Consul Humaise whispered something in Angilki’s ear again.
“Ah! Yes. I call on, er, Mord of Grool . . . to be my champion!” The king dragged an arm across his forehead and leaned harder on his crutch.
The audience rumbled with astonishment and excitement.
Kalkor shook his head in disgust. “I can guess, with a name like that.” He pouted sourly at the regent. “Do we get to see the champion now, your Highness, or will you unveil him in the morning?”
“In the morning? Is that not rather soon? The arrangements—”
Kalkor folded his arms again. “There is no room for discussion. You agreed to a Reckoning, and so we are bound by the rules of a Reckoning. Disputes are usually taken to the Moot on Nintor, but I can’t imagine your fat friend going there, and he has accepted the challenge. Failing that, by the rules of Reckonings, the battle must be held at noon on the day after the challenge, and on the closest suitable piece of ground . . . Do I hear his champion arriving?”
A thunderstorm of laughter roared from the senator’s benches, and even from the commoners’. Shandie risked a sideways glance at Ythbane, who had his head turned away, and then farther yet, past him, until he could see the west door and what was causing the laughing. A troll was coming in, wearing armor. Its heavy, shambling tread seemed to shake the rotunda. Shandie had never been really close to a troll before, and this one seemed much bigger than most. Even two steps up, he wasn’t level with its muzzle. It was even taller than Thane Kalkor, although jotnar were supposed to be the tallest race of all. Its low-slung arms were as long as a horse’s legs. It had a helmet like a coal shuttle.
He, not It!
The troll stopped beside Angilki and boomed out over his head, “You called me, Majesty?” He knew his lines better than the king did. The whole Rotunda rocked with mirth and sheer delight—senators, nobility, commonality—and the noise seemed to swirl around and around like a wave in a teacup. Heralds thumped their staffs for quiet. It eluded them for longer than Shandie could ever remember. He wished he could laugh, too. He was shivering.
Kalkor had been waiting in tolerant amusement, like a grown-up humoring children. He obviously did not think that the laughter was directed at him. ”Mord of Grool, I presume?” he said, as the tumult finally died away. ”If you come in second will your orphans and widow be able to collect?” He was smiling a really happy smile now.
“The king’s champion is acceptable, then?” Ythbane said, and again the hall bubbled with laughter. “Oh, yes. A close relative is the normal choice, and I can see the resemblance.”
“You still do not wish to name a champion of your own?” The regent’s question raised more titters.
“No. I expected something like him. Of course he must dress properly.”
“Perhaps Ambassador Krushjor can loan us an expert to see that all the proprieties are observed?”
“I am sure he can.”
Shandie’s hands were quivering like a bird in a net, and his head was thumping. If the ceremony didn’t end very soon, he would pretend to faint and take the beating. He was twitching so badly now that Ythbane must have noticed, so it would be pants down again tonight anyway. He might as well fake a faint and save himself any more of this. Very, very soon!
Kalkor had turned to face Angilki, who quailed. “We meet tomorrow, then!”
Angilki shuddered and licked his lips. “Yes.”
“And you are aware of the Ultimate Rule, aren’t you?” Kalkor asked, and a strange silence settled over the Rotunda as subtly as an overnight snowfall. “Wha . . . What rule?”
The jotnar turned his blue smile on the regent again. “A Reckoning is a mortal challenge. Either challenger or respondent must die, regardless of who does the fighting. Champions may alter the odds, but not the stakes.”
Angilki uttered a strange bleating sound.
Ythbane’s voice came out hard. “You mean that if you can beat the troll, then you get to kill the king, also?”
Kalkor snapped his fingers.
Ambassador Krushjor flushed scarlet, but he strode forward. “That is indeed the Ultimate Rule, your Highness. Obviously, it is the only fair way to stage a mortal challenge when substitutes are allowed.”
