“Wouldn’t hurt to give it another look, though.”
“You want to come with me?”
“I’d be honored, sir.”
They decided to go the next morning, and in light of Byron’s suggestion that his sudden, complete avoidance of Lady Madeleine was provoking as much suspicion as his meetings with her ever had, Abramm summoned her to audience later that afternoon, asking her to bring any relevant information on the guardstars she might have discovered. Then he turned to the matter of implementing his plans for defense.
He returned to his apartments around four o’clock, disappointed when Maddie wasn’t there. Nor had anyone received word from her, though he was assured the message had been delivered to her apartments. As he entered his study and approached his desk to go through the sheaf of documents he’d brought with him, he noticed a large, loosely folded square of white linen lying on one corner. Maddie’s token. Haldon must have gotten it out for him despite his claim it wasn’t necessary. He set down the documents and smiled, feeling a burst of tender affection as he picked up the scarf. At least she hadn’t asked for hers back. Not that she ever could have used it again, since it still bore the faint brown blotches of his blood.
It was not nearly as fine as the scarf Briellen had given him, its weave coarser, its rough-spun threads bulging with slubs and burrs, and it was odd how only one of its long edges had been hemmed, the other three left ragged and unraveling. As if they had been torn. Which seemed a peculiar way of making a scarf.
As he fingered those raveled edges, he recalled the fine lace that edged Briellen’s token. This fabric had more in kind with that from which undergarments were sewn. Or bedgowns. An image came to him from that last night when he’d met Maddie in the hallway, still in her bedgown. One made of a fabric very like that which draped in his hands. He frowned as sudden understanding crowded aside the tender feelings. This was no Chesedhan heirloom! No wonder she hadn’t asked for it back.
He shook his head, feeling silly and chagrinned—then smiled again. Who but Maddie would be so disregarding of propriety to do such a thing? To have the gall to—
Haldon appeared in the study doorway. “Sir, the Lady Madel—”
But she was already pushing past him, her face flushed, eyes flashing with excitement. “I’ve just come from talking with Kohal Kesrin,” she burst out, “and he says the Words most definitely make reference to your regalia! Although not as you might think. I’ve also come across three instances where the guardstars do seem to be lit by a triggering event, like the Dorsaddi conversions. Though there are other cases where it seems to do so spontaneously . . . whether because there are enough in the land who have taken the shield or not, I can’t tell. . . .” She rattled on, but he hardly heard her for the sheer delight he took in having her doing it. It was like the sun returning after weeks of fog, and he was astonished by the way her presence energized him.
She stopped midsentence as her eyes fixed upon the length of fabric in his hands and widened. She glanced up at him, full of wariness. “You still have that?”
He looked down at it. “Briellen asked for hers back. But you didn’t. I’ve been wondering which of you had broken with the tradition.”
“Both of us. I had no idea you’d keep it, bloody and torn as it must’ve been.”
Behind her, Haldon withdrew into the sitting room.
Abramm looked down at the scarf and rubbed its folds together between finger and thumb. “Well, it was kind of a memento. I thought it might even have special meaning, though now that I’ve been looking at it more closely, I’m not so sure. The way only this one long edge is hemmed”—he held it up so she could see—“while the others are unraveled and rough perplexed me. Then I realized—” He looked up at her. “This is the bottom of your bedgown, isn’t it?”
Her face flushed bright red, and he laughed outright. “You gave me the bottom of your bedgown as a token to take into battle?”
“I had nothing else at the time. Here, give it back if you find it so offensive.” She reached for it.
“Oh no!” He snatched it away. “I’m not giving this up, for I’m sure I’ll never get another one.”
“Come on, Abramm, give it back.” She lunged again and caught his hand, not letting go as he swung it around, laughing, the fabric fluttering like a banner around them.
“You must put this in the song,” he said. “How the Second Daughter of Chesedh presented the beleaguered King of Kiriath with the bottom of her bedgown as preparation for his great battle with the monster.”
