The Council Room was large, with an earthen floor strewn with rushes and sand, and leather hanging on the walls. It was well lit and stank of fish oil. A fire, like an enormous red cat, drowsed in a huge fireplace before which slept massive hounds of much the same breed as the one he had slain in defense of Taleen.
There were ten other men in the room, of whom Blade recognized only Cunobar the Gray. The man ignored him.
The ten sat grouped around a long table set on trestles. In a corner, opposite Blade, and coughing now and again from the smoke, sat a white robed Dru so heavily cowled that she seemed headless. She was an amanuensis, with aging vein-traced hands that were yet nimble enough with brush and dye pot. She wrote on large squares of pressed birch bark and Blade, watching her hands move, guessed it to be a runic script.
Lycanto, King of Alb and husband to the Lady Alwyth, sat at the head of the table with Cunobar to his right and a thickset bald warrior to his left. All ignored Blade, while talking of him as if he were some strange animal, something to pique mild curiosity, but not to be taken too seriously.
"He says he is a wizard. I say he is more likely witch, or warlock, which is not at all the same thing. At very best I call him spy, sent by Redbeard, and so he should suffer a spy's death. Flaying."
The speaker, a burly man to Lycanto's left, stroked his bald head with a badly scarred hand and did not glance at Blade.
"And yet," said Cunobar, "the Lady Taleen speaks for him. She names him wizard and also vows that he saved her from Beata's men and from a fierce hound."
A grizzled man at the lower end of the table spoke up. "Then what is the question? Why make so large a thing of what is simple enough? There is an ordeal, one we all know. Put him to it."
Blade was intent on Lycanto, the King, for in the end his fate would lie on Lycanto's whim. What he saw was not reassuring.
He judged Lycanto to be in his forties, a lanky man with drooping blond moustaches that did little to conceal a receding chin. His light blue eyes, inflamed now by copious amounts of beer, were too narrow set, his nose too long and thin. A single droplet kept appearing at the end of that thin nose, and Lycanto repeatedly wiped it away. He paid no more attention to Blade than did the others.
Only Lycanto's chair had a back, and arm rests carved in the form of dragons, and only he wore a metal helmet on which was engraved a crown. He lolled on his throne, indolent and sullen, drinking constantly from a great horn in a stand before him. His fingers, clean enough and spatulate in shape, drammed incessantly on the table. Blade thought the King's mind strayed, and he wondered if it were to the Lady Alwyth and the things she did in dark, dank mist.
Now Lycanto spoke. His voice was reedy, high pitched, with an oddly girlish tremor to it.
"There is more to this than meets your eye, Bartho." He was addressing the last speaker. "Were it not for the Lady Taleen it would be simple enough. We could put him to the ordeal, or turn him over to the Drus, and who would care? But it is not that easy. The Lady Taleen has vouched for him and "
The bald burly man, who Blade already knew to be an enemy, broke in with a derisive laugh. "A maid! A simple maid, even though she be cousin to you, Lycanto. What does she know? A maid can be cozened by any likely rogue who comes along. And I give him that he stands well. He is no doubt a great one with maids, a thing which he knows and uses well to his advantage. I say kill him and have done!"
Lycanto had stiffened in his chair. He glared at the bald man with bloodshot eyes. "I will not have you interrupt me, Horsa! See to it, that it does not happen again. Or do you forget who is king here?"
Blade, watching with fascination yet not forgetting that his own head was the subject marked the expression of sullen contempt on the face of the man called Horsa. No great respect for the king there!
Lycanto went on speaking. "I say once more that it is not easy, this matter. Not only does the Lady Taleen vouch for him, but she is cousin to me, and more important" she is daughter to King Voth of the North. Voth of Voth! I dare not offend Voth. You all know that. He is powerful and a great warrior, though aging now."
He paused and looked around smiling wryly, his thick lips still moist from beer. "If none of you can help me I must turn him over to the Drus. They will have an answer."
"Thunor take the Drus!" It was the man Horsa again. He scowled and banged on the table with a huge fist. "And Thunor take Voth as well. I fear not Voth. Nor the Drus. Why take a chance on a maid's word, Lycanto? Kill the rogue. If we are wrong, and he is no spy or warlock, then it is unfortunate but still no great matter. If I am right, and he is a spy, then we are rid of him. In any case, I vote we send his head to Redbeard, and have our own spies mark his reaction. So it might be proven one way or the other."
Blade winced inwardly. It was not a system of justice for which he cared too much.
It was Cunobar who came to Blade's aid, a thing Blade was not to understand for many a day.
Cunobar's gray hair again Blade thought it belied his age glinted in the torches. He stood up and pointed a finger at Blade, at which all at the table turned and appeared to see the big stranger for the first time.
"I also thought him spy at first glance," said Cunobar. "And I saw him first, before any of you. I saw and I taxed the Lady Taleen that he might be spy. She denied it. If she could be here she would deny it now "
"No doubt," growled the man Horsa. "I tell you she is bewitched of him. Who knows but that he plants his lies on her tongue?"
Cunobar held up a hand. "As may be," he went on smoothly, "but the Lady Taleen cannot be here as against tribal law and we all know she suffers from the swooning sickness."
"Another thing I do not understand," muttered Horsa. He shot a malignant glance at the King. "The wench was hearty enough when she came to Sarum Vil and a glass later she is sick and swooning. How explain that to Voth, Lycanto? He will ask, make no doubt of it!"
The King paled, then reddened, but kept his tongue. He reached for his beer horn and drank heavily. There was a grumbling at the lower end of the table. Blade brightened and felt his chances increased. All was not well in Alb. There was weakness, dissension, and therein lay his opportunity. He must grasp it firmly, quickly, when the moment came.
Cunobar waved a placating hand. His voice, as silken smooth as the steel gray hair, filled the chamber. Blade listened with growing wonder. Why was Cunobar now advocate to him? The man had been surly and suspicious enough before. Again there could be only one answer Taleen.
"If we bicker among ourselves," said the graying man, "nothing will ever come of it. This matter must be settled, and quickly, for the time water drips swiftly and Redbeard is on the march. We should be marching to meet him, yet we linger here on the fate of a single stranger.
"There is no need for this. It is all so simple, if we but see it so. I agree with Lycanto that we cannot afford to anger Voth of the North. So we do not anger him. I also agree that the Lady Taleen is his cousin, and that she be so treated. Yet we do not have to regard her word as straight from Thunor himself. There is no problem, my Lords! We have ancient law and in that law the answer is plain we must give this stranger trial by single combat, so he stand or fall on it. Neither the lady, nor her father Voth, can find reason against that. Did not Voth himself proclaim, long ago, that no man is above the law? Can he then quarrel with his own words? Can his daughter?"
Cunobar the Gray paused and looked around the table. Lycanto was listening intently, nodding in approval. Horsa stared down at the table, his broad red face expressionless. The others muttered and whispered among themselves.