by Leo Carew
“You what?” said Randolph, abruptly. Every face about the fire turned towards him, horror evident in many.
“I released him!” said Roper, tipping back his head and glaring at them all. “His power is broken! We’ve swept away his web, and in any case, what are we? Well?” he demanded, casting about. “What are we? A spider is no threat to a wolf!” No one had replied, but suddenly Roper was prowling around the fire, meeting every eye turned towards him. “He is irrelevant, forget him. Forget the Sutherners and their plans. This is our plan: we will gather food from the forests here for a few days. We will assemble supplies for one final push. At all times, we will make it look as though we have no thoughts other than staying here and continuing the siege. But this city is worthless. We destroyed its garrison today; Deorceaster is neither a threat to us, nor of any value. Earl Seaton and his men will retreat to Lundenceaster. When they’re inside, we’ll force-march south and trap the whole rotten lot inside the city, king and all.” The legates and historians listened in silence as Roper paced before them, possessed once more by a manic energy. “Keep your silence on this. Do not utter it to a soul not touched by the light of this fire. Make your preparations to depart in utmost secrecy, and we will catch them by surprise.” He turned towards them all, gaze flashing like a torch over the group. “Does anyone have anything to say?”
Nobody did.
“Now you know,” finished Roper. He made to turn away, but then caught himself. “I have one more thing to say. If any of you want to go home, then do so.” He pointed north, staring at each one of them. “The road is straight and smooth. And may history have mercy on your decision.” He glared at them all, and then nodded curtly. “If anyone needs me, I’m going to train with Vigtyr.”
He stalked into the dark. Vigtyr, when Roper found him, was sitting by a hearth he had kindled alone. He was reluctant to train. It was late, they had fought to exhaustion a few hours before, and one of them might be injured in the dark. But Roper could not be still and eventually the lictor relented.
That evening, whether because he did not have Roper’s stamina, or because of the dark, or simply because Roper was possessed with such a corrosive energy, Vigtyr could not match his lord. They piled the fire with resinous pine branches, and in the surrounding flutter of shadows, Roper forced his retreat again and again. He battered his defences aside, his attention relentlessly focused on the dark flash of Vigtyr’s sword; sometimes visible, sometimes not. For the first time ever, Roper struck Vigtyr a blow with his blunted blade. And then again. And again. Vigtyr’s teeth were unveiled in the dark, and between them issued grunts and growls as he tried to match Roper’s aggression. But his own energy was far less focused and that was to Roper’s advantage.
Roper was stopped, eventually, not by satisfaction, or fatigue, but guilt. It took him some time through his possession, but at last he detected Vigtyr’s mood. He was afraid. Roper was not harming him physically in their training, but peeling back the layers of his character. Beyond the catty and distant façade, past the bared teeth, Roper caught flashes of something small and frightened, flinching in the darkness. Vigtyr’s identity as a swordsman, which for decades he had used for validation by comparing his skills favourably with others, was suddenly pulled aside. Roper was not a match for him: in daylight, both men refreshed, he would struggle as surely as ever to land a hit on the lictor. But through the dark and exhaustion, all that mattered was energy. Roper had it. Vigtyr did not.
Roper pulled back suddenly. Vigtyr, grateful for the reprieve, shied slightly out of the firelight. “I’m sorry, Vigtyr,” said Roper. “This isn’t fair. Not fair at all. You deserve rest after today.”
Vigtyr panted and then jerked his head, curtly.
“Thank you for putting up with me.”
“You are improving, lord,” Vigtyr mumbled. “That would have been hard to resist under any circumstances.”
Roper held out his hand and shook Vigtyr’s. “There will be no duties for you tomorrow. You have earned a rest.” Vigtyr seemed shocked and Roper, not possessing the subtlety to rectify it at that moment, left him, feeling distantly ashamed of himself. He was so preoccupied that he stumbled into a legionary, hastening in the opposite direction. “Beg pardon,” said Roper.
“My fault, lord,” said the legionary. He seemed extremely young to Roper, though he could barely be a year Roper’s junior. Indeed, now Roper looked at him, he was not a legionary at all, but a nemandi: an apprentice. “If I may, lord, it’s you I was looking for. I have a message.”
