Through the long, dragging night, as she restlessly paced her bedchamber, Lindara held fast to one small consolation–that no matter what Merget might confess, she could never point an accusing finger at Vidar. The silly girl had no idea of her mistress’s trysts with a lover. All she’d ever done was collect Damikah’s pills and potions and bring them back to the castle. As for the witch… yes, her confession was calamity. But though she’d known there was a lover, she’d never been told his name. So Vidar must be safe, surely. Not even Humbert would dare persecute a man whose crime he might suspect, but couldn’t prove.
Unless he finds a way to snatch Vidar into secret keeping and there torments him till he breaks, and tells the truth.
Outrageous, yes, but she wouldn’t put anything past her father. With his sons dead, all Humbert cared about was becoming grandsire of a duke. He’d not flinch at committing more underhanded brutality. Not if it meant revenging himself on the man who’d nearly cost him his dream. And Vidar had no family to speak of. No one with power to stand for him against the second-most powerful man in Clemen. Aistan wasn’t family yet. Let one whiff of scandal touch him–let Humbert so much as hint at matters unsavoury–and Vidar would never wed with pathetic, dowdy Kennise. Aistan would discard him faster than a cook throwing rotten meat into the midden. Which meant Vidar’s only hope was that he’d be protected by Humbert’s need to protect himself.
At least, that’s what she believed. Had to believe. For if she couldn’t believe it she’d break to pieces.
Eventually, exhausted, she stumbled against a carved bedpost and clung to it, a shipwrecked survivor in the stormiest of seas. Merget taken. Damikah dead. And with her last moontime proof of an empty womb, not even the hope of Vidar’s child to sustain her. Six years of secret striving laid to waste in a matter of hours.
Humbert saw us dancing. We betrayed ourselves dancing. One lingering look, one private smile, and we’re undone?
Oh, she could weep. And so was she punished for encouraging Roric to discourage sour exarchite prohibitions against harmless frolicking.
Dawn came at last. Slumped on the floor at the foot of the bed, wrapped in fox-fur, she heard the stirring of her ladies beyond the chamber door. Someone knocked, tentatively, and called her by name. When she didn’t answer there was another knock, more determined. She wanted to scream at the ever-present, chattering magpies.
Go away. Leave me be. Don’t you know my life is ruined?
But if she didn’t let them in to help with her chamber pot, to bathe her face and breasts and arms with rosewater, brush her hair and braid it with pearl-sewn ribbons, lace her into linen and fine wool, garter silk hose upon her legs, fit her feet with velvet slippers, drape her bodice with gold chains and prick pearls through her ears, they’d shriek an uproar to bring Eaglerock castle crashing down upon their heads.
Humbert returned just as a kitchen steward was setting out her morning meal of manchet, curd cheese, apricot paste and cider.
“Be gone,” he said to the steward, and her ladies, jerking his thumb at the outer chamber’s carved and gilded doors. “Her Grace will call when she needs you.”
She might be Clemen’s duchess, but Humbert was master of any room he chose to enter. Her people obeyed without comment. Only two would meet her gaze. They might be magpies, but they weren’t dullards. They knew something was amiss.
It galled her to sit, but her legs were shaking. All her self-control was in her face, so he might not see her afraid. Had she loved him once? Possibly. As a little girl. In those long-ago days when she could amuse him. Before he saw her as his pawn, to be moved about the chessboard of his life on a whim.
Spine sword-straight, breathing ordered, she carefully arranged her dark blue skirts. Watched him from beneath lowered lashes as he helped himself to her bread and cheese, and her cider. Often he dressed in bright, lavishly jewelled doublet and robes, but this morning his clothing was sober. Dark brown. Dull green. Only a hint of flashing bronze. He wore a flat black velvet cap with the smallest curling white feather, and only one heavy gold ring. His signet ring, used to seal the fate of anyone he chose to mislike. Eyes narrowed, considering her, he licked a smear of soft cheese from his thumb.
“Your maid’s dead.”
Though she tried, she couldn’t hide her shudder. “Did you kill her?”
“No. The bitch hanged herself. Sometime in the night.”
A buzzing in her ears as the chamber whirled drunkenly around her. A horrible looseness in her bowels. Would she need a change of dress?
