Traitor''s Knot (epub)

  'There.' Dakar pointed. 'Don't act cocky. The look-out's seen you. He'll have counted that blade at your belt, first of all. At the gate, they'll already know the coin worth of your buckles and buttons.'

  A winkle of light flared through the sea haze, banked above the horizon.

  Fionn Areth stared, enchanted. A moment's search, and he made out the outline, grey overlaid on a palette of slate: the high teeth of stone battlements, seemingly cast adrift above the shimmering scarf of the barley-fields. 'The watch surveys the road, do you say? Just how, in that steam-bath of mist?'

  'Are you simple?' Dakar honked noisily, veiled in the dust thrown up by couriers and drays returning unladen from market. 'We've been under their eye from those windmills, since dawn. The signals are passed on with mirrors.'

  Foot-sore from the iron-hard ruts, Fionn Areth pressed on toward the stronghold of the Duke of Alestron, whose clan family, Arithon s'Ffalenn had once said, were "warmongering lions who judge a man first by his armament."

  They reached the walled citadel in the slatted shadows of late afternoon. Perched on its promontory above the sea, the massive, tiered bastion of Alestron reared up like a cliff-face, its flint stone notched with arrow-slits, and its mortar glittering with embedded glass. From the soot shade under the outer gate, beneath the teeth of its massive twin portcullis, a man would be flattened by the inbound traffic before he could count even half of the murder holes.

  'I feel like a seamstress's pincushion, already,' Fionn Areth murmured in awe. Shown what the duke's men considered a guard's standard issue of weaponry, he added, chilled, 'Or I should have said, collops and mince. Do these folk have any enemies left alive with the warm bollocks to breed offspring?'

  'If they didn't, they'd thrash up some more in a heart-beat,' Dakar said. 'They're wont to pick fights like starved wolves dumped fighting mad into a cur pack.'

  For him, the steep, switched-back road past the gate carried too many damnable memories. The last time he had called on the lord of Alestron, he had come on an errand for Sethvir, with Arithon of Rathain made the butt of a personal plot laid as a double cross. Even after twenty-six years, Dakar winced at the outcome. S'Ffalenn cunning had defanged his set trap. Without intervention from a Fellowship Sorcerer, Dakar would have seen himself spitted on the venom of s'Brydion vindictiveness. Today, escorting Arithon's shapechanged double, he sweated by turns, clammy dread superseded by his eagerness to see Fionn Areth receive his long-overdue comeuppance.

  'They don't like besiegers, I see that much,' the young man allowed. Just as anxious to give the spellbinder his brisk quittance, he turned his admiring regard to the gate barracks, and the brick bailey just visible through the portal, where the guard checked arms for the watch change at sundown. 'Where should I go to sign with the field troops who fight for the Alliance of Light?'

  'A trained swordsman like you? March with the foot ranks?' Dakar's sidelong glance showed contempt.

  Fionn Areth drew himself up, his pleased surprise at the compliment stifled behind a thick scowl. 'The day sergeant could have told me,' he insisted, dodging a wine tun rolled by a boy in a stained-leather brigandine, 'where I should go to sign on the rolls as an officer.'

  Dakar tucked a strategic cough behind his fist. 'They would not,' he said, eyes watering from stifled laughter. 'This is Alestron. Charter law rules here, and promotions to rank go by merit. However,' he said, snatching his companion's sleeve, before he ducked back toward the barracks, 'if you wish to be seen as more than a green recruit, you could come along to the upper citadel. I might present you in person to the reigning s'Brydion duke.'

  Fionn Areth stopped short, almost run down by a wagon filled with crates of squabbling chickens. Oblivious to the carter's oaths and the blizzard of down dusting over his hat, he said, 'No! You're damned to the dark as a minion of Shadow! In such company as yours, I'd likely be lopped into mincemeat the moment you opened your mouth!'

  'You think so?' Dakar's grin widened. 'More likely, my friend, I'd be cut dead for standing next to your face. You're so blissed at the prospect of killing for glory, you've forgotten whose features you're wearing?'

  Fionn Areth flushed. 'Well, maybe I'm thinking I'd be better off if somebody else introduced me. Your name's too well known, for a certainty.'

  'By all means,' the Mad Prophet mocked. 'You can try. But without my credentials, I'll tell you now, you won't pass the gate to the inner citadel.'

  'And you can?' Fionn Areth marched onwards. 'Show me a marvel I can believe, like a chick from an egg-hatching donkey!'

