Spinnock, where are you now? I would ride at your side, and feel at home.
He might even join Scara’s troop. The Greater House of Durav was dying. It might already be dead, slipping into the shadow of their cousins, the Hend, who were surely on the rise. Cryl had been isolating himself and besides, he had no loyal retainer to bring rumours to him – rumours and opinions none would dare utter to Cryl himself. But he suspected that his station was low, his prospects few. In any case, even the thought of prowling the Citadel, like a cur hunting noble blood, disgusted him.
The river slid past before his eyes. If he surrendered, here and now, and offered up a prayer to the river god, his plea would be modest. Swallow up the turmoil in my skull. Pull it all away and send it down to the dark mud, the furred snags and slimy boulders. Take this all away, I beg you.
A single slash of the sword and love dies.
He heard horses behind him. Riding at a heavy canter. Turning away from the river, his prayer unspoken and no surrender yielded to the bank – his knees free of stains – he made his way back on to the road.
Jaen’s visage was dark, and Cryl immediately saw a pall over the Houseblades behind the Lord. Faces were closed in beneath the rims of helms. Swords rattled loose in their scabbards as the troop reined in. His eyes fixing once more upon Jaen, Cryl was shocked to see a man transformed. The songbird opens wings of black, and in his wake wheel a dozen crows.
I am such a fool. He is a man from the wars – how could I have forgotten this?
Lord Jaen dismounted. Ephalla had bent to set an ear to the tube mouth and was now attempting to snare Jaen’s attention, but the Lord ignored her as he made his way over to Cryl. A gesture invited the young Durav to return once again to the river’s bank.
Upon the muddy fringe, Jaen halted alongside him and stood silent for a time, eyes on the current’s taut twisting, the bulges rising to the surface. Then he drew off his gauntlets. ‘This was a fell intrusion, Cryl Durav.’
‘There has been violence,’ said Cryl.
‘A Denier – well, I was about to say “village”, but I dare say a half-dozen huts scarcely warrant such a name.’ He fell silent again.
‘Lord, the wedding waits. If there are raiders—’
‘This is my land, hostage.’
‘Deniers—’
‘Cryl,’ Jaen’s voice was harsh, grating like a notched blade on rough stone, ‘they could worship a toadstool for all I care. All who dwell on my land are under my protection. This was an attack on House Enes. Raiders? Bandits? I think not.’
‘Sir, I do not understand – who else might have reason to slay Deniers?’
Jaen shot him a gauging look. ‘This is what happens when you hide down a hole dug by your own hands. Surely you’ve kneaded the life out of that broken heart by now? Bury it in that hole, Cryl Durav. The world shakes awake and you sleep on at your peril.’
Cryl was shocked into silence. Never before had Jaen been so abrupt, so cruel. He looked out over the water, his face burning, though with shame or anger he knew not. The Lord’s next words snapped his attention round.
‘The wedding.’ Jaen’s face twisted. ‘A gathering of the highborn. All in one place, all away from their lands. Abyss take me, we’re blind fools.’
‘Sir, you hint of an enemy in our midst. Is it Draconus?’
Jaen blinked. ‘Draconus?’ He shook his head. ‘Cryl, I advance you to the rank of lieutenant in my Houseblades – no, you will have to swallow down your impatience to leave us for a time longer. Take my twelve and ride back to the estate. Muster the entire company under full arms and prepare for an attack.’
‘Sir?’
‘The civil war is upon us – must I strike you about the head to stir your brain to life? You make me doubt your training, not to mention my bold elevation of your rank. Is this all too much for you, Cryl Durav? Be truthful.’
‘No sir. But I am not convinced. Urusander’s Legion would not slaughter innocents – not even lowly Deniers.’
‘There were fears that the Deniers were … enlivened. The river god lives again – that much is certain. Do you truly imagine the Legion cannot justify this war? They do so in the name of the cult of Mother Dark. They raise high banners of faith.’
‘But House Enes has nothing to do with—’
‘I harbour the heretics on my land, Cryl. And I am hardly alone in that – most of the Houses and all the Holds tolerate the Deniers, if only out of pity. But every face has changed. The old masks are discarded.’
