Moontide (five hundred kingdoms)

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I know. I felt his eyes burning into my back, and it was not just with rage,” Kedric replied, catching hold of both her arms. “My lady—Moira—those words your father said—I did not plan for a marriage—”

  She laughed weakly. “We plotted better than we knew. We are well and truly wedded, my dear Fool, not merely betrothed as was the intention. It is no sham. That is a legal and binding ceremony by the traditions of the fishing folk hereabouts. It will take the King himself to undo the knot. Although I do not think my father intends you to enjoy your wedded state. I think he means for you to berate me, torment me with your sharp tongue, and humiliate me until I would take even Massid to get away from you.”

  “I believe you.” He put his back to the door and looked at her soberly. “My lady, I fear I may have overstepped myself with my own so-called cleverness. If Massid is indeed the magician here, as you think—”

  “Then he is still at dinner, trying to undo the damage my father has done, and very much occupied with repairing the situation,” she replied. “Which means that you are free to speak to your master. I very much doubt that my servant will return here before morning, so we will not be disturbed.”

  His somber gaze brightened. “So I am. And perhaps he will have some better news.”

  Fishing in the bag hanging from his belt, he brought out a piece of chalk from one of the cliffs, and bent to mark out a diagram on her hearth. It seemed to consist of six interlocking triangles, and when he had finished it, the thing seemed to pull at her eyes in a way that made her feel very uneasy. She didn’t have to look at it for long, however. No sooner had he finished it than he slapped his right hand, palm down, into the middle of it, obscuring the center.

  The chalked lines suddenly flared with light. She looked away for a moment, and when she looked back, she had to stifle a little scream of alarm.

  There was a disembodied head made entirely of fire suspended above the flames of her hearth. It was the head of a balding man with a thick fringe of hair at about ear level encircling his pate, and a pointed chin. The eyes looked like holes in the flames of the face.

  “Master!” Kedric began.

  “Be still!” the head said, “I haven’t much time! Have you learned Massid’s purpose there?”

  “Not the chief purpose, though Ferson attempted to push through a marriage to his daughter tonight—” Kedric said. “But I have learned that someone here is performing magic to create a false beacon during storms that will decoy ships onto the rocks!”

  The head interrupted him. “The beacon! Have you countered the magic that is changing the beacon? Have you even discovered what it is?”

  Kedric shook his head, and the head in the fireplace swore.

  “Listen! The King has been forced by a crisis to sail this very day for Linessa with most of the fleet. His convoy must pass by Highclere to reach it. You must make certain no one there learns of this! If the beacon is wrong—”

  “Master! You must warn him!”

  “Impossible. No birds could reach him from the shore, and there are no magicians with him that can speak at a distance—it is combative magics he needs, and those are the magicians he took. Kedric, at all costs, you must see to it that no one learns that the fleet has sailed, and if a storm comes up, you must counter the false beacon at all costs!” The head turned, as if looking elsewhere. “I must go! Heed me! Counter that magic!”

  The head vanished. The fireplace held nothing more than glowing coals with a furtive flame hovering above them. Kedric sagged.

  “You won’t want to hear this,” Moira said hesitantly, “but it isn’t a question of ‘if’ a storm is coming. One is on the way. It will be here by Midwinter Moon, and there will be a high tide at the same time.”

  Kedric groaned. “I suppose there’s no chance you could be wrong? If the King sailed today he’ll be just off this shore by Midwinter Moon.”

  She shook her head, and her hair fell out of its pinning, the long braid tumbling down her back. She didn’t trouble to pin it back up. “It’s partly the moon magic and partly sea knowledge, and no, I won’t be wrong.” She stopped then, and stared at the dark glass of the window for a moment. “Why would the King sail now? What kind of crisis could put him and the fleet on the water in such haste?”

