by Ellyn, Court
Kalla slugged him in the shoulder, whirled and caught Laral in the ribs. “Curses on you both! We’ll be lucky if they let us back across.”
“What did I do?” Drys demanded, rubbing his arm. “Damn.”
“If Bethyn doesn’t want me,” Laral said, “I don’t want back across.”
Kalla snarled, but Laral snatched her fist before it found another target. “If you risk my neck again,” she shouted, “it won’t be Fieran steel that ends your torment!” She put spurs to flanks and galloped off, leaving the boys behind in a contemptuous cloud of dust.
The highway led them southwest from Nathrachan. Miles of wild, tangled brambles stretched between them and the Bryna. Broad swaths of the thorn trees had been killed out by Dragon fire as part of Kelyn’s plan to distract the Fieran armies. Scorched, barren branches clawed at the sky, but among them, young briar bushes flowered white. Nothing had changed, not really. Not for a thousand years. It would be the same war all over again, in Laral’s time, or that of his sons.
They reached Ulmarr Town well after dark. “I don’t miss this stinking place either,” Drys complained. How many weeks had they camped among these streets, enduring one assault after another before Leshan arrived and encouraged Kelyn’s armies to surge on toward Brynduvh? Walls and towers of a new fortress reared up against an overcast sky. The entire construction appeared to be tangled in scaffolding. Slivers of moonlight revealed mounds of raw uncut stone laying at the castle’s feet like offerings, ready to be shaped and added to gate, keep, and turret. Something about the regenerating fortress was unspeakably menacing. Perhaps it would look less so in the morning.
A couple of Ulmarr’s abandoned inns had been reopened. Music and light poured from the windows as if war happened only on the history pages. Merchants’ carts and travelers’ carriages crowded the yards. Laral and his companions chose the least suspect and, thanks to the gatehouse commander, they had enough coin for two rooms, three baths, and three hot meals. Gathering around a table in the common room, they tried not to draw attention to themselves. A serving wench brought them trenchers of mutton stew and tankards of ale and asked no questions. Too many spring travelers, too many refugees still seeking places to settle for her to care about three more new faces.
Drys shoveled the stew into his mouth with the manners of a swineherd. Kalla watched Laral keenly over the rim of her tankard. “Are you nervous?”
“I’m too uncertain to be nervous. If I knew she was waiting for me, then I’d be nervous. But I don’t know even that much.”
“I admit, I never expected you to remain this dedicated.”
“Maybe that’s what Bethyn thought, too.” Laral pushed his trencher away, suddenly too queasy to eat. Drys took that as an invitation to help himself and swiped up Laral’s stew with a slice of black bread.
Kalla sighed wistfully. “Bethyn would be a fool to turn you away.”
Drys glanced up from his feast. “Hey, Kalla? Why don’t you ever sigh over me?”
She rested her chin in the palm of her hand in a manner that screamed of longsuffering. “Because you have stew on your chin, Drys.”
~~~~
Two days later, they arrived at the copse of dead ash trees where the demon fell. Below the hill, the silver ripples of the Thunderwater scythed a path through field and vineyard. The hillsides grew green again, and none could tell that armies had camped there and trampled the pastures to dust. Brengarra Town stretched out along the riverbanks. The slate roofs gleamed in the afternoon sun, and the steady, quiet clamor of the villagers passing along the cobbled streets bespoke a return to normality. At the northern end of town, sheltered in the lea of the Shadow Mounds, the castle reared up above the river crossing. The thick basalt walls and heavy, spiraling towers brooded over their domain. Beyond rose Tor Roth, that fist of black granite ever ringed by rumbling storm clouds. The sun cast the tor’s shadow long across the meadows, like a god’s sundial.
“Well, let’s get this over with,” Drys said, starting down the hill.
“Wait,” Laral cried. “We can’t see her like this, covered in dust and smelling of horse.”
“You mean, she’s this close and you’re gonna put it off till you’ve had a bath?” Drys’s face registered no comprehension.
For once, Kalla agreed with him. “She won’t care, Laral.”
He stared at those spiraling towers and felt his stomach turn. “Now I’m nervous, all right?”
