Tales of Golmeira- The Complete Box Set

by Marianne Ratcliffe

  He had his father’s scientists brought to him and demanded a demonstration of their yellowsap weapon. They proved eager to oblige. The experiment took place in a cell deep within the dungeons. The test subject was Thorlberd’s former fleet captain, stripped of her rank after the battle of Uden’s Teeth. The scientists placed a metal canister in the centre of her cell. A layer of foul smelling black liquid swirled round the bottom. Ignoring the pleadings of the prisoner, one of the scientists opened a pouch of yellow powder and dropped it into the liquid below, before retreating quickly out of the cell and closing the door. Rastran watched through the grate. A dense cloud of yellow smoke bloomed from the bucket. The prisoner began to cough. Pustules bubbled on her skin and she tried to scream, but her cries were choked off. She collapsed to the ground, clawing at her throat. Blood seeped out of the corner of her eyes and mouth. Moments later, she was dead.

  ‘I’m going to need more,’ Rastran said, delighted with the demonstration. ‘Much more.’

  Others from his father’s retinue proved equally eager to prove their loyalty. Strinverl told him about the spy he had placed among the rebels, whose latest report informed him that the Sendorans had split with Zastra and were pursuing a typically reckless mission to retake Sendor. Rastran briefly considered sending reinforcements, but according to Strinverl’s spy, the Sendoran force was too small to have any chance of success. Ixendred, the man charged with keeping Sendor subdued, should deal with them easily. If not, then Rastran would have the glory of retaking Sendor and an excuse to execute Ixendred. The man had never given Rastran the respect he deserved. Either way, Rastran would win.

  The biggest of Thorlberd’s secrets, however, came as a complete surprise. On hearing of his ascension, Rastran’s mother summoned him to her chamber in the royal tower, where she had lived for many years in a self-imposed exile. Rastran did not respond. Jintara needed to learn her son was no longer someone to be summoned. He waited three days before he sent a servant to command her presence. He had already made his mark on the grand marl’s chambers. The heavy, practical furnishings his father had preferred had been replaced by elegant pieces plundered from the palace at Mynganard and the vaults of Sendor. Colourful silks embroidered with scenes of battle were draped around the walls and the stone-flagged floor was covered in a thick carpet, woven into a map of Sendor. Each time he walked across it, he savoured the notion that he was trampling over his defeated enemy. Ornate chandeliers adorned with delicate lamps hung from the ceiling. He liked the way they cast overlapping circles of light around the room, and instructed that they were always to be lit. He cared not how expensive Jula oil was, or how often the servants needed to refill the tiny lamps.

  There was a knock at the door. Rastran stretched out languidly in his chair and placed the heels of his polished boots on a footstool. He took pleasure in not answering. The thought of his mother waiting to be granted entrance amused him. To his annoyance, the door was thrust open and his mother glided into the room, her red hair swirled into immaculate curls.

  ‘Grand Marl Rastran,’ she said formally, with only the tiniest inclination of her head. Her skin was as white as marble. She made no reference to being kept waiting, or the fact she had barged in uninvited.

  ‘Mother,’ he replied, equally formal, although he did not get up. ‘What a pleasant surprise to see you. I know how busy you must be.’ He too, could pretend. Jintara didn’t rise to his bait. She perched herself on the front edge of the most uncomfortable chair in the room, a carved blackwood antique that had somehow survived Rastran’s redecoration. He made a mental note to have it removed.

  ‘What do you intend to do with your brother?’

  Jintara never wasted time with small talk. She spoke as if each word was worth a hundred tocrins.

  ‘Oh dear, isn’t the little runt happy? There should be lots of mice in the dungeons to keep him company. We all know how much Yldred likes his animal friends.’

  ‘He’s no threat to you. Imprisoning him makes you appear cowardly.’

  ‘I disagree. It shows that no one is above the law. No one.’ He repeated with a pointed look. Jintara did not so much as blink.

  ‘Which law has your brother broken?’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll think of one.’

  ‘Your father had his faults, but he stood by his family. How many of your mistakes did he forgive? How many unpleasant incidents did he cover up?’

