King of The Murgos

the last two nights."
    "Poison?"
    "No, your Majesty. This assassin is more direct. He smothered a few with their own pillows night before last, and there was one nasty fall. At first the deaths appeared to be of natural causes. Last night, though, he started using a knife." Morin shook his head disapprovingly. "Messy," he sniffed. "Very messy."
    Varana frowned. "I thought that all the old feuds had settled down. Do you think it might be the Horbites? They hold grudges forever sometimes."
    "No one seems to know, your Majesty. The Honeths are terrified. They're either fleeing the city or turning their houses into forts."
    Varana smiled. "I think I can live with the discomfort of the Honeth family. Did this fellow leave any kind of trademark? Can we identify him as a known assassin?"
    "We haven't a clue, your Majesty. Should I put guards around the houses of the Honeths—the ones who are left?"
    "They have their own soldiers." Varana shrugged. "But put out some inquiries and let this fellow know that I'd like to have a little talk with him."
    "Are you going to arrest him?" Garion asked.
    "Oh, I don't know that I want to go that far. I just want to find out who he is and suggest to him that he ought to follow the rules a little more closely, that's all. I wonder who he could possibly be."
    Garion, however, had a few private suspicions about the matter.
    The Erastide festivities were in full swing in Tol Honeth, and the revelers, many far gone in drink, lurched and staggered from party to party as the great families vied with one another in a vulgar display of ostentatious wealth. The huge mansions of the rich and powerful were festooned with gaily hued buntings and hung with colored lanterns. Fortunes were spent on lavish banquets, and the entertainments provided often exceeded the bounds of good taste. Although the celebrations at the palace were more restrained, Emperor Varana nonetheless felt obliged to extend his hospitality to many people he privately loathed.
    The event which had been long in the planning for that particular evening was a state banquet to be followed by a grand ball. "And you two will be my guests of honor," Varana firmly told Garion and Ce'Nedra. "If I have to endure this, then so do you."
    "I'd really rather not, uncle," Ce'Nedra told him with a sad little smile. "I'm not much in the mood for festivities just now."
    "You can't just turn off your life, Ce'Nedra," he said gently. "A party—even one of the stuffy ones here in the palace—might help to divert your mind from your tragic circumstances." He gave her a shrewd look. "Besides," he added, "if you don't attend, the Honeths, Horbites, and Vordues will all be smirking up their sleeves about your absence."
    Ce'Nedra's head came up quickly, and her eyes took on a flinty look. "That's true, isn't it?" she replied. "Of course, I really don't have a thing to wear."
    "There are whole closets filled with your gowns in the imperial apartments, Ce'Nedra," he reminded her.
    "Oh, yes. I'd forgotten those. All right, uncle, I'll be happy to attend."
    And so it was that Ce'Nedra, dressed in a creamy white velvet gown and with a jeweled coronet nestling among her flaming curls, entered the ballroom that evening on the arm of her husband, the King of Riva. Garion, dressed in a borrowed blue doublet that was noticeably tight across the shoulders, approached the entire affair with a great lack of enthusiasm. As a visiting head of state, he was obliged to stand for an hour or so in the reception line in the grand ballroom, murmuring empty responses to the pleasantries offered by assorted Horbites, Vordues, Ranites, and Bo-runes—and their often giddy wives. The Honeths, however, were conspicuous by their absence.
    Toward the end of that interminable ceremony, Javelin's honey-blond niece, the Margravine Liselle, dressed in a spectacular gown of lavender brocade, came past on the arm of Prince Khaldon. "Courage, your Majesty," she murmured as she curtsied to Garion. "Not even this can last forever—though it might seem like it."
    "Thanks, Liselle," he replied drily.
    After the reception line had wound to its tedious conclusion, Garion circulated politely among the other guests, enduring the endlessly repeated comment: "It never snows in Tol Honeth."
    At the far end of the candlelit ballroom, a group of Arendish musicians sawed and plucked and tootled their way through a repertoire of holiday songs that were common to all the Kingdoms of the West. Their