Kingmaker (6 page)

"Surrender and we'll let you live,” one of the bandits shouted.

It was a good offer—probably too good.

"He's lying.” Arnold drifted around until he was at her back. Evidently their brief sparring match had persuaded him that she was his best bet for keeping alive. “They wouldn't dare let us live."

"If we let them close, they'll swarm us and kill us.” She spoke softly, for Arnold's ears only. “If we can disable several of them, the rest might run away."

"Wait.” He checked his guards, then turned back to the bandit who'd addressed them. “You are in rebellion to Baron Ranolf and King Sergius. Disperse before suffering their retribution. I, Arnold Ranolfson demand it."

A few of the bandits took a step backwards but the man who'd addressed them just laughed. “We'll handle the retribution around here. Kill them."

"Now!” Arnold shouted.

As if Ellie had needed his instructions.

A few bandits threw javelins or rocks but most pressed into Ellie's small group.

She raised her sword and charged.

They didn't know what hit them.

A real swordsman, her father had said, defeats his enemy in one blow. Here, unlike her brief match with Arnold, she saw the truth to her father's teaching. In seconds, she'd disabled four bandits and frightened the rest to the point where they backed away from her, turning and running whenever she stepped toward any of the survivors.

The guards and Arnold's sisters weren't so lucky, though. Their long swords had gotten tangled and two of the guards were already down. But they had killed far more of the enemy.

Since the bandits were staying away from her and those attacking the guards were distracted, she decided to hit them from behind.

She was implementing her plan when a series of gunshots roared over the high-pitched clank go steel on steel. The bandit immediately in front of her went down, his face ruined by a Glock bullet, and the bandits wavered, then broke.

Their leader, the man who had talked to them, turned last. The other bandits had used clubs, spears, and long knives. He, in contrast, held a heavy broadsword with fresh blood on it.

Ellie sprang after him but Arnold beat her to it. He thrust his narrow sword through the man's back.

"I was going to try to capture him,” Ellie protested. “He may have known something useful."

"He was a bandit but even he doesn't deserve torture."

Mark chose that moment to become violently sick and Ellie hurried over to check on him.

"I killed them, Ellis."

"They were trying to kill us,” she reminded him. “Your gunshots scared them away."

"But I killed them."

"No musket has ever been so small.” Arnold seized the Glock from Mark's shaking hand. “And it fired more than once without being reloaded. This is powerful magic.” He looked at Ellie. “And you are a woman. Which means everything you told my father is a lie."

People were trying to put a happy face on it but Moray, the capital of Lubica, was a wartime city. Too many of the beggars were prime-aged males, missing limbs or eyes. Too many of the shops were run by aging women or young children. Those men capable of walking were off at the wars—or hiding.

The city stank of human excrement, rotten food, and burning wood. A few of the streets were paved with cobbles, but most were mud tracks.

Behind stone walls that didn't look like they'd been maintained in decades, the town was a mass of closely packed two-story wooden buildings—a firestorm waiting to happen. Only at the very center of town did wood transform to stone. A second wall, older but with much better upkeep, and a wide green area separated the inner city of nobility and church from the common folk.

Arnold led Ellie and Mark directly to the Bishop's palace near the center of the inner city and left them in the charge of an angry looking priest. Shalla and Jeneen seemed reluctant to see the last of Mark but Arnold had hardly spoken to Ellie since he'd spotted the female shape of her rear when she'd bent over to help Mark.

The priest watched them for a couple of hours before abruptly, and with no signal that Ellie could detect, rising and demanding they follow him. He led them directly into what turned out to be the bishop's private office.

The bishop was a lean man of middle years and a sharp nose that quivered when they approached. He didn't look like Ellie's idea of a holy man. He wore the same style of clothes as everyone else, and his bald spot looked to be the result of male hormones rather than a tonsure.

He squinted at Ellie, then looked to Mark. “I was told one of them was female."

"I am a woman,” Ellie admitted.

