The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades Read online

  Magic! Murther’s magic or another like it?

  Going more cautiously now, Emerald dodged around a couple of wagons and drew nearer. In a few moments she had it worked out. What she was hearing did not come from Mistress Murther lurking inside the coach. It came from the coachman and his helpers, as if all five of them were wearing the same sort of amulet as their mistress. Whatever it was, the magic gave Emerald goose bumps; it would still prevent her from detecting falsehood.

  Watching the men, trying to analyze the elements of the spell, she noted that they were a curiously glum lot. Other crews in the yard were talking, joking, even cursing, but Murther’s men slouched around in sullen silence. Recalling Mistress Murther’s permanent pout, she wondered why this strange sorcery should make its wearers so morose.

  She went on past the coach without stopping.

  Wart was already sitting on the bench in his wagon. His smile seemed genuine—and welcome. “Good chance, Emerald!” He had to shout over the racket as a four-horse dray loaded with lumber went clattering past, heading for the gate. “Have you made your decision?”

  “Wart, I need the money!”

  His face fell. “Don’t believe in the money. Skuldigger is known to consort with Thrusk, Grimshank’s man, and you know what I think of those two. I can’t find out any more about Mistress Murther. Anyone rich enough to drive that carriage ought to be armigerous—and if you look very closely at the door, you can see that it used to bear a device, but it’s been painted over. I could make out a swan and two badgers and those are not Grimshank’s arms. It may mean only that Murther has just bought the vehicle. The boys haven’t seen it around here before.” He shrugged. “Or her. And the other woman seems to have disappeared altogether, but Skuldigger certainly arrived with another woman. Emerald, I’m sure your friends are up to mischief.”

  “I’m sure you are!”

  His boyish face colored. “If you go with them, you may be heading into terrible danger.”

  “And if I stay with you I will not?”

  “I told you that you were safer with me. I repeat that: You are safer with me! Am I telling the truth?”

  Safer, not safe. She nodded, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. The sun was touching the roof ridges, so the world would warm soon. The sky was a glorious blue already. Saxon rattled his harness and stamped his great hooves, anxious to be gone.

  “Wart, you’re telling me what you think is the truth, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right. Whoever’s behind you may have lied to you.” Mother Superior had lied to her.

  Wart opened his mouth to protest and then shut it with a click. That was a bad sign—he was more or less admitting the truth of what she had just said. “What do you want?”

  “The whole story.”

  He shook his head. “I swore I wouldn’t tell you. And if you’re right, I may not even know the whole story. I’m sure I don’t.”

  “Then I will take my chances with Doctor Skuldigger and Mistress Murther.” She turned away. She was bluffing, because being shut up in the carriage with all that shrieking sorcery would be unbearable torture.

  But Wart didn’t know that. “Emerald! Come back!” He showed his teeth angrily. “I’ll bend my promise this far. I will tell you why we’re doing this and why it matters and why I can’t tell you any more than that.” He pulled a face. “I shouldn’t! I don’t like the situation any better than you do and I’m in much worse danger than you are. I almost hope you will run away from me, because then I’ll be safe. Safer than I am now, anyway.”

  Burn him, he was still telling the truth! Emerald tossed her bundle into the wagon and lifted the edge of her skirt to climb over the wheel.

  He turned Saxon out the gate onto the sunlit trail, but he had barely cleared the corner of the stockade before a shrill voice shouted, “Wart!” The boy he called Freckles came running.

  Wart reined in Saxon, although with some difficulty, for the horse was frisky and eager. “What’s the tumult, m’hearty?”

  “The Doctor promised me a whole penny if I’d keep watch and see which road you took!”

  Wart laughed and reached in his pouch. “Then this is your lucky day. Here’s another for telling me you’re going to tell him.” A coin spun through the air.

  “You want me to tell him wrong?”

  “No. Tell him the truth. Be the good little boy your mother would be proud of.”

