‘You say.’ Arithon smiled. With enviable quickness, he surged to his feet and offered an open, clean hand. ‘Where do I look for your husband?’
‘Kyrialt?’ She accepted his grasp. ‘Too bad he’s not here to divert you.’ Latched hold, she dealt Arithon’s knuckles a lingering kiss. Her busy mouth burned, while her loosened hair slithered over his wrist like spilled lava.
‘My dear!’ chided the Prince of Rathain, his trapped hand unresponsive to her steamy attention. ‘Is there no charity in Alland, that such beauty as yours should go hungry?’
‘Invalid! You’ve been laid so low?’ Her throaty laugh mocked as he tugged her erect. ‘Or is the excuse to gloss over the claim there’s no pith to Rathain’s royal lineage? You’re still bloodlessly cold as iced fish-bait.’
‘To a fish, that’s a banquet. You have a rank tongue. Here’s your husband to lick the sauce off you.’ And again, his evasion came fast enough. Her lightning pounce missed the robe that protected his modesty.
All insolence, he presented his back just in time to greet the mate who raced to catch up with her.
Glendien’s muscled match was distempered and flushed from hard riding. Dark brown hair laced into a traditional clan braid no longer acknowledged the pattern awarded by paternal birthright. Arithon had time to notice that much, as the young man just thrashed through the screening willow fronds slammed to a panting stop.
‘Shame hasn’t died. She’s been at you again,’ Kyrialt said, shedding all decorous royal courtesy. Hot, fully armed, he dropped to one knee. The fist at his heart nonetheless gave his liege the welcome his sworn service demanded. ‘Some wicked creatures don’t take the hint. You have to give more than a scalding.’
‘And some, like the salamander, find their piquant sport by taunting the temper of dragons. Which are you?’ Arithon reached out and raised Kyrialt. Then, his bright glance amused, he seized Glendien’s wrist. His sudden yank toppled her forward. Now wickedly smiling, he stepped clear and watched the salvage as the bride stumbled into her husband’s embrace.
‘Best leave us,’ quipped Kyrialt, ‘since this wench seems to want her clothes wrestled off for a dousing.’
Glendien nipped his ear, tossed back her flame hair, and ducked her shirt off one nubile shoulder. ‘Why struggle at all? I mean to bathe, anyhow.’
She had pearlescent skin, spangled with sun, and a ripe swell of breast, tipped a delicate, rose-petal pink. Yet if Glendien intended to gripe Rathain’s prince, or inflame him red with embarrassment, she failed.
Her sidelong glance met no stunned or admiring eyes. The cool canopy of the old willow was empty. Only her husband succumbed to the lure, which was as she had intended. The game had been about taking the Teir’s’Ffalenn down a peg. She would not bide content. Not until he acknowledged to her satisfaction that he was male, and no better than fallibly human.
Greenwood and running water had recharged the loss of vitality. Restored to the scouts’ camp, reclad in borrowed leathers trimmed down for his slighter frame, Arithon shared their plain meal. Trail fare consisted of hardened bread, spread with a salt paste made from raisins, split nuts, and smoked meat. Loose talk caught him up on the news as he ate, terse phrases reporting the erratic progress of the Alliance’s southcoast muster.
‘No sense to the plan,’ remarked the female scout, her toughened fingers twisting strands of deer gut into a new bow-string. ‘Last week, we nabbed a requisition dispatch under the Lord Commander’s own seal that turned galleys back to Innish for transport. No sense,’ she repeated. ‘At slack season, the trade there sends its hulls east to the shipyards for refit and careening. No reason they shouldn’t be crammed full of troops. Unless some slick official’s lining his pockets.’
‘Not Sulfin Evend,’ another scout quipped. ‘That one’s got hawk’s eyes and a nose for corruption to make an exciseman bleed on his silk.’
‘How many armed companies have embarked round Scimlade Tip?’ Arithon asked.
‘None, yet. An incompetence even a man without brains would find worrisome.’ The boisterous opinion was Kyrialt’s, carried uphill from the stream-side. Next moment, the young man hove into view, soaked and covered by nothing but shirttails. By unself-conscious clan habit, he flopped his shed leathers and weaponry over a branch, then wrung out his dripping clan braid. All the while, his tight survey tracked Rathain’s prince. A pleased grin emerged. ‘Your escort short-changed their report, busy man. Fit or not, you’ve leashed Lysaer’s southcoast officers up by their short hairs.’