“Now you’re being cruel.” She had both her hands on his, working to pry his fingers free.
“Cruel? Not at all. It saved my life, remember.”
She looked up at him, startled, and though his voice had been light and teasing, the words unexpectedly rocked even him. They had never spoken of what had happened that day when he had faced the morwhol, when Madeleine had called him back from his inner darkness with the fervency of her prayers and the depth of her love for him. Now they stood frozen, their tug-of-war arrested, her hands clamped on the fingers of his right hand, her left shoulder pressed against his chest. Her eyes were fixed upon him over the tousled curtain of long, loose hair that splayed across his chest and sleeve, long locks of it caught on the buttons of his doublet. Suddenly and intensely aware of the fact that she was once again in his arms, he could hardly breathe, wondering if she could feel his heart hammering at the walls of his chest against her shoulder.
He thought she must, for at that moment she let go his hand and pivoted sharply away, the movement halted by the strands of hair still caught on his doublet buttons. Grimacing, she stepped close again only to find she couldn’t turn her head enough to see what her fingers were doing. And so Abramm had to work the silken locks free himself, his fingers suddenly clumsier than ever.
When he was done, he smoothed the strands back into place long after they needed smoothing, and she stood there letting him do it, her hand trembling upon his chest. Then, almost as if it had a mind of its own, his hand left the silken hair and trailed along her jaw to lift her chin so that her eyes met his. They were wide as saucers, blue as the ocean depths. Her lips were parted, her breath coming in shallow little draughts.
He drew the backs of his fingers up the rounded curve of her cheek, traced their tips across the endearing scatter of freckles, then downward to touch the parted lips, so close now to his own. “Why did you have to be born Second Daughter?” he breathed.
The rattle of the servants’ back door closing in the adjacent hall and a mutter of approaching conversation broke through the heat rising within him, and he stepped back sharply, stunned to realize what he’d been about to do. She jerked back likewise, looking like a deer caught in a huntsman’s torchlight. The scarf, which had come to wind itself around them in the scuffle, hindered their efforts to escape until she grabbed it and looped it over her head. Pressing it into his hands, she turned and fled out the back way, much like she had the morning she’d first given it to him.
And, also as on that first morning, he stood in her wake, reeling, not with surprise anymore, but with the power of what he felt for her and the fact it was undeniably reciprocated.
CHAPTER
20
The next morning Abramm stood at the base of the excavated mound in the inner ward at Graymeer’s and stared up at the orb resting atop the trio of now-straightened struts. It looked no different than the last time he’d seen it: pebbled, gray skin streaked with black, the uppermost portions of it starting to shrivel. After the incident with the bedgown scarf yesterday, he’d not expected to hear any more from Maddie, but she’d surprised him by sending Philip over with her thoughts on the guardstar. It was a dry and academic missive and not very helpful. She also suggested he visit the royal gallery again, and so he had.
But though he’d examined closely the original picture of Avramm’s coronation, he’d gleaned nothing new. Several other works had been uncovered by the search team Abr
amm had assigned to go through the gallery after his initial discovery, and while they made it clear that at one time there had been a guardstar here—as well as at Avramm’s Landing, and even Sterlen—none indicated how they might be activated. Nor did a record of what once was provide any reassurance that the guardstars might remain in any of the three locations.
“Well,” said Trap, standing at his side, “maybe if you went up there and struck it with the Light.”
Abramm frowned at the orb silhouetted against the foggy sky. He had worn Avramm’s crown today, hoping it might enable him to see something he’d missed before, but so far it had not. Now he shrugged. “Worth trying, I guess.” Especially since he had no other ideas. With a wary glance round for attacking sea gulls, he climbed the stair to the top of the mount.