Kalla chuckled. “You won’t be less nervous tomorrow.”
How hard to cluck his horse into motion and descend that hill. All too soon he rode into the shadow of the gatehouse. Laral dismounted on legs of lead and banged the knocker on the postern door. The thick curtains of ivy that shrouded the towers provided plenty of cover for the watchmen on the turrets. A voice, flat with boredom, called down, “State your name and business.”
“Lie,” Drys hissed.
“Why?”
“You’re asking for admittance into an enemy stronghold, idiot. Let Bethyn decide if we ride out again, not some bastard in the tower.”
Maybe Laral was an idiot, but he didn’t want to play games. He called toward the battlements, “I am Laral of Tírandon, and I beg an audience with Lady Brengarra.”
“Tírandon?” snapped the reply, all trace of boredom gone. “Wait there.”
Drys swore, and Kalla’s fingers tightened about the haft of her sword. A painfully long stretch of time slipped past. Unsettling quiet gripped the battlements. “They’re measuring us for our pyres, I’ll warrant,” Drys said.
“Stay calm,” Laral warned.
The postern door opened abruptly. A sentry in a battered helm waved them in. “Leave your horses. His Lordship has been expecting you.”
“Lordship?” Laral’s heart plummeted.
“Ah, shit,” said Drys.
“Too late, Laral.” Kalla squeezed his shoulder. “You came all this way, so speak with her anyway.” She nudged him through the postern before he could decide what to do. He and his companions followed the sentry through the mossy, cool darkness under the gatehouse and into the sunny courtyard.
Two men stood on the steps to the keep. The shapes of their faces and set of their eyes marked them father and son. The older man was round in the belly, and an elaborately waxed beard made up for the lack of hair on his head. He waved the sentry away. “To your posts, as you rehearsed.” The sentry saluted, then hurried to the barracks.
Acknowledging his guests, the man on the steps offered a smile as wooden and jagged as a barricade. “I bid you welcome to Brengarra, son of Lander, and to these, your companions. I am Fe’olan, Lord Downford, and this is my son, Falyr. I’m brother to Lord Jaeron, whom I believe you knew.”
Bethyn’s uncle? In one of her last letters, she made passing mention of him. Laral had read each letter until the parchment was soiled and wrinkled. “He arrived from Downford with all his family yesterday,” she had written. “At first I was grateful to have them, thinking that my uncle looked, oh, so much like my father, but now I cannot find the resemblance. He is charming in a disarming sort of way. The royal court is full of duplicitous men such as he, but I cannot turn him away. He mourns my father as I do. They are set to depart next week. Then I shall have more time to compose my music for you …” Was this yet another visit? Or had this uncle and his family conveniently forgotten to leave?
Disarming, indeed. Laral heeded the warning and did not take his eyes off the man. “Knew him? Not really. He and my brother died on the same day.”
“I cannot say I’m sorry to hear that. You do have more than your share of audacity, returning.” Fe’olan propped his fists on his hips. He was unarmed, but his son was not. Falyr’s hands hung loose and open near the hilt of a longsword. He wore the same arrogant half-grin that Kelyn had often worn when he knew he couldn’t be beaten. That was before life thrashed him about a wee bit.
“Will you announce me to Lady Brengarra or not? We wrote to one another—”
“Yes, I am aware of this,” Fe’olan interrupted. “Understandably, my niece decided it was best that she no longer receive your letters. You see, she has accepted my son’s hand. They are to be married at midsummer. It was no easy task convincing her. I blame you for that, Aralorri.”
Laral glared at the son, his hopes crashing down around him. Falyr flicked a lock of yellow hair from his face with a toss of his head. There was something supremely imperious about the gesture. He had the upper hand, and he knew it. Laral understood long ago that his chances of hearing his wren sing to him for the rest of his life were slim, but losing her to this conceited son of a bitch? “I doubt I’m the only one to blame.”
“Listen here,” Falyr said, his finger a spear aimed at Laral. “Brengarra stays in our family. We have been the only family to hold it since the time of King Fiernan. We will not see it in your hands, Aralorri. Take yourselves from the premises, or we remove you, and I cannot vouch for the condition you’ll be in.” A trammel of feet announced the garrison lining up on the walls above.