“Poor Merget,” she said, hearing her voice alarmingly distant. “I’ll give coin to one of the exarchs, so he can sing for her soul.”
Her father’s calloused thumb and finger caught her chin, forced up her head. “Not that it makes any difference,” he growled. “Not with your witch having told me all I never wanted to know.”
If she pulled away from him he’d strike her. She could see it in his angry, resentful eyes. So she lowered her gaze, submissive, the perfect picture of a chastened child.
“Egann is here,” he said, releasing her. “He’ll escort you to Arthgallo. After you return—”
She risked an upwards glance. “You don’t escort me yourself?”
“There’s a council meeting,” he said. “With Roric gone, I must preside. Egann has my confidence. I warn you, girl. Don’t test him. After you return from the leech, you’ll not set foot beyond these chambers till I give you leave.” He raised a finger. “Which won’t be before Roric’s home again, so you’d best have plenty of embroidery to pass the time.”
Was she duchess of Clemen, or no more than a servant? Staring at her father’s broad, robed chest, not daring to risk him seeing her contempt, she wondered if he ever thought of that. If he ever, if only once, stopped to think of how he spoke to her.
She thought not. The great lord Humbert knew as much of courtesy as a gadfly did of swordplay.
“And what do you suggest I tell my ladies?”
He glared, beard trembling as he worked his broad jaw. “That your maid was found dead this morning in the township. That you’re sore dismayed by this news and seek a remedy for your grief. And that you’d bear the grief alone, so they should quit Eaglerock for the day. I want them gone. I’d not have them squawking while these chambers are searched.”
Or spreading inconvenient gossip, either. “Is that all? My lord?”
“For now. Eat your breakfast. Arthgallo’s expecting you.” She remained seated after he left, and stirred only when her ladies fluttered in… and it was time to tell more lies.
“My lords, I must protest!” Scarwid, red-faced and bolder than once he’d used to be, slapped the arm of his chair to underscore his unhappiness. “’Tis all very well for you, with your estates lying safely south of the Muckle River. But for those of us north of the Muckle, where blistermouth took two out of every three sheep, if it weren’t for the exarchite houses there’d be even more fear and hunger to contend with! And you’d have this council thank them with another tax? For shame!”
His fellow councillors launched into heated protest at being so berated. Seated in Roric’s chair, facing them, Humbert took a deep breath and willed himself calm. Nigh on two hours he’d been trapped in the council chamber with his contentious colleagues, who of late could scarce bid each other good morning without coming to blows. It seemed Clemen’s mounting woes were become some kind of pestilence, infecting Eaglerock’s court with fear and division. A pity he couldn’t call upon Arthgallo to give every man here a purge.
Arthgallo. Reminded, he quelled his own fears. Last night he’d despatched Egann to the leech with the witch’s foul pills and potions and a brief note explaining Lindara’s use of them and how she must be safely purged. Once he was done with this mumpery he’d hie himself to the leechery so he might learn the worst outcome of his daughter’s treacherous conduct. He could only pray she’d not poisoned herself past any normal use. And as for Roric…
Arthgallo will see him right. He’s more than a match for a dead Osfahr witch.
Heart painfully thudding, he wiped suddenly damp palms down the front of his doublet. Then he stood, commanding the attention of Clemen’s squabbling councillors.
“Clap tongue, my lords! You sound like a rabble of Khafuri bazaar vendors!” Having gained their affronted attention he sat again, heavily frowning. “State your objections one at a time, if you please.”
A moment of silence, as they stared at each other. Then Aistan steepled his fingers. “A question for you, Scarwid. The blistermouth outbreak. Can you tell us how it started?”
“How should I know?” said Scarwid, harassed and offended. “Am I a shepherd? And what has it to do with—”
“Everything,” Vidar said curtly. “Since the Exarch’s priests are to blame for Clemen’s loss of more than half its flocks.”
Vidar. Curdled by a surge of hatred so overpowering, so visceral, that for a moment he couldn’t breathe, Humbert stared at the floor. Never would he believe Lindara’s denials. It was this fuck, this cockshite, she’d turned traitor for against Roric. All that remained to do was find a way to punish him–without revealing his crime.
