“Who is Voord?
“An eldheisart, one of Lord Crisen’s friends. He’s about your age. From Drakkesborg.” That came out as if it had some significance, and Aldric guessed it mean Voord had the usual defence of friends in high places. “And he’s much more.”
“What?”
“If you met him, you wouldn’t need to ask. Call it a gut-feeling. The same as when you see a snake.”
“I know little about Imperial ranks.” Aldric knew more than enough to lie about it. “But eldheisart seems—”
“High? Yes, far too high for such…” Jervan’s voice became a sneer. “Such tender years!”
That confirmed what he had overheard outside. Seghar’s garrison commander resented young men with influence rather than talent being promoted over his own more-experienced head, and Aldric had the example of his own brother Baiart to prove how dangerous envy and ambition could be.
“Unless he’s something special,” he said, and the thought More than he seems, like Evthan, slid unbidden through his mind. Maybe it was Voord and not one of the Geruaths who was meant to ease his access to Imperial inner circles. “Where is he?”
“Gone.”
So much for that. If he asked this garrison commander anything more about a man he disliked and Aldric shouldn’t know, it could raise other questions better left unanswered.
“All right. I overheard something else, Kortagor Jervan, something I didn’t understand. About a new overlord in Seghar.”
“Servants who eavesdrop get beaten—”
“Not this one. Don’t try it.” The ruined summerhouse went very quiet and nobody moved for a full second, then Aldric made his mouth form a brief smile. “And bodyguards who eavesdrop are doing their job.”
“It concerns the lady,” said Jervan, and Aldric shot another glance at Gueynor. Her expression remained as unreadable as blank parchment.
“Until she says otherwise, what concerns her wellbeing concerns me too. What is it?” He stared at Jervan, who said nothing at first. It seemed he hadn’t told Gueynor everything and was in two minds about doing so even now. Then he took a deep breath.
“Independence,” he said. “with both Powers in this Empire protecting us from each other. If such a thing could be established it would work! I know it would!”
Aldric disliked Jervan’s enthusiasm. It sounded too much like several times in his younger days when one friend or other shouted ‘Watch this!’ just before they suffered the consequences of whatever ‘this’ turned out to be, but the commander was in full flight.
“Seghar is too small to be a threat to either side,” he said, “and a neutral province with a neutral Overlord—”
“A female one? In Alba yes, but the Drusalans don’t allow—”
“She would be acceptable. With trustworthy advisers.”
Oh, indeed…
“That’s just wishful thinking.” This time Aldric didn’t have to force his smile, though there was still no humour in it. “Never mind a female overlord, separation from Imperial rule isn’t permitted in case other lords start thinking the same way. You’re in the Drusalan Empire, not the Drusalan League of Friendly Cities, and an Empire has ways of making sure it doesn’t fall apart.” Aldric had once entertained a rather foolish noble notion about restoring Gueynor to her father’s place, but now, faced with the complex realities of the situation, he shied away. Her new chilly demeanour didn’t help. “You seem to have forgotten your uncle easily enough,” he said.
“One cannot live for revenge alone,” she replied primly, then hooded her eyes with half-lowered, heavy lashes.
“No? You had a different attitude not so long ago, and I still do. Crisen Geruath should pay for what he did, and not for… Political expedience.” That was for Jervan’s benefit. “I’m thinking of Evthan, and thirty others whose names I never knew. I’m sure you knew them. And if you choose to overlook them now, I pity you.”
“Keep your pity, Alban!”
Aldric knew that sound and showed his teeth in a quick hard grin. His reproach had struck Gueynor too close to home, and she disliked the sensation.
“Well, lady, it seems this is where our paths diverge. I don’t like the smell of intrigue, it’s already robbed me in too many ways. But your nostrils seem less discriminating. You may not see me again, and we both may be the better for it.”
