The 19th Bladesman

by S J Hartland

  Kaell touched his shoulder. “Will you tell me if you ever meet a dark-haired girl with a mark like a healed wound on her breast?”

  A shadow flitted behind Aric’s blink. He dropped his gaze. “I’ll watch out.”

  That same look. What did it mean?

  He and Arn lowered Aric to the ground. The Isles warrior untied the rope, raised his hand in a salute and stumbled into the trees.

  “Now for you,” Arn said. “Back to your room before the king feels your feverish brow.”

  “And back to the barracks for you. Do you want me to hit you so your story rings true?” Kaell playfully shook a fist.

  “Your punches are like mosquito bites, boy. The only damage you ever do is to my ears when you sing. Now over the side. Don’t forget to act like you’re asleep.”

  “No deception needed.” Kaell grasped the rope. “I’ll drink the good physician’s draught I pretended to before. When they come, not even the gods will wake me.”

  Heath

  When the last of his captains reported, Cathmor swept the candle from the table and lurched to his feet to prowl the chamber like an enraged beast. “No sign of him after Dal-Decma.”

  Heath stamped on the burning wick. “Aric will be in the Isles within days. Unless you’re ready to raise an army and storm Tide’s End, there’s nothing you can do.”

  The king whirled. “Nothing I can do? I can execute Kaell in Aric’s place. And anyone who helped him. What’s his captain’s name? The man with the scar.”

  “No idea.” Heath lifted his shoulders. “How can you be certain Kaell did this?”

  “He begged me to free Aric.”

  “Your physician swears Kaell drank a sleeping draught. We couldn’t wake him.”

  Cathmor flung his hands up. “A trick. Or he ordered others to do it. The guards said their attackers spoke like Mountains brutes so it must be Kaell’s men. Or—” The king poked a finger. “Unless it was you. Ice lords like to meddle. Where were you?”

  “Drinking with you, Your Grace. Judith, too.”

  “That was earlier.”

  Heath barked an amused laugh. “Why should I wish to steal about draughty towers to free Isles princes? It all sounds very tiresome.”

  “I have no idea what runs through that twisted mind of yours, Damadar.” Cathmor stared moodily at the fire. “No, you’re right. It was Kaell. I know it.”

  “He was sunk in poppy dreams, a guard at his door.”

  “He climbed from the window. That’s how he got into my chambers. I should have punished him then. A moment of weakness.”

  Heath poured more wine. “Another, Your Grace?”

  Cathmor waved the cup away. “I have reason enough to arrest Kaell. Blackstone will force a confession from him.”

  “You would be within your rights, yes,” Heath said. “But what of the villagers of Thom? Let the bonded warrior rid you of these ghouls first.”

  “And then what? Give him a bouquet and a kiss upon his return?”

  “In Kaell’s absence, seek evidence of his guilt. Or invent it. Arrest him the moment he rides through the gates. Threaten to execute him unless he bends his knee. I’m sure Blackstone will convince him if he’s stubborn. Until then, be patient, Your Grace.”

  “Be patient? You tell me to be patient?” Cathmor returned hotly. “I’m the wretched king who patiently waited my entire life to win the Isles.”

  He paced. “My father couldn’t take the Isles. He said if he couldn’t I never would. I’ll show him he was wrong about me. I’m every bit as strong a king as him.”

  The king stopped. He slid Heath a glance as if realising he’d said too much.

  So that was what drove this man to conquest? Resentment against his dead father.

  “You’ll have the Isles,” Heath said carefully. “Especially if I persuade my father to send fighting men to help you take Tide’s End. You’ll have Aric Caelan in shackles, at your mercy. You can even have Kaell. In fetters, or on his knees. Whatever pleases you.”

  Cathmor gritted his teeth. “Very well. If I must wait only a few weeks to see this insolent warrior from Vraymorg on his knees, then I’ll be patient.”

  Aingear

  The castle loomed severe and gaunt on the cliff, a ragged silhouette against a murky sky.

  A low, fat moon silvered rocks below as grey-flecked waves foamed. Brine-scented mist rolled across the pebbled shore. Stillness brooded. The night belonged to gods and magic … and priestesses.

