{ reference } stragen and platime meet ehlana / TRoM additions included
Talen and Berit returned not long afterwards with Platime and Stragen. Sparhawk met them in the sitting-room while Ehlana attended to those minute details that are always involved in making a woman "presentable".
Stragen was at his elegant best, but the waddling, blackbearded Platime, chief of beggars, thieves, cut-throats and whores, looked distinctly out of place.
'Ho, Sparhawk!' the fat man bellowed. He had forgone his food-spotted orange doublet in favour of one in blue velvet that didn't fit him very well.
'Platime,' Sparhawk replied gravely. 'You're looking quite natty this evening.'
'Do you like it?' Platime plucked at the front of his doublet with a pleased expression. He turned a full circle, and Sparhawk noted several knife holes in the back of the thief's finery. 'I've had my eye on it for several months now. I finally persuaded the former owner to part with it.'
'Milord.' Sparhawk bowed to Stragen.
'Sir Knight,' Stragen responded, also bowing.
'All right, what's this all about, Sparhawk?' Platime demanded. 'Talen was babbling some nonsense about forming up a home guard of some kind.'
'Home guard. That's a good term,' Sparhawk approved. 'The Earl of Lenda will be along in a few moments, and then I'm sure Her Majesty will make her entrance from that room over there - where she's probably listening at the door right now.'
From the queen's bed-chamber came the stamp of an angry foot.
'How's business been?' Sparhawk asked the gross leader of the underside of Cimmura.
'Quite good, actually,' the fat man beamed. 'Those foreign church soldiers the Primate sent to prop up the bastard Lycheas were very innocent. We robbed them blind.'
'Good. I always like to see friends get on in the world.'
The door opened, and the ancient Earl of Lenda shuffled into the room. 'Sorry to be late, Sparhawk,' he apologized. 'I'm not very good at running any more.'
'Quite all right, My Lord of Lenda,' Sparhawk replied. 'Gentlemen,' he said to the two thieves, 'I have the honour to present the Earl of Lenda, head of Her Majesty's council of advisers. My Lord, these are the two men who will lead your home guard. This is Platime, and this, Milord Stragen from Emsat.'
They all bowed - at least Platime tried to bow.
'Milord?' Lenda asked Stragen curiously.
'An affectation, My Lord of Lenda,' Stragen smiled ironically. 'It's a carry-over from a misspent youth.'
'Stragen's one of the best,' Platime put in. 'He's got some strange ideas, but he does very well - better even than me some weeks.'
'You're too kind, Platime,' Stragen murmured with a bow.
Sparhawk crossed the room to the door to the queen's bed-chamber. 'We're all assembled, My Queen,' he said through the panel.
There was a pause, and then Ehlana, wearing a pale-blue satin gown and a discreet diamond tiara, entered. She stopped, looking around with a queenly bearing.
'Your Majesty,' Sparhawk said formally, 'may I present Platime and Stragen, your generals?'
'Gentlemen,' she said with a brief inclination of her head.
Platime tried to bow again, badly, but Stragen more than made up for it.
'Pretty little thing, isn't she?' Platime observed to his blond companion.
Stragen winced.
Ehlana looked a bit startled. To cover the moment, she looked around the room. 'But where are our other friends?' she asked.
'They've returned to the chapterhouse, My Queen,' Sparhawk informed her. 'They have preparations to make. Sephrenia promised to come back later, though. ' He extended his arm and escorted her to a rather ornate chair by the window. She sat and carefully arranged the folds of her gown.
'May I?' Stragen said to Sparhawk.
Sparhawk looked puzzled.
Stragen went to the window, nodding to Ehlana as he passed, and drew the heavy drapes. She stared at him. 'It's most imprudent to sit with one's back to an open window in a world where there are crossbows, Your Majesty,' he explained with another bow. 'You have many enemies, you know. '
'The palace is totally secure, Milord Stragen,' Lenda objected.
'Do you want to tell him?' Stragen wearily asked Platime.
