Read The Two of Swords: Part 9 for Free Online Page A

bath.”
    “Yes.”
    “Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “Because we’re here by royal invitation, protocol demands that we’re met by the Grand Logothete, the Grand Domestic, the Count of the Stables and/or the Chamberlain. There’ll be a short religious service followed by an exchange of the Kiss of Peace, a thanksgiving offering to the Sea for our safe arrival, even though we’ve come overland, and a ritual meal of honeycakes and white bread. And that’s before they’ve even checked our papers.”
    She looked up. “Papers?”
    “It’s all right, you’re with me. I include you, for administrative purposes.” He reached in his pocket for some raisins; she could have told him he’d finished them off an hour ago. “Then I expect we’ll be escorted to the palace and shown our quarters, which will take up the rest of the afternoon, and then there’s bound to be a reception, followed by a formal dinner. You may just get a shot at a bath sometime around midnight, assuming they keep the water hot all day and night.” He gave her a sad smile. “You see what I’ve got to put up with.”
    She had a nasty feeling he knew what he was talking about. There had been all sorts of annoying ceremonies the last time, though she hadn’t paid much attention to them, being preoccupied with the job she’d had to do. “How come you know so much about it?”
    From his inside pocket he produced the Emperor Sarpitus on Protocol. “The Blemyans follow pre-Reform Imperial procedure,” he said. “They’re mad keen on it, because of their pretty notion that they’re the last remnant of the true Empire, and the lads in Choris and Rasch are just jumped-up pretenders. It’s quite interesting, actually, because they preserve certain archaic forms that died out in the empire proper a hundred years or more before Sarpitus wrote it all down.”
    “No, it’s not,” she said firmly. “Interesting, I mean.”
    He shrugged. “More fun to read about than to actually experience, I grant you. Oh, that reminds me.” He leaned forward and fished something out from behind the seat cushion. “I got this for you. Well, the CO back at the army base gave it to me as a thank-you for doing the gig, but I don’t want it, and I know you feel naked without one.”
    She unwrapped the narrow bundle of cloth, knowing what she’d find: a Blemyan officer’s dirk, service issue but decorated with lots of fancy gilded engraving. She slid it an inch out of its scabbard, then put it back again. She felt guilty and ashamed but very grateful. “I agree,” she said. “Not your style at all.”
    “Quite. Now put it away and don’t play with it, they can get terribly stuffy about concealed weapons in this town.”
    She frowned. “I won’t be going anywhere in public,” she said. “That was part of the deal. You’re going to get them to send me home, as quickly as possible.”
    He looked at her for a moment. “I think we may have to modify the plan a bit,” he said.
    “What? Hey, that’s not—”
    “I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “It’s annoying and maybe I should’ve anticipated it, but there it is. You’ve been invited to be presented to the Queen. You can’t not go, it’d be the most appalling breach of etiquette.”
    She remembered that there’d been a letter waiting for him at the last way station; but he hadn’t said anything about it, and she’d assumed it was nothing. “You might’ve told me.”
    “And then it’d have been hanging over you all day yesterday, and you’d have been miserable and depressed. It’s fine,” he went on, “we’ll get you out as quickly as we can, you’ve just got to do this one thing, and—”
    “I can’t meet the Queen,” she said. “She’ll recognise me. Half the bloody Court—”
    He smiled. “I think you overestimate your memorability,” he said sweetly. “No offence. I’d remember you anywhere, naturally. But if you recall, it was a large delegation, and we stuck you