And he would, no doubt of it. He’d not lived to a ripe age without cunning and sly wit.
Scarwid was spluttering. “—to prove such a rank accusation, Vidar! I promise you the exarchites in my district are good, decent men!”
Vidar was staring at Scarwid with his one cynical eye. “You defend them most passionately, Scarwid. Are you a convert to their mopish cause?”
“And if I am?” Scarwid’s face reddened. “What’s my spiritual life to you, I’d like to know?”
“Nothing,” Humbert said loudly, before the cockshite could reply. “In Clemen a man’s soul is his own business.”
“His soul, perhaps, but not his sheep,” Vidar said. “The exarchite houses north of the Muckle River brought in animals from Danetto already sick with blistermouth. The pestilence spread from their holdings.”
Faugh. Knowing now what he knew, if Vidar told him it was raining he’d send a squire to make sure. “What folderol d’you talk now? Beasts entering Clemen from other lands are inspected in Eaglerock harbour by an animal leech. Blistermouth has ready signs, even before the pustules form. Do you tell me our harbour leeches are blind, not to see them?”
“Blind or bought,” said Ercole the indolent, sprawled in his chair. “And my coin is on bought. The harbour’s a hotbed of corruption. Any fool knows that.”
“Not this fool,” Humbert growled. “Watch your step, Ercole.”
Dead Argante’s half-brother hesitated, then waved a compliant hand. Obedient still, but these days inclined towards brief outbursts of rebellion. Humbert curled his lip. Rumour had it Ercole was eyeing Master Blane’s orphaned granddaughter for a wife. The Bartrem girl, like Scarwid, hailed from north of the Muckle, but with her father’s death she’d shifted south to bide with Blane and his wife. The thought of the merchant wedding her to Ercole churned his belly. The last thing Roric needed was that little shite marrying into rich pastures.
But he couldn’t fret on it now. Let Ercole’s ambitions be a problem for another day.
Shifting attention to this day’s problem, he levelled a look at Vidar. “Talk is cheap, my lord. What proof prompts you to make these accusations?”
Vidar reached into his doublet and withdrew a folded, sealed sheet of heavy paper. “This proof, my lord. Though I doubt corruption in the harbour’s so bad–yet–as Ercole fears, still for some time I’ve had misgivings. So I looked into it, discreetly, and found this.”
“You looked into it?” Humbert said, taking the proferred document. “Without bothering to inform His Grace?”
“Vidar raised his concerns with me,” said Aistan, mildly enough–though his eyes were sharp. “And upon sober reflection, I advised him to do as he thought best.”
“You didn’t advise him to raise these concerns with Clemen’s duke?”
Aistan smoothed the edge of his beard. “As demonstrated by his continued absence, Humbert, Clemen’s duke has enough proven troubles to deal with. I’d not care to burden him further without cause. Would you?”
They were seated side by side, Aistan and the cockshite who’d soon be made his goodson. Now they stared at him as one man, and as one man dared him to stir the matter more. And because he couldn’t–not here, at least, and not now–he was forced to let them believe they’d bested him.
“Even so,” he said, feeling every muscle in his body harden with resentment. “You set a poor example, my lords. I’d advise you not make it a habit.”
“And I’d know what gave you cause to look meanly upon the exarchites in my district,” said Scarwid. “Unless you want to deny persecution, and claim you but stumbled by accident upon—”
“I did learn the truth by accident, yes,” Vidar said, shifting to look at Scarwid. “But that doesn’t make it any less true. And if you must know, Scarwid, I have for some time worried over the exarchites’ encroaching ways in Clemen. They—”
“Oh, yes,” said Scarwid, scornful. “Such wanton wickedness, the exarchites’ charity! We should be hiding ourselves under our beds in terror at their generosity!”
“It’s not their charity I fear,” Vidar snapped, “but their deceit.” He gestured at the paper he’d handed over. “In his hand Humbert holds signed confessions by two of the harbour’s animal leeches, who were paid to wink at the proper inspections for the exarchites’ sheep.”
Scarwid was near to leaping from his chair. “And who paid them, Vidar? Can you prove it was Clemen’s exarchites? For that makes no sense. In case it ’scaped your notice, my lord, this epidemic of blistermouth has hurt the exarchites along with the rest of us!”