‘Fiark’s agents did, mostly,’ Arithon amended. ‘They retired on orders after my personal interview with the Alliance Lord Commander.’
‘You came face-to-face and let that one live?’ Kyrialt snapped, surprised. His direct stare unbroken, he reached behind and fished for his small-clothes, smartly followed by his hide breeches.
Arithon watched, also unblinking. ‘Since the man was the guest of the Sanpashir tribesmen, neither one of us carried a dagger.’
‘That shouldn’t have stopped you.’ Kyrialt stuck his sheathed blades through his belt, then slung on the bossed baldric that hung his plain sword. ‘Am I wrong, then? This was the same dog who caused Jieret s’Valerient’s torture, followed up by the ignominy of a sorcerer’s execution.’
‘I deemed Sulfin Evend more helpful, alive.’ Still without armament, Arithon stood. He should have lost forceful ground, since the strapping young liegeman topped his height by six fingers, and outmatched him in muscle and strength. His phrasing seemed too mild, as well, for the fact he delivered a warning. ‘If you meet the man, you’ll acknowledge my thanks. His orders alone have bought Alland its margin of safety.’
That shocked the scouts.
Amid their stiff silence, Glendien reappeared, wet and thankfully already dressed. Without a glance towards her, the Prince of Rathain briskly addressed the scout who managed the horse relays. ‘The rest must wait for the ear of Shand’s caithdein. Might we ride, and spare your High Earl a night in the saddle to cover the distance?’
Rest by the stream-bank had wrought its strange alchemy. The Master of Shadow withstood the harsh pace that Kyrialt set in response. They covered rough ground through the afternoon heat, until even Glendien’s sharp tongue lost its edge to the lathered press of necessity. Sundown’s fire faded into a grey twilight. The pines moaned to the lash of a rain squall. Through biting insects, and sultry damp, the small cavalcade thrashed their steady way north-eastward.
By a tortuous route, marked by stones and faint game trails, they entered the heartland of Selkwood. One month had passed since last dark moon. The scouts crossed the forested hills under glimmer of starlight. Guided by woods lore, the party changed horses at speed and passed through a hidden series of check-points.
The country-side was more than just tightly guarded, with the clan women and children withdrawn deep inside protected territory. The precaution gave Arithon the comfort to breathe. Alland’s ruling council of chieftains had not chanced their families’ safety to the climate of pending war. When midnight came, he reined up in a clearing, nose to nose with another mounted company who had not spared their horseflesh to reach them.
Arithon awaited no man’s formal leave. At the first sight of Lord Erlien’s tall frame and imperious white head, amid the tight cluster of outriders, Rathain’s prince dropped his reins and dismounted. He strode forward, leaving his horse unattended, and dropped to one knee: even in darkness, none could mistake the traditional bow of deference offered by royal blood to caithdein.
Kyrialt sprang from his saddle, remiss. The liegeman’s courtesy that commanded his place at his prince’s back came too late. Resentment nursed from the day’s rebuke withered, as Arithon’s greeting to the High Earl struck even the hardest scout silent.
‘Lord Erlien s’Taleyn, I am not your crown prince. Yet my actions have drawn the adder to Shand, with none of the support I fore-promised. I will stand at your side for the reckoning. All that I have, with all that I am,
I will do what I can to defend here.’
Autumn 5671
Witness
Sidir did not manage the down-river journey to Shipsport with anything near the aplomb that upheld his steadfast character. The wedged bone in the stark teeth of necessity became the fact he distrusted staking his life at long-term on the spells of an oath-bound Koriathain. Elaira’s allegiance was not her own. A direct order from her Prime Matriarch could overrule her heart’s love for Prince Arithon. Foremost a liegeman who chose courage before chance, Sidir rejected the risk. Should he fail in his charge to curb Jeynsa, he would not leave Feithan the legacy of a public maiming on a town scaffold. His unshakeable honour also denounced the enchantress, who would have raised blistering argument.
