King of Swords (The Starfolk) (17 page)

Talitha seemed tense, but perhaps she was mad because her father was keeping her waiting, or because she hadn’t been invited to join the party, or because she hadn’t yet had a chance to explain to her son’s new bodyguard exactly what he was supposed to be guarding against. Izar was always right there, big ears akimbo.

The imp had spent the second hour there trying to teach his bodyguard to perform magic, but Rigel had proved unable to levitate even a feather above the palm of his hand.

“Three-year-olds can do that!” Izar yelled when he ran out of patience. “
Babies
can do it!”

“Not this baby. How much can you lift?”

Izar looked askance to see if his mother was listening, which she was. He muttered, “Lots. But even halflings can reach blue! Can’t they, Mom?”

“Some can, if they have been taught, dear.”

“If magic develops late,” Rigel said, “then perhaps I’m not old enough yet. I’m only a year or so older than you are, you know.”

Izar refused to believe that, and had to be told how earthlings aged faster than starborn. He found it even funnier that Rigel didn’t know his own birthday, but it was clear that he was rapidly becoming bored to insanity, levitating cushions and people’s drinks, rolling balls of cold fire across the floor.

“Why did Grandsire tell us to wait here?”

“I told you,” Talitha said patiently. “He was busy earlier. It is good of him to take the time to see us at all tonight.”

“Can’t I go to sleep now? Just for a little while?” Sleep was his escape from the unwelcome.

“No,” his mother said for the third time. “It would be disrespectful to your grandfather. He will see us as soon as he can, but he must attend to his guests first. He has told you often enough that royalty has an obligation to set an example of good manners.”

“Tell me, Oh exalted starling,” Rigel said. “How is sponsoring arranged? What will happen at my hearing?”

“Dunno,” Izar said grumpily. He knew that Rigel was trying to distract him and wasn’t about to cooperate.

Talitha said, “After the court determines that you are a halfling, not an earthling or a starborn deformed by a curse, Fomalhaut will be asked if he’s willing to sponsor you. If he refuses, you’ll have seven days to find a sponsor. During that time, you will be housed in a reasonably comfortable jail.”

How was he supposed to find a sponsor if he was locked up? “And after the seven days? Unsponsored halflings go to the Dark Cells?”

“Sometimes, but usually they’re just humanely put down—you’re not protected by the guilt curse.” Talitha smiled. “But that won’t happen to you, because I shall be there.”

“And if Fomalhaut says yes?”

Her smile inverted into a frown. “Normally you would agree and that would be that. But Vildiar is his overlord, and he’ll want to get his claws on Saiph. He will pressure Fomalhaut to transfer the bond to him. Again, your consent is required, but if you don’t give it, you won’t have a sponsor.”

“Meaning I’ll be between the devil and the deep blue sea? An earthling expression,” he explained in response to her furrowed brow. “Between a rock and a hard place?”

“You will be between a slow death and a quick one.
That
is why we have to talk to the regent-heir. He is everybody’s overlord. He must take your bond and then transfer it to me. If that is agreeable to you?”

“You mean I’d have to put up with Izar all the time?”

Izar punched him in the arm.

“If that’s the hardest you can hit,” Rigel said, “I’ll have to give you lessons.”

Izar growled, bounced up and down on the couch a few times, and then shouted, “Jabbah! Bring me a chocolate mouse.”

“Wait!” Talitha said as the page moved to obey. “Izar, that was not good manners. You do not give orders to people older than yourself. And you are never to give orders to servants; you must always ask them. And Jabbah is not a servant anyway. He is an officer of the castle. So now you must apologize to him.”

A black silence descended.

Rigel rose, went over to the serving table, and politely asked Jabbah Starling if he might have a chocolate mouse—they were mouse-
shaped
chocolates filled with cream rather than rodents—and returned to the couch he was sharing with Izar. Then he ate the sickly thing himself, risking instant diabetes
and chronic heart disease. Jabbah came over to remove his plate and offer a refill, which Rigel declined.

Izar said nothing, but looked ready to levitate his bodyguard over the balustrade and let go.

“Why,” Rigel asked, looking around the great hall, “is this the only box that is occupied?”

In her cautious, Izar-is-listening voice, Talitha said, “In Electra’s time they were usually full of the guests’ unofficial relatives. Known but not recognized, if you follow me.”