“A duel between willing warriors is one thing,” Ythbane said, ”but a cold-blooded—”
“You both agreed to the rules!” Kalkor roared. Even his great bellow was almost lost in the surging anger of the audience. King Angilki made the strange noise again, but probably no one farther away than Shandie heard it. The heralds were thumping their staffs again. Shandie’s head was thumping, too. Crimson-faced, King Angilki had come to the edge of the steps and was shouting at Ythbane. No one was looking at Shandie, so he risked wiping the perspiration streaming down his face. What in the names of the Gods would Ythbane do to him if he threw up beside the Opal Throne?
But then Angilki stumbled backward and crashed to the floor, and lay still.
Silence, stunned silence.
Oh, good! Maybe now they would stop all this silly ceremony and Shandie could go and beg Moms to give him some of his medicine.
5
“And that about sums up my day,” Senator Epoxague said. “No . . . One other thing. The duke seems to have suffered a serious seizure. The doctors are concerned.”
“Oh, dear!” Eigaze wrung her fat, hands.
“I am sorry to hear it,” Inos said. “Rough seas are not his waters. He asks only to fish his own little pond and be at peace with the world.”
“I believe that!” The senator was well preserved for his age, dapper and quiet, and unusual only in that he wore a small mustache, a rarity among imps. He was a small man, yet he radiated power in an astonishing way. There were always six or eight people in attendance on him, but they kept their distance as if he were surrounded by an invisible fence. He had shown no visible surprise at finding his drawing room occupied by a supposedly dead relative and a djinn sultan. He had merely settled into his favorite chair and listened attentively to a brief summary of their problems, without comment. Then he had reported on the events at court.
“And now,” Inos said, “I expect you would like to hear my story in more detail?”
He shook his head. “First a quick supper. After that we shall be joined by some other people.” He smiled. “And then you may talk till dawn, I warn you!”
Inos returned his smile gladly. The knots in her nerves were starting to unravel. This magnificent house had a strong flavor of Kinvale about it, which might be Eigaze’s influence, or just the style of the Imperial nobility, but was soothing in either case. Eigaze had furnished a respectable wardrobe for her shipwrecked relative at incredibly short notice and, best of all, had borrowed a skilled cosmetician from a neighboring duchess. The burns still showed, of course, but now everyone could reasonably pretend that they didn’t.
Azak, at her side, was rigid, and so far he had been silent. Now he said, ”So this Kalkor dies tomorrow at the hands of the troll?”
Epoxague flashed him an appraising glance and rubbed his mustache with one finger. “That, of course, is the plan. Gladiatorial combat was outlawed by the present imperor’s father when I was a boy—I can only just remember seeing one—but it is common knowledge that such things continue in private. This troll who goes by the name of Mord of Grool is the accepted current champion. His handlers were very pleased to accept a match with only one man, even a notorious fighter like Kalkor. Mord will take on four imps or two jotnar, sometimes.”
Inos broke the silence. “Then why is there any doubt?”
Epoxague sighed. “There were rumors . . . Gods know who starts them! But the talk was that Duke Angilki’s seizure was more than mundane.”
Inos shivered. “The wardens?”
The senator shrugged. “Perhaps. To use sorcery within Emine’s Rotunda, so close to the throne . . . that would be either an act of the Four, or of a total madman.”
“Kalkor? You are saying that Kalkor is a sorcerer?”
“I am saying nothing. It is only rumor. But Angilki was probably about to withdraw from the contest, and Kalkor seems to want the battle. That man is either quite mad to come to Hub, or else he has a means of escape that the regent has not counted on.” Epoxague smiled grimly as he rose from his chair. “Or both?”
The lamps burned late that night in the Epoxague mansion. Inos had not been introduced to all the people present. Some were undoubtedly relatives, others must be political cronies and advisors. At least one was a marquis, but nobility was of much less weight in Hub than in the rest of the Impire. What counted in the capital was influence, and a senator had plenty of that. Epoxague held several hereditary titles, but he did not bother to use them, and he dominated all the others present. They sat in rows and listened in silence. A few were women, and Eigaze was there, near her father.