“I’ll be quick,” Dorrin said.
Grekkan came out of one of the storehouses carrying a slate as Dorrin crossed the courtyard. “My lord, the weavers have been working steadily, but we still don’t have as many blankets as you said.”
“That’s all right. Come eat with me; Farin doesn’t want it to get cold.” They walked across the courtyard; Dorrin thought of ducking into the stable to find the farrier, but Farin had opened the kitchen door and was looking at them. Later, then.
“We haven’t gone over the estate accounts since just after you came back from Autumn Court,” Grekkan said. “I’d like you to see them.” Grekkan had spent the first quarter of his tenure as steward bringing them up to his standard.
“We’ll have to do it quickly,” Dorrin said. “I have much to do this afternoon.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll make it brief.” He looked at the ceiling. “The quarterly grange-set for all the granges and the estate contribution to the royal purse will have to come partly from your holdings in Vérella. Harvests were good throughout despite the late start in some vills, but you remitted the estate’s share for all who had lost a family member in the battle.”
Holdings in Vérella … Dorrin was only too aware how little she had on credit with the bank there. “I still have the jewelry confiscated from those attainted,” she said. “I’ll take that with me to Harway and sell it there. Can you give me an approximate value?”
“I can try,” Grekkan said.
“Good.” It would keep him busy while she finished her letters. Dorrin found the box in which she’d put all the rings, bracelets, necklaces, jeweled combs, and the like, now all clean of poison and any taint of evil.
Daryan arrived with his troop after dark, the distant sentries signaling his arrival with their torches. Dorrin came out to greet him when he rode up to the stableyard gate. He dismounted and bowed.
“Greetings of the night, my lord. I report all well when we left our area.”
“I have urgent news,” Dorrin said. “There’s war: Pargun and Lyonya.” She shot a glance at the troop sergeant, Piter Arugson, once in her cohort. He nodded slightly; he knew how to prepare them. “Dismiss your troop and come inside.”
Daryan did so in correct form, handed his reins to his sergeant, and followed Dorrin inside.
“There’s supper kept warm for you,” Dorrin said, sending a maid to fetch it. “Come by the fire and I’ll explain.” She’d had his fleece-lined slippers brought down, and as he warmed himself by the fire and then began to eat with all the appetite of a fast-growing young man, she told him about Arian’s visit, the invasion, and what she must do.
“I could send you back to your father,” she said at last as he wiped his plate with another slice of bread. “You are a year too young to be required to ride into danger—”
“But I want to,” he said, dropping the bread. “Please, my lord—don’t send me home like a naughty child. Roly—”
“Your brother’s what, four years, or five, older than you? Yet, I won’t send you home if you want to chance it.”
“I do, my lord. And Gwenno’s gone—”
“And Beclan will be behind us.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re not taking Beclan? Why? Will he guard the household here?”
“No. He was outbound before I knew of this; he’s at least several days away. I’m sending a messenger to him, telling him to raise troops on his way in, then follow us. Our troops will be the first levy to reach Harway, so we will be first in combat if the Pargunese do invade.”
Daryan said, “Will you command us, then, my lord?”
“Initially, yes,” Dorrin said. “But if there’s a prolonged war and many different units, I must find a field commander for my own militia. None of you squires have the experience for that.”
“Even Beclan?” He sounded surprised.
“Even Beclan. Kieri Phelan felt it took at least two full seasons of campaigning under experienced commanders for a squire to develop the skills. More for some. Captain Selfer was Kieri’s squire for three years, then junior captain, and now he’s a senior captain.” Dorrin looked at Daryan and did not ask if he had imagined himself leading troops in battle. Squires all did, one time or another. Daryan, as the youngest and smallest, with an older brother who had saved the king’s life, would want to prove himself.
Daryan, slightly flushed, shoveled in another mouthful of buttered redroots, as if to stop himself saying anything.
