Shadow Page 2

  Unnoted in his edge position, Sald gaped around like the hick country boy he was. The Great Courtyard was the largest enclosed space he had ever seen. High above, slowly circling in the azure sky, were four--no, six--guards. What happened, he wondered, to a trooper whose bird crapped on the court? A posting to the hot pole to make ice cream, perhaps?

  Far beyond the courtyard wall he could see the distant craggy top of Ramo Peak, but it could not compare with the view he had had from the desert, a view few men had ever seen: the Range in all its splendor. Even his home peak of Rakarr he had never seen so well, set off by the hazy backdrop of the Rand itself, a crumbled rampart rising miles above the plain, glowing bright against the midnight blue of the sky over Darkside, itself glittering with the distant reflection of ice. But Rakarr was a tiny peak, barely high enough to catch rain, and hence poor for cultivation. Ramo Peak, as he had seen it from the desert, had been breathtaking--its immense vertical extent from airless, waterless rocky uplands, faint and remote, down through pastures and then all the crop levels, barley and wheat and the others, to the lowest habitable, rice; and below that the useless jungle, and then the barren foothills clothed in the dense and poisonous "red air" of the desert and the crucible plains.

  The congregation rose again.

  The royal fanfare was played.

  The entourage entered: guards and priests and court functionaries.

  The king and queen followed.

  It had been a long time since Sald had been close to the king, but he could see little change. The famous flaxen hair might be turning to silver in parts, but when the king stepped into the carpet of sunlight around the thrones, his hair blazed as brightly as the gold circlet it bore. The fair-skinned face was the same, the darting, penetrating eyes. Diamond decorations sparkled on his royal-blue court dress. No quarterings there; the front of his coat bore the eagle symbol only. Aurolron XX, King of Rantorra, tiny and immensely regal.

  But Queen Mayala! Sald was stunned. Where now was the legendary beauty which had once been the toast of the kingdom? Like a woodland sprite, Mayala had floated on the edges of his childhood, a fairy-tale queen with trailing honey hair and a smile for which men would cheerfully have died. She floated no more; eyes downcast, hunched, shrunken inside her royal-blue gown, no taller than the king himself, servile even, she shuffled along beside him. Her hair looked dyed, her face waxen. If this was the best they could do with her for an Investiture, how did she look in private? He had heard no rumors.

  Side by side, the royal couple advanced toward the thrones. Immediately behind the king walked King Shadow, wearing identical clothes--minus decorations, plus a black baldric--a portly yet a somber man.

  Then came Crown Prince Vindax.

  He had not changed--the jet hair, the beak nose, the easy athlete's walk were just as Sald remembered. His eyebrows had grown perhaps even bushier. No quarterings for him, either--he wore sky-blue and the talon symbol of the heir apparent. Prince Shadow was dead, so Vindax's brother, Jarkadon, walked directly behind him, filling the post until Count Moarien's appointment became official. The king and queen settled on the thrones, and Vindax took his place at his father's side, Jarkadon still at his back. The senior officials moved smoothly to their appointed places.

  Vindax's eyes scanned along the waiting fine of hopefuls and found Sald. There was no change of expression, but the royal eyes noted the shabby boots, the baggy hose, the despicable coat. Then the study ended, and Vindax looked away.

  But his interest had been observed, and necks craned to see who had been so honored.

  There, thought Sald, was his problem. His mother had been a lady-in-waiting. As a child he had attended the palace school, and he was the same age as Vindax--few ensigns in the Guard had ever been on first-name terms with the crown prince. Later they had met again, when Vindax was learning flying from the Guard trainers. So when some young courtier had mentioned that he wanted an equerry who was a good skyman, the prince himself would have graciously mentioned the name of Harl. Amusing type, knows his manners, clean about the house...

  The anthem was played, then the archbishop prayed, inaudibly to mortal ears.

  Vindax looked no more at Sald, but Sald studied him. The prince was amazingly unlike the rest of his family. Could flax and honey produce jet? Certainly that thought must have been mulled over a million times by thousands of people since the prince's birth, but to speak even a hint of it would be treason. Jarkadon, by contrast, looked more like the king than the king did.

