Even though their conscience had whispered otherwise for three hundred years.
Who then was the traitor here in truth? Björn, who continued his courageous work in care of the realm, or Raine D’Lacourte, who undermined Björn’s work with seditious rumors?
“What makes a good man, Raine?” Björn asked quietly. “It is in the way he treats others? Is it his generosity or compassion? Is it his good work? You are a truthreader, you know men’s minds. Do these things make men good?”
Raine brusquely wiped a tear from his eye. “I don’t know,” he answered, feeling only the heavy weight of guilt pressing him down, suffocating him.
“I believe such traits do comprise a good man,” Björn observed, “but in my view, a great man needs but one truly notable attribute.”
Raine fought back the clenching feeling in his chest to ask hoarsely, “Which is?”
“The willingness to accept responsibility for things he didn’t cause.”
For some reason, this made Raine have to work even harder to hold back his grief. “Brother…” he whispered wretchedly, lifting his eyes in the last to meet Björn’s, “I have wronged you so.”
“No more than I wronged you, Raine.”
But Raine knew this was untrue. He bowed his head and clenched his jaw, feeling threadbare and tawdry beneath the Fifth Vestal’s gaze.
“This contrition is unnecessary, Raine.” Björn took him by the shoulders and drew him into an embrace, brother to brother, Vestal to Vestal. “Don’t you think I have regrets? I can’t begin to list them all.” He squeezed Raine’s shoulders and drew away, capturing his tormented gaze. “But we simply haven’t the time for regret. Every day is a new day, a new choice, a new beginning. This is the essence of Adendigaeth, which we have just observed. This idea that tomorrow brings forth another chance to live life anew, no matter what has come before.”
“Yes,” Raine whispered. “That is true.”
Thunder sounded above them then, deep and hollow, the cracking open of the very heavens to emit the rain. It started as a downpour and quickly deepened to a deluge, and before they had even looked up they were drenched.
“What say you to this game, brother?” Björn asked through the storm. “Will you join me in it?”
Raine never imagined in all his life that he would’ve said yes.
But he did.
Forty-One
“Neighboring kings, like witches and spies, cannot be trusted.”
- Radov abin Hadorin, Ruling Prince of M’Nador
Gydryn val Lorian, King of Dannym, stood at the edge of a marble table staring at the vellum in his hand. He was alone in his chambers in Radov’s palace—as alone as he could be with fifty knights surrounding his rooms—but he dared take no chances, not since the bird from Morin d’Hain had found them aboard the Sea Eagle a day north of Tal’Shira.
Gydryn looked at the letter from Morin one last time, recalling fully the words scribed upon it. Dangerous words, laying waste to a litany of lies. Yet they were few, in truth: the whisper of a long-standing alliance between Morwyk and Radov of M’Nador had reached Morin’s ears. He hadn’t conclusive proof, and the information had come second-hand, funneled through intermediaries loyal to Raine D’Lacourte, but Morin believed it.
And in his heart, Gydryn did as well.
Morin’s missive was void of the Spymaster’s usual extrapolations and deductions, but Gydryn didn’t need an exhaustive summary to reach the same conclusions as his Spymaster. And if the information Morin gave him was accurate, then only one conclusion truly mattered: the Akkadian Emir Zafir bin Safwan al Abdul-Basir was not his enemy.
Radov was.
It was an acerbic truth, one that brought a foul turbulence to his stomach and a lingering ache to his heart. Perhaps he’d known it all along. His wife, Errodan, often cautioned him that good men shied away from seeing the evil in others. Gydryn knew he was culpable in this failing, guilty of being too lenient, too merciful toward those who sought power; guilty of the hubris inherent in believing that treason and betrayal were not the bywords of his noble houses.
But there was no dissembling that Radov needed Dannym’s army and had likely gone to great lengths to secure it eight years ago. Gydryn was not so foolish as to imagine that the Ruling Prince would now just let them leave.
