Dark Lady_s Chosen cotn-4

by Gail Z. Martin

  ranks. That includes me and everyone who rides with me. You know how many volunteers we had, from the villages, the Scirranish. We can't let them scatter to the winds and take the fever with them. Father once had to keep two divisions in the field for forty days until a fever spent itself."

  Soterius leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "That's going to be tough. We're barely feeding them as it is. Wintering them for another month won't be easy, even if it's just a few hundred men. We're already having some problems with the volunteers. They're not regular soldiers. It was their fear of Curane seizing the throne that kept them here, but we don't have enough soldiers to police them all if they decide to slip off. If they think you're leaving them here to die, they'll riot."

  "You know that's not what I mean," Tris snapped. He was feeling the headache and the bone weariness and it made him short tempered. "But I've no desire to rule over the land of the dead, and that's what Margolan will be if the plague spreads. If they panic and run, they could spread it to Dhasson and Isencroft. We won't be able to contain it if we let it get away from us here."

  Soterius nodded. "I understand. But most of these soldiers are farmers and workmen. There are some already wondering if it's the Crone's judgment on us for one thing or another. Bound to be talk like that. It'll get worse if the plague spreads. People don't blame things like plague on ill humours for long. After a while, they want someone to sacrifice." "All the more reason we've got to keep this from spreading," Tris said. "We've had enough bloodshed in Margolan. Enough death." He knew Soterius could read his feelings clearly in his eyes. "It has to end."

  Soterius was silent for a moment. "When you get back to Shekerishet, then what?" Tris looked away. "I deal with the situation."

  "You know, I realized that since we've been gone, I've only gotten a couple of letters from Alle. One of them was mangled so badly I couldn't read most of it. One of them had gotten wet and the ink ran. The two that got through without damage had loose seals. From what they said, I wondered whether she'd even read my letters." He met Tris's eyes. "What if someone's made sure we didn't hear from Kiara and Alle-and that they didn't hear from us? Someone who might have a stake in sabotaging Kiara." "You have someone in mind?"

  Soterius shrugged. "No. But I don't like coincidences and there are too many for me to let this go. Because I don't believe for a moment that either Kiara or Carroway betrayed you." Tris closed his eyes. "When I get back to Shekerishet, I have a choice to make. I can take their word-or I can read their souls. My power could remove all doubt-or damn them both without reprieve. Do I trust, and always wonder? Or do I know for certain and risk destroying everything?"

  "My mother would have said to follow your heart."

  Tris opened his eyes and looked at him. "I love her, Ban. Even if the rumors are true. But the court-"

  Soterius laid a hand on his shoulder. "One catastrophe at a time, huh? Clean up here. I'll find twenty men I trust with my life to ride with you. Anything can happen between now and when you get back to the palace. The answers may be clear by then."

  "That's what I'm afraid of, Ban," Tris said quietly, meeting his eyes. "That's what I'm afraid of."

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Carroway paced his new prison, measuring the same steps. After the relative ease with which he slipped his guards at the Dragon's Rage Inn, it didn't surprise him that Harrtuck felt obliged to move him to a more secure cell in the guardhouse tower of Shekerishet's bailey. It was a cell made for prisoners of noble blood, and Carroway knew the legends of its former residents well. None of those imprisoned in this room had ever gone free, save at the end of a hangman's rope.

  Harrtuck had been apologetic about returning him to custody, but they both understood the stakes. His belongings had been transported from the inn and thoroughly searched. He'd feared that they would find the evidence Paiva had stolen from Crevan and the book with the drawing of the blade in it among his things, sealing the case against him. To his relief, the letters, the book and the odd metal ring had disappeared.

  A lack of evidence did not dissuade the mob that gathered by nightfall outside the tower. Led by one of Count Suphie's men, they had tried to storm the tower and take him by force to hang him for the attack on Kiara. Only Harrtuck's stalwart refusal to yield had prevented his murder. Grudgingly, the crowd had dispersed at swords' point. Now, Carroway looked out the thin slit of a window that was one of only two openings besides the locked door. The winter night was cold and still, and the clear sky shone with stars. The frigid air kept all but the duty-bound or the most intrepid indoors. He looked down at his crabbed left hand, still wrapped in the bandages.

