He nodded. “Of course. I’ll be ready to go within the hour.”
“Elliot,” Jenny said. She stepped close and added softly, “You can’t just leave me here.”
“You’ll be fine. Just stay upstairs, and-”
“No!” she almost shrieked. “I can’t do it! Here all alone, wondering if you’re all right-”
Spears smiled. “It’s a joust of honor against Thomas Gillian, Jenny. It’s not that serious. And I never lose.”
“I won’t stay here alone.” Her voice was firm even though she looked down at the floor. “I’m tired of hiding.”
“She’s got a point,” I said. “Drake seems like the kind of guy who-”
“Don’t tell me about Marc Drake,” Spears snapped, fury in his eyes. Again I fought the urge to step back. “Our blood mingled on too many battlefields for me not to know him better than even his queen does. If I thought even remotely that he’d understand, I’d have told him long ago. But he wouldn’t.”
“There’s another reason she shouldn’t stay,” I said. “Whoever’s behind this may know about the two of you. With you gone, she’d be pretty vulnerable.”
“See?” Jenny said.
Jenny and Spears looked intently at each other, a contest of wills I wasn’t sure who would win. After a moment I risked interrupting them to say, “Now that my message is delivered, if it’s all the same to you folks, I’ll be leaving. Best of luck with the joust.”
Spears held up Drake’s message. “That’s not what it says here.” He read, “‘Mr. LaCrosse has my utmost confidence. Anything you ask of him will be the same as me asking it. I’m convinced of his honesty and integrity.’” Spears folded it with a wry scowl. “Looks like you’re still on the royal payroll, if you’re an honorable man.”
Of course I’m honorable, I thought. The second-best knight in the kingdom will come after me if I’m not. God, I wanted off this island. But the whole situation had become so incredibly goofy that now I had to see it through for myself. “All right, whatever. We’ll bring her along back to Nodlon. I suppose if she’s in disguise-”
“No,” Spears interrupted. “I want you to take her to Cameron Kern.”
Jenny gasped. “Kern!”
“Yes. Most people think he’s dead, and those who know better won’t think to look for Jenny there.”
“Apparently I’m supposed to escort you back to Nodlon,” I pointed out. “If I don’t, your friend Gillian will come after my head.”
Spears looked at me as if I’d said the silliest thing in the world. “Mr. LaCrosse, I give you my word, I will go to Nodlon. And if I do have to fight Tom, as much as I may hate it, I’ll win.” He sounded as certain of his victory as he was about the next full moon.
Suddenly Jenny noticed my cast. “But you’re injured! Your hand, how can you protect me?”
“He won’t need to fight,” Spears said evenly.
“But if he does-” She turned to me. “You can fight, can’t you?” she asked desperately.
“Yes.” Especially if you’d give me some damn dinner, I thought, but didn’t say.
“I have something that will help,” Spears said. He went to a large standing cabinet that, when opened, displayed an array of swords, maces, and other weapons for hand-to-hand combat. He returned with a sword in a strange-looking scabbard.
He slipped the straps of the new scabbard around my arms, so that it was held in place along my spine. A belt attached to the bottom of the scabbard then went around my waist. He guided my right hand up over my head; sure enough, the hilt of this new sword snapped into my rigid grasp, and I drew it with little extra effort.
“Wow,” I said, impressed. The sword’s polished blade gleamed golden in the lamplight. Its cross guard was a simple bar, and the pommel was an unornamented solid ball. It felt perfectly balanced. “Not bad, as long as I’ve got a high ceiling above me.”
“Putting it back is a little tricky at first,” Spears said with a smile. “But you’ll get the hang of it. And you’ll find it’s actually a faster draw than a sword at your waist.”
He showed me how to grab the bottom of the scabbard with my left hand to steady it while I carefully slid the sword back into it. It would take practice, but the quick draw made it worthwhile. I left the sword Kay had given me on the table; carrying too many weapons just makes you feel silly.
Jennifer-I mean, Jenny — watched all this silently, arms folded. When I’d practiced the draw a few more times, she finally said, “So when do we leave, Mr. LaCrosse?”
“How far away is Kern?” I asked Spears.
“Maybe a day, depending on traffic. You need to travel so as not to attract attention.”
I looked blatantly at Jenny. “That’s going to be difficult.”
She nodded. “Yes. If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ll go fix that. Then I’ll be ready to go. Under the protection of a one-handed swordsman who apparently hasn’t eaten in a week.” She flounced indignantly from the room.
We stared after her in silence. Finally I said, “They’re a lot alike, too.”
“Oh, yes.”
I turned to Spears. “So why isn’t this Kern guy advising the king anymore?”
“I wish I knew. Whatever it is, it was so serious Cameron left without any sort of farewell. He just walked out of the king’s chambers, out of the castle, and into the night.”
“And no one knows why?”
“Cameron does. And Marcus. To my knowledge neither has ever spoken about it.”
“And you never asked?”
Spears smiled. He was a handsome thing, all right. “Have you met Marcus Drake? No, I never asked. But I’ve always wondered. Now-come with me.”
NINETEEN
I followed Spears through the corridors of Blithe Ward. Everyone we met immediately dropped to one knee. Spears motioned for one man to walk with us and spoke to him rapidly in their shared native language. The man rushed off to whatever task Spears gave him.
None of this slowed Spears down. He strode with such purpose that I had to work to keep up, and as a result I missed lots of no doubt interesting details. Many paintings and weapons were on the walls, and I wondered if they were souvenirs or mere decorations.
I did pause when we passed through the armory. The way the polished bits of protective gear and bladed weapons reflected lamplight made the room look like a golden treasure chamber. Each glossy piece, its straps and linings long repaired from the days of battle, hung neatly with its fellows, ready should the master of the house need them again. Some of the weapons I’d never seen before, and was unsure exactly what they did.
One item brought me up short, though: a magnificent two-handed broadsword hung point-down on the wall, an altar beneath it with two candles burning. The blade gleamed like quicksilver, the hilt was wrapped in supple- looking black leather, and the pommel sported an enormous ruby. Nothing marred its reflective surfaces. It looked, in fact, the way I’d expected Belacrux to look.
I didn’t even realize I’d stopped until Spears cleared his throat from the doorway.
I nodded at the sword. “What’s the story behind this one?”
He thought about it a moment, then shrugged. “It’s not a secret. This is Arondite. My father’s sword, and his father’s, going back as far as anyone knows.”
“It’s something,” I said sincerely. I’d seen a lot of beautiful swords forged only for display, and a lot of ugly ones created simply to kill. This one combined the best of both.
“You have a good eye,” Spears said with a hint of pride. “They say one of my forefathers first used it to rid my homelands of a rampaging giant that was decimating the population. It was made from a metal that fell from the sky, cooled in the blood of a dozen virgins, and struck by lightning when it was first held aloft.”
“Do you actually use it?”
“Oh, yes. When I need the certainty of a weapon that will never fail.”
“Will you use it against Gillian?”