  Freckles curled his lip in disgust at this insult and examined his new treasure. “Me mom says telling truth is stupid and gets you in trouble.”

  “Go back and tell her she’s wrong this time.”

  “Dunno know where she is.”

  “Then keep it a secret. I suspect the nasty Doctor will have more than one spy watching me, so you won’t get your money from him if you tell him lies. And don’t forget how I said you could earn a silver groat.” He thumped the reins down on Saxon’s back and the wagon rattled forward on the south road. “Beautiful morning!”

  “Speak!” Emerald said menacingly.

  “I hear and obey, Your Grace. Don’t you know that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. We are serving the King’s Majesty. You did not volunteer for what you are doing, but you will be well rewarded at the end of it. If you die, then your family will be compensated. Will that satisfy you?”

  It ought to surprise her. Curiously, it did not. One of the few conclusions that she had reached in the night was that young Wart talked a lot about the King’s Blades and claimed to know at least two of them. If someone other than—or as well as—Mother Superior had put him up to this escapade, one of those men was probably the culprit. “No.”

  “You are safer not knowing.”

  “I don’t care. You promised.”

  He sighed. “You’ve heard about the Night of Dogs. There have been other attempts on the King’s life since then.”

  “Three, I heard.”

  “More than that.” The wagon was leaping and bouncing as Saxon raced along the road, feeling his oats from the previous night. He would soon tire and slow down to his usual amble, but in the meantime his passengers might be beaten to pulp. “That’s a state secret and I am telling you the truth. Do you still want me to go on?”

  State secrets could be dangerous things to know. They were not normally passed on by juvenile stable hands. “Yes.”

  Wart sighed. “Are all girls so stubborn?”

  “Are all boys so secretive?”

  “Probably not. You must know this better than I do, but I’m told that not all White Sisters sniff magic quite the same way—that the same spell may seem different to different Sisters. Is that right?”

  “Yes. It’s very personal. What seems a scent to one may be a sound to another, or a cold feeling, or almost anything.”

  He nodded. “Lately the attacks have been getting more subtle. Two weeks ago someone slipped a poisoned shirt or something into the royal laundry basket. The White Sisters detected it and the whole batch was burned, but it’s a safe guess that the purpose was to kill the King.” Wart shot her a wry glance, as well as he could while the wagon was bouncing so hard. “I trust you are a loyal subject of His Majesty?”

  “Of course!” If such an evil could be smuggled into the palace, then the spider monster she had seen in Oakendown was not so surprising after all.

  A coach went rattling past them, but not Murther’s coach. It vanished southward in a cloud of dust. Then two horsemen…Last night’s residents at Three Roads were scattering to the four winds. Three winds, actually, as little but sea and salt marsh lay to the east.

  “The problem is,” Wart said grimly, “that the magic got past two Sisters without being noticed and almost past a third. A similar booby trap turned up in the royal stables a few days later, and that one was even harder to detect—had it not been for the laundry warning they would almost certainly have overlooked it.”

>   “This is nonsense you are talking.”

  “Oh? I’m lying?”

  “No, but you have been misinformed. If the sorcery was powerful enough to do real harm, that is. If all it was designed to do was produce a faint itch, say, or a bad smell, well, then it might slip by. But a White Sister should recognize anything fatal at least twenty paces away. Easily!”

  “Saxon, you idiot! Slow down!” Wart rose to peer over the horse, then sat down again, as much as bouncing could be classified as sitting. “Yes, that’s what I was always told—anything powerful enough to worry about will show up to the sniffers like a dead pig in a bed. But that isn’t true anymore! Whoever the conspirators are, they’re managing to mask one magic with another, a magic-invisibility spell, you could call it.”