  Hanging would be a mercy, he thought. I can't play with a hand like this. Singing will earn me a pittance of what a good musician can beg. And those who fancied my face more than my music won't take a scarred lover to their beds. Banishment's as good as a death sentence. Harrtuck should have offered me up to the mob. It would have saved Tris the heartache and solved the problem. Kiara could save herself by saying that I forced myself on her. There's no future for me-here, or anywhere.

  He tensed when he heard the heavy bolts draw back on the door, and steeled himself for the worst. Maybe Harrtuck's realized that sacrificing me is the best solution after all. If I'm to hang tonight, just please make sure someone knows how to tie a proper noose. I'd rather snap than strangle.

  To his astonishment, Macaria slipped inside. The door slammed shut behind her and the bolts clanked into place. "How did you get in?" he asked, crossing to take her in his arms. The bruise on the side of her head where Crevan had hit her with the pitcher had faded, and the swelling had gone down considerably.

  Macaria looked down, avoiding his eyes. "I lied to Harrtuck. Please forgive me." "What did you tell him?"

  "I told him we'd made a secret handfasting, and I claimed a wife's right to visit." She lifted her head defiantly. "They have to allow it. It's old law. Even the condemned-" She broke off suddenly, as Carroway began to laugh.

  "Forgive you? I'm only sorry that it's not the truth. I didn't think I'd see you again-this side of my hanging, anyhow." She cringed. "Don't say that."

  He sighed and held her to him. "Came a heartbeat away from swinging a few candlemarks ago. Won't be surprised if the mob returns. Maybe it's for the best."

  She pushed away and stared at him, aghast. "The best? You risked everything to save Kiara's life. You're innocent. How could that possibly be best?"

  Carroway lifted his bandaged hand. "Innocent or guilty, there's no life for me without my music, and there's no music without my hand."

  Macaria put her hands on her hips and fixed him with a glare. "Riordan Carroway! You have a voice like one of the Lady's consorts. You write the best ballads in the Winter Kingdoms, and you have invitations from four kingdoms to arrange their next holiday feasts. Cerise said the hand may heal-"

  "And it may not," he finished for her. "I can't move it without terrible pain. I'm no use to anyone, Macaria."

  Her eyes relented and she wrapped her arms around him. "I disagree, but I didn't come to

  fight with you. I figured you'd want to know how Kiara is doing."

  "And?"

  "She's in and out of consciousness. She hasn't lost the baby, but she's not well. Cerise said it's the wormroot. Even if Kiara and the baby survive, Cerise has no idea what that high a

  dose of wormroot might do. It's possible the baby could live and not be right." Carroway bowed his head. "I'm so sorry. If I'd just been faster-" "That you got there at all was amazing," Macaria interrupted him. "You're all that stopped Crevan from killing her-and probably the rest of us, too."

  "Harrtuck said that's going to be hard to prove," Carroway said quietly. "When you look at it from what Harrtuck and his men saw, what's to say I didn't barge in there intending to kill Kiara and Crevan died trying to stop me?"

  Macaria looked away. "Dame Nuray has already been spreading that version of the story." "Have you seen Paiva and Bandele?"
/>
  Macaria shook her head. "They're probably lying low, waiting for some of this to blow over." "If it comes to trial, they have the evidence against Crevan," Carroway said in a low voice only she could hear. "That's how I knew to come after him. They brought it to show me, and they must have smuggled it out of my room at the inn after I left. Without it, there's no reason why I would pick last night to escape or why Crevan intended to kill her on Candles Night." He paused. "What about Alle and the others? How are they?" Macaria shrugged. "Alle, the cook and the scullery maid are fine. Jae, too. Cerise was able to save two of the king's dogs, but the mastiff must have eaten the largest share of poisoned meat. He was already dead."

  "What a mess," Carroway said. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair, wanting to remember how it felt to have her arms around him. "I can't believe you told Harrtuck we were handfasted." "Are you angry with me?"

  Carroway chuckled. "Angry? Not at all. But I don't want my shame to taint you." Macaria stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him. "I don't care what anyone thinks." She took the heavy woolen scarf from around her neck and clasped his right hand with hers, winding the scarf around their wrists. "There. It's hardly official, but now it's not a lie. It's as fasted as my parents ever were. Will you have me, Riordan Carroway?"