There were steps to be taken, necessary sacrifices. He wouldn’t allow Radov to take control of his army, and he most certainly was not going to let Stephan val Tryst have his kingdom—for whatever else was certain, should the Duke of Morwyk march to power, the Prophet Bethamin would be treading on his train.
Lowering his hand with Morin’s dangerous missive crumpled within it, Gydryn walked toward a wall of screen doors carved of honey-hued wood, which opened upon a balcony and the sea. The water reflected a strange color in this far southern princedom, a startling turquoise that rapidly faded to azure blue, so different from the charcoal seas of his home. The king leaned against the doorframe, his grey-eyed gaze deeply troubled as he looked to the east. His thoughts were snared by the Prophet…even as an alarming number of his subjects had been.
Dannym’s peoples embraced many faiths. The Highlanders of Iverness worshipped a panoply of earth gods and goddesses, spirits and sprites, paying homage to trees and rivers and standing stones. They always seemed about some festival or another that involved dancing half-naked and burning boughs of stinking herbs for who knew what purpose. Gydryn didn’t understand their faith, but it seemed to keep them happy.
His wife’s people believed strongly in the Storm God and his Concubine, and the peoples of the southlands followed the Veneisean Virtues as often as their own Lord of Crows and Sparrows. In Calgaryn and its surrounding duchies, the folk mainly followed the old ways of their Agasi forefathers who’d founded the kingdom centuries ago, a faith closest to the Adept religion espoused in the Sobra I’ternin.
All of these faiths and more besides, disparate though they were, had somehow coexisted harmoniously in his kingdom, its peoples tolerating each other, often laughing at the others’ ‘odd’ rituals, but never condemning them. Until now.
Bethamin was a scourge upon the realm. His religion seemed antipathetic to faiths of all kinds, appealing instead to the baser instincts of mankind. His doctrine sowed distrust and malcontent among all who followed it, and Gydryn would condone no such filth in his kingdom.
Returning to his marble desk, the king set one corner of Morin’s missive over a low-burning candle and watched the flame take. Holding the paper while it burned, his grey eyes observed the inked letters as they spread and vanished, overtaken by wings of blackening flame. If only the lies those words hinted at might be so easily dispelled.
When naught but a scrap remained, Gydryn set the charred paper onto a silver dish, poured a clear liquor upon it, and set the candle to the spirit. Flames seared upward, and heat washed the pepper-grey hair of his beard as the charred paper burned to ash. When only a tarry sludge remained, the king wiped the dish clean with a scrap of linen and tossed the latter onto the smoldering coals in the hearth.
Gydryn saw his own kingdom facing such a charred and blackened end if Morwyk took power. He’d lain awake long hours into the night, every night as they’d sailed south, the steady rush of waves past the hull too often seeming the muted roar of burning flames, the creaking of masts and rigging the steady disintegration of his kingdom.
Before Morin’s missive reached him, he and Loran val Whitney had spent long hours behind locked doors—hours spent, in the main, arguing. The Duke of Marion had strong views, and their decades-long friendship made him bold in declaring them.
“I nae like it, Sire,” Loran had so often protested. He was a big man, like most of his Highland brethren, broad of chest, with a mane of black hair striped through with grey and fierce blue eyes that often flashed as sharply as the kingdom blade ever present at his hip. He seemed a caged bear even in the generous space of the Sea Eagle’s royal cabin. “We shouldna’ be goin’ back ther
e—should nae be sacrificin’ our brothers to the insatiable greed of a craven bastard like Radov abin Hadorin.”
“What would you have me do?” Gydryn had repeatedly growled in return, so often sunk into a low-slung armchair, the vantage giving him a view of the Fire Sea beyond the cabin’s mullioned windows. It was that or watch Loran pace restlessly back and forth until his head began to ache. “Shade and darkness, Loran, would you have me break a pact that has held three kingdoms together for centuries?”
“Yea, Sire, if ye must.”
“I’m not prepared to do that.”
“By the bloodless horns of Herne, ye’ll lose yer kingdom if ye can’t find some compromise with yer honor, Sire! It’ll drag ye down to the depths and the rest of us w’ye—cause ye know we shan’t be abandonin’ ye, even to the ends of the realm!”