  The lord chancellor read the proclamation, finally bidding all those etcetera draw nigh. Nobody moved.

  A herald removed the scroll from the chancellor's hand and substituted another.

  "...know therefore that it is our pleasure..."

  There must be forty dubbings to come. Three or four minutes had to be allowed for each to be called, to advance, to receive a few gracious words from the monarch...it was going to be a long time until they got to Sald Harl.

  And the chancellor reached the end of the first citation:

  "...our right trusty Sald Harl, Esquire, ensign in our Royal Guard."

  It was like hitting a sudden downdraft. He hardly registered the shocked bubbling of the court around him.

  First? He had been planning to watch the others.

  His feet moved by themselves, and he floated balloonlike above them, along the line to the center. Turn. Bow. Five paces. Bow. Four paces--make them longer. Bow again. He was within the hot circle of sunlight...

  Shadow? Had that proclamation said "Shadow"?

  Oh, Great God Who Guided the Ark!

  Bow to king, queen, prince, king again. Take one step. Then he stood at the edge of the dais, white-faced and sick to the roots of his soul.

  Aurolron XX rose and paced forward, King Shadow at his back.

  The penetrative power of the royal gaze was legendary. It was said that no man in the kingdom could face it. But that was not true when the kingdom had just crumbled into rubble and buried you up to your ears, when every muscle had frozen with shock. The twin sapphire flames burned above Sald, and he stared back into them with no trouble at all--an easy feat for one whose life had been totally ruined without warning. Chosen career, skymanship, private life, family, friendships--all had been snatched away in an instant.

  For a lifetime the blue eyes and the black stayed locked, and the king's eyebrows rose in mild amusement.

  "And how is NailBiter?' the king asked softly.

  "Well, Your Majesty." They had researched him, of course.

  The royal brows frowned at the brevity. "Out of DeathBreak by SkyHammer." The king's interest in his bloodstock was famous, and his knowledge encyclopedic. "We had great hopes of that pairing--yet there has been but one chick, and it seems that only one man in our entire Guard is capable of handling him."

  Five minutes ago, that royal compliment would have sent Sald Harl into delirium.

  "An exaggeration, Majesty. And I am teaching him better manners."

  The long eye contact ended as the king blinked. He almost seemed to smile. He spoke even more softly. "Perhaps you can do the same for our son?" But no answer was expected to that.

  The king raised his hand, and a page paced forward with a black baldric on a scarlet cushion. Sald's knees found the edge of the dais. The king laid the baldric in silence over Sald's head and across his chest--and by that royal act turned a man into a shadow.

  Sald rose. He moved one pace back and was about to bow--

  No! Up from his childhood, from classes in protocol in the palace school, seeped a long-forgotten maxim: Shadow bows to no one. He froze.

  Should he play it safe and begin his new job with a major display of ignorance before the entire court? Never! But if he was wrong, then he would be guilty of lese majesty at the very least. He looked to King Shadow and got the merest hint of a head shake.

  So the commoner awarded the king a barely perceptible nod, the sort of nod a fat duke might so easily have given an en
sign, and moved one pace to the side. Appointments took effect immediately. He looked to Vindax, and this time the signal was positive. Certain he was dreaming, he stepped up on the royal dais and walked toward the two princes. Jarkadon backed away for him, smiling sardonically.

  Sald moved into place behind Vindax: his place now. The place from which nothing must remove him, save only death.

  There were more appointments, honors and decorations and awards. The peacocks and the butterflies strutted and fluttered in the sunlight, but Sald saw almost none of it. Only once did he take notice, when his fat neighbor from the antechamber waddled forward to be inducted into the Order of the Golden Feather: His Grace, the duke of Aginna. It was a travesty! That great slob could not have ridden a bird in his life.

  He thought of the news arriving at Hiando Keep. His father would swell with pride. His mother would be horror-struck, his sisters full of tears.

  The court whirled in iridescent grandeur.

  The end came. The royal party withdrew--and the fifth person in that party was Sald Harl.

