ARC: Sunstone

by Freya Robertson

  He exclaimed and went to wrestle with his assailant, but a flame flared briefly from the man’s hands and in the answering light he saw it was Turstan.

  “Roots,” Geve swore. “You scared me.”

  “Stay still,” Turstan murmured in his ear.

  The two of them waited, silent, listening. Geve’s heart sounded loud in his ears. He could hear the whisper of the Magnus Cataracta in the far distance, the yells of men having a fight somewhere to his right in one of the alleys, the crash of a glass breaking. The stench of the filth running down the channel in the middle of the alleyway rose up, cloying and overpowering, even to his nostrils that were accustomed to the smells of the tanners. Turstan’s breath was hot on his neck.

  Gradually, the other man’s fingers relaxed on his arm and Turstan moved back. “Sorry. I thought you were being followed.”

  “I was,” Geve said. “I gave him the slip back in Primus.”

  “I think maybe we are all being watched,” Turstan said. His dark brows met in a straight, heavy line.

  Geve’s mouth went dry. “You think they know who we are?”

  “Sarra said Rauf was aware of us. That must mean Comminor is too.”

  “I am not so sure. She also said although he enjoyed his position and privileges, Rauf was sympathetic to our cause.”

  “And now he is dead.”

  Geve stared at him. “You think Comminor had him killed?”

  Turstan shrugged. “We cannot prove it either way. But it would not surprise me. The Chief Select is very skilful at removing opposition to his rule.” He backed down the alleyway. “Come on. They will be waiting for us.”

  Geve followed him down to the river and crossed with him to the opposite bank. “Does that not worry you – that Comminor may know you are part of the Veris?”

  “Yes, it worries me. Which is yet another reason for us to reorganise the date of our departure for as soon as possible.”

  The two men continued in silence. Geve had passed on to Nele what had happened to Sarra on the night of the celebrations, and he knew Nele would have passed it on to the others. They would all be worried that Comminor’s interest in Sarra was to cover his interest in the Veris. Geve, however, was still certain the Chief Select’s declaration that he wished to get to know her stemmed from a more personal desire.

  The alleyways grew narrower and darker, and Turstan let a flame dance on his palm to guide them in between the lanterns, which were few and far between in the outer regions of the district. It took them a while to reach their meeting place, which was in a different section to the previous one. Turstan swept aside the curtain covering the door, and Geve entered the room.

  Everyone was there, and he and Turstan joined them where they sat in a circle on the floor. Geve took a place next to Sarra, warmed by the way she smiled at him, clearly relieved to see him there.

  “Were you followed?” Nele asked Geve.

  “To western Primus. Then I lost him.”

  Neve’s brow furrowed, and his gaze slid across to a pale but composed Sarra. “Perhaps you can now explain to us what happened the night of the White Eye, Sarra.”

  She would have known that he would have passed on what she had told him, Geve thought, but she related it again anyway, obviously realising that they would want to try to assess the truth of her words. She told them how Comminor had appeared at her night rooms, how he had asked her to come back to the palace, and there how he had told her he wanted her for his own. They asked many questions, and she answered them all.

  When she announced he had given her a month to decide, they fell silent.

  “Why a month?” Kytte asked.

  Sarra shrugged. “He wanted to give me more time to recover from Rauf’s death. I suppose a week was too little, a year too much.”

  “So we have a month before he will come for you,” Kytte said.

  Sarra nodded.

  Amabil, the older, dark-haired and dark-skinned baker who always brought the cakes, leaned forward and took Sarra’s hand. “Do you think he is sincere about his affections for you?”

  Sarra hesitated. “I do not think so. I saw him briefly once or twice when I went to the palace with Rauf, and he never even looked in my direction. He could have any female he wants in the whole of the Embers, whether they are willing or not! I am not being coy, but I cannot imagine why he would decide I am his ideal woman. It seems too much of a coincidence that he would choose now to show his ‘love’ – just after I joined the Veris.”

