"He was asleep when I looked in," UrLeyn said. "I'll see him later. How was he?"
"Still recovering. I think the doctor bleeds him too much."
"Now, DeWar, each to his own. BreDelle knows what he's doing. I dare say you would not appreciate him trying to teach you the finer points of sword-play."
"Indeed not, sir, but even so." DeWar looked awkward for a moment. "There is something I'd like to do, sir."
"Yes? What?"
"I'd like to have Lattens" food and drink tasted. Just to make sure that he is not being poisoned."
UrLeyn stopped and looked at his bodyguard. "Poisoned?"
"Purely as a precaution, sir. I'm sure he has some… normal illness, trivial enough, But just to be on the safe side. With your permission."
UrLeyn shrugged. "Very well, if you think it necessary. I dare say my tasters won't object to the odd extra bit of food." He set off again, striding quickly.
They exited the harem and set off up the steps to the rest of the palace two at a time until UrLeyn stopped about halfway up and then continued one step at a time. He rubbed his lower back. "Occasionally my body chooses to remind me of my true age," he said. He grinned and tapped DeWar on the elbow. "I believe I deprived you of your opponent, DeWar."
"My opponent, sir?"
"Your game-playing companion." He winked. 'Perrund."
"Ah.,
"I tell you, DeWar, these young things are all very well, but you realise they're still girls when you have a real woman." He put his hand to his back again. "Providence, though. She puts me through my paces, I tell you." He laughed and stretched his arms. "If ever I expire in the harem, DeWar, Perrund may be to blame, and yet no blame will attach."
"Yes, sir."
They approached the King's Chamber where UrLeyn had taken to holding his daily briefings on the war. A buzz of conversation could be heard from beyond the guarded double doors. UrLeyn turned to DeWar. "Right, DeWar. I shall be in here for the next couple of bells."
DeWar looked at the doors with a pained expression, as a small boy with no coin might look at a sweet shop counter. "I really do think I ought to be with you during these briefings, sir."
"Now, DeWar," UrLeyn said, taking hold of his elbow. "I shall be safe with my military men, and there will be a double guard on the doors here."
"Sir, leaders who have been assassinated have usually believed that they were safe until the instant before it happened."
"DeWar," UrLeyn said kindly. "I can trust all these men with my life. I have known almost all of them for most of it. Certainly I have known most of them for longer than I have known you. I can trust them."
"But, sir-"
"And you make some of them uncomfortable, DeWar," UrLeyn said, with a hint of impatience. "They think a bodyguard should not be so opinionated as you have been. And your mere presence suffices to unsettle some of them. They think there's an extra shadow in the room."
"I shall dress in motley, put on the uniform of a fool-"
"You will not," UrLeyn told him, and put his hand on the other man's shoulder. "I order you to amuse yourself as you see fit for the next two bells and then return here and resume your duties after my generals have told me how many more towns we've taken since yesterday." He clapped DeWar's shoulder. "Now be gone. And if I'm not here when you come back I shall have returned to the harem for another bout with your opponent." He grinned at the other man and squeezed his arm. "All this talk of war and victorious battles seems to put a young man's blood in my cock!"
He left DeWar standing there, staring at the tiled floor of the corridor while the doors opened and closed on the sound of talking men. The two palace guards joined their comrades on either side of the doors.
DeWar's jaw worked as though he was chewing on something, then he spun and walked quickly away.
The plasterer had almost finished the remedial work on the Painted Chamber. A final layer was drying and he was kneeling on his white-spotted sheet surveying his tools and buckets and trying to remember the correct order to put them away. This was a job normally done by his apprentice, but he had had to, do it himself on this job because it was all so secret.
The chamber's door was unlocked and the black-clad figure of DeWar, the Protector's bodyguard, walked in. The plasterer felt a chill go through him when he saw the look on the tall man's dark face. Providence, they didn't intend to kill him now he'd done his job, did they? He'd known it was secret — what he had plastered up was a hidden alcove for someone to spy on people, that was obvious — but could it be so secret they'd kill him afterwards to stop him from talking? He'd done jobs in the palace before. He was honest and he kept his mouth shut. They knew that. They knew him. One of the palace guards was his brother. He could be trusted. He wouldn't tell anyone about this. He'd swear to that on his children's lives. They couldn't kill him. Could they?
He shrank back as DeWar approached. The bodyguard's sword wagged from side to side in its black scabbard while the long dagger at his other hip bounced in its own dark sheath. The plasterer looked into the other man's face and saw only a blank, cold expression that was more terrifying than a look of pitiless fury or an assassin's lying smile. He tried to find his voice, but could not. He felt his bowels start to loosen.
DeWar hardly seemed to see him. He glanced down at him, then at the new plaster partition still drying between the other painted panels, like a blood-drained lifeless face between living ones, then he walked past, to the small dais. The plasterer, his mouth dry, swivelled round where he knelt to watch. The bodyguard clutched one arm of the small throne on the dais, then he went and stood before a panel on the far side of the room which showed a scene set within a harem, full of stylised images of languidly buxom ladies in revealing dresses all lounging around, playing games and sipping from tiny glasses.
The black figure stood there for a moment. When he spoke, the plasterer jumped.
"Is the panel finished?" he asked. His voice was loud and hollow-sounding in the bare room.
The plasterer swallowed, coughed dryly and eventually was able to croak, "Ye-ye-yes, yes, sir. Ready for the p-painter by tomorrow."
Still facing the painting of the harem, still with hollow-sounding voice, the bodyguard said, "Good." Then without warning, and with no back-swing, just a single startlingly sudden thrust, he rammed his right fist straight through the panel he was standing in front of.
On the other side of the chamber, the plasterer yelped.
DeWar stood there a moment longer, half his lower arm protruding from the harem painting. A few painted plaster pieces fell dryly to the floor as he slowly withdrew his arm again.
The plasterer trembled. He wanted to get up and run but he felt glued to the spot. He wanted to raise his arms to defend himself but they seemed pinned to his sides.
DeWar stood, looking down at his right forearm, slowly brushing the white plaster dust off the black material. Then he spun on his heel and walked quickly to the door, where he paused and looked back with a face that seemed now to have taken on an expression of inconsolable torment. He glanced at the panel he had just punctured. "You may find another panel which needs repair. It must have been broken earlier, must it not?"
The plasterer nodded vigorously. "Yes. Yes, oh yes, of course, sir. Oh yes, very very definitely. I noticed it myself earlier, sir. I'll attend to it immediately, sir."