He befriended them shamelessly, using the drive of their empty stomachs. Small rations, fed slowly; too much would cause colic. He let them snuffle the grain from his hands, and lip at his hair. All the while, the curse of his witch thought barraged him, and heated his cheeks with the echo of Anja’s flaming embarrassment. Though he kept his back most scrupulously turned, he felt her uneasy distress, knew the slide of each garment and the kiss of chill air against every last private patch of bared flesh.
His silenced humiliation seared worst, for the intimate violation he could not prevent. To suppress the shared flush of the young woman’s outraged emotion, Mykkael immersed himself in the crowding warmth of her magnificent animals. They were tethered into the traditional pairs that made up a steed wicket team. No mare alive had foaled finer than these. Mykkael surveyed quality breeding drawn from the four quarters of the world, from the cloud-dappled black with his steppelands stature, to the racing blood of the west, to the delicate, fine beauty raised in the deserts, that deceived for the strength of its hardihood. He ran appreciative hands over the iron gloss of six proud necks. Felt the cool elasticity of firm tendons as his cursory check encountered a loosened shoe. He used the flat tang of his knife hilt, and his boot sole, to tighten the clenches, then set down the clean leg, admiring.
Whoever had conditioned these animals had brought them to an exceptional peak.
His comment raised Princess Anja’s reply, as she tugged at lacings to adjust the boy’s clothing. ‘Gurley’s lads followed my training instructions, when I could not ride them myself.’
Mykkael straightened, surprised, one hand fending off the impudent grey, who butted to relieve the itch of the tack her preparedness had wisely left on him. ‘These horses are yours?’
Anja approached, rubbed the nose of the sturdy northern mare some daft romantic had named Fouzette. ‘They were to have been my surprise gift to the high prince, following our formal betrothal.’ She blinked fast, turned away, then shrugged like a stoic. ‘I wanted him to share the glorious thrill of watching an upset team win the wickets.’
The aggrieved note of passion behind her flat voice said she might have been running them now; would have left these proud beasts to claim their due victory, had they not been the only mounts she could take without drawing notice. She laid her face against the satin hide of the buckskin, Bryajne, who turned his blazed head, comically flummoxed to realize she carried no stashed gift of carrots. ‘They’ll serve to carry me over the border. I can ride post once I get to the lowcountry, where people won’t know my face.’
Desperation rode behind those stark words, and witch thought derived the gist of the unspoken necessity: that a fast, timely sale must raise enough gold to regale her Grace in state clothing. She would stretch those scant funds, hire the minimal retinue a princess must have to present herself at a foreign court.
Mykkael seized the bitter opening. ‘You won’t need to sell them.’ The hurt lashed him, as hope transformed her thin face, and lifted her flagging spirit.
He braced himself to deliver a cruel string of facts that foreclosed any tactful kindness. ‘Princess, I’m sorry. But your plan to circle back down to the lowlands will bring nothing but death and destruction.’
Her wrenching shock stung him. ‘Oh bright powers! You aren’t telling me the palace has already fallen! Or that Sire—’
‘Not dead!’ Mykkael gasped, defenceless and fighting to breathe through the anguish of her grief at close quarters. The reactive connection aroused by Sanouk song lines was now haplessly bound to his person, lidded under the ranging fields of the active viziers’ wardings. ‘King Isendon lives, Princess! Your capital is imperilled, but not yet brought under conquest.’
Uncertainty ripped him, hers, as she whispered, ‘How do you know?’
Anja’s need seized his vitals, demanding response: the primal attachments to blood family and survival framed a drive too overpowering to deny. Mykkael shuddered, hurled off centre. His inborn talent unfurled into witch thought, searing a line of vibrant awareness across the unseen, towards the source of her deepest affection…
King Isendon aroused in the royal chamber, dizzied by the resin pungence of cedar smoke. As always his eyes would not focus, at first. There were people around him. He could hear loud voices, clashing in argument.
‘…pure folly trusting that murdering desert-bred!’ The reedy tone belonged to the seneschal, immersed in habitual complaint. ‘Such “instructions” could get us all killed.’
Someone the king did not know murmured answer, cut short by the Duchess of Phail, whose shrewd instincts seemed to have faltered. Danger would follow if anyone listened to her bitter condemnation.