  “Do you think he knew we had planned an escape that night?” Turstan asked.

  She thought about it. “No. And Rauf never spoke of any knowledge of plans to leave the Embers. He just thought the group was a place to talk about the dreams. I do not think Comminor has considered we would try to leave. I think he is more concerned about us stirring up hope and rebellion in the city’s inhabitants.”

  “The Arbor forbid,” Geve said, and they all smiled wryly.

  “So you do not think we have a spy in here,” Betune said. She still wore the ragged red ribbon tied around her long, brown braid, and Geve wondered absently if it had been given to her by a loved one who had died, as he knew she did not have a husband. Her dark gaze rested evenly on Sarra as her hand fingered the leather pouch around her neck, the one that supposedly contained an original acorn from the Arbor.

  Sarra went still. “I have not betrayed you,” she whispered.

  Nele blew out a long breath. He had drawn his straggly brown-and-grey hair back into a ponytail, and it seemed to accentuate his high cheekbones and the brightness of his green eyes. “I do not think we should start talking about spies. Madness dwells down that route. We will be too busy watching each other to look out for the Select. We all have a huge amount invested in this group. We are all bards and we all want to see the Surface. I do not believe any of us would sacrifice that.”

  “So what do we do now?” Geve asked Nele. “We have lost the confusion of the White Eye celebrations as cover. When do you think we should attempt it again?”

  “I have been thinking about that,” Nele said. “In nearly three weeks’ time, there will be a market day.”

  Geve’s eyebrows rose. “How do you know this?”

  “There was a meeting for guild members in the merchant district,” Nele said, naming the location of his apothecary shop. “One of the women who is married to a Select said she had heard them discussing it at the palace. I think there will be an announcement over the next few days.”

  They all sat up a little straighter. Geve’s heart lifted at the thought that an opportunity for escape still existed. Market days were only held once or twice a year because – like at the celebrations – they raised the people’s spirits a little too high and often chaos followed. But the Select would no doubt have picked up on the drop of the people’s mood after the celebrations.

  “That makes sense,” he said. “So we aim for that day?”

  Nele nodded, and looked at Sarra. “What do you think?” He glanced at her abdomen, which showed a clear bump the way she was sitting. “Are you comfortable waiting until then?”

  She rested her hand on the bump. “I am not sure I have a lot of choice really. I would like to leave sooner. The thought of waiting – both because of the child and because of Comminor – fills my heart with panic. But I know it makes sense. I am happy to abide by your decision.”

  Nele nodded. “We will plan for market day, then. Same plan as before, same positions, but let us say at the midday bell this time. I think it best we do not meet again, unless someone has an urgent issue that must be addressed. They are obviously watching us, and if we can allay their suspicion for a few weeks, it will be good for us.”

  Amabil took out her cakes. “Let us have the ritual.”

  Geve bent his head and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. Images flickered behind his lids of the dreams he had had the night before of a cool breeze – something they did not often feel in the Embers – blowing across a
blue sea. He could not even imagine such an expanse of water while awake, but in his dreams he saw the ocean, topped with white waves, rolling up a golden beach. He wanted to stand on that beach with a longing that made him ache, and nothing would make him happier than to have Sarra standing by his side.

  He opened his eyes, studying her face as the others prayed. She appeared calm, but he knew her well and saw the fear flicker across her features. She was scared, and as she gave a light stroke to her bump, he knew the child was moving again.

  Was she tempted by Comminor’s offer? He was still not as certain as the others that the Chief Select wanted her only to get to the Veris.

  Would she sell them out for a life of peace and comfort?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I

  Procella sipped her ale and cut a small corner from the piece of beef on her plate. She chewed slowly as the men around her talked of the latest developments in armour and weaponry and pretended to be listening, but all the while her gaze flicked around the room, taking in the numbers of Wulfians sitting around the table, the men standing in the shadows – noting the arms they bore, the mail that glinted beneath their overtunics.