He slipped off while she slept. By morning, three leagues removed through dense brush, he left a flagged trail for the hounds. Small doing, from there, to permit the unthinkable and let a head-hunter tracker ensnare him. Hale as he was, bruised with fight, but not broken, the league’s greed spared him as a living asset. Avenor’s pledge of double bounty in gold saw him roped and turned in at Daenfal. Branded and chained, he was dispatched down-stream to be sold to the galleys at Shipsport.
The appalling tactic forced Elaira to follow his lead. She paid coin for deck passage and kept her anonymous distance.
No bargeman left such captive muscle to waste. Sidir suffered his first taste of the whip at the oar, crossing Daenfal Lake. At the far shore, he endured the cuffs and jeers of the rivermen, who steered their blunt craft on its white-water course past the southern spur of the Skyshiels. The torturous heat of the low country followed. The laden keel scraped and grounded on sand-bars where the slack current meandered through bulrush and marshland. As the river looped south, threading the mud channel that led towards the bay head, the tall Companion bore the harsh price.
Twenty-four days chained to the deck with a pole sweep left him sunburned to weeping blisters. He had cankers from leeches burned off with salt, after the hours spent waist deep in muck, dragging the barge with a tow-rope. If his raw palms grew callus, the festered scabs on his shoulders and back became scoured livid by the pitch slapped on him to ward off flies.
At nightfall, upon the first day of autumn, the choking heat had not broken. Sidir sat curled by the rail, eyes shut and tucked motionless. He was alone, except for one sentry, who paced out his irritable watch. The other bargemen lounged on the shore, just finished with roasting their supper. The scrape of tin plates travelled on the light breeze, and the pop of seared gristle, as chewed bones were tossed in the fire pit.
‘Dice, boys? Winner to get his first pick of the strumpets?’ Guffaws broke through another man’s boastful rejoinder. The rough journey behind them, the rowdy crewmen were primed with jingling pockets and lust for the harbour-front dives crowding Shipsport.
While the forlorn sentry slouched at the stern, wistful to rejoin his fellows, Elaira crept from the willow brake lining the bank. She slipped without sound through the reeds in the shallows. As the black, open water lapped up to her chest, she ducked under, scarcely breaking a ripple. The current was not strong for a determined swimmer. She stroked at length alongside the barge, nearly silent except for quick breathing.
‘No spells!’ Sidir mouthed at a desperate whisper, the first exchanged word since his deceit had left her, asleep, by the Arwent.
Her eyes flashed, cold grey. Tight with stifled fury, she seized his manacled wrist: pressed into his palm the tinker’s steel wire he needed to spring his locked irons. Since caution would lead him to silence the watchman, the enchantress dived back under and left the prisoner to make his escape.
Elaira pushed herself hard, stroking downstream beneath the inky water. She did not resurface until her cramped lungs screamed for air. The murky flow buoyed her on, after that. Better to float slowly than risk splashing noise. A half league from the delta, she overtook her wrapped bundle of baggage and remedies, set afloat and left drifting since sunset.
‘Blessings for small favours,’ she gasped, bleak-tempered after weeks of anxiety, and chills that set her teeth chattering.
The choked stands of reed on the bank finally thinned, where a willow grove shaded the verge. Elaira crawled out of the river. She masked herself in the dank gloom of the hummock, laced with dense brush and old roots. Forest-bred scout, Sidir could seek her out. No pity for his inconvenience: she could not bear to watch as he murdered. Companion to his fallen high earl, hatred for town-born would have marked him young. Since his kind preferred death to a life in captivity, he likely would vindicate his mishandling by strangling the luckless guard.
Elaira gritted her jaw, still annoyed as she surveyed her surroundings. One night after dark moon, the sky blazed with stars. Their reflections drizzled the face of the river, blurred where the black eddies ruffled. No pursuit seemed in evidence. The enchantress wrung out her sopped shirt and sat. She waited, arms clasped to her knees, while her braid ticked an erratic tattoo of droplets onto the moss at her back. Twenty-four insufferable days, with her hands tied up by appearances; the experience galled, quite as cruel as the iron set upon Arithon’s prized liegeman!
‘I’d rather have saddled myself with a donkey!’ Elaira snapped under her breath.
A wavelet lapped against the mud shore-line. Then the waters parted, and Sidir emerged, furtive as a stalking lynx. He slipped through the undergrowth with scarcely a sound, then came on as though drawn by a beacon. Naked, emaciated, he had lost no strength. His hand was a vice from the barge pole. Elaira was inflexibly caught by her wrist, then jerked to her feet before protest. As she bristled, she felt his born talent sweep over her, a sensation like flushing heat. Too late for resentment: his lineage was gifted with truesight.
