Free Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda by Joel Rosenberg

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    “Please, Baron, my lady, be seated. You, too, Erenor.” Treseen cocked his head at Miron. “Lord Miron, I don’t know if you met Erenor in Biemestren. I don’t know him well myself; we had the chance to exchange but a few words — a hello and such.” His smile broadened. “And fortunately for me, they were words I can remember, or I’d likely have found myself sprouting feathers from my nose, or some such thing.”
    “No, I haven’t met him,” Miron said, his smile still genuine as faerie gold. “I didn’t have that pleasure. I was, you’ll recall, somewhat preoccupied with other matters when my beloved brother made his very dramatic entrance. Erenor, is it?”
    “Erenor the Great, he’s called.”
    Not that “the Great” was an uncommon appellation for wizards. Just once, Pirojil would have liked to meet a wizard who billed himself, honestly, as “the Barely Adequate” or “the Not Utterly Incompetent.” The closest he could think of was Vair the Uncertain, and Vair was a frighteningly powerful wizard.
    “Erenor the Great.” Treseen’s smile and laugh seemed more than a little forced. “And, surely enough he deserves that appellation for having been able to locate Baron Forinel, after so many years of absence.”
    “Please.” Erenor spread his hands. “General, you do give me too much credit. It was just a matter of assembling the right tools, and choosing to use them, after all.”
    There was also the matter of the ring that the real Forinel had given Leria before he had left Holtun, and which she had kept hidden over the years.
    The boy Forinel had been given that ring by his late father. As a boy, and he had worn that ring for years, first on his thumb and then on smaller fingers as he grew into it. He had worn it long enough and with enough intent that there was a real connection between Forinel and the ring. It had taken a far more adept wizard than Erenor to exploit it, but it had seemed expedient to let Erenor get the credit.
    “A modest wizard.” Treseen shook his head.
    “Who is it who dares to suggest that we do not live in an age of wonders?” Miron asked the air. “Surely not I. Yes, Erenor the Great does deserve much for his accomplishment.”
    In an eyeblink, the hard look he gave Erenor was replaced by a grin that gave the lie to what that “ much ” that Miron would have liked to give Erenor was. “But I’m disappointed in you, Governor — here the baron and his company have just arrived after a most … unusual trip, and you’ve yet to offer them so much as a drink of water or a crust of bread.”
    “I’m properly chastened, and I’m far too responsible to lie and claim that I’d already given orders to that effect,” Treseen said, raising a hand and gesturing toward Tarnell. “Some refreshments for the baron and his company, Tarnell, if you please.”
    The flick of Treseen’s fingers made it clear that he meant for Tarnell to go and fetch, but he didn’t appear surprised when Tarnell simply reached over to the wall and took down a speaking tube, spoke a few words into it, and then replaced it, an impassive look on his face.
    Loyalty, Pirojil decided, was sometimes as much a mirror as a shield. Tarnell had been perfectly willing to leave Miron alone with Treseen, but not Pirojil and the others. That was every bit as revealing as Treseen not having blamed Tarnell for having failed to see to the party’s needs.
    “You seem surprised to see me, brother,” Miron said, turning toward Forinel.
    “No. It’s just that —”
    “It’s just that,” Leria said, laying her hand on Forinel’s arm, “we would have thought that you’d not dare to show yourself in Keranahan.”
    “Me?” Miron laid a spread-fingered hand over his heart. “Why?”
    “I think that you know very well why,” she said, not taking his light tone.
    “Why should I be in any way reluctant to return to my own home? Because of those spurious accusations that I was in some,