One Good Knight Page 10

  The Traditional story featured a pair of quite One Good Knight

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  innocent young children, sent by a poor mother whose patience had been tried once too many times, to gather mushrooms or berries in the forest after they had ruined the only food in the house in their play. It would be an Evil witch that found them, cap-tured them, and was about to transform them or devour them outright, when through cleverness, they turned the tables on her, killed her, broke the spell on other children being held there and were reunited with their frantically worried parents.

  Not this pair. They were in their teens, though they looked much younger, and rather than being gentle and innocent, they already had a history of torturing animals and tormenting younger children before they decided to make a career for themselves as murderers. It appeared that they had decided it would be safe enough to kill someone who was a witch, since even the purest of Good Witches was often regarded dubiously by her neighbors.

  Elena had to put a stop to this—but she had to do so in a way that The Tradition would recognize, and work to reinforce. So right now, she was investigating brother-and-sister tales to find one that would at least incapacitate the pair. The selection, alas, was not a large one. Granted, she could have used her own library, but it had occurred to her that the former owner of this place had been a Wizard, not a Godmother, and his library might have a few volumes hers did not.

  Besides it was another good excuse to spend time 122

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  with Alexander. As the Head of the Glass Mountain Chapter-House, he spent every other month here besides being on call when he was at the Godmother’s Manse. Luckily, there was a private Portal to use any-time he needed to be there instantly.

  In addition to the problem of the two “children,”

  there was an outbreak of minor curses in Florinia; all the symptoms pointed to a young wielder of magic suddenly coming into his or her power, but she couldn’t seem to pin down the source.

  And now this delegation of shepherds from—where was it, exactly?—had sought her out here.

  She ran the fingers of both hands through the hair at her temples and marked the place in her book where there was a promising beginning to a Traditional Tale. “I’m sorry,” she said, hoping they believed her apology was sincere. “I wasn’t attending. You are from—?”

  “Acadia, Godmother,” said the shepherd, twisting his woolen hat in his hands so hard that if it wasn’t shapeless already, it was certainly going to be shortly. “South of here. On the coast.”

  She frowned a little. “I’m sorry,” she said again,

  “but that is not one of my Kingdoms. Shouldn’t you be going to your own Godmother?”

  “Strictly speaking, mum,” said another, a shepherdess who looked about as much like one of the little pink-and-white porcelain figurines (the sort that the wealthy in Elena’s Kingdoms liked to display in their parlors) as a wolf looks like a lapdog. She One Good Knight

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  looked, in fact, as tough as briar, weathered as a crag and quite capable of hauling a full-grown ram up out of a ravine, never mind a lamb or two. “Strictly speaking, Acadia don’t belong to any Godmother.

  Haven’t had one for a dog’s age.”

  Elena tried not to groan. This was, after all, the sort of thing she was supposed to handle. She might be young in years, but she was old in power, a se-nior Godmother. If there was an orphan Kingdom with a problem anywhere near one of hers, it became hers to deal with.

  “Ye see,” said the first shepherd, still twisting his hat. “We got a dragon problem.”

  As he outlined the “dragon problem,” she listened in growing astonishment. Because there shouldn’t have been a “dragon problem” in Acadia. Acadia was a very small Kingdom, bucolic in nature, and dragons just didn’t turn up in places like that. Dragons could be good or evil, just as human beings could be, but the evil ones didn’t bother with half-sized Kingdoms like Acadia, they went for the places where they could heap up treasure-beds of stolen gold and gems piled higher than they were tall. If there was enough gold in Acadia to fill more than a couple of smallish chests, she would be surprised.

  As for the good ones—they just didn’t do what the shepherd had described. And they certainly didn’t accept virgin sacrifices.

  And where in the name of all the Powers of Good had they gotten that idea from, anyway? she won-

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  dered. What idiot would think that a dragon could actually live on one skinny little girl a week?

  Dragons needed food, and a lot of it. Maybe this beast wasn’t burning down buildings anymore, but he was helping himself to flocks in the hills, with or without virgin sacrifices.

  Virgin sacrifices…well, there’s one way to escape that fate. She wondered wryly how long it would be before the population explosion started—

  “So we need a Champion, Godmother,” the shepherdess said, interrupting her train of thought. “The Queen was s’pposed to have sent here for one, but we hadn’t heard nothin’ about it, so we decided to come ourselves.”

  “Quite right,” she replied, standing up. “I will look into this right now, and before you leave, I’ll have an answer for you.” She picked up a handbell and rang it, summoning a squire. Squires went with Chapter-Houses, just as Brownies went with Fairy Godmothers. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of young men and women who could think of nothing better than to serve Champions, in hopes of one day becoming one. However, as she had rapidly discovered, none of them could cook, and their idea of proper housekeeping was less than satisfactory. So, there were squires on show at this Chapter-House, but behind the scenes, there were Brownies keeping the place comfortable and tidy, and everyone fed.

