Oathblood by Mercedes Lackey Page B

another mug of wine without tasting it. Oh, gods of fortune—do you hate me?
    He couldn’t believe what he had seen—he just couldn‘t !
    First—that— farce with the broomstick. He moaned and covered his eyes with his hand. How could anyone make a heroic ballad out of that? “Her broomstick flashing in her hands—”? Oh, gods, they’d laugh him out of town; they wouldn’t need the rotten vegetables.
    Then—that Lord Gorley died by accident ! Gods, gods, gods—
    â€œThis can’t be happening to me,” he moaned into his mug. “This simply cannot be happening.”
    And as if that wasn’t enough—the collusion between Gorley’s widow and the other two to lure the gang of bullies away without so much as a single fight!
    â€œI’m ruined,” he told the wine. “I am utterly ru ined. How could they do this to me? This is not the way heroes are supposed to behave—what am I going to do? Why couldn’t things have happened the way they should have happened?”
    Then—the way they should have happened—
    The dawn light creeping in the window of his little cubby on the second floor of the inn was no less brilliant than the inspiration that came to him.
    The way they should have happened !
    Feverishly he reached for pen and paper, and began to write—
    â€œThe warrior and the sorceress rode into Viden-town, for they had heard of evil there and meant to bring it down —”

KEYS
    I love locked-room mysteries, and I thought it would be fun to do one with a different setting—one in which magic was used in place of forensic detection, but magic itself was not used to create the mystery in the first place. And who better to take that setting than Tarma and Kethry?
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    She stood all alone on the high scaffold made of raw, yellow wood, as motionless as any statue. She was cold despite the heat of the summer sunlight that had scorched her without pity all this day; cold with the ice-rime of fear. She had begun her vigil as the sun rose at her back; now the last light of it flushed her white gown and her equally white face, lending her pale cheeks false color. The air was heavy, hot and scented only with the odor of scorched grass and sweating bodies, but she breathed deeply, desperately of it. Soon now, soon—
    Soon the last light of the sun would die, and she would die with it. Already she could hear the men beneath her grunting as they heaved piles of oily brush and faggots of wood into place below her platform. Already the motley-clad herald was signaling to the bored and weary trumpeter in her husband’s green livery that he should sound the final call. Her last chance for aid.
    For the last time the three rising notes of a summoning rang forth over the crowd beneath her. For the last time the herald cried out his speech to a sea of pitying or avid faces. They knew that this was the last time, the last farcical call, and they waited for the climax of this day’s fruitless vigil.
    â€œKnow ye all that the Lady Myria has been accused of the foul and unjust murder of her husband, Lord Corbie of Felwether. Know that she has called for trial by combat as is her right. Know that she names no champion, trusting in the gods to send forth one to fight in her name as token of her innocence. Therefore, if such there be, I do call, command, and summon him here, to defend her honor!”
    No one looked to the gate except Myria. She, perforce, must look there, since she was bound to her platform with hempen rope as thick as her thumb. This morning she had strained her eyes toward that empty arch every time the trumpet sounded, but no savior had come—and now even she had lost hope.
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    The swordswoman called Tarma goaded her gray Shin‘a’in warsteed into another burst of speed, urging her on with hand and voice (though not spur—never spur) as if she were pursued by the Jackals of