The knight glanced back, frowned. Rogala was dragging his heels, forcing the impatient soldiers to pause again and again. "The pressure starts getting you, rest your hand on the Sword. Just rest it. Don't draw it unless you need to kill somebody."

Gathrid wondered at Rogala's game. Why was he stalling? He was not overawed. He had kept company with men far greater than any they would meet today.

"Tell you a secret," the dwarf said, divining his thoughts. "Always be late. It irritates them.

Fogs their thinking. You can get the best of them, long as you keep a clear head yourself. And it works whether you're dickering over sausages or provinces."

Gathrid nodded, though he was not really listening.

He was awed by the men they were about to face. The most important man he'd ever met was his father's liege, the Dolvin.

"Whew!" Rogala spat suddenly, halting. "Will you look at that?" They had come in view of the compound of the Kings. Doubtless Rogala had seen greater opulence in ancient Anderle, but hardly amidst a march to war. "These people aren't serious," he said. "They're just making a show.

Running a bluff. Better get a grip on the Sword now, boy. They're going to put us through it."

Gathrid did grasp Daubendiek's hilt after adjusting it so it hung crosswise behind his waist instead of down behind his shoulder. Just a light touch on that grim hilt gave him instant confidence.

He wondered if it really were the Sword, or just something in his head.

Comings and goings round the big tent ceased. "Good. Good," Rogala said. "They're impressed. Give them another touch. I'll teach you yet."

The dwarf surged forward, past the startled knight. He bulled through hangers-on. Gathrid scampered after him.

Rogala shot into a huge tent. Immediately inside lay a curtained receiving room where guards and worktables formed a barrier between world and council. The guards moved to intercept Rogala. They froze at a frown from Gathrid. They hadn't the nerve to stop him.

How good that felt!

The knight yapped at his heels like a worried pup. Gathrid glowered over his shoulder, won some silence. This was his first taste of power. He savored it even though he knew he was being seduced by the Sword.

He and Rogala shoved into the heart of the tent.

Men were shouting at one another there. Fists shook. Threats filled the air. Kings cursed one another for being hardheaded or stupid.

A chamberlain intercepted them and babbled in their faces. His face was bleak with terror. Rogala shoved him inside. Someone in authority bellowed, "Guards, seize those two." Gathrid located the speaker and locked gazes. The man went pale and began to stammer. The guards ignored his instructions.

Gathrid caressed Daubendiek's hilt.

"Got them," Rogala chuckled softly. Into the sudden silence he bellowed, "The Swordbearer. The Chosen Instrument of Suchara. All rise."

Several men did so, sank back angrily.

Gathrid scanned the gathering, keeping his fingers near the hilt of the Sword. Never had he felt so young and clumsy and out of place. Only in wild daydreams had he ever pictured a moment like this. In the dense human press of that tent he saw seven crowned heads. He saw four Brotherhood Magisters, the heads of every Order but the Blue. Dukes and* barons attended the great ones... .

Again and again his fingers went to Daubendiek's hilt.

One spare, grisled old man caught Gathrid's eye. His uniform marked him as a high officer of the Anderlean Empire's army. He seemed amused by the interruption. Only he met Gathrid's gaze without flinching. Here, the youth thought, is a man of substance, of character. Who is he? What is he doing here, treated as an equal by the others? For them contempt of the Empire was as fashionable as it was false. Had the Ventimiglian threat made them admit that Anderle was still the spiritual and cultural axis of the west?

Without knowing quite why, Gathrid nodded to the Imperial officer. And it was to the Imperial he addressed himself when his feelings burst forth.

"We have lately come from the environs of Katich, in Gudermuth, capital of a kingdom shielded by Articles of Alliance pledged at the Council of Torun last autumn, and recently reaffirmed in the Treaty of Beovingloh. Perhaps our eyes deceived us. We are young and inexperienced. Perhaps we did not see what we thought we saw. Perhaps in our youthful bemusement we only imagined that a foreign army stands leagued round Katich's walls, and is wasting the countryside, while beyond Bilgoraj's border Gudermuth's sworn allies bivouac and disport themselves with sweet wine and silk-clad courtesans. We are, we admit, inexperienced in these matters and possibly easily deceived. Kimach Faulstich, you great King, where are you? Where is the sworn protector of my homeland?"

No one admitted to being Kimach Faulstich, though that King and his Bilgoraji entourage were amply in evidence.

Gathrid was surprised at the depth and strength of his voice and emotions. He had felt very tentative, launching into the Old Petralian. Plauen had taught the language with dedication, but with despair because his students mangled it so.

Old Petralian was the language of the Anderlean Empire of olden times, of the Imperium of the age of the Immortal Twins. Today it was a highly formalized and formularized tongue reserved for occasions when the vulgate was considered either gauche or insufficiently precise. For Gathrid to have elected its usage before his betters had chosen to do so could, in diplomatic terms, be construed as mildly insulting.

"In Gudermuth the wine has soured. The silks have been torn asunder. The beautiful women weep at the feet of the conqueror. And their men wonder what became of the brothers who pledged them succor at Torun. What became of the swords and lances so boldly rattled then? The wise men, the old warriors, who fought for other Kings in other wars in other lands, and who know the ways of alliances, tell them it takes time. It takes patience. They tell them that they need but hold a while longer.

"But even they have begun to wonder." Gathrid turned slowly, sweeping his gaze round the gathering. His anger disturbed them, but they were thinking he was only a man, even armed with the Sword. Their attitudes were clearly cast on their faces.

Springing from his subconscious, like a leaping dolphin, came the realization that he was not speaking his own words. These were borrowed. He had translated and adapted them, but the originals had been voiced long ago by Obers Lek, before a similar council in another age.

Though he did not yet believe it, did not yet feel it, in a sense he was becoming superhuman. He possessed a vast experiential reservoir. He simply had to learn to tap the memories of the men he had slain.

Kimach Faulstich, the Bilgoraji King, upon whom Gathrid was prepared to lay the blame for Gudermuth's demise, chaired the convention both because its army had assembled in his dominion and because he was one of the Alliance's founders. He rose, awaited a lull in the outraged chatter, then answered Gathrid. He, too, spoke Old Petralian. "Who are you, that you dare come among us uninvited, questioning the acts of Kings?"

Kimach had regained his -composure quickly. His counterburst calmed the others. They turned hard eyes on Gathrid. One fat Magister eyed Daubendiek with a lust almost obscene.

"The Esquire spoke for me," Gathrid purred. His gaze dared the Magister.

Thus it had been for Tureck Aarant. His closest allies had lusted after the Great Sword. He had endured and survived countless attempts to steal it. He had dared turn his back on no man but Rogala, and even that had proven fatal in the end.

Rogala answered Kimach with an arrogant snort. The Bilgoraji was wasting time. He strolled to a low table facing the lustful-eyed Magister of the Red Order. He kicked a woman aside, dropped to his hams, seized and began gnawing a piece of roast fowl.