The spellbinder was too desperately winded to answer. Soaked through his woollens, wheezing under his streaming moustache, he crossed the plank span in a reeling rush. Mearn tripped the latch and let him pass, as a Fellowship agent. Dakar blundered off balance through the iron-strapped door.
A forest clansman Mearn did not recognize caught the spellbinder's panting bulk up short. No ninny for strength, to outmuscle that load, the creature's quick reflex recovered.
'Kyrialt!' gasped Dakar. 'Where's his Grace?'
The edgy young liegeman forbore to answer. Distraught as Sidir to be boxed by stonewalls, he clung to his poise as if drowning. His wary grip clenched to his sheathed sword, while his glacial stare fixed in challenge past the floundering spellbinder's shoulder.
Storm-lit in the doorway, the leaner arrival spoke fast. 'Mearn s'Brydion, brother to the reigning duke. Should I know you?'
'As a son of s'Taleyn, sworn to Rathain's crown service,' Kyrialt responded with correct apology. He extended his freed hand and offered the wrist clasp for amity. He did not lack manners: the Sorcerer's conjury that brought him from Selkwood had upended proper diplomacy.
As the fox would size up the dog caught in its territory, Mearn acknowledged that caustic embarrassment. 'Your prince isn't known to stand upon ceremony.' When the clansman's rapt guard was not bluffed into lowering, he added, 'Twice before this, his Grace crashed through our gates. He came in disguise as a mountebank. Should I expect the third pass to be different?'
'He's not in disguise, this time,' Kyrialt declared, cheerful. There's your fair warning, if you plan to walk in without pressing a host's claim against royal rank.'
Mearn showed his teeth in spontaneous approval, then unveiled all his knives as he shed his wet cloak. 'One doesn't wrest the advantage from your Teir's'Ffalenn on the limping excuse of propriety.'
'Well, the predator's rip for the vitals won't work.' Still amused, masking laughter, Kyrialt gave ground and permitted free passage. "The prince is quite testily blooded, already. My wife Glendien's nipped in ahead of you.'
Dakar found his breath. His roaring disapproval all but shocked cracks in Paravian masonry.
While Mearn stared, intrigued, Shand's young liegeman endured being reviled as a frivolous idiot in epithets, piled one on top of the next.
Kyrialt's humour outlasted the tirade. 'I've come as my father's gift, done for clan honour,' he interjected through the first pause. 'Glendien's here by the whim of Davien. Without her, the Sorcerer refused to grant passage, and even your prince doesn't argue with the Betrayer.'
'More the fool he!' Dakar snapped, his eyes bloodshot. Chin out-thrust and dripping beard kinked into ringlets, he ploughed on towards the stairwell. Anxiety drove him. At first hand, he would gauge whether damaging scars still unstrung Arithon's subtle aura, and whether the dread rites of necromancers had unbalanced him, since Etarra.
Mearn launched after, a snap to his tread like the weasel set loose in a chicken-coop.
The siege restricted the usage of fuel. No oil-lamps burned on the upstairs landing. Dimness shrouded the chamber beyond, presently burnished by the hectic glow thrown off a pot of live coals: the enterprising enchantress had filched a brazier from the citadel's grumpy apothecary. Not for her own comfort: Elaira had set up a still-room. A glass boiler burbled on a squat tripod, heating a mash of crushed kelp.
The daunting reek of fresh iodine met the arrivals crowding the threshold. 'We haven't got cots, yet, to house the infirm,' Dakar huffed in humiliation.
Mearn, just behind, was scarcely prepared for the sweeping change imposed on the guest-quarters.
The once-naked stonewalls held a bright weaving from Narms, and the floor, a pretty, fringed carpet: loans from Dame Dawr, in antique good taste, and matched to the scarlet bed coverlet. The bronze tub, with its lion's head ring handles, currently soaked rags for bandages in a bleaching mixture of lye. The weapons rack had been commandeered to dry herbs, as well as the towel stand next to the wash-basin. More bundles of medicinal root-stock were strung from a line between two empty wall sconces. The armoire gaped open, jammed with bottles and packets, while the ousted clothes were piled with the linens on the sill, against the latched casement. A trestle set up in midfloor held pestles and stoppered glass jars, bees-wax for seals, and an ink-well, rested atop the rice-paper sheets used to package the powders for tinctures. Across the melange, two heads bent together, one fiery red, and the other, deep auburn, touched with a chestnut highlight.
