Warhost of Vastmark

  The argument fell away into distance as the craft bearing Talith rounded the spined jut of an outcrop. Along with screeling bird cries came the faint ring of mallets, and through them, with earsplitting clarity, a child’s treble shout from a dory that bobbed among the rocks. ‘The Master of Shadow is back!’

  ‘Welcome to my den of iniquity,’ Arithon said with a wicked, lazy grin.

  The mallet strokes went ragged and died away, replaced by loud talk, then a man’s whoop, followed by laughter.

  ‘By Ath, he’s snatched her after all!’ someone pealed in an accent from Southshire’s quay shanties.

  Talith shut her eyes. Her hands clenched down on her cache of rescued pins until the gems pebbled marks in her skin. She endured while the longboat grounded with a grate on sea-washed stones. Cumbered in state velvets, she could not escape another round of ignominy as Arithon scooped her up like a trophy. He waded ashore and set her down for inspection before the uncouth pack of craftsmen on the strand.

  His outpost held little beyond a scraggle of tents strung between what looked like the yard of a furniture shop. Small stools and benches and a vehicle that looked like a dogcart lay scattered about in various states of completion. The shoreline was littered in shavings of yellow pine, and the fishy, sour smell of the natural air twined through a cloying reek of resin. The chips were going to cling horribly to velvets.

  Silent in distaste, her head still giddy from too many weeks on shipboard, Talith tried a mincing step. The narrow kidskin slippers on her feet were fashioned for carpets and paved walkways. On the rough ground, they slipped and wobbled. The flounces of her skirts obscured her footing. Unless she wished to walk like a crofter with her petticoats kirtled up, she would have to lean on Arithon for balance. Mortified that the sole slight in her power was to treat his courtesy as if he were a servant, Talith ground her teeth in forced patience. For the first time in her life, she wished to bundle her face behind her cloak as every sweating, shirtless labourer leered at her in wolfish interest. One or two with the shame of chastised boys dusted shavings off their forearms and chests.

  Low and to the sidelines, somebody whistled. A man tried a coarse remark.

  Arithon clipped through the lewd comment with a line like a forge-heated blade. ‘May I present her Grace of Avenor. She is a princess, as you see. Every man in her presence may bow with the courtesy due her station, or else answer to me later for his insolence. And docked pay for all, a day for each minute the last of you stands idle.’

  The gawking line of men melted clear of her path; They snatched up their tools to a few scattered laughs and a mild exchange of bluster. ‘Kneel on such rocks, and ye risk a burst kneecap. Me, I’ll take my blisters in the sawpit.’

  A barrel-chested joiner spat sideward and chuckled. ‘Man, don’t fool us! Ye’re old lady’d lash you to blisters wi’ her tongue, did she hear you’d lost yer wage to ogle royalty.’

  ‘Sithaer, then, who’s for telling her?’ The injured party shook a calloused fist. ‘The jack who tries’ll taste my knuckles for his breakfast and his teeth the next week, to the lifelong wreck of his digestion.’

  ‘High drama and low comedy,’ Arithon said, a pricking spark to his humour. ‘We may not be refined, but you can’t say you’ll lack for entertainment.’

  ‘And which sort is this?’ Lady Talith stabbed back.

  For as they crested the slope from the beachhead, one man had not moved on command. No sweat-drenched joiner, this one stood tall in a jerkin of thong-laced deer hide. He was armed with a bow, several bone-handled knives, and a deadly plain longsword with the handgrip wrapped in stained leather. The only flamboyance about him was the fox brush laced into the end of his braid. His eyes were alert and cool as dappled shade, and his body, a fit wild animal’s. ‘Your Grace of Rathain,’ he greeted in the whip snap clean accents that tagged him immediately as clanborn. ‘My Lord Erlien, High Earl of Alland and caithdein of Shand sends respects.’

  Arithon inclined his head in greeting. A token changed hands. Talith caught the impression of a royal device before the disc was returned. ‘I’m pleased to extend my hospitality.’ Angled s’Ffalenn features showed inquisitive speculation. ‘Why the formality? You’ve brought more than horses and cattle?’

