‘Assassin’s blade,’ Taskin identified. ‘Though I don’t know what sect.’ He glanced up, his eyes as relentlessly ruthless as the sheen on the weapon before him. ‘Does this belong to Captain Mysh kael? If so, I would ask how he came by it before I jumped to suspicious conclusions.’
‘That blade is not Mysh kael’s,’ the high prince corrected. ‘It belonged to the man just dispatched to kill him.’
Unmoved by drama, Taskin shrugged. ‘Dead?’
‘Violently so,’ burst in the seneschal. ‘Your desert cur all but slashed him in half before the eyes of the Lowergate garrison!’
‘This should concern me?’ Taskin provoked. ‘If the captain’s still standing since the attack, he’s certainly competent to mind his affairs without intervention on my part.’
The seneschal bristled, all but launched from his chair. ‘If his affairs run counter to Sessalie’s wellbeing, your concern becomes paramount.’
‘Then get to the point!’ Aggressive, impatient, Taskin poised to stalk out. ‘Show me there’s a threat to the realm beyond circling, cat-and-mouse rhetoric’
The High Prince of Devall raised a placating, ringed hand. ‘I’ll speak. My marshal assembled the evidence, after all. If the princess is restored to us, living and well, her recovery may ride on the fact he recognized the pattern on that hilt for the mark of a barqui’ino do’aa.’
While the seneschal subsided, and the chancellors watched with uneasiness, Taskin’s blistering glance encompassed the marshal’s bull-necked complacency. ‘How do you know? You have no such training.’
The prince quelled his man’s nettled surge to arise. ‘No training, that’s true. Yet Devall has wealth, exposure and enemies. My lineage has lost kings when men bearing such weapons crossed inside of our borders. When the powers that hired them found us, or our allies, too troublesome, necessity compelled us to know things your backwater realm need never address in detail.’
Taskin hooked a chair, and conceded enough to sit down. ‘I am listening, your Highness. Tell me facts, not conjecture, since I am informed enough to realize that no barqui’ino master ever sells his oath-sworn as assassins.’ As though he wore royal surcoat and sword, and not a plain woollen dressing robe, he directed his drilling regard down the length of the table.
The High Prince of Devall inclined his head, bright as a gilt icon against the dark panes of the casement. ‘Let my marshal explain to your lordship directly’
‘The do’aa don’t hire out assassins, this is true,’ Devall’s ranking guardsman conceded. ‘But they do send them to carry out deaths on their own account. An oath-sworn who breaks their tradition of integrity is cut down so, without quarter. Since an outcast initiate will sell his sword, and since his trained background makes him all the more deadly, we in Devall have studied barqui’ino traditions. Your Mysh kael is such a creature, forsworn.’ The high prince’s officer concluded his case with patronizing assurance. ‘The man your desert-bred gutted tonight was sent from Kaien’s do’aa to dispatch him. Your proof is the pattern engraved on this sword. That your captain broke loyalty is beyond any question. Three men at the Lowergate garrison saw him search the corpse. He found and removed a seal fashioned of wood and gold wire that had been quartered in fragments. Such a token would have been ritually broken by the master whose tradition he dishonoured. Sergeant Jedrey has the names of your witnesses, if you wish to crosscheck for veracity.’
The seneschal rushed to drive home the inequity. ‘The king’s trust was based upon Mysh kael’s past record. You heard his Majesty state that condition, with the Duchess of Phail in attendance.’
‘Sessalie’s council must support the arraignment,’ ventured the slender chancellor down the table. His pearl studs and lace emphasized his distress, as he swept a hand towards the unwrapped weapon. ‘Here we have proof the foreign captain is forsworn, and unfit to invest in crown service.’
‘That’s a long leap, from the inference of one broken promise, to cry a man down for treason,’ Taskin remarked. His glance raked over the assembly. ‘Should King Isendon choose to dismiss him, and we don’t know that his Majesty will—the case has not been heard—Mysh kael would be still entitled to freedom. The council’s writ for arrest is not legal. I cannot call out my guardsmen against a man who has committed no crime against Sessalie.’
‘Then it is my realm’s honour your planted feet will offend!’ the high prince interrupted with heat. ‘I want that desert-bred captain detained! Let the wretch answer to my charge of treason against my future wife’s standing as queen of Devall.’
