Worse still, Taskin’s sword had left him well blooded. An ugly stab wound punctured his thigh. His right knuckles were opened, a surface gash that promised to stiffen like vengeance as swelling impaired the tendons. Altogether too many hurts marred the focus of his attention.
Eyes shut, shaking through the whiplash reaction from use of his barqui’ino reflexes, Mykkael strangled back the distraction of grief. He could not change fate, must not torment himself with the useless wish, that the commander’s skilled swordplay might have left him one opening for a less drastic response. Remorse did not ease the demands of necessity. Ahead, Mykkael measured the daunting odds set against Princess Anja’s survival.
Behind, first of the unpardonable string of casualties, the crown’s most loyal defender was down with a crippling wound, and in peril of losing his life.
Stretched out in damp leaves, the desert-bred captain marshalled the cold force of his discipline. He breathed until his raced panting and pulse rate subsided. Subservient to his mind, his stilled body melded into the natural landscape. Overhead, a foraging sparrow flitted through interlaced branches. Patient as a stalker, Mykkael eased the cloth away from his face. He grasped the blow tube, then drew out his last darts. These had been simply fashioned, no more than a tinker’s needle fixed into a dowel plug, with a wisp of fletching attached. Since the sparrow showed no sign of alarm, he snatched the moment to his advantage. With the needle of one dart used as a stylus, he scratched a row of small characters into the wood stock of the other. Chance stayed in his favour. His tremors had steadied enough to allow his rushed hand to stay legible.
Then he dipped the point of the marked dart into the phial of poison tucked into the flap of his scrip. No instant too soon; after he loaded the blow tube, the sparrow spread slate wings and flew. Mykkael waited, listening. This thicket masked him like countless others, snatched as havens in enemy territory. As he had through defence of the Efandi princess, he sensed the live thrum of a sorcerer’s lines course through the earth and the air. That uncanny, sawing awareness flicked and snapped at his sensitized nerve ends. Mykkael held, touched by witch thoughts, and racked into sweat by the brushed sense of Anja’s raw fear.
Too late for regret that high council politics had sparked the fire to precipitate crisis: his choice to escape for her Grace’s survival was a cruel, two-edged bind that must raise the stakes and cause Sessalie’s enemies to unmask.
The garrison, the royal guard and the failing old king would all too likely become torn apart by that consequence.
Mykkael strangled the ghosts of old sorrows, along with new ones that cut him as fiercely. As he once had, bound by Prince Al-Syn’s death wish, he took charge under ruthless priority. He shifted his breathing, as he had trained, and suspended his mind, a heartbeat removed from the primal state of trance that would unleash his volatile reflexes.
The crackle of disturbed brush that had startled the bird approached the thicket, moving uphill. An equine snort tagged the determined last guardsman, pursuing his quarry, alone. Mykkael poised the blow tube against his lips. His motionless body went nerveless. Fixated, he watched the drift of the mist.
The lancer came on as a stalking shadow, blurring the gapped trunks of the aspens. Mykkael hung back. Shoot too soon, and his dart might bounce off the man’s armour, or snarl amid the bunched folds of surcoat or cloak. The desert-bred waited, unmoving, until the horse was all but on top of him, and the man’s florid face plainly showed through the film of the fog-bank.
The mind, stripped of reason, recorded details: fair moustache, blue eyes, a lance captain’s insignia above the crown’s falcon blazon on the breast. Highgate ignorant, or else sheltered by parade ground arrogance, the officer had couched his pennoned lance forward, ready to charge. The hunter lying in ambush weighed out the pitiless odds, knowing the unwieldy length of the weapon would hamper the horse’s instinctive evasion. Attuned into passionless, barqui’ino reflex, Mykkael spat the dart at the optimal moment.
The lancer flinched, slapped his neck where the sting bit. That unthinking response drove the needle point home. Not entirely foolish, as he reeled in his saddle, he reined left, towards the source of attack.
Moving already, Mykkael launched from cover, the snatched length of a stick deployed like a short staff between his spread fists. He hammered the braced wood into the rider’s upper arm, backed by the hurled weight of his body.
