with very little money and no social importance. The alternative was to be apprenticed to some craftsman or merchant, a nobody evermore. He would not be the Brat for long. “I wish to stay, Grand Master.”

  “Don’t be too hasty. There are many things you do not know. Ask more questions or just think about it. You can have five minutes.”

  “No, Grand Master. I wish to stay.”

  “To make such a decision lightly can be taken as a sign of folly.”

  “I have confidence in my own judgment, Grand Master.”

  The dread eyes narrowed. “If you were already a candidate, that remark would be treated as insolence.”

  The only safe answer to that was, “I understand, Grand Master.”

  The old man nodded. “Very well. You are accepted. Brat, go and tell the man waiting outside that he may go now.”

  HARVEST

  I

  1

  “Treason,” Kromman whispered. He repeated the word, mouthing it as if h
e found the taste pleasing: “Treason! Your treachery is uncovered at last. Evidence has been laid before the King.” He smiled and licked his wizened lips.

  Human wood-louse!

  Roland considered drawing his sword and sliding it into Kromman until the blade would go no farther, then taking it out again—by another route, for variety. That would be an act of public service he should have performed a lifetime ago, but it would create a serious scandal. Word would flash across all Eurania that the King of Chivial’s private secretary had been murdered by his lord chancellor, sending courtiers of a dozen capitals into fits of hysterical giggles. Lord Roland must behave himself. It was a pleasing fantasy, though.

  Meanwhile, the winter night was falling. He still had work piled up like snowdrifts, a dozen petitioners waiting to see him, and no time to waste on this black-robed human fungus.

  Patience! “As you well know, Master Secretary, such rumors go around every couple of years—rumors about me, about you, about many of the King’s ministers.” Ambrose probably started most of the stories himself, but if his chancellor said so to Kromman, Kromman would tattle back to him. “His Majesty has more sense than to listen to slander. Now, have you brought some business for me?”

  “No, Lord Chancellor. No more business for you.” Kromman was not hiding his enjoyment; he was up to something. Even in his youth, as a Dark Chamber inquisitor, he had been repugnant—spying and snooping, prying and plotting, maligning anyone he could not destroy. Now, with age-yellowed eyes and hair trailing like cobwebs from under his black biretta, he had all the appeal of a corpse washed up on a beach. Some days he looked even worse. Even the King, who had few scruples, referred to him in private as rat poison. What secret joy was he savoring now?

  Roland stood up. He had always been taller and trimmer than this grubby ink slinger, and the years had not changed that. “I won’t send for the Watch. I’ll throw you out myself. I have no time for games.”

  “Nor I. The games are over at last.” Kromman slithered a letter onto the desk with all the glee of a small boy waiting for his mother to open a gift he has wrapped for her. Definitely up to something!

  Over by the door, Quarrel looked up from his book with a puzzled expression. No voices had been raised yet, but his Blade instincts were detecting trouble.

  Roland’s face had given away nothing for thirty years and would not start doing so now. Impassively he took up the packet, noting that it was addressed personally to Earl Roland of Waterby, Companion of the White Star, Knight of the Loyal and Ancient Order of the King’s Blades, et cetera, and closed with the privy seal, yet it bore no mention of his high office. That odd combination warned him what he was going to find even before he lifted the wax with a deft twist of his knife and crackled the parchment open. The ornately lettered message was terse to the point of brutality:

  is therefore commanded to divest…will absent himself from business of our Privy Council…will hold himself available to answer certain grave matters….

  Dismissal!

  His first reaction was sweet relief that he could now throw down all his worries and go home to Ivywalls and the wife whom he had never been allowed time enough to love as she deserved. His second thought was that Kromman, here designated his successor, was an unthinkable choice, totally incapable of handling the work.

  He looked up blandly, while his mind raced through this deadly jungle that had suddenly sprung up around him. He should not be surprised, of course. Ambrose IV tired of ministers just as he tired of mistresses or favorite courtiers. The King grew weary and sought new beginnings. He would hope to shed some of his current unpopularity by blaming his own mistakes on the man who had faithfully carried out his policies. Loyalty was better to receive than to give.

  With the silent grace of an archer drawing a longbow, Quarrel rose to his feet. For most of the last two days, the poor kid had been slouched on the couch by the door, leafing through a book of romantic verse, bored out of his mind. He would have registered that the latest visitor was unarmed when he entered and then lost interest in him. Now he had sensed something amiss.

  “Your treason is uncovered!” Kromman said again, gloating.

  Roland shrugged. “No treason. Whatever forgeries you have concocted, Master Kromman, they will not withstand proper examination.”

  “We shall see.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, lifelong foes harnessed too long together in service to the same master. Roland could never consider himself guilty of treason under any reasonable definition of the word; but treason was a slippery concept, a mire he had seen trap many others—Bluefield, Centham, Montpurse. Especially Montpurse. He had organized Montpurse’s destruction himself. To be dragged down by the odious Kromman would be excessive irony, though. That would hurt more than the headsman’s ax.