‘Your suit for marriage has not yet been signed,’ Taskin responded, unmoved. ‘Your slighted honour at this point rides upon nothing more than conjecture.’
Accosted by a spitting explosion from the chancellors, and condemnation from the seneschal concerning disastrous losses to trade, the crown commander held firm. His enamel eyes bored into Devall’s high prince. As his survey detected the masked signs of unease, reflected again by the slight, fretted movement that stirred through the royal retinue, Taskin resumed his sharp challenge. ‘What aren’t you telling us, your Highness? What hidden motives lie outside Princess Anja’s feminine charm? For whatever harm has breached our borders, I presume to suggest that Devall’s might and wealth would be the more likely attraction to set her Grace under threat in the first place.’
‘You place our high prince’s dignity below an outcast foreigner whelped like a stray dog in a ditch?’ the crown advocate pealed in struck shock.
Before Taskin’s withering contempt, the heir apparent flushed, pride reversed into startling contrition. ‘No, this is not what you think! I don’t speak out of spiteful prejudice.’ He adjusted his chair, then glanced down at his hands, torn and suddenly reticent. ‘Devall has enemies,’ he confessed in discomfort. ‘Very deadly ones, at this jointure.’
Taskin sharpened his nailing regard. ‘Better talk plainly, your Highness, and fast, since you think they’ve endangered our princess.’
‘Who else could have possibly struck at her Grace?’ the high prince cried with breaking anguish. ‘I value her spirit, would never have risked her to harm! But the burdens of crown responsibility sometimes cause a man to make unpleasant choices. Yes, I love Princess Anja! Yes, I courted her for her exceptional wit and her exquisite beauty. But I must tell you now, she is also desirable to Devall because Sessalie could offer my heirs a safe haven should our lowcountry lands be invaded.’
Taskin cut across the shocked clamour that ripped through the gathering. ‘You say Devall has attracted the enmity of a sorcerer?’
The high prince swallowed, his stiff bearing in shreds. ‘I fear so.’ Pinned down under Taskin’s relentless scrutiny, he divulged the shaming truth. ‘Mercy on us, we have. The threats are direct, but not public. For that reason, your garrison captain could easily be the hand of that evil, among us. Mysh kael is an oath-breaker, condemned by Kaien’s do’aa. And our enemy has been well known to contract such outcasts and send them as weapons against us. For the wellbeing of your princess, I beg you, constrain him! If he has been hired as catspaw to strike down my alliance with Sessalie, your royal family will see blood and tragedy, I promise.’
The heavyset chancellor appealed directly to Taskin. ‘Can you swear, or show proof that this desert-bred’s not acting under the pay of a foreigner?’
‘No.’ Taskin addressed that shortfall without flinching. ‘Such things can be checked.’
‘But an investigation in depth will take time,’ his lean colleague argued. ‘Dare we allow the creature his liberty, with Anja’s safety in question?’
‘The council can appoint Sergeant Jedrey to take charge of the garrison,’ the seneschal pressed, the parchment bearing the writ for arrest tucked back under protective fingers.
‘Cade’s better suited,’ Taskin snapped, while the High Prince of Devall stood back from the argument, and Captain Bennent, from the doorway, gave professional opinion that even young Stennis handled the men more
effectively.
‘But Jedrey’s their senior, and born above Highgate,’ the seneschal took pains to point out. ‘On the heels of a traitor, the nobles would raise less complaint over one of their own.’
‘I will agree to detain Captain Mysh kael!’ Taskin cracked across the raised climate of vindication. ‘He’ll be held for questioning until his word to the crown can be tested. Yet until my investigation establishes guilt, or unless King Isendon’s personal ruling sets the crown seal to his arraignment, he is a commissioned officer of the realm, and not to be named as a traitor.’
‘We are satisfied.’ The High Prince of Devall flicked a nod at his marshal, and as one, his liveried retinue arose. Although he was entitled to royal prerogative, he graciously allowed the seneschal and chancellors to leave the chamber ahead of him. As they filed towards the doorway, conferring in subdued tones, Taskin signalled for Captain Bennent to let the room clear without hindrance. Unmoved, except to rise to his feet, Sessalie’s Commander of the Guard waited, dispassionate, as the heir apparent of Devall detached from his retinue, and strode to confront him face on.