Yet Mearn's avid glance scoured through the deep shadows and noted the wrapped lyranthe leaned against the far bedstead. The instrument's master sat by the hearth, unobtrusive against the brass andirons. To that slight figure, perched on a stool with tucked knees nestled into clasped hands, he observed, 'You've acquired an entourage fit to outrank a blow-hard Tirans ambassador.'
Teeth flashed in the gloom. 'That's presuming a bit,' returned Arithon, smiling. 'Talvish was discharged and sent back to your duke. Prime Selidie's tyrannical fist rules Elaira, and Glendien curtseys for nobody's rank, far less minds an order that won't put a shine to whatever whim's hooked her fancy. Right now, that's herb simples, and before you object, we don't plan to open an infirmary.'
'You may have to!' snapped Mearn, around Dakar's bulk. 'If you don't bow to sense, you'll have bloodshed before sunrise. Once Talvish reports, my brother will send an armed company to collect you. Your Grace!'
'If you've come to replace them as my advance escort, I'm reasonable. You suggest we leave now?' Arithon unlaced his linked fingers and arose.
The movement brought him into full view, with Dakar immersed in deep mage-sight. The sweeping, bright shift in the Teir's'Ffalenn's aura jerked him up short with a gasp.
Mearn, hard behind, slammed into collision. His nettled curse tangled with Dakar's awe-struck shout, 'Ath on earth, how did this triumph happen?'
Elaira was smiling, tears brimming her eyes, as Arithon stepped out of shadow.
'I'll explain that part later' said the Prince of Rathain, also lit with exultant happiness. 'For my botched score in the present, I've got to mend my relations with Duke Bransian, first' To Mearn's blazing annoyance at being shut out, he admitted with shattering brevity, 'I no longer bear the scourge of Desh-thiere's laid curse.'
To everyone's shock, the youngest brother s'Brydion slapped his thigh and exclaimed aloud. 'Don't you! By the balked Spear of Dharkaron's vengeance! I've just won a smart stake from Parrien, for that. When we argued the point, he stuck in his toes. Claimed that your half-brother's fanatics would toss you to perdition, beforehand!'
Arithon absorbed this, undaunted. 'Was that before, or after, he needed four guardsmen as backup to thrash me aboard your state galley?'
Mearn looked affronted. 'We're all sore losers. That's an inbred tradition, with Bransian frothing at full cry ahead of the family wolf pack.' That exigent point made, he shoved Dakar's obstructive person aside. 'I can't claim my winnings before I've thwarted the ducal order that's hell-bound to skewer your royal embassy. If we don't leave now, my brother's henchmen could stick their butchering swords in ahead of me.'
* * *
The fore-promised armed escort rammed into Mearn, who brazened through his insistence on blood precedence. Peeled down to rank-and-file skin by sharp insolence, the guardsman who led the troop of twenty fell into grim step behind. His men did not disperse, a forceful assurance the prince they had summoned would not evade his formal audience.
The knowledge their charge was both Master of Shadow and fully initiate sorcerer chafed their already ragged nerves. Troops elsewhere might see their edge dulled by the storm. But not these: Arithon's passage through the grey, windy streets was briskly staged inside a tight phalanx. Too many unsettled fists fingered weapons for anyone's peace of mind.
The matched tramp of feet in hobnailed boots cleared the way and scattered the bread-carts and maidservants. Awnings flapped, and signs creaked, spilling fringes of water, with the puddles brimmed over to
frothing currents that gushed down-slope, and spouted out of the culverts. Beyond ominous weather, the hearing would not occur in the genteel hall, built above the upper citadel's practice floor. Instead, the duke waited in the high keep commandeered as his war room.
'No good sign,' Mearn related amid breathless haste, 'though he can't throw you out. The top floor has only loop-holes for arrow-slits.'
'That chamber?' Dakar spat through his soggy moustache.
'You remember the place?' Mearn flashed his most wicked, triangular grin. 'Where Bransian likes to interrogate spies, and once put the lash to a watch captain whose faulted duty was later proved innocent?'
Dakar planted his feet and rolled brown eyes in desperate appeal towards Arithon. 'Avoid this! I don't care what powers you think you can wield. You're stark mad if you face off against Bransian, four stories up in a guarded tower.'
