She rolled onto her side and dragged the fur-trimmed blanket up to her ear, for warmth and in vague hopes of shutting out his voice. "Nrrrrfff," she said.

He heaved himself up on one elbow and leaned over. "Kol-na! Are you listening to me?"

"What, what, all right, I hear you, they can hear you in Narluk!" Kolna snapped.

"The spirit!" he hissed.

"There is no spirit."

"I know what I heard!"

"Just one of the guests visiting the necessary-room."

"No. There were no steps on the stairs."

"Fine. As you will." She grumpily got up and stuffed her feet into her slippers, pulling a tattered robe over her nightgown. "It must be a spirit. Have it your way. I'll just go get ensorcelled by it, shall I? If luck is with me, it'll put me to sleep for seven years and I'll finally get some rest!"

Benekk lunged from the bed, grabbing at her. "You can't go out there!"

Kolna slapped her brow wearily. "Then why'd you wake me, if not to go out there?"

"What can you do against a spirit?"

"If only you'd thought of that beforehand."

His eyes bulged and he covered a rounded mouth with his fingertips. "Or it might be a ... a burglar!"

"That's more likely," Kolna agreed, padding across the bedroom to take a stout length of oxwood from a shelf.

It was always either there or behind the bar, its red-brown grain polished to a sheen that glistened in the glow of the banked embers. One end was tapered into a grip made to fit her hand, the other flattened into a thick spatulate shape. Into the wood were branded the words "Kolna's Peacekeeper."

"What are you going to do?" Benekk asked, nervously plucking at the high collar of his nightshirt.

"Swat myself a burglar."

He made no move to accompany her, retreating instead to the bed. Kolna went to the door, her movements silent despite her bulk. She was a big woman, a giantess of a woman, not fat but large. She could armwrestle blacksmiths to a draw, knock two drunkards' skulls together as if she were clapping dust from pillows, and there wasn't the burglar alive that worried her. The spirit, either, for that matter.

The door from their bedroom let onto the kitchen. The only light was that which filtered through the slats of the shutters from the lamppost outside, but it was enough to show her that the kitchen was empty. Empty now, anyway; by the look of it Benekk had been right and something had been in here.

It had been scrupulously neat when they'd retired for the night, as always. But now one of the cupboards was standing ajar, there were four loaves where there had been five, and a trail of crumbs led into the main room of the tavern.

Kolna eased quietly to the swinging door and listened. A lifetime of innkeeping let her instantly identify the sound of someone greedily stuffing bread into a hungry mouth, washing it down half-chewed with gulps of ale.

She sniffed for the scent, and scowled -- the Kingsbest, of course!

Well, thief, she thought, shaking her head, you should have helped yourself to some sausages and cheese too, for bread's not much of a last meal.

A low grunting sigh of contentment from the other room was followed by the rush and gurgle of a mug being refilled from the cask behind the bar. Kolna knew this building well enough to traverse it blindfold, and judged by sound alone where the intruder had to be standing.

And if you've a knife, prepare to have it fed to you, she warned mentally.

The door opened hard and fast on its oiled hinges with nary a squeak. It slammed into the backside of the person bent over the Kingsbest cask. The half-filled mug clattered to the floor, ale foaming between the bricks. The intruder was driven forward into the cask, more specifically into the brass spigot.

The agonized tone of the cry told Kolna that it was a man, and that the spigot had taken most of the fight out of him. Still, she was on him before he could even start to uncoil. She caught him by the scruff of the neck, getting a handful of matted, greasy hair, and whirled him around ready to administer a little peacekeeping.

They always left a lantern burning with wick turned low by the hall to the necessary, out of courtesy to guests wakened by nature's call in the night. The meager light revealed him to her just as she was about to ruin his teeth.

"Gwillian!" she gasped, and checked her blow.

"Urrrr," he groaned, trying to slither out of her grasp.

"Gwillian?" she repeated, taking a closer look. "What's happened to you?"

She relaxed her grip and he slithered to the floor in the puddle of ale, rocking forward to cradle his spigot-injury.

Kolna fetched another lantern, lit it, and brought it behind the bar. She wasn't sure which of the many things wrong with him surprised her more.

He was grimy and unwashed, smelling of a root cellar where turnips have been left to go bad in the darkness. His cheeks and chin were hidden by a bristly growth of sandy-blond beard. One of his eyes was ringed by a yellowing bruise, and it looked as if a cat had mistaken his forehead for a scratching-post.

