**********

The Palace of New Altdorf bustled with activities finally falling into a daily routine. Most of the crates and trunks and pack animals had vanished and BoneCrusher was forced to confess he began to feel more at home - particularly now that he knew the corridors from the Throne Room and back well enough not to appear lost. Only last week he wandered around for two hours before he stumbled onto something familiar.

"Baron Errol?" An aging man bowed to him. BoneCrusher nodded in respect to him. Henrich served three previous emperors as steward - a span of so many years that people looked for points on his ears to explain his longevity. He escaped the plague of the old Capitol only by chance that the Emperor sent him to confirm the taxes of a nearby baron.

"At your service, Henrich." Jehenne would be proud of that nicety. She patiently perfected his manners and nobility day by day.

"There is a matter the Emperor wishes to defer to you. If you would follow me."

BoneCrusher followed down a maze of halls and chambers until they stopped at the end of a corridor in front of a plain, wooden door. This was a strange place to put a storage pantry. Henrich pulled a small silver key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

It was an attendant's room, complete with a small palette, a tiny hearth, a simple chair and table, and an attendant who rose to greet her visitors.

"Her name is Anga," Henrich said.

BoneCrusher looked at the woman. She was probably just about Karl's age, perhaps a year older. Though she stood demurely in simple dress and manner, she was pretty.

Henrich continued. "His Imperial Majesty has no wish to keep slaves and grants this woman her freedom."

BoneCrusher nodded. "I understand. Am I free to use my own discretion?"

"No, your Excellency. He would like her kept in your household."

Thank you very much, Karl Franz I. BoneCrusher inclined his head, trying to choose appropriate words that would not send his wife through the roof. For the Emperor, however, his words were obligatory. "It shall be done. Bring her to Ulric's Gate. I'll meet you there."

He left without waiting for Henrich to guide him back. "Kept in my own household," he muttered. Karl knew his household currently stretched his meager income to the limit. Hero of the Empire may be a fine title and legacy, but it did not create bread. And with the price of bread rising every week... What was he going to tell her?

He stepped around a corner and nearly smacked into a little snowy mountain of furs and bronze. The mountain roared with surprise.

"What the..! BONECRUSHER!" Ellis laughed and clapped him hard on the elbow. BoneCrusher flinched. "Ah, it's alright now." Ellis held his hand up. "See, just like before. Most of the time, anyway." He adjusted the drape of the white bearskin hanging on his shoulders. It clasped at his neck with an immense pair of bronze claws. Bronze also belted the white wool of his tunics and braceletted his wrists.

"This is new," BoneCrusher smiled.

"Prince's regalia." Ellis grunted. "As soon as this council foolishness is done I can dress like a proper dwarf again. Come on, let's get a drink. A day on griffinback works up a thirst. I heard on my way in that the Council's met. How's Karl taking it?"

"How would you expect His Majesty to take it?" BoneCrusher looked impassive as they walked.

The dwarf chuckled. "Pinned him to a wall again?"

"No."

"Well, after the names I heard for the council, you may need to bulk up again. Marienburg doesn't want a baron anymore, but they want their vote. They've sent their 'governor," some guy named Konrad. The Eastern Principality wants their say, too. The rest took up the coronet in summer, except Baron Petir. I doubt a good rockslide could kill that man. It'll be lively, that's certain."

"Traditions like this tend to be."

"Damn tradition. They ought to let the boy choose his own wife."

"On the contrary, history proves many cases where allowing a monarch to marry for love or fancy has cost the kingdom dearly. The Emperor is the Empire and he must do what is best for the Empire, not for himself."

Ellis smirked. "And how is Jehenne?"

BoneCrusher gleamed. "Lovely as ever." He planted a massive hand on Ellis' thick shoulder. "She's pregnant, Ellis!"

"All the better reason for ale!" Ellis roared.

"Ellis..."

"I know. I know. I'll drink one for you and one for me and one for Jehenne, too, if she's adopted your arid ways. And one for Brigid. Did anyone think to bring some blessed beer from Nuln?"

"I can't say."

"We'll have to go down there and get some, then."

A slim, dark-haired boy waved to BoneCrusher from the gate. The girl next to him, identical in height, hair, and dress, kept her hands in her sleeves.

"I'm late," BoneCrusher sighed. "Come, I'll introduce you to my apprentices. Ellis, this is Hugh and Muna." Hugh bowed low and Muna dropped to a curtsey so deep, Ellis feared her forehead might bounce on the ground.