Vidar shrugged. “Perhaps. And perhaps not. If their intent was to ingratiate themselves with the north’s lords and its ordinary people, I’d say they’re doing right well. For here you are, Scarwid, a respected northern baron and one of the duke’s councillors, defending their honour as though it were your own!”
Leaving Roric’s lords to bicker, Humbert broke the wax seal on the document and swiftly scanned it. What he read left him sickened. He’d never believe Ercole’s careless accusation of rampant harbour corruption, but it seemed Vidar’s assertion was true. Or true enough that the council would need to probe the matter further, and officially. At the very best there’d been mistakes made. And at worst…
But Scarwid was right. Why would the exarchites bring ruin upon themselves? Unless Vidar was right–which meant someone was playing a deeper game. But was Clemen the purpose? Or only a pawn?
He looked up. “Vidar. Where are they now, these self-confessed rancid leeches?”
“I have them,” said Aistan. “They were taken into custody upon my authority and are being held under guard till they can be more strictly questioned. Here, of course. In Eaglerock ’s dungeons.”
Silence, as the rest of the council stared. Feeling a slow prickle of sweat beneath his sober doublet and robe, Humbert deliberately relaxed his hold on Vidar’s proof before his fingers crushed it.
“Taken into your custody when?”
“Last night.” Aistan spread his hands. “I did try to advise you, Humbert, but you were nowhere to be found.”
“Under the circumstances,” Vidar added, “we thought a little presumption preferable to these sorry miscreants leaping aboard some outward-bound ship and making their escape before we could bring them to account. Though perhaps…” He raised his unscarred eyebrow. “You disagree?”
“I don’t,” Ercole muttered, close to a snigger.
“And I do,” Scarwid said. “In His Grace’s absence Lord Humbert is the council’s highest authority. We cannot—”
Aistan frowned at him. “We can and we must, Scarwid, if Humbert is also absent and the matter is urgent. Or do you recommend that as Clemen’s councillors we sit on our hands and do nothing, though we see the duchy in danger?”
“In danger? From two animal leeches? My lord, you—”
“Clap tongue, Scarwid!” Tossing the leeches’ confessions onto the floor, Humbert stood. “I don’t care for Aistan’s high-handed approach–nor Vidar’s–but it’s Clemen that matters most. We’d do better to solve this knotty problem than waste our breath in more bickering.”
“I don’t call it bickering to challenge this challenge to your authority,” Scarwid retorted. “When Harald offered me the chance to undermine you, Humbert, I refused him. I’d made you a promise and I honour that promise yet.” He spared Aistan and Vidar an angry glance. “We northern lords are constant. We don’t blow in the breeze.”
“But do you fart in it?” Ercole wondered. “For that would be expedient, Scarwid, to hide a noisome act within another act not of your making. Isn’t that how you’ve climbed so high? As I recall you stood back and let Harald be—”
Humbert turned on him. “Not another word, Ercole. There’s been enough mischief out of you for one day.” He looked sideways. “See what you’ve wrought, Aistan? Is this what you wanted?”
“What I want,” said Aistan, “is for Roric to take his rightful place in this chamber. Clemen has no need of an absent duke.” Defiant, he swept his gaze around his fellow councillors. “Is that not so, my lords?”
All of them, even Scarwid, nodded and muttered their assent.
“You see?” Aistan was glaring. “And you can be sure, Humbert, that if Farland were here he’d say he felt the same. We are none of us content with this inconstant state of affairs!”
“There’s no state of affairs, Aistan,” Humbert retorted, feeling fresh sweat prickle and slide down his spine. “Inconstant or otherwise. How many times d’you need to hear it? Roric’s unwell, and when he’s mended he’ll return. And who are you to question that? Since when does a subject lord demand explanation of his duke?”
“Since that subject lord and his friends gave him his crown,” said Vidar. “Something it seems you’ve forgotten, Humbert.”
Another stark silence. Glaring at Lindara’s lover, the treacherous cockshite, Humbert found it hard to breathe. Rage was in him, burning his vision red with blood. A good thing there was no sword to hand, else Vidar would be spitted as once he’d spitted a woman crazed with grief.