  Yet a shape flitted on the breakwater. Aingear waved the lantern, annoyed at the intrusion. “Who’s there?”

  “Do I disturb you, priestess?”

  “Pairas, is that you?”

  “It is, priestess.” Pairas jumped to the sand, his cloak billowing like wings. He wore a tunic and doublet, feet bare, his dark head uncovered, only a knife strung in his belt.

  “May I accompany you to the Isle of the Gods? I must speak with you.”

  Aingear sighed. “If it’s important.”

  Moonlight fell on Aingear’s boatman Jordan as he stepped from the darkness, shaking an oar like an axe. “Who’s this?”

  “It’s only Prince Aric’s captain,” Aingear said. “Is the boat ready?”

  Jordan lowered the oar and gently took Aingear’s arm to guide her to the boat. Their boots scuttled pebbles into blue-black waves nibbling the shore. Pairas trailed behind, silent.

  Once upon the water, passengers in the bow, Jordan fell to the oars. Pairas sat lost in thought, his face turned from the spray, hunched in his cloak.

  A brooch wrought in silver—a present from Aric?—gleamed at his breast. Careless to let it tarnish in the salt. But not her business.

  Aingear tilted her head to the bleak sky. Waves gurgled. The sea smelt fresh and new; the same perfume of that forest that hid the burial tower. She shivered at the memory of the defiled corpse. Roaran Caelan’s centuries-old magic, destroyed.

  Nothing now stopped ghouls with their sick appetite for blood breaching the Isles.

  “Priestess.” Pairas nervously broke the silence. “May I speak plainly?”

  Her heart skipped. Face carved and curved by shadow, Pairas might be her dead lover. But Isles men all looked alike—at least lake dwellers of Dal-Kanu mockingly thought so.

  “You may. Do not worry about Jordan. He knows all my secrets.”

  He nibbled his lip, hesitating. The boat slid on velvet water, ribboned by moonlight piercing the mist. Oars creaked. The Isle of the Gods hulked ahead like a dark, misshapen lump blistered on the horizon.

  Pairas slumped on the bench. “I don’t know how to start. I think I made a bad mistake.”

  “A mistake in a dress, like the last one?”

  “I deserve that.”

  He was no worse than his lord. But blame stuck more readily to lesser-born men.

  “If you intend to tell me you seduced one of my priestesses, I can hardly admonish you after your lord’s example.”

  Pairas sat straighter. “You know about Ethne? It’s not serious.”

  Ethne thought she had snared a princely prize. But Aric upon occasion took lovers. Sometimes an enticing young woman, sometimes a charming man. The Isles celebrated beauty in both men and women and embraced sexuality with a hedonistic enthusiasm.

  Aingear had no doubt Aric was fond of each of his paramours. But he loved only one man. Aiden Saltman. Always had. If Aric ever wed, it would be for nothing other than duty.

  “No, priestess. I didn’t seduce one of your women.” Pairas’ laugh self-mocked. “No, this is strange, hardly real.”

  “But there is a woman somewhere in this confession?”

  Pairas snatched a breath. “A woman approached me in The Craven Beast tavern, whispered if I told her my name I’d win her a bet. Why wasn’t I suspicious? I mean, she was beautiful.”

  “Now you tease me. Beautiful women surely seek you out.”

  At his silence, his hunched shoulders, Aingear blinked in surprise. This uncertainty—or
regret—was new. Where was the irritably cocky Isles captain?

  “She looked, she moved—even her scent was a noblewoman’s.” He trailed fingers through his wind-ruffled hair. “What did a woman like that want in such a den?”

  “A taste of common life?” Aingear jested, unable to find threat lurking in his story.

  “And her brother—” He fluttered his hands indecisively. “His lordly manner was that of a man always obeyed. Then there’s her samite cloak, his jewelled knife. A peculiar brooch on his tunic he tried to hide. It was a sword and an oddly shaped rock.”

  Aingear clutched the boat’s side. Stillness thickened as fog crept after the boat. Water lapped. Oars dipped, stroked. A gull soared by and disappeared towards the moon.

  “Could it be—” she whispered at last, “a shard of ice?”

  Another silence descended, taut with unease.

  Pairas groaned. “I did not think of that. Curse it. It could be a shard of ice. It could.”

