“Stop right there.” Ben rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “Who among the King’s subjects stands allied with whom at this point?”
“No one stands allied with anyone, so far as I can tell. Humans, half-humans, fairy creatures — no one trusts anyone.”
Ben frowned. “And none of them has much use for the King, I gather? No, you needn’t answer that. I can answer it for myself.” He paused “Is there any one of them strong enough to stand up to the Mark?”
The wizard hesitated. “Nightshade, perhaps. Her magic is very powerful. But even she would be hard pressed to survive a duel with the Mark. Only the Paladin possessed strength enough to defeat the demon.”
“What if everyone were to band together?”
Questor Thews hesitated longer this time. “Yes, the Mark and his demons might be successfully challenged then.”
“But it would take someone to unite them first.”
“Yes, it would take that.”
“The King of Landover could be that someone.”
“He could.”
“But just at the moment the King of Landover can’t even draw a crowd for his own coronation, can he?”
Questor said nothing. Ben and the wizard stared at each other across the table.
“Questor, what’s a bog wump?” Ben asked finally.
The other frowned. “A bog wump. High Lord?” Ben nodded. “A bog wump is a variety of forest wight, a spiney, flesh-eating creature that burrows in marshy earth and paralyzes its victims with its tongue.”
“Does it hunt in the early morning?”
“It does.”
“Does it hunt humans?”
“It might. High Lord, what…?”
“And Bunion — would he be a match for one of these bog wumps?”
Questor’s mouth snapped shut on the rest of whatever it was he was going to say. His owlish face crinkled. “A kobold is a match for almost anything alive. They are ferocious fighters.”
“Why are Bunion and Parsnip still here at Sterling Silver when everyone else in the court is gone?”
The owlish face crinkled into a complete knot. “They are here because they have pledged themselves to the service of the throne and its King. Kobolds do not take their pledges lightly. Once made, a pledge is never broken. So long as there is a King of Landover, Bunion and Parsnip will stay on.”
“Is it the same with Abernathy?”
“It is. This is his chosen service.”
“And you?”
There was a long pause. “Yes, High Lord, it is the same with me.”
Ben sat back. He didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes locking on Questor’s, his arms folding loosely across his chest. He listened in the silence for the whisper of the other’s thoughts and spun the webbing of his own.
Then he smiled reluctantly. “I have decided to stay on as Landover’s King.”
Questor Thews smiled back. “I see.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “I thought that you might.”
“Did you?” Ben laughed. “Then you were more certain than I. I only now made the choice.”
“If I might ask, Ben Holiday — what was it that decided you?”
The smile disappeared from Ben’s face. He hesitated, thinking momentarily of those few who had come to the Heart to witness his coronation. They were not so different, really, from the clients he had taken an oath to represent, and he not so different from the lawyer who had taken that oath. Perhaps he did owe them something after all.
He said nothing of that to Questor, though. He merely shrugged. “It was a balancing of the equities, I suppose. If I stay, it will cost me a million dollars — presuming, of course, that I can find a way to stay alive. If I go, it will cost me my self-respect. I would like to think that my self-respect is worth a million dollars.”
The wizard nodded. “Perhaps it is.”
“Besides, I don’t like quitting in the middle of something. It grates on me to think that Meeks chose me because he expected that I would do exactly that. I want very badly to disappoint him in his expectation. We have a saying where I come from, Questor: Don’t get mad, get even. The longer I stay, the better chance I have of finding a way to do that. It’s worth the risks involved.”