Arithon said, too reasonable for a man being pummelled by ice-water, 'If I press your obstinacy with this escort, we'll have drawn steel in the street. The duke's owed the courtesy,' he added to Mearn, who let the balked captain resume the forced march.
The downpour at least deterred needless onlookers. Past the storm-shuttered forge, and the fletcher's, where a shivering boot-black hunkered beneath a niche doorway, the spellbinder lapsed into moribund silence.
The keep loomed ahead. Its slot-narrow archway funnelled the front ranks into single file. Arithon was herded behind, with Mearn weasel-quick at his heels. Dakar had to pause to twist his bulk sideways, to clear the opening without losing his buttons. The lag let the near men-at-arms close in step and deny his free passage.
'Duke's orders!' one snapped, an ornery bear who was stupid enough not to cringe from a Fellowship spellbinder's arcane abilities.
Before trouble erupted, Arithon flung back his demand to stand down. 'Dakar, not here! If I can't hold my ground before Bransian s'Brydion, no power you carry will signify.'
* * *
Ever since Talvish released his report, Duke Bransian had been pacing. His volatile nerves meant his wary retainers had twitched themselves dizzy, tracking his circles. The only man spared kept his poised watch at the arrow-slit, one eye trained against the damp wind. He currently peered down at the helms of the escort, clustered four stories below. As planned, the corpulent Fellowship spellbinder was being detained: abusive language from the stews of five kingdoms knifed upward through the pounding rain.
Impressed, the man-at-arms signalled his duke, that, per dispatched orders, the Mad Prophet had been shut outside. He withdrew from the draught, which spat beaded moisture on his greased mail, and reported, 'The Teir's'Ffalenn's coming alone, but for the one snag: he's brought Mearn.'
Bransian rounded. Gauntleted fists braced upon the oak table, with its tactical map and stacked counters, he declared, 'Mearn's a rank busybody. Got himself born with his sniping nose poked in the dark end of everyone's business.' The carping was cheerful, an ominous sign: since the day of Arithon's blistering leave, served in brutally stark ultimatum, the duke had fumed, between prayers to Dharkaron, awaiting his chance for a rematch.
'Has the chirping cockerel dared to come armed?' Granted a nod from his posted observer, Bransian laughed. 'Then bring his Grace on! The hour is mine, for the field-day'
The Masterbard would rankle nobody with his silver-tongued liberties, now. He could not claim a free singer's courtesy. No women were present to foster his cause, and Dame Dawr's unimpeachable patronage did not shield his caustically elegant back. Arithon trod on s'Brydion turf, without the due grace of an invitation or the decency of an apology.
The brisk pace of the entourage echoed up the stone stair. Duke Bransian rubbed his palms to a rasp of plate gauntlets. 'Bring him on' he repeated, and smiled, a scarred lion licking his teeth.
When the Prince of Rathain topped the landing, Alestron's duke sat in his formal chair, not astraddle the back-facing seat, his preference for mild confrontation. He wore a state surcoat. On his chest, against scarlet, the rampant bull of the s'Brydion blazon glittered in warning gold thread.
By contrast, Arithon eschewed formal dress: an unbleached shirt and the weathered, black leathers acquired for hunting in Selkwood. He was as soaked by the rain as the rest. Davien's gifted cloak remained with Elaira, the better to free the swept hilt of his sword: not hung at his hip, but borne in a shoulder-slung scabbard. Against his woods tan, flushed by the sharp wind, his eyes seemed too vividly green as his step passed over the threshold.
He crossed the close chamber. Paused before the table, with Mearn at his heels, and the four armoured men, positioned to cut off the doorway. The aggressive show twitched a slight curve to his lips that might have strangled amusement.
Or not; his demeanour suggested a watchful sobriety that eschewed the impulse to speak.
Bransian also was loath to break the unsubtle silence. He did not rise but allowed the savage pause to leach away self-assurance. If not Arithon's, then at least Mearn and the guardsmen might succumb to the pressured unease. Any small upset to whet the taut atmosphere and chafe at his visitor's poise. The keep was kept cold, which left the petitioning party immersed in a drenched state of misery. The duke and his stationed guards lounged at ease, prepared to let patience work for them.
A minute passed, two, while the wind outside breathed inclement gusts through the arrow-slits. Mearn ground his teeth, since his brother's crass tactics were not apt to rattle an initiate sorcerer's dignity.