  He sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “I don’t know. It would have to be something very serious. It’s risky enough sailing in this season as it is. But Linessa is the key to the Daenae River. If it was taken, for instance, you could sail your invasion force all the way up the Daenae and into the heart of the kingdom without anyone stopping you.”

  “And Linessa is another sea-keep, like this one. It’s next to impossible to reach during winter storms, so there’s no point trying to bring the army to reinforce it.” She clenched her jaw. “And what are the odds, do you think, that the message that sends the King and his navy in such haste was false? And that in fact, it came from here? I am not the only person who can read the wind and the waves. What’s more, I am not certain but that Massid can summon up storms at his will when the conditions are right.”

  Kedric’s jaw dropped as he stared up at her. “God in heaven. A man sent by Massid! One messenger—no one looks very closely at a messenger. The man wearing Linessa livery gallops in on an exhausted horse, gasps out his message, then throws himself back on a fresh horse to take the King’s reply! No one would think twice about it. They’ve planned this all along!”

  “With one storm, they eliminate the King and his navy.” She nodded. “This marriage my father plans was probably never more than a distraction for the rest of the keep folk. They will keep their tongues on that and pay no attention to my father and the Prince.”

  “There I must differ with you,” Kedric replied, getting slowly to his feet. “There is a deeper game being played here. If Massid is to somehow gain control of the coast, which is, I believe, his plan, he must have some way to appease the lords of the sea-keeps. You, my dear, are that means. He will probably play the besotted groom, believing he can deceive them and you together. They will think they can control him through you. You are meant to think the same until it is too late and the Khaleem’s men are in command of all the keeps and the coastline.”

  She ground her teeth in anger and frustration, but nodded. “So. What do we do? What can we do?”

  “We have a few days yet,” he replied. “I will try to find the key to the magic that controls the false beacon. And you—”

  “I am pent up here like a fish in a trap!” she snarled.

  “No, you are not. You are supposedly isolated here, and yet, anyone who cares to can seek you out here virtually unobserved. I will search for some sort of answer, and you—” he actually smiled thinly “—you will remain here in state, and see if allies come to us. The lord may be the head of the keep, my lady, but I think you will find that you reign over the hands and the heart.”

  And Kedric, she found as soon as the first light of dawn greyed the horizon, was right. Aided by Anatha, by ones and twos the servants and workers began to come to her, or send messages via their friends. It was true enough that Massid and his men had not thus far exercised any of the cruelty or arrogance for which the men of the Khaleemates were noted—but they had not made any friends here, either. She got the sense that if she had given any sign that she welcomed this marriage, the people of the keep would have bitten their lips and kept their tongues still. But since she had very vocally and publicly voiced her objection to it, not to mention pointing out the treasonous aspects—well, it seemed that she had more help here than she would have thought.

  However, that “help” brought disquieting word. Down in the shelter of the boathouse lay the Prince’s ship that had brought him here. No more than a handful of men were here in the keep itself, but the servants told her that a great deal of food went down to the boathouse three times a day—and nothing came back up again. The Prince, it seemed, might not be taking the cooperation of his ally for granted.
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br />   Meanwhile the wind and the waves increased, and by midafternoon, with dark grey clouds scudding across the hard blue sky, she was getting the sense that this might be one of the worst storms the keep had ever weathered. Massid might not need the false beacon to lure the King’s ships onto the rocks. If they didn’t keep well out to sea and risk being lost or delayed, the storm might do all of Massid’s work for him.

  But the wind and the storm might be her allies, too.

  That night, she huddled at the fire with two of the men who worked the docks and one of the carpenters. A set of blocks and a toy boat from the nursery stood duty as Massid’s boat and the boathouse where it was being kept.

  She had spent the better part of an hour being made acquainted with how the boathouse was put together. Now she was going to use that knowledge to take it apart.

  “First, you need to make sure that all the ropes are untied or, at least, loose. If you can saw through the roof ties here, and here,” she said, tapping the crude model with her finger. “And then, at the right moment, fling open the door to the boathouse, so the roof will fly off and the walls will be blown out.”