  Only an Ice lord or lady dared wear such an emblem. Aingear’s throat constricted. “What did they want of you?” she croaked.

  “Priestess, they drugged me. For information.”

  “Go on.”

  “The man made some clumsy excuse to leave me with his sister. I wanted him gone. She was lovely. I thought … the way she touched me, I thought …”

  Again that uncertain fluster of hands. “She offered me more wine. I drank, felt sleepy. She took me somewhere. Then his voice pounded in my skull. If I tried to ignore him, it hurt.” A pause. “He questioned me about Aric.”

  “And you answered?”

  Pairas flinched. “The Three help me, I think I did. It’s a blur. Like a nightmare, one where you can’t move or get away.”

  A potion containing dream grass, perhaps?

  “Priestess.” He gripped his thighs as he leaned. “I told them about the treaty, about Aric riding for Dal-Kanu. The man grew angry. I felt his knife at my throat. I could do nothing. Only wait for him to kill me. The woman stopped him.”

  Aingear nodded thoughtfully. “If their purpose is secret—and why else should a Damadar lord be in Tide’s End unannounced—then he was right to want to silence you.”

  The boat rocked and yawed through headlands towards shore. Tide sucked from sand. Jordan drew in the oars and jumped into shallow water to pull the craft in.

  “I woke in a ditch outside the city,” Pairas said. “Maybe I was drunk. Imagined it all.”

  Imagined a Damadar lord seeking information about Aric? That stank of plots and malice. “I think it was real enough. Now he’s safe in Tide’s End, you must tell Aric of this.”

  “I’m reluctant to add to his troubles. What do they want with him?”

  “Did you hear a name?”

  His fingers strayed to his knife. “She called him Heath. He called her Judith.”

  “Heath.” Aingear clasped hands around the boatman’s neck as he carried her ashore.

  “A dangerous young man. A little too clever. He visited the Isles as a boy with his father and brother years ago. Judith. I know nothing of her. The elder girl is most frightening. Myranthe.” She nodded. “Yes, Myranthe. She is steeped in their hateful beliefs.”

  “Sorcery?” Pairas circled his knife hilt with long fingers.

  Aingear nodded. Dark, forbidden magic. Blood magic.

  The island thrummed with cicadas and beetles. Dragonflies whirred. Aingear slapped at a mosquito, squelching its moist body against her skin. A breeze stirred through the dark knot of trees before her but the sea was quiet.

  At her back, left together near the boat, neither Pairas nor Jordan spoke.

  Aingear hoisted the lantern high but the second moon already speckled the well-worn path to the caves. Late, then. Though the gods did not mark time like men and women.

  Nor did their servants. And Aingear was a faithful servant. First a novice of just nine, then a journeywoman, then a priestess. A good life. A worthy life.

  Men like Pairas recalled girlish dreams, long put aside, of a husband and children. But she did not regret her choices. Her life blazed with purpose.

  Aingear passed a hand over her brow, her skin clammy. Then why, why, couldn’t she shake off her nightmares of late? That last execution. That boy, just twenty. A child, deluded, led astray by others stupid enough to believe a dead king returned.

  She begged him to recant. He would not. A waste.

  Despite his age, she could not show mercy. If this dangerous lie spread, if too many believed the dead Roaran Caelan was their true lord, the entire structure of rule collapsed.

  They would refuse to pay taxes to the king, Hatton. Refuse to obey his laws, fight in his armies. The false king would strike, taking advantage of the absence of order and power.

  She shook her head. All such nonsense. Roaran Caelan would no more rise from his nameless grave and save the Isles than the three moons plunge into the sea.

  Scents mingled; dew on grass, salt and sea, spearmint crushed by her heels. Far away, dogs bayed at the turning tide. Only the gods knew how these beasts sensed shifting waters. As it should be. Power belonged to The Three.

  Not dead kings.

  Inside the cave, that damp, dank chill of night and circling rock lashed. Nevertheless, she slipped off her cloak and knelt beside a pool. Her face, square and strong, stared back.

  She was old enough to know a man like Pairas would look past her in a crowded room. Young enough to wish he wouldn’t.

