The Doomfarers of Coramonde Read Free Page A

settled around him, Springbuck shrank back before the realization
of his failure to aid Hightower as before the heat of a bonfire.
     
     

Chapter Two
     
    This
before all else: be armed.
    machiavelli
     
    NERVOUS, whispered conversations
sprang up among the courtiers. Fania glanced about her in sudden, imperious
anger.
    “Where are my
stepson’s mentors, Eliatim and Faurbuhl?” she demanded.
    The majordomo,
resplendent in filigreed cloak and bright sash, carrying his staff of office,
stepped forward and bowed. “Your Majesty,” he intoned, “Eliatim accompanies
guests of state home to their embassy houses and the philosopher Faurbuhl seems
nowhere to be found.”
    “In that case,
have the Prince taken to his rooms and left in the care of the Lady Duskwind.”
    Springbuck was
hoisted and carted away as she turned to the Court.
    “Have the
servants rinse clean the floors. Fetch drink and chargers of food and let the
musicians strike up.”
    As the Prince’s
bearers exited the Court, he groggily heard the crowd call tentatively for an
air wherewith to dance. In quick fashion the arena was changed back to a
ballroom; delicate feet would soon mince where the blood of men had been but a
short time before.
    Springbuck
ascended slowly from his bodiless fog, jounced along, slung over an armored
shoulder for a trip that seemed endless. Then there was the sound of a discreet
knocking, the officer’s respectful voice: “My Lady Duskwind?”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Captain
Brodur, and we have the Prince with us, my Lady.”
    What odd
inflection was that in Captain Brodur’s voice? Springbuck wondered dazedly. Was
it urgent, almost nervous? His wits were beginning to return and he felt a
growing desire to vomit.
    “He is
somewhat, umm, incapacitated,” Brodur continued, “and the Queen instr—”
    “Oh! Bring him
in and leave him on the bed. I shall attend to him. Only wait a moment when I
unbolt the door, then you may enter.”
    The enlisted
man made a rude, whispered jest at the Lady’s expense and was rebuked by his
officer as the two brought their burden into the room and dropped him onto the
brocatelle spread of his wide bed. He bounced once on the soft mattress and lay
in a sprawl, holding down bile.
    The instant
Springbuck heard the door close, he vaulted clumsily from the bed to stand and
take his bearings, bracing himself both literally and figuratively. With
Eliatim, his instructor-in-arms and warfare, away, he wouldn’t be under the
close scrutiny he’d endured lately. Had the captain left for good, thinking
he’d be unconscious for a while? The certainty was suddenly in him that his
chance to escape had come on this least likely occasion.
    He couldn’t see
Duskwind and so assumed that she was in the bath chamber. Crossing to one of
his wardrobe chests, he extracted three broad, silken headbands, then leaped
back to stand beside the door leading to the bath. Watching it carefully, he
groaned as realistically as he could.
    “Coming, my
love,” Duskwind called from the next room. “You drank overmuch, perhaps? I’ll
ease your sufferings; we’ll see what steam and massage can do to help it.”
    So saying, she
opened the door and walked into the bedroom. She must have been preparing to
bathe when the guardsmen had knocked, he reflected in the brief moment in which
she stood with her back to him, puzzled by his absence. She was naked, her
honey-streaked hair unbound and the big knuckle-shield rings missing from her
slim hands.
    He pounced on
her from behind, snatching her wrists from her sides and drawing them together
at the small of her back. She gasped in surprise but couldn’t turn around, as
he confined her hands with two deft loops of a headband.
    “Springbuck, is
that you? Stop it! This is no time for drunken games, you idiot!” There was a
strange, sharp note in her voice that he’d never heard there before. She
squirmed and struggled in his grip and he couldn’t have answered her if