“A king with no honor is a stain upon his kingdom, Loran.”
“A kingdom with no rightful king stands a barren shore, Sire.”
And so it had gone, round and round, neither of them gaining purchase against the other’s views. All day in argument with his General of the East, all night in conference with his conscience. No peace could be found in any quarter.
And then, after a month of these contentious deliberations, Morin’s bird had found them, and all those hours, all those words, became moot.
He’d told Loran nothing of the letter—the Duke of Marion was already raring to leave M’Nador, and Gydryn dared not give him room or reason to make a press. No, they couldn’t just withdraw their forces from the princedom, withdraw their support of Radov—not without more bloodshed. Gydryn understood this too well.
Resting one hand on the carved limestone mantel in Radov’s palace, the king chose an ivory-handled poker and nudged the crisping linen back onto the coals.
How had his life come to this?
Once he’d had three strong sons, a loving wife and queen who held his heart in thrall, a kingdom at peace. What sinister spirit had plucked the thread of his life from its pleasant pattern and rewoven it elsewhere among the strands of iniquitous men? What crossroad had he chosen that his path became so darkly treacherous, so full of treason and dishonor that he lost two of his beloved sons upon it and must needs sacrifice the companionship of his wife to protect his third? What gods had he angered that they exacted such vengeance upon his house?
The questions were infinite, but the answers…well, there were no answers to the questions of why. There was only the what that remained. What he would do. What he could do. What he must do.
Gydryn replaced the poker in its place and returned to the marble desk. Another letter remained there, blotted and dry. His personal seal pressed after his signature marked the letter as an authentic statement in his own hand.
He’d written some strange things upon that page, unexpected things, the kind of things a man writes only when he anticipates death across the next rise. He’d addressed the letter to a man he’d met only once, but he trusted the captain to his duty.
A knock sounded upon the door, and Gydryn looked up as two soldiers entered. The first wore the red livery of his personal guard and stood crisply at attention. The second wore a short-sleeved hauberk over linen and looked travel-worn and battle-stained. His baldric and belt both carried the val Lorian eagle engraved in the leather, while his tanned skin bespoke long hours beneath the relentless desert sun.
“The Captain Jasper val Renly, Sire,” announced the first man, the king’s personal guard, “at your request.”
“Thank you, Daniel. Please send for Loran now.”
“Your will be done, Sire.” Daniel saluted and left, closing the door.
“Come, Jasper,” the king murmured, observing the captain’s exhausted state. “Break your fast with me.” He motioned the soldier into a sunlit room whose tall doors opened upon the same long balcony. A meal awaited upon a table draped in fine linen, but Gydryn’s appetite had abandoned him in the Fire Sea. He offered the meal to his captain instead. “You rode through the night?” he asked as he indicated for Jasper to sit.
“Yes, Sire. As soon as your missive reached me.” He seemed reticent to sit and eat in the company of his king, but hunger proved more insistent than propriety. He moved his sword aside with the familiarity of a man long used to its companionship and took a chair across from his standing monarch.
“How far is it to your camp, Jasper?”
“Twenty miles or so, Sire, as the crow flies,” the captain replied as he shoveled food onto a plate, “but the mountains ne’er let a man keep a straight line.”
Gydryn noted the bright creases at Jasper’s eyes, the result of long days spent squinting into the sun, as well the blond streaks through his ashen hair. Reports fashioned Dannym’s foot-soldiers often draping their heads like the Nadoriin, but he’d been told that his officers never did. “Loran says you’ve been a strong leader in his name and a great support to the men.”
“Thank you, Sire.”
“He said also that you’ve traveled to every stronghold east of Kandori and know the land well.”
“Aye, Sire, as well as any of us can. The Duke sent me often to relay his orders to our outposts, and I’ve traveled as well with Radov’s scouts to learn the lay of the land. The Prince’s army is spread thin, and his hold over Abu’dhan is ever threatened. The Duke, his Grace, has deployed our battalions in support of strategic positions, but they range along the entire front.”