And his clothes ... he was wearing a pair of faded blue trousers patched at the knees, ragged at the cuffs, and cinched in at the waist with a length of hayrope. His shirt had begun life as a grain sack before having slits cut in it for neck and arms. Over all was a worn grey sleeve-cloak with a suspicious hole and stain suggesting knifeplay.

Gwillian had recovered enough to sit up. He made a grimace at her that she supposed was meant to be a smile. "Hullo, Kolna. Strong and lovely as ever, I see."

"I've seen four-day-dead beggars fished out of the sewer in better shape than you."

"I'm sure they feel better than I do too."

Kolna heard a bump and a rattle from the kitchen. "Shh. I'll be right back." She went in.

Benekk was fidgeting by the table. He jumped when he saw her, then relaxed. "I'm sorry ... I must have been imagining --"

"It's all right. I'm taking care of it."

"Oh, good. I was -- what? Taking care of what?"

"Go back to bed."

"Is it a spirit?"

"Hardly. It's ... a drunkard. Hasn't gotten it into his head that we're closed." She steered Benekk toward the bedroom, and he went without protest. When the bedroom door was closed and she heard the rustle of Benekk getting back into bed, she turned around.

Gwillian had managed to get himself over to one of the stools on the other side of the bar. He was gnawing on the bread crust, but didn't seem in much of a hurry to risk drawing himself another mug.

Kolna gestured sharply toward the table nearest the front door, which was furthest from the kitchen. He was none too happy about walking that far, and did so in a hobbled mincing little steps.

"Well, Gwillian?"

"Deep subject."

"None of that. Explain yourself."

"I had to see you."

She sighed. "I'm married."

"I know."

"And if it's me you needed to see, what were you doing stealing bread and ale?"

"I was so hungry ... please, Kolna! You don't know what I've been through these past weeks!"

"By the smell, you've been through every midden pile in the city."

"I very nearly have! I'm in desperate straits. I wouldn't have come, wouldn't have troubled you, but that you're my only friend."

"So now I'm your friend again? When I've not seen you in how long?"

"I ... um ... I've been busy."

"Busy!" she scoffed. "You had your chance and ran for it with not so much as a glance back. Busy, indeed ... reciting flowery poetry and singing lovesick ballads for the queen --"

"Shh!" He stared in panic around the empty, shadowed room.

"Ah ... that's it, then." Kolna nodded sagely. "You're fearing for your life."

"Why shouldn't I be? They didn't stop at executing the king's family, the ladies in waiting, the knights, anyone they thought was a Kathak supporter ... why, even the royal tailors were put to the block! And I, the queen's favorite troubadour ... Kolna, you know that they would have done the same to me!"

"Are you, Gwillian?"

"Her favorite?" He drew himself up and preened. "I --"

"A Kathak supporter," Kolna clarified, leaning close with her brows drawn ominously low. "I run a tavern, Gwillian. I hear the news. By the end, the only ones still with Davore were the ones most loyal to him. The rest made themselves distant. They've all been spared."

"It was my job! I kept telling myself I should flee before it was too late, but the worse the news got from the south, the more the king started to worry about the Lendrin heir, the more Queen Beris needed me! To keep her and her ladies' hearts light and untroubled! I couldn't leave when they needed me most! And ... well ..."

"You never thought it would come to such an end," Kolna guessed. "Were you there that night? The night King Jherion killed Davore?"

He ducked his head, but not before she saw the admission in his expression.

"You were there," she said. "That very night. Great spirits, Gwillian, what does that make you if not a Kathak supporter?"

"No! It wasn't like that ..."

"Then why did you stay?"

"Have pity, Kolna! You know me!"

"I used to. Until the day you told my father you were too good to be singing for your supper in a tavern the likes of this. All that ever mattered to you was fame and fortune."

"And I had it! I lived in the castle! I ate at the second table! When my songs were especially pleasing, the queen would reward me with jewels from her own coffers!"

"That's why you stayed, then? For the money?"

"Is that so wrong? Had I left, and the rebellion failed, do you think the king would have welcomed back those who'd deserted him?" Gwillian wrung his hands. "But then the Lendrin heir came, and Davore was slain, and I escaped the hall in the confusion. I've been in hiding ever since."

"Why haven't you gone running to Kathan, then? I'm sure the king there would welcome you, and whatever news you could bring him of his cousin's death!"

He stared at her as if she'd gone mad. "Go to Kathan? Me? And freeze in the winterlands? I don't even dare leave the city for fear of being recognized. They'd call me a conspirator or something even worse, and I'd be for the block!"

"There is no more block. Did you miss the Day of Burning, when they melted down the blades and burnt the block itself? It was King Jherion's pledge, that the Days of Execution had ended forever."