'My Lord of Lenda,' the fat man said politely, 'I could get thirty men inside the palace grounds in about ten minutes. Knights are all very well on a battlefield, I suppose, but it's hard to look up when you're wearing a helmet. In my youth, I studied the art of burglary. A good burglar is as much at home on a rooftop as he is on a street.' He sighed. 'Those were the days,' he reminisced. 'There's nothing like a nice neat burglary to set the pulse to racing.'
'But it might be a bit difficult for a man weighing twenty-one stone,' Stragen added. 'Even a slate roof can only hold so much weight.'
'I'm not really all that fat, Stragen.'
'Of course not.'
Ehlana looked genuinely alarmed. 'What are you doing to me, Sparhawk?' she asked.
'Protecting you, My Queen,' he replied. 'Annias wants you dead. He's already proved that. As soon as he finds out about your recovery, he'll try again. The men he sends to kill you won't be gentlemen. They won't leave their cards with the footman at the door when they come to call. Between them, Platime and Milord Stragen know just about everything there is to know about slipping into places unobserved, and they'll be able to take the proper steps.'
'We can guarantee Your Majesty that no one will get past us alive,' Stragen assured her in his beautiful deep voice. 'We'll try not to over-inconvenience you, but there'll be certain restrictions on your freedom of movement, I'm afraid.'
'Such as not sitting near an open window?'
'Precisely. We'll draw up a list of suggestions and pass them on to you through the Earl of Lenda. Platime and I are men of business, and Your Majesty might find our presence distressing. We'll remain in the background as much as possible.'
'Your delicacy is exquisite, Milord,' she told him, 'but I'm not all that much distressed by the presence of honest men.'
'Honest?' Platime laughed coarsely. 'I think we've just been insulted, Stragen.'
'Better an honest cut-throat than a dishonest courtier,' Ehlana said. 'Do you really do that? Cut throats, I mean?'
'I've slit a few in my time, Your Majesty,' he admitted with a shrug. 'It's a quiet way to find out what a man has in his purse, and I've always been curious about that sort of thing. Speaking of that, you might as well tell her, Talen.'
'What's this?' Sparhawk asked.
'There's a small fee involved, Sparhawk,' Talen said.
'Oh?'
'Stragen volunteered his services free of charge,' the boy explained.
'Just for the experience, Sparhawk,' the blond northerner said. 'King Wargun's court is a bit crude. The court of Elenia is reputed to be exquisitely courteous and totally depraved. A studious man always seizes these opportunities to expand his education. Platime, on the other hand, is not quite so studious. He wants something a little more tangible.'
'Such as?' Sparhawk bluntly asked the fat man.
'I'm beginning to give some thought to retirement, Sparhawk - some quiet country estate where I can entertain myself in the company of a bevy of immoral young women - begging Your Majesty's pardon. Anyway, a man can't really enjoy his declining years if there are a number of hanging offences lurking in his background. I'll protect the queen with my life if she can find it in her heart to grant me a full pardon for my past indiscretions.'
'Just what sort of indiscretions are we talking about here, Master Platime?' Ehlana asked suspiciously.
'Oh, nothing really worth mentioning, Your Majesty,' he replied deprecatingly. 'There were a few incidental murders, assorted thefts, robberies, extortions, burglaries, arson, smuggling, highway robbery, cattle-rustling, pillaging a couple of monasteries, operating unlicensed brothels - that sort of thing.'
'You have been busy, haven't you, Platime?' Stragen said admiringly.
'It's a way to pass the time. I think we'd better just make it a general pardon, Your Majesty. I'm bound to forget a few offences here and there.'
'Is there any crime you haven't committed, Master Platime?' she asked sternly.
'Barratry, I think, Your Majesty. Of course I'm not sure what it means, so I can't be entirely positive.'
'It's when a ship captain wrecks his ship in order to steal the cargo,' Stragen supplied.
'No, I've never done that. Also, I've never had canal knowledge of an animal, I've never practised witchcraft, and I've never committed treason.'
'Those are the more really serious ones, I suppose,' Ehlana said with a perfectly straight face. 'I do so worry about the morals of foolish young sheep.'
Platime roared with sudden laughter. 'I do myself, Your Majesty. I've spent whole nights tossing and turning about it.'
