by Matthew Ward
“A pity. I’d have preferred to die with a sword in my hand.”
“I’ll find you one.” She shivered and drew her cloak tighter. “I promise.”
Not that she knew how such an oath was to be kept.
The soft rumble of her father’s laughter broke off in a coughing fit. Blood spotted the back of his hand. He wiped it away on his fur. Melanna pretended she hadn’t seen.
“This wasn’t your fault,” he said. “All war is a gamble. Had the Tressians threatened a son, I’d have laid down my sword as readily. But I imagine of no son serving his father more faithfully than you have me.”
Pride fought melancholy for purchase on Melanna’s soul. Fought, and lost.
Her father shivered and drew deeper into the cramped lean-to. “I’ve instructed Aedrun to make parley. If there is trade to be made, you’ll go free.”
“I spoke with the Duke of Eskavord while you slept,” she said. “The Tressians want nothing from us.”
“Nothing?”
Her cheek twitched at twin memories of rejection and admonition. “Nothing at all.”
“Then we must put our faith in Devren,” her father grunted. “He’s loyal.”
He was indeed, Melanna allowed, but he was also cautious. She was about to say as much when a chorus of alarm broke out beyond the walls.
Her father straightened. “What is that?”
Melanna frowned. “I don’t know.” She strained her ears. “They’re saying something’s out of contr—”
A hollow boom split the air. Halfway to the gate, the palisade wall shuddered. Another strike followed hard on its heels. Then a third. And a fourth.
Across the compound, men staggered to their feet. Some scrambled away. Others jabbed wary fingers at the wall. Cries of consternation rang out.
A section of wall fell inwards. Rain spattered off a sleek, bronze hide. Blue and white paint gleamed dully above a feline maw.
“Defend the prince!” bellowed Aedrun.
A ring of bodies pressed around Melanna and her father as more of the wall toppled inwards. They crowded so close she could barely breathe. She clawed at Aedrun’s shoulder.
“Let me see!”
“Savim . . .”
Think like an empress. Behave as one. “Do as I command, warleader!”
His cheek twitched. “Yes, savim.”
Aedrun drew hesitantly aside. Melanna stepped into the gap. A dozen simarka sat at perfect attention directly ahead. Not a limb moved, nor a tail twitched. All bore stripes of blue paint across their eyes and muzzles.
Josiri Trelan stepped out of the rain, his raiment so filthy that Melanna didn’t recognise him at first. He held an amulet about his neck as tightly as a castaway clutching driftwood, and his eyes were wild.
“Stay back!” Aedrun bellowed in accented Tressian. “You’ll not harm the prince while we live!”
Josiri threw his head back and laughed. Then he gave a formal bow and stepped aside. “Go. You’re free. The guards are attended to, but there’ll be more coming. The simarka won’t harm you. I give you my word as a Trelan.”
He seemed to find this last uproariously funny, for he laughed again.
“This is a trap,” hissed Aedrun.
Melanna’s father pursed his lips. “If so, it’s an exceedingly strange trap. Daughter? You’ve spoken with the man.”
She considered. “What have we to lose?”
He chuckled. “We should make that the family motto.”
Aedrun frowned. “My prince . . .”
“Enough. The decision is made.”
Melanna’s father at their head, prisoners threaded through the unmoving simarka. Slowly, at first, but with growing confidence as the constructs made no reaction.
“Head north for the forest.” Josiri shouted to be heard over the rain. “You can cut east from there.”
Aedrun shot him a suspicious look and clambered through the breach. A heartbeat later, he beckoned back for Melanna’s father. “Come, my prince.”
Melanna hung back. She ignored the rain pooling in her collar and stared at Josiri. “Why?”
“Because you were right. They’ll never stop taking from me, whatever I do. But this victory? The battle I won? The prisoners I took? That my sister likely died for? These things, I can take from them.”
Melanna gazed at him, unable to untangle the swirl of sorrow and glee he wore like a cloak. “I’m sorry.”
“Ashanal!” shouted Aedrun. “We must go.”