  It was no coincidence that half a dozen Wulfian lords were present, she thought, fully armed and with mean eyes in their smiling faces. This wasn’t dinner. This was an ambush.

  She looked across the table to where her son sat next to Hunfrith’s son, Alfrid. Orsin was busy tearing into a hunk of bread, dipping it into the meat gravy left over from his beef pie, but when he looked up and met her eyes, she saw the wariness in them.

  She glanced at the table where the knights who had travelled with them from Vichton were sitting. The Wulfians had put a man in between each one, ostensibly as a social tactic to make them feel comfortable, but she was aware it was a clever tactic to separate them. She knew each of the knights well; two of them had fought with her in the Exercitus, another two were from Vichton’s castle guard, good, solid, sturdy knights she trusted. Each would fight to the death for her and Orsin, and she had complete faith in their abilities against any foe one-on-one. But in a room full of hostile Wulfians who had too long been denied the taste of Laxonian blood?

  Her gaze fell back on her son. Her and Chonrad’s eldest son and heir had seen little battle action, and she was not even sure he had ever killed a man. True it was no fault of his own – unlike Julen, who had seemed to be around whenever a raid struck, Orsin had always happened to be absent. When Chonrad had sent him to learn how to be a page and a squire with an old friend in the Castle of Lacton in Perle, some seventy-five miles away, Procella had been surprised. Lacton lay a long way from Isenbard’s Wall and Wulfian territory, and miles from the sea, so it did not even suffer from coastal smugglers’ raids. At the time she had puzzled as to why Chonrad would not want his boy in the thick of it, learning how to live on his toes, how to defend himself, but now she wondered if he had somehow tried to protect his heir, to wrap him in velvet so his life would never be in danger, the same way he had refused to let Horada travel to Heartwood. That was fine all the time they were at peace, but clearly the Wulfians were stirring up trouble for the first time in two decades, and now Orsin stood untried and untested.

  She herself had overseen her sons’ training and ensured they knew how to fight to the standard of any knight of the Exercitus, so she wasn’t worried about his ability to hold a sword. But Valens – the great leader who had taught her practically everything she knew about the art of warfare before he died at the hands of the Darkwater Lords – had once put her in charge of those knights new to battle as part of her training. At the time she had complained bitterly about the role, annoyed that she had to waste precious battle time looking after those still wet behind the ears.

  But the task had proved invaluable. She had learned that the biggest, strongest, most arrogant warriors could be those who shook at the first sign of blood, and that many men and women who had thought themselves brave cried for their mothers when they suffered a wound. And she had developed a priceless instinct for guessing a knight’s true worth, for knowing whether their brave talk and threats of chalking up the kills would ever come to fruition, an instinct that had saved the day in battle on more than one occasion when she had pulled a knight off the front line, knowing they would break as the enemy closed in.

  Now she studied her son and wondered whether he would hold his own if the Wulfians sprung. But for once, she could not be sure. He was a roguish man and never tried to hide his love of ale and women – unlike his brother, who she was sure had experienced his share of female companions but never flaunted them in front of her. And Orsin was one of those men who could talk a good talk, who thought he knew all the best tactics and battle patterns, even though his sword had seen little more action than a brief skirmish once on the beach during a bandit raid some years before.

  It was too late to worry about it now. When the moment came, she would not be able to protect him. She had already embarrassed him in front of the other knights, and he would not forgive her easily for that, even though he had insulted her prowess and talked to her like she were any other woman. He would have to do his best, as everyone always did in battle, and even though they were vastly outnumbered, she thought they would give the Wulfians a run for their money.

  She finished off her ale, knowing it had been foolish to walk into Hunfrith’s hands. She had thought to scout out the territory and test both his temperature and that of her countrymen before travelling on to Heartwood. Well, she had done that well enough, she thought wryly. Whether she would leave the castle with her teeth intact would be another matter.

  She put down her cup and rose to her feet.

