Free Servant of the Crown by Brian McClellan Page B

of the palace until they reached a small door where they dismounted. As he was taken inside he realized this was the first time he had entered the palace in daylight. And the first time they had taken him this particular way. Did either of those items contain any significance? Or were they mere coincidence?
    He was kidding himself. The Iron King was still playing a game with his Privileged. One that would get Tamas killed.
    Inside, he did not recognize the myriad of narrow servant’s passages that he was brought through until he was, once again, ushered into the Iron King’s billiards room.
    Manhouch stood with his back to the fireplace, hands clasped, and fixed Tamas with a long, thoughtful look the moment he came through the door. Tamas thought it was the first time he had locked eyes with the king, and he felt a cold sweat break out in the small of his back.
    Tamas had prepared a speech for when he had managed to bribe, bully, or fight his way into Manhouch’s presence. Now that he had been led in without incident, he had forgotten it all.
    “Your majesty,” Tamas said, dropping to one knee.
    “Stand up,” Manhouch said.
    “Yes, my lord.”
    Manhouch strode toward Tamas and did a quick circle. Tamas stood stiffly during the brief inspection. The king finished his circuit to stand in front of Tamas, studying his face for several moments before he returned to the opposite side of the billiards table.
    “Captain Tamas,” he said. He shuffled through a number of documents spread out across the billiards table. “On your first campaign at the age of sixteen, you were commended for valor in the field on seven separate occasions, suffering eleven wounds in that campaign alone. On the next campaign, as a sergeant, you single-handedly ended the siege of Herone. As a lieutenant in charge of just thirty marksmen on special assignment you captured the town of Lukanjev and held it against two companies of Gurlish cavalry.”
    “There are at least thirty letters here from infantrymen and non-commissioned officers whose lives you saved at one point or another. Commendation, commendation. Thirteen recommendations for rank advancement. Thirteen!” The Iron King flipped absently through the rest of the papers before finally throwing them down in apparent disgust. “Tell me, Captain, why are you not a general?”
    Tamas guessed it was a rhetorical question, but answered it anyway. “Because I’m a commoner, sir.”
    “That’s right. You’re a commoner. And my noble cousins would rather hang themselves with their own belts than take orders from someone of lesser birth.”
    “As you say, my lord.”
    “Nothing to be had for that at the moment, though,” Manhouch said, stepping away from the table. “Last night, you and the duchess-heir of Leora killed eight members of the cabal guard and wounded a member of the Adran royal cabal.”
    How the pit did he know about Erika , Tamas wondered. He felt a surge of panic. If the king knew, the cabal might know, and Erika was surely in danger. “My lord, the duchess-heir …”
    Manhouch cut him off. “I don’t really give a damn about the Leora girl. Privileged Dienne is not aware of her identity, and I’m not about to admit that I spy on my own cabal just to impart such a trivial bit of information. Now then,” he continued, “you did not have my attention before because you were a nothing more than a diversion. Something to annoy the cabal. But last night one of my spies witnessed your altercation with Privileged Dienne and saw you shoot her through the hand.” Manhouch barked a laugh.
    Tamas did not see what was so funny. “It was instinct, my lord.”
    “Instinct, when faced with a Privileged, is to flee. Instinct is to cower. You did none of those things.”
    “Fleeing from a battle usually makes things worse.”
    Manhouch nodded sharply. “Something that few people truly understand. Captain Tamas, you now have my attention.”
    The question , Tamas asked himself,