“Oh?” Roper’s first thoughts were of Tekoa, sending word that he had vanquished the sickness. “Come to my hearth, we’ll have tea. Have you come far?”
“A long way, lord,” said the messenger, falling into step with Roper. “From the Lake Avon haskoli.”
Roper faltered at that. He had been completely distracted from the Inquisitor and her two guardsmen in the north, and their quest to uncover his brother’s killer. “Almighty, yes. Yes, of course. What’s the word?”
“It’s your Inquisitor, lord,” said the messenger. “I’m sorry to report that she’s dead. And Guardsman Salbjorn has gone missing.”
Roper supplied the messenger with tea, beckoned Keturah and Gray close to hear, and then bade him report fully.
“I’m afraid there was treachery in the haskoli, lord,” said the messenger. “Guardsman Leon has been there alone for a long time now. Months.”
“Months?” asked Roper. “Were you delayed?”
“No, lord, I made it south as fast as I could have done. The delay was in anyone coming to the haskoli. The mountains have had unseasonable snow this year, and your Inquisitor and guardsmen were trapped inside. I was sent from the berjasti to see how many tutors Lake Avon would require this year, and found the snows only just melted enough to allow me through. When I arrived, Guardsman Leon told me of the dead Inquisitor and his missing protégé, and bade me bring word south to you as fast as I could. He himself dared not leave your brother’s side.”
“Ormur is well?”
“Yes, lord, I saw him. In grief still, but well physically.”
“What happened to the Inquisitor?”
The messenger hesitated. “Guardsman Leon said that she was killed by the Master of the haskoli himself, lord. Pushed off a cliff edge. She survived just long enough to condemn him.”
Roper was stunned. “The Master?” he repeated. “He killed her?”
“Leon says he was a traitor, lord. Working for the Ellengaest.”
“And what about Salbjorn?” asked Gray.
“He was guarding the boy alone,” said the messenger. “According to Leon, he apprehended the assassin trying to reach your brother. Salbjorn pursued and was not seen again. Guardsman Leon now believes that the assassin showed himself deliberately so that Salbjorn could be lured into a pursuit and killed alone. Leon has not left Ormur’s side since.”
“Almighty God,” said Gray, softly. “Poor Salbjorn. So, missing for months, and almost certainly dead too.”
The messenger nodded. “I fear so, sir.”
“There’s a good soul gone. And Inger,” said Roper. “She seemed a good woman.” Nobody spoke for a time, each head slightly bowed.
“My lord,” said Gray, dropping heavily into a seat. “Leon will need assistance. If he has been guarding the boy alone, then it will have been relentless; day and night. Ormur will be completely safe, and Leon totally unable to capture the killer. Even if he had the freedom to pursue, he is not an imaginative man. His only chance of catching him would be if he stumbled into the assassin on a dark night.”
Roper turned back to the messenger, who was gulping down mouthfuls of hot tea. “Had they made any progress in identifying the killer, or any suspects, before you left?”
“They had imprisoned an accomplice of the killer’s,” said the messenger. “A tutor at the haskoli. But Leon says he is broken and knows nothing about the assassin, nor the Ellengaest, who he claimed was directing him.”
Roper thought of this obscure enemy, so desperately seeking the death of his brother. For months, the Ellengaest’s assassin in the north had shown frightening persistence, and someday, regardless of how careful Leon was, the assassin must succeed. Even a man as disciplined as the guardsman would tire, and his opponent needed but an instant. “So Leon needs somebody more imaginative in the north to help find this killer,” he said, looking at Gray. “Any good candidates?”
Gray furrowed his brow and looked down. Before he could reply, Keturah spoke. “Send me.”
Nobody replied, Roper just looking to Gray.
“I mean it,” she persisted. “If I’m working with Leon, I’ll be perfectly safe. I need to return beyond the Abus anyway, and I fancy I could add the dimension that Leon is missing.” Her tone was acidulous once more.
