‘Yon’s not himself,’ Talvish agreed. His narrow features hinted at laughter, while his clever fingers danced a tattoo against the battered stone coping. ‘The stance is all wrong. That sword’s not Alithiel. What I see is a flat-footed bumpkin who’s maybe experienced at skipping through cow clods?’
‘The rescued double,’ Vhandon surmised. Stolid frame planted, arms crossed, he was frowning, soot eyebrows shading creased sockets. He resumed in the rural drawl of East Halla, ‘If the bait from the Koriani trap’s been brought here, then where under the Fatemaster’s almighty eye is his royal Grace of Rathain?’
Talvish grinned like a weasel. ‘Shall we go down and find out?’
For answer, Vhandon poked his spike helm through the siege shutter. ‘Pass them! They’re known to us.’
The gate sentry detaining the arrivals waved back, and Dakar, glancing up, shouted a pleased phrase in Paravian.
‘Tal, damn you, wait! Stop and listen to this!’ Vhandon’s blunt grip trapped his fellow’s wrist, halting the rush for the stairwell. ‘The Mad Prophet’s brought us a parcel of joy! The child’s a goatherd who believes all the mummery, that Duke Bransian’s allied with the Light.’
‘You say?’ The taller blond chuckled with rapacious delight, then cracked his knuckles to limber his sword-hand. ‘My beer coin says the duke’s brothers will spit him.’
Vhandon’s frown vanished. ‘And mine says, Bransian will get his lambasting blade in before them.’
‘Ath!’ Talvish plunged for the landing, snorting back laughter. ‘The duke might, at that. It’s a squeaking tight call.’
A fleeting glance was exchanged in the dark, as side by side, the retainers who were life-pledged to serve Arithon descended to wring the Mad Prophet for news.
Whisked at brisk speed through the shaded, tight streets of Alestron’s inner citadel, with the two men-at-arms padding like predators after him, Fionn Areth was shown through an iron-strapped door, into the bowels of a drumkeep.
‘Up there,’ said the blond, whose leopard’s glance absorbed everything, and whose narrow lips did not smile.
The sturdy partner with the reticent face held his stance.
Parted from Dakar, assigned to these veterans, Fionn Areth stifled his questions. He shoved back his straw hat and set about climbing stairs.
The swordsmen trod after him, matched. The feat should not have been possible, the breathless goatherd thought sourly. Their differing frames should not have been able to stride in such seamless tandem. Distempered by the time he was granted a guest-chamber, Fionn Areth closed the door on his disconcerting armed escort. Faced about, he bumped into a liveried page, sent to help with his bath and his dress.
‘No.’ Flushed scarlet, Fionn Areth jerked his thumb toward the doorway. His scowl would have credited the Prince of Rathain, as he dispatched the fellow outside.
The room had no rug, no tapestries, no ornaments. A bronze-bound clothes-chest sat beside a low table bearing a basin, and a close stool, shoved underneath. The bed-covers were linen and beautifully woven, with a weapon rack waiting at hand’s reach. The bronze tub had massive, lion ring handles, and was already filled and steaming. Fionn Areth stripped and washed, pausing a moment to admire the towels. Hair dripping, lips pursed in a tuneless whistle, he hooked up his grimed hose to wipe down his baldric and scabbard.
Still naked, hands busy, he heard the door gently open. He wheeled, but found no one there: only a clean pair of boots and a pile of folded clothing.
Sword in hand, he advanced. His nonchalance frayed into a desperate silence as he surveyed the offering he was expected to wear.
The garments themselves were no less than royal. Fionn Areth fingered the silk shirt, nipped and darted with a gentleman’s cords and eyelets, and finished with silver-stamped studs. The matching hose were too narrow and short. The emerald doublet was exquisite, but left him terrified the rich velvet would finger-print if he touched it. Worse, it fastened over the left shoulder with buttons and cord, adorned by a black sash braided with silver, then a belt, and a studded baldric whose fastening required a bewildering set of chased buckles.
Fionn Areth dropped the shirt, his calluses catching on satin facing and sleeve-ribbons. The boots were too small. Knuckles pressed to his temples to forestall a headache, he stopped trying to number the rows of frogged silver buttons.
He had been ten times a fool to have done away with the servant.
‘Pox on the finicky habits of greatfolk!’ Wiping damp hands on his shivering flanks, he assaulted the problem, aware he was going to be late.
