spinning and swinging on the string. ‘Blast.’ he muttered.
‘Perhaps closer to a hundred and seventy-five, your Majesty,’
Oscagne corrected.
‘Could it really be raining there?’ Ehlana asked. ‘The weather’s
been beautiful here. A hundred and seventy-five leagues isn’t
really all that far, and Sparhawk says right here that it’s been
raining on Tega for the past week.’
‘Who can say what the weather’s going to do?’ Sarabian
lunged again, and his rapier passed smoothly through the
bracelet.
‘Well thrust,’ Ehlana said a bit absently.
‘Thank you, your Majesty.’ Sarabian bowed, flourishing hiS
rapier. ‘This is really fun, you know that?’ He crouched melodramatically. ‘H
ave at you, dog.’ He lunged at the bracelet again,
missing by several inches. ‘Blast.’
‘Alcan, dear,’ Ehlana said to her maid, ‘would you go see if
the sailor who brought this letter is still on the premises?’
‘At once, my Queen.’
Sarabian looked inquiringly at his hostess.
‘The sailor just came from Tega. I think I’d like to hear his
views on the weather there.’
“Surely you don’t think your husband would lie to your Majesty,
do you?’ Oscagne protested.
‘Why not? I’d lie to him if there was a valid political reason
for it.’
‘Ehlana.’ Sarabian sounded Profoundly shocked. “I thought
you loved Sparhawk.’
‘What on earth has that got to do with it? Of course I love
him. I’ve loved him since I was about Danae’s age, but love and
politics are two entirely different things, and they should never
be mixed. Sparhawk’s up to something, Sarabian, and your
excellent foreign minister here probably knows what it is.’
‘Me?’ Oscagne protested mildly.
‘Yes, you. Mermaids, Oscagne? Mermaids? You didn’t really
think I’d swallow that story, did you? I’m just a bit disappointed
in you, actually. Was that the best you could come up with?’
“I was a bit pressed for time, your Majesty,’ he apologized
with a slightly embarrassed look. ‘Prince Sparhawk was in a
hurry to leave. Was it the weather that gave us away?’
‘Partly,’ she replied. She held up the letter. ‘My beloved outsmarted
himself, though. I’ve seen his letters before. The notion
of “felicity of style” has never occurred to Sparhawk. His letters
usually read as if he’d written them with his broadsword. This
one – and all the others from Tega – have been polished until
they glisten. I’m touched that he went to all the trouble, but I
don’t believe one word of them. Now then, where is he? and
what’s he really up to?’
‘He wouldn’t say, your Majesty. All he told me was that he
needed some excuse to be away from Matherion for several
weeks. ‘
She smiled sweetly at him. ‘That’s all right, Oscagne,’ she
said. ‘i’ll find out for myself. It’s more fun that way anyhow.’
“It’s a big building,’ Stragen reported the following morning.
“It’s going to take time to go over it inch by inch.” He, Caalador
and Mirtai had just returned from their night of unsuccessful
burglary.
‘Have you made much progress?’ Sarabian asked.
‘We’ve covered the top two floors, your Majesty,’ Caalador
replied. ‘We’ll start on the third floor tonight.’ Caalador was
sprawled in a chair with a weary look on his face. Like his two
companions, he was still dressed in tight-fitting black clothing.
He stretched and yawned. ‘God, I’m tired,’ he said. ‘i’m getting
too old for this.’
Stragen unrolled a time-yellowed set of drawings. “I still think
that the answer’s right here,’ he said. ‘instead of opening doors
and poking under desks, we should be matching dimensions
against these drawings.’
‘Yet still a-thankin’ there’s sekert passages an’ corn-sealed
rooms in that, ain’t ya, Stragen?’ Caalador drawled, yawning
again. ‘That doesn’t speak too well for your taste in literature,
old boy.”
Sarabian gave him a puzzled look.
‘Thalesians are addicted to bad ghost stories, your Majesty,’
Caalador explained.
“It gives the copying-houses in Emsat something to do now
that they’ve exhausted the body of real literature.’ Stragen
shrugged. ‘We’ve got a whole sub-genre of highly popular books
spewing out of grubby garrets on back streets – lurid narratiVeS
which all take place in cemeteries or in haunted houses on dark
and stormy nights. The whores of Emsat absolutely adore them.