"Apprentices?" Ellis shook his head. "When did we get so ... established?"

BoneCrusher laughed. "The hazards of saving the Empire. Come by after you've gone through all the protocol. We're on the edge of the Mages' Quarter, three houses down from the bookshop."

"There's a happy merchant, eh?" Ellis watched BoneCrusher vanish into the streets of New Altdorf, flanked on both sides by his apprentices. Something strange about the two of them, he thought.

"Prince Ellis?"

A man bowed to him with a flourish of his yellow cloak. At first Ellis took him for a cleric of the Church of Ulric, so thin and proper did he seem. It wasn't until he noticed the small golden crown pinned to that yellow cloak that he realized he dealt with a priest of Sigmar.

"My name is Torsten, of the Order of the Golden Crown."

A politician. Charming.

"I was sent to greet you on behalf of the Cult of Sigmar," Torsten continued, speaking in words carefully weighted to contain no hidden meaning. "If there is anything you need..."

"What I need," Ellis interrupted, "is a mug of ale the size of my leg and a night alone with my pretty innkeepress back home, but since my chances of getting either anytime soon are slimmer than you, just take me to see the Emperor. He's expecting me."

"Of course." Torsten turned on his skinny heals and lead the way. Ellis clumped along behind.

**********

Karl Franz, the first Emperor of his name and perhaps, his council feared, the last if he didn't capitulate and wed and get started on some heirs, sat in his empty throne room, chin in hand, staring up at the dais where he was usually stared at. His engineers designed the room to intimidate and Karl had to confess that it did. In fact, it scared the hell out of him. He palmed his eyes a moment, then looked up again.

The crown - his crown - reflected the deep red of the cushion beneath it. Each of its little spires seemed deadly sharp, though Karl knew from experience that they were not. Not to the touch, anyway.

"Your majesty, Ellis seeks audience." The dwarven scoff behind him confirmed it.

"Ellis." Karl smiled and rose to greet his friend. "Your hand?"

"Well and fine. Well and fine." Ellis craned his trunk of a neck around to look up at the vaulted ceiling and fluted columns. "Elvish?"

"A gift from their King, yes. After accepting the dwarven walls, it would not be politic to refuse."

"Hrm. Well, it wouldn't survive an avalanche of rock, but I guess you don't have to worry about that much here, do you? Glad to see you made the move from Nuln with no trouble. The griffin giving you any problems?"

"None. As subjects go, he's my most loyal."

"Something you can count on from anything and anyone at Castle Drachenfell. Something you can count on."

Ellis shuffled his feet. Karl looked back at the dais. "Is Brigid with you?"

"Brigid?" Ellis shook his head. "I haven't seen her since I was in Nuln - four months ago, at least. I thought she might have come with you."

"No, she had things to organize in Nuln. A fresh problem with the waste; another rising of undead."

"I have another idea about that." A gleam danced in Ellis' eyes, prompting a sudden urge in Karl to pound him over the head very hard with something very heavy.

"Later, Ellis. You've come far today and I expect you are in need of food and rest. My stewards will see to you."

Even a dwarf as thick-skulled as Ellis could recognize that dismissal. He bowed and left, in complete sympathy with BoneCrusher for every time he had pinned that little snot to a wall.

**********

The house of Baron Errol and his wife sat not far from the Palace, just on the fringe of the Magician's Quarter. The streets bowed in wild shapes as they wound out from the Palace and back in again toward the High Tower. Everything in New Altdorf seemed to conform to circles around the major landmarks, except for the portion of the city inhabited by the priesthood of Sigmar. They tried very hard to shape their section into a hammer.

Most magicians liked stone houses built with as many floors as possible so they looked like squat, urban towers. Little alleys ran between them connecting the streets, which were hardly wider than the alleys. It looked very much like the jammed Magician's Quarter of the old capitol, condensed into a smaller ring around the High Tower. BoneCrusher and Jehenne deviated from this fashion and took advantage of the extra land in the new city at the same time. They built with stone, like the others, but outward rather than upward, spreading over an entire block. To Ellis, it looked like a squat, urban tower squished flat.

"To have the land is better now," Jehenne explained. "It will never be the size for the university that Errol wants, but it would do for a portion of it near the Palace and the Tower."