"You'd have me chance it? This is my life we're speaking of! Mark me, Kolna, for all the speeches of a new era for Hothar, all it means is the king will find another way to be rid of his enemies. Or even those like me, who have committed no crime but will be condemned all the same!"

"What do you want, then? To live in hiding forever?"

"What I want is for things to be as they were!"

"As they were? I should slap you from that chair, Gwillian, and don't think I can't do it! King Jherion has delivered us from twenty years of Kathani domination --"

He cringed. "That's not what I meant! I want my life to be as it was! I care nothing for the Kathani, or the rebellion, or who's king ... I just want the castle back! Dinner at the second table! Fine clothes and jewels! I was the royal minstrel! The queen's favorite troubadour!"

Gwillian descended into a near-tearful babbling about how wonderful things had been. As he did, Kolna went to the bar and filled him a fresh mug of Kingsbest. She plunked it down in front of him, interrupting his ramble.

He snatched it up, downed it gratefully, and looked up at her with shining eyes. "I knew you'd listen to me. You're a good and true friend, Kolna."

"What do you want of me? To help you flee the city?"

"No ... no. Hothar is my home. The city is my home. What would I do in the country? I'm not cut out to be a traveling bard. But ... since you ask ... I do need a place to stay. And ... a job?"

"A job," she repeated flatly. "You're asking me for a job? You?"

"Just until I've gotten myself together again, I swear. I'm weary of sleeping in alleys, eating whatever I can scrounge --"

"Or steal."

"-- wearing whatever I can find --"

"Or steal."

"I didn't steal these!" he protested, glancing down at himself in disgust. "I traded the clothes I had been wearing for the pants, made the shirt myself from a sack I found, and as for the sleeve-cloak ..."

Kolna fingered the telling knife-hole and waited expectantly.

"I didn't kill him," Gwillian said indignantly. "He was dead already, and yes, since you look at me like that, I would have taken the rest of his garments had a pack of urchins not happened by and chased me off!"

She nodded brusquely.

"For mercy's sake, Kolna, please! I regret how we parted before, I most earnestly do! I regret what I told your father about being too good to sing in a place such as this! It was my pride speaking, only my pride. Give me a chance." He flashed her a ghost of the smile that had once so charmed a much younger girl.

"We could use a scullery-hand," she said.

"A ... scullery-hand?"

"To scrub the pots, sweep the floors, clear out the midden-bins, and such. You'll sleep in the attic chimney corner, take your meals for free but not your ale, and you'll have a fair weekly wage plus whatever largess the patrons might see fit to give you." A hard grin curled her mouth. "As you said, Gwillian, you're too good to waste your music on us."

"You've caught me at my lowest moment," he said, hanging his head. "I'll do it. But it hurts me to hear you speak so harshly to me. I've ... I've missed you."

Kolna snorted. "Six years ago that might have swayed me. I'm a married woman now, Gwillian. What might have been between us is long over now. Understand this -- you work for me. Nothing more."

"I've heard better music from a dog with a can tied to his tail!"

The man who shouted this emphasized it by hurling a half-eaten leg-of-fowl at the hapless minstrel by the fire.

Thanks to his drunken state, he missed by a bodylength and the minstrel didn't falter a note on his ten-stringed threnitar -- more was the pity, for, drunkard or not, the patron's assessment had been accurate.

The leg rolled across the floor that Gwillian had just finished mopping, its red-spice sauce leaving a series of splotches like bloodstains. He sighed and dunked the mop in the bucket again.

"When you're done with that," Denya said, pausing with a tray of mugs balanced against her hip, "Prath wants you to scoop ashes from the kitchen hearth."

Gwillian bobbed his head and got out of the way as the girl went past. She barely gave him a second look, and why should he? His new guise was so nondescript as to be nearly invisible.

His hair, the wavy blonde locks that he had once so carefully combed and waxed into perfect ringlets, was shorn into a bowl-cap and dyed a drab brown. An ointment of nut oil had darkened his skin.

At least he had a warm and dry place to sleep, regular meals, and a meager but growing savings hidden away in an old sock beneath a loose attic board.

Trying to find cheer in that thought, he went into the kitchen and dumped the mopwater down the drain before refilling the bucket from the cistern in the corner.

"Noisy out there tonight," the cook said.

From him, Gwillian thought, that was saying something indeed. Prath had been a blacksmith until a mishap with an anvil and hammer cost him the use of his right hand. Thirty years of clanging metal had also left him half-deaf.

"There's a minstrel," Gwillian informed him loudly. "A poor one, so they're shouting more to drown him out."

