BANDIT LED THE WAY DOWNSTAIRS, UPSTAIRS, through the maze of corridors. First House was the oldest building in Ironhall, much of it dating back centuries. Now Stalwart had time to have some second thoughts—and a few third thoughts, too. What exactly had he been flattered into accepting? Was it necessarily better than being assigned to guard the Lord High Admiral or the Master of the King’s Chicken Farms? That was what happened to the dregs; only the best were allowed into the Guard.
So he looked too young to appear in Blade livery—why did that stop his being bound with the others? They could take him to court and dress him like a page if they wanted. What he was being offered instead was a major breach of the rules—and if the King had approved it, then why wasn’t the King saying so? A binding ritual could not begin before midnight, so Ambrose had all day to kill. It had to be the royal hand on the sword that bound a Blade, but was Stalwart so much less than the others that he couldn’t be spared a few minutes? Or did the King not want to be involved?
Bandit strode into the Records Office without knocking. Master of Archives stood at his writing desk under the window, surrounded by his usual wilderness of clutter. Heaps of scrolls and piles of great leather books filled the shelves, the chairs, and the floor, leaving nowhere to sit and precious little room to stand. He was stooped and perpetually untidy, with hair mussed and eyeglasses settled on the very tip of his nose. Even this day when everyone was spruced up for the King’s visit, he seemed ink stained, shabby, and dog-eared. Yet the cat’s-eye sword dangling at his side showed he was still a knight in the Order.
“Good chance, Lester!” the Commander said cheerily. Stalwart had never known, or even wondered, what the archivist’s name was. “Need you to witness and record something.” He fished a thin roll out of his jerkin and separated it into two sheets of paper. “File this. It’s a warrant promoting Candidate Stalwart to companion, no binding required.”
Master of Archives peered at it, holding it almost at the end of his nose. “I never heard of such a thing! In three hundred years there has never—”
“There is now,” Bandit said cheerfully. “That’s the royal signet. Fat Man is head of the Order and this matter is within the royal prerogative. You going to argue with him?” He handed the other paper to Stalwart. “Close the door, lad. Read that out.”
The text was very brief, closely matching the oath sworn when a Blade was bound to the King:
Upon my soul, I, Stalwart, companion in the Loyal and Ancient Order of the King’s Blades, do irrevocably swear in the presence of the undersigned, my brethren, that I will evermore defend His Majesty King Ambrose IV, his heirs and successors, against all foes, setting my own life as nothing to shield him from peril. Done this fifth day of Eighthmoon, in the three hundred and sixty-eighth year of the House of Ranulf.
“Now sign it. May he borrow your quill, Lester? Add ‘companion’ after your name. Congratulations, Sir Stalwart!”
Master of Archives was making spluttering sounds like an annoyed goose. “That is absolutely outrageous!”
“We live in strange times.” Bandit took the pen to write “Witnessed Bandit, Commander,” under Stalwart’s admittedly shaky signature, then handed it to Master of Archives. “Now you, Lester. File it somewhere very secure, and enter Sir Stalwart’s name in the rolls.”
“B-b-but…”
“The records must be correct, because there will be false stories spread.” Bandit turned to regard Stalwart, compressing his long eyebrow in a frown. “Your sword’s ready, of course, but you can’t have it today. We’ll try to get it to you. What’s her name to be?”
Things were happening too fast. “Sleight, sir.” Stalwart had said it before he realized that—if all this was for real, and if he didn’t come out of it alive—the sword Sleight might be hung in the sky of swords before he had ever seen her or laid hands on her. “Not ‘slight.’ ‘Sleight,’ like sleight of hand.”
The Commander chuckled. “Good one! I’ll have Master Armorer inscribe it. Write that in your book also, Lester. Well, that’s all, Sir Stalwart! Welcome to the Royal Guard.” He offered a handshake.
“Th-thank you, er, Leader.” Stalwart was miserably aware that his own palm was sweaty. He dearly wanted to ask why he wasn’t being bound, but he feared he would not like the answer.
“Glad to have you. Here are your first orders. Go straight to your quarters. Gather up whatever you own, including that lute of yours, and then go.”
“Go, sir?”
“Out. What was it Grand Master said—kick up dust? Must have been catchy talk fifty years ago. Walk out the gate. Take the Lomouth road and keep going. Someone’ll be waiting for you at Broom Tarn.”
The Commander’s steady stare was a challenge to steady the new recruit’s fluttering insides. Not just butterflies in the stomach—he had bats in the belly. A Blade could not refuse an order, but it was very obvious that he might have fallen into some sort of elaborate trap. Suppose there wasn’t someone waiting for him on the road? Where would he go, what could he do?
“Yes, sir.”
Bandit smiled to acknowledge what those two little words had cost. “I’ll be at the gate to see you get past the Blades there.”
“Thank you, sir!” He was to be given no breakfast?
“But if anyone asks you where you’re going, you will not answer.”
“Sir?”
The Commander shrugged. “Has to be, Stalwart. Despite what Grand Master said, I won’t ask you to lie to your friends. I hope you can’t, because it’s not an ability to be proud of. And you mustn’t tell the truth. If there truly are spies back at court, they’ll assume you got puked because you’re a lousy fencer. People here in Iron-hall will know better than that, but they’ll assume the old man lost his temper with you. Or you annoyed the King, or something.”
No, they would assume he’d lost his nerve and run away. He was going to be branded a coward.
Bandit did not say that, though. “Believe me, this is very important! We can’t protect you where you’re going, you see. If one careless word lets the enemy suspect that you matter, then you’re as good as dead. So today you refuse to talk. Understand?”
“I’ll obey orders, sir,” Stalwart said hoarsely.
“Good man!” The Commander forestalled his questions with a head shake. “Don’t ask. The man at Broom Tarn will explain. I don’t dare tell you more now. Officially you’ve been expelled.”
“Yes, Leader.” Stalwart turned and went.
The instant the door closed behind him, Master of Archives said, “Well you can dare tell me! What is all this nonsense? What’s going on?”
Bandit had his eyes closed. He let out a long, long breath, as if he’d been holding it for a week. “No, I can’t tell you.”
“I don’t like this!”
“Neither do I.”
“Spirits, Leader, that boy’s only a…a…a child! Did you see how his chin trembled?”
The Commander opened his eyes and scowled. “Yes, I did. Did you see how he obeyed orders in spite of it?”
“You’re sending a child into mortal danger!” Master of Archives yelled. “You’re bound. You’ve forgotten what fear is like. I tell you, the week after I was dubbed knight and unbound I got into a fight and suddenly my hand was shaking so—”
The Commander’s fist flashed out and grabbed the older man’s jerkin. His eyes blazed. “Don’t push too far, Lester! I’ve told you I don’t like it. And you will not breathe one word of this to anyone, you hear? Nobody! Give me your oath on it.”
“I swear, Leader.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” Bandit released him.
Sir Lester restored his dignity by straightening his jerkin, like a chicken rearranging its feathers. “Is this Snake’s doing? Is that who’s he going to meet—Snake?”
“Snake or one of his men.”
“You really think that…that boy…is going to do any good?”
The Commander turned and picked his way across the littered floor. “I can’t tell you. I don’t know what’s going on either. Snake and the King dreamed it up. Maybe Durendal was in on it—I don’t know. I do know that we’ve lost far too many men and Ambrose’s luck can’t last forever.” With his hand on the latch he looked back. “I’m desperate, Lester. I’ll try anything.”
“Because all you’re risking is one boy with no father to complain and no mother to mourn!”
“That’s all,” Bandit said harshly. “One starry-eyed boy. Lots more where he came from.”