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  And where was his precious demon, who ought to be ready to whisk him from the scene?

  “What are you doing?” The Princess seemed alarmed at Murat’s actions.

  “I am giving you this Sword.”

  Springing to her feet, she recoiled. “My lord! I will be pleased and honored to carry your Mindsword sheathed for you, if that is what you wish. But I will never draw it, never. Not even if you should order me to do so.”

  He who called himself Metaxas, watching from a distance, began with a hoarse cough to breathe again.

  Murat could only ask her, feebly: “Why not?”

  “Because, my lord, I could never draw or hold that Sword. I should be terrified of putting you into a situation where you might worship me. I am all unworthy, and such a thing would be utterly unthinkable. Utterly!”

  Murat, holding the weighty unfastened swordbelt in his hand, posed slumped on his rock like the statue of a rejected lover, no longer able to think of what to do or say.

  The Princess continued, “And besides, my lord Murat, there are practical reasons why you had better continue to carry your Sword yourself. Very likely you are going to need to use it again, perhaps quite soon, for your own safety. It pains me to say it, but having thought the matter over I must admit that here in Tasavalta you are still surrounded by real and potential enemies, some of whom will think I am bewitched and refuse to listen to me. It would be good for you to convince them all as soon as possible of the truth.”

  The Crown Prince said in a tired voice: “I had hoped that would not be necessary.”

  “Happily we can still hope, Lord Murat. My people love me, and usually they accept my judgment. It is I, and not my husband, who has inherited the throne.”

  “I think your husband,” said the Crown Prince, “is not the man to accept the loss of his position in meek silence.”

  Kristin frowned. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “No, Mark will not do that. He is basically a good man, you know. I owe him my life, for on the day we met he saved me from the Dark King.”

  “Someday I must thank him for that,” said Murat, dryly but seriously.

  “I fear him now,” said Kristin suddenly. “Not for myself. I fear what he might do to you.”

  “As to that, I have a long history of being able to protect myself.” Still, Murat was more concerned than he allowed himself to sound. He had nothing against Mark, and no wish to hurt the man, but still less would he care to be destroyed by him.

  * * *

  By mid-afternoon, Carlo and his scouting party had returned from their latest effort, and there was still no word of Stephen. Murat, trying to ignore the undiminished pain in his leg, was sitting by himself, staring at his sheathed Sword, and thinking.

  An hour ago, when he had tried again to denounce his own behavior of a year ago, none of these faithful people around him would listen. Respectfully they insisted on howling in protest. And in fact Murat’s apologies were now beginning to sound mechanical in his own ears. All these Tasavaltans, from Princess down to private soldier, now saw the matter of Woundhealer’s removal from the realm in a much different light. They could marshal arguments that seemed convincing. A year ago the Crown Prince of Culm had only been following his Queen’s orders, and had shown commendable loyalty by so doing. He had wanted and needed the Sword of Love only to heal the intolerable difficulties in his own royal house.

  Once the subject had been raised, Kristin quickly proclaimed that last year’s difficulties over another Sword had been her own fault, and not at all Murat’s. There was no excuse, she insisted, for her not allowing this admirable Prince to have Woundhealer, when he had come asking so decently only to borrow it!

  The same Crown Prince today was slow to reply. At length he nodded. “I think I must agree with you there, my lady—even if it is only Sword-magic that now compels you to view the matter in so favorable a light.” Murat held up a hand, forestalling her objections. “Not that I was right in stealing the Sword when you refused me, but—”

  “Please, my lord, don’t call what you did stealing! Of course you were right to take the Sword when I so stubbornly refused to lend it. What else could you have done?”

  He sighed. “At the time it seemed to me that I was dealing with a bad situation in the best available way. Later, of course, I came to repent my choice.”

  There was another chorus of objections. Kristin and her compatriots all repeatedly assured the Crown Prince that last year’s difficulties were not his fault but hers; she had been very wrong in not letting him have the Sword. Of course she should never have denied him anything he wanted!

  * * *

  Near sunset there came another moment when Murat and the Princess were more or less alone. She took this opportunity to ask him softly: “Is it true that my lord wants me?”

  The look in her eyes made it very plain to Murat that he had not mistaken her meaning. When he tried to frame a reply, he found himself stumbling and stuttering like an inexperienced youth.

  “I—how could I ever possibly answer no to that?”

  Happiness glowed in Kristin’s eyes. “Then I am yours. Completely. I hereby divorce my husband.”

  The Crown Prince looked bewildered on hearing this; but Captain Marsaci and some of the other Tasavaltan soldiers, near enough to the couple to have heard at least part of what Kristin said, were quick to rejoice. They also joined their Princess in explaining to Murat a certain provision in the ancient traditional law of Tasavalta.

  By this custom it was in the power of any reigning monarch, be it king, queen, prince, or princess, to achieve a very quick, legal and formal separation from a spouse. The provision had been invoked only two or three times in recorded history, and its use required certain conditions. As Kristin saw the current situation, these conditions now obtained.

  Prolonged absence from the realm by the unwanted spouse was one of the conditions.