  Kedric stared at her. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  She shrugged. “Because that is what always happened to my model boathouses in a good breeze. If we can collapse the boathouse and turn the ship loose, Massid’s men won’t be able to get off it before it’s at the mercy of the storm.”

  “Well, let me deal with the roof ties and the ropes,” he said firmly. “We don’t want Massid’s little army to know what we’re up to. I can make potions that will dry-rot both wood and hemp, creating in hours the damage of centuries.”

  She blinked. “You are a dangerous man!” she said in astonishment. “Can you do the same with iron fittings?”

  He nodded. “Child’s play.”

  She turned back to the servants. “In that case, none of you need be on that dock at all once you’ve used Kedric’s alchemical potions. Weaken the roof ties, the hinges and hasp of the door, the ropes and anchor chain of the boat itself, and every crossbeam supporting that dock, or at least as many as you have potion for. We’ll let the wind do our work for us.”

  She watched as the men looked solemnly at her little model, then slowly, gravely smiled, as they realized what was going to happen.

  Because the moment that the doors went—and taking the brunt of the wind as they would, they would be the first of the weakened components to go—the roof would fly off, the walls collapse, and then the whole dock itself would fall apart. Even if Massid’s men realized that something was wrong, they would be too late to escape their boat. Some would certainly be crushed beneath a cascade of heavy lumber, or knocked into the icy ocean. The boat itself, if it was not sunk immediately, would be hit by the storm full force and driven up on the rocks below the keep. No one could survive that.

  Kedric frowned. “I don’t—” he began.

  The dockmen explained it to him. Moira held her tongue. No need for her to say a word at this point. The men were already turning the plan over in their minds until they could take credit for everything but the idea in the first place. And that harmed her not at all.

  They left, after making arrangements to have their several gallons of potions waiting at the kitchen door. Anatha would bring them down as “dirty slop water” and complain how much Moira was making her clean. The metal-rotting ones would go first—they took longer to work. Then the ones that did for wood and hemp.

  “You are a dangerous woman,” Kedric said, his eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard worse, and less cold-blooded plans out of seasoned soldiers.”

  She tightened her jaw. “Is it cold-blooded to want to keep my people from having to fight Massid’s beasts in the halls of their own keep?” she demanded.

  His expression softened a trifle. “Put that way—no.” He sighed. “But you may be the death of me as well before this is over. Buckets of potions and trying to find what magic Massid is doing on that beacon! I will be worn to a shred.”

  “At least there will be something of you left when this is over,” she retorted. But despite her sharp words, she couldn’t help but cast a worried eye over him. He was looking worn and tired, and if he had slept more than an hour or two, she would be surprised. Yet, when she yawned, or blinked to stay awake, it was he who urged her to her bed if there was nothing for her to do—or brewed her some strange herbal concoction to help her stay awake if there was.

  And she resolutely turned her mind away from what Massid would do to both of them if they lost this hidden war. Likely he would not even consider the notion that she could have been the author of at least half of the mischief; none of his kind gave women the credit for having intelligence. But Kedric—she remembered all too clearly the cold ire in Massid’s eyes as they escaped the Great Hall. No, Massid had likely planned something devilishly ingenious, diabolically painful, and excruciatingly prolonged for Kedric. That he would have proved himself a true King’s man would only make Massid the more determined to inflict as much suffering as possible. Compared to that—

  Well, there wouldn’t be much comparison with what Massid planned for her.

  She pulled her mind away from those unpleasant thoughts to find that Kedric was staring at her with a most peculiar expression on his face. She blinked. “What?” she demanded. “Have I got a smudge on my nose?”

  “I was just thinking that—never mind.” He shook his head.

  “Kedric, if you believe any woman would let you begin a sentence like ‘I was just thinking’ and end it with ‘never mind,’ you truly are a fool,” she snapped, her brows furrowing with irritation.