  ‘Fiends alive!’ The clansman showed white teeth in a grimace. ‘I’ve been in and out of every peat bog in these scarps, trying to soak that reek off me.’ The barbarian softened to reproof as he fired back the gist of the question. ‘The stock’s your problem now, and a few other troubles along with them. Earl Jieret’s cranky war captain, for one. He’s got a temper like a stoat. But you know that since you asked for him, they said.’

  ‘A sweet touch will scarcely train my mercenaries.’ In tacit awareness of how the sun striking down through the defiles must feel on dark velvets, Arithon guided Talith forward and let the clan courier fall into step. ‘What else?’

  The scout hesitated, toyed with his fox brush, then shot a furtive glance toward the finery the prince wore like a townsman. A dubious brow twitched, for the slight, dapper figure seemed no match for the razortongued swordsman reputed to have bested his clanlord. ‘I have two others with me, by Erlien’s choice,’ the messenger said to close out his business. ‘A widow from Merior and a guardsman, once captain to Alestron’s duke.’ This last drew a nod toward Talith and a pause of evident uncertainty.

  Arithon assured him, ‘There’s no secret. Jinesse and Tharrick are friends. Erlien expected some problem?’

  The scout shrugged, his footfalls preternaturally quiet as he picked through the wood scrolls silted across the path by the wind. ‘That’s yours to determine. My lord bade me warn you. Both have fallen hard for Lysaer s’Ilessid’s opinion of your morals. The man’s yours, despite his squeamish conscience. But the woman’s a brittle, dry stick. She followed you only for her children.’

  ‘High drama,’ Arithon quipped. At the scout’s flick of puzzlement, he gave a bitter laugh that raised the fine hair at Talith’s neck. ‘The matron’s outraged, blind to reason, and expecting to be corrupted by slow inches? You just got here? Well then, let’s not keep her waiting. Where is she?’

  But there was only one place in his camp to quarter women that Talith could see. A ramshackle cabin perched at the cliff base, its unweathered wood a cry of light colour against rocks streaked by seeping, small springs.

  Arithon dismissed the scout, then dispatched a nearby craftsman to find the twins. To Talith, he invited, ‘Come along, your Grace. You might as well enjoy the fun.’ His hand on her arm too firm for refusal, he towed the princess toward the doorway.

  The hinges creaked open to reveal a room with a bare table and chairs. A blond, bearded man perched on the unglazed windowsill, his frame strapping and broad as a mercenary. He clasped the hand of a woman in a mousy brown dress who looked nervous and drawn, hair like fine flax tumbled in broken strands around her temples. She gave a timid start at the Master’s forceful entry, reached her feet in a worried bound, then froze. Her eyes swept his person, plainly surprised by the rich sheen of silks that forced recognition of royal rank.

  Unwilling and unwanted observer, Talith felt pity for her discomfort as Arithon swept aside her stammered greeting. ‘Here I am, black as night in Sithaer and shedding blight like last season’s leaves. At least, Erlien’s scout tells me you believe all the fashionable rumours.’ Lightly as he stopped, his tense stance presaged unpleasantness. ‘If I’m evil, then make me repent.’

  The male confidant in the window shot straight in protective shock. ‘For pity, man! She’s been worried sick for her children.’

  ‘They’re her offspring, not yours, Tharrick,’ Arithon corrected. He took another step and leaned on fine knuckles against the tabletop. The faintest ring of horror shuddered through as he added, ‘In Ath’s name, you know me. What harm did you think I would do them?’

  The pale woman swallowed. ‘I don’t care to survey the mire of your conscience. I came to fetch my twins clear of it.
’

  ‘Fetch away,’ Arithon quipped on a thin snap of anger. ‘Your children aren’t infants. Place your boy in service to s’Ilessid, and he’ll spend his next years polishing guardsmen’s boots and eating table scraps. He’ll learn the art of war. Obedience will be his only trade. If he’s quick, if he kills well, he may become an officer. If he’s not, two shirts, a sword, and an early death will be his lot. Will you be proud to weep at his grave site?’

  He had managed to sting the mother to pale anger. She stiffened her spine; after all, she had never expected this confrontation to go easily. ‘I had chosen an apprenticeship with a weaver in Shaddorn. That’s honest, at least. My son would be free of your sorceries and no blind mark for your wiles.’