  Had Jintara really come to plead on behalf of Yldred? Rastran had never observed her display any maternal emotion, unless disappointment counted. Yet she could only be here because she cared for his pathetic little brother.

  ‘Rare to find you speaking well of Father. You were as frigid a wife as you were a mother.’

  Above the tight collar of her gown, Jintara’s neck turned pink. He’d struck a nerve. Rastran darted out a probe, but his mother’s protective barrier was up. It came as no surprise that it manifested as a wall of ice.

  ‘Rastran, don’t be impertinent,’ she snapped.

  ‘Why did you hate my father so much? Tell me and I may reconsider my brother’s accommodations.’

  Jintara tilted her head a fraction.

  ‘Rastran, you are what you are. Your father spoiled you when you were young and overcompensated when you began behaving as you do. I accept some of the blame. Perhaps I wasn’t the most interested mother.’

  ‘No? Really?’ He opened his mouth in a mockery of surprise.

  ‘You were a difficult child to love.’

  ‘But you love poor little Yldred, don’t you?’ His mother made no answer. Rastran ejected himself from his chair. ‘Let me be clear. I can make Yldred’s life much less comfortable unless you explain what Father did to turn you into…’ he snaked his hand up and down in front of her ‘…into this.’

  The pink bloom spread up Jintara’s neck and reached her chin.

  ‘He betrayed me,’ she said at last. Extracting each word was like chipping at an ice block. ‘He loved another.’

  ‘Who?’ Rastran asked eagerly. She pinched her thin lips together. ‘Come now,’ he urged, ‘don’t keep me in suspense. Think of Yldred.’

  Jintara’s pale eyes glinted like crystals.

  ‘Anara. He was infatuated with her.’

  ‘Pah! I don’t believe it. He had her killed alongside his brother.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. There were plenty of witnesses to Leodra’s death, but with Anara, all anyone saw was a body wrapped in silk. As if there was something to hide. I believe you know what I mean.’

  Rastran froze beneath her glacial stare. Had his mother figured out what he had done?

  ‘And then there was that hideous woman,’ Jintara added. ‘The one with the scar.’

  ‘You mean Brutila? Wasn’t she banished to the Northern Wastes after letting Zastra escape yet again?’

  ‘Banished, yes but he gave her wine and sweetmeats. Furs too, but not in her size. They were for someone much smaller. You don’t give such presents to one who has failed you.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  He was rewarded with another flinty glare. To be fair, it had been a stupid question. Jintara was a mindweaver after all.

  ‘Are you saying that he’s been hiding Anara with the Kyrgs all this time? That she is his mistress?’ It was hard to believe, but then he remembered the rumours; Thorlberd kept something hidden in the Northern Wastes, something so precious it was protected by mindweavers. Rastran’s fingertips tingled at the implications. Jintara snorted.

  ‘Mistress? No. The woman was proud for one of such low origins. She always repelled my husband’s pathetic attempts to please her.’

  ‘But he couldn’t bring himself to kill her.’

  Jintara rose.

  ‘You will release Yldred?’

  Rastran’s mind was racing. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. ‘Now, off you pop, Mother dear. Next time, wait until I give you permission to enter.’

  He watched her walk stiffly out of the door and then,
unable to contain his glee, he skipped around the room whilst digging his hands into his pockets. This is perfect. I reunite Zastra with her long-lost mother, only to kill her in front of her, this time for real. How delightfully cruel. Or better still, I can use Anara as bait. Zastra will surrender to me or see her mother die. Either way, I win.

  Rastran rang the bell. It was time to send his two most trusted lieutenants to the Northern Wastes.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Brutila was bored. The Northern Wastes were grey and dreary, and with winter approaching things were only going to get worse. The only recent event of interest had been the annual return of those Kyrginite soldiers not actively needed for the defence of Golmeira and Sendor. Brutila had probed their minds eagerly, her interest piqued by their bedraggled appearance, and was soon privy to the sorry tale of Uden’s Teeth. So, Zastra escaped death yet again. Leodra’s daughter led a charmed life. Yet Brutila found some delight at Thorlberd’s failure. Serve him right. Three years she had been exiled in the Northern Wastes. Death would have been less cruel. She tugged her cloak around her body to try and keep herself warm. It was not yet late enough in the year for the Kyrgs to light fires for anything other than cooking. Fuel was scarce and needed to be husbanded, like everything else in this barren valley. The buckthorn pellets would be saved until it was cold enough to turn breath into ice and that would not be long. The meltwater from the high mountains had already stopped flowing, leaving the river in the valley almost dry.