The interior consisted of a cluttered mix of laboratory, classroom, library, and residence. Bookshelves lined most of the walls and books alone stacked around the rest, as well as around and on top of wooden tables, chairs, and any other flat surface. Unlike the painted and gilt finishes of noble furnishings, these remained merely stained wood devoid of the carved curls and scrollwork a baron and baroness might demand. The combustible smells of leather, parchment, and magic filled the place. By instinct, Ellis reflexively checked his right hand, the cursed one that still periodically burst into flame.

On the other side of the room, BoneCrusher hulked over tiny, velvet bound book held daintily in his thick fingers. He peered down at the pages through wire spectacles perched precariously on his nose and read in a voice once accustomed to the ring of the gladiator's pit.

"Ir pilagen drie kilnege edel unde rich. Ganther ande Geruot, die recken lobelieh, und Giselher der iunge, ein uz erwelter degen. Diu frouwe was ir swester, die fu'rsten hetens in ir pflegen! Now you try it."

His student, hunched in at the table in front of him, fidgeted with the paper in front of him. "Ir pilakin dr..."

"Pilagen. GEN."

"Ir pilaGEN drie kil ... kil ..."

"Kilnege."

"Kilnag."

"KilNEGE."

Behind the boy, Hugh and Muna sat at another table laboring to copy codices while ignoring the tedious lesson going on. As the student stammered, Hugh grinned at his sister and mimed beating his head against the tabletop. She glared at him and pointed with her reed to the book in front of him. Hugh made a sulky face but returned to his work.

Farthest from them, another student sat by the fire, carefully forming the alphabet on a wax tablet. She looked old to be learning to write and pretty enough in her Bretonnian style dress to win a husband and household without bothering with letters, but BoneCrusher seemed undiscriminating in regard to his pupils.

"A relative?" Ellis nodded to the woman.

"No," Jehenne shook her head. "She came here with just the clothes on her back, so I lent her some of mine that I won't be wearing for several months yet. It does make her look like my cousin, doesn't it?"

Ellis thought "sister."

"Enough!" BoneCrusher's voice boomed once, then settled down in milder tones. "For today. Practice and we will work on recitation tomorrow."

The boy frowned, thrust the paper into his coat, tossed a coin onto the table and brushed past Ellis and Jehenne without a word.

"Nice one," Ellis greeting his friend after the door closed. "What inspired you to teach him the classics?"

BoneCrusher tossed the silver coin to his wife. "A sense of obligation to the future generations of the Empire combined with impulses of masochism."

Hugh giggled.

BoneCrusher walked over to the woman by the fire who offered the tablet to him. He looked it over with appreciation.

"Well done. You may have an exceptional hand one day." He wrote four letters at the top of the unused space. "These form your name: Anga. Try that for a while."

He returned to his wife and guest, kissing the first and clapping the second on the shoulder. "Well, Ellis? How goes the council?"

"I never expected elves to build stout doors," the dwarf grumbled. "Unless we can dig anything out of Henrich's apprentice, we'll have to wait like the rest of the Empire. But, since Henrich relayed his majesty's wishes that I stick around a while, I guess I'll be doing that waiting around the palace - which is not a bad place to wait and see if young Torsten gives anything away. And you'll share anything Karl says, right Jehenne?"

The sorceress smiled sadly. "Karl is as far removed from this as we are."

"Don't pity him too much," BoneCrusher hugged an arm around his wife. "This came with the crown. Sit down, Ellis. Tell me how it feels to be a prince." He nodded his apprentices out of the room.

"It would feel great if they'd let me wear clothes that fit properly. Or give me the time to guard my lands a little better than the halfwits I left in charge there."

"What's happened?"

"Same thing that's happened everywhere lately - brigands. At first it was annoying, but now I'm starting to worry. For a band of petty thieves, they're carting off a lot."

"Yes," Jehenne nodded. "Many complaints have been brought to his majesty. He has sent what help he can, but few want to go if it means leaving their own lands undefended."

"So you know whose oath of fealty he's calling on?" Ellis' teeth ground on the end of his pipe. "Bouldershoulder will turn five shades of rage when I get back and tell him... so I think I'm going to stick around for the royal wedding before I go," he mused.

"Ellis."

"What? The Barons may call on the advice of their allies."