He hunkered down by the hearth, the red heat of coals baking his skin shiny-tight. A sizzling row of fowls turned on a spit mere inches from his face. Using the long-handled shovel, he scraped the ashes into a scuttle.

A familiar instrumental trill startled him, and he dropped the scuttle. Ashes burst up in a cloud, coating the fowls.

"Look at that!" Prath brought an iron ladle down hard at Gwillian's head, but thanks to left-handed clumsiness, it only glanced off his shoulder. "Rinse those, dolt, and we can still save them!"

Gwillian ignored him and pushed the swinging door open in wretched disbelief.

The minstrel was playing one of his tunes!

And butchering it!

"No, no, that's not how it goes!" he groaned.

In his mind he could hear it how it should be played, and with it came the memory of himself, clean and clad in silk, perched on one of the low rock walls that ran through the royal gardens, surrounded by ladies in gowns of all the colors of the rainbow, sharing secret smiles with him and fluttering their long lashes.

A very real pain twisted through his gut. It was followed by an additional very real pain as Prath pinched his ear and pulled him from the door.

"Are you deaf?" Prath thundered. "I said get those fowls rinsed, before I put you on the spit!"

Grumbling insincere apologies, Gwillian hastened to do as he was told, then swept up the rest of the ashes. Through it all, even with Prath bellowing at him, every misplayed note jabbed at him like tiny knives.

Denya came in to fetch dishes of stew. "Will, Kolna needs two jugs of goat's milk from the cellar," she said. "Don't dawdle."

He did as he was bade, and by the time he delivered the cool earthenware jugs to Kolna, the minstrel had moved on to a tune more befitting the rough patrons of the Iron Kettle. What had the fool been thinking, to play 'In Spring the Fairest Flowers Bloom' for an audience of buildersmen and ironworkers?

"You're a sight, Will," Kolna said, taking in the ashes on his shirtfront. She drew him a mug and gestured with her chin toward an empty stool. "Have a rest."

He nodded his thanks and sat down, glad of the ale though he knew she'd deduct it from his pay. "Why the minstrel, Kolna? Do you delight in torturing me?"

"I didn't seek him out. Steyen came to me, and he's being paid in nothing but a meal and whatever they toss in his basket there."

"Must not be much."

She hiked one shoulder in a shrug. "No one's left because of it, and they're drinking more."

"Aye, to kill the pain." He turned as Steyen finished his tune and plucked out three sharp notes to gain the attention of the room.

"My gentle lords," he began, then had to wait out the wave of laughter. "My gentle lords, I thankee for your kindness at lending an ear to my humble melodies."

Gwillian bit back a remark. He would have been speaking to himself anyway; Kolna had moved down the bar to deal with demands for refills.

"I pray your indulgence further ... for my final tune --" Here a relieved cheer arose that threw the minstrel badly off-stride and made Gwillian snicker. "For ... uhm ... yes ... my final tune, I shall play for you the 'March of the Glorious Procession.' You are privileged to hear it here first, but know that I shall soon be playing it for the king himself!"

That sparked some interest in the crowd, but Gwillian scoffed. "He means to play the 'March of the Glorious Procession'? Why, that's one of the most challenging pieces ever written! And what does he mean, play it for the king himself?"

The man on the next stool, an old fellow with a crutch propped beside him, chuckled through a mouthful of cheese and bread. "King Jherion needs entertainers for his coronation ball, and he's holding an open tournament for them three days hence."

Gwillian spilled some ale on his trousers. "What?"

"Going to have nobility from all over Hothar and Westreach at that ball, even dignitaries from Narluk," the old man said, swaying. "Though I doubt me this one'll stand a chance ... the king wants variety, but they've got to be good."

"A coronation ball," Gwillian said, more wretched than ever.

"Ah, well, I know it's belated," his companion misunderstood. "The real crowning happened that first night, and the real royal wedding the very next day. But to satisfy all the highborn, they've got to do it again with all proper circumstance and frippery. Now that everything's gotten all in order here in Hothar, they're sending out the invitations."

Steyen struck into the difficult opening chords of the March. Gwillian flinched, his suffering increasing. It was akin to a gruesome spectacle on the roadway from which one cannot avert one's eyes; he was helpless not to listen.

"No, no, no," he murmured. "The rhythm is off ... like this!" He tapped it out on the bar, humming the proper emphasis under his breath.

The old man tipped his head toward Gwillian. "That's not bad, boy! Better than him, that's a certainty!"

"Oh ... no, I --"

"Here, now!" the old man hollered, giving Prath a rival for volume.

The tune ended in a crashing of notes, Steyen about leaping out of his skin at the sudden yell. "Sir?"

