“How did you know the lad’s tongue betrays him?” Ligne asked.
“I heard him tripping over his sausages at breakfast.”
“Queen!” came Rosha’s strangled cry of frustration. “Give me leave to k-k-kill him!” The days of inactivity and frustration welled up inside him, begging for some release. It seemed possible the Queen might let him take out his rage on a meaningless upstart of a jester.
“An amusing idea.” Ligne nodded. “What do you think of it, fooir Fallomar chuckled nervously. “You’d let a hotheaded youth rob you of months of amusements?”
“You’re assuming you’ll lose!” the Queen crowed. “Does your dagger wit not match your dagger work?”
“In truth, my Lady, I’d rather not see blood especially not mine!”
“Ah, but you’ve made me curious. Is a fool’s blood white, like his face? Bring two swords!”
“My Lady, you can’t be serious!” Kherda protested.
“Oh I can’t?” Ligne snarled, shooting him a dangerous scowl. “Perhaps you’d rather Rosha spill your blood for exercise?”
“Ah… no, my Lady ”
“Then get out of my way!” the woman bellowed, and Kherda did just that, backing into the corner Rosha had vacated. “Loose his hands!”
Ligne ordered Carlad, Rosha’s guard, plunging the man into a dilemma.
Carlad took his orders from General Joss, and the Lord of Security had instructed him never to free Rosha from his bonds in the presence of the Queen. But Joss was far to the north, investigating some matter of national security.
“My Lady,” Carlad pleaded, “if… if I loose him and un hood him, he may kill you ”
“I said nothing about unheeding him! Just tie his hands in front of him, so he can hold a weapon.”
Carlad obeyed her, managing with some help to get Rosha’s hand bound before him just as another guard sprinted back through the double doors with a pair of swords one a short Chaon stabbing sword, the other the named great sword Rosha had brought with him. Thalraphis. Pelmen had a good idea which weapon he’d be handed. This he hadn’t planned on.
Rosha stretched his arms above his head, then made a quick grab for the buckles that held his hood in place. Car-lad and his fellows jerked the warrior’s hands down and filled them with the haft of Thalraphis.
Then they ducked away, as Rosha whirled the five-foot long weapon above his head with an audible whisper.
“Now, fool,” Rosha said icily, “let’s see who stumbles first.” The confidence that came from the sword in his hands seemed to run straight up his arms to his tongue. Rosha never stuttered in battle.
Fallomar had watched all of this with growing consternation while a gleeful Queen watched him watching. “Well, fool?” she cackled. “Take your sword.” A worried guard handed the clown the shorter weapon, keeping well out of range of Rosha’s wheeling scythe. Fallomar took the weapon soundlessly and backed out of the way. He happened to move toward Kherda trapping the old man in his corner.
“I must protest this, Ligne!” the Prime Minister squealed. “You’re going to get us all killed!”
“No real loss in your case,” the Queen snorted. Her face flushed with a sensual excitement. At the sound of her voice, Rosha leaned in her direction.
Pelmen saw the move and acted quickly to keep the raging warrior from hewing the woman down here in her own throne room. “I’m over here!”
Rosha squared around to face his voice and started toward him slowly, still whooshing that long, flashing blade. Pelmen slipped quietly to his right, leaving the Prime Minister directly in the path of the on-coming savage.
“He’s moved!” Kherda shouted. “He’s moved to your left!” Rosha stopped advancing and turned his head tentatively to his left,
“Come, clown. Where are you?” he muttered.
“I’m here,” Fallomar called warily. “But where how is your tangled tongue!”
“This is my tongue!” Rosha shouted, brandishing the great sword before him.
“I’d rather duel the one in your mouth!” the clown said.
“So would I!” the Queen agreed.
Once again Rosha turned in the direction of Ligne. Pelmen skipped quickly behind him. “Back here!” the clown shouted and he slashed his sword toward Rosha’s broad back. Before it could arrive, Rosha had reversed, and he caught the blow on his own sword with a chilling clash as -Pelmen had known he would. The fool skittered backward then, dodging the three swift swipes he knew would follow. That was a family technique that Dorlyth had ingrained in his son through constant practice. Pelmen had learned it directly from the source.
Rosha stopped then, puzzled. He’s expected to cleave the clown into quarters…
“Come, come, my friend,” Fallomar teased. “If you’re the expert ”
Rosha charged again, and once more Pelmen ducked and scampered to his left.
“You speak like a butterfly!” the fool shouted. “Can’t sit down on a word and make it stickl” He said it mockingly, but he hoped Rosha would mark his words and not their tone. It was the echo of something Dorlyth had said to the lad the last time the three of them had been together.
The hooded swordsman never paused. He whipped around and attacked in earnest, and the painted clown was hard pressed to keep from being diced.
Pelmen was not a poor swordsman. In years past, he’d battled Dorlyth and survived no mean feat in itself and with a single, well-placed stroke had slain the legendary Vicia-Heinox. He could have killed or maimed Rosha a dozen times, given the handicap of the young man’s blindness. But Fallomar the fool was not a swordsman and could not be allowed to appear one. Pelmen ignored one opportunity after another and suddenly found himself pinned into a corner. Rosha kept pressing, and their swords rang together three more times before a crashing blow knocked Pelmen’s sword flying from his hands. The hooded warrior smiled as he heard it clatter away, then he shoved his pommel into the fool’s gut, cracked it down on Pelmen’s head, dropping him to the floor, and planted both his knees on the player’s chest. He found the fool’s neck by feel, then quickly swung the tip of his weapon into place.
Pelmen stared up the length of a blade poised to slit his throat.
CHAPTER NINE
At Blade Point
“WELL?” said Ligne. “Do it!”
Rosha leaned back. “Kill him? I think not.”
“Why! He insulted you! Cut his throat!” Rosha stood up, allowing the fool to breathe. “Go ahead and kill him!” Ligne screamed.
“No.”
The Queen stared at him. “Why not?” she demanded.
“It j-j-just came to m-me. If this ma-ma-man be so honey-tongued, p-p-perhaps he could train me to sp-sp-speak.” Rosha had greatly exaggerated his stutter and Pelmen sighed with relief. Sometime during the fight, Rosha had recognized his voice. Pelmen thanked the Power for the young man’s quickness and good sense. “B-besides,” Rosha continued, “he s-s-seemed to b-b-be amusing you.”
Ligne gazed at the grinning fool, a bit puzzled by this turn of events.
But she was nothing if not capricious. She decided to be pleased.
“Yes. Yes, he rather does amuse me.” The Queen caught Carlad’s eye and pointed to the sword Rosha still held loosely before him. The guard nodded and crept up behind to snatch it away. Surprisingly, Rosha offered no resistance. Once again, Ligne was puz The WizarJ tn zled. “You seem… so docile, suddenly,” she said. “Are you injured?
111?” She seemed genuinely concerned.
“I’m n-neither.”
“Perhaps the lad is… winded,” offered the fool from the floor.
“Winded? B-b-by the likes of you?” Rosha snorted. “B-better thank your g-good fortune I d-d-didn’t cut your wind altogether, funnyman.
D-don’t forget that I st-still could.”