He peered. “You're sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"The Rissel would never allow a woman to learn the way of the sword, or ally with one who had already learned. Thus, you can't be one of them, or in their hire. You can go.” He turned himself and headed toward the rear door.

That was it? Maybe Ellie should have been relieved that they didn't turn her over to some sort of inquisition, but she wanted answers. Someone had sent her to Earth, presumably to protect her. And someone had sent killers after her parents despite the dimensions that separated this world from Earth.

"Did Baron Ranolf write that we arrived in his fiefdom by magic?"

The bishop froze. “By magic."

"By these stones."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the sack of jewels that she'd used to bring herself and Mark across the dimensional gap that separated this world from Earth—and met the priest's staff as she started to yank them out.

"Slowly,” he warned.

"Right. Slowly.” If she was going to learn about her past, and her parents’ killers, she was going to have to trust someone. And a bishop who was willing to let them go free seemed like a good bet. If he'd been the one to send the killers, he would have been more suspicious of her in the first place.

"Ah. Dimensional gems.” The bishop took the velvet bag from Ellie's hands and poured the jewels on a felt-topped table. A table that might have been made for late-night poker games but that Ellie suspected was used for jewels just like hers.

"An attractive set. Even the source/destination pair. And heavily empowered."

"They belonged to my parents. I think they used them to cross from here to another world where I was raised. Recently someone followed. And killed both of my parents."

The bishop wrinkled his forehead. “Another world. That is metaphysical speculation and not in accord with orthodoxy. Besides, there are no known patterns for such a journey."

"Someone found one,” she answered. “Or rather, two someones. Because my parents didn't kill themselves."

"Your parents trained you in the stones, then?"

She shook her head. “I found them in my parents’ hiding place. Along with a book that sketched out a pattern. I followed the pattern and voila, here I was on a different earth."

"I see.” The bishop paced his office a couple of times, his face set in a scowl of intense concentration.

"You feel guilty because your parents died and you did not. You blame yourself, thinking that the killers would have left them alone if they had only found you. Is this correct?"

She nodded slowly. “I guess."

"Your anger is understandable but your guilt is unhealthy. If your parents crossed the dimensions safely, at least one of them was a powerful mage. If they created the pattern that opened the dimensions, they are more powerful than any mage in the past thousand years. Such a powerful mage would have tracked down and destroyed anyone who killed you. Therefore, your parents, not you, would have been the prime targets. After all, without the mage, they would have supposed you to be immobilized."

"Oh.” She felt strangely relieved. Not that it should matter. Her parents were still dead. She still needed to kill the murderers.

The Bishop gave her an unconvincing grin. “You say you have a book that shows the pattern. May I see it?"

If she said no, she suspected he'd take it anyway. By being agreeable, she preserved the potential for cooperation.

Moving slowly to avoid another tap from the watching priest's staff, she pulled the book from her pack.

She opened it to her mother's drawing of the pattern.

The bishop studied the design for a while, then set the book on the table near her gems and traced the lines with a long elegant and heavily ringed hand.

Tiny purple sparks followed his hand and the oil lamps that illuminated the bishop's office flickered and grew dim. He frowned.

"And you used these stones to make
this
pattern?"

"Except that I reversed the two smooth stones. That's how I got here."

"Hmm. Interesting. It's an old-style pattern. In the days before the prophet, mages relied on the bardic loops for power and the pentagrams for protection, of course. Now we have the prophet's cardinal points to draw on and bardic loops are hardly ever used."

That was interesting in an academic sort of way but it didn't provide Ellie with much information.

The bishop abruptly closed the book and studied the cover. “Lawgrave. Bring me the records from the end of the reign of King Mucius."

Apparently Lawgrave was the priest who'd shown them in. He snapped to attention. “But Mucius has been dead for hundreds of years."

"Just do it."

Lawgrave gave Ellie a disapproving look but finally scuttled from the room.