“She means bastards, gigolos, and concubines,” Izar explained.

His mother pretended not to hear. “Regent-heir Kornephoros does not approve of relationships outside of formal pairings. If he ever wore lace he would keep it very straight.”

“Grandsire wears
lace
?”

“No he doesn’t, Big Ears.”

“Formal pairings?” Rigel murmured. Izar had a father, still unnamed. Did Talitha have a husband? “There are also informal pairings?”

“Dozens,” Izar said. “Two a night.”

“Watch your mouth, imp!” his mother said menacingly.

“Where I come from, formal pairings involve oaths of lifelong fidelity. You can’t have those, surely?”

Talitha said, “Hardly! A formal pairing is a contract to produce and rear a child. Traditionally it is for thirteen years, but it can be renewed as often as the parties wish.”

“She’s free,” Izar said helpfully. “But she can’t pair with a halfling, so don’t get your hopes up… or anything else up for that matter.”

“Izar!”

“I am quite certain your mother will never pair with anyone again,” Rigel said. “After what happened the first time.” He
caught Izar’s fist before it connected. “The next time you try to punch me, imp, I will punch you instead.”

“You insulted me!”

“You insulted your mother. That deserves several punches.”

Izar put on his hard-done-by expression. “Sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have said that. It was a vulgar remark. It’s just that I am
’stremely
bored! Why can’t I go to sleep? I’ll tell my self to wake me quick when Grandsire comes.”

Talitha sighed to admit defeat. “A light doze, though. Just enough to stop your whining.”

Izar promptly swung his feet onto the arm of the couch, rested his head on Rigel’s lap, and melted like hot butter. His ears went as limp as wet tissues.

“Little devil!” his mother said. “He’s put himself out cold. You’d better waken him. Father will… Father has rigid views on manners.”

Any thousand-year-old regent-heir could be expected to have an old-fashioned outlook. “Izar!
Izar!
Wake up!” Rigel shook him, shook him harder, then appealed for instructions. “Do I slap him, tickle him, or send for a doctor?”

“Starling Jabbah, please bring Rigel Halfling a glass of ice water.”

But at that moment the door opened and three mile-high boys walked in. No, not boys; perennially juvenile starfolk lords—Mekbuda, Kornephoros, and Rasalhague. All three wore disk collars as well as the usual collection of amulets, and the one in the center had opalescent hair. Rigel hastily extricated himself from the pliable Izar and knelt before the regent-heir, as his companions were already doing. Saiph was tingling more strongly.

“Up, Daughter.” Kornephoros scanned the company with distaste and gestured for the pages to leave. He did not look like a man who’d been born back in the Middle Ages. He looked like a high school basketball player with an attitude problem. His collar was a golden disk of glittering chain mail that had to weigh a tonne. “Why is this creature not wearing a hat?”

“He has not yet had his status confirmed, Father. No restrictions have been placed on him.”

“That is no reason to let him run loose displaying those obscenely deformed ears. And what exactly was he doing with my grandson?”

“Being a pillow. The boy was tired and I allowed him to go to sleep.”

“Did you choose his bedding?”

“No, Father. He did.”

“Indeed? How well do you know this unsponsored half-breed?”

Izar chose that moment to yawn and stretch. “What’ch you doing down there?” he asked sleepily, when he noticed that Rigel was on his knees. “
Schmoor
! Grandsire!” In a whirl of stringy limbs he flopped off the couch and into a kneeling position.

“You may rise, starling,” said the basketball player. “Daughter, my lords, pray be seated. Earthling, you may stand. Now I want to hear the whole story.”

Rigel, the only one left kneeling, had no need of Saiph to warn him of danger now. He was certain that Prince Kornephoros had already heard the whole story, or a version of it—in all likelihood, it had not been a version that was very kind to him.

“Your Highness—”

“Silence. I shall hear it from my grandson. Come here, Izar, and tell me about that tweenling and how you met him.” The regent sat down and made Izar stand in front of him with his back to the onlookers.

Talitha protested, “Father, Izar is only a—”

A royal glare stopped her.