Yet Arithon had no reason to prove his aplomb. He inclined his head, hands clasped in plain sight, and opened the fraught conversation. 'Make no mistake, I'm not here for your city's aggressive defence, but only for my oath to Jeynsa.'
Eyes half-lidded, Bransian kept his snake's poise. 'Need those goals lie at odds? You can't spirit the girl out through the enemy's lines. Along with my people, she lies at hazard to the violence posed by Desh-thiere's curse. How will you spare her, when Lysaer's close presence breaks down the restraint of your sanity?'
If he had hoped that name would snap Arithon's resistance, the laced fingers maintained their composure. 'My half-brother may throw himself at your walls. He can hammer your gates until he breaks the back of his allied town war host. His battle frenzy will not turn my mind.' As the duke stiffened for argument, Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn smiled. 'Then, or ever.'
The statement took a stunned moment to register. 'Say again?' Bransian's winter-ice glance flashed to Mearn but received no response.
Arithon stated, 'I've recovered my born right to autonomy.'
'And your half-brother, s'Ilessid?' Bransian snapped, caught aback and snatching for leverage.
'I could not speak in petition for him before the powers that graced me with healing.' The admission held sorrow. 'Which is why I won't raise my hand in this war. Already, my presence inflames his awareness.'
'Dharkaron's sweet vengeance!' Bransian shot back his state chair and pounced. 'The vaunted false avatar has to attack!'
For the first time, Arithon looked faintly tried. 'If I linger, even inactive, he must.'
'Daelion Fatemaster grant me that sweet kiss of judgement!' Bransian's rage softened into a glower. 'If you've broken us out of this forsaken stand-off, I might be convinced to grant you a pardon when we seize the honours of victory.'
'I will not be here, or care to collect. Which is why you will not obstruct my urgent intent to remove Jeynsa.' Knife sharp, the Masterbard's tone slashed across the duke's outraged objection. "You are not defending your citizens, my friend! Only your pride, which is stubbornly tied to a cock-fight over a pile of rock in an estuary!'
'My ancestral home ground!' Duke Bransian pealed.
'Yes,' Arithon said. 'But a parcel of walled soil does not make the heart of a ruler or define the nobility of a people!'
The duke balled his mailed fists. His walloping blow struck the table-top, scattering troop counters hither and yon, and cracking stout oak. 'Your insolence galls, prince! As you're fit to bear arms, we'll settle this now! Over
bared steel, until one or the other of us scores first blood.'
'Do you think so?' Arithon's quelling gesture failed to stay Mearn, who leaped forward, intent upon blocking his brother's rash charge. His interposed body was not going to shield. From behind, the guards snapped to clear weapons as well, while Bransian's murderous, two-handed sword screamed from the sheath, gripped in fury.
'Stand off, stripling!' he snapped to his sibling. 'I will not be mocked beneath my own roof by a nattering royal-born coward!'
'No more will I brook your rock-headed attack!' Arithon back-stepped, palms upraised as though to ward off the swung steel with only his naked flesh. The guardsmen stopped his hopeful retreat, a deadly prickle of points at his back, with Mearn, shocked to a pale standstill, beside him.
'You won't escape fighting,' the youngest s'Brydion advised. 'Nip in, quick. Try to land your wee nick in him first!' As his brother's rush vaulted over the wreck of the tactical map on the table, Mearn leaped to safety, still talking. 'I don't plan to tell Kyrialt how your liver got minced.'
'Not on this day!' One forgot how fast Arithon moved, when provoked.
He lunged to the floor, his weight caught on his hands, as Bransian's stop thrust ripped overhead and clashed into the guards' brandished weapons. A clangour of metal and curses exploded. Surprised men recoiled in a manic scramble to disentangle themselves from the misspent assault of their duke.
Arithon twisted and rolled, a dropped cat underneath. While the snarl of swords unravelled above, his sinuous scuttle carried him through spilled counters and under the table. There, sliding flat, he flipped on his side: the sheathed hilt at his shoulder escaped getting snagged on the hedging struts of the trestle. Before his inspired reaction was countered, he was out the far side and back on his feet, with Bransian turned roaring, to meet him.
At by-standing distance, irreverent with glee, Mearn watched to see which combatant would survive the fracas, uncut.