Scarwid was on his feet. “My lords, let us collect ourselves, I implore you! We do Clemen a grave disservice to let temper sway us from proper—”
A fisted thudding on the council-chamber door. They all turned at the sound. Then the door swung open to reveal Roric’s most trusted steward, Naythn, neat in Eaglerock livery and out of breath from running. Crowding behind him, a travelstained, grim-faced man-at-arms.
Humbert felt his heart sink. “What’s amiss, man?”
“My lord, forgive the intrusion,” Nathyn said, offering a curt bow. “But I’ve a man here sent by Lord Wido, in the Marches. Inskip.” He urged the man-at-arms forward. “Tell Lord Humbert and the council your news.”
Stubble-cheeked Inskip, his build wiry, his skin seasoned like old leather beneath his chain mail and padded doublet, touched dirty fingers to his widow’s-peaked forehead in salute.
“My lords. There’s been a murder, and more blood spilled on account of it. Lord Wido sends me for to tell you the duke must convene a Crown Court, no delay.”
“A Crown Court?” Humbert echoed. “That’s a drastic request, man. Why can’t Wido and Jacott settle this themselves? They have the authority. Indeed, ’tis their purpose.”
The man-at-arms shook his head. “My lord, ever since that black day Lord Wido’s tried reasoning with Harcia, but he has no joy in it. Their Marcher lords cry innocent, they claim they’re the ones wronged, and Aimery drags his heels. In truth, I think he waits for Clemen’s response.”
“Who’s murdered?” said Aistan, rancor forgotten in the face of fresh disaster.
“The wife to one of Clemen’s Marcher woodsmen, my lord. Bayard of Harcia’s men did come across her lonesome, and thought to make sport of her, against her will. Me and a handful more of Lord Wido’s men, we heard her screaming.” Inskip looked down, his face dark with memory. “But we were too late, my lords. And caught bloody-handed with their britches down and their cocks waving, Bayard’s men did their best to keep themselves from justice.”
“And succeeded?” Vidar said sharply. “For shame.”
Inskip’s head jerked up. “Two of us were killed trying to take them, my lord. Three of them died, resisting. The other three, wounded, did flee. Me and Lord Wido’s other man left breathing, we dursn’t go after them. By law Clemen can’t set foot in the Harcian Marches without leave, as your lordships must know.”
“Yet these Harcian ruffians did not fear to accost a Clemen woman on our soil?”
“My lord, they accosted the woodsman’s wife along Marches Way, as is counted no-man’s-land and open to all.”
“Open to all brazen butchery!” Scarwid said, visibly moved. “And rape! Lord Humbert, these are pernicious tidings! Surely we must—”
Humbert jabbed a pointed finger. “Clap tongue, Scarwid. Nathyn—”
Nathyn stepped forward. “My lord?”
“Show Wido’s man-at-arms to food and comfort. As for you, Inskip—”
The man touched fingers to forehead again. “Iss, my lord?”
“Go with His Grace’s steward and hold yourself ready. You’ll be wanted again soon enough.”
“Iss, my lord.”
As the two men withdrew, Humbert stamped across the flagstoned floor to the chamber’s narrow, iron-barred window. He needed his back to Aistan and the others. Couldn’t afford to show them his face, else they see every murderous thought rioting in his skull.
Peace with Harcia, Roric? Go begging to Aimery for help? Trust those bastards because they sent you sweet, wooing words and an old ring? Not till I’ve taken my last breath, I swear.
“Humbert…” Heavy footsteps behind him, as Aistan approached. “Megrimed or not, and no matter your leech’s advice, Roric must come back to Eaglerock. He must formally convene a Crown Court so this bloody business can be dealt with.”
He looked down at his clenched fists. Felt his heart clench in his chest. “Aistan—”
“No, Humbert!” Aistan took his shoulder. Pulled him about. “These murders demand justice, and there can be no delay. You heard what Inskip said. Aimery is watching. If we show timid, Harcia will grow bold.”