By the end, Fionn Areth faced the wracking decision of whether to leave his blade behind on the bed. The scabbard provided was too narrow and long. Presented before a duke who loved war, he was going to make a bungling impression bearing a weapon that banged at his ankles. Bothered to curses, the Araethurian hiked up the hose, gave a rankled jerk on the doublet, then buckled on his sweat-stained baldric and minced toward the door.
His testy jerk flung open the panel. On the other side, experienced faces impassive, were the two men-at-arms appointed to stand as his formal guard.
‘Please follow,’ said the lean one with overdone elegance. He spun on his heel and plunged toward the stair, doubled over with suspect sneezes.
Fionn Areth regarded the grim-faced henchman who, politely, intended to follow. ‘I won’t stand being mocked,’ he snapped under his breath.
The older man looked him once, up and down. His pale eyes flickered over the disaster of snarled cords, mishooked eyelets, and crumpled sash, dragged askew by the blotched leather harness, which hung the dead-serious set of the sword. ‘Of course not, stripling. A pity we’re late. You might have sent Talvish for a doublet that fit, not to mention a suitable scabbard.’
Flushed, Fionn Areth dug in his heels. But the fellow’s mailed fist clapped down on his shoulder with uncompromising camaraderie. ‘On you go. The cooks here are war-trained, and apt to pitch fits if the duke’s honoured guest doesn’t show at the banquet.’
The feast took place in a vaulted hall, located above a gallery with bare floors, evidently used for sword training. Twilight was falling. Led in from the gently darkening streets, pricked by the first flare of watch lanterns—that, by Alestron’s immutable custom, would be snuffed by full dark, to preserve the night-sight of the look-out—Fionn Areth was shown through an oak-beamed entry. He stumbled, wide-eyed, past walls arrayed with collected blade weaponry. Hustled upstairs, he was propelled by Talvish’s firm hand into a dazzle of candle-flame. There, he paused blinking, while the on-going conversation tailed off and stopped, and the strapped door boomed shut behind him. As his sight readjusted, his panicked glance showed that his honour guard had pulled back. Isolated in front of Alestron’s best blood, Fionn Areth squared his shoulders and pulled himself straight, hitched short by the treacherous trunk hose. The dandyish garment was inches too short and threatened to skim off his hips.
Since a courtesy bow would invite a disaster, the Araethurian made the best of the awkwardness. He dipped his chin in salute toward the glittering persons before him.
‘Daelion’s bollocks!’ a deep voice said, awed. ‘Dakar! What have you brought us?’
‘A master-worked piece of Koriani spell-craft.’ The Mad Prophet was already wedged in a stuffed chair, within easy reach of a carafe. A goblet of wine rested on his crossed knee. ‘The young man was shapechanged to match the Master of Shadow as the bait for a plot that was foiled. May I present to your lordship and brothers, Fionn Areth, lately from Araethura?’
‘He doesn’t fill Arithon’s boots, that’s for certain,’ someone else quipped from the side-lines.
Fionn Areth assayed an ungainly step forward, creaking in the tight boots. His sight had adjusted. Before him, broad as a shambling bear and seated backwards astride an oak chair, the imposing fellow in front had to be the reigning Duke of Alestron. He wore no jewels. The only costly glitter upon him was the high polish of chain-mail, worn under th
e faded scarlet and gold of an old-fashioned heraldic surcoat. A beard that, in youth, had flamed like a lion’s, had grizzled to iron grey. He had eyes like steel filings, a face of lined leather, and the bastard sword cocked back at his heels could have spitted a yearling calf. ‘Guest welcome, young man,’ his deep voice resumed, ‘from the s’Brydion of Alestron.’
The duke’s bulk was shadowed by two more grey-eyed men. Large-boned, and wearing their piebald hair in a clan braid, by stance and expression, they seemed alike as two wolves culled from the same litter.
‘My brothers, Keldmar and Parrien,’ said the duke, his arms folded over the back of the chair and his avid gaze still fixed on the Koriani’s made double. ‘My mother’s sister’s son, Sevrand, the heir next in line for the title.’
The successor who nodded, beer tankard in hand, was a broad-shouldered, tawny-haired giant, also armed. He lounged by the window-seat, propped on an arm strapped with bracers, a targe and a short-sword slung on his back.
The duke inclined his head to the left. ‘There stands my last brother, Mearn.’