King Isendon filled his weak lungs, and forced speech. ‘But Mysh kael has found Anja. He guards my daughter under my charge of protection.’
‘Your Majesty?’ said a deep, gentle voice, close at hand. A warm grasp supported his shoulder.
King Isendon blinked. His hazy sight cleared to unveil the anxious face of a steppeland nomad he recognized. ‘You can’t feel him, Jussoud? Tell my courtiers the truth. Captain Mykkael is no murderer. His skill on the field against sorcerers is legend. A fact quite well guarded, among eastern monarchs. Few wish the particulars of that history made public. The man’s been privy to far too many state secrets. Often guarded the chambers of royalty.’
‘He’s maundering,’ an authoritative officer in palace armour broke in.
‘Not a bit! Damn your insolence, soldier!’ King Isendon thrashed erect, assisted by the timely arm of a pink-faced man wearing spectacles. Short of breath, too short, to be asking strange names, Sessalie’s sovereign resumed cogent speech. ‘Captain Mysh kael’s worth any ten of you, officer! His sword alone spared Prince Al-Syn-Efandi’s daughter from falling to Rathtet. Who better, to guard my own Anja?’
Spent, sorely trembling, King Isendon sank back. While the darkness pressed him, narrowing down his fuzzed vision, he clung to his ebbing awareness. ‘By royal decree, Mysh kael’s instructions must stand.’
Then blackness descended, let in by a roaring red maelstrom. Isendon’s consciousness sank and drowned. He let the dark swallow him, grateful, while the world beyond his blanketed senses crackled with tendrils of fire…
King Isendon’s distant awareness cut off, snapped like a strand of chopped string by the shrieking descent of spelled fires. The kin tie that had drawn Anja’s consciousness to her sire frayed away, dividing Mykkael’s perception: as witch thought showed him the royal apartments, set under siege by a spell line, he also felt the princess beside him, bereft, and ripped into shock.
He reacted before thought, caught her shoulder and spun her, then clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle her keening outcry. ‘Your Grace, be still! Your sire’s not harmed!’
Mykkael had no time to ponder the warding he had sensed, springing cold blue over Isendon’s chamber; no chance to describe the dread perils of spellcraft, or warn against the dangers let in by voiced panic. Witch thought still showed him the thrust of cold sorcery, guided in by the perilous, ephemeral connection forged out of his volatile talent, and Anja’s overpowering desire. A raging attack that could not touch Isendon now ran wild, reaching, stretching, seeking: yet the destructive assault of the enemy found no weak point of access to claim Sessalie’s king. The reflective, joined force of nine gathered talismans, and a chamber fumed with green cedar, turned the strike of the spell line aside. Too focused, too strong, too murderously fashioned to dissipate, the stream of attack spilled down the path of least resistance: the thinning, last trace of the contact that had linked a father’s anxiety to his daughter’s distanced distress.
Mykkael foresaw disaster. A split second shy of full impact, he suspended thought and let go into barqui’ino reflex. One move hurled Anja astride the grey horse. The next drew his sword and slashed through the picket line. He grabbed mane, vaulted on to the sturdy Fouzette. Yelling like a crazed nomad herder, he drove horses and princess to headlong stampede,
while Benj’s best hound showed her innate good sense, and bolted flat out alongside them.
Fire struck at their heels. Flames crashed roaring over the trees, igniting hemlock and fir like dry tinder.
‘Go! Move!’ Mykkael shouted, drummed heels into the mare and whipped the horses from under the edge of the conflagration. He yanked rope, slapped rumps with the flat of his wailing sword. While the combined effects of three sets of wardings ringed his presence in shielding force, he charged the shying animals through springing wildfire and a hellish rain of splashed cinders. His protections unwound the raw balefire of sorcery. Their proximity was sufficient to guard Anja’s person, himself and all seven terrified animals. But the place in the cleft where the princess had stood through the vulnerable mischance of contact now became a naked target, packed with acres of volatile timber.
The dense stand of evergreens roared up like a torch, as balked spell-craft seeded a forest fire. If the lethal impact of cold-struck power was sent to ground, or quenched out by the captain’s wardings, no beast could escape getting ravaged by burns, if the wall of natural flame overtook them.
