"What have you discovered?" Alba.n.u.s demanded without preliminary.

Demetrio shrugged and sniffed at his ever-present pomander.

Vegentius stiffened in tired anger at the peremptory tone, and spoke harshly. "Nothing. The sword's gone. Let it be. We don't need it, and you've already gotten Melius killed, giving him the thing in the first place. Though, Mitra knows, the man is little enough loss."

"How was I to know the accursed blade would seize his mind?" Alba.n.u.s broke out. Hands knotted to keep them from shaking, he managed to regain control. "The sword," he said in a somewhat calmer voice, "must be recovered. Another incident like today, another man going berserk with that blade in his hands, and Garian will know there's sorcery loose in Nemedia again. Even with his dislike of magicks he might well bring his own sorcerer to court, for protection. Do you think I'll so easily let my plans be thwarted?"

"Our plans," Demetrio reminded gently from behind his pomander.

Alba.n.u.s smiled slightly, a curving of the lips, nothing more. "Our plans," he agreed. Then even that slight softness was gone. "The Guardsmen were put to the question, were they not, Vegentius? After all, they did kill Lord Melius."

Vegentius gave a short nod. "All except their sergeant, who disappeared from the barracks when my Golden Leopards came to make the arrests.

'Twas guilt sent him running, mark my words. He knows something."

"Most likely," Demetrio murmured, "he knew what methods of questioning would be used."

"Unless he took the sword," Alba.n.u.s said. "What did they say of that under the question?"

"Little enough," Vegentius sighed. "For the most part they begged for mercy. All they knew was that they were ordered to stop a madman who was slaughtering people in the Market District. They found him fighting, a northern barbarian and killed him. When they discovered they'd slain a lord, they were so terrified they had no thought for the sword. They didn't even bring in the barbarian."

"He was still alive?" Alba.n.u.s said, surprised. "He must be a master swordsman."

Vegentius laughed disparagingly. "Melius barely knew one end of a blade from the other."

"The skill is in the blade," Alba.n.u.s said. "Six masters of the sword were slain in the making of it, their blood used for quenching, their bones burned to heat it, the essence of their art infused into its metal."

"Slash and hack, that's all Vegentius knows." Demetrio's voice dripped mockery. "But the art of steel...." His blade whipped from its sheath.

Knees bent, he danced across the colorfully woven carpet, his sword working intricate figures in the air.

"That fancy work may be good enough for first-blood duels among the gently born," Vegentius sneered, "but 'tis a different matter in battle, when your life hangs on your blade."

"Enough!" Alba.n.u.s snapped. "Both of you, enough!" He drew a ragged breath. One day he would let them fight, for his entertainment, then have the winner impaled. But now was not the time. Thirty years he had worked for this. Too much time, too much effort, too much humiliating terror to allow it all to be ruined now. "That barbarian may have taken the sword. Find him! Find that blade!"

"I've already started," the square-faced soldier said smugly. "I sent word to Taras. He'll have had his alley rats hunting all night."

"Good." Alba.n.u.s rubbed his hands together, making a sound like dry parchment rustling. "And you, Demetrio. What have you been doing to find the blade?"

"Asking ten thousand questions," the slender n.o.ble replied wearily.

"From the Street of Regrets to the House of a Thousand Orchids. I heard nothing. If Vegentius had thought to let me know of this barbarian it would have made my searching easier."

Vegentius examined his nails with a complacent smile. "Who'd have thought to look for you in the House of a Thousand Orchids? They provide only women to their customers."

Demetrio slammed his sword back into its sheath as if he were driving it into the soldier's heart. Before he could open his mouth, though, Alba.n.u.s spoke.

"There's no time for this petty bickering. Find that sword. Steal it, buy it, I care not, but get it. And without attracting attention."

"And if its possessor has discovered its properties?" Demetrio asked.

"Then kill him," Alba.n.u.s said smoothly. "Or her." He turned to go.

"One more thing," Vegentius said abruptly. "Taras wants to meet with you."

Alba.n.u.s turned back to face them, his eyes black flints. "That sc.u.m dares? He should be licking the paving stones in grat.i.tude for the gold he's given."