Laral was hardly able to stand upright; the anguish coursing through this veins took the mettle right out of his legs. “I beg your leave to speak with her, for just a moment—”
“Certainly not!” Falyr declared.
“—to make certain we are not enemies, if we cannot be friends.”
“Bethyn belongs to me!”
Lord Fe’olan waved his son to silence. “In any case, young Tírandon, my niece is not well enough to receive visitors today. Or tomorrow.”
Wrong excuse to give. It stripped away Laral’s grief in an instant. “Not well?” he demanded. “Why is Bethyn not well?”
“Mind yourself, young man.” Fe’olan’s eyes darted between his guests and the garrison. One wrong move and he was sure to give the order to attack. “Her condition is not serious, nor does it merit—”
“Not serious! She is not well enough to receive visitors, but her condition is not serious? Drys!” he called over his shoulder. “Is it safe, do you think, for me to call this man a liar?”
Drys grinned. “I call him liar if you don’t.”
“Now, stop right there,” Fe’olan began, round belly puffing up like that of a startled toad.
“I’ll flay your hides,” growled Falyr, even as he retreated a step toward the keep.
A sudden hammering on a windowpane turned all their heads. A small white hand slapped at the glass on the third floor, and a blurred, pale face appeared. “Laral!” The shriek was indistinct through the thick pane. “Laral, I’m here!”
“Ride from Brengarra now,” Fe’olan bellowed, “and all will live.”
Kalla winced, Drys snorted, and Laral charged. Long legs ate up the steps before Fe’olan could flee into the keep. Laral’s arm hooked the old man around the neck, and the point of the diamond dagger teased his ribs. His companions bared their swords and slowly advanced up the steps, keeping wary eyes on the walls and on Falyr.
The latter lunged to aid his father. Laral spun from the reach of his sword, dragging Lord Fe’olan with him. Drys’s fist shattered Falyr’s teeth. Squealing, he sank to the steps, blood and tooth fragments streaming from his mouth.
“Loose!” Fe’olan choked out. The creak of two dozen bows drawing taut brought Drys and Kalla back to back, but their shields hung from their saddles outside the gate.
Laral didn’t hear the bows, only the blood thundering inside his ears and Bethyn pounding, pounding on the glass.
A bow lowered. “Stand down, men.” The man’s elaborate helm denoted him as the castellan. Laral remembered that bushy white beard from the last time he dared enter Brengarra’s walls.
“No—kill—” Fe’olan grunted. Laral’s arm tightened.
The commander called down from the wall, “Her Ladyship told us you would come, Tírandon. I, for one, did not believe her. She regards you highly. Free her without spilling more blood, and you have our aid. The stairwell to the left, third floor.” He motioned for a squad of ten to accompany Laral and his companions into the keep. Half a dozen others surrounded Falyr, who writhed and vomited on the steps.
Laral sheathed his dagger and hauled Lord Fe’olan into the keep by the scruff of his neck. “I will not endure this indignity!” he cried, sweat seeping under Laral’s fingers.
“Keep quiet, or I might forget the castellan’s invitation.”
Servants and staff, who had crowded into the foyer to investigate the shouts, now scattered from the Aralorri incursion. The squad of soldiers cleared the way through the dark, ancient expanse of the old Lord’s Hall and up the stairs to a new wing. Here the stone shined pale silver in the light of wrought-iron lamps. Ornate doors lined a long corridor. “Which room, damn it?” Laral said, giving Fe’olan a shove. “Wren!”
One of the doors burst open. A plump woman ran into the corridor, shouting at someone behind her, “You little wretch, you wouldn’t dare!” Something large and heavy swung from inside the parlor and missed the woman’s head by a fingerspan. With a shriek the woman fled toward the soldiers, but as soon as she recognized her husband approaching in a stranger’s custody, her feet stuttered to a stop. A wraith of a girl caught up to her and swung a lute as if it were a sword. The wooden belly of the instrument smashed across the woman’s arse and exploded into splinters. The impact flung the woman to her knees. Howling and fighting her skirts, she scrambled through the nearest door and slammed it shut.