‘Ride!’ Mykkael hauled hard on the picket rope, kept the horses together, and steered Anja’s wild-eyed grey to close quarters. With its nose jammed in matched stride at his knee, he shouted, ‘Ride, don’t look back. If you can’t stay astride, or if your mount falters, we’re not going to escape this.’
The Princess of Sessalie proved herself then as a woman of mettle and courage. She grabbed up loose reins, found the dangling stirrups. Then she ran the game grey over rocky terrain with the nerve of a woman possessed.
XXIV. False Refuge
THE ASSAULT WROUGHT OF SPELL-BONDED FIRE PROVED SHORT-LIVED. ITS MAELSTROM OF ENERGIES ACCOSTED THE FRAIL CIRCLE OF PERINCAR’S configured ward ring, then departed, there and gone like a wind-blown match. Its wake left the duchess’s steel nerves in shreds. Her ragged breathing and the seneschal’s distraught whimpers tore through the stunned silence cast over the king’s private chamber. All the candles had blown out. The ruby glow of fanned coals in the grate shed the only light in the room. Of the ten shocked and shaken survivors, the only two not wrung white with terror were the invalids who remained unconscious.
The physician was first to clear his dry throat. ‘That was not defeat, but withdrawal,’ he ventured in tremulous distress. The skewed glass of his spectacles flashed in the gloom as he appealed to the armed authority of Captain Bennent. ‘Pray don’t drop your guard. Our peril is not one whit lessened.’
‘We aren’t vanquished, either. The king is unharmed,’ Jussoud said from the royal bedside. Outside, a tumult of shouting erupted. Doors crashed down the corridor. More disturbed voices arose from the stairwell that accessed the grand hall of state. Despite the uproar, the nomad healer stayed calm. ‘While his Majesty lives, Mykkael warned we were likely to be kept under constant siege.’
Too rattled for argument, the seneschal helped guide Lady Phail to a chair.
Only Taskin’s distraught first captain stood stunned, at a loss for intelligent reaction. ‘Merciful powers, that saddlecloth…’
Jussoud answered, crisp, ‘You ordered it burned. But the contents weren’t lost.’ He arose and took charge, addressing the steadfast guards flanking the doorway. ‘You men! Keep these chambers secured. No one enters! Vensic? Please build up the fire. The warming pan can be used to make cedar ash. Lord Shaillon, if you would please light the candles? Your commander needs my attention.’
Lady Phail snugged her shawl over quaking shoulders. Her contrition was practical, and her courage a force far beyond her frail strength. ‘What can I do?’
Jussoud crossed the floor and presumed, as a healer, to gather her clammy hands. ‘Duchess, you’ll be needed to comfort the king. Your sharp wits are our indispensable asset, but please, for your sake, let me brew you a tonic. You’ve suffered a terrible shock.’
‘No, thank you!’ the granddame snapped in offence. ‘Bitter tea never fails to upset my digestion.’
She snatched back her hands, which the raised pitch of her anger now flooded with lifesaving warmth; a mule’s kick of a blessing, Jussoud saw in dismay. He had no remedies to offer. Apparently he had lost his hip satchel during the crawl through the hypocaust.
Though the seneschal still fumbled to ignite the first candle, the Fane Street physician noted the nomad’s crestfallen despair. ‘We’re not entirely bereft, Jussoud. My jacket pockets hold a few simples I keep at hand for emergencies.’
‘You shall not lack for medicines.’ The duchess smoothed her skirts and arose. ‘His Majesty’s physician keeps a stocked chest in the linen closet. Bennent! Make yourself useful. I’ll need a man’s strength to help move it.’
‘Tactics, first, Duchess.’ The royal guard’s acting captain discarded bruised pride and faced Jussoud, rigidly braced to salvage his mistaken judgement.
Yet the nomad now crouched beside Taskin’s prone form insistently endorsed Lady Phail’s first request. ‘Fetch the remedies now, Captain. Before I speak further, you must understand. If Taskin slips from us, the warding that just spared your king will collapse.’
Spurs clinked as Captain Bennent stood aside to let the seneschal brighten the wall sconce. ‘I don’t understand. If one of us fails, could Lord Shaillon not assume—’
As the seneschal turned, recovered enough to respond to his name, the Fane Street physician cut off Bennent’s words with a headshake, then offered, ‘Jussoud, attend Taskin. I can explain this.’ He caught the royal guard captain’s wrist and towed him aside with brusque firmness.
