He was surprised how easily that slipped past the Ministers. Men with swords stood a little taller, stopped being unquestioning instruments of their lords' wills.
Two months passed. Warnecke came into the fold. Vodicka became the dour, grimly silent tenant of a tower shared with a manservant sent him by Sir Farace. The Wessons of Fahrig hinted interest in a charter like Sedlmayr's. Rolf Preshka's health deteriorated till he spent most of his time in bed. Turran and Valther disappeared. But their hands could be seen. The winter in the lowlands was unusually mild. In the high country it was bitter beyond memory. Sir Andvbur occupied Breidenbach. And Bragi spent more and more time in the field, drilling his forces in the southeastern portion of the Siege.
One blustery morning his engineers threw a pontoon across the Spehe to the Gudbrandsdal. He invaded Forbeck.
ii) Ghost hunting.
Mocker huddled between buildings in Timpe, a minor city in Volstokin, cursing the weather and his own ill fortune. He had been in the kingdom two months and had yet to uncover a hint of Haroun's whereabouts. The warmest trail hadn't been hot since autumn. A few guerrillas remained, but the big man had vanished.
A ragged party of soldiers appeared, returning from Kavelin. They exchanged bitter words with people in the streets. Mocker retreated to deeper shadows. No point giving foul tempers'a scapegoat.
"Well," said a voice from the darkness, softly, "see what the hounds have flushed."
One hand darting beneath his robes for a dagger, Mocker looked around. He saw no one. "Haroun?"
"Could be."
"Self, have been traipsing over half arse-end of world..."
"So I've heard. What's your problem?"
Mocker tried to explain while hunting. He saw nothing but unnaturally deep shadow.
"So what's Bragi want?" the sourceless voice demanded. "He's doing all right. He could make himself king."
"Hai! Enemies thus far ground in mill of great grinder northern friend like ants in path of anteater. But now anteater comes to narrow in road where lion waits..."
"What're you babbling about? El Murid? He won't attack. He's got trouble at home."
"Woe! Know-it-all son of sand witch, spawn of mating of scorpion with open-mouthed jackass, or maybe camel, plotting like little old lady Fates, mouth always open and eyes always closed..."
"I missed something. And I'm being told to shut up long enough to hear what."
"Hai! Is not stupid after all. O stars of night, witness. Is able to add up twos." Carefully, wasting fewer words than usual, he told what Bragi had encountered in the Savernake Gap.
"I should've expected something. Always there're complications. The gods themselves contend against me." Angrily, "I defy them. The Fates, the gods, the thrones in Shinsan. Though the world be laid in ruin and the legions of Hell march forth from the seas, I'll return."
It was the oath Haroun had sworn while fleeing from Hammad al Nakir long ago.
Of all the Royal House, descendants of the Kings and Emperors of Ilkazar, only Haroun had survived to pursue a restoration. He alone had been nimble, swift, and hard enough to evade the arrows, blades, and poisons of El Murid's assassins, to become, in exile, the guerrilla chieftain known as the King Without a Throne.
Mocker decided it was time an old, nagging question got asked. "Haroun, in case Fates serve up wicked chance with left hands, ending life of old marching companion, what of Cause? Are no successors, hey? Leaders of Royalists, yes. Grim old men in dark places, lying poisoned blades in hand for enemies of Haroun. But no sons of same to pick up swords and go on pursuing elusive crown.
Bin Yousif laughed bitterly. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. I've taken roads walked alone, have secrets unshared. Still, if I'm gone, what do I care?
"Well, I've hoarded a trick or two, like a miser. Guess it's time to spend them."
Mocker, still trying to detect something in the darkness, was startled by a sudden wail from a few feet away. "Haroun?"
The answer was a moan of fear. The darkness faded.
Haroun was gone. Always, in recent years, it had been that way. There was no more closeness, no shared truth between them. Yet Haroun continued presuming on friendships formed in younger days.
The sounds of distress continued. Mocker pushed into the dying darkness.
He found an old beggar barely this side of death. "Demons," the man mumbled. "Possessed by demons."
Mocker shuddered, frowned. Haroun had found him, but he hadn't found Haroun. From somewhere else, anywhere, by sorcery, bin Yousif had spoken through the old man. So. His old friend had been studying the dark arts.
With the best of intentions, no doubt. But Haroun's character...
The appearance of several soldiers at the street exit, drawn by the beggar's wails, made Mocker take to his heels.
Very dissatisfactory, he thought, his robes flying. The trip had been a waste. He should abandon everything and return to Nepanthe.
iii) The night visitors
Operating armies in winter, even on Kavelin's small scales, presented almost insuperable problems. Bragi crossed the Spehe with rations for ten days. That he entered the Gudbrandsdal was more to take advantage of game than to come at Forbeck unexpected.
He passed through the forest slowly, pursuing routes previously marked by the Marena Dimura, his men scattering to hunt. Two days passed before he allowed his patrols beyond the forest's eastern verge.
The loyalties of the Forbeck nobility seemed proportional to distance from Vorgreberg. They encountered resistance only beyond Fahrig. The Nordmen there supported the Captal's pretender.
Blackfang's Trolledyngjans, who found the winter mild, whooped from town to castle.
After three weeks, Ragnarson passed command to Blackfang and returned to Vorgreberg.
Little had happened in his absence. An assassin, of the Harish Cult of Hammad al Nakir, had been caught climbing the castle wall. He had committed suicide before he could be questioned. Three ministers had been thrown in the dungeon. Her Majesty had coped.
He saw her briefly before retiring. She was haggard.
Deep in the night a daydream came true, something he had both wanted and feared.
At a touch he suddenly sat upright in darkness. His candle was out. He grabbed for the dagger beside it.
A hand pushed against his chest. A woman's hand. "What?..."he rumbled.
A barely audible "Shh!" He lay back. Fabric rustled as clothing fell. Long, slim nakedness slid in beside him. Arms surrounded him. Small, firm breasts pressed against his chest. Hungry lips found his...
Next morning he was still unsure it hadn't been a dream. There was no evidence save his own satiation. And the Queen seemed unchanged.
Had it been someone else? Her maidservant, Maighen, whose flirting eyes had long made her willingness evident? But Maighen was a plumpish Wesson with breasts like pillows.
Each night the mystery compounded itself, though she came earlier and earlier and stayed longer and longer.
The day Haaken sent word of the surrender of the last rebels in Forbeck, Gjerdrum asked, "What're you doing nights, anyway?"
Ragnarson flashed a guilty look. "A lot of worrying. How do you beat sorcery without sorcery?"
Gjerdrum shrugged.
All questions had their answers. Sometimes they weren't pleasant; sometimes the circumstances of resolution were distressing.
The latter was the case the night Bragi unraveled the mystery of his lover's identity.
The first scream barely penetrated his passion. The second, cut off, grabbed like the hand of a clawed demon.
It had come from the Queen's chambers.