The Quickening

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘Surely you weren’t thinking of taking the King’s horse without his or my permission?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Myrt said, regaining his composure. ‘We were just passing and thought we’d look in on the animal. Aremys is fond of him — brought him a red apple because he knows he hates green ones.’

  The stablemaster was not to be put off so easily. ‘I heard Galapek. What was all the noise about?’

  Both men shrugged and Aremys knew they looked more guilty for that single concerted gesture than any of their stammered responses or awkward pauses. The stablemaster had already made it clear to Aremys in a previous discussion that he would not be drawn on information relating to the King’s horse, and the Grenadyne mercenary could tell from the guarded look in the stablemaster’s eyes that Maegryn was suspicious of their intentions.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Aremys said when the man turned away. He knew very well where Maegryn was headed but he was desperately stalling for time.

  ‘The King… if he’ll see me. I’m sorry but I have my orders.’

  ‘Who from?’ Myrt demanded, thinking much the same as Aremys now: they were in serious trouble and needed time to think through their next move.

  ‘Rashlyn.’

  ‘Since when do you take orders from him?’ Myrt spat.

  ‘Since le Gant went missing,’ the stablemaster replied. ‘The barshi insisted that anyone acting suspiciously around the King’s horse would meet the same fate.’

  Aremys felt a chill move through him. ‘What do you mean “fate”?’

  Maegryn shrugged, not picking up the fact that Aremys should not know of the Morgravian prisoner. ‘According to the barshi, le Gant has been dealt with.’

  ‘Dealt with!’ Myrt repeated. ‘I thought only the King made decisions about our prisoners?’

  ‘Listen, Myrt,’ Maegryn began, his anger stoking fast now, ‘I hate Rashlyn. You of all people should know that. But I won’t interfere in the King’s business — you should know that too. Lothryn, Haldor rest his soul, learned the hard way about crossing the King. I don’t intend to be given into the keeping of Rashlyn because I’ve invoked the ire of King Cailech. I can’t help you.’

  ‘Is that what’s happened?’ Aremys pressed. ‘Rashlyn took le Gant?’

  Maegryn looked down. ‘I don’t know what’s happened. I suspect Rashlyn took him from the dungeon, yes.’

  ‘What are we coming to, Maegryn, when we are too scared to speak out,’ Myrt commented. He did not mean it as an accusation; it was more a sad-sounding reflection on his own shortcomings.

  ‘Lothryn stood up to the King and Lothryn paid the price!’ Maegryn yelled. ‘I don’t have his courage.’

  ‘True. And where is Lothryn do you think?’ Myrt asked, advancing on the stablemaster.

  ‘Be careful, Myrt,’ Aremys murmured, his senses highly tuned over the years to when a man was feeling a blood rage.

  ‘I… I don’t know. Dead, I suppose,’ Maegryn answered, stepping back. ‘Don’t threaten me, Myrt.’

  ‘An honourable death, do you think?’

  Maegryn nodded slowly, unsure of where this interrogation was headed.

  ‘He’s not dead. He’s alive!’ Myrt boomed, close to Maegryn’s face. ‘Rashlyn told us as much. It’s just taken me a while to work it out.’

  Maegryn’s expression was shocked now. ‘Alive? Where?’

  ‘Here, Maegryn. Right beneath your nose,’ Myrt said, a cruel tone to his voice that Aremys had never heard before. Myrt was too upset. This was dangerous.

  The stablemaster frowned, stepped back again, closer to the door. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about magic, Maegryn. I’m talking about Rashlyn and his sinister ways.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ the man muttered, licking his lips nervously. He looked deeply scared now, as if he too sensed that the situation had turned nasty.

  ‘You’d be right to feel petrified,’ Myrt went on, noting the man’s fear. ‘Lothryn is in your care.’

  Maegryn’s eyes widened, the nonsense of Myrt’s words giving him courage. ‘You’re talking in riddles, man. What’s he saying, Grenadyne?’