  Arithon moved, sidestepped, and leaned by the doorpost to lend Talith an untrammelled view. ‘Ah, yes. Looms and shuttlecocks for Fiark, whose gift is numbers, and who throws stones and strikes everything he aims at. Let’s consider Feylind. She’s no good with her hands. In fact, if you’ve noticed, she’s farsighted. Her brother threads her needles when she needs to patch her breeches. She would blood you with her knife if she felt she had the need to, and she thinks of skirts like suffocation. Her talent is sailing and her trade is the sea. Hold her ashore, and you force her to a life of mediocrity.’

  ‘Better that than see her claimed by Dharkaron for Sithaer,’ Jinesse said in an obstinacy that won Talith’s admiration.

  That moment the latch rattled. Arithon spun and prisoned the bar with long fingers. ‘Your son, mistress.’ And he flung wide the door.

  Fiark stood on the threshold, puzzled and motionless as he blinked to adjust to the gloom. The moment framed him, a gangling lad with overlarge fists and skinned knees, his spill of flaxen hair tumbled over a tanned, untroubled brow. Stronger and straighter than the day he left Merior, his direct blue eyes held a self-confidence as fresh as the sunlight at his back.

  ‘Mother?’ he said, reverted in a breath to boyish astonishment. He stepped into the shack with a heart-tearing mixture of restraint and joyous abandon.

  Glad as he was to see Jinesse, he started as she knelt and swept him up, three months of worry compressed in an overpowering, tearful embrace. His high yelp of protest was smothered in brown muslin, and the wrestler’s move he engaged to tear free was not at all couth or forgivable.

  ‘I’m eleven!’ he declared, defiant at her reprimand, his face stamped to square-jawed disappointment. ‘Do you have to treat me like a baby?’

  ‘She’s your mother,’ Tharrick chastened. ‘You’ll do as she directs.’

  Fiark’s sunny nature chilled over in comprehension, his features rearranged to resentment beyond his years. ‘You’re here to take me away. You want to apprentice me to that weaver in Shaddorn.’ Charged with the contempt, the young voice turned acid. ‘Were father alive, he never would have allowed it.’

  Stunned by the accusation’s cruel candour, Jinesse gasped. The boy drew up and faced her. He did not, as she had feared, appeal to Arithon for protection, but waited in strait patience for her answer. When she could not speak for grief, he spun back toward the doorway. ‘I won’t go,’ he threatened in a man’s controlled rebuff, then bolted outside at a run. The panel banged shut in an unbridled blast of childish temper.

  ‘Will you hear the bare truth?’ Arithon said with a gentleness that pleaded for the boy. ‘Not mine. Not Lysaer’s, but Fiark’s. He wants to be a trade factor. There’s an honest house in Innish I know would be overjoyed to train him. The family is ageing and has no offspring to inherit.’

  ‘You have no pity and all the answers,’ Jinesse said through tight emotion. ‘My son was always difficult, but Feylind was obedient. If she’s changed, then you’ve warped her trusting disposition to your purpose. You turn the young, so they say. I saw you use my son against me now. I know your cause is bloody war. I am going to take my twins and leave this place, and never speak your name to them again.’

  Arithon regarded her, opaque, wholly still; chillingly unlike the fair Prince of the West, who once came honestly and openly to her cottage in Merior to offer his clear-eyed consolation. Black-haired and shadowed, Rathain’s prince said, ‘Blame whatever you like on me if you can keep your peace of mind. But if you dare to know your heart, I rather think you’ll find I’m a damned convenient crutch as a criminal. Condemn me out of hand, and you have the perfect reason to keep your children tied to your petticoats.’

  He was right; even Talith as a stranger could see as much. The burly man by the window stared in anguish at clenched fists, while the widow stood erect in desperate anguish. ‘Fiark at Innish would be safe. What do you ask for Feylind? Should she stay with you and suffer in the violence to come?’

  Arithon expelled a soundless breath. He made two salient points. ‘I alone can teach her the arts of offshore navigation. She already does star and sun sights, and is well on her way with reading charts. Against the war-host, I’ll be truthful, I’m still seeking answers. But should you leave her, never forget. You still hold my signet and my pledge.’

  The reminder hammered Jinesse like a visible impact. ‘You know my twins were all that stopped me from sending Lysaer’s galleys after you.’

