“I don’t think either of us will adjust to being a fine lady,” Kyria murmured around bites of bean and root vegetable stew.
“It takes time,” Alayna said. “You don’t want to imitate the ladies in those awful romances we used to playact, but there are things you can learn.”
“What, how to not be a bubble-head?”
“You can rest assured, I am in no danger of forgetting that,” Alayna replied with a grin. “I meant that things and people change, and how I see them changes, too. When I first came to Scathfell, I felt like such an ignorant goose.”
Sipping her jaco, Kyria eyed her sister more closely. Alayna might sound just as feather-brained as ever on occasion, but there was a new solidness, a strength about her. She might have been impressionable and easy to manipulate once, but now it would take more than a lazy servant or a scheming courtier to sway her.
Blessed Cassilda, may her husband be found alive.
The next few days crept by, with Kyria, Renata, and Alayna taking turns sitting with Edric, although Kyria insisted on taking the longest shifts. Edric was able to swallow liquids, lukewarm meat broth or tea laced with honey. Renata pronounced it an excellent sign.
When she was not sleeping or playing with the twins, Alayna kept Kyria company. The two found much to talk about as they caught up with each other. At times, they laughed so uproariously that Kyria thought they must surely waken Edric, and once or twice she could have sworn she saw him smile, though he slept on.
Alayna’s rryl had been left behind at Scathfell Castle, but there was a fairly good instrument in the Aldaran collection, one that had once belonged to their kinswoman, Aliciane. Alayna re-strung it and regaled Kyria with old favorites, as well as songs she had learned from Perdita.
Late one afternoon, there came a rapping on the door to Kyria’s sitting room. The guardsman outside was one Kyria knew, Andres, and standing in front of him, ill at ease, was a page; one of the boys who ran messages within the castle and its grounds.
“If you please, my lady, the scouts have returned from the battle.”
Kyria hesitated, but only for a moment. She could leave the matter to Renata, who had acted as Edric’s regent during the years of his minority and while he was at Tramontana. But she was Lady Aldaran. It fell to her to act on her husband’s behalf. Until that moment, she had assumed he would be awake when Francisco and the others returned. She had never thought to act in his stead.
“Captain Francisco says to tell you,” the page rushed on, “they were delayed by the wounded.”
“How many wounded?”
The boy’s eyes were huge with alarm, pupils so dilated his eyes looked black. “Many.”
Alayna came up beside her, brows taut with concern. “I will come, too, in case there is news of Gwynn.”
“Correy,” Kyria called over her shoulder to Edric’s body-servant, “let me know the instant there is any change. Andres, come with me.” She and Alayna hurried out of the room, pausing only to dispatch the page to inform Lady Renata of the situation.
Outside the castle’s massive double doors, the sheltered courtyard teemed with men and horses, and a pair of heavily laden wagons, everyone milling around and making so much noise that at first Kyria could not tell what was going on. Then she began to make sense of the scene: her own men, there and there and more issuing from the castle and outbuildings. Men sitting or lying on the carts. Limping, bandaged soldiers even now being supported by Aldaran people. A few men on horseback—Francisco, there—and a tall, chestnut-haired man in armor and Scathfell colors, one side of his face crusted with dried blood.
“Gwynn!” Alayna cried, clutching Kyria’s hand.
Kyria’s memories surged up, of one brutally cold winter when she was a child and her father and every man able to wield a spear or shoot an arrow had gone out to defend the lands around the manor house from an invasion of wolves—both the starving beasts and the equally rapacious human kind. Ellimira, heavy with her first child, had taken charge of preparations at home. No one could have known how many would return, if any, and in what condition. Everyone had pitched in, even little Alayna. Now these people before her—castle folk and former enemies, strangers and kin—were her charge.
She quickly designated where the wounded men were to go first, and which areas were to be given over to treatment. She directed that herbs and other preparations used in treating the injured were to be made available, along with bandages and hot water and anything else that was needed. The livestock were to be taken to the stables and cared for, and hot meals served to everyone.