Shocked nerves threw the lancer’s muscles into spasm. He toppled, while the horse kited sideways and bolted, emptying him from his saddle. Mykkael pressed his fallen prey flat in the bed of soaked leaves. Throughout the bucking throes of locked struggle, he jammed his palm over the dart embedded in the lance captain’s neck. The moment the rider’s downed bulk ceased from thrashing, he eased up. He jerked out the needle, and left the point nipped like a pin through the collar of the man’s surcoat.
‘Mehigrannia forgive,’ Mykkael whispered, then arose, skinned moss and dead leaves stuck to his gore-splashed surcoat. ‘Let Jussoud find you in time.’
Campaign warfare had tempered all of his skills. Sessalie’s guard scarcely tested his ruthless experience. Eight men down had bought him the narrowest interval to outpace the roused wrath of a sorcerer. Mykkael recovered the fallen lance, used the stout shaft to brace his bad knee. Later, if he lived, he could attend to the puncture Taskin’s sword had jabbed through the meat of his leg. For now, stark necessity forced him to take flight. If he could, he would have to catch the loose horse, and use it to lay a false trail.
The morning mist lifted. While the valleys lay cloaked, the shimmering snow of the peaks etched a flawless blue sky, and cleared sunlight streamed into lace-curtained windows. Rainbow refractions shimmered through a crystal vase of cut flowers, except as the shadow of Taskin’s daughter swept past. Her fretful pacing had not eased since Jussoud had arrived to discover his promised conference at breakfast would be deferred. Though her teething infant at last slept in peace, the young mother could not bear to settle.
Not after seeing the healer’s anguish on the moment he learned Commander Taskin had ridden out before dawn with a sealed writ for Captain Mykkael’s arrest.
The household had been upended by the nomad’s agitated demand for a horse.
‘Bridle only!’ he had shouted after the servant who raced for the stables to comply. ‘Don’t waste one second for a cloth or a saddle!’
When, minutes later, the clatter of hooves by the entry informed of the horse’s arrival, Jussoud had given the daughter’s alarmed questions no satisfactory answer. ‘Just pray to your trinity that I’m not too late.’ He squeezed her hand, an inadequate comfort, then thanked the plump steward, and breathlessly sprinted outside. The sleepy groom who led in the gelding was shown an astonishing display of steppeland horsemanship as Jussoud vaulted astride in a whirl of silk and pitched the horse to a scorching gallop.
Early morning wore past. Under the dappled shade of the cherry trees, the great house lay in wait, secluded from the palace precinct and the wildfire eruption of rumour.
The knock, when it came, was loud and direct, not the tap of a genteel visitor. Too anxious for restraint, Taskin’s daughter entered the carpeted hall as the steward opened the door. Outside stood a distressed man-at-arms, wearing the plain linen surcoat of the garrison. He did not shove inside, or display uncouth manners, but bent his blond head and broke his news with straightforward gravity. ‘Your king’s first commander has been grievously wounded, a sword cut in the right shoulder. He’s alive, though not conscious. Jussoud is bringing him up in a litter. I’m here to ask, can a room be made ready? With him, as well, are four fallen lancers, including their ranking officer. For expediency, is it possible to ask whether the healer can treat them together under this roof?’
The door steward deferred as Taskin’s daughter stepped forward. Her blue eyes reflected her terrified anxiety. Only the steel of her family heritage sustained her steady reply. ‘You require four additional beds? The servants wil
l provide for the wounded as necessary.’ Her graceful gesture excused the steward, who departed on hurried feet.
The lady was left with the Lowergate messenger, to master the hurdles of courtesy. ‘Taskin would make you welcome inside. In his place, what can I offer to ease you?’
The young officer surveyed her imploring expression, then answered the cry of her heart. ‘I have seen your father. He is in the best hands. I’m sorry I can’t offer more hope.’
Tears trembled, unshed, on her lower lashes, though her remarkable voice scarcely wavered. ‘You are called—?’
‘Vensic, my lady’ He came in, braced her arm, and eased her into a nearby chair. ‘I am here on garrison Sergeant Cade’s direct order to stand guard by Lord Taskin’s bedside. Will you allow me?’