  “Rubbish!” she protested. If what he said was true, then the entire Companionship of the White Sisters might find itself useless! “It can’t be done.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the second magic—the magic wrapping, call it—would be detectable also, so you’d need to put another layer around that one and then another….” But was that necessarily so? The wrapping itself need not be a major sorcery, just a deception spell, and if the elements could be properly balanced, perhaps it would not show up very much at all. She had never heard such a thing mentioned in Oakendown, but even the possibility might be a forbidden topic, best never discussed. “Maybe it could be done,” she admitted, “but it would be very difficult. It would need a team of very skilled sorcerers and…”

  “And?” Wart waited for her to finish the thought.

  “Oh no!” Horrors! “And a White Sister?” The novices and postulants at Oakendown were kept well away from magic until they became attuned to the natural flow of the elements. Sorcerers could never develop the same abilities because they were constantly in communion with spirits. The two crafts were direct opposites.

  Wart sighed. “More than one. At least two, but the more the better. Suppose you want to kill the King and you devise a booby trap—a petition, for example, a roll of parchment, or a fishing rod, something he will handle in person. Suppose you then cloak its magic in a magic wrapping. You might find that the package would deceive two Sisters, yet still be detected by a third. Grand Wizard of the Royal College of Conjurers says that there must be at least two Sisters working with the conspirators, and he would guess four or five.”

  She could find no flaw in the logic. Sorcerers trying devise a magic wrapping would be like blind people trying to paint a picture. Only White Sisters could tell them how effective their work was, or how it should be improved.

  “But we all take vows not to use our skills for evil purposes or for our own enrichment. They do, I mean.”

  Wart let the wagon rattle on—a little slower now—for several minutes before he spoke. He twisted around to stare back past the barrels. With the sun low in the east, the scrubby landscape was more obviously rolling than it had seemed the night before. A solitary flock of sheep grazed off to the west. Three Roads was no longer in sight.

  “Renegade Sisters?” he said at last. “I didn’t say they were cooperating willingly, although we think at least one of them must be.”

  “I refuse to believe any White—”

  “We know of one who was kidnapped right out of her house. A former Sister, married, had a young baby. The baby went with her. I think she could be made to cooperate, don’t you?”

  Emerald shivered as if the day had suddenly turned cold again. “Would they really do that?”

  “They’re traitors!” Wart yelled. “They’re trying to kill their king—and if they’re caught, they will be hanged, drawn, and quartered!” He lowered his voice again. “They’re evil enough and desperate enough to do anything you can imagine and a lot of things you can’t. That is why I mustn’t tell you any more. That is why I have already told you far too much.”

  “I don’t see—” Suddenly she did see. It was like a shutter being thrown open to let daylight into a cellar. “Bait? Spirits! You set me up as bait!”

  Wart muttered, “Oh, vomit!” under his breath.

  “Arrogance!” she said. “Cold-blooded arrogance! You worked out that if the conspirators’ masking spells are good enough to fool their own White Sisters but not all the Sisters at the palace, then what they need is more Sisters to help them. And the best place to find White Sisters is Oakendown, so you guessed that they would be snooping around there. Snake!” she shouted. “Sir Snake! You mentioned that you’d met him, but you made it sound like a long time ago. I bet the last time you saw Sir Snake wasn’t any longer ago than the day you met me or the day before—was it?”

  Wart stared straight ahead, not speaking. His face looked ready to burst into flames.

  “And you got Mother Superior to—No, Sir Snake got Mother Superior to expel me! That was the only reason for the spider, wasn’t it? You provided a sorcerer to create that spider and frighten me and six children out of their wits. I was trapped, wasn’t I? Used! You had me thrown out with no money. Shamed, humiliated. You left me hanging around the gatehouse for days, hoping the traitors would be on the lookout for vulnerable White Sisters. I suppose you even spread rumors of my disgrace around town.” She was so indignant she could hardly speak. “Bait! You used me as bait!”

  Wart glanced at her miserably. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “But you helped. You’re guilty too. You sold your soul to that precious Sir Snake and his Old Blades.” Mother Superior was another and must have been helped in the deception by a fair number of senior Sisters. “How much did they pay you? Just the archlute? Is that your reward? And that gold you were flashing around so freely at the inn, I expect. I hope you enjoy your ill-gotten wealth, because it would choke me if I’d earned a penny than way. So Murther and Skuldigger are the first nibble? What happens now? If I’m the bait, then where’s the hook?”