  Arithon shrugged. ‘As a brother can love, so can he hate. Lysaer, also, will use what falls to hand.’ Her shocked expression snapped him to a rust-grained turn of irony. ‘You didn’t know? He’s my half-brother, and fittingly legitimate. He finds the attachment annoying, but I see no point in hiding facts. The Prince of the West has his own soiled linen, but you won’t find me parading in the public eye to gain an army.’ With lancing sarcasm, he ended, ‘As Dakar will surely snatch his chance to tell you, I snare children instead.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Tharrick uncoiled from the sill and folded the widow into his arms. ‘We came to fetch her twins. Why not decide their futures later? She’s travelled three hundred leagues with a dusty herd of cattle. You don’t have to tear out her heart!’

  ‘He’s sure if he doesn’t I won’t give my twins space to grow.’ Distraught but not witless, Jinesse pushed away the needed offer of protection. ‘Let me be. I have to think.’

  ‘Feylind was out in the dory,’ said Arithon on a startling break into tenderness. ‘I asked a seaman to fetch her in. By now, she ought to be down at the landing.’ He opened the door and allowed her to leave, her thin face bathed in tears, and her broken composure walled behind dignified silence.

  Tharrick saw her to the threshold, spared a nod to the princess, then closed the panel behind, leaving darkness.

  ‘I grant you the point about the children,’ Talith said with quick contempt. ‘What can we victims do but admire the diabolical cruelty of your lessons? You have no mercy in you. My husband is well justified to hound you to your death.’

  ‘Lysaer’s opinion is your affair,’ Arithon fired back, then gave her his insolent laughter. ‘Is winning or losing all you understand? Then I pity you. Whether or not you’ll cede the match is quite moot. I charge you instead. Learn by what you saw and take fair warning.’

  The day as it progressed became no less settled, although Talith’s chests of belongings were off-loaded ashore, and she was given private quarters in one of the shanty’s two rooms. Arithon afforded neither company nor sport for her scathing, sharp wit. He closeted himself away all afternoon aboard his brigantine in counsel with the grizzled and quick-tempered war captain called to serve from the clans of Rathain. The scout sent from Shand’s caithdein received close instructions and left. The master shipwright and his least-skilled joiners were dispatched to Khetienn’s hold and asked to build stalls to confine livestock. The work would apparently be finished under way, to judge by the banty little cook’s screeched invective as he bustled to reprovision the galley.

  Time weighed on the princess, left alone in the company of her handmaid. Mistress Jinesse spent an hour with her daughter that ended in a tempestuous argument, young Feylind’s responses turned filthy with sailor’s vernacular she took care not to
call out too loud. The guardsman Tharrick’s stifled laughter affirmed the apt guess, that Arithon would make things unpleasant for the girl if he heard her use such ugly language to her mother.

  Jinesse had no choice but to resign herself. Her twins had matured enough to have minds of their own. They held only scorn for the weaver’s trade.

  ‘Too dull,’ Feylind said, cryptic. ‘I hate sitting still.’

  ‘The folk who have the fun trade the cloth,’ Fiark added. ‘I should rather count baled goods than threads.’

  The widow had nothing to say to this. She ruffled the paired, leaf-gold heads instead. Feylind spoiled the gesture by twitching back from her touch; Fiark endured, but looked offended.

  Jinesse also found herself at loose ends in a yard full of labourers. Wrapped in dense brooding since the Master of Shadow had so high-handedly intervened with her family, she had little to say to the princess. She looked to Tharrick for consolation and waited in pallid patience to demand the facts concerning the factor’s family at Innish with interest in Fiark’s future. On the topic of her daughter’s wish to sign onto Khetienn as cabin girl, she pursed her lips in flat denial.

  The day wore away to her fretting.

  By dusk, the hammers fell silent, leaving the mingled sharps and flats of gulls skimming the tide line. The sea wind wafted the pungent resins of pitch pine, and the men ate boiled crabs from a pot, brought to smokeless heat by coal carried in on the brigantine. The small outpost embraced its evening routine with a certain rough tranquillity; except for the scouts sent in parties to sweep the rimrocks on patrol.

  The council on shipboard broke up. By the damp rocks at the landing, Dakar’s tones complained of perishing hunger, bitten through by Caolle, more querulous still, expounding on the need for more caution. ‘So who’s fooling whom?’ he badgered to whoever lay in earshot. ‘His Grace of Rathain is a hunted man in four kingdoms, and the chit he holds hostage is one an army would burn cities to win back.’