“The Realm Guard will spend a month or so wandering around woods and hills seeking the fanatics who attacked the Lord of the South Tower. Having found nothing, they will go home. A necessary demonstration for the Asraelin populace. I have the King’s Word on it.” Her uncle’s red eyes for once were clear and bright with scrutiny as he read the Reader’s expression. “No, the news I must impart is far graver. You see my niece is not only accomplished in her knowledge of the Ten Books, she also wields a sword with great skill, even more skill than my late brother in fact.”
“Really?” The Reader gazed at Reva in wonder. “The Father is generous with his blessings, it seems.”
“Doubly generous,” Uncle Sentes said. “For he contrived to place her in my manor the very night three assassins came to kill me. But for her I wouldn’t be standing here.”
The Reader’s shock was genuine, she could see it, the start that made his aged jowls wobble, the slight frown of consternation; the face of a man suffering an unpleasant surprise. “The Father be thanked you are not hurt, my lord,” he gasped. “The assassins, do they live?”
“Sadly, no. One was slain by my wonderful niece, a second by my guards.” He paused, his gaze still fixed on the Reader’s face. “But one escaped. A man my niece insists is a priest in your church.”
The Reader’s alarm was also genuine, but not so surprised as before. He knows, Reva thought. He knows who the priest is. She found her fists clenching as the old man made a show of sorrowful reflection.
“Sadly the priestly calling does not make us immune from misguided notions,” he said. “Your brother’s words, heretical though they were, found many willing adherents, including some amongst the priesthood. I shall, of course, exhaust every resource available to the church to bring this rogue to justice. If you could furnish a description . . .”
Veliss produced a second smaller scroll and placed it on his desk. “Ah, efficient as ever, my lady,” the Reader said. “It shall be copied and distributed to every chapel within days. The fugitive will find no refuge in the church, I assure you.”
Reva took a step towards him, fists aching now, finding her uncle’s hand on her arm, gentle but firm.
“Your consideration is appreciated, Holy Reader,” he said. “I believe we have troubled you enough for one day.”
“Feel free to trouble me on all days, my lord.” He smiled at Reva. “Especially if the company you bring is so delightful as today.”
Her uncle tugged her arm and started for the door, but Reva didn’t move just yet. “‘Deceit,’” she said to the Reader, “‘is the hardest sin to divine, for many a lie is spoken in kindness, and many a truth in cruelty.’”
He kept it from his face, but his eyes gleamed with it, just for a second: anger. “Quite so, my dear. Quite so.”
“Reva,” Uncle Sentes said from the door.
Reva bowed to the Reader and followed her uncle from the room. The sneering priest stood in the hallway, regarding her with unmistakable contempt.
“Pardon me,” Reva said, pausing. He was a tall man and she was obliged to look up at him, though not tall enough to be out of reach. “Your nose appears to be bleeding.”
He frowned, fingers coming up to touch his nose, coming away clean. “I don’t . . .”
His head snapped back from the force of the blow, nose breaking, though not with enough force to kill him. He stumbled backwards to collide with the wall, sinking to the floor, blood streaming down his face.
“My mistake,” Reva said, moving on. “Now it’s bleeding.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“That was unbecoming,” Uncle Sentes reproached when they had returned to the manse, going to the library where a fresh bottle of wine was already waiting. Lady Veliss, however, seemed to be smothering a laugh.
Reva slumped into a chair, unbuttoning her hateful collar and scratching furiously. “That old man is a liar,” she stated.
“Evidently,” he replied, removing the cork and sniffing the bottle’s contents. “Umblin Valley, five years old. Very nice.”
“So that’s it?” Reva asked. “He lies to your face and you do nothing?”
The Fief Lord merely smiled and poured the wine.
“We imparted a warning,” Veliss said, glancing up from her desk, the one Reva had paused at during her mission to retrieve the sword. Veliss was still engaged in study of the same book, the one about money and wine-making, her desk stacked high with copious notes. “The great hypocrite will be on the defensive now.”
