A King in Cobwebs

by David Keck

  And there they were—Durand, Deorwen, Almora, Ailric, and the Lost. Deorwen clamped her lips tight.

  Almora took Durand’s hand once more. “Durand, you’ve no call to pity me. I am a duke’s daughter, not some village girl. A match was to be made one day, and I have fared well.” He felt every bit the battle-scarred bear of Ragnal’s jokes, but the poor woman twinkled at him. “Really, Sir Durand. I am alive, thanks to all of you. Host of Heaven, Father thinks that you will take care of me. I suspect it will be the other way around. No, I am well pleased. With the king dead and the south marching to war, a marriage—even my own—is scarcely a worry at all.”

  Durand must have frowned, but Almora swept on. “Now, Lady Deorwen, let us leave this gloomy place. I want a change of clothes before we head to the quay. Let us see if my bedchamber is where I left it.”

  The women left, and then it was Ailric and Durand alone among the Lost.

  The youth, for all his customary intensity, looked very young and very tired—hardly more alive than Euric and the rest who muttered behind him in the rushes.

  “The king is dead,” Durand said.

  “Aye,” said Ailric. “He is that.”

  22

  The Starlings, the Eagles, and the Crane

  By torch and moonlight, the court of Abravanal took to the streets to bid farewell to the dead king and his heir. Word had it that Prince Biedin found his ship: the Crane, the largest vessel on the Acconel quay, which took careful handling through Silvemere’s shoals and shallows.

  The rush into the streets was a hasty business, and Durand disliked bundling the duke and his people into the streets so recklessly on the eve of war, so he corralled the few knights he could find into a squad as tight as tournament conroi. Townsfolk gawked from every doorway, goggling and whispering as the duke’s ladies stepped through the torchlight.

  Soon, they passed the crowded warrens of the city and clattered into the deep barrel vault of the Fey Gate. The air in the gate was full of reeds and the Mere. Durand thought of the Banished thing that haunted the gate and the bay: the buggane. Ten years before, Durand had swum with the reeking old devil as he tried to cross the bay to summon Abravanal’s barons and break the siege. Like a bull and a giant and a drowned man, the stink of the thing was still in his nostrils. He supposed it was still out there.

  They emerged from the tunnel onto the gloomy shelf of cut stone between the city’s high walls and the Bay of Acconel; this was Acconel Quay. Durand spotted the Crane, an eighty-foot cog as broad as a bowl. As the duke’s party approached, the pilot boats had hold of the broad-beamed Crane and were hauling its head round to face the crossing.

  There was no doubt about which was the royal ship, for the whole dark length of the Crane shivered with the uncanny chanting of distant holy men. Here was the focus of a thousand fervent prayers from all across the kingdom. Here, the will of the singing world trembled in harmony around a young prince while the oars of the pilot boats splashed in blithe sacrilege.

  On the wide aftercastle or in the ship’s low waist, there was no sign of the boy, Biedin, or even the Patriarch, though Durand made out dozens of the black-clad clerks chasing about the decks, and he spotted the tall Herald of Errest staring squarely back at him across the opening slice of waves. Sailors were at work on the long main yard. In the aftercastle, others were working a windlass with handspikes.

  “We have missed them,” said Almora.

  “By moments only,” offered Sir Kieren. “Patriarch Oredgar was eager to be away.”

  “He was,” said Abravanal. The air reverberated with prayer, and the sound shifted as the boat lolled into the bay. The water stood in rings.

  “It taxes them, this prayer,” said the duke. “They will not eat or drink. I remember when Bren died. And Carlomund. It will break many. It is desperate work.”

  And then, though the ship was only ten paces from the quay, something stirred in the water and Durand’s borrowed mount shifted uneasily. A huge figure erupted from the water. Large as a shipwreck, it seemed. The putrid slime of the lake bottom streamed from the heavy, massive horned head. Here was the bull of the Mere in all its rotting glory.

  No one on the quay blinked an eye.