His exit was even more dramatic than his entrance, for as he walked out to the garden a jagged flicker of lightning scratched across the lowering sky, flinging his shadow back into the summerhouse with a vast dry crack of thunder hard on its heels. In the right mood he would have laughed aloud. Instead he merely grimaced and lengthened his stride to reach shelter before the real storm broke.
*
Aldric watched the rain slant down like arrows, distorting a view hard to see even in fine weather. The window was more lead strips than glass, with the glass itself thick and full of bubbles, not so much for looking out of as letting light through a wall. It was a greenish, wavering, underwater light in keeping with the sound of overflowing gutters, yet there was a dry-damp parched smell on the air, a prickling of electricity on his skin, and a dull anger that nagged like a headache and refused to go away. First Ilen, then Kyrin, now Gueynor. Either they had played him for a fool, or watched while he acted like one.
When the door clicked behind him he snapped around with his hand on Widowmaker’s hilt, and it stayed there even when Marek Endain laid out his burden of cups, wine-flagons and a platter of savoury-smelling meat pasties.
“What’s troubling you, boy?” asked the Cernuan, and Aldric released his sword at last.
“Nothing,” he said, not even objecting to ‘boy’, at least not this time. “Nothing important, that is.”
“Why not tell me anyway?” The tone, not quite paternal, was certainly avuncular. “It might make you feel better. Gemmel told me you brood too much.”
“Gemmel told… Well, that makes everything fine.” Aldric’s mouth twitched and if its expression was a smile, it was as mirthless as a shark’s. “You know what they say, don’t you? ‘Confide in one, never in two; tell three and the whole world knows.’ I’ve already told one too many and I can’t do anything about it. Matters were simpler years ago.” This time his fingers closed on the black grip of his tsepan. “Much simpler. One way or another.” Part of its blade gleamed free for an instant, then smacked back into its sheath more roughly than any tsepan should ever be handled. “I’ll have a drink at least.” Marek watched half a cup of wine go away in a single swallow and as Aldric reached out to top it up again, he gave the younger man a thoughtful look.
“Why not tell me what makes the bottom of a wine-cup so welcoming?”
Aldric took another mouthful, smaller this time, and swirled it around as if rinsing away a bad taste. “Any number of things,” he said. “Like misjudging how a woman thinks for the third time in my life. You’d think I might have learned by now.”
“Only three?” Marek laughed and raised his own cup in a toast. “It could be far worse than—”
“Than three for three? Or did Dewan forget to tell you that?” Marek’s laughter cut off short as he blushed, and three attempts to say something apologetic stumbled to uncomfortable silence.
“Well, you’re lucky,” he managed at last. “Some men never learn such an important lesson. I didn’t until I was, oh, twice your age, and it took a lot more than three women to convince me.” Aldric raised an eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t always this old or this shape, and even now… But never mind. How did you misjudge Aline, or Gueynor, or whatever her real name is?” When Aldric told him, the demon-queller whistled between his teeth. “Not quite the distressed damsel you believed.”
“She may have been this morning. This afternoon, so much. She’s changed, Marek. It might be the atmosphere of this damned place,” Marek nodded but said nothing, “or Jervan sounds a lot more convincing to her than he did to me. He may think he’s being clever, but he’s walking a dangerous pa
th. A commander who can betray one lord might betray another, and this new Gueynor won’t give him the chance. She’ll have his head off first and think of a reason afterwards.”
“That’s why there’s food to go with the wine. Hungry men have short tempers, and I remember what happened in the stable. Even after a good meal you can be, let’s call it abrupt and say no more. As if you’d rather let steel do your talking than—”
“Why not? A blade means what it says.” Marek blinked at that flat statement and floundered for a few seconds. Aldric Talvalin with his taiken by his side was a cool, assured and deeply disquieting companion.
“If you’d been more short-tempered with Lord Geruath today—”
“But I wasn’t. Not even when he tried again.”
“Again?”
“You weren’t there.”
“There? There for what?” Marek’s voice was rising almost to a bleat. “What happened? What did you do?”