Izar was beaming. “He wears
Saiph
, Grandsire, the sword that killed Rukbat and King Denebola! He killed a great big bear that attacked him! See the pink lines on his tummy? He doesn’t have any magic, but he’s ever so strong. He fought the Minotaur at Alrisha…”

The more the imp enthused about his new hero, the more the regent frowned and the lower Rigel’s heart sank. The orchestra below happened to be winding up a fast and loud fandango. The two peaked together—the orchestra thundering out chords and Izar yelling over it as he described Rigel riding on the swan’s neck and fighting off dragonflies.

Both fell silent at the same moment. The downstairs audience managed a lukewarm patter of applause. The upstairs audience did not.

“I see,” Kornephoros said drily. “You had an exciting time. You may sit down. No, not near the halfling. Here, by me.” He turned his prismatic eyes on Talitha. “Were you not aware that Fomalhaut had put the hybrid in the custody of Starborn Muphrid?”

She nodded. “I was there.”

“Then why did you help him escape? Have you no idea of the seriousness of the laws you were breaking? What is he to you that you would take such a risk for him?” He kept his voice low, which made his anger seem all the more menacing. Somewhere inside that virile stripling hid a desiccated husk of
a thousand winters. He might not look his incredible age, but his authority sparked like a thunderstorm.

“Father, may we discuss this in private?”

“You are ashamed of your behavior? Or are you merely worried that you will incriminate yourself?”

The hard floor was making Rigel’s knees ache. Mira was shooting him warning glances, which were useless without an instruction manual explaining what they meant. Izar had suddenly realized that all was not well. Talitha was pale, but she answered her father calmly, as if she had faced such rage before.

“Neither. The halfling was nothing to me, Father. Not then. What he is now, I shall explain in a minute. I was rescuing his amulet, not him. Fomalhaut is a Vildiar underling, as you know, and Vildiar has been assembling a personal army of thugs and assassins for years. I can tell you where he gets them too. Hadar Halfling and Tarf—”

“Stop! You will not insult a prince of the realm by repeating such baseless gossip and scandal.”

“It is not baseless. Oh, Father, even I can remember when we had thirty Naos princes and princesses in the Starlands. Now we are down to three. Poor Aldhibah lost his head while hunting, apparently decapitated by a gazelle armed with a sharp ax. Dear Acubens drowned in her own bathtub although she was an excellent swimmer. Alshat bled to death while picking roses, and Vildiar actually boasted to me—”

“Stop changing the subject. We are discussing your illegal actions at Alrisha today.”

Rigel was suddenly aware that he might have bitten off considerably more than he could chew. Twenty-seven Naos murdered? Was that what she was implying?

Talitha clenched her fists in frustration. “My actions were perfectly legal. As a Naos princess, I certainly outrank Fomalhaut. It was always my intention to deliver the halfling to Canopus for a hearing, but I was not certain that Fomalhaut would do the same. I would not, and will not, let Vildiar get his hands on Saiph! However honorable the present wearer of that amulet may be, he is certainly mortal and can be sacrificed on the blood-washed altar of the prince’s ambition.”

Kornephoros sneered. “How would anyone go about stealing Saiph?”

“Easily, if you don’t care about the death toll. By sending a regiment of archers against it. Odds can become impossible even for Saiph. Vildiar’s death squad is armed with amulets too. Saiph may be the greatest, but there’s one known as Sulaphat that’s rated almost as high. Its previous wearer was cut to pieces by persons unknown about five years ago, and Sulaphat mysteriously turned up adorning the disgustingly hairy wrist of Prince Vildiar’s senior assassin, Halfling Hadar. The amulet—”

“This is wicked slander.”

“Father, Father!” she shouted. “Do you think I don’t know him? You forced me into a pairing with that turd and insisted that I endure every horrible minute of it. I know Vildiar a great deal better than you do. But let us talk about my complaint, the attempt on my life and the life of my son today. I was the only one of Muphrid Starborn’s guests traveling by swan, and those dragonflies were specifically imagined to blind it and make us crash.”

Her father was unimpressed. “What I heard was that the dragonflies were released while your swan was on the beach, with the express purpose of keeping you from abducting the unsponsored halfling. That you took off anyway was reckless
to the point of attempted suicide. The person who imperiled your son’s life was you. And for what purpose? We need to know how well you know this halfling. I hear that you took him to your room.”

Talitha sprang to her feet. “Now you have spies following me around?”