  'I'm the apprentice spellbinder to a Sorcerer. Charter law answers to crown justice, and, grass-lands idiot, no offence to your ignorance, crown justice upholds the compact as granted by the grace of the Fellowship of Seven.' Smug as a swindler, Dakar sidled into an alley with a steep, twisting stair, without pause to see if his mark followed. 'The s'Brydion will not only receive me, they'll provide board and bed, and a bath with a willing maidservant.'

  Fionn Areth raised his eyebrows, prepared to retort. But Dakar's wheezing seemed cruelty enough, as the ascent robbed him of breath for dignified speech.

  At the top, disgorged on a road like a cliff-rim, they passed through another wall, and another gate, this one more heavily guarded. Here, a plank-bridge spanned a vertical ditch, with keep towers on either side. The streets beyond snaked up the promontory, overhung by slotted-wood hidings. These had murder holes also. The unwary traffic moved underneath, drowned in a blue gulf of shade. Footmen and carriages, horsemen and drays breasted the seething press. Squeezed into the slot of another close, Fionn Areth realized the craft shops and houses were built chock-a-block, their fortified facings pierced with notches for bowmen.

  'S'Brydion don't like besiegers,' Dakar agreed, puffing to recoup his wind where a matron's herb pots soaked up a thin slice of sun.

  Upwards again, they passed the rock-springs and the cisterns; then the chopped turf of the tilt-yards; another barracks and armoury, attached to a smithy. The heat wafted through the crossbuck door smelled of charcoal, and the clangour of hammers was deafening. Fionn Areth stepped, crackling, over curled shavings, whisked on the breeze from the cooper's shacks; dodged a boy rolling rims to the wheelwright's. Higher, three muddy children tugged a squealing pig on a string, past a fat woman who scolded. Pigeons flew in flurries of slate wings,, and gulls perched, white, on the cornices. They passed the brickmaker's kilns, and the steaming vats where the Tenderers stirred fat to make yellow soap, and a sweating girl boiling fish-glue. Dakar puffed a complaint that his chest would split, and asked for a stop at a wine-shop.

  'Only one glass,' he promised. 'It's our chance to take in the gossip.'

  Fionn Areth sat in a dimmed corner, his hat-brim pulled low, while a man who made rivets flirted with the barmaid, and others with sword scars shot dice. In the streets, he had noticed that most men bore the marks of campaigns; or else the s'Brydion sergeants taught their recruits with sharpened weapons.

  'This whole town's a war camp,' he murmured to Dakar, as they paid up to leave.

  The comment earned him a moon-calf glance. 'It's a wasp's nest,' Dakar amended, then belched into his hand. 'I thought you would feel quite at home here?'

  They climbed again, past dormered houses, then another deep ditch, and a wall notched with razor-toothed barbicans. The gatehouse held embrasures for ballistas, and a sand arena contained the full-scale array of a field camp. Horsemen were at practice, and other men, stripped, were perfecting the aim on a trebuchet.

  'You will notice, there's been no standing timber for five leagues,' said Dakar. 'If an attacking host wishes to assault with siege weapons, it must import the timber, then cross that naked valley by ox carriage. Plenty of time for that monster, there, to hammer such toys into match-sticks.' He finished with wine-scented gravity. 'You don't want the s'Brydion clan for your enemies.'

  Higher, they climbed, past stables and commons, while the swooping rooks wheeled in the salty gusts whisked off the
channel inlet. They sheltered in a doorway as an armed troop clattered by, drilled to a cutting-edge of obedience. The captain who led them had eyes like his steel, sharpened and ruthlessly wary.

  'There, just ahead.' The Mad Prophet panted. His wave encompassed two high towers, and a slit in between, which glowered down over a cleft like a quarry. The gulf was spanned by a thin, swaying bridge suspended on cables and forged chain. 'That's the Wyntock Gate to the inner citadel. Here's where the war host that sacked the royal seat at Tirans was broken, then crushed, in the uprising over five hundred years ago. They say the ditch, there, ran knee deep in blood at low tide, with the heaped fallen seething with ravens and vultures.' Overhead, there were such birds, now, circling high on the air-currents. Dakar mopped back his screwed hair and shoved off toward the bridge. 'They bring up dray teams and supply wagons by winch from the sea-gate, and now, the defences get serious.'

  The approach took them through another set of twinned keeps, pierced by a narrow, cobble-stone ramp, pitched too steep for a cart. Planks had been laid, ribbed with nailed strips. The wood had been gouged into slivers by horses shod with screwed caulks.