  In previous years, the drying of the river had triggered an event that provided the only relief from the tedium of Brutila’s existence. The Culling, a ritual where all the Kyrgs gathered in this, the largest of the upland valleys, and judged the strength of everyone in the colony. Brutila appreciated the clean brutality of it. Winters in the Wastes were so harsh that hunting was impossible, and the Kyrgs needed to survive on what they had stored. Too many people meant the food would run out and all would starve. Culling the weakest before winter allowed for the survival of the race. Yet even that pleasure had been ruined, thanks to Anara. She had taught the Kyrgs how to grow their own crops instead of relying solely on forage and hunting. The woman had even worked the fields herself, planting buckthorn cuttings to widen the narrow strip of fertile land next to the meltwater river, thereby transforming barren land into productive fields. With enough food for everyone, the ceremony had been suspended.

  One of the most infuriating conditions of Brutila’s exile was that she wasn’t allowed to let any harm come to Anara. Arranging an accident would have been easy. The Kyrgs had no resistance to Brutila’s mindweaving. It would be easy to nudge one of them into pushing Anara off a cliff, or to leave her to die in a winter storm. But Thorlberd had made it clear that if Anara was harmed in any way, even by accident, Brutila’s life would be forfeit. Higina, another mindweaver, was stationed with her, doubtless to keep an eye on Brutila, as much as to help ensure Jelgar’s mindlock stayed intact.

  Here they come now. That fat lump and Thorlberd’s precious Anara. The two women dragged armfuls of buckthorn branches, ready to be turned into pellets. Despite the chilly air, Higina was perspiring.

  ‘Hello, Brutila.’ Anara greeted her warmly. ‘Feeling the cold?’

  Brutila couldn’t help shivering as an icy gust of wind whistled around her, the old scar on her face tightening as she grimaced.

  ‘You should join us tomorrow. The exercise is a good way to keep warm, isn’t it, Higina?’

  ‘Yes, my lady,’ Higina replied. What a toady. They laid the buckthorn on the ground around their rondavel so that the woody stems could dry out before they were chopped and pelleted. Not for the first time, Brutila wondered what Anara hoped to achieve with her fake pleasantries. She ingratiated herself with everyone. Every year, Thorlberd sent sufficient gifts to make his prisoner comfortable for the winter. Wines from the Far Isles, syrup and grains from the western basin, barrels of jula oil and boxes upon boxes of dried fruits. But Anara gave it all away, insisting on partaking only of the rough diet of her captors. Last year, she’d given Brutila a case of spiced wine. It was still unopened at the back of the rondavel they shared. She would never accept gifts from Leodra’s wife.

  Higina told her that Anara had pledged her word to Jelgar she would not escape in return for being allowed the freedom of the meltwater basin. According to Higina, who had been stationed here far longer than Brutila, Anara had been in the Northern Wastes for years, ever since Thorlberd had given up trying to persuade her to become his consort. She had been confined to the rondavel until the deal with Jelgar. Yet instead of using her newfound freedom to escape, as anyone with any sense would have done, Anara used it to help her captors.

  ‘They’re late with your presents this year,’ Higina said with a hopeful glance south towards the Guardians, the two mountains that marked the entrance to the Wastes.

  ‘You’ve no need for treats,’ Brutila remarked, eyeing the folds of skin around Higina’s midriff.

  ‘The snowline is descending. If they delay much longer, they might not have time to return before the pass closes.’

  ‘I’d pity any poor flekk that got stuck here.’

  ‘Sympathy, Brutila?’ asked Anara with a smile. ‘I knew you had a spark of goodness somewhere inside you.’

  ‘I only mean that no one should be forced to listen to you and Higina prattle on for a whole winter,’ Brutila remarked icily.

  ‘Watching you scowl and glower isn’t anyone’s idea of entertainment,’ Higina responded.