She lingered all the same, recalling Ashana’s words. You’re an empress. You speak for a people. That sword cut both ways, didn’t it? In vengeance, and in unsought kindness.
“I owe you for this, Josiri Trelan,” she said. “The house of Saran owes you. Ashana watch over you and your kin.”
The last of the joy slipped from his expression. “Go.”
Melanna vanished into the rain. Josiri, abuzz with defiance and fear, let Gavamor’s amulet fall at his feet and propped an elbow on the nearest simarka.
“Well, that’s that,” he said softly. “Makrov will be here soon. Viktor too, I shouldn’t wonder. And then someone will think to send you after them. Can’t have that, can we, Samias? Do you mind if I call you Samias? You look like a Sam.”
The simarka offered no opinion. Like cats of all stripes, what wisdom it had it kept to itself.
Josiri brought his boot down on the amulet. Golden light flared under his heel and dissipated into the grey. With a sigh that stretched all the way to his toes, Josiri sat down alongside the simarka and tilted his face towards the rain.
“What a miserable day.”
Jeradas, 10th day of Radiance
Folk praise me as a saviour.
Is the wolf thought righteous for siding with the sheep?
Perhaps, had he not slaked his own hunger first.
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Forty-Five
No one spoke. At least, no one uttered words loud enough to draw notice above the creak of the wagon’s axle and the rumble of wheels. After two days on the road, no one had anything much left to say. The escort even left marching songs unvoiced. But for the tramp of feet, Josiri might have believed they’d parted ways somewhere in the Tevar Flood.
Josiri squeezed his interlocked fingers tight and strove to restrain his worries. For himself. For his companions. For Anastacia . . . and for Calenne most of all. The absence of news was a hungry void that gobbled up all around it until only despair remained.
The cart shuddered to a halt. A soldier parted the canvas flaps. “Lord Akadra, your presence is requested.”
Lord Akadra. Josiri rose on numbed legs and shuffled out into the open air. A bleak afternoon sliding into nondescript evening. Grey fading black. If there were a more apt metaphor for his life, he couldn’t grasp it.
The soldier led him around the wagon’s front, past the double column of northwealders. Most were arrayed in the king’s blue of the 12th, though the foremost wore the Akadra swan.
Viktor sat at the head of the convoy, unarmoured but garbed in black and silver. A riderless horse waited beside his own. Far to the north, beyond the rolling, windblown meadows and huddled villages, the white stone of Tressia’s outer wall waited.
Viktor gestured to the empty saddle. “Join me, brother.”
Josiri scowled, but obeyed. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“We do not live in a world of wishes. You of all people should know that by now.”
With a flick of his reins he set the horse in motion.
Josiri did likewise, and the convoy rumbled on. “No. I live in a world where a man’s wishes . . . a man’s words . . . mean nothing.”
“I . . .” Viktor broke off, the angry rumble beneath his words subsiding. “My every dealing with you has been in good faith.”
“And much good it has done!” snapped Josiri. “Or do you suppose Makrov shares your noble sentiments?”
The air grew colder. Far colder than an overca
st Sommertide’s day should manage.
“I know your pride’s hurting. That’s why you set the prisoners free. For that act alone, Makrov wanted you hanged. The Akadra name you loathe so much is the only reason you’re alive. Josiri Trelan would be crow-food by now.”
“They were my prisoners,” Josiri bit out.
“I recall playing no small part in their capture. But yes. They were your prisoners. And for whatever it’s worth, I understand why you acted as you did. I might even have aided the endeavour, had you trusted me with your intent.”
“I’ve trouble believing that.”
“We’ll never know, will we?”
“Your manner tells me enough. I placed your enemy beyond your grasp.”
To Josiri’s surprise, Viktor laughed. “You think that’s why I’m angry? Kai Saran’s fate isn’t worth a brass shilling to me. His wildcat daughter’s far less. But I would have parleyed their deaths into freedom.” The laughter faded into bitterness. “Instead, I must seek another path, when every bone in my body calls me southwards to search for Calenne. I am riven by duty. Worn down by it. And in great part the fault is yours.”