‘Sir, we entertained Captain Scara Bandaris and his officers in your very dining hall – and now you would condemn them as murderers. This is beyond countenance.’
‘Bandaris? He’s a man with his own mind, and not one to heel to Hunn Raal. I cannot say for Scara Bandaris, but then, what other troop of armed soldiers has passed down this road of late?’
‘Sir, that enemy could have come from anywhere, even from deeper in the forest. I will accept that there may now be renegade units of the Legion. But Lord Urusander is an honourable man.’
‘He is, if we accept woeful ignorance on his part, Cryl. But if he is not, if he shutters his own eyes to what his lapdog is up to in his name, I will know the truth of him the moment I stand before him and can look him in the eye. For now, renegade units or not, there is malice at loose in the realm.’
Cryl shook his head. ‘Yet you pronounce a conspiracy. Lord, if you are right and the timing of all of this is deliberate, then would not the true target be the wedding itself?’
‘They dare not,’ Jaen said. ‘Not yet – not while they still kill in Mother Dark’s name. The marriage of Andarist? Not even Hunn Raal would risk the personal ire of Anomander and Silchas.’
Not yet? Shaken, Cryl drew a deep breath. ‘I will lead your twelve back to the keep, sir, and prepare for siege.’
‘Tell me it is not preferable to watching her take his hands in wedlock.’
Cryl frowned and then straightened. ‘Sir, it is not.’
Jaen’s nod was sharp. ‘Just so. I knew your courage, Cryl Durav. Go, then.’
‘Very well, Lord. I would a word with your daughter—’
‘No. Leave her. We must move on.’
Cryl bit back a protest, and then felt something crumble inside. Jaen was right. Anything he might say would frighten her, or worse, he might be tempted to invite that fear into his own fate, into whatever awaited him back at the keep. He could not be that selfish, much as it might please him to leave a lingering prick of blood upon her conscience. As a child might do, all unknowing, all uncaring. Or worse, in pleasure of giving hurt.
Saying nothing more, they climbed the bank and returned to the others.
Cryl went to his horse and swung into the saddle. He looked across to the twelve Houseblades who had ridden with Lord Jaen. Their regard was gauging, almost cold. As if all friendship was now gone, and in its place was a new officer, abilities unknown, talents untested. The sudden pressure of their pending judgement was almost physical, descending heavily across his shoulders. Yet he met their eyes levelly, accepting their expectations. ‘Two to point and keep all weapons loose,’ he said. ‘Right flank eyes on the forest line.’
The troop sergeant, Agalas, a sour-faced woman with flat eyes, simply half turned in her saddle and two Houseblades swung their mounts round and set off up the road.
Cryl glanced over at Lord Jaen, but the man had drawn off his eight remaining Houseblades. Whatever he said was a source of obvious agitation among those men and women, some of whom responded with a look back at their comrades. Cryl understood. We may be headed into battle, but you have a young woman to protect, and a lord to serve. Duty is not always worn with ease.
He nodded to the sergeant and together they rode out from the train. As he passed the carriage he thought he heard echoing shouts from Enesdia, muted by wood and curtain, and he saw Ephalla flinch and then cast Cryl a panicked look. In response Cryl shook his head, and then he was past.
* * *
Galdan sat in the alley with his back to the tavern wall, his kingdom arrayed before him, his subjects the rats busy scuffling through the rubbish. All kings, he decided, should have but one arm, and thus but one grasping hand. The nightmares were gone, finally, but still the air felt thick as blood. He lifted into view his sole hand and studied its minute trembles. Perhaps he was seeing nothing but the shuddering of his own eyes. Chaos could make the world bright, but blindingly so, painfully so. He felt emptied out, his skin a shell protecting hollows and red-hued darkness. If he could roll back his eyes and look inward, he would see the cavern of his skull, and rats among the rubbish, and a throne on which sat the dried-up husk of his life so far.