  He looked at her, astonished. "For all my days, however long or short that is. But why would you bind yourself to me now? I'm as good as dead."

  "No one knows how many days are left. My dad didn't mean to drown in the river, and my mum didn't set out to die of pox. I'll take these days, however many there are, and be glad for

  them," Macaria replied, meeting his eyes. "No regrets." He bent down to kiss her. "None at all."

  Chapter Thirty

  Cam of Cairnrach waited to die. The explosion at the fuller's mill had tossed him into the cold winter air and hurled him into a snow bank; no small feat considering his bulk. Scorched and bleeding, he lay in the snow amid the rain of wreckage. He could still see the flames that danced high into the night sky and despite his pain, he laughed. Abruptly he stopped, and coughed up blood.

  "Let the sword be sheathed, and the helm shuttered," he murmured. "Prepare a feast in the hall of your fallen heroes. Cam of Cairnrach was stupid enough to be captured and blew his own ass sky high. Overlook that, please, and make his passage swift and his journey easy, until his soul rests in the arms of the Lady."

  Jonmarc was probably right. Nobody's listening. And if the Goddess was, she'd be laughing. What a ridiculous way to die, half burned and half frozen and spattered with fuller's muck. "Cam! Cam of Cairnrach!" The voice came from a distance. The accent was odd and managed to mangle "rach" into "reech." Cam listened, certain he was hallucinating. "Cam! Cam of Cairnrach!" Cam tried to respond and managed to nearly choke on his own blood. You can't answer a vision. Dying men hear strange things. Most of them hear their mothers. It figures I'd be called to my eternal rest by a vision that can't even pronounce my name right. Unable to move, he looked about but saw no one. Then he spotted a battered tin pot lying where it had fallen in the explosion, hanging from a piece of splintered wood. With his good hand, Cam squashed a handful of snow until it became a hard pellet of ice. He threw it against the pot, sending it clattering into the wreckage. "I heard something. Over here!" With my luck, he'll be a divisionist with a sharp knife. To his utter amazement, Rhistiart appeared out of the smoke. "I found him!" Rhistiart dropped to his knees beside Cam and motioned for two men to follow. Cam recognized one of the men as Trygve, Donelan's personal battle healer. The other man held a sword and remained standing, taking up a position that let him ward away any unwanted newcomers.

  "You got through," Cam rasped.

  Rhistiart grinned. "Aye. For once in my gods-forsaken life, I did something right. And the king promised me a pardon if I could lead them to you. So here I am!" "Lie still and don't talk," Trygve commanded sternly. Cam wanted to tell him that neither one was a stretch, but instead, he turned his head and spat blood.

  "Your sister will have my hide if this doesn't work," Trygve murmured. "And you don't want a healer like her mad at you. So I'll have to do my best to heal you, and you're going to have to do your best not to die. Do we have an understanding?" Cam gave the barest of nods. "Good. Let's get started."

  The snow chilled him through, dulling the pain as Trygve began the healing. Overhead, the moon crossed the sky as the candlemarks passed. And when Trygve reached to Rhistiart for help with the healing, to Cam's surprise, the fugitive silversmith agreed. From the look on Rhistiart's face, Cam guessed that this had become the greatest adventure of the man's life.

  "No, Donelan didn't come himself," Trygve answered Cam's unspoken question. "But he sent the Veigonn, with a direct order to execute the men who captured you and to do it slowly if you were dead."

  Cam's surprise must have registered on his face despite his pain. "Yeah, I know. The Veigonn doesn't go after just anyone," Trygve continued. The Veigonn were the king's personal protectors, an elite squad committed to protect the royal family. That Donelan would send them for him was a high honor.

  Trygve gave a harsh laugh. "Then again, from the ransom they demanded, the divisionists must have thought you were really worth your weight in gold." Cam groaned as Trygve pressed his hands against his abdomen. "Hush. You're hurt worse where it doesn't show than where it does-and that's saying something. I've got to stop the bleeding." "Will this help?" Rhistiart unfastened a flask from his belt, and Cam knew from the smell when it was uncapped that it held river rum.