  'In war, they will unshackle the span of the bridge, then take up the planks and sluice down this causeway with grease,' Dakar said. 'Foot-troops can't pass then. See those embrasures? That's where the archers lie back and slaughter each wave of attackers at leisure.'

  'They don't advance under frameworks and hides?' Fionn Areth asked, breathless.

  'They try, and they burn like a torch.' Dakar added grimly, 'Look up.'

  Overhead lay a spider-work track of forged metal, where an iron cart bearing boiling oil, or pitch-soaked batts could be dumped to scorch any force pressed against the meshed gate.

  At the top, stopped by hard men with bared steel, Dakar gave his name. 'He's with me.' A jerk of his chin set the sentries' cold glance sweeping over Fionn Areth. 'My surety,' the Mad Prophet informed them, then said, 'We're expected. If you don't wish to trouble the duke or his brothers, Vhandon or Talvish can speak for us.'

  The man in charge grinned, his helm polished over the scratches of veteran service. 'Brave man, you say my lord's family knows you? Better pray, if they don't. The two captains you mentioned will vouchsafe your identity, or else you'll soon be greeting the rooks who clip the dead eyes from your carcass.' He surveyed them again, lingering over Fionn Areth's plain sword and blunt hands. 'Go across. Since I don't know your faces, expect that you're going to be challenged.'

  The watch-officer stepped back. High overhead, someone yelled, 'It's a maybe?'

  The sentry nodded. Another man must have dispatched a signal, for torchlight winked in smart reply from a mirror in the far keep.

  Past the narrows of the Wyntock Gate, goatherd and prophet stepped onto the bridge, whose gouged planks heaved under their load like sea-rollers. The steel links of the chain pinched a swatch of snagged tail hair.

  'They can't cross a horse here!' Fionn Areth protested, clenched sick by the irregular, bucking sway and the creak of taut cordage beneath him.

  'They do,' Dakar rebutted. 'Hand-picked light cavalry and stronghold couriers, the animals are ridden or led over one at a time.' He paused, queasy, as a raven soared down the ribbon of shade cast by the span underneath them. 'The animals are trained as sucklings beside their dams. Legend holds the original mares were hand-picked, starved for water, then lured over to drink under a blindfold. You don't,' he finished, 'presume the impossible with s'Brydion. Foes who have tend to rue the experience.'

  Several dizzy steps later, clued by the lack of disparaging comment, the Mad Prophet appended, 'If you're going to be sick, don't try running back. They'll have a spanned cross-bow sighting you from behind, and an archer apiece, stationed in the towers ahead of us. Long-bow men ready to skewer your heart, and mine, if the first marksman happens to miss.'

  Fionn Areth swallowed. He disliked windy heights. 'They're that good?'

  'Better.' Dakar mopped his brow in relief as they neared the pair of squat keeps, each housing the massive drums for the windlasses, which required twenty stout men to turn. They set foot at last upon secure stone, buffeted by the freshening wind, and surrounded by darting cliff swallows. The upper fortress reared up beyond, with the eyrie vantage of more drum-towers and look-out points, each with streaming banners painted in sun against the clear, lapis zenith.

  'The Mathiell Gate,' Dakar stated. Before the forged grille, six sentries in scarlet-blazoned surcoats stood ground with mailed fists and poised halberds. 'It's a corruption of the Paravian, mon-thiellen, for "sky spires."'

  More guardsmen in plain armour lurked in the sallyport, armed to the teeth, and with no trace of slackness about them. Two others, clad in stud brigandines, advanced to issue the challenge.

  Dakar stated his name, then used Luhaine's, concerning an issue of sanctuary. He added much more in Paravian, several times stating Prince Arithon's formal title of Teir's'Ffalenn.

  'You don't match the description,' the gate captain snapped, while his men-at-arms responded to doubt with instantaneously lowered weapons. 'The Mad Prophet is said to have ruddy colouring. Your pelt looks dyed, and a poor job at that.'

  Dakar sighed over the silver roots of the hair grown in since his ordeal at Rockfell. 'That's the price of my service to a Fellowship Sorcerer. Would an imposter try such stupidity?' The sentry's sharp glance flickered to his companion. 'Hat off, you!' he rapped with impatience.