  Aremys was not convinced this was the right path. Sharing what they knew with Maegryn, who was as loyal to Cailech as any of his warriors and did not share Myrt’s single-minded dedication to Lothryn, was fraught with danger. ‘Maegryn,’ he started, his mind racing as to how best explain such a terrifying concept and calm what had become a somewhat explosive situation. ‘It’s going to be hard for you to believe us —’

  ‘Galapek is Lothryn, you fool!’ Myrt interrupted, spitting his fury and advancing on the cringing stablemaster. ‘Rashlyn, with the King’s permission, used his dark magic to change him into Galapek. That’s why you don’t know where the horse came from, and why the King is so careful about who rides him or asks questions about him. And that’s also why you’ve been sworn to secrecy. You’ve always known there was something odd about the whole situation surrounding the horse. Admit it, damn you!’

  ‘Lothryn?’ Maegryn repeated, shaking his head in confusion. He looked at the huge horse and saw the anger in its eyes then returned his anxious gaze to Myrt. ‘No,’ was all he said, his head moving slowly from side to side in denial.

  ‘You know it’s true, Maegryn. You’ve had doubts of your own from the start. Right from the beginning when Cailech said he would break this horse’s spirit and earn its loyalty with trust. What do you think that whole charade was about, eh? I don’t blame you, because I was taken in by it too. If not for Aremys, none of us would be any the wiser. The King was humiliating Loth, destroying his closest friend, his truest follower, and then rebuilding him in the form of a beast. A mute beast which would have to carry the King on his back for the rest of his life and thus pay homage like any slave or lowlife. An honourable death was too good for our best warrior, Maegryn. The King wanted to make him pay; he wanted revenge and humiliation for Loth’s betrayal.’

  Maegryn retaliated, reacting to the pain of realisation that he was hearing the truth even though he could not bring himself to believe it. ‘Lothryn chose the Morgravian woman over his own King, his own people!’ he cried, desperate to make Myrt understand that he would never be a part of something as dark as he was describing.

  ‘And he deserved to become this, did he?’ Myrt boomed. ‘An animal! He still lives, Maegryn. That’s the worst of it. He knows. He’s trapped inside that body, in agonising pain.’

  The stablemaster shook his head again, as though he himself was in pain. ‘No. This isn’t true. Can you prove it?’ he demanded, looking between the two men. ‘Show me how this is Lothryn. How can you know?’

  Aremys answered in a tone of such resignation, Myrt knew they had lost the opportunity of convincing Maegryn. ‘I can feel the taint of the filthy magic.’

  ‘That’s it, Grenadyne — your word? And what… you are gifted with sentient power?’ He looked at his fellow Mountain man. ‘Have you gone mad, Myrt? You would trust this foreigner over your own King?’

  ‘It’s the truth, Maegryn.’

  The stablemaster gave a harsh laugh, feeling a small measure of control return. ‘The truth?’ he scorned. ‘Says who? Another prisoner? For that’s what he is. I have no gripe with you, Farrow, but don’t ask me to take your word over that of my King.’

  Aremys said nothing. What was there to say?

  ‘You don’t know anything of substance, Myrt,’ Maegryn continued. ‘You’re just believing the Grenadyne. Have you heard Lothryn speak? Has the horse communicated anything to you?’

  Myrt shook his head, anger trembling through his body. ‘He spoke only to Aremys.’

  ‘To Aremys!’ Maegryn repeated, still more scorn in his tone. ‘No proof, nothing but this man’s say-so, and you’re prepared to believe that Lothryn has been turned into a horse. Does that not sound ridiculous to you?’

  Myrt nodded. ‘It does, but not when you say that same sentence with Rashlyn attached to
it. The barshi is evil and you know it. His influence on the King is curious, to say the least. Lothryn felt it and said as much to me. I don’t think our King ordered this. I think Rashlyn did. I believe, as Lothryn did, that the barshi is able to sway the King against his own wishes.’

  ‘Rashlyn uses magic against the King?’ Maegryn clarified, aghast.

  ‘Yes. That’s what I now believe. I think he can persuade Cailech to agree to things he would not choose himself.’

  Maegryn put his hands up in a warding gesture. ‘That’s enough, Myrt. I don’t want to hear any more. You speak treachery against our sovereign and it is my sworn duty as one of his men to make this betrayal public. I’m sorry, Myrt.’