Soldiers were in the village, wearing livery Galdan knew all too well. They had drunk all the wine and there was no more to be found, not anywhere. When Galdan had crept into the tavern to beg his share, they’d laughed and then he’d been beaten – but not with any vigour. Lying in the dirt, he had sweated out everything inside him. It had begun with foul, wretched oil, beading flushed flesh, and then bile, followed by blood and then rancid meat, rotting organs, fragments of bone and clumps of brain. Everything had come out until there was nothing left to come out. He could hear a moaning wind inside, tracking the tubular length of his arm, swirling in the flaccid sacks of his legs, sliding up through his neck and into his head.
Moaning, he decided, was the song of absence.
Legion soldiers occupied the village and everyone was afraid. Soldiers had no reason for being in Abara Delack and there were too many of them. So many that they had drunk all the wine.
Muttering filled his head; it sounded far in the depths of his skull, but it was trying to come closer, with urgency. He wanted to turn away; he wanted to run from that voice, but from where he sat he could see all the borders of his kingdom, and in his realm there was nowhere to hide.
She had been sent into the north and east. He knew that much. Sent to the Consort, or so went the rumour though none knew for certain, but the demesne of Lord Draconus was indeed in that direction.
The soldiers – what did they want?
He could hear the voice now, louder although still incoherent; and yet, for all its unintelligibility, its timbre of fear was undeniable. It was trying to warn him, crying out frustrated and helpless, and he needed to do something.
He watched his legs draw up under him, watched as they pushed at the ground, shifted for balance. The alley rocked when he stood and then leaned hard against the tavern wall. His subjects froze for a moment, tilting questing noses in his direction, and then went back to their feasting.
‘The king,’ Galdan gasped, ‘is always free with his bounty.’
One arm, only the one. Where is the other one? She took it – no, she didn’t. But she can give it back. She can do that.
There is danger. Someone is screaming, here in my head. There is danger. She’s in danger.
The Legion is awake. The Legion is on the rise.
Lord Draconus. She’s in danger.
He would leave his kingdom for a time. The realm would thrive without him. Wealth in unending repast. It was time to set out in search of more wine.
Galdan staggered out from the alley, into the street. He paused, reeling as the bright sunlight assailed him. Few people in sight; and those he saw moved quickly, fearfully, with all the furtiveness of hunted vermin. Soldiers filled the tavern and the fine inn down the street. They occupied houses that had been abandoned in the wake of the war. The community pasture was crowded with horses and the air stank of their shit. Smoke rose from unchecked fires at the town’s rubbish heap in the old Denier temple – the one that had been torn down years ago when the monastery went up – out at the western edge where there had once been a grove of old trees. Wood from that grove now held up the ceiling of the fine inn.
He heard laughter from the front steps of the tavern as he stumbled across the street.
The old lady’s bribe had failed. There was no more wine. The deal was finished with. Galdan was finished with it. This is what came when things emptied out.
He wanted nothing to do with horses. But we knew that. He would have to walk. He needed to find her. He needed to save her. Behold, the one-armed king. We go to find our queen. The one hand that reached for wealth now reaches for love.
Galdan knew that the rats would bless him, if they could.
* * *
Wreneck wandered up on the high hill overlooking Abara Delack. His ma had told him about the soldiers and this reminded him of the last time he had seen an armed man, the one who’d come for Orfantal’s mother. But that man had been a Houseblade, in the service of a lord. Soldiers were different. They served something else, something vast and maybe even faceless. But his ma had said that these ones who now stayed in the village were here to start trouble.
Lady Nerys Drukorlat was virtually alone in that big house. She had taken to hatred for even the sight of Wreneck, and the night before last she had beaten on his back with a cane. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve it, but she’d said terrible things about him, things that weren’t even true. Although maybe they were and he just didn’t know it yet.
