Conqueror’s Moon: Part One of the Boreal Moon Tale. Julian May
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wrapped tidbit. She spoke in a voice that was almost inaudible.
‘My prince, do you know why I am called the Virago?’
He smiled. ‘I was told that when your wealthy young husband died, and you were left childless, a certain uncouth mountain lord came a-wooing. You spurned him, and he returned with an army to press his suit. Whereupon—’
‘I rallied the knights and thanes of my barony and whipped the britches off the whoreson. And I defeated another force led by my late husband’s saucy cousin, who tried to lay claim to my fiefdom through some trivial point of law. After that, Vanguard gave me the warrior’s belt with his own hand, and I’ve held Marley against all comers for the past twenty-two years. I’m a hard woman, Prince Heritor.’
Conrig bowed his head in acknowledgment, still smiling.
‘And I think you’re a hard man.’ She held up the green-wrapped sweetmeat. ‘What would have happened to those who opposed your invasion scheme? Would they have been given wafers wrapped in a different color of cloth — or with cord tied in a special knot?’
He stepped closer to her, and for an instant something flickered in his handsome face. She stood her ground and his ambiguous expression was transformed into a broad grin. He unwrapped his own wafer and bit into it with evident enjoyment. ‘Absolutely delicious. And much more efficacious against noxious substances than drinking-cups with amethyst talismans. That’s just a silly superstition, as any alchymist can tell you. You may ask my brother Stergos, if you doubt me.’
Her eyes widened. ‘So it was the wine.’
‘Which I partook of, along with the rest of you. The effects of the subtle poison would not be obvious for at least two days, when the unfortunate nay-sayers were well on their journey home. Thus no suspicion would fall upon me or Tanaby Vanguard — who, by the way, knew nothing about my precautionary measures. Earlier, I pressed him to take prisoner anyone who opposed my plan, but he wouldn’t agree to it. My godfather is too trusting and chivalrous. But then, he doesn’t aspire to be the Sovereign of High Blenholme.’
And such a one must be ruthless?’
‘Very.’ He rested both hands on her shoulders in a gesture that might have passed for affection. ‘Are you going to tell the others what I did?’
Her worn face remained calm. ‘No … I won’t tell them. But I think it would bode well for our future comradeship — and the Sovereignty — if you did.’
They stared at each other without speaking. Then he took her arm and led her gently toward the waiting table of drinks where the others were gathered. ‘I’ll think about it, my lady. And you won’t forget to eat your wafer, will you?’
Snudge had sensed the mysterious overseeing presence, too, while carving the joint of roast beef that had been sent to the repository tower for the evening meal of the Heart Companions. Unlike his royal master and the Doctor Arcanorum, he knew he’d probably be able to trace and perhaps even identify the watcher if he could just get to the tower roof and do his search under the open sky.
The apartment where the prince’s party had been secreted took up the third and fourth floors of the tower. The third floor, holding the castle’s extensive library, was the most attractive, having tall windows and a wide hearth with wood blazing cheerfully, and numbers of cushioned chairs and benches in an open area surrounded by rows of stacks. Conrig and his three closest friends among the Heart Companions — Feribor Blackhorse, Tayman Owlstane, and Sividian Langford — had turned it into their common room during the two days preceding the council of war, while they kept their presence secret from most of the other castle inhabitants. The prince had the chief scribe’s office for a bedchamber, and the three young counts slept on cots laid out between the shelves. They used the big central table for eating and drinking and playing at board-games and dice.
The fourth storey of the tower, just beneath the now-untenanted guardroom that had a door opening onto the roof, was normally used by the duke’s controller of accounts, and for document storage. It was low-ceilinged and crowded with coffers of parchment and racks of tax-rolls. Vra-Stergos elected to spend most of his time in a partitioned nook up there, where he had privacy for his arcane studies.
Snudge and the four young armigers serving the prince’s Companions and the alchymist also slept in the accounts room, but they were obliged to remain below for most of their waking hours, waiting on the nobles or the prince.
This evening, Snudge and the other boys finished clearing the table after the Companions’ supper, gobbled their own, and put the soiled platters and leftovers outside the door for the castle staff to dispose of. Count Tayman, a genial Westleyman of two-and-twenty, challenged the other Companions to a session of picture-dice, and called upon two of the armigers to serve them that evening while they gamed.
‘Saundar and Belamil will play lute and flageolet,’ he said, ‘and keep us well-supplied with refreshments. Mero, Gavlok and Deveron may take their ease after turning down the beds and laying out fresh garb for tomorrow.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ the boys chorused. The lucky ones darted off among the bookshelves to open up the beds of the noblemen, which had mattresses of doubled bearskin, silken sheets, and pillows stuffed with eiderdown.
‘I’ll fix the alchymist’s bed while you take your ease at the fire, Gavlok,’ Snudge volunteered after they had finished, looking for an excuse to go upstairs. ‘Maybe I’ll take a nap before His Grace returns and has need of me.’
Stergos’s quiet, studious squire gave him a grateful smile. ‘I thank you, Deveron.’
‘You’re such a kind fellow, stableboy,’ sneered Mero, who served Count Feribor Blackhorse. ‘Be damned sure we’ll tell Prince Conrig you’re lazing away in the sack if you’re not down here on the spot when he returns.’
The armiger was a burly redheaded youth who had just turned nineteen, nearly as tall as his formidable master. But where Blackhorse was so slyly sadistic that you might pass off his cruelties as unintentioned, Mero was a flagrant bully who used his position to terrorize the pages and servitors back at Brent Lodge, the prince’s hunting residence, where they had lived for the past month. Mero was usually more circumspect with the armigers of the other Heart Companions and with Gavlok, the bookish lad who served the Doctor Arcanorum, confining himself to verbal assaults. When Conrig had unaccountably chosen Deveron Austrey, his young footman, rather than a nobly born youth as bodyservant on the secret mission to Castle Vanguard, Mero was incensed, as though the presence of a commoner — even one who could read, write, and reckon — in the royal party were a personal affront. He had been imprudent enough to complain to Count Feribor. The blackened eye he received for his pains was now a muddy yellowish-green. With fine illogic, Mero had sworn to revenge himself on the upstart footman, but a suitable opportunity had not yet presented itself.
Snudge hurried up the iron staircase to the accounts room. He’d have to act quickly on the roof; the alchymist would not be attending the council of war and might return to the tower at any moment. Rummaging in his pack, he found a small roll of cloth containing short lengths of wire of varying thicknesses, cunningly bent, tools he well knew the use of.
The door leading to the guardroom stair was locked, but a brief fiddle with one of the wires caused it to snap open. Snudge bounded up the steps and dashed through an armory crowded with compact defense engines — mangons and ballistas and catapults — along with wicker baskets of rocks, vires, and other missiles, stacked braziers, buckets of charcoal, cauldrons of solidified pitch, and crates of spherical iron bombshells packed with tarnblaze, having lengths of tarry cord protruding through their nozzles. The door opening onto the roof was only latched.
Outside, he saw the sun descending behind jagged black peaks while the snow-covered slopes of Demon Seat glowed pink with lavender shadows. The air was dead calm. Smoke from the castle chimneys and from buildings in the town beyond