'What kept you untainted by treason, Master Platime?' the Earl of Lenda asked curiously.
'Lack of opportunity, probably, My Lord,' Platime admitted, 'although I rather doubt I'd have gone into that sort of thing anyway. Unstable governments make the general populace nervous and wary. They start protecting their valuables, and that makes life very hard for thieves. Well, Your Majesty, do we have a bargain?'
'A general pardon in exchange for your services - for so long as I require them?' she countered.
'What's that last bit supposed to mean?' he demanded suspiciously.
'Oh, nothing at all, Master Platime,' she said innocently. "I don't want you to get bored and abandon me just when I need you the most. I'd be desolate without your company. Well?'
'Done, by God!' he roared. He spat in his hand and held it out to her.
She looked at Sparhawk, her face confused.
'It's a custom, Your Majesty,' he explained. 'You also spit in your hand, and then you and Platime smack your palms together. It seals the bargain.'
She cringed slightly, then did as he instructed. 'Done,' she said uncertainly.
'And there we are,' Platime said boisterously. 'You're now the same as my very own little sister, Ehlana, and if anybody offends you, or threatens you, I'll nut him for you, and then you can pour hot coals into his gaping belly with your own two little hands.'
'You're so very kind,' she said weakly.
'You've been had, Platime,' Talen howled with laughter.
'What are you talking about?' Platime's face darkened.
'You've just volunteered for a lifetime of government service, you know.'
'That's absurd.'
'I know, but you did it all the same. You agreed to serve the queen for as long as she wants you to, and you didn't even raise the question of pay. She can keep you here in the palace until the day you die.'
Platime's face went absolutely white. 'You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Ehlana?' he pleaded in a choked voice.
She reached up and patted his bearded cheek. 'We'll see, Platime,' she said. 'We'll see.'
Stragen was doubled over with silent laughter. 'What's this home guard business, Sparhawk?' he asked when he had recovered.
'We're going to mobilize the common people to defend the city,' Sparhawk said. 'As soon as Kurik gets here, we'll work out the details. He suggested that we round up army veterans and press them into service as sergeants and corporals. Platime's men can serve as junior officers, and you and Platime, under the direction of the Earl of Lenda, will act as our generals until the regular Elenian army returns to relieve you.'
Stragen thought it over. 'It's a workable plan,' he approved. 'It doesn't take nearly as much training to defend a city as it does to attack one. I think, if everyone can be persuaded, that I might even be able to improve on our force.'
Sparhawk, aware of where the thief's mind had most likely gone, gave him a hard look.
'We're sitting on an army and a perfectly good general,' Stragen reminded him, 'we might as well make use of them. He already answers to me.'
'What's this?' Ehlana prompted them.
'Something that needs to be ironed out a little before I present it to you, your Majesty.' He looked from Sparhawk's stony disapproval to his large, crestfallen friend. 'If it's all right with you,' he said to Ehlana, 'I'll take your protector here somewhere and pour some ale into him in the meantime. He looks a trifle distraught for some reason.'
'As you wish, Milord,' she smiled. 'Can you think of any crimes you might have committed in my kingdom you'd like to have me pardon? On the same terms?'
'Ah, no, Your Majesty,' he replied. 'The thieves' code forbids my poaching in Platime's private preserve. If it weren't for that, I'd rush out and murder somebody - just for the sake of spending the rest of my life in your divine company.' His eyes were wicked.
'You're a very bad man, Milord Stragen.'
'Yes, Your Majesty,' he agreed, bowing. 'Come along, Platime. It won't seem nearly so bad once you get used to it.'
'That was very, very slick, Your Majesty,' Talen said after they had left. 'Nobody's ever swindled Platime that way before.'
'Did you really like it?' She sounded pleased.
'It was brilliant, My Queen. Now I can see why Annias poisoned you. You're a very dangerous woman.'
She beamed at Sparhawk. 'Aren't you proud of me, dear?'
'I think your kingdom's safe, Ehlana. I just hope the other monarchs are on their guard, that's all.'
a prelude to this scene.