I rather expect the policemen at Interior share that taste. After all,
a policeman’s sort of like a whore, isn’t he?’
“I didn’t exactly follow that,’ Mirtai said, ‘and I’m not really
sure I want to. There’s probably something disgusting involved
in your thinking, Stragen. Caalador, will you stop yawning like
that. Your face looks like an open barn-door.’
‘i’m sleepy, little dorlin’. You two bin a-keepin’ me up past
muh bedtime.’
‘Then go to bed. You make my jaws ache when you gape at
me like that.’
‘You should all get some sleep,’ Ehlana told them. ‘You’re
the official royal burglars now, and Sarabian and I would be
absolutely mortified if you were to fall asleep in mid-burgle.’
‘Are we ready to be practical about this?’ Caalador asked,
rising to his feet. “I can have two dozen professionals here by this
evening, and we’ll have all the secrets of the Interior Ministry in
our hands by tomorrow morning.’
‘And Interior will know that we have them by tomorrow afternoon,’
Stragen added. ‘Our impromptu spy network isn’t really
all that secure, Caalador. We haven’t had enough time to weed
out all the people Krager’s probably subverted.’
‘There’s no real rush here, gentlemen,’ Ehlana told them.
‘Even if we do find the documents the policemen at Interior are
hiding, we won’t be able to do a thing about them until my
wandering husband finds his way home again.’
‘Why are you so positive that Sparhawk’s deceiving you,
Ehlana?’ Sarabian asked her.
“It’s consistent with his character. Sparhawk’s devoted his
entire life to protecting me. It’s rather sweet, even though it is
bloody hindering awkward at times. He still thinks of me as a
little girl – although I’ve demonstrated to him that I’m not on
any number of occasions. He’s out there doing something
dangerous, and he doesn’t want me to worry. All he really had
to do was tell me what he was planning and then lay out the
reasons why he thought it was necessary. I know it’s hard for
you men to believe, but women are rational too – and far more
practical than you are.’
‘You’re a hard woman, Ehlana,’ Sarabian accused.
‘No, I’m a realist. Sparhawk does what he thinks he has to
no matter what I say, and I’ve learned to accept that. The point
I’m trying to make is that no matter what we dig out of the walls
of the Interior Ministry, there’s absolutely nothing we can do
about it while Sparhawk and the others are out there wandering
around the countryside. We’re going to disband Interior and
throw about a quarter of the Empire’s policemen in prison. Then
we’re going to place all of Tamuli under martial law with the
Atans enforcing our decrees. The Daresian Continent’s going to
look like an ant-hill that’s just been run over by a cavalry charge.
I don’t know what Sparhawk’s doing, so I don’t know what
kind of impact that chaos is going to have on him. I am not
going to let you put him in any more danger than I think he’s
already in.’
‘Do you know something, Ehlana?’ Sarabian said. ‘You’re
even more protective of Sparhawk than he is of you.’
‘Of course I am. That’s what marriage is all about.’
‘none of mine are,’ he sighed.
‘That’s because you’ve got too many wives, Sarabian. Your
affection’s dispersed. Your wives each return only as much love
as you give them.’
‘i’ve found that it’s safer that way.’
‘But dull, my friend, and sort of boring. Being consumed with
a burning passion that only has a single object is very exciting.
It’s sort of like living in a volcano.”
‘What an exhausting prospect,’ he shuddered.
‘Fun, though,’ she smiled.
Baroness Melidere had retired early, pleading a painful headache.
It was not that she found her duties as Ehlana’s lady-inwaiting
onerous, but rather that she had an important decision
to make, and she knew that the longer she put it off, the more
difficult it would be. To put it rather bluntly, the Baroness had
reached the point where she was going to have to decide what
she was going to do about Stragen.
We must candidly admit that Melidere was no innocent. Few
members of any court really are. An innocent girl has only one
option in her dealings with the opposite sex. A more worldly
girl has two, and this was the crux of Melidere’s dilemma.
Stragen, of course, would make a perfectly acceptable paramour.
He was presentable, interesting, and he had exquisite manners.
Melidere’s reputation at court would not be tarnished by a
liaison with him; quite the reverse, actually. That had originally
been her intention, and the time had come for her to take the
final step and to invite him to her bedchamber and have done