“Vai domna!” Francisco reined his horse to a restive halt before Kyria. Sweat darkened the animal’s hide, flecked with lather. He glanced this way and that, and she realized he was searching for Edric.
“Are these all the survivors?” she asked.
“No, only the ones in the worst shape. Some escaped the storm and have disappeared or are making their way back to Scathfell.”
“Get everyone inside and out of this cold, starting with the most badly injured. The castle, not the guardsmen’s barracks.” Looking around, Kyria spotted Kermiac, Aldaran’s coridom, with a handful of his senior staff at his heels. She rattled off a string of orders, everything she could remember Ellimira doing. When she drew breath, Kermiac nodded gravely and said, “I will see to it all, my lady.”
Just then Renata emerged from the castle, leading a handful of women. Kyria recognized some of them as the most experienced with herbs and treating daily minor ailments.
“I’ve set up an infirmary in the Great Hall, as you ordered,” Renata said. “It’s about time it was put to good use.”
“Captain Francisco,” Kyria said, “take the men who are worst off inside, those in the wagons first. Lady Renata will show you where.” She turned to Andres, who had halted a pace behind her, as was proper. “You’re to assist him. Take whatever other men you need.”
The courtyard began to clear at an astonishing rate. A pair of stable boys led the wagon mules right up to the steps so that Kyria and Alayna were forced to move aside as one man after another was carried inside. Some moaned in pain, their bodies so badly burned Kyria did not see how they could survive. Others were able to sit up but not walk, their crudely splinted legs sticking out at angles. One had been strapped to a pair of branches at shoulders and hips. He did not move as two Aldaran guardsmen lifted the stretcher. The smell of charred flesh and the barely stifled cries of agony sent a pang through Kyria’s chest. Alayna had taken hold of her hand—Kyria had no memory of when—and held it tightly.
Edric, her Edric, had done this.
Francisco, still on horseback, watched it all from near the base of the steps, occasionally shouting out orders. Lord Scathfell approached and dismounted, or rather half-fell, half-slid to the ground. His face was white and set, except for the swathe of dried blood across one temple and cheekbone. He seemed to be staying upright by sheer pride and strength of will. Squaring his shoulders, he addressed himself to Francisco.
“I can ask no more than what is being done for my men. Now all that remains—”
With a cry, Alayna released Kyria’s hand and rushed down the stairs. Lord Scathfell stared at her, his expression unreadable. Alayna, too, felt the awkwardness of the moment. She halted a pace away from him. Kyria thought that if either of them moved, they would both shatter.
A dozen thoughts went through Kyria’s mind, the most terrifying of which was that Lord Scathfell realized Alayna had warned Aldaran of the attack.
If he threatens her, I will flay him alive!
Lord Scathfell lifted his face again to Francisco and said, his voice bleak and expressionless. “All that now remains is for me to make my surrender to Lord Aldaran.”
“You may do so, in the proper time and place,” Kyria said, a trace more severely than she intended, because she was still angry on her sister’s beh
alf.
“My lady, I am at somewhat of a loss, for I do not believe we have met.”
“I am Kyria Rockraven-Aldaran, your sister-in-law. At one time we were betrothed.”
Lord Scathfell’s chapped lips moved, but no words came out. Kyria could not tell what he might be thinking, beyond the obvious fact that he and his wife were now in the hands of those he had sought to destroy. She didn’t know him except by his recent aggressive actions and her sister’s reports, and those were so contradictory, and the man beside her so plainly in need of care, that she had no time to sort things out.
“Will it please you to come inside, as guest and kinsman to this house?” Kyria said.
“Vai domna, I do not intend insult, but honor demands that I make my address to Lord Aldaran first.”
“I am Lady Aldaran.”
Lord Scathfell hesitated, a flush reddening his features. Perhaps, Kyria thought, he realizes how rude that was. Blessed Cassilda, the man has an absolute gift for rebuffing those who would be his friends. But he was Alayna’s husband, no matter what had passed between them, so Kyria renewed her determination to treat him with the same generosity that she would want Edric to receive, had their positions been reversed. She was going to have an uphill time of it, if the stubborn expression now settling on Lord Scathfell’s face was any indication.
