Chapter Fourteen

A temporary stage had been erected before the House of Audience in the center of Frekka. The rest of the stone-flagged square was filled with warriors summoned from all across the kingdom and their attendants.

"You really wanted to be sent with the royal levy, didn't you, Hansen?" Arnor asked. His voice was tinged with wonder and a little bitterness.

Sunlight had not yet burned off the chill fog. The waiting men coughed and grumbled and spat.

"Sure," said Hansen, shrugging to bring the collar of his fur cloak tighter against his ears. "I'm a warrior, so I want to go where the fighting is. Right?"

He gave his companion a thin smile. "Didn't you want to come, Arnor?"

"Now stop milling around, gentlemen!" ordered the only person on the stage at the moment, a brightly-dressed usher. "King Prandia will be out to address you momentarily."

"Then you ponce off someplace else and get the king out here where he belongs!" snarled a lord with good lungs and too much rank to cool his heels willingly.

"It's my duty," Arnor muttered. "I'm the champion of Peace Rock, and the lord himself is too old to attend the levy."

"You could say it's my duty too," said Hansen as he eyed the crowd.

There seemed to be about a hundred warriors present. Close up, a warrior's bearing distinguished him from his freeman attendants even when the warrior wasn't wearing his powered armor. In diffuse light and a mixed crowd, though, it was hard to be sure.

"Anyway," Hansen added, "I've got the best battlesuit in the hall. Thanks to my benefactor, the Solfygg rover."

The House of Audience was a tall building with spires at the corners; it antedated the year two generations ago that Frekka became the royal capital. Four trumpeters stepped out of the front door. Their trumpets were slender cones, each with a broad flange soldered onto the bell more for appearance than to affect sound quality.

Three of the instrumentalists managed a clear fanfare, but fog had gotten into the throat of the fourth man. His call sputtered. Even at best, the echoes from the old buildings surrounding the square were thin on this dismal morning.

"A bad omen," Arnor muttered.

"Balls," said Hansen in sudden anger. "Men make their own luck!"

Warriors in battlesuits shifted to block the streets entering the square. Instead of individual paint schemes on their armor, these men wore only patterns of stripes on their right arms. The color and width of the stripe indicated the warriors' unit and rank within it.

Professionals. The standing army—the Royal Household—of the West Kingdom.

"Hail to King Prandia the Just!" cried the usher. He hopped off the stage as a stocky, fortyish man mounted the steps behind him.

Prandia wore hose and a puffed black doublet that would crush flat without discomfort when a battlesuit closed over it. The spangles on his beret were as likely jewels as they were metal sparklers, but neither the cap nor the rest of his garb made any concessions to the cold.

Prandia's breath plumed from his nostrils as he eyed the assembly. Warriors in fur tried to control their shivering.

"Hail, King Prandia!" chorused the crowd.

A number of people cheered with genuine affection. The interest of a few warriors was primarily on the armored professionals who now surrounded the square.

That only meant that Prandia the Just wasn't Prandia the Sucker.

The king's skin was pale and he had blue eyes. He looked nothing at all like his grandfather, Golsingh the Peacegiver . . . though his coloring was very similar to that of his grandmother.

Queen Unn.

"Lords and warriors of my kingdom," Prandia said. His tenor voice carried across the square with surprising power. "The Duke of Colimore, my friend and son-in-law—"

Breath fluffed again from Prandia's nostrils. He drew in a deep breath and continued, "The Duke of Colimore has been murdered with all his family by Ontell . . . who was his counselor, and claimed to be his friend."

"Happened at midsummer," Arnor muttered to Hansen. "Ontell's got a way about him, but he's mean as a snake inside."

"Ontell has usurped Colimore," Prandia continued as coldly as though he had not just mentioned his daughter's murder, "though the duchy is of my kingdom and in my gift. It would appear that Ontell is receiving support from the King of Solfygg . . . but that will be a matter for another time, after we do justice in Colimore."

"Princess Unn was the apple of her father's eye," Arnor said. "She was the prettiest little thing you ever saw."

"Was she indeed?" Hansen said. His lips were as pale as bone.

"I will not be leading you against Colimore in person," Prandia continued. "That duty will be performed by my marshal, the Duke of Thrasey, who will handle it ably and professionally—"

The tremors which shook the king's body could have been a reaction to the cold, but Hansen was shaking also within his furs.

"As I do not trust myself to do," the king added, getting control of his voice midway through the clause.

"Because the kingdom has been at peace during my reign and that of my father," Prandia went on in his original cold, powerful tones, "it is necessary to organize you gentlemen of the levy for the first time. To that end, your battlesuits have been set within the House of Assembly."

The king gestured at the building behind him. The crowd murmured. Warriors were considering the matter of greatest concern to them: their status within the first army of the West Kingdom in generations.

"Please enter the building—only warriors!" Prandia said, raising his voice to a sufficient degree. "Enter the building and stand beside your own armor. Duke Maharg and several of his champions will speak with each of you individually before making their assignments."

"Duke Maharg of Thrasey?" Hansen said to Arnor as the push to the House of Assembly's doors began. "How old is he?"

"Hmm?" said Arnor. He eyed the rush doubtfully, then settled back to let the crowd thin before he moved toward the hall himself. "Maharg? Oh, he's the king's age. They were raised together when Prandia was fostered by the first duke, that was Malcolm, Maharg's father."

"What . . . ?" Hansen began. He sucked his lips between his teeth for a moment. "What happened to the old duke, then?"

"Well," said Arnor, "I think he's still alive, though he must be older than the hills. He abdicated in favor of his son, oh, must be ten years ago."

The square around them was full of chattering freemen, but all the nearby warriors had made their way to the queue snaking around both edges of the stage. Prandia looked down and caught Hansen's eye for a moment.

"I guess we better go," Hansen said to his companion. They moved ahead. Freemen jumped out of the way of their greater status.

"Why were you wondering about old Malcolm?" Arnor asked.

"Oh . . . ," said Hansen. He could feel the eyes of the king focused on his back, but he did not look up as he passed the stage. "I used to know him, a long time ago."

The champion snorted. "As young as you are?" he said.

They had reached the doors of the House of Assembly. Voices and hardware echoed within. Warriors looked for their battlesuits and objected to where the armor had been placed, as though a preliminary sorting had already occurred.

"If you did," Arnor added, "you must've been just a boy."