  A sandalled foot scraped rock. Aingear lifted her head. What was that? Brine-scented air breathed with the thinnest thread of hyacinths. Then she heard a girl’s sweet song quavering with strangeness from welling darkness, glimpsed a bobbing light.

  A leather book clasped to her breast, Ethne tiptoed into the cavern.

  Aingear drew back against the wall. With a vague suspicion this untrustworthy child was up to mischief, she held her breath.

  Ethne broke off her song. She waved a torch about the chamber. Then with a satisfied nod, she lit a candle, placed it upon a rock beside the open book. Knelt to chant.

  A binding spell. Aingear strained to hear. Or …

  Her mouth tasted butyric with fear.

  A summoning.

  A chill eddied. Aingear thought shadows grouped, moulded shapes, twitched, fell away.

  Stop her. Stop this dangerous magic.

  Except the intoxicating aroma of enchantment mesmerised her. She wanted to draw near, to see, to touch, to know the feeling of such power. If she was only bold enough to surrender to the allure of dark magic. If she was less afraid. Less dutiful.

  Ethne’s chant rose to a cry then fell away into the strangled silence. The girl drew a phial from her pocket, ripped out the cork and dripped its contents onto the book.

  Like a dreamer, Aingear watched. The heady magic held her. So tempting to embrace its potency, its possibilities. The control it offered.

  The air thickened. Beyond the tiny pool of light, the darkness sat vast and empty, the rock walls close. Then from nothing, wind bellowed. Distant waves boiled over rocks as though a storm whipped in. Outside, gusts ground branches together like grating swords.

  A shape formed, soundless, lifeless as an echo, a man’s silhouette carved from shadows, a flicker on the periphery of her vision.

  Someone, something, awakened. Dark and powerful and relentless. Aingear trembled with a chill not of the cave. Fascinated, horrified, she still could not move, only stare.

  Ethne, too, stood transfixed. The wind died away. Beneath the candle flame’s strum, impossibly loud, another sound echoed.

  A drag of cloth against stone. A footstep.

  Someone stood in the darkness.

  “It’s you,” Ethne whispered. “Oh at last, at last. My lord, my king, reveal yourself again. Our enemies destroyed your magic. Save us. Save your beloved Isles.”

  The candle’s flicker etched a single outline on the wall. A fragrance caressed Aingear with the warm scents of Isles summers. Her
eyes clouded with memory. The cave dissipated.

  She ran along the grainy shore, laughing, her bare feet covered with foam and seaweed left by the retreating tide. Her sister skipped at her side.

  They both wore circlets of amaryllis in their unbound hair, the rims of their gowns wet, the sting of sand in their eyes. The wind carried sharp scents of spiced clove and pepperbush.

  She reached for her sister, wanting to touch her hair. See her beloved face.

  Glass smashed. The sound shattered the silence, shattered that memory of childhood.

  Aingear was once more in the cave, aware Ethne stared at her with guilty shock. Fragments from the broken phial littered the ground at the girl’s feet. A dark liquid oozed.

  Aingear snapped free of her stupor. This was dangerous magic. Even she felt its appeal, its seductive lure of power.

  Stumbling to the make-shift altar, she bunted the candle and book aside. As they clattered to the floor, light again sieved the darkness. Shadows stilled. The air thinned.

  Ethne clawed at her own gown. “No, no. You ruined everything.”

  That shadow. That fragrance. Summer. Childhood. Aingear groped at the wall.

  “What was that? What did I see?”

  “Then you saw him too?”

  Aingear hesitated. She needed to know what happened here before she conceded anything. “I thought at first you tried to raise the dead. But that was a summoning spell. Who did you summon?”

  The girl tilted her chin haughtily. “Do I answer to you?”

  “I am high priestess. If not me, you arrogant child, then to whom?”

  Ethne did not reply. Slumping to her knees, she scrabbled at the stained pieces of broken glass. “So close. So close.”

  “Give me those.”

  The girl sprang up, clutching the fragments to her chest.

  Aingear tore a piece of glass from her fingers, careless of how it cut her fingers. She sniffed. “Blood.” With angry disbelief, she hurled the glass away. “Aric’s blood, perhaps?”

  No answer. Ethne’s glance slid left and right.