  No, it was Shadow. Prince Shadow, if he need be distinguished from King Shadow, but normally just Shadow.

  He must adjust to life without a name.

  The procession proceeded along corridors. Without warning, Vindax turned to a door, but Sald had been expecting that and did not miss a step. As he pushed the door shut behind them, he noted crystal and silver on carved sideboards, and one small window; this must be some sort of pantry. A cowering little man was waiting.

  Vindax walked to the nearest wall and then swung around, black eyes glinting with amusement. "Welcome, Shadow!" he said.

  "Highness..."

  The prince's eyes said that he had made an error.

  "I don't know this stuff!" Sald said angrily.

  "Then you've forgotten it! Shadow is never presented, so you know nobody. Rank only, rarely title. Never formal address--not even names unless you must."

  "Thank you,Prince."

  Vindax raised a cynical eyebrow. "It isn't quite that bad."

  Sald knew that his resentment was obvious, that he was therefore showing ingratitude, and that he was being mocked because of it. He liked to remember Vindax as a childhood friend, back when they had both been too small to appreciate the chasm between a baronet's heir and a king's. He tried not to remember the adolescent Vindax of flying classes, when a commoner struggling to get by on ability alone must never upstage the heir apparent.

  "Why me?" he demanded.

  The prince shook his head and leaned back against the wall. Except in the security of the royal apartments he must always have a wall behind him--or Shadow. "Strip," he said. "We haven't much time."

  The timid little man was fussing with clothes. Sald reached up to remove the damnable black baldric.

  "We're the same size, more or less," Vindax said. "You'll wear my second best until we get some for you."

  Cloak and coat...Shadow would wear the same garb as the prince, except for the decorations. He would taste his food, possibly sleep in the same room.

  "But why me, Prince?"

  "Many reasons, for many people. My father, for example?"

  He hadn't changed a fraction--he was still all arrogance, mockery, charm. And wits.

  The breeches went next, and the valet had produced underwear, to show that this was to be no half effort. Sald must start matching wits again. It had never been easy. "You would tell the king that I am nothing, so I am your creation and owe everything to you. You alone have my loyalty."

  He had scored. "Close."

  "You would have told the queen that I am an expert skyman."

  The prince smiled. "Right reasons, wrong parents. Chief of protocol?"

  "You told him that the appointment of a nobody would not disturb the balance of court factions." Obviously he was right again. "And the truth?"

  "You're the best man, of course."

  Sald could not believe that. "I heard Count Moarien--"

  "Moarien sniffs. Sniff, sniff, all day long. Probably snores."

  He was being mocked again.

  The new breeches were silk, the softest material he had ever handled. "Many don't sniff. Why me?"

  The dark eyes studied him carefully. "You're my second Shadow. You heard what happened to the first?"

  "A wild struck him."

  "It wasn't a wild. Idiot Farin Donnim had been feeding his bird batmeat. He lost control. It took Shadow in an instant."

  Half into a coat which proclaimed him to be crown prince of Rantorra, Sald paused. "What happened to Donnim?"

  "Nothing--his uncle's a duke. But you do it to me and they'll cut you into meatballs with blunt scissors."

  NailBiter must learn his manners quickly, then. Every time he flew now, he would have a prince stretched out under his beak, a tempting royal breakfast within easy reach of a quick strike.

  But they would take NailBiter from him. How much flying did Vindax do, anyway? A few state visits here and there, a bit of hunting. Sald Harl's sky days were apparently over.

  The valet adjusted the black baldric with care.

  Vindax was still studying him with sardonic amusement. "My father's on his fifth Shadow. One tried breathing through a hole in his back, the second was heard to remark that the soup tasted bitter, and two were mistaken for rabbits."

  "You're trying to scare me."

  "I want you scared." Vindax lacked the king's penetrating gaze; his eyes were a blunt instrument.

  The valet bundled up the discarded clothes as though planning to burn them. He probably was. The trooper flying suit was back in the anteroom--it didn't matter. Sald's money was still in the pockets, his keys...None of those mattered. His two quarterings did not matter. He had no name and no rank.

  The valet bowed and vanished, never having said a word. Vindax straightened up.

