by Janny Wurts
Taskin kicked the dropped shackles off the edge of the platform. ‘Very well, soldier. Let’s have this over with. Remove your sword harness and shirt.’
Awakened from the torment of her nightmares, she arose and tended the horses. The strangling anxiety did not leave her. She must risk her precarious freedom, and flee again through the coming night. The evening star shone overhead, as it had throughout happier hours in childhood when she had tagged after Dedorth to his tower. Now, the same memory wracked her with chills. For her enemies would assuredly use the old scholar’s seeing glass to scan the slopes of the mountains and seek her…
XI. Twilight
WHILE MYKKAEL STOOD, HALF STRIPPED, WITH HANDS BRACED ON THE RAIL, COMMANDER TASKIN TOOK HIS LEISURELY TIME. HE SHOUTED downstairs for his sergeant to fetch up a lit torch. Through the interval while the huge man climbed the stairs, he unbagged the whip, a braided lash on a wooden stock, the tip end bearing no saving silk tassel to soften the bite of its punishment.
When the breathless sergeant arrived with the firebrand, the commander cut short the man’s staring interest. ‘Socket that torch and return to your post. No loose talk, and no changes. My first orders stand as I gave them.’
No movement, from Mykkael, as the seconds spun out, though his skin wore a sheen of light sweat. He stared rigidly forward, the mute bells looming over him. Taskin went on to pry one of the flat, bronze studs from his scabbard. He then drew his dagger, and shaved the soft metal to a razor-keen edge. His eyes stayed on Mykkael, all the while knowing how trapped nerves would rasp at a man, forced to wait. He crimped the sheared fragment of metal to the whip end; watched like a snake as the desert-bred noticed the unpleasant fact that the stilled bells above caught and amplified sound. Faithfully cast, they magnified clarity, returning the clamped tension required to force each breath into even rhythm.
Put to the test of such cruel anticipation, most men would succumb to their crawling anxiety: the coward worn down to a plea for reprieve, and the courageous, snapped to a temperamental demand to get on and finish the unpleasantness.
Mykkael said nothing. Only the sweat that dripped down his flanks belied the appearance, that he had been born without nerves.
Taskin unreeled the whip without warning, brought the first stroke whistling down. The end of the lash cracked into the railing, and slapped tight, wrapped by whistling impetus. The dangling end with its ugly, sharp tip scribed shining arcs in the torchlight.
Mykkael did not break. His hands gripped the rail, pressed taut, but now faintly trembling. Still, the scrape of forced breathing adhered to the discipline of his imposed calm.
Taskin stepped close. He unwound the bound lash from the wood. Still inside reach, deliberately taunting for the volatile flaw that might crack the captain’s temperament, he said, ‘That one was mine, the stroke I promised for last night’s act of insubordination. The next must draw blood, for raising your hand against the crown guardsman you dropped on the garrison keep stair. The rest must redress Devall’s slighted honour. I won’t know how many of twenty you’ve earned, unless you would care to speak?’
‘For the drawn sword?’ Mykkael asked, teeth locked as the lash fell again, this time striping him clean. The sliver of metal sliced a stinging line from left shoulder down to right hip.
Taskin gave cool assent as he coiled the whip. ‘The high prince’s stiff-necked advocate filed protest like a circling shark. If you knew the man was a hidebound, proud fool, why did you leave me no option? What did you think, when you drew your brash steel on his Highness of Devall’s accredited spokesman?’
Mykkael answered, fists clamped to the railing. ‘To force him to stop reading my private papers, and prying into the garrison’s business.’ When the lash did not fall, he sucked in a sped breath and held braced.
‘No pride?’ Taskin pressed. ‘Only tactics?’
‘Yes, there was pride, but not for the reason you think.’ Mykkael shut his eyes, flinched but a hairsbreadth as the whip struck, another weal laid crosswise over the first. ‘Remember, I don’t have to stand for this.’
‘I am not a fool, prideful, or otherwise.’ Taskin readied the whip, the frost in his question confrontational. ‘Were you justified?’
‘Perhaps.’ Mykkael fought his tone neutral. His bad knee was shaking, locked rigid by stress. ‘Afterwards, I found that an entry was altered. I don’t know by whose hand. The changed notation was yours, concerning the number of Devall’s servants who passed through the Highgate last night. By my watch’s count, a name was deleted.’