"Give our ears a blessing, son! This scullery-boy could do a better!"

Uproarious laughter greeted this, and the minstrel flushed scarlet. Gwillian felt everyone looking at him, and at the end of the bar Kolna was watching with arms crossed.

He fought down the urge to run. "I ... I'm no tunemaker."

"Haw! Let him try!" someone hooted. "I'd pay to see that!"

"A contest!" the old man said, slapping his hand on his thigh. "Just like the king's going to have but we'll hold us our own here tonight! What say you, men? The minstrel against the scullery-boy, with a purse of money for the winner!" He whipped off his crumpled hat, upended it on the bar, and dumped a handful of small coins into it.

"I can't, really, I can't!" Gwillian protested.

"I am a professional musician and singer!" Steyen cried indignantly.

"Then you've nothing to fear!" the old man shot back. "Kolna, you darling daughter of the sky-giants, set us all up with fresh mugs and we'll hear them both!"

He tossed another coin to Kolna, and when she caught it her eyes widened at the weight.

"Go on, Will. It's all in fun," she said.

Fun? he wanted to shriek at her. Fun?

But there was no time for debate; the next thing Gwillian knew he found himself in a chair by the fireplace, while the infuriated Steyen launched once more into the travesty he called the 'March of the Glorious Procession.' He slogged determinedly through it, ending with a flourish that was almost on-key.

When the scattered applause died -- and it didn't take long -- the minstrel shoved the threnitar at Gwillian so fiercely it almost bashed him in the nose.

He took it, and the feel of a threnitar in his hands after all these weeks seemed at once terribly strange and achingly familiar. He felt thick and clumsy as he adjusted the strings. Once, his hands had been callused only on the pads of his fingertips. Now, they were hands that had gone from rough to chapped to cracked, with old blisters and splinters thrown in.

But his fingers hadn't forgotten what to do. It was such a relief to play it _correctly that Gwillian forgot about everything else.

He even forgot his audience, until he let the last note trail away. He looked up.

They were all staring at him, and for a moment he thought that he must have done so horribly that they were going to fall upon him like rabid dogs.

Instead, they began to clap and cheer in amazement. Men crowded around him, thumping him on the back.

"Kolna, why didn't you tell us the pot-scrubber could play?" one of the regulars demanded.

They called for another tune, and Gwillian obliged, choosing one that he'd certainly never sung for Queen Beris. The sailor and the Narlukian snake-charmer's daughter ... in moments, he had them in tears of mirth.

The old man shoved through the crowd and forced his cap of coins into Gwillian's hands. "Now that was lively! Hear me, boy ... you should come to the king's competition! And sing that very song!"

"I think not!" Gwillian laughed. "For the king and nobles? Are you daft?"

Steyen appeared at his side and snatched the threnitar. His face was plum-colored and his mouth worked as if he was trying to find the words to express his outrage, the words that would cause Gwillian to shrivel into a husk. They didn't come, so he settled for making a gesture understood the world over, and pushed his way angrily to the door.

"I'm telling you, boy, you'd be a sensation!"

"No doubt of that," Kolna said. "Leave him be, Ithor. You're in no state to --"

"What state, woman?"

"Four mugs past your usual limit, that's what state. Sing it at the contest ... aye, if the king wants war with Narluk! The very idea!"

"I know of what I speak! The king would love it!" He had to crane his neck to look Kolna in the face, and that made him totter on his leg because his crutch kept wanting to skitter around the floor. He spoke at her formidable bosom instead. "Believe me, I know what Jherion Lendrin likes, and it's none of that foppish flowery nonsense! Give him a ribald tune and a good joke any day!"

"Will, you should be getting back to work," Kolna said over Ithor's head.

A disappointed outcry arose from patrons who wanted to hear more, but Kolna was adamant. Gwillian clutched his capful of coins and rushed for the kitchen.

He hid there for the rest of the evening and scoured cookware, alternately delighted at how well he'd done and dismayed that he'd been so foolish as to actually do it.

When the tavern was closed for the night and the last of the guests had retired to their rooms, Kolna came in and sat across from him with a sigh.

"Will ... Gwillian ... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you out on display like that. You came to me for help, to hide, and I risked your secret for this." She dropped the coin Ithor had given her on the table, and it rang mellowly in the mellow way that only real gold can ring against oxwood. "Take it."

"Oh, come now, Kolna! No one here could have recognized me!"

"What of Steyen? Even if he's not much of a minstrel, he must know others! What of Ithor Drok?"

"That old man?"

"That 'old man' is the king's new Minister of War!"