Josiri cast about for a rebuttal. To his dismay, he found none. “The princessa . . . I wanted to spare her my burdens.”
“Compassion for your enemy, brother? I fear Ebigail Kiradin will never approve of you. But compassion isn’t enough. Not if we’re to spare our people Makrov’s cruelty.”
Our people. Viktor was far easier to loathe from a distance than in person. “You believe that’s possible, even now?”
“Makrov, Ebigail . . . even my own father. They mistake bigotry for the tinder of great days gone. They scry the past for comfort but are blind to its lesson.”
“And that is?”
“That if those in power refuse to change, others will take the decision from them.”
He spoke with laconic, deliberate passion. The sentiment, aggrandising in another, offered only an ascetic’s humility.
Josiri’s cheeks warmed with shame. “I’m as trapped as any of them. As my mother once was.”
“Not so,” Viktor replied. “Even at the end, when she’d nothing more to lose, Katya couldn’t bring herself to trust me. To hope for something better. We needn’t agree on everything, you and I. But from here on out, we must work together. Everything we love lies in the south. That alone should bind us.”
Calenne. Anastacia. How was he to help them now? “I’ll not be your puppet.”
“No, but if I’m to shoulder the aftermath of recklessness, I’d at least partake in the joy. Can you make me that promise?”
Josiri hesitated. His mother would have warned him against. But Viktor was right. The past was the past, and Viktor Akadra – of all people – was the only source of light in a bleak feature.
“Yes.”
A double line of soldiery waited among the bustling crowds coming and going from King’s Gate. A full company of the 7th, but not arrayed as an honour guard, as Viktor might have expected. Drawn weapons were held ready, not shouldered in respect – a detail that explained why the milling citizenry gave them as wide a berth as the roadway’s confines permitted. The knot of grey-garbed provosts struck a further jarring tone, as did the pair of kraikons hunched beneath the gateway.
But none of this, unexpected as it was, troubled Viktor half as much as the woman who stood at stiff attention a dozen paces before the blockade. The stranger who wore the face of a friend.
Viktor brought the convoy to a halt with a closed fist.
Josiri straightened in his saddle. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Viktor replied. “I’ll attend to it.”
“Shared recklessness, remember? That promise goes both ways.”
“Reckless deeds could not be further from my thoughts.”
“And from theirs? I’ve spent my adult life a prisoner, Viktor. I know a cage when I see one.”
Viktor grimaced. So Josiri read the situation the same. It had to be Makrov’s doing. A swift herald could have overtaken them on a different road. But why? To shake Josiri free of the haven Viktor had arranged? It made no sense. If anything, the protection of the Akadra family name was stronger within the city walls, where there were hearthguard aplenty to back words with steel.
“Very well,” he said. “But please let me do the talking.”
Josiri nodded. With a twitch of reins, they walked their steeds closer, the crowds parting before them. The woman on the roadway didn’t advance. She didn’t smile – didn’t even offer a word of greeting.
“Rosa,” said Viktor. “It’s been too long.”
“Lord Akadra.”
She looked older. No, that wasn’t right. What Viktor perceived was not an aging of the body. It went deeper: a hollowness of spirit, conveyed more by his shadow than any ephemeral perception.
“Josiri, I present Lady Roslava Orova, Knight of Essamere and my friend. Rosa, this is Josiri Akadra.” He ignored the twitch of Josiri’s brow and pressed on. “My brother by right of law, and of adoption.”
Josiri inclined his head.
Rosa offered a rigid bow. “By right of law?”
“Of marriage, to his sister Calenne.”
Her expression grew bleaker still, sparking fresh unease. “And the Lady Calenne? She is not with you? Some . . . misfortune, perhaps?”
“The Hadari took her from us in the hour of victory.” The words did not come easily, but they came. “It’s my hope Lumestra will return her to us.”
“I’m sure.” Rosa spoke flatly. “A tragedy, so soon after her betrothed perished on the road. But people die so easily within your orbit, Lord Akadra.”
Enough was enough. Viktor swung down from his saddle. “Rosa, what is this?”