  The stablemaster had just opened the door slightly when he felt the breath cut off from his lungs as huge, powerful hands closed around his throat. He let go of the door’s iron ring, gasping. Fear pounded through his ears and the blood pumped desperately through squeezed veins and arteries. As if from faraway he heard the Grenadyne yell to Myrt to stop. He found enough strength to twist around to see through his bulging eyes the rage in the bigger man’s face but he could not loosen the warrior’s grip to beg for his life. ‘I’m sorry too,’ were the last words he heard before Myrt intensified the pressure and crushed his victim’s neck. Maegryn slumped in his killer’s arms, dead.

  Aremys was shocked that this terrible event had unfolded so fast and angry with himself for not preventing it. But the deed was done. Instead of accusations he offered help. ‘Where can we hide the body?’ he said matter-of-factly. Myrt was in a state of shock, his rage gone the moment Maegryn had died beneath his fingers. He did not reply, crouching instead by the corpse. ‘Come on, man! It’s done with. You can’t bring him back. We have to hide him.’

  ‘I’m a dead man. We Mountain folk are strict about killing our own kind.’

  ‘We’re probably both dead men anyway. It will all unfold quickly now, Myrt. There’s a lot happening outside of this that you don’t know about.’

  ‘Like what?’ The big man scowled at him.

  ‘Trust me, neither of us needs to involve ourselves,’ Aremys said carefully, wishing he had not spoken. ‘Come on, help me. We have to hide him and buy some hours.’

  ‘For what?’ Myrt said, all sense of hope vanished.

  ‘Everything is going to unravel, my friend. The King is getting married to a woman who does not want him and whom he does not know well enough,’ he said, arching an eyebrow. ‘Strange stuff is going to happen — believe me. Time is our enemy now. I know you don’t want to, but you have to choose between Lothryn or your King and you have to do it now! This is what I wanted to avoid, why I asked you to remain outside.’

  Myrt nodded sorrowfully. ‘I have already made my choice, Grenadyne. I chose Lothryn.’

  Aremys continued, more gently this time, ‘All right then. We now know we are in the presence of your friend and we must find a way to release him.’

  ‘Can we?’ Myrt asked, his spirits lifting.

  ‘By death if necessary,’ Aremys answered gravely. ‘We need to find out more from Rashlyn.’

  ‘He has Cailech’s protection,’ Myrt warned.

  ‘Not whilst the King is enamoured by Ylena Thirsk he doesn’t. We must get to Rashlyn now whilst the King is preoccupied… and perhaps he will lead us to Gueryn.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t care about him.’

  ‘But I do. And so will Ylena Thirsk when she finds out her guardian is a prisoner here.’

  Myrt looked at him, startled. ‘Her guardian? Does the King know?’

  Aremys shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t think so but I’m going to tell him. I’ll seek an audience with the King. You establish where the barshi is and keep him from Cailech at all costs.’

  ‘And Galapek?’

  ‘Will have to be patient a little longer,’ Aremys said softly, turning to stare at the stallion in the shadows. ‘Myrt, this choice you’ve made — you do understand you’ll have to leave the Razors?’

  ‘Escape, you mean?’

  Aremys nodded. ‘I won’t let you go alone.’

  The warrior sighed. ‘This is how Lothryn must have felt when he helped the Morgravians to escape. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. I will betray those I love whichever choice I make. I’m sorry, Aremys. I can’t promise I’ll leave.’

  Best not to force the issue, Aremys realised. The circumstances would no doubt make all the decisions for them. ‘Come on, we’ve got to hide this body,’ he said.

  Myrt nodded. ‘I know where.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  LADY HELYN BENCH WAS begging her husband to reconsider his decision. How the tables turn, she thought, remembering how, such a short time ago, he had been in her dressing room pleading with her to see reason over Leyen.

  She reluctantly held his jacket as the man she loved slipped his arms into the sleeves. ‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ she began again.

  He turned in her arms and hugged her. ‘My mind is made up, my dear. I don’t like this cloak-and-dagger stuff. I think we must air the grievances tactfully.’

  ‘Eryd,’ she said, fear combining with exasperation, ‘how tactful can you be when you’re about to accuse someone of murder?’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, and pointed to a silk scarf. ‘Would you help me with that, please?’

  She flounced to the chair and picked up the length of silk draped across it. ‘And not just anyone,’ she continued. ‘The King!’

  ‘Helyn, I am not a dimwit. Perhaps you have noticed this over the years?’