“Where I would like to keep him for good,” Uncle Sentes added. “Something your vaunted grandfather never quite managed.”
“He knows,” Reva said. “The priest, where he is. I can tell.”
“Hungry for vengeance, love?” Veliss asked. “Did he treat you so badly?”
Filthy, Fatherless sinner . . . Reva got up from the chair, moving to the door. “I’m going to change.”
“It would help if we knew more about him,” Veliss said, making her pause. “About how you were raised. Where exactly was it? A castle, a cave in the mountains?”
“A barn,” she replied in a mutter before leaving the room.
She went to her room, undressing with an urgency that left several rips in the dress, tossing it into a corner. She changed into her preferred garb of riding trews and loose-fitting blouse, provided at her insistence despite Veliss’s objections. I’ll find him myself, she decided as she laced up her boots. Sneak into the cathedral tonight and make the old man spill his secrets . . .
There was a knock on the door, soft but insistent. She opened it to find her uncle there, his expression kind but insistent. “A barn?” he said.
She sighed, moving back and sitting on the bed. He came in, closing the door and sitting next to her. She was surprised to see he had no bottle with him. They sat in silence for a moment, Reva trying to form words that might make some sense to him. “It was big,” she said eventually. “The barn. No animals, no ploughs, just me and him, and a lot of straw. My first clear memory is of climbing up and down the beams. If I fell, he’d beat me.”
“He did that many times?”
“More than I could count. He was skilled with the cane, leaving no scars, save this one.” She pulled back her hair to reveal the mark above her right ear from the time he had beaten her unconscious.
“Do you know where it was, this barn?”
“It sat amidst broad fields, the grass was long and visitors were rare, stern men who looked at me with odd expressions. He called them his brothers, they called him the Truepriest. There was one man though, different from the others. He came only once or twice a year, and the priest would make me stay in the shadows when he did. I couldn’t hear what they spoke of, but I’m fairly certain the priest called him ‘my lord.’”
“Can you describe him?”
“Broad across the shoulders, not particularly tall. He had a bald head and a black beard.”
She saw recognition dawn in his eyes. She waited for him to name the man but instead he said, “Go on. What else can you remember?”
“As I grew older he began to take me to the village where he went for supplies. I had little experience of other people and hardly any notion of how to act around them, shouting and pointing in excitement the first time. That earned me a beating. ‘You must not be noticed,’ he said. ‘You must pass through the lives of others leaving no mark.’ Later he would send me on my own at night, either to steal or to contrive a means of overhearing a conversation. Practice for my holy mission, I suppose. I began to know the villagers quite well, their gossip giving me a fine insight into their lives. The baker’s wife was carrying on with a tinker who came by every two weeks. The wheelwright had lost a son at Greenwater Ford. The village priest was far too fond of the ale. Then one night, I happened upon an open window . . .” I knew her only as the carpenter’s daughter. She stood b
efore a basin, guiding a washcloth over her skin. The light from the lantern seemed to make her skin glow, her hair like gold . . .
“Reva?” Uncle Sentes prompted.
She shook her head. “The priest had been following me, every night, without my knowledge. I lingered by that window too long. The next day he gave me this.” She touched a hand to her scar.
“The name of the village?”
“Kernmill.”
This seemed to confirm a suspicion in his mind and he nodded. “I’m sorry, Reva,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “I may not be the best Fief Lord, but I’m resolved to be the best uncle. And as a present to my niece I intend to find this priest and watch when you gut him. Would you like that?”