‘Three stripes will do, then.’ The last, expert stroke fell alongside the first, a considered decision which left the uncut, smooth shoulder a right-handed swordsman required to fight unimpaired.
‘Hold fast, soldier! Your sentence is finished, but I have not given you leave, yet.’ Taskin crossed the platform, bent, and hooked up Mykkael’s discarded shirt. ‘Don’t move, now.’ The commander shook out the garment, and with brisk, steady pressure, blotted the running blood into the cloth. Then he waited. The fresh welts still welled and dripped scarlet. Though the captain had finally started to shiver, Taskin repeated the process thrice more.
Then he draped the marked shirt over the railing. ‘Put that back on.’
Mykkael took up the stained cloth in scalding distaste; pulled it over his head, not missing the artful subtlety. The commander’s deft ploy lent the credible appearance that he had received a full dozen lashes in punishment.
‘Make sure the blood shows when you leave here,’ Taskin insisted, relentless, as he stripped the metal from the end of the lash, and restored the whip to its bag. ‘Nor are you to remove that shirt, soldier, or touch the fresh wounds underneath. You’ll keep the badge of your shame in plain sight. Sessalie’s crown honour depends on it.’
‘You feel Devall’s retinue has unwarranted, sharp eyes?’ Mykkael grimaced, and gave up his attempt to ease the chafe of the cloth on raw flesh. ‘I urge you to treat that lot with extreme caution. They have certainly earned my suspicion.’
Taskin sighed. ‘No proof, soldier?’
Mykkael shook his head. ‘Not yet.’ Still constrained by the thread-slender technicality, that he had not received dispensation to bear weapons, he held, against the grain of his nature.
Taskin said, ‘Well, at least we can rely on the fact you’ll be watched. The evidence must assure his Highness of Devall beyond doubt my professional word carries weight.’ The commander regarded Mykkael’s sweat-damp face. Unafraid to look into the eyes of the man he had just served a humiliating penalty, he closed with professional respect. ‘I’ll send Jussoud down to your quarters in three hours. He will dress your back properly. Afterwards, you are under my orders to wear your king’s falcon surcoat. That should stop the complaints I’ve received that you meet your duties by skulking.’
Released to recover his weapons at last, Mykkael strapped on his sword, his jaw set as the burden pressed into the sting of his shoulder. He eased the sheath flat. Then, without rancour, he asked the commander’s indulgence, and slipped off the bag containing the rest of the copper disc talismans.
‘Take these,’ he instructed. ‘Give one to the king. Distribute the others at your discretion, with my stringent suggestion that none goes to the Prince of Devall or his retinue. Test every candidate with cedar smoke first, and be prepared to kill failures by ambush. They will be the made tools of a sorcerer, and unmasked, they’ll become deadly dangerous. Tell your chosen who pass, keep the discs out of sight! Also, don’t trust anyone who’s drunk, or acting the slightest bit changed from the ordinary’
Taskin hefted the sack, realized there could not be more than six pieces left inside. ‘How many of these have you given to your garrison men?’
Mykkael looked at him. ‘None. I can’t secure the gate against sorcery, nor shield a walled town with only six men! Yet six, chosen well, might stand guard for the king.’
‘But not Crown Prince Kailen?’
The two men lock
ed eyes, with only Mykkael’s bitter black with the doubts inflicted by harsh experience.
‘I can’t make that call,’ admitted the desert-bred. ‘His Highness’s habit of drink could be harmless. Safest of all, to hold back and not pose the first question.’
Taskin received that assessment, thoughtfully deadpan. Then he said, ‘You’re not excused, soldier. Not before you have shared the ongoing evidence that suggests where her Grace may have fled.’
‘No.’ Mykkael stepped back, pushed at last to snapped patience. ‘I’ve said all I intend to. Impasse? How trying. At least, earlier, I could have been thrown to your archers without bleeding for the stuffed head of Devall’s spying lackey’
Taskin lost grip on his fury, as well. ‘You madman! Are you trying to press me until I’ve no choice but to kill you?’
‘Security’ Mykkael argued. His fleeting glance sideways assayed the distance from railing to dangling bell rope. ‘Don’t waste precious time! Once I find out why your princess has bolted, then, only then will I know if I have the skills to protect her!’