“I know that,” he said, staring past Aistan’s angry face to look at the faces of their fellow councillors. Every man was alarmed. Even Ercole had stirred out of habitual peevishness and spite. “But a Crown Court is no trifling matter. Before distressing Roric with this news we should learn more of these murders, then ponder the pitfalls of any action and—”
“Humbert, are you gone mad?” Vidar demanded. “You’re not this duchy’s regent, to play at being duke. Roric must be told of this, so he can act swiftly and decisively to put Harcia in its place. You’ve no authority to pronounce yea or nay on that, or decide what Roric should or shouldn’t know.”
“I have every authority!” he said, chin jutting. “Given me by Roric himself. And I say—”
“You’ve no authority to usurp him! Did he lie senseless somewhere, or dead, perhaps you might—” A sharply indrawn breath, as Vidar’s one good eye widened. “Fuck. Humbert–where is Roric?”
“What?” said Scarwid, the word a strangled yelp. “Vidar? What are you saying?”
With his twisting limp, Vidar came closer. “Humbert knows what I’m saying. Don’t you, Humbert.”
“Answer Vidar, my lord,” said Aistan, the lines in his face carved deeper now with cold suspicion. “Where is our duke?”
Like a cornered stag, he had nowhere to run. He and the boy had agreed that, should it be needful, he’d tell the council the truth of their duke’s whereabouts. But not in his wildest dreaming had he thought it would come to this.
Curse Aimery. Curse Bayard. Curse every Harcian born.
“Where’s Roric?” he roared. “Not deposed by foul means, by me, if that’s what you’re thinking!”
Hands on hips, meanly triumphant, Ercole swaggered forward. “But he’s not unwell, either. Is he?”
“He is not,” Humbert admitted, knowing to his chagrin that he’d flushed red. “Roric’s gone to Cassinia. He pleads Clemen’s plight with the prince’s regents, in hopes to secure better terms for the duchy’s merchants and the right to trade again in Ardenn.”
“Cassinia?” Incredulous, Aistan looked to Vidar, then the others. “He’s in Cassinia?”
“That’s what I said, Aistan. It’s good to know you’re not deaf.”
“But–Cassinia?”
“Well, I suppose he could’ve gone to Danetto, but since the regents aren’t to be found in Danetto, I—”
“Who travels with him? Surely he doesn’t risk himself alone?”
Humbert tugged at his beard. That was another argument he’d had with stubborn Roric. One he’d as good as lost. But he wasn’t about to confess as much to Aistan.
“No,” he said, repressive. “His Grace is not alone. And more than that I’m not permitted to say.”
Vidar’s face was tight with temper. “Whose idea was this, Humbert? Yours?”
“No, it was not. Believe what you want of me, all of you, only believe this while you’re about it. I did not favour Roric bending his knee to Cassinia’s regents. I think it a fool’s errand and so I told him. But he would go and he is the duke and I am his loyal councillor, not his father to deny him permission!”
Shaking his head, Aistan turned aside. “You’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right. Roric is Clemen’s duke. He may speak for his duchy however he sees fit.”
“Without so much as a passing thought for our advice?” said Ercole, bristling. “I find that offensive.”
“And I find you offensive, Ercole, but there you have it,” Aistan snapped. “We’re both of us limed fast in what can’t be changed. Besides. The spirits know we’re in desperate need of a remedy in Cassinia. If Roric can soften the regents’ hearts to us…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I pray he can, for all our sakes. But–Humbert, when do you expect him to return?”
“I can’t say, Aistan,” he sighed. “But I’d hazard he’ll be gone another two weeks. At least.”
Despite the tension sprung up between them, their eyes met in alarmed understanding. Matters involving Harcia could swiftly tumble into calamity. They both bore the scars of desperate skirmishes in the Marches, where together they’d served Berold as younger, wilder men.
“That’s no good,” Aistan said softly. “This business with the woodsman’s wife can’t wait.”
No, it surely couldn’t. Unchecked trouble in the Marches might easily, swiftly, spill over into Clemen. They had no choice. On Roric’s behalf the council must declare a Crown Court.
And if Roric doesn’t like it, if he fears it might risk the chance of friendship with Aimery? Well. Won’t that teach the boy not to jaunt off on a whim.