“I have dispatches for the king and Council, and orders to send as well, when we arrive in Harway,” Dorrin said. “I’m certain I’ll need to meet with the Royal Guard commander there. You and Gwenno will manage your combined squads for the time being—”
“She’s senior,” Daryan said.
“Yes. But there’ll be plenty for both of you to do. One of you will need to visit the grange and let the Marshal know that I’ve arrived, for instance. We may meet a courier on the way; I’m surprised no one’s arrived yet. So your task for this evening is to prepare your own gear—you’ll need three suits of clothes at least—and see that your squad is ready to leave by noon tomorrow. Your sergeant will have done most of it, but you must check. How are the horses’ shoes?”
“Two lost a shoe, my lord, and one is lame. Three need to be reshod, besides the two that lost shoes.”
“Well, then. How will you plan what needs to be done?”
Daryan told her; she had thought before he had the most organized mind of her squires. She grinned at him. “Well done, Daryan. See to it you’re abed by four glasses from now, and tell your sergeant the same.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The next morning, Dorrin woke to find all busy with preparations. Farin Cook had rations for the squad packed and ready to carry by breakfast time; the farrier had a roaring fire in his forge; servants scurried back and forth loading the supply wagon—not needed for one squad but essential if this became a long campaign. Rations, blankets, tents, braziers, spares of everything from stirrup leathers to swords. Dorrin finished the last of her messages, tucking the one for the king into a stiff tube of blue leather with the Verrakai crest on it. Then she went out to the kitchen garden with its apple trees. Could she do what Arian had tried to teach her?
She laid her ungloved hand on the old tree’s cold bark. At once—so fast she almost pulled away—it warmed under her hand, and she felt the something that Arian called the taig. Still strange to her, and unsettling, but she felt welcome in it, too. She wanted to know how Kieri was, but though she tried to ask the tree—feeling foolish even as she did so—nothing came of it but that warmth, that welcome.
One of the servants opened the garden door. “My lord? Cook says lunch is ready.”
Dorrin stroked the tree’s gnarled limb and came inside.
“Can we make the shelter by nightfall, my lord?” the sergeant asked.
“No … but we don’t know how bad the situation is.” Was it Arian’s worry tugging at her or something more? “We can make it by turn of night, even riding in the dark, and if they’ve sent a courier, we’ll be that much closer to Harway.”
“Well, then, we’re ready.”
They set off against a steady north breeze under a thin skim of clouds that flattened out shadows. The marks of yesterday’s travelers showed clearly, though, and by dark they were well into the forest. The blazes Dorrin had ordered cut to mark the way for traders now helped them find the way, shining pale in the torchlight. Shortly after the last light died in the west, they heard someone coming and a hail.
“Go on, Daryan,” Dorrin said. “See what we have.”
Daryan signaled his troop, and two of them rode forward with him while Dorrin held the others still. She heard the voices: challenge, response, surprise, but no alarm, and then Daryan came back, his horse high-stepping with the squire’s excitement. “It’s a royal courier, my lord. For you.”
Dorrin rode forward. The man wearing a courier’s tabard over his Royal Guard uniform looked
pinched with cold and tired in the wavering torchlight. As well he might, she thought, if he’d ridden straight through from Harway.
“You knew?” the man said. His tone was almost accusing, but Dorrin could imagine the frustration of riding hours through the cold without need. “That girl said, but I wasn’t sure.”
“My squire, Gwennothlin Marrakai,” Dorrin said, nodding. “Of course I called in the nearest militia, and more are coming. What does the Royal Guard know?”
“I left as soon as the Lyonyans told us there was trouble,” the man said. “I don’t know more than you do.” He spat to the side. “I guess I’ll go back now.”
“Do you have a message for me? Written?”
“Oh. Yes, my lord.”
“Then let’s get to the shelter and I’ll read it.”
“How far’s the house, my lord?” His voice held a faint whine.
“The house?” Dorrin scowled. “You’ve no reason to go on: I’m here, the person you came to see.”
“Well, but …” He spat again. “I been riding all day, and yesterday, too. It’s a long way back to that shelter and no fire there, neither.”