Youngest, not yet grey at the temples, the sibling just named proved to be a whip-slender version of the rest. His preferred taste embraced a rapier, but disdained the encumbrance of armour. His narrow wrists were encircled with lace, and his taut, balanced body wore tailored style, tastefully set rubies, and a doublet trimmed with gold ribbon.
Exposed before that spare, pleated elegance, and surrounded by men who wore blades like jewellery, Fionn Areth felt coarse as an unfired brick. He swallowed, then ventured through the expectant stillness, ‘I am honoured to be here, your lordships.’
Duke Bransian’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. Steel-clad knuckles pressed to his shut lips, he clashed a quelling fist on his chair, overriding Keldmar’s and Parrien’s simultaneous bid to offer rejoinder. ‘The women will be joining us for the meal, along with the rest of the household.’ The duke finally smiled. ‘Meanwhile, we were pressing Dakar for news. Be welcome and join us, and make free to say how we might make an honoured friend comfortable.’
‘There is nothing I require,’ Fionn Areth declared stiffly. After his host’s crisp, clanborn accents, the twang of his Araethurian origins spun drawled echoes to the farthest corner of the room.
‘Nothing?’ Mearn advanced, to a light-footed rustle of lawn. ‘But then, you shall entertain us.’
‘The goats didn’t teach him to make conversation,’ Parrien said. He pulled his dagger, balanced the tip of the blade on his thumb, and set the steel spinning with a deft flick of his forefinger. ‘Or did they?’
His seeming twin, Keldmar, laughed into the breach. ‘Words, is it? That’s mockery, man. What use has this fighting cock got for hot air? That’s a nice enough sword, despite the gross scabbard.’ Disturbing grey eyes bored into the guest. ‘Is that blade sharp, child?’
Fast as echo, Parrien launched a rejoinder. ‘Never mind sharp! Can he use it?’
Keldmar considered. ‘Maybe. But I’ll stake you my next turn on watch that Sevrand can best the young rooster, even sunk in his cups.’
‘That’s lame!’ Mearn cut in. ‘Sevrand’s no contest!’ At close quarters, now, he paced round the victim, then saw fit to amend his assessment. ‘Except for the boots. That could even the match. But is that a sufficient handicap, do you think, to the beer Sevrand’s swilled since the watch-bell?’
‘No such foolery,’ Dakar said with sidelong relish. ‘Fionn’s not come here to make casual sport. Actually, he longs to enlist, and hopes you’ll consider his prospects as a field officer.’
‘Does he!’ The duke shoved erect off the back of his chair. ‘Do you presume, young man, you’ve the skill and the nerve for it?’
‘By Ath!’ burst in Keldmar. ‘He can scarcely get dressed!’
‘Oh? You oafs would measure a man by his looks?’ Parrien moved, snake-fast, and recaptured his twirled dagger without shifting his attentive stare from Fionn Areth. ‘Does he actually think he can meet the requirements?’
Dakar shrugged, sipped his wine. ‘I made him the promise I would provide him the chance to speak on his own merits.’
‘No,’ Mearn declaimed. ‘No question about it. Another ten minutes wearing those boots, he’ll be too crippled to stand for a demonstration.’
Fionn Areth shouted to make himself heard in the tumult. ‘I would beg leave to try!’ As quiet descended, he ignored the precarious state of his hose, and bowed from the waist to the duke. ‘My lord, I should like nothing better than to be tested for mettle. I am not inexperienced. If I fall short of Alestron’s high standard, I beg to enlist with your foot-troops. I’d be willing to train for as long as it takes to win my fair chance for promotion.’
‘Enough!’ The duke glowered to quell his pack of brothers, then joined Mearn for a closer inspection. ‘We have an earnest young man who’s a guest. He’s declared himself to have fighting potential. Let’s hear out what assets he brings us.’
Fionn Areth drew in a lungful of air. While he groped for the words to begin, Mearn lost patience. Ablaze with a wanton, mercuric energy, he started to circle, dizzy as a moth at a lamp. ‘Do you write?’
‘No,’ said Fionn.
‘Recite poetry? Ah, don’t bother, boy, to open your mouth. With that hayseed accent, certainly not. Do you paint? Play music? Raise beautiful flowers? No time, I see. What do you do, then, a’brend’aia with the nanny goats?’
‘What?’ Fionn Areth did not know Paravian.
Mearn’s pause extended. His level brows lifted. ‘Must I translate?’ he taunted. ‘You don’t speak in fair tongues?’
