The big iron stove was hot, and Nils, after the manner of the neovikings, had hung both jacket and shirt on a peg. Disdaining a bench, he squatted with his back to the wall, paring his nails with a large belt knife. When the two knights entered the guard room he arose, calmly and with a smoothness of movement that made the guard master suspect he might do, at that. After a few questions he sent a guardsman to Janos, asking for an audience. Shrewdly, he had Nils leave his jacket and shirt on the peg and took him to Janos with his torso bare except for harness.
Janos was a man of ordinary size, his face dominated by the pointed nose and red mustache of his father's line. Nils sensed no evil in him, nor anything else remarkable, only a mediocrity of energy and smallness of vision. At the king's command Nils rose from his knees. Janos' blue eyes examined him minutely without his face betraying his judgment, but Nils sensed that this was a man who was readily impressed by physical strength.
"Where are you from?" the king asked at length.
"From Svealann, Your Majesty."
"Svealann. And where might that be?"
"Far to the north, Your Majesty. Beyond the lands of the Germans lies the northern sea. Across the sea the Jotar dwell, and north of them the Svear. Beyond the Svear, no one lives."
"Ah. And is it true that in the north, so far from the sun, the lands are colder and snowier?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Then Svealann must be a terrible land. I don't blame you for leaving it. But why did you come all this way to seek service with the king of the Magyars, when there are other kings and realms, some closer?"
"A seeress told me that I would, Your Majesty, and so I did."
"A seeress!" Nils sensed that this impressed the king strongly. "And what seeress was that?"
"A woman who lives in the forest, Your Majesty, and talks to the wolves. Her name is Ilse."
Janos examined this indigestible bit and dropped it. "And do you fight well?"
"I'm told that I fight very well, Your Majesty."
Janos turned to the guard master. "Ferenc, let me see him tested."
For an instant the guard master was dismayed. Somehow he'd neglected to test the man! Suppose he was an oaf after all! "I will test him myself, if that will be all right, Your Highness."
"Fine. That will be abundantly demanding."
The guard master spoke to one of the throne guards, who went to Nils and handed him a sword and shield. Nils handled the sword lightly, its weight and balance registering on his neuro-muscular system. Then they faced each other with swords at the ready. The guard master began the sword play slowly, examining Nils's moves. Nils was content to parry and counter. The guard master's speed increased, and Nils sensed his growing approval. A sudden vigorous and sustained attack failed to make an opening, and the guard master stepped back, sweating in the heated throne room.
"He is very good, Your Highness," he said, turning to the king. "He's surprisingly quick and knows all the moves. His teacher must have known his business. If we'd been fighting instead of sparring, I would have been hard pressed, for then his great strength would have begun to count."
Later, in his chamber, the king ran for his privy counselor, a man whose role no others in the palace knew. And if any suspected, they kept careful silence. The man came at the king's call.
"Did you read the man that Ferenc brought to me for the guard?" Janos asked.
"Yes."
"What did you see in him? And was he telling the truth about a seeress?"
"He was truthful at all times, m'lord. I was limited in reading him because his native tongue is unfamiliar to me, but I assure you he was truthful. I believe he is unable to lie."
"You're joking!"
The counselor bowed slightly. "I never joke, Your Highness. There is that about him which makes me believe he is unable to lie."
"Amazing. That must truly be a handicap."
Sometimes you are almost discerning, the counselor thought to himself. And ordinarily I would agree with that reaction. I wish the swine held discourse with himself. I've never known anyone before who could stand fully conscious for several minutes and not talk to himself within his mind. And it isn't a screen. I will watch him carefully.
The guard soon accepted Nils as one of them, despite their normal animosity toward foreigners. In sparring he was never bested, but even so, the men sensed that he held himself in, and they interpreted that correctly as a desire to avoid making anyone look bad. His disposition was mild and harmonious. And he learned quickly, so that in a few weeks he could converse slowly on a fair assortment of subjects.
One day of his first week Nils was being instructed in Magyar by Sergeant Bela, when a boy in his early teens entered the guard room; he was dressed as a squire and spoke to the sergeant. Bela turned back to Nils.
"This is Imre Rakosi, Nils, a squire to the king. He wants to talk to you through me, as he doesn't have much confidence in the little Anglic he speaks. First he wants to know if it's true that you are a great swordsman."
"It is true," Nils said. He sensed an openness and honesty in the boy.
"And is it true that you come from a barbaric land far from the sun and have traveled in many lands?"
"That's true, too," Nils admitted. "Except that I have traveled only in several lands."
Bela repeated in Magyar, then turned back to Nils. "Imre would like to become fluent in Anglic. And he believes it would be better to learn it from you than from some other tutor. You cannot lapse into Magyar, and in the learning he hopes to hear about lands and customs that we know little of in our land. Will you teach him?"
"I'll be glad to."
The boy addressed Nils directly now, in Anglic.
"Thank you," he said carefully, holding out his hand. Nils shook it.
"He would like to begin after supper this evening," Bela said, "in the outer hall, for it's always open and the benches there are comfortable. If he can't be there, he'll get word to you. Is that all right?"
"Certainly," said Nils, and Imre Rakosi left.
"Are squires here the sons of knights only?" Nils asked.
"Usually. This one is the son of Lord Istvan Rakosi of the eastern marches."
"And was he sponsored earlier by the older king, Janos II?"
"No, he's been with Janos III for almost eight years, since the boy was seven and old enough to serve as a page. The king is a widower, and childless," the sergeant went on. "This boy is like a son to him. And he's a good lad, as Janos is a good master."
Nils had the third and fourth watches-from 0800 to 1600-and his duties were primarily two. When Janos held court, Nils was one of his personal guards, standing behind his throne to its right. At other hours, when Janos was in the throne room, Nils's post was outside the thick door.
And in a chamber behind the throne room, a lean, dark-brown man sat in a black robe reading the mind of the king's visitors. But always, whether Nils stood by the throne or outside the heavy door, the secret counselor monitored the big warrior's mind with one small part of his superbly sensitive psychic awareness. He received almost nothing in the way of either thoughts or emotions there, however, for mostly Nils simply received, sorting and filing data of almost every kind without discussing it with himself.
But the evidence was increasingly unmistakable.
One winter evening the counselor took from a small chest a gray plastic box, closed a switch, and patiently waited. He didn't wait long. As a hair-like needle twitched on the dial, a voice in his mind commanded him.