She stared at him with her father’s eyes, the granite behind unmistakable. ‘You are Mysh kael’s man, Vensic? And Mysh kael’s sword struck my sire down?’ She had not missed the demeaning detail, that the tall man before her was weaponless. Assumption followed, that the Highgate guards must have disarmed him as a precaution. ‘Why should my father require protection from such as you, in the security of his own house?’
The officer gave his pained effort at truth. ‘The one man who might have answered that question is now set on the run as a fugitive.’
She said, ‘Who are Sessalie’s enemies, then? Has her Grace fallen foul of a sorcerer?’
‘I fear so, my lady’ Where her father had been haggardly reticent to speak, Vensic faced worse without flinching. ‘Men have died out of ignorance, with the king’s council backing the wrong side to fulfil their self-righteous need for a scapegoat.’
‘Bold words, with no proof,’ said the lady, her lace collar trembling to the raced beat of her heart. ‘Bold man, to expect I should trust you.’
Vensic bowed his head. ‘You are Lord Taskin’s daughter. I am Mykkael’s loyal officer, sworn, as he is, to uphold an oath to the king. The same as your sire, you’ll have to choose.’
Her grief all but broke her. ‘If your father lay dying, how could you?’
The young garrison man looked away, anguished, all of a sudden flushed with the unease of a hamlet-born farmer thrust into a setting of titled wealth. His hobnailed boots held their stance in the hallway, heedless of the priceless carpet. ‘My lady, I could not speak for my father. His spirit already rests with the trinity. For yours, since he still clings to life, I will beg in the name of my captain. Don’t repeat the mistake that might kill him.’
Silk slid with a sudden, whispered scream as the lady covered her mouth with taut fingers. Then she gathered her courage, gripped the shreds of her dignity, and questioned with crisp asperity. ‘Jussoud was the one who sent you as messenger?’
Vensic affirmed, straitly still.
‘Then you’ll answer to Captain Bennent on the matter,’ the lady said in conclusion. ‘In the event of Mysh kael’s defection, or in his blameless absence, the Highgate’s second in command becomes your acting officer.’ She arose, forewarned by the uproar outside that the litter-borne wounded were arriving. ‘For now, I expect you’ll stay busy as the rest of us, nursing your desertman’s rough handiwork.’
The front door cannoned open. Bearers streamed in, directed at once by the cohort of house servants sent by the steward to accommodate them. Jussoud’s towering frame ploughed through their midst, the sleek tail of his braid striking as midnight amid the sunny preponderance of towheads. He saw Vensic first, then the strained presence of Taskin’s daughter.
His compassion answered her desperate composure without a second’s delay. ‘My lady, your father still lives. The litter that carries him follows, more gently. Join the bearers, as you wish, even walk at his side. He’s not conscious. Please don’t try to rouse him. He’s at worst risk from blood loss, and must be protected from jostling.’
As Taskin’s daughter broke and ran in a flutter of marigold skirts, Jussoud’s next order was addressed to Vensic. ‘Sergeant! I want this household set under the same protections your captain detailed for the garrison.’
‘Done!’ Vensic surged forward, collared a servant, and listed his urgent requirements.
Milling chaos resolved into industrious order. The stricken were installed in the parquet ballroom that Taskin kept unfurnished to practise his sword forms. The steward had already brought cots from the servants’ wing. Staff from the kitchen trooped in with braziers and pots. These were trailed by three red-cheeked laundresses, bearing the linens the housekeeper’s thrifty eye had culled from the closets for bandaging.
Candles were lit. Piled blankets were unfolded. Hands shifted the prostrate men from the litters, while Taskin’s taciturn valet gathered cloaks and unbuckled spurs, and pried off four pairs of boots.
Jussoud himself knelt at the lance captain’s side, dictating symptoms to the house’s elderly secretary, who set fast-paced notes down in ink. When Vensic returned, wafting a torch of lit cedar, the huge nomad looked up, his hand still clasped to the guardsman’s slack wrist, and his grey eyes sharply beseeching. ‘Which nerve poison did your captain use on his darts?’
Chilled despite the close heat of the flames, Vensic recognized the flaccid pallor of a man unmistakably dying. ‘Mykkael knew them all.’ Undermined by a surge of terrible doubt, he forced the discouraging answer. ‘How can I guess? The fast-acting ones were most fatal.’