She blinked away tears and returned his embrace, whispering. “Yes, Uncle. I should like that very much.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The days that followed saw her settling into a routine at the manor. Practice in the sword room with Arken in the mornings, lunch with Veliss and the Fief Lord in the afternoon followed by an interminable hour or more of sitting in the corner whilst one or both of them met with some merchant or lord asking for something. Evenings saw her free to go riding with Arken, her uncle having secured a place in the stables for Snorter and Bumper. They would range beyond the walls until night came, hunting when opportunity arose. Arken had acquired a longbow from somewhere, proving capable of drawing it which was still more than Reva could do, although his ability to find his mark was meagre compared to her skill with the wych elm. Every Feldrian she was also required to sit through the petitions, Veliss quizzing her on their relative merits when the whole boring palaver was done.
“I don’t know,” she groaned as Veliss asked her opinion on a disputed land grant. The land had been gifted to a former House Guard by her grandfather and now his two eldest sons were fighting over it. “Divide it in half or something.”
“The quality of the land is variable,” Veliss explained. She had a seemingly infinite well of patience despite Reva’s continued air of tired indifference. “Rich pasture sits alongside rock-strewn bog, like a patchwork of good and bad cloth. Such land is not easily divided.”
“Then tell them to sell it and split the money between them.”
“The elder brother would like that I’m sure, but the younger lives on the land with his wife and children and wants to stay.”
“‘All land is the Father’s gift,’” Reva quoted, stifling a yawn. “‘But only the man who works the land can lay claim to it.’ The Seventh Book, Alltor’s judgement on the greed of landlords.”
“So just give the land to the younger brother and risk angering the elder?”
“Is he an important man?”
“Not especially, but he does enjoy the patronage of some minor nobles.”
“Then his anger shouldn’t matter. Are we done yet?”
That afternoon she went to badger her uncle for news of the priest, something that had become a near-daily ritual. She found him in his rooms, buttoning his shirt whilst a large man in a grey robe stood at the window, holding a small bottle up to the light as he shook it.
“Reva,” the Fief Lord greeted her. “Do you know Brother Harin?”
The large grey-robed man turned to offer her a bow. “The niece I’ve heard so much about? Can’t say I see a resemblance, Hentes. Too pretty by half.”
“Yes. Fortunately for her, she favours her mother.”
Reva found herself unable to suppress a pang of suspicion at the presence of the large man. “You are a healer?”
“Indeed, my lady. Once Master of Bones at the House of the Fifth Order, sent by my Aspect to care for your uncle . . .”
“And all the heretic Faithful I allow to remain in this city,” Uncle Sentes interrupted. “Don’t forget them.” There was a hardness to his tone making Brother Harin raise his eyebrows and hand the Fief Lord the small bottle in silence.
“Same dose as before?” her uncle asked.
“Probably best to increase it. Four times a day . . .”
“Mixed with clean water, yes I know.”
Brother Harin pulled a leather satchel over his shoulder. “I’ll be back next week.” He went to the door and gave Reva another bow before leaving.
“He doesn’t address you properly,” she said.
“Because I told him not to. Seems a little silly to stand on ceremony with a man who’s had his finger up your arse.”
She nodded at the bottle. “What is that?”
“Just a little tonic.” He placed it on a table. “Helps me sleep. You’ve come to ask about the priest.”
“Let me hunt for him,” she said. “Send me and I’ll bring him back bound and ready for judgement in a month. I swear it.”
“This is hardly the best time, with the Realm Guard roaming our borders people are uncertain enough. Uncovering whatever schemes the Reader may have indulged in will only add to the alarm.”
“You know who that man is, the one the priest called a lord. I could tell.”
“I don’t know, I suspect. And I’ll not upset a long-worked-for peace by proceeding on suspicion alone. We’ll act, Reva, you have my promise. But we’ll act soft and slow so the old bastard doesn’t see us coming.”
“I can be stealthy,” she insisted. You’ve no idea how stealthy . . .
He shook his head. “I don’t doubt your abilities but I need you here. The people must become accustomed to seeing you at my side.”
She bit down her disappointment. “Why? You’ve acknowledged me. Why do they need to see me?”