Before the goatherd could rise to that bait, a faint cough from the side-lines. ‘The term means “dance,”’ the Mad Prophet said, owlish.
Fionn Areth raised his chin, dazed by the suspicious awareness of something gone over his head. Determined, he leashed his temper. ‘We breed them quite otherwise.’
‘No doubt you do.’ While his three brothers watched with rapacious amusement, Mearn moved again, pricking with words. ‘I see by your hands that you’ve never dyed cloth. You don’t spin. You can’t weave, you won’t mix straw clay for bricks. You’ve not rowed in a galley, though you might have dipped water, or maybe cooked swill, or dumped slop for the rowers. Perhaps you’ve done that, though I doubt such. Despite the fact that nice doublet’s too tight, your shoulders are slim as a maiden’s.’
As Fionn Areth’s hazed fury notched higher, Mearn slapped his forehead and turned a glance of discovery upon the crowding ranks of his brothers. ‘Oh, now I have it! How did I miss seeing? Those lovely buttocks, those melting, sweet haunches! And those wrists! Fit for kissing. He’s some fat pimp’s runaway prandey!’
While Sevrand choked and exhaled sprayed beer, the victim flushed crimson, nipped by that gadding tone to recognize mortal insult.
Five pairs of grey eyes, and Dakar’s, of brown, waited to see how he would choose to react.
A brief pause ensued.
Confronted by suspended expectation, Fionn Areth ventured a thin challenge. ‘You called me a name, sir?’
‘He did,’ murmured Keldmar, leaned forward with bloodthirsty interest.
Mearn pattered on in venomous delight, ‘Oh, that.’ He fluttered his lashes. ‘My tender child, are you so inexperienced? Or didn’t you listen?’
Parrien provoked, grinning, ‘He’s from Araethura! He doesn’t know the Shandian gutter name for the painted boys they geld with hot knives to serve twisted filth in the brothels.’
Fionn Areth snarled out an inchoate syllable. Then his hand moved, and his sword, which was sharp, leaped with a practised shriek clear of his scabbard.
Mearn danced back, laughing, as steel darted to spit him. ‘Oh, brothers, he fights!’ Whipped back by the lunge, his rich doublet glittering, he smiled throughout, and kept talking. ‘The manikin fights, and most prettily even with his drawers skint down to his knee-joints!’
Fionn Areth bore in, furious, to a shrill shredding of silk, which
, obliging his tormentor, had slithered to hobble his boot-tops. Mearn bounced out of range to a mocking gleam of gold ribbon. The sword whickered through air, and narrowly missed. Fionn Areth overreached, and his tight doublet tore, to a jingling shower of sprung buckles.
‘Look out!’ howled Parrien, bent double, tears streaming. ‘He’s giving us the strip show of his young life!’
As Dakar scuttled clear to secure the carafe, Mearn kicked the table into the goatherd’s advance. Filled goblets gushed and tumbled onto the carpet. Glass shattered, crunched to slivers as Fionn Areth charged ahead in his misfitted boots.
‘Enough!’ Duke Bransian waded in and slapped down a mailed fist. The goatherd’s struck weapon hit the floor, clattering. A page-boy who descended with towels dodged the flying blade. As though he mopped up after brawls by routine, he bent to sweep glass and blot puddles.
Fionn Areth, hazed wild, stood in the wrecked shreds of his clothing, rubbing his shocked wrist. He looked up. And up; while from his muscular height, the Duke of Alestron glared down at him. ‘Stripling, you haven’t a babe’s self-control, to wipe your smeared arse with a napkin.’
The Araethurian glared back, hornet-mad, and possessed of a desperate dignity. ‘Then teach me. I’ll learn.’ While Bransian’s auger gaze bored him through, he plunged ahead with bravado. ‘I’ll serve. I’ll black boots. I’ll do anything you ask. Only let me sign on to your troop rolls. Let me march under Alestron’s proud banner to take down the Master of Shadow.’
The pause was electric.
‘What?’ whispered Mearn.
‘Kill Arithon,’ said Fionn. ‘That is why I came here.’
At that, the whole room exploded: every man standing rushed forward and pounced. Fionn Areth was milled down by a flurry of mailed blows, knocked bloody and flat, then spread-eagled. Three brothers s’Brydion gripped him, wrists and ankle. His right leg was crushed under the grey-haired man-at-arms, while the blonde one poised a dagger over his heart, and the duke’s bastard sword pricked at his windpipe.