With the last horse gone, Wreneck had no work. He had already collected up the last of the dried dung from the pastures, to stock up on fuel, but there wasn’t nearly enough to last the winter. Once the soldiers were gone, she’d said, his laziness would end and he would have to go down and collect in the community fields, but he would have to do that at night, so no one saw. ‘House Drukorlas shall not be poor in their eyes. Do you understand me, you brainless oaf? Spare me, dear Abyss! Look at those dull eyes – Orfantal had more wits in one finger than you have. You’ll collect in the fields at night.’ He had nodded to show that he understood, thankful for the promise that he’d still be one of the household staff, even if she never let him into the house.
But the soldiers hadn’t left yet, leaving him nothing to do, and that frightened him. She might see how lazy he was and forget what she’d said. He needed to get to those fields, somehow. Though it was probably already too late. The dung wouldn’t even be cured by the time the rains and snows came, and they had nowhere dry to store it except for one blockhouse and that was full of drying brush and sheaves of bark.
He hadn’t eaten yet today. He scanned the high grasses, switch in hand. He’d taken to hunting jump-mice, and if he caught a few he would make a small fire from twigs and grasses, roast the fur off them and finally put something in his aching belly.
Distant motion caught his eye and he looked up to see a half-dozen soldiers coming out from the village, up on the keep road. They were riding at a slow canter, unevenly. As he watched, he saw one loosen the sword in the scabbard at her side. The effort almost toppled her from the saddle and the others laughed upon seeing that, the sound drifting up to where Wreneck stood.
The Lady didn’t like visitors. There was nothing to feed them.
If he ran, he might reach the house in time, to at least warn her. Switch still in one hand, he set off at a lumbering run. He had been clumsy all his life, not like Orfantal, who was like a jackrabbit under the shadow of an owl or a hawk. His knees sometimes knocked together when he ran and that was painful, and the work shoes he had been given were too big, driving his toes hard forward with each stride, and at any moment one of them might fly off.
His breath ached in his chest and he could feel how hot the effort was making him, but on he ran, stumbling once when a foot struck a sunken stone in the grasses. Slowly, he realized that he would not make it in time. The horses were on the climb already.
She might well hide. Pretend to not be there, sending Jinia out to say that her mistress was away, or maybe unwell, and they would leave. She would tell them to visit on another day, maybe in a week or so. So, he was running for nothing. Jinia was smart and besides, he loved her, though she teased him all the time for being slow and stupid, when she was neither and older besides.
At nights, un
der his blanket, he made himself wet thinking about Jinia, like pee but not pee, wishing she didn’t tease him and wishing that he was let in the house so that he could see more of her and she wouldn’t always complain that he stank of horse shit. If he could be let in the house she might one day fall in love with him and when he was older, as old as she was, they could get married and have children and he would name one Orfantal. If it was a boy, of course.
He reached the pasture fence and slipped through it. He could see the dust from the horses at the front of the house, though he was coming up on the building from its back. They had arrived, and dismounted, and there was more laughter and then a shout, but the shout didn’t sound right.
Then he heard Jinia scream.
Wreneck ran again and came round the corner of the house. The scene before him made no sense. The door of the house was open. A little way from the steps, three of the soldiers stood around Jinia and one gripped her by her upper arm, holding her up so that only the tips of her leather-clad feet touched the ground. Another one, a woman, had her hand up the maid’s tunic. The third soldier, a man, was unbuckling his weapon belt and tugging down his trousers.
The other soldiers must have been inside the house, since there were sounds coming from there, along with crashing. The lady’s harsh voice brayed but it was answered by a barking laugh.
Wreneck rushed towards Jinia, raising the switch in his hand.
Someone collided with him from one side, throwing him off his feet. Winded, Wreneck lay on his back. Above him he saw another soldier – the woman who had loosened the sword. She was grinning. ‘Look here! Another damned Denier – you can tell by the shit on his face.’
Aching to draw breath, Wreneck rolled on to his side. He saw Jinia looking at him, but her eyes were dull. The woman with her hand up the maid’s tunic was making pushing motions, but her other hand was gripping her fellow soldier’s stallion, making the same motions. The third soldier, the one holding Jinia, was using his free hand to lift and twist Jinia’s breasts. Wreneck stared into his love’s eyes and saw nothing, nothing living.