“He said he wanted Isileth again, I said ‘no’ again. And this time he understood me.”
“He could have had you killed!”
“As you said in the stable, he could have tried. And we both know what would have happened then. This entire fortress would have known. Geruath knew too. He didn’t press his luck, and that’s just as well because it’s all but run out.” Aldric patted Isileth, a light, almost reassuring touch as if the taiken was a hawk or hound needing calmed, and without thinking Marek took a step backwards.
“What will you do?”
“Nothing more here. I meant to help Gueynor, to do for her what nobody did for me, and there was a passing notion of honourable revenge for Evthan and all the others.” Aldric showed his teeth. “I’m good at revenge. Now she has a new champion, one who understands the situation here better than me, and from what they have in mind the Geruaths will get their due soon enough.”
“The Geruaths were supposed to help you complete your duty for the King.”
“There are other ways to do that. Ones which don’t include staying in this cesspit until Crisen Geruath’s summoning tears him apart and—”
Aldric bit off the rest of his irritable outburst because he recognised the expression his words sent flitting across Marek Endain’s face. It had crossed his own more than once, when he confronted a huge bronze-armoured warrior, and watched a sickle-winged monstrosity skimming the waves, and most of all when he heard a metallic scraping in the Cavern of Firedrakes like a thousand swords all drawn at once. The burly Cernuan’s wine-drinking and false bluster was an attempt to hide how frightened he was, not just of risking his life but of dying the way Sedna ar Gethin had done.
“When you told Gueynor what a demon-queller did,” said Aldric, “I thought it sounded like some sort of rat-catcher.” Marek was old enough to be his father, yet he spoke to the Cernuan as casually as if their ages were reversed. Too much emphasis on fear, maybe even acknowledging it at all, and misplaced pride would take the place of common sense. There were more ways to die of honour than with a tsepan through the ribs. “Well, you’ve got a very big rat to deal with. Could you use help from a very big cat with very big claws?”
Marek looked at the silver kourgath wildcat on Aldric’s crest-collar, then at the Three Blades on his weaponbelt, and the look of gratitude on his bearded face gave an answer with no words needing said. So Aldric said none. Instead he examined a pasty as if he had never seen one before.
“Are these good?” he asked, and took a bite that sent crumbs flying.
“If the kitchen made them the way I instructed, they should be excellent. Mutton, onion and vegetables, seasoned with thyme and plenty of—” Aldric made a sound halfway between a cough and a sneeze and his eyes scrunched shut, “—mustard and pepper, then wrapped in pastry and baked. In my part of Cerenau we like food to fight back.”
“I think this might be winning,” said Aldric, and reached for his wine.
Marek laughed. The big man was already recovering his good humour because he wasn’t alone any more, or because like many people interested in a subject, he could throw himself into it to the exclusion of all else. And Marek Endain’s subject, as borne out by his shape and complexion, was the pleasure found in feasting-hall and kitchen.
“It is good,” said Aldric, “at least once you get over the mustard shock. But after what you ordered at The Crossed Pikes, it’s a bit…”
“Plain and simple? When a man thinks of home, simple is best.”
And when a man thinks he might die soon. Aldric didn’t say that aloud, Sometimes plain and simple was indeed best, like friendship and support offered without conditions. They continued talking, about food and drink, travel and history, music, songs and stories. The demon-queller seemed willing to talk about anything except his profession and the task which had brought him here, now with a more final conclusion than Crisen Geruath hoped for.
They also finished the pasties between them, and felt better for it.
*
The rain lessened towards evening and the sun broke through the lowering banks of cloud, filling the western sky with the colours of a bruise. Normally Aldric might have appreciated such subtle shifts of tone and pattern, but now the sullen reds and purples looked ominous. The prickling sensation on his skin hadn’t lessened as the storm passed, and his entire body still tingled as if brushed with nettles. It was a petty irritation, one he tried to ignore because, despite that promise of aid to Marek, every discomfort and oddity about this place brought back his desire to leave Seghar and the entire Jevaiden plateau far behind.