A muscle twitched in her cheek. For the briefest of moments her blue eyes softened. But only for that moment. “Lord Viktor Akadra, you stand accused of crimes against the Republic. Treason. Corruption. Murder. Witchery. Surrender yourself.”
Viktor felt the world slip away. Had his father revealed their demon’s bargain? That would explain the witchery charge. But not the others.
“Rosa. What is this? Name my accuser. This is a—”
Rosa’s gut-punch sucked his words into a wracking, gasping void. Another blow snapped his head aside. Red flared behind his eyes. His knee jarred against stone.
The crowds shrank back in alarm. Murmurs of outrage and worry rippled through the air. A merchant brought his cart to a clattering halt beneath King’s Gate, not wanting to be caught up in the unfolding commotion.
Viktor spat a mouthful of blood onto the roadway. Rosa’s emotionless facade fell as her body quivered with rage. Her eyes blazed with it. A sight he’d not seen since their first meeting, when he’d dressed her down for the idle, privileged brat she’d been.
“Bad enough that you’ve been in the Crowmarket’s pay all this time! But Kas would have died for you!” she spat. “And you murdered him!”
Kasamor? Pieces of the puzzle were coalescing, but too slowly to be of use. Not that Viktor imagined facts had much purchase on Rosa at that moment. There was too much anger in her blood. Though somehow the cause of her wrath, he suspected she barely saw him. “Rosa, you’re not making any . . .”
This time, he rolled with her punch. It still set his teeth rattling.
Commotion broke out behind. Hearthguard hurried forward, their words murky in Viktor’s ringing ears.
Rosa backed away. “7th! To me!”
The king’s blue line surged forward. The last of the passers-by withdrew, streaming back beneath the gate, or making for the open fields of the city approach.
Viktor opened his mouth. Words vanished into the black clouds about his thoughts. He didn’t have time for this. Calenne missing. His honour on the knife-edge of betrayal through unseen circumstance. And now someone had set the cornerstones of his life crumbling?
His shadow roared for freedom. The roadway felt cold as ice beneath his fingers. But t
his was one problem it couldn’t fix. One glimpse would unmake him. And he didn’t want to hurt Rosa. She was as much a victim as he. She had to be.
“Stand back!” shouted Josiri. “Sergeant, hold your ground!”
The hearthguard drew back. Rosa clasped a fist, and the 7th halted.
Josiri dismounted in front of Viktor, his back to the line of drawn swords. Rosa glowered and backed further away. Her lips thinned almost to nothing, and her jaw muscles went taut as mooring ropes. She knew she’d overstepped. A good sign among the bad.
“Your friend seems nice,” said Josiri.
Viktor grimaced. Taking the proffered hand, he rose. “Something’s wrong.”
“I’d worked that out.” He shot a glance over his shoulder. “What can I do?”
The matter-of-fact tone banished a little of the cold gnawing at Viktor’s thoughts. Nothing forged friendship as readily as a common enemy. If only that enemy had not also once been a friend.
“Have Sergeant Brass take you to Malachi Reveque. He’ll protect you.” He offered a wry smile. “I don’t imagine you can expect a warm welcome from my father.”
The corner of Josiri’s mouth curled. His eyes shifted restlessly. “Your friends thus far inspire little confidence.”
“If you return to the Southshires, Makrov will seize you as a fugitive. You can’t help Calenne or Anastacia if you’re dead.”
“Nor can you.”
“They’ll want a confession about the witchery. That will take time.” Viktor eyed the provosts. He knew too much of their reputation to believe it would take much time. “I imagine it will hurt, but I’ll survive.”
“See that you do.” He offered a lopsided smile. “With Calenne and Ana gone, who else will I quarrel with?”
Viktor nodded. Wrists held out before him and heavy heart weighing his steps, he approached Rosa’s line. The provosts hurried forward, robes trailing in the dust, and bound his hands with silver rope.
Forty-Six
The cottage door creaked open. Warmth howled out into the miserable afternoon and the crisp scent of rain rolled in. Kurkas set his hand of cards on the table and drew his blanket tight. The motion pulled on the torn flesh of his gut, lending irritation to breathy words.