Gwillian's jaw dropped in shock. "What? He's ... he's ..."

"Yes, he's one of the ones who helped bring King Jherion to power. Maybe he never heard you sing himself, but if he mentions what happened here tonight to the wrong ears, someone could fit it together!"

"He knows the king."

"That's what I said, Will, aren't you listening?"

"But, Kolna! I was just in here thinking on what he'd said, wishing it was so!"

"That you sing a song of snake-charmers? And be arrested for indecency instead of conspiracy?"

He picked up the coin and ran his thumb over it. "I always wanted to play at a momentous occasion. I hadn't been at court long enough to do so at Davore and Beris' wedding. They promised me I could at the naming celebration for their firstborn, but that never came to pass. A coronation ball ... ah, that would be something!"

"You can't take part in that contest! Have you lost your senses? True, none here tonight ever danced attendance on the queen, but there would be nobles aplenty to remember you!"

"As I was, Kolna. Only as I was."

The very air seemed to hum with excitement as guards in black-and-gold livery opened the doors to allow the crowd of would-be entertainers to enter the great hall of Hothar Castle.

Gwillian was shocked to the core by the sight.

The fabulous tapestries, mosaics of precious gems, gold-inlaid chairs, and other treasures had been stripped down. And sold, he'd heard, the money used to ease the poverty of Hothar's commonborn. The murals of conquest that had adorned the hall throughout the reign of the Kathaks had been eradicated from the walls, leaving them as bare stone.

Color was instead provided by lamps with panes of amber-tinted glass and the beauty of nature itself in the form of arrangements of dried autumn grasses. Down the length of each table was a runner of plain undyed cloth, decorated by overflowing baskets of red and gold leaves, knobbed gourds, and seed pods.

The effect, coupled with the blazing fires in the firepits, was one of informal warmth and merriment. It was echoed in the dress and manner of the servants, who wore harvest hues and went about their duties with apparent delight.

Davore Kathak and his entire family, mused Gwillian, must be writhing in their graves. But still, it was the castle. The high and royal life that he missed so keenly.

At the head of the room, a banner of the Lendrin eagle spread its golden wings proudly over the first table and the eight people already seated behind it.

The fabled red sword was no more, and rumor had it that King Jherion had ordered the blade broken apart into dozens of pieces, sending a fragment to each baronial and lordly household in all of Hothar along with a sum of gold to repay the indignities the families had suffered at Kathak hands over the past twenty years.

Gwillian sidled his way through the jostling crowd to get a better look at those who had put him out of a job.

Jherion Lendrin sat at the center of the table. His garb was nothing like that favored by his predecessor. None of the starchiness and stiffness and bejeweledness, no brocades and high collars here! The new king wore a tunic of cream-colored velvet trimmed at collar, cuffs, and hem with foxfur, belted with gold-tooled leather. A simple crown, not the diamond-encrusted marvel that had been Davore's, rested atop his sun-blond hair.

To the king's left was his young queen, in a demure and flattering gown the color of a clear autumn twilight. Olinne's dark hair was drawn back in a single thick plait beneath a delicate circlet of gold, and her eyes sparkled to outshine a thousand gems.

The other three chairs to the queen's left were filled by her brother Alkath, who had been named High Commander of the armies, and their parents, Baron and Baroness Halan.

Cassidor Ephes and his wife sat to the king's right, and with them was the same old soldier that Gwillian had met three nights ago at the Iron Kettle, though much less drunk and more neatly attired.

All of the other chairs were empty, but places were set along the rest of the tables. None of the settings were the heavy silver-chased goblets and jade-edged plates with which Gwillian was familiar; these were dishes of wood and pewter and glazed pottery. And the same, he saw, were set before those at the first table.

King Jherion stood, and a hush spread through the assembled entertainers. They faced him curiously, expectantly. The rumors were rampant, but all agreed on one thing: their king, for all his fighting prowess and royal birth, had been raised as commonborn.

For most of them, this was their first sight of him. Gwillian would that he could say the same, but his mind burned with the memory of this same man in hog-drover's guise, gaining entrance to this very room by guile and then dispatching his foe with a stave rather than in honorable sword-to-sword combat. Not at all the way it was done in the ballads!

"Welcome," Jherion said, with a smile that would have left him not long a bachelor had his marital fate not already been settled. "Please, everyone ... entertainers of Hothar ... be seated."

A ripple of surprise passed through them and heads turned as singers, dancers, acrobats, jugglers, fanghound baiters, and minstrels all glanced at each other as if to inquire if they'd heard that correctly. Gwillian spotted Steyen among them, his threnitar slung over his shoulder, but Steyen showed no sign of recognition.