“Very well,” he said briskly. “We’ll send Inskip back to Wido with instructions to inform Harcia’s Marcher lords they’re to prepare for a Crown Court, and that he and Jacott should do likewise.”
“And who’ll preside there for Clemen?” said Ercole. “You, Humbert?”
“Of course,” said Scarwid, for once not hiding his mislike of the little shite. “Lacking His Grace, who else? Certainly not you, Ercole.”
As they fell into fresh squabbling, Humbert was struck with a notion almost blinding in its clarity. Letting his gaze shift surreptitious to Vidar, he came near to laughing out loud. For in her sad misfortune, the woodsman’s wife had done him a grand good turn. Had given him the perfect chance to rid Roric of his secret enemy and remove Lindara from temptation without any man at court being privy to his purpose.
“My lords!” he said, and clapped his hands. “Must I send you to bed without your supper?”
Scarwid and Ercole turned away from each other like chastened brats. Paying them no heed, Aistan fingered his chin. “You can’t preside at a Crown Court alone, Humbert. For Clemen’s dignity, if no other reason. I can—”
He punched a light fist to Aistan’s shoulder. “My thanks, but no, old friend. I’d have you learn the truth of those corrupted animal leeches you saw fit to arrest.”
“But you must have—”
“I’ll take Vidar with me,” he said. “For, like us, he’s experienced in the Marches, and knows too well the taste of Harcia’s treachery. Isn’t that so, Vidar?”
Vidar bowed, the scars on his face hiding whatever he was thinking… or feeling. “Indeed, my lord.”
“Then we’re agreed?” Humbert spread his arms wide. “Vidar and I will seek justice for Clemen in a Crown Court. In my absence, Aistan will oversee whatever daily matters that arise. And this council shall continue its good shepherding of the duchy till Roric returns from Cassinia… with good news, spirits willing.”
Exchanged glances. Then a murmuring of agreement.
“Excellent,” he said, nodding. “Then I declare our business here done.” He offered Vidar the blandest of smiles. “Come, my lord. There is much to do and discuss ere we leave for the Marches.”
Cassinia’s duchy of Rebbai grew green and prosperous and sweetly scented beneath a gentle sun. As he rode a succession of carefully purchased horses hard across its rolling countryside, lavishly patchworked with barley and oats and rye, and past vineyards drunk with ripening grapes, Roric thought of bewildered Clemen–here parched, there sodden–and was dismayed. When his horse’s drumming hooves stirred fat brindled cattle and black-faced sheep in their lush pastures to eye-rolling alarm, he remembered the bonfires his people made of Clemen’s butchered, blistermouthed ewes and rams. How for days at a time his duchy’s air stank of charred meat and bones and burned fleece. How the stench had woken nightmares of Heartsong, leaving him sweaty and reluctant to sleep. And he remembered what the man Bellows, who Master Blane insisted must ride with him on this mad venture, had told him as they sailed from Eaglerock harbour to Gevez, Rebbai’s main seafaring port. Most folk he knew, Bellows glumly confided, were feeding their families pigs’ feet and ox tail and little more nourishing than that, besides eggs. And the eggs only two or three, no more than thrice a week.
The fear in Bellows’ eyes–and worse, the hope–had left him clumsily speechless. But it also hardened his resolve to wring concessions from Cassinia’s regents. The principality was so rich. It could afford mercy, and generosity. And since it seemed the regents had forgotten that, it was his task to remind them.
It rained twice and stormed once on the long ride from the coast to the Prince’s Isle. Undeterred, Roric pushed on. Coming to Cassinia in this fashion was a fearful risk. He couldn’t afford to shrink from a little rain or lightning. Bellows, a good man, didn’t complain. Only pulled his oiled-leather cloak’s hood lower, and joked that at least the foul weather would keep the brigands indoors.
But in a good sign, they were never held to ransom by troublemakers. That was thanks to Bellows, who knew Rebbai’s byways and bridle tracks better than a native, and made sure to keep them well off the traders’ routes. Their horses stayed sound. The inns they slept in didn’t rob them. And they were accosted by the duke of Rebbai’s men-at-arms just once–as they skirted the duchy’s sprawling capital to rejoin the main road leading to the Prince’s Isle. Even then, their luck held. Master Blane was known and respected. His travel papers and his personal letter of authority for his men were accepted without dispute.
