The handsome man following the king and queen was tall and moved smoothly, with a naturally athletic gait. Thick black hair formed a comma down over the left eye, the rest rather haphazardly pushed back and worn long. Below the finely drawn dark eyebrows, smiling dark-blue eyes moved naturally among the crowd, pausing occasionally to make note of this person or that. High cheekbones lay above slightly hollow cheeks, and a straight nose lay just above a sensuous mouth. Taken as a whole, the effect was piratical. He was slim and muscular, with a rather wide chest descending into narrow hips, which in turn blended smoothly into long, powerful legs. In his face could be seen some resemblance to the king and queen. Kluge guessed his age to be at least thirty years.
But despite the man’s good looks, it was his clothes that stood out.
The knee-high black boots were muddy, as were the tight red-stained trousers. Blood, perhaps, Kluge mused. The black leather vest was much like the one Kluge wore, except the well-aged leather was dry and cracked in some places, and spotted with mud. At first glance the man looked more like an assassin of the royal court than a member of it. But if he was an assassin, then why was he without a weapon? Then, as the man turned the corner, Kluge saw the ingenious weapons that lay across the man’s back. A black leather sling, much like an arrow quiver but shorter and wider, lay along the man’s right shoulder blade, holding almost a dozen silver, flat-bladed throwing knives in a row. The handles of the blades did not quite reach each up to the top of the shoulder, and thus had not been visible from the front. Indeed, if the man had chosen to wear a cape they would not have been visible at all. He looked incredibly out of place in the hall, as though he had arrived late and had no time to change his dress, or simply didn’t care how he looked. Kluge thought that it was a little bit of both. As he continued to move into the room, women curtsied and smiled, trying to attract his attention as their multicolored fans twitched back and forth hurriedly, like a flock of hummingbirds’ wings.
“Prince Tristan the First of the House of Galland,” Failee said indifferently. “Son of Nicholas and Morganna. It is said that he is highly intelligent, yet takes seriously neither his station nor his duties in life. He has made no secret of the fact that he has no desire to be king. To us he is relatively unimportant. Yet, for reasons which I shall not concern you with, it is extremely important that he die.” The corners of Kluge’s mouth turned up slightly, pleased that the prince would presumably present a greater threat to his skills than would his parents. He always enjoyed a challenge.
He cast a pair of jealous eyes toward Succiu, for the express purpose of determining her reaction to the prince. Her eyes were locked upon Tristan, and as she toyed with the ends of her long, black hair, her tongue was intently circling her lips. She is intrigued by this royal whelp, Kluge thought angrily. It’s the quality of his endowed blood that attracts her. Blood that I do not, and never will, possess. He turned his attention back to the prince. One more reason to take great pleasure in killing him.
Following Prince Tristan came another man and woman together, her arm linked happily through his. The man was unusually large and about the same age as Tristan, with brown hair cut very short and slightly thinning at the temples. As though it had been grown in compensation, a very thick brown beard covered his face. Like King Nicholas, he was also dressed in robes of fur. The overall effect was somewhat reminiscent of the wild bears that Kluge was fond of hunting in the outer reaches of Parthalon. With a warrior’s eye Kluge knew that this man would be able to move his large bulk easily, perhaps even gracefully. He had a military bearing about him.
The woman next to him, presumably his wife, was a perfect mixture of Queen Morganna and Prince Tristan—tall and blond, like the queen, but with Tristan’s high cheekbones and sensuous mouth. Kluge suddenly grasped the fact that she was the prince’s twin. She had lustrous, hazel eyes, and a strong jawline. This one had courage, he thought, and would not be afraid to speak her mind simply because she was a woman. She seemed to smile almost perpetually in a genuine way, showing perfect, white teeth. But of greater interest to Kluge was the cut of her ornate red gown.
She was pregnant.
As an ambitious young officer rising through the ranks of the Minions, Kluge had spent a great deal of time overseeing the birthing houses of the various Minion fortifications. That experience had taught him to estimate the chronology of a pregnancy. He guessed this woman’s unborn child to be somewhat less than six moons.
As the man and woman were slowly engulfed in the adoring crowd and slipped from view, Failee spoke again. “Princess Shailiha, also of the House of Galland, daughter of Nicholas and Morganna, twin sister to Tristan. Accompanied by her husband Frederick, of the House of Steinarr. He is commander of all of the Royal Guard, and now a member of the royal family by marriage. It is said that he personally trained Tristan in the combative arts. He, also, is to die.” She paused, as if enjoying herself. “The princess, however, requires greater explanation.”
An even more icy demeanor came over each of the mistresses, an expression that smacked of extreme anticipation, as if something or someone for which they had been waiting all of their lives were about to arrive.
Kluge looked back at the unfolding scene to see a small company of elderly, gray-haired men enter the hall and solemnly walk down the red runner. They neither smiled nor acknowledged the crowd in any way. Each wore the same simple, gray hooded robe, and walked with hands folded before him. Some had beards and some did not, but they all sported identical braided tails of gray hair that fell from the back of their heads to the center of their backs.
Upon the appearance of these six, the mistresses had become visibly angry. Failee’s hands were balled up into fists, her knuckles white. In a barely audible whisper, she recited the names of the men as they passed with a hatred that to Kluge spoke volumes.
“Wigg, Tretiak, Egloff, Slike, Maaddar, and Killius. The Directorate of Wizards, advisors to King Nicholas. Together with the king they rule the infestation that Eutracia has become.” She paused. “Kill all of them. But be warned, their deaths will not come easily.” She raised a long, painted fingernail before Kluge’s face. “They must be dealt with first, and swiftly. We shall explain how. Given enough time to react, these six grandfatherly looking old men will give both you and your Minions more trouble than the entire Eutracian Guard. If your timing is imprecise, you will, before they are finished with you, wish that you had never been born.”
Wizards. Bane to the Coven. The male counterparts to sorceresses. The diseased balance of power that had kept the more gifted female gender, and therefore the more powerful side of magic, from ruling completely, as was its proper destiny. This much Kluge knew from private conversations with Succiu. He also knew, painfully, that a sorceress not only would not, but indeed could not ever fall in love with a male of unendowed blood. The type of blood I and all the Minions of Day and Night possess, he ruefully reminded himself. And if the Minions cannot be so blessed, than we shall spill the so-called endowed blood of the wizards from one end of the palace to the other.
He stared at the wizards, seated on their thrones, and burned each one into his memory. Since it appeared that the mistresses had known these wizards personally, the wizards must also have discovered the use of time enchantments in order to have survived this long. There was obviously a history between these two groups of mystics. A very bad one indeed to have fueled such hatred for over three hundred years. The so-called “brilliant” wizards of Eutracia. He wondered how clever they would consider themselves to be if they knew that they were being watched at this very moment. This campaign is not about the conquest of new lands as much as it is about the settling of old debts, he realized. And now, for me, it is also about the destruction of male endowed blood. Once again he looked to Succiu. Especially the blood of the prince, he thought bitterly.