  On every level of his being, Murat was greatly pleased that this woman he loved was ready to abandon everything for him, even though he knew it was the irresistible magic of the gods which made her do so.

  But, as an honorable and practical man, he was horrified at the idea of her invoking this old law now. He saw a bloody civil war looming as a distinct possibility.

  A new thought struck Kristin now, and she dared to question Murat indirectly, about his own wife. “Lord, does there exist in Culm any obstacle to our union?”

  Struggling with the feeling that events were moving too fast, the Crown Prince experienced a certain relief as he explained that he was still married. He hastened to assure Kristin that his wife no longer meant anything to him. They had not truly lived together for many years.

  Carlo, who had recently joined the other listeners, was looking very thoughtful now.

  Murat said gently to Kristin, “The Queen and those around her have been angry with me for a long time. For various reasons. And our adventure last year did not help matters. You know, I suppose, that after all my efforts, Woundhealer never reached Culm?”

  “We have heard as much in Tasavalta—but few details of the failure reached us.”

  The Crown Prince could not provide many details either. Last year someone else, troops serving a power still unidentified, had ambushed Murat’s troops who were carrying Woundhealer toward Culm. The Sword of Mercy had been stolen enroute from those who had stolen it from Tasavalta.

  “And so,” added Murat now, with assumed lightness, “it would seem that all the treachery I practiced here was quite in vain.”

  “Treachery!” Kristin was truly outraged, really appalled. “I will not hear that word applied, not even by you, to your behavior, to anything you’ve ever done. Treachery, indeed! Who dares to call it so?”

  Not long ago she herself had been using that word, and others just as bad, quite freely. But he was not going to remind her of that fact now.

  The Princess also expressed her outrage against the unknown aggressors who had taken the Sword of Love from the
Culmians. “We shall see about them! We shall hunt them down, and retrieve your property.”

  Even as Murat pondered the futility of arguing with Kristin in her present enchanted condition, it crossed his mind—perhaps not for the first time, but for the first time of which he was fully aware—that his own wisest course might be, after all, to retain the Sword of Glory for a short while to use it at home. Kristin would only be the better pleased if he kept possession of the weapon long enough to obtain justice for himself in his own house and his own country. Besides, his position now in Tasavalta looked intolerable; something like a full-scale war seemed inevitable if he were to remain.

  And now, as if he’d spoken his thought aloud, the woman he loved began to insist that the wrongs her lord had suffered in his own country took precedence—they must be righted before he and she turned their attention to anything else.

  She spoke with an air of simple practicality. “I see now, my dear, how it must be. We—if you agree, of course—will at once proceed together to Culm. There you will straighten out matters with your family, and settle any difficulties that may arise with anyone else whose opinion and goodwill you consider important. You will be appearing among your own people as the new Prince of Tasavalta,” Kristin added complacently, “and I think such an accession of territory and population cannot fail to help them see things your way.”

  Once more Murat stared at the black hilt at his side. Now he began to see the possibility of good fortune in the fact that he’d been unable to go through with his original plan of handing the Sword over to Kristin at their first meeting. For the first time the Crown Prince had to admit to himself that there might be definite advantages in going about things differently.

  For one thing, it was plain that Tasavalta could know no peace as long as he was here with the Sword. His presence in their land, and the fact that he had the Princess with him, could not long remain a secret from most of the people. Either he had to leave Tasavalta for the time being, or else prepare to convert the bulk of the population to his cause—and he still shrank from such a conquest. So far he’d used the Sword only in self-defense, and he’d not go a step beyond that if he could help it. He wanted no allegiance that had to be bought with magic.

  No, the best thing to do was withdraw from this land, for a time, until Kristin had recovered her own will, and could make her own decisions freely—meanwhile doing his best to make sure that she would still look on him favorably when that happened.

  “One day I will give you the Sword, Kristin. As you know, it was my intention to do so as soon as we met, but—”

  “Please, my lord. If you love me, do not try to force me to accept that gift.”

  It was more than Murat could do to keep from blurting out how much he loved this beautiful, devoted woman. Loudly he proclaimed that he was as much enthralled by her as she was by the Sword.

  “It is not your Sword, my love, that enthralls me. What is the Sword, after all? It is only an incident.”

  The Crown Prince gave a wild laugh, and made an extravagant gesture with both arms. “How will I ever be able to leave you?”

  The Princess reacted with alarm. “Do not speak of such a thing, my beloved. Not even in jest!”

  “I will not! I’m sorry, I promise, I will not!”

  * * *

  Trying to ignore the pain in his leg, hoping to get to sleep in his lonely blanket roll, Murat tried to picture to himself their arrival in Culm. He thought the pair of them ought to rate a reasonable welcome—at least he hoped so. With even a minimum of good luck he ought to be able to live there for a time without having to draw the Sword again. There, in his homeland, he ought to be able to keep it sheathed.

  In the morning they would have to ride, whether his leg still galled him or not. He did not intend to be in Tasavalta when Prince Mark returned.

  Murat was on the verge of sleep when his attention was caught by a figure standing nearby, almost motionless in the light between two dying fires. It was the blind man, Metaxas.