  “All right!” He held up his hands. “I was just thinking that—this is going to sound very stupid—I was just thinking that I owe your Countess a great apology, as well as a debt of gratitude.”

  She raised an eyebrow, and regarded him expectantly.

  “I owe her the debt of gratitude for sending you,” he elaborated. “Although I confess that when I was told you, a mere slip of a child, was supposedly a Grey Lady, I was very angry and sure you would be less than useless. So I suppose I owe you an apology as well. I could never have hoped to stop this without you—I was never meant to be an assassin, and I cannot think of any other way of removing Massid.”

  She smiled grimly, thinking of her own training and the weapons still hidden in her chest. “You would never have gotten past his bodyguards,” she replied firmly. “They are trained as assassins. The Khaleems require such, since treachery is so much a part of their lives. Not unless you could conjure up some subtle poison and the means to deliver it that they had never seen before.”

  “Alchemysts make poor poisoners,” he murmured. “We do not meddle much with physic and medicine. We leave that to the healers and doctors.”

  She tilted her head to one side, curiously. “Why did you choose to become an alchemyst?” she asked.

  He laughed bitterly. “Trying to transmute this—” he tapped his hunched shoulder “—since healers and doctors had so little success at it. Then, well, I was apt to it, and alchemysts do make good spies, the more so when they have other talents to disguise their true nature.”

  “Does it cause you pain?” she asked, regarding him steadily.

  He gaped at her. Not surprising, it was a surpassingly rude question. But she had a reason for her bluntness.

  “No—” he replied, clearly without thinking.

  “Then why bother?” she retorted, with a shrug. “It makes you neither more nor less intelligent, nor healthy, nor any other thing that matters. Have you looked at the faces, the bodies, the hands of my people?” she continued. “Really looked? Or because they are merely underlings, have your eyes slid right by them? I will confess, before the Countess trained my eyes, I would have done the same.”

  He shook his head.

  “Then when this is over, do take the time to look. See how many of them are scarred, twisted, missing fingers or toes or hands or feet.”
She nodded as his eyes widened. “The sea is a harsh mistress, and a harsher teacher. She often claims a tithe of flesh and blood, especially to pay for a mistake. But they carry themselves proudly, and find ways to do their duty—or find a different duty. They do not think overmuch of what they are not. And neither should you.”

  She had intended to leave it there, but her mind was tired, and what she had intended to keep to herself slipped out before she could stop it. “What you are is a clever and kindly man, a skilled and wise man, more noble in heart than most are by blood—altogether the sort of man I wish was my husband in truth.”

  He stared at her blankly. For the first time in a very long time she felt herself flushing, blushing so hotly she was sure that her cheeks rivaled the coals of the fire. “I have said too much. More than I ought. I was tired. More tired than I thought. Forgive my rudeness, my foolishness, and forget what I—” she blurted, and got up, stumbling out of the room and into the bedroom to hide herself behind the bed curtains and curse herself until she unaccountably fell asleep.

  The transition from dusk to full dark on the evening of Midsummer Moon passed in the blink of an eye as Moira watched from her window. She had seen the edge of the coming storm itself just before the sun set, and as the light was sucked out of the sky, watched as it scurried across the waves toward them on a hundred legs of blue-white lightning. Then the storm came down on the keep like a shark on a herring. It roared across waves already washing over the lower terraces and hit the walls with an initial blast that shook the entire building.

  She strained her ears for the one sound she was waiting for, over the screaming wind, the thunder, and the howling waves—and she strained her eyes during the lightning flashes for a glimpse of—

  There! A tumble of planks and posts slammed up onto the rocks beneath the cliff face!

  And there! For just one moment, farther out than she would have guessed, a glimpse of a slim fighting ship, masts stowed and sails safely stowed away belowdecks, tossing on the crest of the waves like a child’s toy, whirling rudderless and out of control—