  Fionn Areth obliged without turning his head, still mollified by the view. The massive, lower fortress lay spread out below, clutched like a bezel around the ducal council-hall, with its craft shops and gabled houses a jumble of lead roofs and slate, descending in steps to the valley. Beneath the chain-bridge, the first combers swirled in scallops of green, flooding in from the tidal rip in the estuary. At the periphery, the double-take of chagrined alarm passed unseen, as the gate sentry noted black hair and green eyes, then the sharp-angled set of his features.

  'Dharkaron's glory!' the watch captain gasped, low-voiced. 'Here I thought you'd brought me a yokel.' He wheeled, cracked an order to the halberdiers, then slipped through the grille and bolted up-town at a jangling sprint.

  Dakar, smiling, murmured a laconic phrase to the man who remained.

  The gate sentry now stood rigidly smart, and answered with punctilious deference. 'Someone's already fetched Vhandon and Talvish. Naturally, now, they'll serve as your escort. The wait's just a courtesy. Our watch-officer will have gone on ahead to inform the duke of your arrival.'

  The herd-boy from Araethura overheard this, impressed. Faced forward, he jammed on his straw hat, while Dakar touched an arm to forestall an untoward exclamation. 'Patience. We'll be warmly welcomed.'

  As the grass-lands-bred hothead this once minded decency, the Mad Prophet stifled his pique. The problem with bear-baiting Arithon's double: the artless creature provided no sport.

  The recent arrivals were closely observed from an overhead vantage in the right gate tower. Two heads bent close to peer from an embrasure, one close-cropped and grey, and the other flaxen. Granite strength set in counterweight contrast to a dancer's mercurial quickness, the ill-matched pair of retainers surveyed the two men held up at the bridge-head.

  'Merciful death! Did you look at that hat!' Vhandon burst out in amazement. Normally the more restrained of the two, he lapsed back into thoughtful silence.

  Yon's not himself,' Talvish agreed. His narrow features hinted at laughter, while his clever fingers danced a tattoo against the battered stone coping. 'The stance is all wrong. That sword's not Alithiel. What I see is a flat-footed bumpkin who's maybe experienced at skipping through cow clods?'

  'The rescued double,' Vhandon surmised. Stolid frame planted, arms crossed, he was frowning, soot eyebrows shading creased sockets. He resumed in the rural drawl of East Halla, 'If the bait from the Koriani trap's been brought here, then where under the Fatemaster's almighty eye is his royal Grace of Rathain?'

  Talvish grinned like
a weasel. 'Shall we go down and find out?' For answer, Vhandon poked his spike helm through the siege shutter. 'Pass them! They're known to us.'

  The gate sentry detaining the arrivals waved back, and Dakar, glancing up, shouted a pleased phrase in Paravian.

  'Tal, damn you, wait! Stop and listen to this!' Vhandon's blunt grip trapped his fellow's wrist, halting the rush for the stairwell. 'The Mad Prophet's brought us a parcel of joy! The child's a goatherd who believes all the mummery, that Duke Bransian's allied with the Light.'

  'You say?' The taller blond chuckled with rapacious delight, then cracked his knuckles to limber his sword-hand. 'My beer coin says the duke's brothers will spit him.'

  Vhandon's frown vanished. 'And mine says, Bransian will get his lambasting blade in before them.'

  'Ath!' Talvish plunged for the landing, snorting back laughter. 'The duke might, at that. It's a squeaking tight call.'

  A fleeting glance was exchanged in the dark, as side by side, the retainers who were life-pledged to serve Arithon descended to wring the Mad Prophet for news.

  Whisked at brisk speed through the shaded, tight streets of Alestron's inner citadel, with the two men-at-arms padding like predators after him, Fionn Areth was shown through an iron-strapped door, into the bowels of a drumkeep.

  'Up there,' said the blond, whose leopard's glance absorbed everything, and whose narrow lips did not smile.

  The sturdy partner with the reticent face held his stance.

  Parted from Dakar, assigned to these veterans, Fionn Areth stifled his questions. He shoved back his straw hat and set about climbing stairs.

  The swordsmen trod after him, matched. The feat should not have been possible, the breathless goatherd thought sourly. Their differing frames should not have been able to stride in such seamless tandem. Distempered by the time he was granted a guest-chamber, Fionn Areth closed the door on his disconcerting armed escort. Faced about, he bumped into a liveried page, sent to help with his bath and his dress.

  'No.' Flushed scarlet, Fionn Areth jerked his thumb toward the doorway. His scowl would have credited the Prince of Rathain, as he dispatched the fellow outside.