‘We have been at odds, your lordship. I am regretful for that.’ Chin raised, his neat hair caught back in a ribbon beneath the diadem of worked gold, the high prince displayed his wealth and refined breeding with unabashed grace in adversity. ‘Can we lay our differences aside? Sessalie and Devall are now joined as allies. We share the same wish for her Grace’s secure future. The hope of her swift recovery assuredly aligns us on the same side.’
Taskin returned his most freezing regard. ‘We may hold the same wish for the princess’s safety, your Highness. Yet after the truths you have disclosed today, never again presume to suppose that we might join hands in alliance.’
The handsome prince stiffened, gold eyes flashing fire. ‘I will marry Anja. She will be honoured as queen in my realm. If she dies, or sees hurt because you stayed your hand, or if you fall short of your word to kennel your desert-bred captain, then I promise: I will see redress. In Devall, such insolence as yours would be broken, one bone at a time, on the wheel.’
Taskin smiled with a punctilious precision that mocked. ‘But this is not Devall, your Highness. Since my service to Sessalie does not involve making arrests in a dressing robe, you alone are responsible for preventing me from direct execution of my duty.’
‘Then I commend you to action, your lordship. I insist, we should not be at odds.’ As a last, gallant gesture, the prince extended his hand.
The crown commander no more than looked on, his stance stilled to frosty amazement.
Stonewalled, as the young royal jerked his offered touch short, a recoil as abrupt as a scalding. ‘Forgive me, your lordship! I should have expected your insular pride might refuse a foreigner’s familiarity.’
Taskin returned a bow of dispassionate correctness. ‘As a foreign royal, given guest right under my sovereign’s protection, I must ask your Highness to remain under guard in your quarters. I will assign men to address your security. For if Devall’s enemies have moved against Sessalie through your proposed suit to our princess, logic follows that the acts of such heinous conspirators might also place you at risk.’
The prince stiffened. ‘You overstep your authority, Commander!’
‘Do I, your Highness?’ Taskin matched the younger man’s fury, his features unmoved as cut marble. ‘Then present your complaint to the king when he wakens. I’d ask you in for the audience, anyway. Whether or not you’d choose to be present when Captain Mysh kael answers your charges, be certain I will have Isendon’s ear when I interview you at exhaustive length. Once I return, you will explain the peril you have drawn to our heart through the ties to your kingdom’s enemies.’
Unasked, both marshal and retinue moved in. They surrounded their prince, then escorted him out in their circle of liveried protection.
To Bennent, still on station by the door, Taskin gave disposition. ‘Hear my orders, Captain. See to the high prince’s security. Assign eight men with sharp eyes and keen ears. I will dress, and attend what needs to be done to fetch Mysh kael in from the garrison.’
Captain Bennent absorbed this, the implication of posting surveillance turning his frown deeply troubled. ‘You don’t completely trust Devall’s motives?’
Stepped back to the table, Taskin regarded the sword, then snatched the veiling cloth overtop as though the sight of the steel gave offence. ‘His Highness of Devall is a coward,’ he said.
‘That’s harsh,’ Bennent murmured. ‘The princess adores him.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Taskin tugged the lapels of his robe close, as though he suffered a sudden chill. ‘A statesman will always use his best attributes. This one has shamelessly snared her Grace’s affection and wrangled our merchant’s ambitions to buy the toehold for an alliance. The prize glittered, and blinded us. Our failing king blunted sound judgement. We saw our princess as a jewel of incalculable worth, and quite failed to weigh our kingdom’s stability as our most precious asset. Powers above! Who thought rich and powerful Devall might broker a bid for survival? Shame on us all, if our Anja should pay with her life as the pawn of lowcountry entanglements. How dare the crowned King of Devall think so low, to play Sessalie’s peace on a game board encroached on by sorcerers!’
A jagged pause followed, while the candle flames shimmered, and the stilled air hung like liquid glass.