"He's afraid," Vegentius said. "Him and some of the others who know a little of what they really do. I can cow them, but even gold won't put their guts back unless they see you face to face and hear you tell them it all will happen as they've been told."

"Mitra blast them!" Alba.n.u.s' eyes went to the bas-relief on the walls.

Had Bragoras had to deal with such? "Very well. Arrange you a meeting in some out-of-the-way place."

"It will be done," the soldier replied.

Alba.n.u.s smiled suddenly, the first genuine smile the others had ever seen on his face. "When I am on the throne, this Taras and his daggermen will be flayed alive in the Plaza of Kings. A good king should be seen to protect his people against such as they." He barked a laugh. "Now get you gone. When next I see you, bear a report of success."

He left with as little ceremony as he had come, for already he began to feel beyond the courtesies ordinary men offered one another. They were fools in any case, unable to realize that he saw them no differently than he saw Taras. Or that he would deal with them as harshly in the end. And if they would betray one king, they would betray another.

Inside his dimly lit bedchamber he strode impatiently to a large square sheet of transparent crystal hung on the wall. The thin crystal was undecorated save for odd markings around its outer edge, markings that lay entirely within the crystal. In the light from a single, small gold tripod lamp the markings were almost invisible, but from long practice Alba.n.u.s' fingers touched the proper ones in the proper sequence, intoning words in a language three millennia dead.

As his finger lifted from the last, the crystal darkened to a deep silvery blue. Slowly pictures formed within it. In the crystal men moved and gestured, talking though no sound could be heard. Alba.n.u.s gazed on Garian, who thought himself safe in the Royal Palace, conferring with long-bearded Sulpicius and bald Malaric, his two most trusted councelors.

The King was a tall man, heavily muscled still from a boyhood spent with the army, but now beginning to show a smooth layer of fat from half a year of inactivity on the throne. His square-jawed face with its deep-set dark eye had lost some of the openness it had once had.

Sitting on the throne was responsible for that change as well.

Alba.n.u.s' hands moved around the rim of the crystal again, and Garian's face swelled until it filled the entire square.

"Why do you do that so often?"

The blonde who spoke watched him with sapphire cat eyes from the satin cushions of his bed. She stretched langorously, her skin gleaming like honeyed ivory in the dimness, her dancer's legs seeming even longer as she pointed her toes. Her large, pear-shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s lifted as she arched her slender back. Alba.n.u.s felt his throat thicken.

"Why do you not speak?" she asked, her voice all pure innocence.

b.i.t.c.h, he thought. "It's as if he were here, Sularia, watching his mistress writhe and moan beneath me."

"Is that all I am to you?" Her tone was sultry now, caressing like warm oil. "A means of striking at Garian?"

"Yes," he said cruelly. "An he had a wife or a daughter, they would take their turns with you in my bed."

Her eyes drifted to the face in the crystal. "He has no time for a mistress, much less a wife. Of course, you are responsible for the many troubles that take his time. What would your fellows think, an they knew you took the risk of seducing the King's mistress to your bed?"

"Was it a risk?" His face hardened dangerously. "Are you a risk?"

She shifted in the cushions so that her head was toward him, her hips twisted to emphasize their curve against the smallness of her waist. "I am no risk," she said softly. "I wish only to serve you."

"Why?" he persisted. "At first I meant you only for my bed, but of your own will you began to spy in the palace, coming to kneel at my feet and whisper of who did what and who said what. Why?"

"Power," she breathed. "It is an ability I have, to sense power in men, to sense men who will have power. I am drawn to such men as a moth to the flame. I sense the power in you, greater than the power in Garian."

"You sense the power." His eyes lidded, and he spoke almost to himself.

"I can feel the power inside, too. I've always felt it, known it was there. I was born to be king, to raise Nemedia to an empire. And you are the first other to realize it. Soon the people will take to the streets of Belverus with swords in hand to demand that Garian abdicate in my favor. Very soon. And on that day I will raise you to the n.o.bility, Sularia. Lady Sularia."