‘Jump, soldier, go on,’ goaded Taskin. ‘You’ll find the rope’s cut. Not to mention the toll of that bell will roust all of Sessalie against you.’ Aware the deterrent was not going to stay the captain’s decision to leap, he spoke quickly. ‘You would hold your ground against me, and for the sake of your towering arrogance, defy Sessalie’s king?’
Mykkael never hesitated. ‘I would stand against anyone. Commander, you gamble with risks you cannot possibly imagine!’
And again, came that sawn note of grief, as though a man turned at bay faced the bittermost end of wrecked hope.
Stymied by that obstructive precedent, Taskin wrestled to recover his ranking authority. ‘You do realize,’ he warned, ‘that you might force my hand. On crown directive I could be commanded to make your arrest.’
‘Powers forefend, and deliver the ignorant from all manner of hideous destruction!’ Mykkael broke at last, desperation driving a commitment as firm as a death sentence. ‘Commander, hear this clearly! You hold my trust. But with one reservation: if you order my person set under restraint now, or at any time before this crisis is over, I will have no choice but to kill any man who lays hands on me. This includes yourself. I’ll not be set in irons while your princess is threatened. I take my oath to King Isendon seriously, and that means my freedom to act for Sessalie’s safety must come before everything else.’
‘Bright powers show mercy!’ Taskin cried in anguish. ‘You’re asking me to trust you to guard Anja’s life when nothing you say can be verified!’
Mykkael shook his head, helpless. ‘I can’t ease that choice from your shoulders, except to urge you to question Jussoud. If anyone can, he might speak for me.’
A whiplash of mockery, the righteous demand of Sessalie’s loyal crown officer: ‘How?’
Again Mykkael looked down, the gesture now recognized as a tormented need to guard privacy. ‘I did not ask your nomad the name of his tribe. But if he is Sanouk, he will have a relative who served under me against Rathtet.’
‘Dead?’ Taskin snapped.
Mykkael swallowed, and again shook his head. ‘No. Alive, at least the last time I saw her.’
Torch-lit against the thick darkness, the desertman seemed almost harmlessly diminished, a limping figure in a soiled white shirt, with eyes scored by lines of exhaustion. Yet the unvanquished quality to his silence somehow still demanded respect.
‘Stalemate,’ stated Taskin. The admission rang bitter. No man, before this one, had shaken his seasoned experience, or undermined the ferocious pride of his competence. ‘You are granted a stay, upon Jussoud’s word, and my honour now rides on your freedom.’ The commander stepped sideways, opening the way towards the door. ‘To appease my archers, we’ll descend together.’ He shouldered the bag with the whip, then raked Mykkael head to foot with a last, savage glance of assessment. ‘Just have the damned grace to look chastened, will you?’
By the preference of his deceased queen, Anjoulie, the king’s private chambers had wide casement windows overlooking the snowcapped peaks of the Great Divide. On clear nights, under starlight, the flares where the kerries breathed fire streaked like comet tails over the summits. When the gusts off the glaciers rattled the glass, a log fire always burned in the grate.
In late spring twilight, with the casements cracked open, and the mild air wafting the fragrance of jasmine from the stone terrace outside, a pageboy still tended the coals for the warming pan that comforted Isendon’s chilled feet. Installed at the royal bedside, the Duchess of Phail shared a tray of light supper for the purpose of pleasant company, and the pursuit of refined conversation.
When his Majesty suffered maundering wits, she coaxed him to eat. If he sat, blankly staring, she spoonfed him like a child. She adjusted his blankets and managed the warming pan to ease his poor circulation. Her eagle-eyed vigilance and tireless, kind manners had earned the undying respect of the servants. Most evenings, except for the guard at the door, she attended the aged king in private.
Tonight, the upset caused by Anja’s disappearance had broken that gentle routine. The page had been reassigned to the armoury, to forestall the excessive gossip. Two muscular guardsmen flanked the inside entry, with four more stationed in fully armed vigilance along the corridor outside.
King Isendon sat wakeful, propped up in his favourite oak chair. No tactful diversion had enticed him to eat. The folder of poetry in Lady Phail’s lap had failed to lull him to sleep. Conversation did nothing to quiet the palsied fingers that traced fretful patterns on the coverlet. The clouded eyes held a febrile spark, struck off the tinder of fiercely kept hope and the flint of numbing despair.