  Wart stood up to peer over the horse and then look back over the barrels.

  “Speak up!” Emerald shouted. “You’ve told me enough that you can’t stop now. I don’t have a baby to protect. I know not to try and lie to a White Sister—if they do have traitor Sisters on their team, which I don’t believe. Tell me. I’ll keep quiet.”

  Wart looked down at her. “Keep quiet? Will you keep quiet if they nail your hand to a bench and start cracking your fingers with a hammer?”

  She shuddered. “I’ll think of you when they do it. Come on! You wouldn’t just trail bait without a net or a hook of some kind.” Magic? No, if Wart had any magic up his sleeve she would have detected it right away. “Tell me! What happens now?”

  “What happens now,” Wart said harshly, “is that the armed men up ahead stop us and keep us there until the coach coming behind us arrives. Then you get carried off, I expect. You’re valuable. You’re what they want. If you behave yourself you should be all right, at least for a while. I’m no use to anyone, so the odds are that I get my throat cut. That’s what happens now.”

  14

  Ambush

  IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL SITE FOR AN AMBUSH. THE trail ran along a very gentle ridge, a stony swell on the landscape; and the dips on either hand were marshy, with reeds and bulrushes. Saxon could not haul the wagon across a swamp, no matter how narrow. Furthermore, the next ridge to the east was slightly higher and the one to the west bore a mane of thorny scrub along its crest, so the site was hidden from any distant onlookers. Perfect.

  Wart hauled on the reins; the wagon rattled to a halt.

  About a hundred paces ahead, a line of men-at-arms blocked the road. Five of them were busily moving their arms as if working a pump or a bellows, but Emerald realized that they were actually winding up crossbows, the bows standing upright in front of them, each steadied by a stirrup. Another man in the background held the horses. The seventh was obviously the leader, standing on the verge with folded arms.

  About the same distance to the north—back the way they had come—a large coach was approaching. The trap was closed.<
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  The bowmen finished spanning their bows and lifted them to the horizontal. On the leader’s command, each one pulled a steel-tipped quarrel from his quiver and laid it in the firing groove. The sight of loaded weapons pointed at her made Emerald’s skin try to crawl right off her.

  “What’s the range of those things?”

  “Farther than us, but they’re only accurate close up.” Wart’s voice sounded very thin. His blush had totally gone now. He was pale to the lips.

  Another command and the men raised their bows, laying the stocks against their cheeks, ready to shoot. They wore swords, steel breastplates, helmets shaped like hats with wide brims. They began to advance in line abreast, and Emerald could not help but imagine one of them stumbling in a rut and accidentally pulling the trigger of his bow. Their leader swaggered close behind, staying out of their line of fire. His red cloak was bright and grand; his helmet was more elaborate than theirs, with cheek pieces and a flange covering the back of his neck. He was a very large man, bushily bearded, armed with only a sword and dagger.

  “Thrusk,” Wart said hoarsely. He turned and reached under the bench.

  “Oh, no!” Emerald muttered. Then she saw that Wart had found the sword and repeated, much louder, “No!”

  He was staring at the advancing enemy with hate in his eyes and teeth bared like a dog. At least he had enough sense to hold the sword out of sight behind him—so far.

  “Wart, you’re crazy! Throw it away right now! Now, before they get here. You show that thing and they’ll put five bolts through you in an instant.” Her protest produced no result at all, as if he had become completely deaf. Men! Why did men always think violence could solve anything? “Wart, please! They’re in armor—you’re not! Even if they didn’t have bows, they’re trained men-at-arms! You wouldn’t have a hope against one of them, let alone six!” She could hear the coach in the distance behind her, coming slowly. Thrusk and his bowmen were going to arrive first.