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  many advantages in being married to a Fairy Godmother.

  “If you would take these postulants to the guest chambers, Squire Hakkon?” she asked politely.

  “They are probably famished and definitely tired and road-weary.” She turned back to her visitors. “You won’t leave here without an answer in hand, and probably a Champion, if not with you, then on the road behind you,” she promised.

  The nervous fellow looked ready to faint with relief. The tough shepherdess just dropped her head forward and heaved a sigh. “Thankee, Godmother,”

  she said fervently, and the squire led them all away.

  Which did not make the problem go away. If a Champion had been sent for, why hadn’t one gone?

  Certainly if something bad had happened to him, they would not only know, but the Chapter-House would be making plans for a full-scale assault by now.

  There was one person here who would know the answer to that, and he would be in the practice arena at this time of day. Normally she didn’t like to interrupt anyone at training, but she had promised a quick answer and she intended to keep that promise.

  But communication in a Chapter-House was as swift as in a Godmother’s Manse, as she discovered when she tentatively pushed open the doors of the arena. Word-of-mouth at her Manse spread from one end of the property to the other in the blink of an eye, and it appeared to do the same here. Alex was just pulling off his helm and had already turned to 126

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  face the opening doors; the squires had taken his and his opponent’s arms off to the side, and his opponent was being unarmored.

  Despite a black eye he had picked up in the course of his training bouts—because he took his job as Chief Champion very seriously, and trained with all of the single-minded determination anyone could ever have asked of a ChapterHead—he was a delight to the eye of any female with warm blood in her veins. His wavy brown hair, thick and shining, was now pulled back into a tail, where it helped to pad and protect the back of his neck. She loved that hair…though at times, she was a little jealous of it.

  And those long, curly eyelashes. Wh
at did a man need with lovely eyelashes, anyway?

  As for his face—he looked every bit the Champion. Square chin, chiseled cheekbones, broad brow—it was saved from perfection only by his nose.

  He could plow a field with that nose, she thought, amused, as she so often had. But she loved that nose, and she wouldn’t trade it for another. It gave him character. It also gave fair warning that he was at least as stubborn as she was. When they clashed—

  Fortunately, this was probably not going to be one of those times.

  “Acadia—” she said, and then experienced one of those delightful moments of accord that only occurs between two partners who have come to know each other so well they can speak in a kind of code.

  “Liam’s just back,” he replied, knowing that she One Good Knight

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  knew Liam was the newest of the Champions, a true virgin knight, and thus absolutely the best to send after a dragon. The Tradition would have such force behind him, he would probably be shining like a young sun by the time he closed in battle.

  “Been at the Acadian Border for a month, trying to break through.”

  That brought her up short. “What?” she replied, quite certain she hadn’t heard him correctly.

  “They sent merchants, farmers, a whole delegation to ask, and of course, we sent a Champion along immediately.”

  “But?” she prompted.

  “There’s a barrier at the Border.” Then he elaborated. “Magical, probably—that’s more in your line than mine. Anybody who isn’t a Champion has no problem getting across. But Liam tried everything he could think of and still couldn’t get in. Asleep, drunk…he even had his squire knock him unconscious—it didn’t matter. Finally he gave up, and reported to me about the same time that those shepherds showed up. If I’d known they were from Acadia, I’d have seen them myself. I was waiting until you’d done with them before coming to ask you what we could do about the situation.”

  “We can find out what sort of barrier it is, for one thing,” she replied. “Let me try the most direct route first.” She turned and started for the door, then called back over her shoulder, “And you had better get that eye seen to while you can still see out of it.”

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  * * *

  The next morning, she summoned the shepherds to the library. It seemed the logical place for her to speak to them. It was grand enough to impress them without being so regal that it made them uncomfortable, and it would remind them that she, despite looking young, had plenty of experience. The books all around her would remind her to be very careful about what she said, because it had been someone in Acadia that had erected that magical barrier, and she suspected it was someone high up enough to be in the Queen’s very Court. No one else would have the motivation to prevent a Champion from getting through. Particularly not after what she had learned. She sat at one of the tables, a massive thing of light-colored wood. They lined up in front of her, like schoolchildren waiting to be told what to do next.

  “You’re getting your Champion,” she said, cutting their inquiry short. “But I can’t tell you who it is.

  There is something very peculiar going on in Acadia, and it is best for us to send the Champion across the Border in secret. So, other than reassuring your immediate friends and family, you are to tell no one that the Champion is on the way.”

