Knight of Shadows

He led me inside and closed the door behind us. Across the room a bust of Gerard had fallen and broken. What appeared to be her current project - a multilimbed sea creature of a sort I'd never seen - occupied a work area at the studio's far end.

Random turned on me suddenly and searched my face.

«Have you been following the Begma-Kashfa situation?» he asked.

«More or less,» I replied. «Bill briefed me on it the other night. Eregnor and all that.»

«Did he tell you that we were going to bring Kashfa into the Golden Circle and solve the Eregnor problem by recognizing Kashfa's right to that piece of real estate?»

I didn't like the way he'd asked that one, and I didn't want to get Bill in trouble. It had seemed that that matter was still under wraps when we'd spoken. So, «I'm afraid I don't recall alI the details on this stuff,» I said.

«Well, that's what I planned on doing,» Random told me. «We don't usually make guarantees like that - the kind that will favor one treaty country at the expense of another - but Arkans, the Duke of Shadburne, kind of had us over a barrel. He was the best possible head of state for our purposes, and I'd paved the way for his taking the throne now that that red-haired bitch is out of the picture. He knew he could lean on me a bit, though - since he'd be taking a chance accepting the throne following a double break in the succession - and he asked for Eregnor, so I gave it to him.»

«I see,» I said, «everything except how this affects me.»

He turned his head and studied me through his left eye.

«The coronation was to be today. In fact, I was going to dress and Trump back for it in a little while…»

«You use the past tense,» I observed, to fill the silence he had left before me.

«So I do. So I do,» he muttered, turning away, pacing a few steps, resting his foot on a piece of broken statuary, turning back. «The good Duke is now either dead or imprisoned.»

«And there will be no coronation?» I said.

«Au contraire,» Random replied, still studying my face.

«I give up,» I said. «Tell me what's going on.»

«There was a coup, at dawn, this morning.»

«Palace?»

«Possibly that, too. But it was backed by external military force.»

«What was Benedict doing while this was going on?»

«I ordered him to pull the troops out yesterday, right before I came home myself. Things seemed stable, and it wouldn't have looked good to have combat troops from Amber stationed there during the coronation.»

«True,» I said. «So somebody moved right in, almost as soon as Benedict moved out and did away with the man who would be king, without the local constabulary even suggesting that that was not nice?»

Random nodded slowly

«That's about the size of it,» he said. «Now why do you think that might be?»

«Perhaps they were not totally displeased with the new state of affairs.»

Random smiled and snapped his fingers.

«Inspired,» he said. «One could almost think you knew what was going on.»

«One would be wrong,» I said.

«Today your former classmate Lukas Raynard becomes Rinaldo I, King of Kashfa.»

«I'll be damned,» I said. «I'd no idea he really wanted that job. What are you going to do about it?»

«I think I'll skip the coronation.

«I mean, over a slightly longer term.»

Random sighed and turned away, kicking at the rubble.

«You mean, am I going to send Benedict back, to depose him?'.

«In a word, yes.»

«That would make us look pretty bad. What Luke just did is not above the Graustarkian politics that prevail in the area. We'd moved in and helped straighten out something that was fast becoming a political shambles. We could go back and do it again, too, if it were just some half assed coup by a crazy general or some noble with delusions of grandeur. But Luke's got a legitimate claim, and it actually is stronger than Shadburne's. Also, he's popular. He's young, and he makes a good appearance. We'd have a lot less justification for going back than we had for going in initially. Even so, I was almost willing to risk being called an aggressor to keep that bitch's homicidal son off the throne. Then my man in Kashfa tells me that he's under Vialle's protection. So I asked her about it. She says that it's true and that you were present when it happened. She said she'd tell me about it after the operation Dworkin's doing now, in case he needs her empathic abilities. But I can't wait. Tell me what happened.»

«You tell me one more thing first.»

«What is it?»

«What military forces brought Luke to power?»

«Mercenaries.»

«Dalt's?» «

«Yes».

«Okay. Luke canceled his vendetta against the House of Amber,» I said. «He did this freely, following a conversation with Vialle, just the other night. It was then that she gave him the ring. At the time I thought it was to keep Julian from trying to kill him, as we were on our way down to Arden.»

«This was in response to Dalt's so-called ultimatum regarding Luke and Jasra?»