Marek had sent a servant for more wine, but when the man reappeared in the doorway what he bore was a summons from Lord Geruath. Aldric’s stomach clenched. He had expected this for hours, and now here it was.
They followed the retainer out to the courtyard of the citadel, under the shadow of its tower. It was a fitting place for an execution, or an ambush ordered by an outraged Overlord, and it already held two files of helmeted guards who fell into step behind them. But if that was the plan, then the summons was careless beyond belief. He still wore Isileth, no-one had tried to take the taiken from him, and now its blade was loose in its scabbard, as ready to fly – and as eager to kill – as a falcon with jesses untethered.
Geruath was waiting for them on the steps of his strange old-new tower. Unlike the guards he was in full armour, bulky old-fashioned battle gear that made his thin frame look thinner still, and the ring of torches surrounding him sent twisted whorls of smoke up into the still-damp air. It was clear he meant to start after the demon at once and his gaze, squinting past the broad nasal of his helmet, rested on Aldric for an instant then slid away as if he didn’t exist.
Or was already dead.
Aldric could guess what that meant. From now on he would have to guard his back from more than just whatever was haunting Seghar. He looked from the newly-made ancient armour to the newly-made ancient tower and realised what had puzzled him when he first saw it as he rode towards Seghar. The fortification was from a time before the Drusalan Empire had established itself, when Drusul, now the heart of Empire, was just one of many petty kingdoms scrambling for supremacy. Its style, and that of Geruath’s armour, suggested the Overlord was thinking back to those times in a way the powers at Drakkesborg wouldn’t like.
Jervan had suggested the same thing to Gueynor, but they had been talking about an inoffensive neutral arrangement. Hinting in broad strokes that there was no Imperial influence in Seghar was quite another matter. It suggested defiance, and Aldric was well aware how the Empire responded to defiance. Gemmel had told him. The response was called ‘correction’, and while no-one in the corrected area survived to learn their lesson, everyone else who heard about its teaching learned it very well.
He wondered briefly about Eldheisart Voord, that over-promoted officer, and what part his friendship with Crisen Geruath had to play in all this. Voord had already ignored Crisen’s violation of Imperial law about use of the Art Magic, and from the sound of it had e
ncouraged him. That raised many questions. Was he letting Crisen tangle himself in a web of obligation, or gathering evidence for his own purposes to use against the Geruaths so he would be appointed Overlord in their place?
Or was he using Seghar as a private retreat to indulge his own fondness for the more twisted forms of sorcery? There were plenty of people in the world who believed that rank or authority gave them freedom to indulge their most unpleasant inclinations, and Aldric was world-wise enough to know his own small vices were insignificant compared to some.
Someone offered him a lamp, with a stout metal casing as a reservoir for oil and a lens that bulged like a fish’s eye from the centre of a polished reflector. Aldric cast its spot of yellow light across the rain-glossed ground and hefted the considerable weight. Not only did it give better light than a live-flame torch, it made a better weapon.
An outburst of raised voices from the foot of the wooden tower made him glance up. A heavy-set man was arguing with the Overlord, which was unlikely, and getting the best of it, which was improbable. That and his matching armour let Aldric put a name to the florid, shouting face.
“Crisen…” It passed his lips on a released breath, but there was enough edge to the single whispered word that Marek’s head jerked round to see what had provoked it.
“Yes, that’s Crisen Geruath,” he said. “Why so interested? I thought you were leaving that business to Jervan and Gueynor.”
“I am. I was. Though with the right opportunity…” Aldric said it without thinking and got another of Marek’s shocked stares in response. “What?”
“You’d murder him?”
“Murder, no. Kill, maybe. Or maybe not. What are they arguing about?”
“Remember what I said about the…” He made a sign to avert evil and Aldric understood his reluctance to say more. To name the thing was to call the thing. “The intruder?”
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