  They nodded earnestly. She had not one iota of faith that they would be able to keep their mouths shut, but they wouldn’t need to—because the Champion had already started for Acadia at dawn and, on a powerful horse, would certainly cross the Border long before the shepherds were halfway there.

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  She wanted them to tell. Whoever was preventing the Champions from crossing should know that Glass Mountain was sending another, and get himself prepared to repel the invader. His eyes would be on the Border, and not inside Acadia, where the Champion would be waiting to attack the dragon when the next sacrifice came due.

  She cut short their effusive thanks—but graciously—and sent them on their way, to be provisioned before they made the return journey.

  Once the door was closed behind them, Alex came out of the shadows beside the cold fireplace where he had been lurking, and joined her.

  “I didn’t mean to usurp your authority,” she began. He put a finger on her lips, hushing her.

  “They petitioned you, not me,” he pointed out.

  “And besides, you were the only one who could have found the one person here who could pass that barrier.”

  “True.” She frowned. “Still, what I want to know is, who made it? There’s mischief afoot there, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

  “We sent the best possible choice for the job. It’s up to our Champion, now,” he pointed out. “You’ve done everything possible to pull things onto the Traditional Path you have chosen. You can’t do anything more for the moment, so concentrate on your other problems.”

  “Argh. Don’t remind me,” she groaned. “I wish I could send a dragon to eat those homicidal little—”

  As an idea struck her, she stopped in mid-sentence.

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  “I know that look,” Alex said, with mingled amusement and alarm. “I think, if you don’t mind, my love, I’ll go have a few practice rounds—”

  “Go, and try not to get too bruised,” she said absently, hunting for parchment and pen, and beginning to hum—because it had occurred to her that there were plenty of mothers’ tales of terrible ends coming to naughty children, and mothers’ tales were just as Traditionally valid and powerful as any other.

  All she had to do was go interview a nice cross-section of mothers and grandmothers. “This could take some time.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cassiopeia closed the door of her chamber behind her, carefully and quietly, then whirled, picked up a vase and flung it against the wall. “Damn that girl!”

  she swore. “How can anyone be so ridiculously—”

  She groped for a word.

  “Good?” Solon suggested mildly. “I did warn you.

  Though what I cannot fathom is how someone like you ever gave birth to someone like her.”

  “It’s her father’s blood,” Cassiopeia said sourly, as one of her mute servants carefully picked up the shattered bits of the vase. There was a scuffed place on the mosaic of the walls, showing that this was not the first time an ornament had gone hurtling across the room, and it probably would not be the last. “He was just like that, only not nearly as intelligent.”

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  head Balan off on his investigation of the weather by deflecting him into looking into the past for similar spates of storms. Then, somehow, she has ears down in the marketplace, though I don’t know how. She’s noticed how often the daughters of those who speak out against the Queen’s policies end up as sacrifices.

  She’s said as much—thinking I wouldn’t hear of it.”

  He smiled. Cassiopeia knew he had ways of “hearing” things that little Andromeda couldn’t imagine.

  “She may have ears in the marketplace, but I have ears everywhere.”

  The Queen started to grit her teeth, and stopped herself. “She thinks too much.”

  “And she is too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

  Solon gave her a hard stare, but she was prepared to sacrifice a great deal more than her daughter to implement this plan.

  “If there are murmurs in the marketplace that those who oppose the Queen lose their daughters to the dragon,” she said smoothly, “I imagine those rumors will die when the Queen herself loses her only child to the beast. And you’re right—not only is she too intelligent, she is also too tenacious and far, far too caught up in notions of honor. I had thought I could bring her around to a more acceptable mode of thought—” The Queen shook her head. With A
ndromeda dead, the Queen would have to find a new heir…well, she would worry about that when the time came.

  Solon laughed mirthlessly. “And the rumors that the lottery is a sham will also die,” he replied.

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  “Which will leave the dragon itself as the only enemy here. Soon people will be demanding you take new measures to keep them safe.”

  “And they will be willing to give up just about anything to have that safety.” From the moment she had taken the throne as the sole ruler, the one thing she had wanted above all others was to have the means to disband the Concord, the monthly gathering of common folk and noble alike, that ratified her decrees. Nothing became law unless the Concord approved it, and the Concord had stood between her and her will far too many times over the years. It was due to meet again shortly. Unless she did something drastic, the questions that Andromeda was posing would echo between the benches. But if Andromeda went to feed the dragon before the next meeting—

  I will be a grief-stricken mother, and there is nothing that they won’t give me. By the time they realize they gave me too much, it will be too late.

  “How tragic for poor Andromeda,” she said, practicing a sad, brave little smile on Solon. “To have all of her promise and potential just cut off like that, in the bloom of her youth.”