  "That will do just fine. Give it to him a bit at a time so he doesn't choke. He'll need all you can spare; he's tore up bad. But maybe not too bad to fix, if the Lady smiles on me today," Trygve said.

  Cam drifted in and out of consciousness as Trygve worked. Although it seemed to Cam as if every bit of his body ached or bled, Trygve seemed most worried about the injuries no one could see, followed by the festering wound on his hand where his finger had been severed. Finally, when Cam wondered if they were all going to freeze to death, Trygve sat back on his heels.

  "It should be safe to move you, though Lady knows, I'm not done yet. But at least the wagon ride back to Aberponte won't kill you."

  Trygve made it as comfortable as possible, wrapping him in horse blankets and filling the wagon with straw to keep him warm. Even so, the wind was bitterly cold. To Cam's continuing surprise, Rhistiart rode with him in the back of the wagon. Rhistiart snuggled down in his heavy cloak, huddled against the wind.

  "I heard Trygve talking with the leader of the Veigonn," Rhistiart said, keeping up a onesided conversation although his teeth were chattering. "They weren't sure how they'd find you. You certainly solved that problem." "One of my many talents," Cam murmured.

  "I never thought I'd see Aberponte from the inside. At least, not unless they took me to the dungeons to hang," Rhistiart went on. "I said my piece to the first guards I came to, just like you told me to. They took me to another set of guards, and then they took me to a different set until, before I knew it, they were marching me into the palace to see the king." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "He's taller than I thought, but then again, I've only ever seen his face on a gold piece. Anyhow, the king made me say what you told me, and then tell him everything I knew. He's a fearsome man when he's angry. Seems he's had his men out searching for you since the traitors sent him your finger. They sent me out of the room, but I could hear them arguing after I left about whether or not the king should ride out with the guards tonight. 'Tis not an easy thing to tell the king no." "Especially Donelan."

  Cam coughed and Rhistiart looked alarmed. "No, no. Don't you dare die on me. Do you hear, Cam of Cairnrach?" His breath fogged in the cold. "I'll have to sing." "Are you trying to kill me?"

  In response, Rhistiart launched into an off-key tavern tune that made the carriage driver wince and glance over his shoulder. Rhistiart's awful singing and the beat of the horses' hooves marked the time until the wagon
passed through the city gates and made its way up the approach to Aberponte.

  It took four men on each side to gentle Cam onto several stout boards in order to carry him into the palace. Donelan himself stood in the doorway, a dark, imposing shadow. As Cam was carried toward the upper rooms of the palace, he heard Donelan demanding a briefing from the head of the Veigonn. Rhistiart stayed beside Cam, although his singing ended abruptly as soon as the lights of the palace came into view.

  Cam groaned as the men transferred him into a bed. Allestyr, Donelan's seneschal, had the room ready. It was well lit with candles and reflectors, and Cam could hear a kettle of water whistling as it boiled on the hearth. Rhistiart seemed to shrink into the shadows as the door swung open and Donelan strode into the room with Trygve. "Well?"

  "I was able to do enough at the battle site to keep him from dying," Trygve said. "This will take a while. If he weren't so well padded he'd have been dead from the explosion alone. The wound where they took his finger has soured. And his knee is shattered. I don't know how long those will take to fix-if I can fix them at all." "I need to warn you," Cam rasped.

  Donelan turned and moved to stand beside his bed. He laid a hand on Cam's shoulder, and withdrew it quickly when Cam groaned at the touch. "Rest. It will wait." "No. Listen. Alvior betrayed you." Donelan's eyes widened. "Alvior?"

  "Ruggs. told Leather John. Alvior gave them money. He wanted the throne. I'm ashamed." Donelan cursed. "The shame is Alvior's, not yours. Though I disapproved of what your father did to you and Carina, he always served me loyally." "Alvior murdered him."

  Donelan's eyes flashed and he strode to the door, bellowing for the leader of the Veigonn. When the man appeared, Donelan recounted Cam's report. "Send the Veigonn to Brunnfen. Bring me Alvior in shackles. He has an account to make for himself to me." "As you wish, m'lord."