  And the brute had no time to waste upon Durand Col. It climbed onto the dark water as if it were stepping onto a stone floor, all without a glance at dukes or towers ashore. Instead, it made to follow the royal bark cowering low against the waves. Here was a slave of the Cradle’s landing and a Banished lord of Creation’s beginnings, confronted by the very magic that held him bound.

  Before Durand could voice his astonishment, there was a new turmoil. And this time in the Heavens, where the starlings were, once more, on the move. Storms of the dark birds poured from the rooftops of the city, bursting over the city’s parapets like floodwaters over a dam. Durand clung to his mount’s neck as the torrent roared over the quay and gathered over the Crane. The broad wing of the sail caught the evening breeze, filling in an instant.

  The men and women on the quay—hundreds of sailors, townsmen, nobles and their households—raised the Eye of Heaven and muttered prayers.

  “What good will another prayer do?” wondered Abravanal. He shifted his cloak higher around his neck with a surly glance down the quay, where various magnates were wrestling their belongings into the boats of various sizes. “Well, I’ve no intention of waiting here to wave at Maude of Saerdana or that fool from Beoran. Let’s go! There is much to do.” With an adroit twist, Abravanal ordered his horse to turn and his household guard to reverse themselves.

  As the horsemen jostled, Durand glanced back at the Crane. The lake-bed stink of the buggane filled his nostrils as sharp as a decade before, when the old specter mocked him on the Mere. Black water stretched now between the Crane and the quay: ninety paces, a hundred. He thought of the little boy on that boat.

  He edged a step nearer the water. All of the horses were skittish, eyes bulging, ears twitching. They knew.

  He looked into the gloomy water, shadowed by the city and the quay.

  The company was leaving, but he had swung himself down from the saddle.

  “Durand?” It was Almora’s voice. The chant was ebbing with the Crane and oarsmen.

  “The duke’s guard is leaving you behind, Your Ladyships,” said Durand.

  “Durand, what is it?” said Deorwen.

  “Ailric, watch them close.”

  Ailric nodded, leaving with the rest.

  Durand saw that sea eagles still turned, high above.

  He stared, sure that he would see some other prodigy. Instead, he heard staggering footfalls slapping the quayside stones. It was Berchard. He had not noticed the man since they had parted at Wrothsilver.

  “Berchard?”

  In a rush, the man caught Durand in a sudden embrace. He was soaked.

  “Hells!” Durand shoved himself clear. “Have you been swimming?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  The man planted ten fingers into Durand’s chest.

  “Durand. Heremund was after these creatures of the king’s, these clerks. He talked of them before. Hod and all that.”

  Durand nodded. “And?”

  “Well, each man in Gunderic’s Tower was running in his own direction, but I’d heard Heremund grumbling. He lit off after the king’s clerks and there was no one to follow. I don’t know how he’s lived this long. One of the guards saw them come this way. To the quay!”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, Durand. Here! I thought they’d got him on the boat, but I don’t think so now. I think I found him. Come. You must come now!”

  Durand abandoned the Crane and its prodigies and chased blind Berchard down the quay. He stumbled a dozen times as he pitched between piers and docked ships. Durand struggled past Maude of Saerdana and Ludegar of Beoran, barging straight through their households on the heels of blind Berchard.

  Finally, Berchard stopped, his hands spread.

  “Here,” he sai
d. “All these fools clomping around, this way and that. It’s here where I heard him. Heremund? Heremund! It’s old Berchard!”

  They were nearly alone at a timber pier jutting from the quay where no ship was moored.

  “There!” said Berchard. The man’s hand shot up. “Did you hear that, Durand?”

  Durand had heard nothing. The Crane was several hundred paces across the black waves, and Maud of Saerdana’s ship had been rowed from its moorings.

  “Come!” said Berchard. He tottered out along the pier. “Heremund? Is that you, mate? Heremund?”

  And now, Durand heard a groan.

  “There!” said Berchard. “There! There is someone.” He tramped the deck with his heel.

  Durand dropped to the planks, peering down, and saw a man, thrashing. And he wrestled free of his sword belt, saying to Berchard, “Hold this!” And he jumped into the murky waters.

  “Gods, who is it?” spluttered a voice.