  "My duties?" Sald asked.

  Vindax looked at him with fake astonishment. "My life, of course. At the cost of your own, if necessary."

  "I know that bit," Sald said.

  The prince shrugged. "You are seen and silent, that's all."

  "Do I have any authority?"

  Vindax smiled faintly. "Normally, no. But in any affair which pertains to my safety, you are paramount. You can even give orders to the king, although I don't recommend it. No limits at all."

  So he could keep NailBiter, but he would have no time for training. "King Shadow?"

  "You outrank him."

  If a choice must be made, the prince's life would take precedence. The arrogance was understandable.

  "The flying part I can handle," Sald said. That had been the original purpose of Shadow. "It's the stiletto and strychnine part."

  "Today is the banquet," Vindax said irritably, anxious to be off. "I've set aside tomorrow for learning. As Shadow you're head of my bodyguard. You have a staff--hire and fire as you please, but some of them have been at this for kilodays. King Shadow will give you pointers."

  "That's still not the truth, Prince," Sald said. "You're wearing exactly the expression NailBiter does when he's snatched a mutebat and thinks I haven't noticed."

  The prince flushed. "And what do you do then?" he asked, dangerously.

  "I make him as mad as I can. If he gets mad enough, he spits it out."

  The black eyes glared, and Vindax reddened further. "Get insolent with me, fellow, and I'll have your head!"

  "That's what NailBiter thinks."

  The prince gasped audibly and then burst into a roar of laughter, but laughter with a curious metallic ring to it. "All right! I'll spit. Back when we flew together, how would you rate me?"

  Sald--Shadow, now--hesitated and then saw that flattery was certainly not part of his job. "Potentially good. You had the courage, the reflexes. Not patient enough. Inclined to be reckless. That's my fault also, so I can't judge it. But you never got enough practice."

  "Of the twenty days before Shadow's unexpected resignation," Vindax said, "I flew nineteen. I expect to fly ev
ery day for the next thousand, with a few exceptions. Some days only a couple of hours, true, but some are going to be long, long hops."

  Now it was Sald who gasped, and Vindax nodded with pleasure at the effect.

  "I'm going to explore my inheritance, Shadow," he said. "From one end to the other, from salt to ice, Range and Rand. My father never did, but he agrees that it is a good idea. Far too much this court does nothing but gossip, and knows nothing. So I'm getting my practice in now, and the jaunts start soon. You were chosen because you're a damned good skyman, and I need one."

  Sald sighed with relief. "Then I am truly grateful--and honored. And I swear that I will gladly serve as Prince Shadow, and to the limits of my ability."

  When NailBiter had spat out the mutebat, he was rewarded with a tasty morsel. Vindax smiled in satisfaction at the speech. "And for a start," he said smugly, "we'll do the big one: the Rand. All the way!"

  For a moment Sald did not comprehend. Leftward, the Rand led only to Piatorra, and relations between the two kingdoms were supposedly strained at the moment. Rightward lay wild, poorly settled country: frontier. He knew almost nothing about it, for Rantorrans normally thought only of the Range. But the Rand there was habitable, for it roughly paralleled the terminator. And "all the way" must mean all the hundreds of miles to where it swung abruptly darkward and vanished into the ice layer on Darkside.

  He gasped. "To Allaban?"

  A black glare barbecued him. "To Ninar Foan!"

  Of course. The rebels still held Allaban--Sald had forgotten his history as well as his protocol. The siege of Allaban...the keeper of the Rand...Queen Mayala...

  It was curious that Aurolron had never even attempted to recover Allaban. Was Vindax planning a war, now or when he came to the throne?

  "Reconnaissance?" Sald asked cautiously.

  "Partly." Then the prince grinned. "Also the duke of Foan is premier nobleman of the realm, and he has a daughter."

  A long way to go for a date!

  "And no son," Vindax added. "So if she has buckteeth or one tit bigger than the other, then we'll marry her to my brother and he can be the next keeper at Ninar Foan. Don't tell him that! Politically she's the obvious match for me. We'll see if she's beddable. Now we must go mix with the rabble."