“I’m not sending you, heavily pregnant, to hunt down an assassin,” said Roper. “Fine job of it though you would no doubt make.”
“Really,” she said, exasperated. “Then who will you send?”
Again, there was no reply.
“You need your warriors,” she went on. “Anyone sufficiently skilled and imaginative to hunt down the murderer is also needed here. I am not. Your options are to send me north and have me thrashing bored in the Hindrunn, or use me to help catch this killer. I have been speaking with the Battle Historian about the methods of inquisition, you know I’d be good. Come now.” She laid a hand on Roper’s shoulder. “This works perfectly. Indeed, you cannot stop me. When I go north, I will take a tour of the haskoli. I was so taken with those mountains.”
Roper shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “An Inquisitor and a guardsman dead already. I am not risking you.”
Keturah glanced at Gray. “I can usually rely on you as an ally, Captain,” she prompted.
“Not this time, Miss Keturah,” said Gray. “Lord Roper is right. That haskoli has proven a perilous place indeed.”
Keturah sat back, dissatisfied and leaning on her palms. “Let me see to those,” said Roper, twisting aside to produce his medical roll. She held out her hands and Roper cleaned them, one eye on his work and another on her face to check he was not hurting her. She merely looked weary and he finished by winding boiled linen strips around the palm, knotting it firmly. “Thank you,” she said. “Now I must bury Hafdis.”
“I will come and help,” said Roper, rising with her, Sigrid also getting to her feet.
“No, my love. We were with her. We’ll do this.” Keturah and Sigrid disappeared into the dark, picks in hand, going to bury their friend.
The next morning, as the legionaries and camp followers prepared themselves for a hunt through the forests, Roper assembled horses for Keturah and the messenger to take back north. They would go to the Hindrunn and tell Skallagrim, who was ruling in Roper’s absence, that another Inquisitor, another Master and a dozen legionaries were required in the haskoli.
Anticipating an increase in their food supplies, Roper crammed their saddlebags with oats, cheese, fruit leather and dried mutton. When he was done, Keturah observed that the poor horse would barely be able to stagger past Deorceaster, let alone make it to the Hindrunn. “The horse will manage,” said Roper.
“As will I,” said Keturah, raising a leg imperiously for Roper to help her mount. The young messenger hauled himself up on another horse. Keturah was checking bridle and reins, but Roper gripped her hand. “You will take care?”
“I will, if you send me word at once should you hear from my father.”
Roper nodded. “Of course. By the time I see you next, we’ll have taken Lundenceaster.”
“And you may be a father,” she observed.
“I hope that pleasure will wait for the conclusion of our duties here,” said Roper. “Ride safe, my dear. Look well to your road.”
“Farewell, my love.”
Roper grasped her hands swiftly in his own, and then she turned away, coaxing the horse north. The messenger fell in behind her, and Roper stood watching them go, wondering if she would turn back.
The next three days were spent hunting, but it was a joyless task. The legions operated as a vast brush, combing the forest and flushing all manner of quarry before them. Before long, a wave of deer, rabbits, hares, squirrels, foxes and even a few badgers scrambled between the trees and out onto the fields, flanked and trimmed by outlying cavalry. They were driven towards crescent gouges, manned by camp followers sporting bows and spears. As the frantic animals flooded into the trenches, or shied away from the fall, the spears and bows pinioned the earth. It was monstrously efficient, and before long the trenches were crammed with ragged fur. The sweeter game: the hares, rabbits and deer, were taken at once for salting, drying or smoking. The foxes, squirrels and badgers, scarcely palatable even when fresh, were roasted and eaten to sustain the processing. Vile work though it was, after three days they had rations to last them two weeks. That should be enough, Roper thought.
They took a day of rest, so unusual that the legionaries were instantly suspicious. It brought them to the conclusion that they were due to assault Deorceaster, and that night the rasp of whetstones filled the dark.
But it was long before dawn that Roper sent the first jolt through the army’s nervous system. He roused the legates, they rallied their primary captains, these the secondary captains, and finally the lictors. The legions were to prepare, in silence, for a long march.