After the day the birds knocked Maddie into Abramm’s arms, Commander Weston had gone on a campaign to eradicate them, stationing men around the mound with clubs to chase them away, assigning others to net and kill those who persisted in roosting there at night, and finally setting out poisoned fish when they grew too wary to roost. As a result there was only a handful of them here today, the most, Weston said, they’d seen in over a week. Which Abramm considered as significant as their aggressive presence had been the day he’d had the mound dug out. They circled him closely now, and he thought perhaps the crown was what made him know they watched him with more than just birds’ eyes and brains.
Dropping into the dug out hollow beneath the orb, he held up his hand and directed a flow of Light at the artifact. When that had no effect, he pulled himself lightly back onto the wall, then leaned out along one of the struts to physically touch the orb so the Light could flow directly into it.
And that time he felt something. Not a stirring exactly, but a sense of hollow darkness that sucked the Light into it and would not let it out. Which had to be a lie, for he knew without doubt that the Shadow was not stronger than the Light and could not hold it captive. It had only consumed Tersius because he had agreed to allow it to, and in the end he had overcome it.
So maybe this orb is allowing the darkness to hold it. But why? And how can I change its mind?
He tried it again, with the same results.
And then the distant, flat boom of a cannon echoed across the compound, bringing him to rigid attention. He looked over his shoulder. “What the plague was that?”
“Probably Kildar running ranging exercises,” Trap said.
“I thought they’d be moving up the ammo all morning.” Abramm slid off the strut and jogged down the mound’s stairway.
“Maybe they’re ahead of schedule,” Trap said. “I know Simon’s gone out there, so maybe he’s gotten them moving faster than usual.”
Weston was nodding. “We’ll be ready to start our own practices here, right soon.” He paused. “It could also be one of the Chesedhan vessels at practice.”
“Without telling us?” Abramm asked. “They’d have to be—”
He was cut off by another boom, followed by a bellow from the ramparts, confirming that the men at Kildar were indeed firing upon something.
Despite his gimpy hip, Abramm was first up to the wallwalk, though only because the others had held back out of respect. Weston handed his own telescope to Abramm and took that of the sentry. Two flashes lit the morning mist still veiling Kildar as the fortress guns went off again—but several moments passed before they heard the paired booms of their firing.
Abramm aimed his scope south of the muzzle flashes, searching for a target, or even one of the five Chesedhan vessels on patrol out there, but only gray mist filled the telescope’s circle of view.
A sudden high-pitched scream drew his gaze around and up to a bright, smoke-spewing streak now hurtling skyward from the fortress. He stared at it in shock, watching it blossom into a fountain of white sparks against the tattered sky. It was a signal rocket, alerting Kildar’s sister fortress and the ships in the harbor that Kalladorne Bay was under attack.
At his side, Weston began bawling out orders. In moments the wallwalk swarmed with activity as the cannon crews raced up the stairs to jockey their guns into position, as the bores were cleaned, the charges placed, the balls rolled in. In the yard below Abramm heard the oven fired up to prepare the hot shot. Then it was back to tight, tense waiting as the mists floated desultorily between them and Kildar. . . .
Before long the civilian vessels that had been called to action drifted into position, a ragged line stretching from headland to headland composed of everything from three-masted merchant vessels to rowboats. Armed mostly with pikes and gaffs and whaling harpoons, they constituted little more than a physical barrier, but it was better than nothing.
Once more they saw muzzle flashes at the fortress, heard the delayed reports of their firing. Then out in the mist, another gun flashed and boomed. Three more rounds followed from the same vicinity, and finally Abramm glimpsed the topgallants of one of the Chesedhan vessels. Men’s voices carried eerily across the water, bellowing orders. More flashes preceded more booms. And still no sign of the enemy. Are they so spooked they’re firing on themselves? Abramm wondered.
He had his spyglass focused on the point where he’d last seen the topsails when Weston loosed an oath. “There they be, boys!”
Abramm lowered the telescope and saw them—three black, long-necked vessels, riding low in the water, each with two square sails and ranks of shining oars along both sides. They glided easily through the still seas, evading the bigger, wind-dependent vessels as if they were no more than dangerous shoals. “Hold your fire,” Weston commanded. He’d wait, Abramm knew, until they were well within range, making use of the fact that Graymeer’s wasn’t supposed to be an active fortress yet.