"Please," Jherion repeated. "You've all come to give us an evening's enjoyment. The least I can do in return is provide you a meal as you take your turns."

Haltingly at first, then more quickly as they all saw that their fellows meant to go through with it, the entertainers did as they were bade, and filled the rest of the tables. No sooner had they been seated than the side doors opened and servants began to bring forth a feast.

Gwillian's mouth fairly flooded in anticipation as he caught whiffs of the dishes that were passed hand to hand down the long tables. Here, at least, was something that hadn't changed! Kolna was a good cook, but her fare tended toward the hearty and greasy, nothing like the delicate wonders crafted in the royal kitchens.

Clear broth soup with shavings of meat, rivercress, and herbs ... smoked fish ground fine and mixed with soft white cheese, the whole thing then pressed into the shape of a fish again and overlaid with sliced almonds to resemble scales ... mushroom caps stuffed with shredded spiced pork and cabbage ... roasts of beef running with juices ... bread made from the finest of white flour ... chunks of fowl and nuts and vegetables all simmered together in a lemon-honey sauce ...

The only notable difference was the absence of the sweet wine that Davore had favored. Instead, light and dark varieties of ale were served, along with a Westreach-recipe mulled fruit cider.

As they ate, the servants beckoned the entertainers forth one by one to perform. Gwillian forced himself to divert some of his attention from his gluttonous repast that he might watch what the others did, as well as gauge the king's reaction.

It took him hardly any time to ascertain that Ithor Drok had been right. When minstrels came forth to sing somber or romantic tunes, when dancers elected to perform the graceful _se'ate, Jherion Lendrin all but yawned with disinterest. But the tumblers, the jugglers, a woman who brought a troupe of trained ree-kees to do tricks, a man mimicking animal noises ... these drew his notice.

Steyen was next, and to give him credit he did get through the entire 'March of the Glorious Procession' with only minor errors. Baron Halan seemed to like it, though Jherion and Ithor appeared indifferent.

Fully half a hundred hopefuls had turned up. By the time it was Gwillian's turn, the servants were bringing in trays laden with the dessert -- sugarberry cobbler in clouds of whipped heavy cream, and light flaky pastries with candied jam filling.

Gwillian swallowed a mouthful of cider and made his way to the designated spot before the first table. He was neatly and soberly dressed in loose trousers of black cloth, a white shirt, and a black doublet. His hair was covered by a coppery wig tied back with a black ribbon.

"Majesties, lords and ladies, gentlefolk all, thankee," he said, sweeping a deep and exaggerated bow that presented his backside to the closest firepit. "I am --"

The specially-treated patch on the rear of his pants went up in a whoosh of oil-fueled flame.

Startled shouts rang out behind him and he turned that way in consternation. That showed the rest of the room what was amiss. More voices joined the alarm.

Gwillian spun around again, feigning not to understand in the commotion of better than fifty people yelling at once.

Unsurprisingly, it was Ithor Drok who bellowed loudest above the din. "You're on _fire, boy!"

"On fire?!?" He bleated, sprang as high in the air as he could, and came down running.

He bolted this way and that, hither and yon, flailing his arms and gibbering like a madman, before fixing his sights on a row of flagons on one of the tables. Seizing one up, in his apparent panic he dumped the contents over his head.

Sputtering, he bumped into the rest of the flagons and knocked them over. They crashed in a foamy puddle. Seeming to let his frantic flight overwhelm him again, Gwillian made to run, set his foot square in the puddle, shot his leg out from under, and landed with a hissing splash to extinguish the flames.

As the outcry died down, he got to his feet. The seat of his pants was fully burned away, revealing absurd purple and yellow smallclothes beneath. Gwillian reached around, put on a huge expression of embarrassed dismay, and grabbed for the nearest thing at hand to cover himself.

That nearest thing, as planned, was Steyen's threnitar. The minstrel squawked in outrage as, holding the instrument behind him, Gwillian still managed to successfully pluck out the opening of 'March of the Glorious Procession.'

Shifting the threnitar around to his front side, he switched to 'Daughter of the Snake Charmer,' singing at the top of his lungs. "-- as she uncovered her tight-wove basket the snake rose straight upright ... never with his own two eyes had he seen such an amazing sight ..."

"Stop it!" Steyen vaulted over the table in his wrath and snatched the threnitar from Gwillian. He wheeled to the first table. "Sire, it's all a prank! He does it a'purpose for mockery!"

Jherion Lendrin, red-faced and gasping for breath, tried to motion for silence but was shaking too hard to manage more than a half-hearted flap of a hand.