Jussoud swore, turned back to his work, and addressed two hovering houseboys. ‘Get this man stripped. The last hope I have is to force him to sweat. The effort won’t save him. But heated towels may ease the rictus that’s starting. He surely can’t die any faster.’
The healer’s rapt face showed compassionate sorrow, seared through by self-poisoned regret. Even still, his care did not falter. Working to loosen the victim’s tight collar, the nomad encountered the minuscule dart, deliberately pinned through the fabric. ‘That torch! Vensic, hurry! Bring the light closer.’
Under the flood of illumination, the line of tiny characters showed clearly, scratched into the stained wood of the shaft.
‘What do you make of this?’ Jussoud’s urgent gesture invited the secretary to lend his considered opinion.
The wispy man traced the letters, lips moving. ‘Fane Street.’ He blinked and looked up, his pouched face apologetic. ‘But I don’t know the foreign symbol that follows.’
Vensic expelled his stopped breath, hope revived. ‘A physician from Fane Street sometimes serves the garrison. He could read that, I’m sure! Powers preserve! You’re probably holding Mykkael’s coded key to the antidote.’
‘I know that fellow. He’s a worldly, learned man.’ Jussoud surged to his feet, his voice raised like a storm over the bustle of activity. ‘I need a groom with your fastest horse for an errand down to the Falls Gate!’
The cry of the horns rebounded off the peaks, each clarion call a torn strand from the life left unravelled behind her. For of course, the notes framed the heartbreaking reminder of the carefree days when she had ridden out hunting. Now, as she thrashed through the thickets, the same music lashed her to terror: the ox horn of Sessalie’s master huntsman blended into the descant bugle of the crown prince’s trumpet, sounding to muster the hounds. When she also picked out the deep, belling tone of Devall’s distinctive conch shell, she bolted in sweating panic…
XVIII. Fatal Stakes
THE PORTLY LITTLE PHYSICIAN FROM FANE STREET TUGGED TO STRAIGHTEN HIS DISHEVELLED JACKET, THEN BENT UNDER THE LIGHT of Vensic’s held candle. His soft hands stayed gentle as he prodded and murmured. He presently asked Jussoud to cradle the sick man’s head. Then he knelt with his elbows braced on the pillow and peeled back the lid of the unconscious lance captain’s eye.
‘No, keep on with your work, child,’ he encouraged the aproned cook’s girl, who had hesitated to give him space. She reddened, then resumed squeezing a vile-smelling remedy from a rag into the flaccid man’s mouth.
‘Don’t worry, the poor fellow’s not going to feel this.’ The phys
ician pressed the red flesh on the inside of the eyelid, and measured the interval as the capillaries refilled. He peered, his brow furrowed, as the pupils he examined for reflex stayed sluggish beneath the flared spill of the flame. ‘You saw this?’ He pointed out the tinge of dull yellow that sullied the whites of the lance captain’s eyes.
‘Distressed liver,’ Jussoud murmured from his hovering stance, as he unclasped his hands and resettled the victim’s lolled head. He addressed the next question without flinching. ‘How long? The symptom only just started to show the hour before your arrival.’
‘Oh dear. That’s not good.’ The physician tucked the blankets back up, and by habit ran a soothing hand down the stricken man’s arm. ‘Your fellow might suffer impairment of balance, or perhaps, a lingering numbness of the skin. Time and rest will eventually heal all the damage.’
At Jussoud’s expression of naked relief, the pink-cheeked physician hastened to give reassurance. ‘Oh, my, yes, he’ll survive. All four victims will. This one just might take a bit longer to pull out. The venom from black-legged spiders kills gradually, after paralysis sets in. Knows his poisons, does Mykkael. He’s dosed this just right. What criminal charges lie over these men, to have called for such drastic measures?’
The silence that followed rang on the ears.
‘You don’t know?’ Vensic grated, stunned speechless by the iron-clad discretion shown by Taskin’s household servants.
The physician blinked in mild offence. ‘I was treating an elderly man with a boil when your message boy hammered my door in! I left the poor fellow soaking in salts, while my housekeeper rushed to drag my assistant away from his breakfast. Cafferty’s steady, but sour as crab apples on mornings when he doesn’t eat. Will somebody tell me what’s happening?’