  Durand fought the waves, blundering against a slimy piling. A man struggled against him. There was little light.

  “Damn you, haven’t you done enough?”

  Loops and loops of chain belted the piling, with manacles or collars of iron clamped around the man’s ankles. He was corpse-cold and upside-down—and already too weak to keep each wave from closing over his mouth. It was Heremund the Skald.

  “If I meant to kill you, I would have done so before now,” said Durand.

  “Durand? Heaven be praised!”

  “Thank Berchard.”

  Durand caught the spluttering man under the shoulders.

  “Was those damnable clerks, Durand. See ’em? See ’em climbin’ ’board the boat? Man after man crawled ’board the ship and all of ’em together, they didn’t weigh that boat down. Not one sailor’s step. The boat didn’t sink a strake even with the whole pack aboard, the devilzzz!” The skald took a lung full of water. He thrashed. “Upside-down, they hung me.”

  Durand kicked around and tried to keep the man’s head up. The water was deep at the pier.

  “The devilzzz … They were thinkin’ of Eldinor, with isss tides. Know nothin’ of lakes, damn ’em. Gah!”

  Abruptly, the man lolled back, and the water poured over his face. He would be finished in moments.

  “Do not sleep,” Durand said. “A few moments more.” And he got his fingers into the loop of chain. All he needed was one brittle link, but no amount of hauling did any good, and while Durand pulled and twisted, the half-frozen skald swayed back, struggling to keep his face out of the waves.

  The iron links bit Durand’s hands to the knucklebones.

  He sloshed back, thinking that chain must have a lock or the devils couldn’t have looped the piling. He looked for anything that might get Heremund out of the water. A step, a rope—anything. But he saw nothing.

  He would have to break the chain.

  It was hard enough to keep himself above water then.

  “Berchard?” Durand managed. The man was watching. “He’s chained. Ankles to the piling. You’ll have to drop my sword to me.” It was six feet down.

  “Aye, Durand.”

  Durand got his shoulder back under Heremund’s head and watched as the blind knight scrambled and returned with the sword belt.

  “Right,” Berchard said, and sent the scabbarded blade swinging down. It was all Durand could do to reach it. When his finger touched the tip of the scabbard, Berchard let it go.

  The thing was gone, or nearly; like a greased arrow, it shot deep. Durand lashed out and caught the loop of a buckle just as the Mere swallowed the thing. Heremund coughed. He’d slipped under again. The man was no help to himself anymore. Durand had to free him—now. There would be no hacking through the links, and he’d no leverage to hammer the tip in. The only way was to get the blade between the piling and the loop and prize till sword or chain broke. Heremund sank as Durand moved.

  “For God’s sake, Heremund, you must stay awake!”

  But Durand had to have both hands, so there was nothing to do but let the man drown.

  He left Heremund’s back, ignoring the man’s mindless thrashing as he stabbed the long blade of Ouen’s war sword down between the loops. He felt the chain slip and then catch tight. With all his weight and the whole strength of his back and legs, he levered down, the blade still in its scabbard, edge against the chain.

  Berchard was calling down. “Durand, I can hear him. He’s drowning, Durand! What are you doing?”

  There was an iron crack and Durand dropped into the water, but it was the chain and not the sword that had given way. Heremund swung free as the links rattled loose, and it was only by the wildest fingertip reach that Durand caught the man’s collar. He heaved the choking man to the surface, fighting with the blade in one hand and the skald in the other to keep his own head out.

  “A rope, Berchard! I have him. Find a rope!”

  Together they managed to heave him up, and at Berchard’s urging, they rushed the skald into the heat of the kitchens rather than the hall. In the kitchens, the serving men and cooks had hot cauldrons and fires. Berchard had as much sense as Deorwen. Durand would have had him dead in the Painted Hall.

  The kitchens were as crowded as a brigand’s cave, with ruddy faces blinking back at Durand from every corner.

  Heremund mumbled his thanks, and the two old friends grinned down on him. “Berchard seemed likely to be upset if you drowned,” Durand said.

  The skald smiled his gap-toothed smile.