Roric made sure to express his appreciation with a generous gift of coin.
They passed out of Rebbai and into the Prince’s Isle with no trouble. Long ago, the Isle’s royal territories had encompassed vast tracts of Cassinia. In those dead days the dukes had been under-thumb, no more than timid, obedient vassals to the crown. But as the fortunes of the royal house ebbed, like a slow tide, so did Cassinia’s dukes grow bold and crafty. One by one, little by little, they challenged the weakening royal authority. Castle by castle, year by year, and prince after hapless prince, they amassed their own power. And what they took they held, and never gave back. The Prince’s Isle shrank steadily, till what had been a great realm became a mere memory of greatness.
“Remember this, Your Grace,” Blane had warned, standing with him on the dock before he boarded the merchant’s swift cog. “Cassinia’s regents are determined to protect their prince’s dwindled influence. And I’m sure in their secret hearts they dream of curbing the ambitious dukes, even of restoring the Isle’s majesty and might to its former glory. So while I admire you, and wish you every good fortune and hope for success, don’t think for a moment they’ll look at you twice, should what you’re asking for conflict with their desires.”
Each night, after bedding down, Roric heard Blane’s warning echoing in his ears. He did his best to disregard it, or at least not let it daunt him. In this mad venture it would be so easy to be daunted. And what would happen to Clemen then? What would happen to Bellows and all the men like him, whose families were going hungry for want of an egg.
So no. He’d not be daunted. He’d reach the regents… or die trying.
Seventeen relentless days after leaving Eaglerock, he and Bellows halted their exhausted horses before the grand, golden gates of the prince’s palace. Behind them, spread like a rich damsel’s skirts at the bottom of the steep hill they’d just climbed, Varence Cassinia’s royal city.
Coughing, Bellows dragged a dirty forearm across his face. “There now, my lord,” he croaked. “Did you ever see the like?”
No, never. Awestruck, Roric stared across the palace’s vast, immaculately gravelled forecourt at the slender limestone towers capped each with a crimson witch’s hat spire, the four-storeyed wings joining them with their steeply gabled roofs tiled crimson and gold, the countless glass windows glittering with sunlight, the exquisitely proportioned formal gardens laid out on each side. By comparison, Eaglerock castle was little more than a glowering pile of red stone. A clenched fist belligerently raised at the harbour.
He shook himself. Enough of this. Let Clemen’s duke quail before limestone and glass, and he was defeated before uttering a single word on his duchy’s behalf.
“Bellows,” he said, shifting in his saddle. “We’ll part company here. Go back and wait for me in the Crown and Garland.”
Bellows hunched his shoulders. “But, my lord—”
“I’ve no need of you,” he said, fishing within his leather doublet for his coin purse. “Here.” He held out a silver ducat. “This will purchase prompt service.”
Bellows was staring at the coin as though it was poison. “My lord, I’m sworn to your side till we see Eaglerock again. Master Blane won’t like that I—”
“You needn’t fear Master Blane. I am his duke, just as I’m yours.” He smiled, to soften the reprimand. “You’re a good man, Bellows. But what I do now, I must do alone.”
Heaving a great sigh, Bellows took the silver ducat. “As you wish, my lord. Though I’ll be honest. I don’t see why.”
The reason was simple. Another warning from Blane. “Your Grace,” the merchant had said, frowning with worry. “Bellows will see you safe and swift to the prince’s palace. But after that, you’d do me a kindness if you left him safely to one side. If you must know, I don’t trust the regents. I’d not have him used against you, or against me because I helped you.”
Roric clapped a hand to Bellows’s arm. “You don’t need to understand. Just obey.”
For a few moments he watched Bellows ride reluctant down the sloping road. His horse flicked an ear, its only protest at being abandoned. Then he turned back, to stare again at the palace.
Cassinia’s royal emblem was a lion, rampant. Now here he stood, Clemen’s falcon, at the mouth of the lion’s den. And if he wasn’t careful…
“Up, nag,” he said, pricking spurs to his horse’s flanks. His heart was beating hard, as though he’d just run a race. “Time to spread my wings.”