  ‘Taking witnesses won’t stop him!’ she cried. ‘He’ll just have you all killed.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, woman. Kill me and then Lord Hartley? Then I suppose he’d have to kill Lord Jownes and Lord Peaforth because they would follow in our footsteps. And then who else is left to advise, to cajole, to administer this city? He needs us.’

  ‘Then don’t go. Don’t do this.’

  ‘I shall know from the way he reacts whether he is lying or not.’

  ‘Eryd!’ she replied, just short of a screech, hating the way her husband closed his eyes in despair. ‘Do you believe that the Donals are not dead? Not hacked to bits, raped, burned? Or that the massacre at Rittylworth was a misunderstanding and the monks are in fact alive and well?’

  ‘No, Helyn,’ he said and the tone in his voice chilled her. She wished she had not resorted to sarcasm. He was deeply angered now; she knew it. She had overstepped the mark. The first time since twelve years ago, when she had interfered in a deal, speaking out when she should have kept her own counsel. The deal had fallen through and Eryd had blamed her. He was right to: her words had been ill-chosen and yet, for the life of her, she could not remember now what she had said to so offend. His deep voice dragged her back to her latest mistake. ‘Please do not speak ill of the dead. I am painfully aware of the deaths of my friends, the Donal family, and the innocent men of Rittylworth.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Eryd, I —’

  He cut her off, too angry to hear more. ‘Enough, wife. The three remaining powerful lords of Morgravia cannot disappear! Now hush your ramblings and get this scarf tied, or I shall be late.’

  ‘What did you tell the others?’ she asked, understanding there was nothing more she could do to stop her husband walking into the dragon’s den.

  ‘All that we know.’

  ‘Not about Wyl Thirsk, surely?’

  ‘No. That revelation I am keeping to myself until I can see this phenomenon with my own eyes.’

  ‘Do you believe our guests though?’

  He nodded, slowly, reluctantly. ‘How could I not? Their tale is so shocking and mysterious, no one could make that up. Jeryb Donal’s son would not lie to us, Helyn. You can see it in his face that he is as petrified of this… this Myrren’s gift, as they call it, as he is intrigued by it. We have known Crys Donal since he was a babe in arms. He is as open a man as any, I am sure. No, there is no lie there but I can’t accept it fully yet.’
<
br />   ‘That Wyl Thirsk is his sister, you mean?’

  ‘That he was the Koreldy assassin, that he was Leyen, whom you delighted in so much, that, yes, he has become his sister.’

  ‘But it does make sense, doesn’t it, my love?’ she said. ‘If he did not become this Koreldy fellow, it is odd that a Grenadyne mercenary would bother to rescue his enemy’s sister from the dungeon of his benefactor.’ Eryd nodded. ‘Then take her to safety before going to look for that Widow Ilyk person to learn more about himself.’

  ‘Is that the seer’s name?’

  ‘Yes, I’m embarrassed to admit she has done readings for me in the past.’

  ‘It’s all nonsense, Helyn, you know that,’ Eryd grumbled.

  ‘I thought so until now,’ she replied, before hurrying on. ‘Then the Grenadyne is trapped, taken into the Razors and, instead of bargaining his way out — as presumably he could with that Mountain King — he risks everything to get Gueryn le Gant and Elspyth away. Does that sound like a hardened mercenary, or like Wyl Thirsk trapped inside the body of one?’

  ‘I agree, Helyn. It’s not that I need convincing. I just —’

  ‘So then he makes his way to Briavel to offer his protection to Queen Valentyna. Why? Well, of course, he’d saved her life once before from a potential assassination attempt and had fought to save her father’s too, losing his own life in the effort. But then King Celimus comes along and it all goes wrong. Wyl gets killed by the King’s own assassin, Leyen —’

  ‘They called her Faryl too.’

  ‘Whatever her name was. That girl, as much as I liked her — and I guess now it was simply Wyl I was liking all over again — was not used to womanly things.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the baths. Remember I told you?’

  ‘You must have.’

  ‘And you weren’t listening as usual,’ she admonished. ‘She was so hesitant about going into the pavilion — that’s where we first met. She was terribly embarrassed about showing her body, and let me tell you, Eryd, no woman who looks like that is ever coy about her body. She had no idea about the soap leaves and when I mentioned the razing of Rittylworth, her whole demeanour changed. That’s because it was Wyl, fearing for his sister.’