  “I’ve a tender heart somewhere under my rough hide,” said Berchard. “You ask the girls who have known me.”

  “Or their granddaughters,” stammered Heremund.

  “It is rare a man who can show proper gratitude,” said Berchard.

  Heremund laughed, though his teeth chattered

  “I am too great a fool to have lived so long.”

  “You will tell us what happened,” said Berchard.

  “I put that Hod thing to the question—nice and friendly, mind. It crooked a finger at me. I was thinking maybe I was going to learn the truth, but you saw how that ended.” His eyes focused on something beyond the kitchen. “Damn sure no one would hear me.”

  Berchard dug at an itch under his eye patch. “Maybe it’s the blindness, but I find I’m reluctant to lose things these days. I’m always setting something down and then it’s gone. But losing a whole skald? No.”

  “And while I’m having my little swim, you’ve been busy?”

  Durand told him what they’d seen. “Mornaway and Garelyn brought the best part of two hundred household knights. They’ll help us make up for some of the men who won’t hear the call in time.”

  “A lot can happen while a fellow is chained under a pier,” said Berchard.

  “And now, what of the crown, I wonder? Was there any talk of who would play regent until Reilan is of age? The boy is very young.”

  “None,” said Durand.

  “It would have been Prince Eodan, of course, the boy’s eldest uncle, but they won’t have him. There were the rumors when their royal father died. Hunting accidents, though that might have passed if it weren’t for this mad Windhover revolt. They could not give the kingdom to a traitor. Prince Biedin might have it, though Maud or Beoran can each swing the Council, and, together, they could choose whom they like. And you say Garelyn and Lord Moryn are here at Acconel?”

  “Aye, they are.”

  Durand thought of how Prince Biedin had taken the reins when Ragnal lay dead. Without him, Durand might well be dead himself. The kitchen lads brought Heremund hot malmsey. It smelled sweet.

  Over the smoking bowl, Heremund was thoughtful. “You can feel it, can’t you? It’s like watching the trees bend to a strong wind, one after another. An unseen hand, playing all these pieces: the maragrim in the south. Leovere and Abravanal. The starlings. The king.”

  “The Whisperer,” said Durand.

  “What do you mean?” said Heremund.

  “In the mountains, we heard whi
spers. At the site of some ward: files of stone kings and patriarchs. Something like it, we heard in a shrine near Gowlins. We heard echoes of something pressing someone to call the maragrim. A whisper urging someone to stand against tyranny in Yrlac.”

  “A voice calling to Leovere, then, you think.”

  “I do.” He made no mention of the Rooks and their talk of whispers tempting them northward when old Radomor was riding.

  “It is just like ten years ago,” said Heremund. “The sanctuaries. A revolt on the Hallow Downs. A revolt in Yrlac. Those two sorcerers. The Great Council ready to throw down the king. And then it ended.” He shook his head. “I think we will not be so lucky this time.”

  Something popped in the fire.

  Durand looked up, seeing first the faces of kitchen boys and cooks, then, beyond them, the ghoulish figures of his Lost companions. Crouched by the door was a strong man that he hardly recognized: Sir Waer, the knight he had killed on Prince Biedin’s lands in the Tern Gyre tournament ten years ago. And there, slipping through the door, Ragnal: thick hands at his own throat, royal robes askew, dragging. Durand did not stay to see the bulging face.

  “We will have to be ready when morning comes. And we must set watches against the maragrim tonight.”

  * * *

  AILRIC SLEPT AT the threshold of Almora’s door. Kieren was in a chair on the duke’s doorstep, a bare sword across his knees.

  Duke Durand of Yrlac stretched himself at the foot of Abravanal’s altar and fell into darkness alone.

  23

  At the River

  The city of Acconel stood upon an island. On a map, the island would be drawn like the head of a spear, or the leaf of a chestnut tree. Acconel’s high walls and citadel towered at the heel of the island where Silvermere and the quay was. At the tip, the island split the Banderol. A village called West Bridge stood at the fork, backed by plowlands.

  The West Bridge itself waited to take them into Yrlac, a bowshot away.