“It’s as far to the house as back to the shelter,” Dorrin said, nodding at the nearest marked tree. She felt a vague uneasiness. The man was a royal courier—had to be, wearing that uniform—but she could not imagine anyone in that service expecting to travel on to a duke’s residence for a night’s rest when the duke was there, on the road, headed somewhere else. It made no sense.
“If you say so, my lord,” the man said. He looked away, once more spitting to the side of the trail.
Dorrin felt cold down her spine. He had never actually looked straight at her, she realized. He had looked down or away, using the need to spit as a reason to keep his gaze averted. Was he a traitor? Was he—worst of all—a Verrakai in a loyal man’s body? She shifted both reins to one hand, let the other drop to her side, and flicked a hand signal she knew the troop sergeant would understand.
“When did you leave the shelter?” she asked, riding another horse-length closer to him. If he’d left early, he should have reached the house by nightfall, not this halfway point.
He spat yet again. “Oh, well,” he said. “M’horse was that tired … I thought the house was closer, so I didn’t leave until … maybe near nooning.”
Time enough, if a Verrakai magelord had been hiding in the woods, to attack … but he should have been delirious with fever, not already invaded. The invasion must have happened before. So why had he waited to start for the house?
To catch her on the way. He would have known—his powers were ample for that—when she set out.
Would he attack her, or one of her party? Behind the courier, false or true, Daryan sat his horse watching them. Too close to the courier; too close to her.
“Ride on to the shelter,” she called to Daryan. “Start a fire for us. Be swift.”
“Yes, my lord.” Daryan wheeled his horse and booted it to a canter.
The courier whirled at the sound, and Dorrin’s next flick of the hand sent five crossbow bolts into the man’s torso. He gave a hoarse cry and slid from the saddle; the bolt of mage-power he’d sent missed Daryan by a scant armslength.
“You … you killed a royal courier!” one of her Verrakai militia said.
“I killed a traitor,” Dorrin said. “If he’s dead. Sergeant: perimeter guard. There may be more. Do not approach him; he’s still dangerous.”
Why hadn’t she recognized his magery instantly? she wondered.
She dismounted, drew her sword, and walked over to the fallen man. Still alive but mortally wounded, too weak to raise an effective attack of magery. She barely felt the malice he flung at her shield, but she saw in his eyes undying hatred. “How long?” she asked.
His lips twisted in a sneer. “Not long enough; you should be dead.”
“And I am not, and you are dying. How long were you in that body?”
“Guess,” he said. “Or if you have the courage, bend closer; I will tell only you, not those scum.”
“I think not,” Dorrin said. Arcolin’s experience warned her. She backed away.
“Coward bitch!” he said; blood spurted from his mouth. His body convulsed, and a mist formed over it though the body still jerked. Dorrin spoke the words she had spoken when she expelled the Verrakai spirit from Stammel, but the mist did not disperse. Instead, it drifted toward her on the current of air from the north, hardly visible in the wavering torchlight.
“My lord?” The sergeant’s voice was shaky.
“If I cannot dispel the mist—if it enters me, if I act differently—kill me at once.”
“My lord!”
“At once.” Dorrin backed away from the mist a step, then stopped. She would not lead it closer to her people. They had no protection; she had her shield of magery. She must lure it to her alone. “I must not become what that was; this realm has had enough evil Verrakaien.” She stepped forward.
If Verrakai command words would not work on this one … what did that mean? Could it penetrate her mage-shield? Who had it been, and how many years had it lived, to have so strong a hold on life unbodied? And what would work?
Kieri’s words, the remembered words of the man who had freed him from torment, came to her: There is a High Lord above all lords; go to his courts and be free.
The mist reached her shield, thick enough to dim the torchlight and spread like a stain on glass. She felt a mental itch, a high thin keening like a fly trapped in a corner. The first touch on her skin was like fire. The noise in her head grew.