Beside him, Olinne and her brother were wide-eyed in shock. Their mother looked about to faint, her father was trying to scowl as if he found nothing amusing in all of this. Cassidor Ephes was stunned and aghast. But his wife was muffling giggles in her napkin, and Ithor Drok howled laughter and banged on the tabletop.

"I know this man!" Steyen slapped the wig askew on Gwillian's head. "He's no entertainer, but a scullery-hand! An innkeep's scullery-hand!"

"You had your turn," Gwillian said. He picked up a dish of sugarberry cobbler and pushed it full into Steyen's livid face. The noise it made -- splut! -- as whipped cream and berrysauce squelched against his skin sent Gedren Ephes into shrieking spasms of hysteria.

"Enough!" Jherion Lendrin wheezed, tears rolling down his face. "Enough, good fellow! Who are you?"

"I'm called Will, your Majesty." He doffed his wig, bowed and waved it before his knees like a courtier with a feathered cap, and replaced it crooked.

"And are you a scullery-hand?"

"I am indeed."

"Will, look what you've done here! You've turned this into a shambles!"

"Yes, sire."

"For that, there's but one thing I can do."

"A court jester," Olinne Lendrin mused, unbinding her hair. "Strange idea."

"Why so strange?" Jherion's voice was muffled as he pulled his tunic over his head. "I have a court magician, a court mathematician -- now there's a thankless job! -- and everything else. Why not a jester?"

She took up her brush and began pulling it leisurely through the dark mass of her hair, admiring her husband's movements as she did so. "I suppose it was rather funny. Why is a king's chair called a throne? indeed!"

"And the cobbler ..." He laughed anew at the recollection. "Right in that minstrel's face ... and setting his own pants afire!"

"But is it proper for court?" Olinne wondered. "Not all of the lords will be of such good humor as you, my love. And I shudder to think what the visitors from Westreach and Narluk will make of it! Suppose he should push a pie in the face of the Premier of Narluk? Or sing that song, that terrible, terrible, lewd song?"

"What was so terrible about it? Put me in mind of ones they sing at fairs in Westreach."

"I grant it's fine and well for fairs," she said. "Court, though, is another matter."

He sat beside her, plucking the brush from her hand and taking over the task with a gentleness that none who saw him on the battlefield would ever believe. "My fair Olinne ... we need Will the Jester. I need him."

"I know amusement has been far between for you since the Restoration began --"

"It's not only that, and if it's relief from the demands of the kingship I need, I look to our nights together for that."

"Then what is it?"

Jherion set down the brush and looked at her evenly. "With a jester to laugh at, the lords won't have so much occasion to laugh at me."

"No one laughs at you!"

"Not in front of me, no, but look on me."

"I do, and I see my husband, my king." She laid a hand against his cheek.

"Half a year ago, I was a hog-drover with no thought of a life beyond my village. Your brother and Ithor made me into a swordsman and commander of armies. Your father has tutored me in government. Dame Gedren suggests to me that which I might do to win the hearts of the people. In all of that, there has been no time for me to become skilled in the customs, manners, and arts of nobility. I may be a king by crown and by birth, but in many ways I remain the hog-drover from Westreach."

"Oh, Jherion, that's not so!"

"It is so, my heart! But while they have the antics of a professional buffoon to entertain them, perhaps they'll let pass the fumblings of this natural one."

Gwillian paused just within the front door of the Iron Kettle. He wouldn't have thought his grin could broaden, but broaden it did at the happy prospect of never again having to mop drunk-spew from the floor.

The hour was early yet and only one desultory patron nursed at a mug of ale by the hearth. Kolna came out from behind the bar and looked Gwillian up and down, her eyebrows going more askance with each pass of her gaze.

"I think rags and ashes suited you better," she finally pronounced. "This, Will?"

"I said I wished for my old life back, and lo! that's what I've gotten."

"This?"

"A room in the castle -- my very same room, as it happens, and I was hard-pressed not to let it slip. A place at the second table. I used to dress in tunic and hose and cap, and here I am in tunic and hose and cap again! Nothing has changed."

"The tunic has a pointy hem with tassels on it, the hose are sea-green on one leg and black-and-gold stripe on the other, and the cap is belled."

He shrugged. "It'll do."

"What of your much-vaunted pride, Will? Does it extend to cavorting in fool's garb?"

"I tell you this," he said, taking a purse from within his tunic and spilling the coins across the oxwood bar. "In the battle between pride and greed, my dear Kolna, pride proves a poor soldier."

Continued in Vol. V -- The Madness of Meryve

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