‘What’s this?’ Striker in hand, Lord Shaillon turned his suspicious regard towards one, then the other foreign healer. As the tumult outside became more intrusive, he pursued his querulous inquiry. ‘More conspirators’ secrets?’
‘By command of your king!’ That weak, rust-grained whisper still carried the peal of a lifetime’s authority. Under Jussoud’s skilled hands, Taskin had achieved a tenuous return to consciousness. ‘Captain Mykkael’s instructions will be carried out!’ Eyes shut, his gaunt face like wax on the pillows, the commander whispered, ‘Dedorth’s tower.’ He coughed weakly. ‘Move. Safer refuge.’ Then he added, ‘Bear the king promptly’
‘Impossible,’ said Jussoud, too hard-pressed for dismay. ‘My lord, your condition is fragile and should not be stressed. Another move would be dangerous, and our party of nine must not separate.’
If Taskin did not yet realize the virtues of Perincar’s talismans relied upon close proximity, Jussoud could but hope the commander could interpret his strained tone as imperative. He dared not speak more openly, or broach the fact that the guarding properties of the pattern required nine living bearers to achieve its full strength. One death would cause the structure’s collapse. Even the momentary delay as a disc was transferred to a successor would grant a fatal opening for the enemy sorcerer to exploit, a detail the Fane Street physician now took pains to conceal from the seneschal’s distrustful interest.
Taskin’s face tightened. ‘We cannot stay here.’ His imperious eyes were glazed over with pain and a febrile exasperation. ‘Did you notice, Jussoud? The palace is in flames.’
The breath the nomad drew to cry protest in fact carried the tang of fresh smoke, an acrid influx no longer masked by the resinous fumes of the cedar that Vensic was burning to ash in the warming pan. Outside, shrill voices raised the alarm, fast joined by the pound of running footsteps. The two guardsmen braced the king’s door with stout furniture, while Bennent and the Fane Street physician returned with the remedy trunk slung between them. Lady Phail trailed in their wake, looking frayed.
More shouting arose from the corridor, as the council broke session in panic. A chancellor screamed for a task force with buckets, while another, backed up by Prince Kailen’s honour guard, sowed the disastrous belief that King Isendon was under attack. Devall’s marshal could be heard mustering more men from the grounds to mount an immediate rescue. The palace sentries were
bound to rally to the High Prince’s claim that a sorcerous assault, spearheaded by traitors, had taken Sessalie’s aged king as a hostage.
‘They can’t get in,’ Captain Bennent assured them crisply. ‘I’ve seen through the window. We’re surrounded by fire.’ Beyond the king’s chamber, where the perimeter of the geometry had shed the volatile thrust of the sorcerer’s attack, the beams and the tapestries had been seared to flame. Heat and smoke would stand off the misguided intervention of the men-at-arms for a short while.
‘That’s why Mykkael insisted we seek refuge within a stone tower.’ Jussoud clasped Taskin’s wrist in tacit assurance that he could be trusted to deliver the requisite facts. ‘Once inside, we’d be removed from ground contact, which weakens a sorcerer’s spell line. Even if everything under us burns, stone walls will hold firm. If we place ourselves wisely, Perincar’s pattern will spare the boards of the floor where we shelter. The royal quarters offer no such protection. We’re far too exposed to be safe, here.’
‘That’s raving nonsense!’ the seneschal cracked. ‘What have we to fear from Prince Kailen’s honour guard? Or from the lowlanders under Devall’s marshal-at-arms, for that matter?’ Imposingly robed to preside in state council, Lord Shaillon jabbed an accusatory hand at the nomad, half clad in stained breeches and the smutched linen of his underrobe. ‘This sorcerer is the High Prince’s enemy, after all. Our interests are one and the same!’
‘Be quiet!’ rasped Taskin.
But the seneschal nattered on. ‘I cannot agree that Mysh kael is no traitor. The king, spare his wits, was behind on current events when he spoke for the desert-bred’s character.’
‘Be quiet!’ barked Bennent. He left the remedy chest in the care of the frowning physician, and knelt next to Taskin’s bedside. ‘Orders, Commander. I’ll carry them through.’