Shadow

themhowto do things. You build a fire with kindling and logs. No logs, no fire.'

    'So?' the prince asked, puzzled.

    Shadow smiled. 'The locusts eat my father's crops, one corner of the Keep is subsiding, the wilds and the Guard steal the livestock, the neighbors deepen their well and his dries up, the serfs don't work if they're not watched, and the royal tax collectors demand more than he's got. But if he doesn't solve those problems, his serfs will starve, and he feels responsible. So he finds another way. No one tells himhow.'

    Vindax nodded. 'Practical! That's the sort of thinking I want in my staff, Shadow. I want to meet your father. When we get back--'

    The drape rustled aside to admit the countess.

    The countess of Dumarr was not a person, she was an office. Appointments to that office were neither gazetted nor bestowed at dubbing, although they might as well have been from the speed at which they were known around the court. The countess of Dumarr was the crown prince's current mistress, a position of some importance in palace politics. The present incumbent was a sweet little cuddly blonde with a heart of steel and a very practical attitude to her work--Shadow approved of her. Normally there was no count of Dumarr, but the chief of protocol had been told to use that name for the duration of the trip. Some of the country gentry may even have believed that he was her husband.

    She slipped by Shadow, sat down next to the prince, and looked him over appraisingly. Then she cuddled, getting little response.

    'It's more complicated than we thought,' she said.

    'I thought it would be,' Vindax said sadly.

    'She's a woolly-headed spoiled brat, full of romantic notions and her own importance, but I don't think this jaunt was truly her idea. She was put up to it by her mother and someone called Ukarres, an uncle.' The countess glanced up to include Shadow in the conversation, then back to Vindax. 'She was led to believe that her father was coming here--to warn about a plot on your life.'

    Shadow stiffened.

    'Her father knows this?' the prince asked.

    'I would guess not,' the countess said. 'He can certainly deny it. She didn't want to be cheated out of meeting her dream prince, so she came herself.'

    Vindax frowned and looked to Shadow.

    'Then her father will be coming also?' Shadow asked.

    The countess shrugged. 'She told them she was going off in the opposite direction, so he will probably be starting a search for her about now.'

    'Considerate little bitch!' the prince muttered.

    The countess nuzzled the side of his neck.

    'Was she told to bring that Rorin kid with her?' Shadow asked.

    The countess was smart enough to have seen that point. 'No. That seems to have been chance.'

    'Why does that matter?' Vindax asked sharply.

    'Because that chance sort of scrambled the egg,' Shadow said. 'Without him along, this would have come out in private, even if she did faint at the sight of you.'

    But the egg had been scrambled--the whole royal party knew now. Vindax could turn tail and run back to Ramo, but the court would still hear how he looked so much like the duke of Foan's groom.

    'Should I see her?' Vindax asked.

    The countess shook her head. 'Not yet. She's still in deep shock. She equates you with Rorin.'

    'Thanks.'

    She kissed his ear. 'Silly! I mean that ever since childhood she has been dreaming of marrying the crown prince--and now she's discovered that he looks like her half-brother.'

    Vindax drew back his teeth in a snarl and looked up at Shadow.

    'You will have to marry her now, you know,' the countess said cheerfully. 'It will be the only way to squash the rumors.'

    'Think of the wedding,' Vindax snapped, 'and the jokes about the father of the happy couple. I suppose you will now forbid me to visit Ninar Foan?' he demanded of Shadow.

    'Who's behind the plot?' Shadow asked, needing time to think. 'The rebels? Karaman?'

    The countess said that neither Elosa nor her mother knew.

    'Oh--hell!' Vindax said. He went paler than ever. 'The duchess of Foan did visit the court once. I remember her being presented. I must have been about four.' He stared in horror at the countess and then at Shadow. 'So there my be no assassination plot at all--just a plot to keep me away from the keeper. Perhaps the duchess of Foan has been playing the same game as my mother?'

    And that nasty question raised even more nasty questions.

    'You could send for the duke,' the countess suggested.

    'Shadow? Advise me, dammit! What do we do?'

    Shadow shrugged. He was not sure who was playing what games, for he knew he could never understand these prickly aristocrats with their convoluted principles of honor. Security, however, he thought he could handle, and unless someone launched an open assault, the lonely aerie was safer than anywhere. 'We send Rorin back to explain that the girl is safe. We'll send one of our people along.' Not a trooper, he decided. They had better keep the armed strength up. 'The chief of protocol, perhaps? Have him ask the duke for reassurance--he'll probably come himself. Meanwhile you stay here. You can't avoid the scandal now. The damage is done.'

    Vindax nodded. His arm had gone around the countess, apparently of its own volition. He smiled at her, and she wiggled her tongue at him. He looked up and dismissed Shadow with a nod. 'See to it!'

    Shadow slipped out and closed the drape carefully, knowing that he was leaving the prince in good hands.

Chapter 5

'...even nestlings are dangerous.'

--Manual of Training, Royal Guard

    IT was his birthday. He was sixteen kilodays old today, and no one in the world knew it. Probably no one knew his name, either; he often wondered if even the king remembered. For almost five of those kilodays he had been Shadow, and his real name had not been spoken in all that time. He had probably established a record, for it was very unlikely that any previous King Shadow had lasted five kilodays, certainly not in recent reigns.

    He was standing in the royal cabinet, staring out a window and brooding on being old: sixteen.

    At the far end of the cabinet the king was sitting at his desk with the royal breeder and the deputy royal breeder, talking bloodstock. Birds! Shadow hated birds and had never flown in his life.

    The cabinet was an egg-shaped room, high and huge, decorated in white and gold and blue. Normally the king worked outdoors, but he was very careful not to establish a pattern. He changed his work place at random and never announced in advance where he was going unless there was some big formal function planned. Today he had chosen the cabinet--and he seemed to use that only when he had some particularly dark purpose in mind. Shadow thought of it as the spider's parlor, for the tiny king in his white clothes always reminded him of one of the nasty little bleached spiders that turned up under rocks. From the very nature of his position, Shadow must know all the royal secrets, but the cabinet provided an exception. What the king said or heard there was not overheard by Shadow.

    Or so the king thought.

    That day the king had talked taxes with the chancellor and honors with Feather King of Arms, and now he