Kildar fired again, the ball splashing not far off the most distant galley’s starboard oars. Now came the Chesedhans sailing slowly after, with not a prayer of catching up. The galleys drew up together in the mouth of the bay, languid oarstrokes stopping altogether, both banks trailing in the water to bring the vessels to a stop, still far enough from the line of civilian vessels to gain ramming speed if needed.
“What are they doing?” Weston growled.
As if in answer, the lead-most galley unfurled a banner down its forward sail, a white background emblazoned with a red dragon rampant.
And again Weston expressed his shock and displeasure. “That’s Belthre’gar’s personal device, sir!”
“Yes.”
“Why are they just waiting? Chesedhans’ll catch them for sure like this.”
Abramm squinted through his telescope at the men standing on the deck of the lead galley, the one flying the red dragon rampant. They were darkskinned, dark-haired, dark-tunicked men, the leader of whom was made obvious by the gold threads in his purple tunic. But there was more that caught his eye than golden threads. For though the face was too small to be distinguished clearly, it still had a sharp, hatchet cast that was familiar, as was the short, broad-shouldered frame and silvery hair pulled back tightly into a warrior’s knot on the nape of the man’s neck. The figure of a man Abramm knew well.
Beside him Trap said in surprise, “Why, isn’t that—”
Abramm was already pushing off the parapet, heading for Weston, now some ten strides down the wallwalk directing the aiming of the nearest cannon.
“I want you to fire well over and in front of them,” Abramm told him. “And see that a boat is prepared. With my coat of arms hung from the mast so the device can be clearly seen.”
Weston frowned only slightly. “A boat, sir.” His inflection didn’t quite make it a question.
“I know the dock’s been repaired,” said Abramm, “and I thought you’d been equipped with a couple of officer’s skiffs.”
“Well . . . yes, sir, we have been . . .” Weston frowned a moment more, then turned and gave the order.
As the underling scurried off, Trap joined them, telescoping his spyglass back to its smallest size. During all of this, Captain Channon had
been staring from Abramm to the galleys and back again. Now he said to the king, “You’re going out to meet them.”
“I am. As is Duke Eltrap. And I’ll expect you to accompany us, Captain Channon.”
Channon blanched. “Of course, sir.”
With the soldiers looking on in astonishment, they left the wallwalk and shortly were bobbing out across the gentle swells of the calm morning sea to meet the galleys. Which, Abramm thought as they approached, looked much larger now than they’d appeared from Graymeer’s ramparts. He felt a sudden squall of concern that he’d made a mistake when none of the stern, dark faces looking down at him from the galley’s railing were familiar. Then he realized they were standing stiffly, as if at attention, and he relaxed.
Sure enough, when he swung over the gunwale after Channon and Trap, he found himself awaited by two short rows of dark-tunicked men: the Esurhite equivalent of an honor guard. And standing at the end of that aisle was his former master and present friend, Katahn ul Manus. The estranged father of Belthre’gar himself, Katahn wore his Terstan shield displayed defiantly between the unbuttoned neck edges of his tunic.
Trap and Channon had parted as soon as they reached the deck, and they now flanked Abramm as he walked the honor guard stone-faced, determined to maintain as much kingly dignity as possible. Katahn welcomed him with a similar expressionless mien, until Abramm drew closer and the stoicism turned to surprise as the man’s eyes traveled slowly up Abramm’s form to fix upon his face, lingering on the scars before meeting his eyes.
Abramm stopped before him, and for a moment neither of them said anything. Then . . .
“So the tales are true,” Katahn said in the Tahg. “You did, indeed, slay the Shadow dog. Though why I should be surprised, I do not know.” His eyes ran down Abramm’s form one more time, snagging now on his left arm, not hanging quite straight at his side. “And I see it was not without cost.”
“No, not without cost,” Abramm agreed in the same tongue.
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