"I suppose every nation has its legends.” The bishop took a seat behind his desk and gestured to Ellie and Mark to sit at the chairs by the table. Unlike Ranolf, who had knelt by the table in a style similar to the Japanese, the Bishop had padded and comfortable chairs, their soft leather upholstery a welcome change from the hard saddles where she and Mark had spent the past three days.

"I guess everyone tells stories,” she agreed.

"One of ours is that of the lost princess. Mucius was a powerful king, but he had no son and his daughter died in labor. This was back in the days of the Iberial invasions. Mucius summoned his chief armsman and head mage and gave them his newborn granddaughter. What happened next is unclear, but they disappeared from history. According to legend, though, the lost princess is supposed to return in Lubica's day of greatest need. Well, Lubica could hardly need a miracle more than we do now."

He flipped through the pages of Ellie's mother's book. “What makes this interesting is that the Lubica royal crest has changed. Iberial invaders married a collateral branch of Mucius's family and added their hawk to the royal panther. Your book has the old crest.

"But you said that was hundreds of years ago."

The bishop raised an eyebrow. “We are talking of miracles, after all."

Lawgrave stumbled back into the bishop's office carrying a huge volume covered with spiderwebs and dust.

The bishop gestured to the book on his desk, then stood.

"This is certainly an hour of danger for our country. The King's uncles, the powerful Dukes of Harrison and Sullivan, refuse to allow him to take power. The Rissel are playing the uncles against one another, but really seek complete control over our country. I think it's time that the lost princess of legend returns."

Okay, who wouldn't want to be a lost princess and the nation's savior? Ellie didn't feel much like a princess. She didn't think the bishop really believed she was five hundred years old and returned out of legend. But he was ready to grasp for any hope he could find in the troubles that were overrunning the kingdom.

"Wouldn't that make me the legal ruler?” she asked.

The bishop smiled, although not unkindly. “Not exactly. Five hundred years is a long time. Lubica has lost a lot of wars since and replaced its ruling house several times as a result. Besides, the real king is the person who gets the great barons to support him. As an outsider, you don't have much chance. And, well, you're a woman."

"So you want me to be some sort of figurehead. Somebody to stand in front of the army and tell them that I've returned like King Arthur to lead them to victory in their dark hour."

"Like whom?"

She shook her head. “Never mind."

He smiled. “At any rate, that's exactly what I want. The army is unhappy. The return of the lost princess would cheer them up, maybe cause dissention among those supporting the uncles or the Rissel. It couldn't hurt."

"What about the people who killed my parents?"

The bishop didn't even try to look calm. His fists tightened until a drop of blood fell from his ring. “We share the same enemies."

Ellie was a little reluctant to bring it up but she knew the bishop would think of it soon. “One more question. I crossed the dimensions and I don't have any magical powers. How is that possible?"

He looked at her. “It isn't possible. And there isn't anything more dangerous than an untrained mage. We'll put you in old-fashioned armor, have you address the troops, then send you into the cloister to learn to control your powers."

"Cloister?” That didn't sound promising.

"One of the sisterhoods. Merely for training, of course. You wouldn't have to take vows."

"How long does this training take?"

He waved a hand absently. “It varies with the candidate. Perhaps in four years, you'd be safe."

For a moment she considered it. Who wouldn't want to learn to control magic? But she didn't trust the bishop or anyone else to look after her interests, to be sure that whomever had slaughtered her parents would be punished.

"How about some intense tutoring for a couple of weeks?"

This time the bishop's smile didn't reach past his lips. “We need to be certain you'll be safe. The legend wouldn't help us much if the Rissel trotted your dead body out."

It hadn't helped the English much when they'd killed Joan of Arc, but then again, the French victory had come way too late for Joan. Ellie didn't have a problem with the idea of staying alive.

That said, spending the rest of her life hiding didn't have any appeal at all. And the bishop's four years could easily convert to a lifetime. After all, why wouldn't he want to keep her around, safe but controlled, forever?