A whoop went up in the streets. Ellis and BoneCrusher exchanged a startled look and leapt for the door. Crowds outside crammed around the corners of the houses and shops, all peering upward to the towers of the Palace. At the pinnacle of each burned a silver-blue beacon. An Empress was selected.

BoneCrusher scratched his chin. "I wonder who it is."

"One way to find out," Ellis said as he reached for his fur cloak.

"You'll have to go without me. I have another student this evening."

"Suit yourself. You coming, Jehenne?"

"I might as well - they'll be calling me soon anyway."

**********

Trumpets processed for the Emperor as he walked through the aisle created by the Barons, six in a line on each side. His crown sat on his head now, linking him to the dais in a way. It did not carry the same dread allure it had the night before. He heard the soft swish of Jehenne's dress as she slipped into place at his left and felt the surge of her magic around him.

"Barons of the Council." His voice carried with more depth and distance than it would have without Jehenne's assistance. Judging from a few of the barons' faces, he also stood within an optical illusion she created, adding grandeur and radiance to his physique. While standing next to a woman more beautiful than elves, he knew he needed it to even be noticed. If anyone lied to him, she could discern it. If anyone attacked him, she could rebuff it. If he were injured, she could heal him. He looked at the twelve men and cold loss crept up into his heart.

"Has the Council reached a decision?" Karl felt the knot in his chest rise up into his throat. He wanted to reach back and clutch Jehenne's hand, call for Sigmar to open up the heavens and sweep them away in whatever manner He had himself so many generations ago. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

"We have." Konrad of Marienburg rose. "The Council of Barons unanimously selects the Lady Helene, daughter of Duke Helmut of the Principality of the East."

The Lady Helene. Karl forced the rest of the ceremony into words. "Let the Lady Helene be sent with dowry and bridal wreath. Ring the bells," he sighed. Jehenne's spell around him dissolved as he rose and stepped off the dais - slowly. The Lady Helene.

He left immediately, so fast even his heavy ermine cloak billowed out behind him. Jehenne swayed, as if caught off guard and lost in collapsing spells. One of the barons took a step toward her, but she waved him back gently and slipped back around the throne to exit through a less obvious door.

Peels of the bells of New Altdorf crowded him in the corridors, heavy and muffled like death knells. Karl strode through the tolls, however, as an Emperor.

Henrich approached the Baron of Marienburg and bowed. "May I inquire how much time we have to prepare the Empress' chambers?"

"Three days," Konrad replied.

"That swiftly?"

"She's coming by boat. Unless the weather turns, she will be here in three days."

"Than I'll need to act quickly to ensure all is at ready for her arrival. If you will excuse me your Excellency?" The ever busy Henrich didn't wait for a reply.

**********

Ellis stood in the hall at the rear of the chamber listening at the cracks around the doors, the rigid glass of the windows, and the vibrations in the stone, but none gave him any clue about what was going on in the council chamber. He stepped back a casual distance as Henrich's apprentice hurried past, all wound up in excitement about something. It would not do to have the Prince of the dwarves thought of as a common snoop. Ellis peeked around the corner and watched Torsten until he disappeared behind the door of the steward's chambers.

He started to see if the steward's door was any worse made than the council chamber's as Jehenne stepped in his way. Her face seemed paler than usual and she carried her cloak carelessly in her hands. Ellis stepped up and took it from her before she could drop it.

"Are you ill?"

"No, just a little tired." She smiled. Pregnancy swelled her features slightly, but Ellis found it charming. He checked his hand before he offered it to her. She checked before she took it. Ellis guided her to a bench below the large windows so she could sit in the sunlight.

"Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you, Ellis. I need a few minutes to recover, that's all. One of my spells ..."

Ellis waited for her to finish, but she let the sentence trail off.

"Is the baby alright?"

A hint of a maternal smile. "She's fine, Ellis, yes."

"That's good." Ellis shuffled his feet, a little lost in the thread of the conversation. He fumbled with his hands helplessly as Jehenne pressed her palms to her temples and collected herself.

Two guards clanked around the corner, spurring the dwarf to jump to a protective stance in front of the lady. The guards came to attention in his honor and their charge took the opportunity to step out from their cover. Karl nodded to Ellis, who switched tact and bowed low. Jehenne stood quickly as well, though with less grace than usual, and dropped to a rough curtsey. Karl moved to her immediately, grasped both her hands in his and steadied her.

