THE SEA HAG by David Drake

“Here, here,” Conall babbled, sliding sideways on his bench. The armored courtier beside him got up hastily to make room and scuttled off, staring over his shoulder.

Dennis smiled at Gannon and drew the Founder’s Sword. He flicked a finger at the King’s Champion.

No one breathed for a moment; then Gannon realized that Dennis was demanding his space, not his life. He crawled over the bench also and backed away.

Dennis put his foot on the seat and stood the sword point-down beside it. He looked over Aria’s blond head at her father. Steadying the pommel with his left hand, he began to stroke his whetstone across the nicks in the metal.

“I watched your cows,” he said, “just as you told me to do. And they’re all safe, King Conall. Every one of them. And I am safe as well.”

Sring! went the stone against the swordblade. Sring! Sring!

“Sit,” Conall murmured, patting the bench beside him as he raised his fine, noble face to the youth with the naked sword. “Please sit, P-prince Dennis, and we’ll…”

The king met Dennis’ eyes instead of fluttering his gaze across the younger man’s bruised forehead; the bloody gouges streaking down from his hair and across the bunched muscles of his shoulders; the scabs and purple swellings on his ribs where Malbawn’s corpse had continued to strike Dennis’ unconscious body…

“We didn’t mean—” Conall said in a firm voice; but he broke off the sentence because he couldn’t speak the lie after he thought about it.

Aria slipped from the bench and stood before Dennis. The fall of her hair blocked his view of the seated king. She reached out, touching Dennis on the forearm. Her cool fingers traced along his biceps, just beneath a scabbed gouge left by Malbawn’s first blow.

“Come,” she said softly. “These must be bathed.”

She nodded solemnly to Chester, an equal to an equal, and began to lead Dennis back to the door by her touch on his arm.

“What?” Gannon blurted.

“Aria!” Conall cried.

She looked at the men: coldly at the champion; a softer but still inflexible glance toward her father. “Come,” she repeated to Dennis.

A great babble of sound broke out behind them as the doorway closed. Dennis started to glance back, but Aria strode on—and he followed, down the hall and into the room that had been assigned to him.

“Fill, bath,” she directed with the same assurance with which she had led the youth. “And I’ll have unguents—as well as some food for later.”

Dennis looked at Chester for support. The robot stood to the side, as still and silent as a piece of furniture.

“Well, get into the tub,” the princess said. She was wearing a dress of the same bright chicory-flower blue as her eyes. It had long puffed sleeves which she was rolling up while the nested crystal spheres spun in her cleavage.

The door opened.

Gannon stood in the frame of the doorway. He stood with his thumbs tucked into his sword-belt, arms akimbo, with a hectoring expression on his face and his open to speak.

Dennis’ face went blank. Light trembled on the blade of the weapon he still carried bare in his hand.

Aria turned and pointed her index finger at Gannon. “Go,” she said in a tone like that of the sword crunching into Malbawn’s throat.

Gannon backed as though steel and not a delicate hand were thrust toward his face. “Princess,” he blurted, “you—”

The wall closed with a rushing certainty that cut off any words he meant to add.

Aria turned to Dennis, too controlled to be calm. “Get your trousers off,” she ordered. “No one can open the door again until I say so.”

“I—” Dennis said.

The steam rolling from the warm water was scented. He was feeling dizzy again and very tired. Without arguing further, he sheathed his great sword; unbelted the scabbard; and slipped out of his torn and stained trousers.

The water in the shell-shaped tub was a caress that melted the agony from his strained muscles even as it dissolved the scabbed blood on his skin.

“Oh…” Dennis breathed, slipping down so that his scalp and whole body were under the surface. His eyes were closed and he was on the quivering edge of unconsciousness. “Oh…”

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