TWOLAS - 03 - Warhost Of Vastmark

by Janny Wurts

  The borrowed carriage and retinue to bear the princess pulled up under guard at the inner gate. Through another postern, unarmed and unattended, Lord Commander Diegan was admitted by the oldest of the royal pages. As Avenor's ranking officer and Lady Talith's blood sibling, he would stand through due process as Lysaer s'Ilessid's representative. Slitted light through the lancet windows by turns drowned and spattered the splendour of his white studs and velvet as he knelt by old custom and paid his respects to the high king.

  On his carved chair, his knuckles splayed over the paired, crested heads of the gryphons carved rampant beneath his wrists, Eldir inclined his head. Composed as he seemed, he wished he were elsewhere, the princes departed, the startling blue snap of static that leaped off his fingertips from too close an acquaintance with ward fields banished from his city of Ostermere.

  'Lord Commander Diegan,' he opened, 'I ask your oath on behalf of your prince that no violence will be presented to Arithon s'Ffalenn inside the bounds of my realm.'

  'I so swear,' Lord Diegan intoned. 'Dharkaron as my witness, strike my liege dead if a sword under Avenor's banner should be first to raise bloodshed.'

  'You have leave to proceed.' Eldir signalled his page, who accepted a heavy key and unlocked the door to a side chamber.

  Prince Arithon entered, Lady Talith on his arm. Before the blinding magnificence of her finery, his simpler dress seemed a cry of sheenless dark against a scintillance of gold and white silk.

  The only glint of light about the Shadow Master's person was the circlet of royal rank pressed over his black hair. He crossed the waxed floor in measured steps, Dakar at his shoulder, and Sethvir just behind in a new maroon robe banded in jet braid interlace.

  Lord Diegan felt himself bristle, astounded to find how his memory had faded. Almost, he had forgotten the slight stature of Rathain's prince, and the insolence the man flaunted toward propriety. Overwhelmed by the intensity of his desire for revenge, the Lord Commander had to tear his gaze away to spare proper attention for his sister.

  Talith looked in good health, if a trifle drawn. Dark eyebrows and lashes framed eyes without artifice, tawny as glints off new brass. Her steps paired Arithon's with unwonted deference, Lord Diegan noticed. Too haughty to be meek, her cream features did not soften to the slightest hint of welcome.

  If her spirit was unbroken, her stay with the enemy had not left her unchanged.

  Lord Diegan clenched his hands in weaponless, bound rage for the misfortune which had turned his sister to a flesh-and-blood pawn, caught in the breach between enemies.

  Then the party bringing Talith swept to a halt, the presence of the Master of Shadow scarcely a knife's thrust away. Frigidly clear, green eyes flicked up and met Lord Diegan's inimical features square on. 'My lord, your lady sister.' And he passed Talith onto the arm of her brother.

  Her touch was ice, and her face, a marble mask. The cut glass brooch at her collar shimmered to her rhythmic breaths. Etarran to her core, her poise never wavered, yet her fingers on the sleeve of Diegan's court finery bit a death grip into the damask.

  Forced to stifle his simmering anger, Avenor's Lord Commander delivered the message his liege lord had charged him to bestow on the Master of Shadow. 'The fortune you receive for your unconscionable act is an ill thing for our people in your hands. Along with the gold you've extorted, my prince includes this small token.' Diegan opened the wallet at his belt and handed over a slim leather packet.

  By design, its strings were not tied. A crescent edge of brass snicked a slice through the gloom as the wrapping fell open. The contents became exposed to the recipient in full public view of the court. Colour left Arithon's face in raw streaks. He needed no second glance to identify the exquisite, engraved cross-staff last seen on the decks of the brig, Black Drake. Off Farsee, for repayment of passage, the instrument had been his free gift to Captain Dhirken. 'You had better say quickly how you came by this.'

  'It tells its own story,' Lord Diegan answered in soft malice. 'Another of your collaborators was executed.'

  'By whose order?' Too stunned for finesse, Arithon closed anguished fingers over the shining, fine lines of Paravian engraving. He seemed unaware, yet, of other eyes upon him, or of Sethvir's sharp attention just behind. 'Captain Dhirken owed me no loyalty. Her vessel was a hired charter I signed on for transport.' Unable to contain his incredulous anguish, he ended, 'As Ath is my witness, she'd have told you if she could. My affairs were never her sworn cause.'