‘She is the light of Queen Anjoulie’s virtue, still shining,’ the king said, repeating the same words of five minutes ago. ‘Powers stand guard for her. She often hares off on impulse. But even her boldest pranks are well planned…’ The quavering voice trailed, then resurged with a fire many years younger. ‘I must believe that my daughter’s alive! Without her, the heart of this kingdom will be cast into darkness.’
In his prime, spurred by anguish, King Isendon would have paced. Now shrunken with grief, he tugged uselessly at his blankets.
‘The guard will find her.’ Lady Phail laid aside the loose sheaves of verse. Her firm fingers captured the king’s paper-dry hand. ‘No man has sired a more beautiful daughter, or one as intelligent and resourceful. Whatever has happened will come right, in time. Lord Taskin won’t rest without answers.’
The king jerked up his nodding chin. ‘Who comes?’
Lady Phail cast a pert glance towards the guards, to see whether they had heard footsteps. None had. The taller redhead returned a negative jerk of his helm.
‘Nobody’s there, sire. Do rest easy,’ Lady Phail soothed him.
‘Someone comes!’ King Isendon shoved bolt upright, scattering his blankets and tumbling his silk-covered pillows on to the carpet.
‘All right, sire, we’ll see.’ Lady Phail gestured for one of the guardsmen to oblige by checking the corridor. Then she bent with her usual sweet patience, and gathered the dropped bedding from the floor.
The click of the latch as the guardsman returned rang too loud in the mournful quiet. ‘No one,’ he stated softly. ‘The guards outside say the same.’
King Isendon permitted the duchess to cosset him, though his frown remained welded in place. ‘Taskin’s expected shortly with news. I can’t be asleep when he gets here.’
‘We’ll waken you, sire, never fear.’ With genteel grace, the old lady fluffed the last pillow, but refused the indignity of smoothing her sovereign’s hair. As though his Majesty still retained all his faculties, she honoured his rank with a curtsey, then swept back to reclaim her stuffed chair. ‘Do you favour a team for the horse wickets yet? Kailen has picked Farrety’s to wear his badge. That’s raised some heat between Muenice and Lord Tavertin. Each of them hopes you’ll bestow royal favour.’
&nbs
p; For a moment, the king brightened. ‘Anja thought Tavertin’s team would wash out. His master of horse trains the animals too hard. Wears the high fettle right out of them.’ Isendon turned his drawn face towards the window, where stars, but no kerrie fires, burned. ‘Would that Anja were here. Her young eyes would judge which team’s fittest.’
‘Well, you managed to better the team she liked last year.’ Lady Phail’s smile turned wistful. ‘Such a close match.’
But King Isendon’s mind had wandered again. His staring eyes scanned the richly appointed chamber. Whether fogged vision showed him shadows or shapes, no one knew. His seeking inspection quartered the carved scrolls that crowned the pilasters, then the lavender silk adorning the chair seats, and the marquetry table with its tracing of mussel-shell inlay. He squinted at the clothes chests with their tapestry coverings, examining each tassel with razor-sharp inquiry. His gaze stalled at last in the nook by the armoire. ‘Someone comes, I tell you!’
‘Very well, sire. We shall see.’ Lady Phail arose, caught up her cane, then moved with a whispered rustle of skirts to check the outside doorway herself. Sometimes the king would subside at her word. Other times, his unpredictable perception captured subtleties missed by the guardsmen. The wits that had scattered with his infirmity were wont to present them with vexing puzzles. If the seneschal found his Majesty’s idiosyncrasies a constant irritation, the men Taskin posted to watch the royal chamber were faultlessly staunch and supportive.
The tall redhead lent the duchess his courteous assistance and unlatched the door once again. Yet this time, as the bronze-studded panel swung open, the tap of rapid footsteps approached, rolling echoes down the vaulted corridor.
‘That will be Taskin.’ King Isendon pushed at his blankets, tumbling pillows helter-skelter once more.
‘His Majesty’s right,’ said the blond guard, relieved.
The crown commander and two immaculate officers shortly breasted the stair that led from the anteroom. They reached the king’s door at a cracking fast clip, with Taskin more than usually brisk, and an edge like a sword on his temper.