"By the Hammer, Jehenne!" He put an arm around her shoulders and sat her down again, then dropped to one knee in front of her, still holding onto her hands. "I wasn't thinking. This thrice-damned council and brigands making off with the harvests and everything else - my mind is... I was careless. Very careless."

She began to dissuade him. "Your Majesty is..."

"Begging your forgiveness." Karl interrupted her.

Ellis leaned to get a better look at the Emperor's face. Karl Franz I begging for forgiveness? The best any of the Hand ever got from the boy was a grudging apology. Under duress. While pinned to a wall.

Jehenne seemed startled as well. In Bretonnia, kings did not beg the pardon of their courtiers. "Your Majesty," she fluttered.

"Please, Jehenne." He pressed her hands to his throat.

"Of course I forgive you."

"Thank you." He kissed her hand tenderly. "Thank you."

He rose and curled a finger to one of his guards. "See that the Baroness is escorted home - when she is rested and ready. In the meantime get her a cup of warm weak wine and fruit or anything else she requires.

"There are chambers more comfortable than this." He changed his imperious tone to a softer voice for her as he offered her his arm. "May I?"

"Thank you, your Majesty, but I am comfortable here. And I could not reduce your guard for something as temporary as this."

"I'll see her home," Ellis spoke up, trying to step close enough to Jehenne to force his bulk between them. The scene began to look like something not even Emperor's should do with the wives of other men.

Karl's eyes widened a bit, as if the same thought had just crossed his minds as well. "Er, yes. Thank you, Prince."

"Don't mention it."

"Baroness." Karl bowed and left his guards to catch up with him. Ellis glowered after him.

"Any dwarf in Drachenfell caught carrying on like that would get his..." He cleared his throat. "Would get his arms ripped off."

"It will pass," Jehenne said gently.

"Maybe," Ellis grumbled. Brigid would certainly never let him get away with it. If she were here. Ellis shrugged and tried to remember his court manners. Let's see...extend the pinky, don't curse. "If you are recovered, Lady, I will escort you home."

Jehenne rested her hand on his mutton-sized arm and stood.

**********

At sunset of the third day, riders arrived with the news that Helene's barge had stopped for the night a short distance upriver and she would arrive with the dawn.

His guards dismissed for the revelry, Karl threw on a deep hooded cloak and stormed out of his chambers. For three days he had refused to shave, eat, or wash and he felt confident that once outside the palace he could blend in with the celebratory crowds and vanish. For a while. That was all he really needed anyway - one final night of freedom.

As the message had said, she was already waiting, standing alone in the empty corridor, backlit by the candelabras but he knew that cloak, that dress. She wore it the day of his coronation in Nuln when she kneeled and offered the friendship and well wishes of Bretonnia. He wanted more than friendship and even though that could never be, Helene or no Helene, he would never have another chance to tell her.

He ran to her and she waited for him in the dark. That seemed appropriate.

"What I am about to do is wrong," he whispered, "but I will never be free to do it after tonight."

Karl pulled her to him and kissed her and, to his surprise, she kissed him back. Desire flared in him. He fumbled in her cloak for the strings of her dress as he moved his lips to her neck.

"What I am about to do is wrong," a voice that was not Jehenne's whispered in his ear. "But I will be free after tonight."

Something cold and burning sliced up his chest and into the soft flesh under his arm. Karl gasped and pushed her away, or perhaps she pushed him first. The candelabra fell with a crash before Karl even realized he had tried to restore his balance with it. He opened his mouth to call out for help, but only tiny croaks and panting breath emerged. The woman's tap tap tap of her slippers as she ran away made more noise than he did. He reached out to crawl back to his chamber, but his arms only flailed, numb, against the floorstones. The walls spun and his eyes rolled back.

**********

None of the revelers in the streets of New Altdorf paid much attention to the woman in the Bretonnian cloak weaving through them. A few offered her a drink or company for the night, but she refused all invitations. Two blocks from the Magician's Quarter, she turned off the main road and down an alley between the merchant shops. A second cloaked figure stood close to the wall, very still. She rested against the stones next to him, close enough to whisper in his ear.

"Tell our master it's done."

"Is it, Anga?"

"Yes. I left him where he'll be found by morning. Maybe sooner."

"I'll make certain he is. Our master owes you much."

"My freedom. That was the bargain."

He grabbed her by the neck, pulled her to him, and sliced a knife across her throat before she could even gasp.

"Yes, it was."

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