  'She made that claim in the hour she surrendered her command. Mearn s'Brydion believed her, until your token gave the lie to her testimony. She meant something to you,' Lord Diegan insisted, fired to elation to realize his liege had scored an astonishing victory. 'Or why bestow so priceless an heirloom on a stranger?'

  'If I cared for her, your allies could have tested your case.' Arithon looked up, his voice like ground glass against the stilled tableau of the chamber. 'Mearn might have petitioned me for ransom. I could have brought evidence and witnesses to show the plain truth. Dhirken was not my close associate.' The facile, glib sarcasm he used to buy distance this once seemed ripped beyond reach.

  Talith looked on, startled to a horrified glimmer of epiphany, Dakar hung suspended, while Sethvir raised a hand to forestall King Eldir from a disastrous order to deploy his poised men-at-arms. Yet the ripples of unrest in the background scarcely touched the Master of Shadow.

  'I knew the Drake's captain well enough,' he admitted. The steel of his masterbard's discipline unlocked his tongue at last; let him temper useless fury into sorrow.

  'If she surrendered her brig, she showed her good faith in the expectation of fair treatment. Your justice betrayed that trust. The ruling which condemned her lay outside of mercy. I repeat, Captain Dhirken had no cause to die for any hired charge I laid on her.'

  The Lord Commander of Avenor inclined his head, the sheen of his hair like rubbed onyx in the flame glow and his expression alight in flushed triumph. 'Then, your Grace, take care you befriend no more innocents.'

  Diegan turned on his heel and departed, annoyed beyond words for the fleeting look backward his sister cast toward her former captor. For himself, he held no regret. Nor would he deny the implicit accusation, that Dhirken's life had been claimed for no better cause than to inflict small revenge on an enemy.

  * * *

  While Arithon's brigantine Khetienn slipped her cable and sped seaward before winds coaxed to favour by Kharadmon, Lysaer s'Ilessid accepted King Eldir's hospitality to spend the night ashore in joyful reunion with his lady. The couple were given private chambers behind guarded doors, with Fellowship protections to shield them until the active threat of Desh-thiere's curse dwindled back into quiescence.

  'Not just yet,' Lysaer murmured in response to Talith's urgent need to speak. 'Let me look at you.' His warm hands roved over the lace that clothed her shoulders, then rose to cup the slant of her jawline. He tipped up her chin and trained a devouring gaze on her face. 'You're more lovely than I ever remembered.'

  A tear swelled and slipped through the fringe of her lower lashes. Lysaer caught it on his knuckle, then began in awed reverence to explore the shorn ends of her hair. Strand after gilt strand sifted through his fingertips, to frond the smooth skin of her neck.

  Talith began, 'I should never -'

  Lysaer stopped her words with a brush of his lips. 'What's past is done. Don't trouble with regrets.' He closed his fingers over her nape and drew her into his kiss.

  The months of separation had been too long, too strained; emotion charged the moment beyond bearing. Talith locked her arms around her husband for fear her knees might give way. 'My love, forget Vastmark. Leave the pursuit of useless war. I beg you instead, return home. Let us build a sound kingdom on the city you've raised at Avenor.'

  Lysaer stroked his thumbs through the silky, short locks that curled against her temples. Temptation beckoned him. Her warmth in his arms made him feel restored, as though every fissure in his life could be cl
osed into balance by the simple balm of her presence. 'My lady,' he answered in heartsore regret, 'there can be no peace anywhere until my warhost in the south ends the life of the Master of Shadow.'

  'He's not worth your pursuit,' Talith murmured. 'His associates are craftsmen, sailhands, a half-starved band of shepherds. They support him for no grand cause.'

  'My enemy would have you think that.' Lysaer disentwined his fingers from their sleek netting of hair, took her hand, and drew her across the floor, a mosaic interlace of dolphins and sea foam in shades of pastel blue and grey. A bed with silk hangings and blankets of spun cashmere had been left turned down by the servants. To one side, a table inlaid with lapis lazuli held wax candles in stands carved of sandalwood, a tray of sweet grapes and white wine. Pink roses shed fragrance from a vase. No need or small comfort had been omitted.