This gave him pause, his brows creasing in realisation. “You don’t know, do you? You honestly have no notion at all.”
“No notion of what?”
“Reva, you may have noticed but there are no children in this house. Nor are there likely to be. I had no heirs, no-one to follow me to the Chair. But now, I have you.”
She felt a cold hand creeping across her chest. “What?” she said in a thin sigh.
“A few of your father’s . . . indiscretions have come calling over the years. Some seeking acknowledgment, only to be disappointed. Most just asking a favour or a full purse. I was happy to send them all on their way. Until you, Reva. How old were you when the priest took you away from your grandparents, do you think?”
“I know how old, he told me. I was six.”
“Your father died nigh on nine years ago. That means he took you three years before Hentes assassinated our father and plunged this fief into war. Of all Hentes’s children, he came for you. He saw what I can see.”
She shook her head in confusion. “What can you see?”
“The next Mustor to sit in the Lord’s Chair.” He moved closer, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Sent to me by the Father Himself, for surely He heard my prayer.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“A girl can’t be a Fief Lord,” Arken said as they rode out that evening, cantering along the causeway and off towards the forested hills to the north.
“Fief Lady,” Reva said, the cold hand still gripping her chest. Her tone was flat, the enormity of her uncle’s words leaving no room for emotion.
“That doesn’t sound right,” Arken said. “You’ll have to think of something better. Countess maybe.”
“You only get countesses in Nilsael.” She pulled on the reins, Snorter coming to a halt. She sat in the saddle for a long time, the coldness gradually giving way to a heart-thumping bout of terror. “I can’t stay here,” she decided in a tremulous voice. “I should never have lingered.”
“Your uncle has been good to you, to us.”
“Because he wants an heir.”
“Not just that. He loves you, I can tell.”
Or the memory of his brother, the man he couldn’t be. Reva ran a shaking hand over her forehea
d. “The Northern Reaches,” she said. “We can go there. You said you’d like that.”
“When there wasn’t anywhere else . . .”
“We can go now. We have horses, weapons, money . . .”
“Reva . . .”
“I can’t do this! I’m just a filthy, Fatherless sinner! Don’t you understand?”
She spurred Snorter to a gallop, making for the trees. She was halfway there when something made her pull up, another horse cresting the hilltop ahead. It moved with the ragged trot of an exhausted animal, foam covering its flanks and mouth, the rider slumped forward, barely able to keep himself in the saddle. Well-honed instincts brought one word to mind. Trouble.
She watched them straggle closer, Snorter stirring beneath her, nostrils flaring at the unwelcome stench of a fellow horse near death, keen to keep running. The Northern Reaches, Reva thought. Al Sorna will welcome you.
She kicked Snorter into motion, closing the distance to the horse. The rider was so exhausted he barely noticed when she reached out to grab the reins, tugging his mount to a halt. Realm Guard, she noted from his garb, taking in the red-brown smears on his breastplate and the empty scabbard on his saddle. “Where’s your sabre?” she asked.
His head snapped up in alarm, a face of encrusted sweat and dried blood, regarding her in naked terror before he blinked and took in his surroundings. “Alltor?” he croaked.
“Yes,” Reva replied. “Alltor. What has happened to you?”
“To me?” The man bared his teeth, a strange light in his eyes as he giggled. “They killed me, girl. They killed us all.” His giggle turned into a full laugh, the laugh into a choking cough before he slumped forward, falling from the saddle. Reva dismounted, taking the waterskin from Snorter’s saddlebag and holding it to the guardsman’s lips. He coughed again, but was soon gulping down water in great heaves.
“I . . . need to see the Fief Lord,” he gasped when he had drunk his fill.
Reva looked back at the city, shrouded in the pall rising from many chimneys, the dim outline of the manor where the servants would be preparing the evening meal, and the great twin spires, home to a great old liar. “I’ll take you to him,” she said. “He’s my uncle.”