Before either could say more, Alayna spoke up. Her voice rang, clear and confident, above the sounds of the courtyard. “My husband, there has been enough suffering because of men long in their graves. Edric Aldaran is not his father, any more than you are yours. Let this be an end to the madness.”
He bowed to her, perhaps a shade more formally than etiquette demanded. She responded with a curtsy that would have done honor to the grandest lady in Queen Cassandra’s court.
“I think you must have hit your head on something exceptionally hard,” Alayna went on, “that you stand out here, half-freezing. Or you would know an offer of hospitality truce when you hear one.” She swung her arms wide, encompassing the entire castle, courtyard and all. “Did anyone here ask for your surrender? In fact, has a single person besides you even mentioned the subject?”
Kyria could not see Alayna’s expression, for her sister’s back was to her, but Kyria and Francisco exchanged glances. She recalled how her sweet, timid sister had managed to enlist this man’s help on a mission that most would have considered insane.
“I’ll tell you what is going to happen.” Alayna stopped short of wagging her finger at her husband’s nose, but she sounded as if she would like to. “You are going to get yourself inside, and warm, and tended to.”
Scathfell did not look convinced, but if they all stood out here much longer, they would soon join the ranks of the incapacitated.
“Vai dom,” Kyria said, “since it is your desire to surrender, and since a good host considers the comfort of her guests, I hereby accept. Now it is my command to you as my prisoner to go with your wife and obey her every whim. Rest assured, all good care is being rendered to your men, and when you have been fed and rested, you have my leave to ascertain their condition for yourself. Are these terms acceptable to you?”
“These are not what I have any reason to expect, but I do not see that I have any choice other than to accept your generosity.” He withdrew his sword from the scabbard tied to his saddle and offered it to her, hilt-first. As he did so, he attempted to kneel, but his balance was not secure. He would have fallen, had not Alayna slipped her shoulder under his arm.
“Put that thing away,” Kyria said. “I have no use whatsoever for it, and neither do you, not here.” When he did not respond, she said, “Oh very well, give it to Francisco. He will stow it where it can’t hurt anyone.” When this was accomplished, she managed to convince Lord Scathfell to come inside.
Renata appeared again as Alayna and her husband were passing through the opened doors. By this time, the most badly wounded men had already been carried inside and the horses led away by the stablemen.
“Lady Renata, Lord Scathfell,” Kyria said, preceding the couple into the castle. “Lord Scathfell, the dowager Lady Aldaran.”
“Z’par servu, vai angela,” he murmured.
“He hit his head,” Alayna explained.
“All who come in peace are welcome here,” Renata replied, a trifle distracted. “You will excuse my lack of manners, but I come on a matter that cannot wait. Kyria, you must accompany me at once. Edric is awake.”
39
Lord Scathfell had indeed suffered a blow to the head, but the injury was not nearly as severe as Alayna feared. He had a gash in his scalp, just above the hairline, and she remembered from her experience with Ruyven how badly such cuts bled. He was not concussed—so Renata thought when she examined him—just exhausted from a rapid march, the horror of the lightning attack, and then the desperate journey to Aldaran, all the while trying to keep as many of his men alive as possible. He had been willing to bargain his own freedom, his very life, for theirs, and it had taken him some while to comprehend that he was an honored guest, not a prisoner of war.
Gwynn underwent medical ministrations first from Renata and then Correy, Edric’s body-servant, the latter apparently dispatched on Edric’s own orders. While they were caring for his wounds, night overtook the world. After Gwynn had bathed his hands and face by candlelight, and put on a clean shirt, he ate a little of the food that was brought in and downed half a pitcher of jaco. Alayna stayed with him the entire time.
Whatever she said or did now, she must be mindful of his dignity. In his mind, his actions had been both honorable and necessary, despite ending in failure.
The world goes as it will, not as you or I would have it, ran the old proverb. And the world had not gone as she expected. Nor as he had, either.