“Falk’s Oath in gold,” Dorrin said, “and the High Lord’s justice oppose your evil. By this ruby, by the High Lord’s rule, as Falk’s knight and the High Lord’s loyal servant, I banish you. Begone, foulness, and be born no more.” With her sword, blue now glinting from its blade, she drew the sigils for Falk and the High Lord on the mist; the mist brightened, condensed, and for a moment she felt engulfed in chaos. Then it was gone—the pressure, the sound, the mental itch, the burning pain.
The sergeant, sword drawn, stood near her, eyes fixed on hers as she turned. “It touched you,” he said. “I saw it pause and then—”
“My shield held it off briefly, then it got through. But I am unchanged,” Dorrin said. She saw doubt in his face. “I have no relic of Falk to prove it by, but I do still wear Falk’s ruby.” She touched it; it glowed to her touch. “And see the blade of my sword—you saw it flare when it touched the mist, and now when I touch my bare hand to it—” She pulled off her glove with her teeth and laid her hand on the blade. “Nothing.”
“How did you destroy it?”
“I did not,” Dorrin said. “It ignored my commands as lord of Verrakai. But Falk and the High Lord destroyed it. Did you hear my prayer?”
“No, my lord. Your lips moved, but we heard nothing. That’s why we thought …” His voice trailed away; he still looked worried.
“Watch me closely,” Dorrin said. “And by all means, when we reach Harway, tell the Marshal—as I will—and the Royal Guard commander what you saw and how I have behaved since. I’m going to get the courier’s seal ring and the messages he carried, if any.” Nothing happened as she touched the body. She found the message case, the seal ring, pulled off his gloves.
“Why’s that?” asked the sergeant, standing near.
“Look,” Dorrin said. On the inner wrist was a tattoo, barely visible in the torchlight, but the horned circle was evident. “He must have killed the real courier and taken his clothes; there’s no way a Royal Guard soldier could hide that mark.” She touched his chest and felt something lumpy. She ripped open tunic and shirt with her dagger, and there it was—Liart’s emblem.
The sergeant whistled. “That’s bad.”
“We’ll have to take his body and keep watch for the body of the man he killed. And we need to follow Daryan quickly. Get this loaded on his horse.” She glanced aside; the horse he’d ridden was gnawing on a lichen-covere
d limb.
She turned away, tucking the message case and ring into her doublet, and mounted her horse. She felt—different. But not different in a bad way.
When the body had been lashed to the horse, the sergeant told off three to stay with it and follow at a slower pace, and then with Dorrin set off at a hard gallop. The track was open now, unobscured, after the work she had done on it; even at night she could see the way, the snow seeming almost to glow in the starlight.
Dorrin hoped to catch up with Daryan before he reached the shelter, but he’d had a good start and she’d told him to hurry. She wished she could see the hoofmarks on the track more clearly. In daylight, she’d have known which were those from Gwenno’s party the day before, which were the courier’s, and which were Daryan’s, but in the starlight that was impossible. Still, the rumpled trodden snow should keep Daryan from getting lost.
At last they came out into the clearing around the shelter. Dorrin stared. No fire. No horse. No welcoming call from Daryan.
“Where is he?” asked one of the militia.
“I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “In trouble, I expect.” She kept her voice calm with an effort; her thoughts sped. If the one she’d killed had not been the only one—if others had lurked nearby, had seen Daryan ride away—She tried to put that aside.
The shelter had a supply of dry wood and ready-made torches; by their light they found the body of the real courier, his hands charred, his eyes gouged out, wounds all over his body, his blood darkening the snow and ground around him.
“Blood magery,” the sergeant said.
“Yes.” Dorrin could scarcely speak. She touched the ruined eye sockets, the charred hands. “Falk’s welcome for him and great reward for his service.” To one side she saw footprints leading into the woods. “Bring a torch nearer.” Three sets of footprints coming toward the shelter’s unwindowed north side from the woods … two going back. So the mage had had help subduing the courier, just as she’d feared.
And Daryan might have found two—or more—with mage powers when he arrived. Or they might have ambushed him along the track.