  The Crown Prince sat up, conscious of the weighty presence of the sheathed Sword, snugly almost beneath him, as it always was these days when he lay down.

  “What do you want, beggar?” he demanded, hearing the words come out more roughly than he had intended. More mildly he added: “Be careful, you’ll walk into a fire.”

  “I thank the great master for his concern, but it is not necessary; I can sense the heat. The truth is that I remembered something that I feared my lord might have forgotten.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Only,” said Metaxas, “only that there are still three other Swords, forged by the gods, in the royal Tasavaltan armory in Sarykam.”

  Chapter Nine

  In the morning, when Murat reminded Kristin of the existence of three more Swords in the Tasavaltan armory, she eagerly confirmed the presence there of such weapons, and blamed herself for not having thought of them before.

  When the Crown Prince mentioned the blind man’s visit to him during the night, her face clouded, though at first she made no comment.

  “Do you remember him now?” Murat asked her. “From your childhood?”

  “No. Though there were many servants about when I was a girl, and I cannot be sure. I suppose he had his eyes then?”

  “I had assumed so, though I never asked him. Shall we have the fellow here now and question him?”

  “Not for my sake,” Kristin answered quickly. “I do not like him. The Dark King was eyeless too, and I still sometimes encounter him in my nightmares. The way he looked at me—I know he could see me somehow—while his magicians were-—causing me pain.”

  “I would do anything,” Murat told her softly, “rather than cause you pain again.”

  Kristin gave her beloved an adoring smile. Then, becoming businesslike, she urged the Crown Prince to issue marching orders. If possible they ought to seize the three Swords in the armory quickly, to prevent their falling into the hands of Mark or some other potential enemy. “Of course it may be too late already. But I think that we must try.”

  Grimacing, Murat thought the matter over. He had hoped to avoid entering the capital, but…

  He asked: “Which Swords are there?”

  “There are Dragonslicer, Stonecutter—and, most important, Sightblinder.”

  “Then the blind beggar told me the truth.”

  “Who controls the first two may make little practical difference to us in our situation, but the Sword of Stealth could be a deadly weapon against you—indeed, against anyone.”

  “How well I know it!” Murat closed his eyes for a moment, wishing for a chance to rest. Events were rushing him into territory he had not planned to enter. Still, that was a common enough situation for a soldier, and no protracted deliberation was necessary.

  “No doubt you are right,” he said. “We must try to bring that one with us.”

  Opening his eyes, he added: “I am surprised that Mark did not take Sightblinder with him on his latest journey, wherever he may have gone.”

  The Princess hesitated before answering, and again a shadow crossed her face. At last she said: “Mark has good qualities. I suppose he thought that Sword might be needed at home, to defend the realm.”

  Murat grunted something; he did not care to hear about the good qualities of the man who, he had every reason to expect, would soon be trying to do his best to murder him.

  Then, turning, the Crown Prince issued orders to all his followers that they prepare to move quickly on Sarykam. In his own mind he proposed to deal with his leg wound by ignoring it—that was a common tactic for a soldier, and in the past it had served Murat well.

  Next he addressed the Princess once more. “I had hoped to avoid entering the city, but I must try to get Sightblinder.”

  “A wise decision, Father,” Carlo approved.

  An early morning patrol sent out to take a last look around for Stephen returned, before camp was broken, with nothing to report. But the Princess no long
er appeared particularly worried about her son.

  “He’ll be all right. Frightened, I suppose, poor child, that his mother should be missing overnight—but there’s no help for that just now. We may find him at the palace in Sarykam.”

  The Crown Prince shook his head, and his hand touched the black hilt at his side. “I had no wish to draw this weapon before, and I’ve less inclination to employ it now. But if the alarm’s been spread, by Stephen or anyone else, I suppose I’ll have to use it at least once more when we reach the city.”

  “Murat, my love, I fear you are too scrupulous. It is not as if you are hurting anyone when you draw that beautiful blade—I think it should be called the Sword of Truth as long as it is in your hands. While you have it, it will not harm my son, or any of my people, any more than it has harmed me.”

  The Crown Prince said nothing in reply. Though he had assistance in mounting, it still cost him an effort not to cry out with the pain in his leg. But then he was in the saddle, and he found that he could ride, at least at a moderate pace. In a few minutes everything was ready, and the march to the city got under way, Carlo riding at Murat’s left side and Kristin at his right.

  Once on looking back, during the morning’s ride, Murat noticed absently that the blind beggar was riding in the rear as usual, his mount dutifully following the animal ahead. The man represented a minor mystery to be sometime resolved.

  In this way the small procession proceeded for some time, Murat riding in thoughtful silence. As soon as Kristin saw that he wanted to be alone for a time, she dutifully dropped a few meters behind.

  As he rode, the Crown Prince was meditating on the Swords. It was true that Dragonslicer and Stonecutter each had very impressive powers, but they were also very specialized, and under present circumstances he did not see that either of those Swords was likely to be of much benefit to him if he should gain it, or much harm to his cause in the hands of an enemy. Nevertheless, Murat determined to take both of those Swords with him if he could, on the grounds that they were really Kristin’s, and the general principle that it was almost always better to possess any Sword than not to have it.