LITMIR.BIZ

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for the stone in his house, my lord?’

      ‘Why bother?’ I told the Lord Constable. ‘The sigils are worthless to the High King, whether he realizes it or not. When I die – and I presume my fate is sealed – any sigil owned by me becomes inactive: a worthless piece of rock. I learned how to use them only by a lucky accident. No one knows how to bond them to a new owner save the Salka who made them in the first place. Once, Queen Ullanoth of Moss and her lunatic brother Beynor also knew the secret. But she’s dead and he has disappeared.’

      Tinnis Catclaw frowned and appeared to be considering the matter.

      Emboldened, I asked the all-important question. ‘Do you now intend to kill my betrothed and her mother as well as me?’

      The constable waved a dismissive hand. ‘The threat was only a bluff, a ploy to bring about your capture. Not even the Sovereign would dare harm a well-known shaman-healer such as Maris of Barking Sands, nor her daughter – who is an anointed Sealady of Tarn, albeit one of minimal rank. Such deeds might provoke the touchy Tarnian leaders beyond endurance. At this moment the girl and her mother are harmlessly sleeping off their enchantment, lying in the straw beside a mare and her newborn colt. The hireling wizards have followed my orders and scattered to the four winds. All they care about is how they’ll spend their bags of Cathran gold.’

      I sighed in relief. The only persons that I had ever taken to my heart would be safe now from Conrig’s revenge…but only if I abandoned them.

      ‘How do you intend to dispose of me?’ I asked.

      Catclaw pulled himself up in a dignified huff. ‘Your just punishment will be meted out strictly according to Cathran law. Once this warship rides the high seas, you’ll be tried for treason. Your disavowal of fealty meets the legal criterion. As Lord Constable, I have the judicial authority to order your summary execution. You’ll hang from a yardarm.’

      ‘But do you solemnly swear to me that Induna and Maris will be spared?’

      ‘I’ve already said so,’ Catclaw retorted testily, ‘and I’m a man of honor.’

      ‘Oh, yes?’ I hissed. ‘Did Princess Maudrayne find you honorable?’

      His face drained of color. He gave a sharp command to the seamen who held and surrounded me. ‘All of you – move away from the prisoner! Draw your swords and stand ready, but step back. Farther yet! If he stirs, slay him where he stands.’

      The astonished men retreated a good eight feet away. Catclaw stood very close to me and his voice would have been inaudible to the others.

      ‘Since you are to die within the hour, I’ll tell you how I dealt with Princess Maude. I was indeed commanded to kill her. I confess that I wrote her suicide note. It stated that she could not bear to live if she would never be allowed to see her son Dyfrig again, as the High King had decreed. I offered her poison…but gave her instead a potion that rendered her senseless and slowed her heart. She lay cold and still as a dead woman on the deck of my frigate, which was docked at Donorvale Quay, ready to return to Cathra with the boy. The Tarnian authorities bore witness to the sudden and tragic demise of the princess. Her body was placed in a lead coffin and kept in my own cabin, covered with a blanket of roses, until it could be buried at sea. This was High King Conrig’s command, following my own suggestion. Poor little Dyfrig was devastated by his mother’s suicide and could not bear to watch the ceremony. But the coffin my crew consigned to the depths of the Western Ocean was empty.’

      I nearly choked upon that which I held inside my cheek. ‘Alive?’ I gasped.

      ‘She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known,’ Tinnis Catclaw said. ‘Conrig Ironcrown cast her off when it seemed she could not bear him a son. He declared her an archenemy of the Sovereignty and commanded her death. But I had long loved her from afar. I still do – even though I am now able to visit her only on rare occasions in my hunting lodge north of Swan Lake, where she willingly remains hidden for the sake of Prince Dyfrig. Maude is a proud and spirited soul. But she is…kind to me. And kings do not live forever.’

      ‘Great God,’ I murmured. ‘You are as much a traitor as I.’

      He smiled. ‘And yet, I don’t believe you’ll use your windspeech to reveal my secret before you die.’

      ‘No,’ I agreed. It was the farthest thing from my mind. ‘Conduct your trial, my lord. Prepare the rope. But I ask a favor, as one turncoat to another. Dress me in decent clothing beforehand, restore my knight’s belt and purse, and forgo shackles. I swear I’ll behave with dignity. And as I go to my death, let your wizard stand a few ells away holding the chalice with my sigil. It would give me a melancholy comfort to have it near me.’

      He agreed.

      Later, while the great ship sliced the waves on its southerly course, and those members of the crew who were not on watch gathered in solemn ranks to witness my dispatch, I mounted the improvised scaffold unfettered.

      ‘Do you have any last words?’ the Lord Constable asked me.

      ‘My lord, I bear you and the King’s Grace no malice,’ I told him. Tell Conrig that. And now, farewell.’

      He stepped back to accommodate the hangman. I lifted my arm and cried out, ‘Concealer – to me!’

      The sigil flew out of the cup and into my waiting hand. A roar of surprise rose from the astounded crew. But before a man of them could move, I intoned the brief spell that conjured the tiny door-shaped carving called Subtle Gateway, hardly larger than a thumbnail, which had been concealed in my mouth since I quit the manorhouse.

      Agony smote me like a thunderclap. I knew that it was going to last for a long time, disabling me profoundly – perhaps even fatally – and this time there’d be no respite vouchsafed by Induna. The Great Lights would eat their fill of my pain without hindrance.

      But if I survived, I’d open my eyes in the southernmost region of the continental nation of Andradh, over two thousand leagues away, far beyond the reach of Conrig Ironcrown, Sovereign of High Blenholme Island, and perhaps even beyond that of the Beaconfolk themselves.

      I did survive.

      And dwelt in Andradh among the Wave-Harriers for the next sixteen years, until Induna came knocking on my door and, against all odds, convinced me to become the Royal Intelligencer once again.

       ONE

      It was a kind of daydream that overcame High King Conrig Wincantor at inconvenient moments, snatching him from the real world into a fantastic…elsewhere. Without warning, he would find himself in a cramped chamber, dimly lit and stifling, surrounded on all sides by a hostile mob.

      The adversaries howled and darted at him like malignant phantoms, clutching at his crown – his priceless Iron Crown. They reached out with hands and claws and tentacles, howling curses and filthy insults, trying to rip the symbol of Sovereignty away from him, saying he had no right to it.

      ‘I do!’ he bellowed. ‘It’s mine. I earned it and defended it. Leave be! Go away!’

      He fought them with all his mortal strength and with all his secret uncanny talent as well, smiting with his longsword and smashing and blasting the foe with magical bombards. Some of the raging attackers were human, persons that he’d loved who gave only hatred and malice in return; some enemies were rebellious vassals flouting his rightful authority; some were dimwitted grotesques trying to pull down the great edifice he’d built, in a pathetic extirpation motivated only by envy and spite.

      Enemies all!

      He’d fought them for years. He’d never surrender.

      ‘I won’t give in!’ he cried, holding tight to the crown. ‘I’ll rule this island and rule the world.’

      ‘No,’ they roared. ‘Never!’

      ‘Yes!

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