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about it now.
    C: I heard about it by accident. Oh Gawd, the pain is startin’. It hurts somethin’ awful. I must be all busted up inside.
    B: There’ll be a healer here in a minute. Talk to me—it will keep your mind off the pain. What about them killing His Majesty?
    C: I overheard them talkin’. It was at my ten percenter’s. They didn’t know as I was there. They’re goin’ to do it for His Majesty at the coronation. They’s been plannin’ it for a long time, is what it sounded like.
    B: Who? Who are they?
    C: Why—the Poles. I thought I said so. It’s not so far, once you’re started. The trick is wearin’ of the right hat. You can fool anybody if they see the right hat. And...and...and it’s pointed the wrong way. That’s what will fool them, you see. It’s pointed the wrong way!
    And with these words Albeit Chall, master thief, expired. We assume the last sentence or so to be a dying ramble, but as to the rest, we are not sure. We are, of course, doing what we can to ascertain the veracity of his story, but there is small hope of discovering anything beyond his dying words.
    The identity of his “ten percenter” is being assiduously pursued. There is some chance of locating that person and interviewing him, and I will, of course, immediately inform you of the results of such an interview. To the best of our information Goodman Chall neither spoke nor understood Polish. If there is any further information we can give you, please inform us post haste.
    Long live His Majesty, John IV.
    In Haste,
    London
    The Marquis put the last page of the letter down and looked around. “My lords?” he asked.
    Duke Richard stood up, his face white. “Long live His Majesty, my brother John,” he said softly.
    “Amen,” the Archbishop of Paris said firmly.
    The six men in the room crossed themselves. “June first, that’s the day of the coronation,” Duke Richard said. “Barely three weeks away. What can we do?”
    “I called you all here to help me decide what is to be done,” Marquis Sherrinford told him. “Your Highness because, as the Duke of Normandy, you are responsible for the safety of everyone in the Duchy. Lord Darcy because, as Chief Investigator of the Court of Chivalry, as well as the man overseeing the security arrangements in Castle Cristobel during the coronation, you are, or will be, intimately involved in whatever decisions we make. Your Grace because your advice is valuable, and the assistance of the Church may prove invaluable. Master Sir Darryl Longuert because, as ranking member of the Sorcerers’ Guild present, you will have to help us design and implement our, ah, magical defenses, if any.
    “I, as the King’s Equerry, am, of course, directly responsible for His Majesty’s safety. And I can assure you that I take that responsibility very seriously.”
    “Do you think that this can possibly be true?” Duke Richard asked, sitting slowly back down in his chair. “It doesn’t make sense!”
    “His Highness is right,” the Archbishop said. “A threat to His Majesty’s life from King Casimir—or any other Pole—makes no apparent sense whatever. Nominally, we are enemies, but actually—I can’t believe he’d be so stupid!”
    “What do you say, Darcy?” Duke Richard asked. “How does it strike you?”
    Lord Darcy paused. He was supposed to know such things, and his answer would be given weight.
    For most of the twentieth century the kings of Poland had been interested in expansion. At first they had contented themselves by moving east, bringing one small Baltic state after another under Polish hegemony.
    By the mid-thirties King Sigismund III had annexed or controlled most of the territory from Revel on the Baltic to Odessa on the Black Sea. But then the Russian states to the east had formed a loose coalition for the purpose of fielding a vast army against further Polish expansion. And since the Russian coalition included states deep into central Asia, their army could