That stripping exposure slid past her shields, and his rushed whisper snapped in reproof. ‘I didn’t kill anyone! The wretch on deck got himself a dinged head. Nothing more. He’ll wake back up howling and chew off the gag. For my kindness, we have to keep moving.’
‘Arrogant beast!’ She broke his taut grasp. Bent to her damp baggage, she yanked out the plain shirt and breeches inside, since all he had thought to retrieve from the barge was the rope coiled over his shoulder, and a riverman’s knife, unsheathed in his opposite hand. She tossed the clothes at his feet. ‘We could have sped south on a galley from here, but for your insane sense of caution!’
Sidir tilted his dark head, dropped the knife, caught her chin. Starlight brushed the white hair at his temples; and also silvered the tears, streaming hopelessly down her cheeks. ‘Anyn’e ain s’teirdael,’ he murmured in musical Paravian, then translated the diminutive phrase. ‘Handfast to my prince, there’s no more hurt than a brand for this.’
She could have slapped him, if not for the noise. ‘Sting for your pride! Atwood is closed to us! A Fellowship Sorcerer has wakened the old centaur markers. For eight days, my scryings have shown nothing else. You’d have heard the song of the stones in your dreams, if you hadn’t been hell-bent on slavery!’
Sidir caught his breath. He let go, touched her fingers to quell her alarm. Then he snatched on the shirt, which had been loosely cut to keep from binding his welted skin. His quick pause could be sensed, for that kindness. The enchantress held her tongue, grim, while he eased the breeches over the weals on his ankles. Yet wordless, she passed him a soft, calf-skin belt. He fastened the buckle, which chafed nonetheless. His strained breath said as much as he bent and retrieved the knife from the ground.
Before Sidir straightened, the enchantress delved into her satchel again. His cry was stifled ruthlessly silent: perhaps he wept, masked in darkness. His gratitude warmed her subliminal senses as she thrust upon him her gift of hide lacing and boots.
‘Princess, Lady,’ he murmured. ‘The trade-road. Most swiftly. If Atwood is closed, the wise course is to raid. This country’s no place to throw off the search those townsmen will launch for a fugitive. We’ll have to go mounted if we’re to escape.’
They set off at a
run, with Elaira unable to match his long-strided sprint. Sidir slowed and flanked her. Through thicket and thorn brake, and forest-bound glades, he pushed on until she was winded. Forced back to her pace, he pressed towards the low ground, sloshing through streamlets to confound their scent for the dogs.
‘They won’t expect us to try the road, south,’ said Elaira, first chance she could speak.
‘I won’t rely on that hunch.’ Sidir laid bold hands on her waist. Before the enchantress exclaimed in surprise, he boosted her onto a tree branch. ‘Stay here. Catch your breath. I’ll find horses and come for you.’
Gone the next instant, he left her no choice but to mind his instructions. Elaira braced for an uncomfortable wait and a struggle to remain wakeful. Yet the Companion’s return was swift. This time, past question, his knife was not clean: he carried two Sunwheel surcoats. The horses had messenger’s seals on their saddle-cloths, and a dispatch case, tagged for Pellain.
‘Irony’s with us. Tight security’s got the couriers riding in pairs.’ Sidir tossed over the smaller of two man-sized garments. ‘Put that on. Leave your braid tucked inside. If we gallop the check-points, we’ll be waved straight past. Damned war’s got the country-side stirred like a pot. Stay moving, we won’t be questioned.’
Elaira took the reins of a fiery mare and mounted despite the beast’s sidling. Sidir stowed her satchel inside the cerecloth cape the past rider had rolled at the cantle. Since her beardless face would draw notice, past daybreak, the clan liegeman vaulted astride and plied urgent heels to his horse.
The pair of them rammed ahead through the brush. Whipped by low branches and snagged by dense thorns, they broke through to the open road. Sidir spurred ahead, pressed beyond care for horseflesh. ‘I strung a rope trap,’ he explained when, reined back to ease their blown mounts, he flashed a glance over his shoulder. ‘No way the bodies I left in the brush are not going to draw buzzards, as carrion.’