“Indeed,” Gydryn murmured while quietly watching the captain eat. “Loran outlined to me the deployment of our forces. They seem well scattered.”
“Aye, that’s Raine’s truth, Sire,” Jasper mumbled through a mouthful. “We’ve men all along the Qar’imali augmenting Radov’s main army, as well at Dar’ibu and Chamaal. We’ve a sizable force in Taj al’Jahanna, though they’re naught but baking their heads waiting for someone to put an arrow in those bloody dragons and break the impasse. Or, I suppose, if something comes of this parley…”
Gydryn arched a raven brow. “You are not hopeful, captain?”
Jasper grimaced. He sat back from the table. “Forgive me, Sire. I forget my place.”
“I would know your thoughts.”
Jasper lifted his gaze to his king, brown eyes beneath the shock of sun-streaked hair. He reminded Gydryn very much of his younger brother, the Lieutenant Bastian val Renly, another trusted soldier who risked his life to protect Gydryn’s last surviving son.
Epiphany willing you are safe in the Cairs, Ean.
“Tis a strange war, Sire, if you must require my mind upon the matter,” Jasper offered reluctantly. “We’ve all heard stories from our pas and grandpas of the wars of the past, wars fought in defense of king and kingdom…” He ran a finger absently along the linen scarf lining the top edge of his hauberk, the skin beneath it chafed and sunburned, yet it seemed the absent gesture of a man long inured to inconsequential pains. “Mayhap I’m far off the mark, but it seems ill policy of a ruling prince to let men pillage and plunder in his own kingdom.”
Gydryn exhaled a slow breath. “You speak of the Saldarian mercenary forces.” This was but one of many troubling details he’d learned upon arrival in Tal’Shira.
“Aye. My men and I…we’ve seen horrors to be sure, Sire—a soldier learns to bear witness and still take his evening meal when it comes—but there’s rightful pillage and then there’s delight in the killing, and Belloth take me if I’m wrong, but these Saldarians…” He shook his head. “They respect nothing.”
The king considered him quietly. “And the men…how is their morale?”
“They remain loyal to you, Sire, but not a one would choose to fight this war.”
Gydryn exhaled resignedly. “That might be said of any war, captain, even those professing the most righteous of motives.” He gave Jasper a sage look and offered quietly, “Once the novelty of retribution wears thin, war is just what it seems, a brutal and ugly stain upon the consciences of men.”
“Yes, Sire,” Jasper sai
d, dropping his gaze.
The king trailed one hand along the tabletop as he walked toward the windows. “Tell me, Jasper,” he said then, “what outpost might you know of…something far away and no longer in use, yet it would have a defensible position?” He glanced at the captain over his shoulder. “Is there such a place?”
Jasper furrowed brows and chewed absently through an almond-flour biscuit as he considered the king’s question. After a moment, he brightened. “There is a place I believe, Sire. Nahavand. It lies in the mountains northwest of Taj al’Jahanna. The Nadori forces abandoned it many moons ago.”
“Abandoned, yet it remains defensible?”
“Very much so, Sire. There just wasn’t any point in maintaining Nahavand because the Sundragons made it useless as an outpost—‘tis too easy for the damnable creatures to pick off soldiers and supply lines coming to and from.”
The king nodded. “In the northwest, you said. Is it close to Taj al’Jahanna?”
“No, Sire. The only way to reach it is straight north through the Pass of Ryohim and then head due west. It lies deadly close to the western lines.”
“Indeed?”
“Aye, that’s part of the problem, see. After the Emir’s forces gained Raku, they forged north, ousting errant Nadoriin; hence the Sundragons coming and going over Nahavand. The Nadori consider it lost behind the lines, but to my knowledge the Basi haven’t claimed the outpost.”
“Is it well known by the men? Would Loran know it?”
“I don’t think so, Sire. We’ve never had men stationed there.”
The king turned back to the captain. “Can you draw me a map to Nahavand, Jasper?”
“Certainly, Sire.” He pushed back from the table.
The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) Page 59