  Lysaer swept his beloved in his arms and enthroned her amid the scented sheets. Neither drink nor fresh fruit were half so tempting as what swelled to each breath beneath the laced closure of her gown.

  The prince decided to make a ceremony of her undressing, and assuage their need to talk through the process. His unhurried hands began to unstring gold eyelets, while his eyes, shaded turquoise, drank her form. 'You weren't at Merior to see, my beloved. But a widow there had her twin children stolen away. A guardsman who lost his rank in the destruction of Alestron's armoury was held captive and horribly tortured. This Master of Shadow you wish to pardon used heated knives to mark his victim.'

  'But I did meet Tharrick.' Talith could scarcely forget the scars. 'He told me himself. Arithon had no hand in what befell him.'

  A bow slithered undone under Lysaer's ministrations. He worked a finger beneath the fabric and stroked. 'Enspelled by the snake, does the mouse tell the truth? We speak of a sorcerer who corrupts little children and lures them away from their mothers.'

  'You speak of Jinesse's twins? Fiark and Feylind?' Talith sat up, the sweet, languid shudder coaxed from her by dalliance cancelled out by distress. 'But Arithon was right. The woman lost her husband. For need and for grief, she wanted her children tied to her apron strings.'

  A small thread of chill curled through Lysaer's happiness. He propped his weight on one elbow and regarded his wife, whose allure left him breathless in her unstrung billows of dress lace. 'Lady, beloved.' He sighed, his forbearance framed in gentle patience. 'The Prince of Rathain is nothing if not subtle. You must recall as much from his byplay in Etarra. As well, he's a master at appearances. In ways without parallel, his wiles draw people in.'

  Talith let her bodice slide from her bare shoulders. She shrugged the ribboned cuffs off her wrists. 'His mind is difficult to fathom. I'm not convinced he's a criminal.'

  They were going to want the wine, after all. Lysaer fetched the carafe and filled two crystal goblets. He closed his lady's fingers upon the stem and watched her drink, his sapphire eyes dark with sympathy. 'I was taken in myself once, almost to my ruin. I never told you what I saw in a poor quarter alley the day before the Fellowship Sorcerers tried to crown the man as high king.'

  Lysaer set his back against the headboard, then drew her to lean on his shoulder. The hand not tied up with the wineglass cupped her hip as he rested his chin on her crown. 'Arithon once built a miniature ship out of shadow to amuse a pack of knacker's conscripts. They were children, underfed and ill-used. His clever little sorceries made them laugh. I was led to believe he thought no one was watching, and his pity for the young ones made me love him.'

  Lysaer spun the fluted crystal in slow turns between his fingers, his eyes fixed in memory, and fine sweat on his brow for a burden that still held the power to chafe him. 'The mask was designed,' he said, deadened by remorse. 'We marched into Strakewood and were slaughtered by traps, by subterfuge, by unspeakable nets of black sorcery. The killing was started and finished by children. They were the bait by which seven thousand townsmen came to die. Too late I understood how this Master of Shadow played upon my sympathies. In deliberate purpose, he made me believe he had a heart and a conscience. Then when the time suited, he used me as a dupe to further his bloody-handed slaughter.'

  Talith set aside her emptied goblet. Silk slid on silk as she nestled against her husband, her hands working through his shirt to ease the tense muscles in his chest. 'There's a chance your intuition wasn't wrong,' she suggested, haunted to self-honesty by thought of Arithon's blanched features as the mask had slipped, once before Jinesse, again for Sethvir; and not least, today in the public presence of an enemy upon the hour he heard news of Captain Dhirken's death.

  'Perhaps what you saw in that alley was real, and the rest sprang from the meddling of Desh-thiere,' Talith said.

  A bar of late sunlight sliced through the casement and illuminated Lysaer's face. Melted by his magnificence, Talith scarcely noticed how he studied her in turn, rapt as a man who laboured to unravel hidden meaning from a torn page of manuscript. In belief that he listened, she added, 'If the Fellowship Sorcerers are right, and the Mistwraith's curse forced this enmity to set your paired gifts of light and shadow at odds, why ruin our lives to pursue it?' She stroked the nap of gold stubble on his cheek and leaned into his solid comfort. 'Why not withdraw your warhost and wait? The truth will out soon enough. Either we'll see your half-brother raise arms against Tysan, or Arithon s'Ffalenn will go his own way and bloodshed can be avoided altogether.'

