Free Nobody's Son by Sean Stewart

I know is rarely welcome. Yet allow me one cautionary word. Every person in this room is drawn to you like filings to a magnet. Greatness is the breeding-ground of flattery, and intrigue, and all the other plagues that power can bestow. Well it were for you to know these courtiers are not your friends: they mean to use you, if they can.”
    “Except you of course! You want to help me from the goodness of your heart, right?”
    Valerian laughed. “Of course not. Actually, I do mean well, but I also have a use for you. A drink?” he asked, holding up a ladleful of punch. Mark nodded; Valerian poured. His hand trembled, and behind his spectacles his pale eyes blinked more rapidly. “But unlike these others, I don’t want your power. I will aid you any way I can; if my service seems of use, then all I ask is leave to attend you when at last you settle on your new estate, wherever that may be.”
    “Estate?”
    “Of course. Was that not your master-stroke? A princess cannot wed a commoner; in asking for his daughter’s hand, you force the King to make you son and noble too. A lesser man would not have played his card so well.” Valerian goggled anxiously at Mark. “That was your thinking, was it not?”
    “Um,—of course.”
    Valerian seemed relieved. Nervous ower summat else, though: he’s blinking like a bat in sunshine . “You were telling me how you meant to use me,” Mark prompted.
    “Er, right. Who’s near to you is near to Gail, and who’s near to Gail is near to—Lissa!” Valerian said her name as if it were a butterfly he meant to pick up with his breath.
    Mark chuckled. “And you’re the ram who’s out to straddle her.” He glanced over at Gail’s lady-in-waiting. Blond, willowy, discreet: come to think of it, Lissa would make a better princess than the Princess did.
    “St-st-st-straddle!” Valerian squeaked. Above brown beard his cheeks flushed punch-pink with agonies of embarrassment.
    “Allow me to assure you, sir, that my intentions to that fairest of all women—that shaft of sunshine! She upon whose brow discretion vies with wisdom! She who—”
    Mark waved his hands, smirking. “No straddling, then. But you want to come wi’ me, to, er, warm yourself in that shapely shaft o’ sunshine, right?”
    Valerian puffed his feathers; blinked; shifted from claw to claw. “Er… more or less.”
    Mark guffawed. “At last. Someone in this bloody place I understand.”
    Valerian shrugged. “I am small, and have no power, so I am the first to greet you. Some have more to lose, and thusly more to fear. When they have drunk a tumbleful of courage, they will find you.”
    “Fear? Why should any man fear me?”
    Valerian frowned. “You underestimate yourself. Why, every cheek you look upon turns white beneath its powder. Ladies blanch beneath your gaze, and fair hearts speed: but not for love.”
    “But why?”
    “Why!” Val drained his glass and filled it up again. “You broke the spell that lay upon the Ghostwood! Where you succeeded, Stargad and Fhilip and Aron Duke of Swans had failed. You came before the King in boots begrimed with Red Keep dust. From your sheath you drew a weapon out of legend, claimed the greatest prize in Astin’s realm, and dared him break his direst oath!” Valerian waved a hand out at the room of nobles. “You think this happens every day? Can you not see that you are terrible?”
    “Oh.” Sheepishly, Mark shrugged. “It slipped my mind.”
    “Hmmmph!… Then too, there is the matter of the Crown.” Thoughtfully Val stroked his soft brown beard. “One of Astin’s daughters will be Queen. That daughter’s husband will be consort, second greatest power in the land. Duke Gerald and Laszlo, Count of Maltis, worked for years to win their places. We know them, and they know us. But you! We know nothing of you.”
    “That reminds me—” and Mark told Valerian of the conversation between Anujel and Count Laszlo, which seemed to imply that Laszlo and Gerald