“I don’t know how to talk to you,” she said.
“Nor I, you.”
“Are you very angry with me? For coming here? Warning them?”
In answer, he held out an arm and drew her to him.
“I did not intend to betray you, you know,” she said. “I truly believed that what you were doing would end in the deaths of my sister, her babes, and her husband. Your men. You. I didn’t know what else to do. I thought that if I warned them, and their castle were shut up tight, you would give up and go home.”
Gwynn’s expression, which had softened somewhat, turned somber. “It would not have made any difference, whether you brought word of my intentions or not. One way or another, the invasion would have been discovered, and the results would have been the same. For all my plans and preparations, I did not count on Edric Aldaran possessing the Rockraven storm Gift. In my arrogance, I assumed that because he had spent so much time in a Tower, he was little better than a sandal-wearer. Weak, effete, bookish. He certainly gave no evidence of a martial bearing in Thendara. If anything, he treated me with such gentle courtesy, what else was I to conclude?”
“Perhaps that he wished to mend the quarrel of your fathers.”
Gwynn shook his head. “You could have shouted it from the turrets of Thendara, and I would not have believed it.” He sounded like he still could not quite encompass the notion. “When my men spotted a glider, I knew it had to be him. After all, who else at Aldaran had the laran to operate such a thing? I thought we had frightened him off, the coward. We pressed on, even more certain now that we could take the castle by ordinary means. And then . . .” His voice trailed away and he swallowed.
“And then he sent the storm.”
“I have never witnessed anything like it,” he said, his voice subdued. “Never imagined it. As if earth and sky, rock and rain, had all been overthrown, and chaos issued through the cracks in the world. Not even Aldones, Lord of Light, in all his glory, could sear the very air with lightning that way. Again and again—oh, gods!—until the ground beneath our feet turned into a smoking ruin, and the rain that rushed down on us fr
om the sky stank of charred flesh. My men . . . my men . . .” He covered his eyes with his free hand, clinging even harder to her.
Alayna put her arms around him, feeling the tremors in his body, like sobbing that could not be expressed. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”
How long they remained like that, she could not tell. At last, he took a shuddering breath and, pulling free, ran both hands over his face. He looked as if he had been weeping.
“And it has all been for nothing,” he said. “Scathfell is just as vulnerable as ever. Aldaran wields powers that no ordinary man can withstand, and we have nothing to defend ourselves.”
“But if Edric swore a pact of friendship, would that not set your mind at ease?”
“I have seen how little such promises are worth. And what is to prevent his sons from doing as they please, knowing we cannot mount even a token resistance? What good are spears and swords, and the bravest hearts in the world, against a thousand bolts of lightning?”
There must be another way, Alayna thought. He is beaten in spirit now, but he will not remain so. His fears will eat away at him like the wolf in the old story, and he will entertain first this scheme and that. There will be no end to this feud.
“I have wasted enough time on myself,” Gwynn said. “I must see to the wounded among my men.”
“They are in the Great Hall. I can take you there.” Alayna moved toward the door.
“It is not fit for a gentle lady to see such things. Many of them were badly burned.”
Alayna lifted her chin. “If you can look upon them, then so can I.”
Gwynn allowed himself to be conducted down to the Great Hall. Along the way, they encountered a few guardsmen and women servants, all of whom greeted Alayna in a friendly manner. Gwynn looked surprised, as if he expected she would be treated with grudging politeness, nothing more.
He sees how welcome I am, but not that he is, too.
In the hours since the rescue party had returned, the Great Hall had been transformed into an infirmary. Pallets had been arranged in rows and covered with layers of blankets to serve as beds, leaving aisles for the free movement of those who were taking care of the patients. It seemed to Alayna that the entire castle household was at work here, except for Kyria and Edric. Some bustled up and down with arms full of towels and bandages and stoppered jars, or with trays carrying mugs of drinking water, bowls of soup, or basins of steaming water that gave off the aroma of pungent herbs. Others attended to the wounded, washing them, bandaging them, lifting them to drink, and comforting them as they cried out.