  To her surprise, Hunfrith rose with her. “Madam,” he said in Wulfian. “Perhaps you would take a stroll with me? The gardens are pleasant at this late hour.”

  Taken aback, Procella just stared at him. Chonrad had been her first and her last love, and she had adored him because he had treated her as both a woman and a knight, sacrificing neither for the other. Social niceties had never been her strong point, and she would rather knock a man on his backside than take a compliment or a gift, sure that accepting either could be interpreted as weakness.

  Hunfrith did not move, just stood watching her, clearly interested to see her reaction. She swallowed and glanced at Orsin, but his gaze was fixed on the candle in front of him, as if he were entranced by the flickering flame. She frowned. Maybe it would be best to separate Hunfrith from his followers. Perhaps he knew something about the Incendi he wanted to share with her.

  She nodded and followed him across the hall to the doors. Cheers echoed around them, and warmth stole into her cheeks, which made her angry. Embarrassment was an emotion she was neither familiar with nor liked. She slipped through the doors as he held them open and let the cool evening air stroke her skin.

  “Come this way,” Hunfrith demanded.

  Procella bit her tongue and followed him. He led her through the castle yard, past the squabbling chickens and the mangy dogs, around the castle to the gardens at the back. He hadn’t lied – unusually for a Wulfian lord, he sported large, carefully tended lawns and sculpted bushes, with rows of pink and red flowers nodding in the evening breeze.

  “Very tasteful,” Procella said, unable to hide her sarcasm. “Is this what peace does to a Wulfian lord?”

  He stopped by a tall, leaf-covered arbour, turned to look at her and studied her carefully. For a moment she thought he was angry, and then she saw what it was that glittered in his eyes – not anger. Desire.

  He stepped closer to her, and to her shame she took a step backwards, only realising he had her pinned when she felt the arbour wall at her back.

  “Dux of the Exercitus,” Hunfrith murmured. He reached out a hand and cupped her cheek, his big, calloused thumb stroking her skin. “I always wondered what you would be like in bed.”

  “I snore,” said Procella. She pushed his hand away. “What do you want?”

  “
I think you know what I want.” He stepped even closer. He was taller than Chonrad had been, broader in the shoulder: a fine figure of a man. But whereas her husband had made her heart pound whenever he got that look in his eye, Hunfrith made her skin crawl.

  “Are you proposing to me?” She raised her chin. “I am no man’s whore.”

  His lips curved, thick and fleshy beneath his bushy brown beard and moustache. “I already have a wife. But Chonrad has been dead these past two hundred and fifty days or so. That is a long time for a woman to have an empty bed. And I wager you are a woman with hungry appetites.”

  Procella went stiff with resentment and indignation as he leaned close to her. “Step away,” she said icily, “if you wish to keep your head atop your shoulders.”

  Hunfrith chuckled. “I thought some of your passion would have dulled after all those years of peace, but it appears I was mistaken. Let me taste a little of that heat.”

  Procella placed both her hands on his chest, alarmed as he moved forward. “Get off…” But he smothered her words with his lips.

  Incensed, she acted automatically and raised her knee, but Hunfrith surprised her by being quicker than she and pushing her back hard against the wall. The movement made her exhale in a sharp whoof, and before she could gather her breath he closed his mouth over hers again and shoved his tongue between her teeth.

  Procella gagged and struggled. Part of the reason for her outrage was that the last person to touch his lips to hers was her husband, and somehow this spoiled his memory, turned it to ashes in her mouth, as if she had somehow betrayed him.

  But the major part of her ire was due to sheer fury at this man thinking he could best the Dux of Heartwood’s Exercitus and take from her something she did not wish to give.

  She shoved hard against his chest, but he caught her hands and twisted them against her back, pinning her against the wall with his body, his hip against her stomach and his thigh parting hers. His fingers felt like iron manacles around her wrists, and when he dropped his hand between her legs, there was nothing she could do to stop him. He chuckled with victory as he probed the material of her breeches, and a wave of rage like nothing she had ever experienced before swept over her.