The Sword-Edged blonde by Alex Bledsoe

“Young master Edward,” he said to me.
    “Not so young,” I replied, and offered my hand. “How are you, Mr. Wentrobe?”
    “Not so old,” he said with a grin. His grip was still firm, although not as bonecrushing as it had seemed in my youth.
    He stepped aside, and this time I gestured for Andersto precede me. But the young man shook his head. “I’m just supposed to deliver you. This is where I get off. It’s been a pleasure traveling with you, Baron LaCrosse.”
    I winced a little; it was the first time anyone had ever used that title in reference to me. “Yeah, well, you can still call me Eddie. Thanks, Mike.”

 
     

SIX

     
     
    W entrobe closed the door behind us. The office was decked out with all the gilt and glitter expected of a king, but for the moment we were alone in it. I dropped my saddlebags next to the door and hung my jacket on the coat rack. I felt seriously underdressed.
    “Would you like a drink?” Wentrobe asked, moving to the bar.
    “Sure. Rum if you have it.”
    “We do indeed.” As he poured, he glanced at me. “You appear to have grown accustomed to hard work.”
    “Yeah. Who’d’ve thought, huh?” I took the drink gratefully. “So. How are . . . things?”
    Wentrobe sipped his own drink. “What do you know?”
    “What was in Phil’s note, what Anders told me, and what I picked up from gossip on the way. Phil met some mysterious beautiful woman, married her, and now everyone thinks she killed their child.”
    He nodded. “That’s what everyone thinks, all right. Almost everyone.”
    “Is that what happened?”
    He made a grand shrug. “Their son is dead. The queen was found with the body, covered in blood that wasn’t her own, inside a locked room. Those are the only facts everyone agrees on.”
    “So the queen murdered the prince.”
    He nodded and poured himself another drink. “There seems to be no other logical explanation.”
    “But
Phil
doesn’t believe it.”
    He looked down into the goblet. “No,” he said with the weight only a disillusioned elder can manage. “He doesn’t.”
    I picked up a framed portrait from the big desk. About the size of my hand, it was a colored line drawing of a woman with wavy blond hair, blue eyes and a mouth that seemed about to smile. She had the look of fresh air and forests after a spring rain, probably because she wore a crown of flowers. “Is this her?”
    “Yes,” answered a new voice. It had grown deeper, but I’d know it anywhere.
    He stood across the room from me, in a casual jacket and shirt. He wasn’t wearing his crown, which for some reason surprised me, although I knew it was too heavy and uncomfortable to wear except on formal occasions. I guess I just expected him to look more
royal
, like King Philip, instead of so much like my old best friend Phil.
    Phil. Fucking
King Phil
.
    He grew taller than me when we were fourteen, and still was. His hair was cropped short, and touched with gray at the temples, but otherwise still had that annoying disheveled quality that made all the girls sigh. He wore a mustache, also shot through with gray, and there were deep lines at the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t fat, though, and he still moved gracefully.
    Still looking at me, he said, “Pour me one of those, will you, Emerson?”
    “Of course, Your Majesty,” Wentrobe said.
    I put the picture back on his desk. “Not bad. Not as cute as that Danner girl you chased after when we were fourteen, but not bad.”
    “The picture doesn’t do her justice,” Phil said. He took the drink from Wentrobe, downed half of it and then managed a small grin. “Remember when we stole that bottle of rotgut from your dad’s wine cellar and drank it in the woods, then tried to sneak back in without anyone noticing?”
    “Yeah. I’m a better drinker now.”
    “Me, too.” A real smile finally cracked his cool demeanor, and suddenly there was my old pal Phil, who’d once puked in my lap and set me up with his sister and