  ‘I have plenty of tales I could tell,’ said Brutila with a glance at Anara. ‘I know everything the Kyrgs are forbidden to speak of.’ The one advantage that she held over Anara was her knowledge that her children were alive. Anara had been told they had died at the time of Thorlberd’s ascension. It amused Brutila to know that she had the means to bring Anara joy, but that she withheld that knowledge. One of Brutila’s few pleasures involved dropping regular hints about how unpleasantly Anara’s children had died, hoping to break her spirit, but Anara had proven stronger than Brutila had given her credit for. She would listen in silence and then turn the conversation.

  ‘If the supplies don’t arrive, perhaps we can open that crate of spiced wine you’ve been keeping, Brutila?’ Higina suggested.

  ‘I’d rather throw it away than give it to you.’

  ‘If they do not come then Thorlberd must be dead,’ said Anara. She placed the last piece of buckthorn on the ground and entered their rondavel, one of hundreds of roundhouses that sprouted across the valley floor like thick-stemmed mushrooms. The others followed her into the dim interior. Yellow animal hides stretched tight over the window frames filtered out most of the light. Higina hurried to their stores and began to rifle through them.

  ‘Dead? More likely he’s grown tired of wasting his efforts on someone so ungrateful.’ Yet Brutila wondered, all the same. After such a failure, Thorlberd’s grip on power would be weakened. Had there been a coup? The returning Kyrgs had known nothing about a change in Golmeira’s leadership. What would it mean for her if Thorlberd were dead?

  ‘Thorlberd would never give up. It is not in his nature,’ Anara said.

  ‘You sound almost as if you admire him. If anyone had made me suffer the way he made you…’ A memory of whispering, ravenous scrittals caused Brutila to break off. She shivered. Anara placed a couple of pellets in the stone fireplace and Brutila felt a spark of gratitude, one that she quickly extinguished. She refused to be taken in by Anara’s strange little tricks.

  ‘Our hosts will not be pleased that you waste pellets.’

  ‘I hope I’ve earned some license,’ said Anara, striking sparks against a firering. ‘We’ve doubled the buckthorn harvest since last year.’

  Higina retrieved a burlap sack and pulled out a handful of candied halsa nuts.

  ‘If Thorlberd’s dead, then who’s in charge?’ she said, popping a couple of the nuts into her mouth.

  ‘Rastran, probably,’ said Brutila.
It was Anara’s turn to shudder.

  ‘That would be truly awful.’

  ‘I don’t get it. You should be delighted at the idea of Thorlberd’s death. He killed your husband and if you knew what he’d done to your children, well…’

  She broke off, hoping her prisoner would rise to the bait. Anara turned away.

  ‘Betraying his brother was an evil act, but that doesn’t mean Thorlberd is himself evil. I think he genuinely believed he was doing the best thing for Golmeira.’

  ‘How can you think him anything but your enemy?’

  ‘I believe everyone has a natural drive towards good. In all my life, I have only met two people who made me doubt that.’

  Brutila’s lip curled as Anara glanced at her with a look of pity.

  ‘Your insults do not hurt me. I care nothing for your opinion.’

  ‘I don’t mean you, Brutila.’

  Brutila’s prepared retort died on her lips.

  ‘Then who do you mean?’ asked Higina, popping another handful of nuts into her mouth.

  ‘Rastran, for one. That is why I do not celebrate the idea of Thorlberd’s death. If Rastran is grand marl, the people of Golmeira will suffer greatly.’

  Tears glinted in Anara’s green eyes.

  ‘And the other?’ Brutila asked brusquely. Such shameless displays of emotion annoyed her.

  ‘Your father,’ Anara replied gently. The pity in her voice made Brutila hate her more than ever.

  ‘You dare—’

  The cloth door to the rondavel was pulled aside and a Kyrginite woman entered. She was quite young, mid-twenties at most, but she carried herself with an air of authority. Her dark blonde hair was braided in narrow cornrows and she had a black tattoo in the shape of a bird above her left eye. She was accompanied by two female attendants, who kept their heads bowed.

  ‘Welcome, Guthene Lungrid,’ said Anara with a polite nod. The woman’s flat nose twitched as she glanced at the fireplace.