  Again he found himself contemplating murder and this time he was not altogether joking with himself; this might be his last chance to slay the vermin. Alas, the revenge he should have taken years ago would now be seen as an admission of guilt, so he would die also and leave Kromman as posthumous winner of their long feud. Better to stay alive and fight, face down the deceit and hope to win, however unlikely that might be—Kromman was very sure of himself.

  Meanwhile, the dusty files on the desk and the garrulous petitioners in the waiting room could equally be forgotten. Lord Roland could walk away from them all with a clear conscience and head home a day earlier than he had planned. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start worrying about treason and a trial and the almost inevitable death sentence.

  “Long live the King,” he said calmly. He walked around the desk, lifting the weighty chain from his shoulders. “This is not gold, by the way, only gilt. Chancery knows that, so don’t try accusing me of embezzlement.”

  With a leer of triumph, Kromman bent his head to receive the chain. It rattled around his feet like a golden snake as Roland released it.

  “Put it around your neck yourself, Master Kromman, or have the King do it. The writ does not require me to bestow it.”

  “Oh, we shall teach you humbler ways soon!”

  “I doubt it.” Then Roland recalled the wording of the warrant and the authority it granted to his successor. “Or are you contemplating immediate action against my person?”

  The new chancellor’s amber-toothed smile was answer in itself. “Indeed, I shall now have the pleasure of completing a task I was prevented from completing many years ago.” Meaning he had a squad of men-at-arms waiting in the anteroom to escort the prisoner to a dungeon in the Bastion, probably in chains. What sweet triumph that would be for him!

  But he was still unaware that there was a third person present. He had come scurrying in with his mincing, pigeon-toed walk and gone right by the witness beside the door, too impatient to notice his victim’s guardian. As quiet as mist, Quarrel had crossed the room to stand at the inquisitor’s back—tall and supple and deadly as a spanned crossbow. He could be Lord Roland’s twin brother, born forty years too late.

  For the first time Roland looked directly at him. “Have you met Master Kromman, the King’s secretary?”

  “I have not had that honor, my lord.”

  Kromman twisted around with a gasp.

  “It is no honor. He plans to have me arrested. What say you to that?”

  Quarrel smiled at this sudden improvement to his day. “I say not so, my lord.” One hand rested on his sword. He could draw faster than a whip crack.

  “I thought you might. This is Sir Quarrel, Chancellor. I deeply regret that I shall be unable to accept your gracious invitation voluntarily. I hope you brought adequate forces?”

  Kromman’s jaw hung open. Quarrel’s hose and doublet had been outrageously expensive, his jerkin and plumed hat even more so, but they could be matched on a score of young dandies around the court. It was not his athlete’s grace or his darkly sinister good looks that proclaimed him unmistakably as a Blade, nor yet his sword, for his hand concealed the distinctive pommel
. Perhaps it was his bearing. There could be no doubt that even if he were one against an army, he would litter the floor with bodies before he let anyone lay a hand on his ward.

  Kromman had a problem he had not anticipated.

  “Where did you get him?” he squeaked.

  “On Starkmoor, of course.” Roland should have guessed that something unexpected would happen right after he went back to Ironhall. Every visit he had ever made to that gloomy keep had marked a turning point in his life.

  2

  As Durendal raised his wineglass to his lips, loud booing broke out at the far end of the hall, which could only mean that the Brat had come in. An immediate cheer announced that he had been tripped up already. The kid scrambled to his feet in a shower of crusts and chop bones, and was promptly tripped again. He had a long way to go, because he was not past the sopranos’ table yet and must still run the gauntlet of the beansprouts, the beardless, and the fuzzies before he reached the seniors. Undoubtedly Grand Master had sent him to summon Prime and Second to a binding, and it was his misfortune that they happened to be at dinner.

  It was a rough game, but some of the games were even worse; and everyone started out as the Brat. Durendal had endured that ordeal longer than most, beginning right after the supremely joyous moment when he had been able to tell his grandfather to go back to Dimpleshire and stay there. Spirits! Had that been five years ago? It was hard to believe that he was Second now and the Brat was heading for him. Most-wondrous!

  He glanced at the high table to confirm that Grand Master’s throne remained unoccupied. Master of Horse and Master of Rapiers caught his eye and smiled knowingly. Nothing but a binding would be keeping the old man away on Ironhall’s most important night of the year, the Feast of Durendal, the legendary founder whose name Second himself had assumed in a mad act of defiance. Tonight the seniors were allowed wine. Soon the Litany of Heroes would be read out and speeches made. For Grand Master to be absent required something epic afoot. Possibly the King himself had arrived.