When dawn came, and the defenders of Deorceaster looked out over the ramparts, it was upon an empty field, strewn with ladders that would be too short for the walls of Lundenceaster.
The legions were on the road.
33
The Incantation
The play was utterly interminable.
Aramilla fairly seethed upon her plump cushion. Next to her, Earl Seaton’s carefully arranged face could not disguise his amusement. King Osbert was capering across stage, clanking in the costume of a chivalrous knight to the indulgent claps and cries of the audience.
Some time ago, His Majesty had professed his desire for a new adventure story to take his people’s minds off the Anakim threat to the north. He assembled the finest playwrights, briefing them as to what he required, and then rejecting each response. The king informed them as kindly as he was able that they lacked true imagination, or were out of touch with the people, and eventually, each playwright was relegated to the position of scribe. The king had dictated every word of the rousing speech he now delivered to the audience, the pained belief in his own words clear on his face as he gestured and strode.
The tyrannical king to whom he ostensibly delivered these words; a man with proportions even more pigeon-like than Osbert himself, sat bored and forgotten on a throne at the back of the stage. By popular acclaim from the audience, who had been advised they were playing the part of courtiers, he would soon be replaced by the worthy King Osbert.
Reportedly, there was more to come. Osbert had been so inspired by his work on this play that he had begun another. Not that he confided such things to Aramilla any more. He had only grown more distant from her, which might have been a relief, had she not found his eyes, narrowed to wet slits, resting so regularly on her face. He suspected her in some way, though of what was unclear.
There came a triumphant cry from the audience as Osbert at last succeeded in rolling the tyrant off his throne and sat there himself. Earl Seaton sprang to his feet, applauding wildly. Aramilla rose with the rest of the audience and dutifully banged her hands together.
In the great shuffling and scraping of wooden heels on stone, Aramilla almost missed the herald pressing towards them. Even through his contortions around the festooned nobility, he showed unmistakable anxiety. So she leaned close as he drew near her father and hissed in his ear.
She was able to detect three things over the applause, and they were enough to powerfully intrigue her. The first two were words: “Anakim” and “outside.” The third was the gesture with which Earl Seaton responded; a slow and
incredulous turn of his head. He whispered something back and the herald shook his head vehemently. “No, my lord. I assure you.”
Earl Seaton swept from the room, leaving a wake of ruffled finery. The play was not yet over, but Aramilla had heard the final act consisted mostly of Osbert ruling wisely and this applause would be her best chance to escape unnoticed before then. She hastened after her father, through the crowds and out into the evening. After the dark of the playhouse, the last remnants of light in the west were somehow unexpected. Striding down an otherwise deserted street, four retainers clanking into position around him, was Earl Seaton. He made for a canopied litter, the bearers jumping to their feet. She ran after him, disdainful of her rustling silk skirts, and arrived just as her father plunged into the litter. “Your presence is not required,” he called from within. “Go back to the play.”
Instead, she climbed in next to him, to a tut from the earl. “What’s happening?”
“We’re about to go and see.” Earl Seaton snapped his fingers and the litter was heaved unevenly from the ground.
“But what did the messenger say?”
The reply was another tut. For the rest of the journey, some half an hour, the earl made no noise or movement beyond the metronomic tapping of one heavy gold ring against another. Regular glances at the buildings drifting past suggested they were destined for the northern city walls, and the litter was buffeted by a crowd moving against them. The people outside did not say much, but what words they did utter were shrill, and there was an unusual purpose to this crowd. Their fear was evident and infectious, and Seaton’s ring tapped faster and faster.
Aramilla suddenly noticed an odd noise growing on the air. A profound resonance, so deep that she felt it more than she heard it. It was like nothing so much as the sound of dread.
They jerked to a halt before the city walls. The earl was out of the litter before it had even begun to descend, Aramilla hastening after him and emerging into a flurry of military activity. The streets were clogged with wagons of weapons and armour, with men sprinting onto the battlements carrying bundles of torches and arrows. Soldiers in a state of half-dress, clutching their final garments of metal and leather, scrambled after them in evident desperation not to be alone.