Bethyn sank against the wall, panting, her eyes closed and a hand touching a ghostly face as if she fought a wave of dizziness. She dropped the remains of the lute. Her features, small anyway, were grievously shrunken. The blush was gone from her cheek, and dark circles bruised eyes that had grown too large. An ivory dressing gown blanched her the more, and her torrent of brown hair was a neglected shambles.
Laral roared in fury, seized Fe’olan by the collar, and hammered his into the wall. “What have you done to her!”
The castellan intercepted before Laral squeezed the life from his captive. “We’ll take him from here, Tírandon.”
Bethyn reached for him, took a faltering step closer, and her knees buckled. Laral caught her up, and her arms wrapped tight about his neck. “I had almost given up hope,” she whispered. She felt as if she might break in his arms. So small, so fragile, like dusty crystal falling. He’d caught her just in time.
~~~~
“They wanted me to think you had stopped writing,” Bethyn said. Propped up on pillows in her music room, she sipped steaming broth from a mug. The household physician reached for her wrist, measured her pulse.
“I never stopped,” Laral said. He sat at the foot of her settee and tucked a blanket under her feet. She kept smiling at him in such a restful way that Laral could scarcely imagine the horror she’d endured.
“I know you didn’t. Three months ago, Nurse—Lady Brighthill, you remember—found one of your letters before Uncle Fe’olan did and brought it to me. Your words were full of desperation. I wrote back to you, but Falyr caught Nurse trying to deliver it to a courier. She disappeared the next day. My Nurse, my dear Nurse. You don’t think they killed her, do you?”
“We’ll find out, you can be sure of that. I’m only grateful your uncle earned the spite of the garrison.”
Even now, Drys and Kalla helped the castellan secure Lord Downford, his wife, and son in the gatehouse dungeon. Bethyn’s orders were explicit: “Put them in separate cells. Don’t risk their conniving minds in the same room together. And make sure they’re hungry.”
Bethyn gulped the broth as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, an unladylike gesture, and one that demonstrated that she couldn’t afford to care. “My soldiers might’ve loved him, if he had given me good council instead of taking my mantle from me. And they were swindlers, all three of them. They claimed our treasury had run low, that we hadn’t recovered from the war, and deducted the garrison’s pay. Pocketed the coin for themselves, of course. They did the same acro
ss my lands. I heard the people’s complaints, but I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. You wouldn’t do that, would you, Laral?”
He reached for her hand, squeezed her fingers. “Do not distrust me because of their actions.”
Her smile was slow in returning. Sadness darkened it. “I never had cause to distrust anyone before they came.”
“What will you do with them?”
“I’ll write to the Princess Regent. Her court will decide what’s to be done.”
“Is she just?”
Bethyn looked down at her hands. Her index finger ran around the rim of the mug. Restless hands, always needing something to do. “I don’t know. We must also have her approval to … do you still mean to marry me?”
“More than ever. And I don’t care if we have Ki’eva’s approval or not.”
Bethyn’s head sank wearily into the pillows. “Do you realize what trouble this may cause?”
Laral remembered his father’s tirade. “Only too well. Am I worth it, Wren? Losing everything?”
“Brengarra is just stones, Laral—”
“And a proud history of honor and loyalty.”
“—if the Princess Regent is so full of hate that she believes marrying you, loving you, is dishonorable and disloyal, then she can have Brengarra and everything that goes with it.”
Bent over his box of medicines, the physician grunted in astonishment. “You must not say such things, m’ lady. Your father—”
“My father is dead. His sense of honor and mine may be quite different, and I am sick of the kind of hatred that killed him and my brother both. I will not condone it within these walls as long as they remain mine.”
The physician straightened, risked a glance at the Aralorri, then hurriedly packed away his equipment. After he fled the room, Laral told Bethyn, “I do not deserve you.”
“No? You fought for me. If that’s not deserving, I don’t know what is.”
“I won’t let anything hurt you again, Wren.”