‘Do I trust his Highness?’ Taskin straightened trim shoulders as though to dislodge a stinging fly. ‘Captain Mysh kael does not. By his ornery nature, he’s told me straight out. Now, that could be because he’s employed by Devall’s enemies. Or he could be loyal, and Isendon’s sworn man, in which case, I want the high prince kept under tight watch until we know whether these accusations hold any substance.’
Framed against the dimmed corridor, Bennent showed surprise. ‘You think Devall’s charges are spurious?’
Taskin scarcely hesitated. ‘Let’s just say that, given what I know, I don’t see that desert-bred accepting the employ of any faction that associates itself with a sorcerer.’
Now Bennent looked troubled. ‘Without the king’s direct intervention, you have no legal choice but to bend to the will of the council. The arrest their hasty vote has demanded will have to be carried out.’
‘That’s the meat of the problem, exactly’ Taskin brushed past towards the stair, the hem of his dressing robe slapping his bare calves to his tempest of testy irritation. ‘If you say prayers for any one thing, beg the powers that be for a miracle. Let Captain Mysh kael be convinced to abide by convention, and come into custody quietly’
XVI. Pre-dawn
WORD OF TASKIN’S ARRIVAL AT THE LOWERGATE DRAWBRIDGE REACHED VENSIC AT THE GARRISON WARDROOM. CAUGHT WITH CHALK SLATE in hand, upbraiding a laggard, the breveted officer stared at the man sent in with the news from the watch.
‘The king’s first commander? Here!’ he exclaimed, disbelieving.
‘Himself,’ the messenger affirmed, winded yet from the sprint that had brought him ahead of the cavalcade. ‘He’s got ten outriders with lances behind. To judge by their mounts, they mean business.’
The demands of meeting Captain Mykkael’s stringent discipline taught a man to respond to the unexpected. Vensic cast down the slate where he stood, and sprinted flat out for the bailey.
He burst out of the keep just as the task squad from the palace drew rein inside the archway. Mist hung, blanket-thick. The hour preceded the change in the watch, when the yard stood all but deserted. Men out on patrol had not yet returned, with their relief, soon to arm, not quite due to call in for duty. The stone enclosure as yet held no bustle of industry, no drills or sparring recruits, no cook’s boys or washing women, and no busy clamour of armourers. Against early silence, the crack of shod hooves on the cobbles raised deafening thunder.
All Highgate guard veterans, the riders pulled up in formation, then held there in ominous quiet. Vensic peered through the fog, attentive to the man at the head of the column who
dismounted and tossed the reins of his grey charger to the first groom who rushed from the stable.
Taskin strode over directly, the gleam of his helm marked by hellish reflections thrown off the coals in the fire pans. His blue eyes raked over Vensic just once: a scouring assessment that mapped the young sergeant’s neat surcoat and immaculate weapons, and no doubt discerned the farm mud on the boots of his origins.
Still, the crisp challenge would have done Mykkael proud. ‘I’m acting officer of the keep, Lord Commander.’
Taskin returned a clipped nod, his glance showing tacit approval. He would have already noted the keen stance of the sentries minding the walls. Now, his scrutiny swept over the bailey, noting the rigorous tidiness, the cord of piled wood, the ready response of the grooms and the vigilance instilled in the gate watch. ‘I’ve come for your captain. Is Mykkael asleep?’
Struck to unease by the precise choice of accent, Vensic breathed easier, that this summons at least would catch no one in bed. ‘Captain’s up and gone out, lordship. Sergeant Stennis has the Falls Gate patrol. Sergeant Cade reports with the relief in an hour. Meantime, what can I do for you?’
The guard’s first commander gave no inch of slack. ‘Tell me where Captain Mykkael has gone.’
Vensic’s crown oath foreclosed the evasion that even Mykkael’s imposed standard of conduct would have expressly forbidden. ‘He dreamed badly, he said. Something he wished to investigate took him out to the tourney field beyond the walls.’
Taskin fielded this news in his stride. ‘Stay here. Mind the garrison. When Cade comes on duty, as there’s news, I will send.’
Footsteps approached; someone’s hasty arrival tossed a restive disturbance through the closed ranks of the horsemen.
Vensic noted the upset without time to react. As foreboding broke into a clear jab of warning, he had eyes for nothing except the commander before him. ‘Bright powers, what’s happened, to bring such as you down from Highgate?’