  'Do you honestly believe this campaign is misguided?' Lysaer asked without emotion. 'What made you lose faith in my cause?'

  'I saw Arithon s'Ffalenn go down on his knees to plead Fellowship protection from the curse,' Talith admitted. 'I was wrong, before. The crown prince I knew and hated in Etarra was a man I never understood.'

  'He's bewitched you,' Lysaer whispered. 'Even you.' He pulled through the clasp of her arms and arose, his gaze still locked to her face. 'Sithaer's blind furies! I don't believe this happened. How many nights did he whisper in your ear to convince you of his innocence at Jaelot? Did he have an excuse for the seven men who burned in the destruction of Alestron's armoury?'

  Talith's temper flared at her husband's shocked anguish, and for his assumption as well. 'Arithon s'Ffalenn made no such claim! Nor did he admit me to his confidence. Quite the contrary. We were enemies. But as a woman caught in the conflict between you, I could scarcely hide my eyes and stop my ears! The judgement I've drawn is my own.'

  'But of course,' Lysaer said. 'His traps for the innocent are never any less than diabolically perfect.'

  Talith surged erect in a flushed, magnificent rage. 'How dare you!' Her half-discarded gown bared her perfect, rose-tipped breasts. The necklace of white glass at her throat fanned a sparkle at each breath. Unconscious of her charms in the throes of her conviction, she was powerfully seductive, temptation enough to freeze a man's reason and undo him.

  Lysaer stepped back, mortally afraid. He longed to stay lost, then trembled for the urge. His honour as prince seemed a strident, dry duty, fed to ripe weakness by the strangling ties of love already spun about his spirit.

  In his wife's presence, he beheld his own downfall, and his shocking self-revulsion must have showed.

  'Merciful Ath, what are you thinking?' Talith raised her arms. 'Do you imagine I was sent back to corrupt you?'

  Again Lysaer retreated from her touch.

  'Daelion save us both, you infer a base congress!' Shattered beyond pride, Talith resorted to entreaty. 'Your enemy laid neither hand nor tie upon me!'

  Quite the opposite was true. Once she had surrendered to recognition of his assets, Arithon had been scrupulous to avoid her company. Yet the damage had happened regardless: beyond all salvation, the poison of mistrust raised a solid wall between the affection and forgiveness two people required for future happiness.

  'This wasn't meant to be,' Talith protested, the first break of heartache in her appeal. 'The ransom was done for gold, to pay for the defence to meet the allied might of your war host.'

  'Truth or subterfuge, what does it matte
r?' Lysaer braced his weakened stance on the back of a stuffed chair. 'My nemesis has spoiled your belief in me.'

  Her beauty was changeless, unforgettable. The tender need that had made her long months of captivity a living misery to endure coalesced to sharp pain, as a scalpel might open living flesh. The extreme, harsh strength Lysaer engaged to keep from breaking turned his face to a mask of white ice.

  Unstrung, not yet unmanned, he clung raggedly to principle. His heartbreak was terrible to witness as he strove to overmaster the bitter fruit of this betrayal. Royal as he was, raised to hold judgement in the face of self-sacrifice, the burden of bloodline had never before shackled him so harshly. Every line of his elegance was racked out of true, his self-belief shaken by mortal passion.

  'Oh, my dear!' Talith cried, unable to bear the gulf she sensed as it widened. 'Nothing has changed in my life or my love that ever mattered between us.' She moved again, begging the embrace that promised affirmation, to refound the basis of their union.

  Lysaer cried out. He shoved the chair in her path, one hand raised, while the other fumbled blindly for the latch. Then he reached the door, dragged it open.

  He was going to step through. Talith pressed her hands to her lips and pleaded through tears for one word in reconciliation. 'I implore you, don't leave this here. Don't let an enemy stand between us.'

  The sight of her, broken-spirited and begging for his sympathy, and yet still firm in her defection, snapped the last of Lysaer's pride. 'Before Ath, how I loved you!' he cried in strangled sorrow.

  Then the door thudded to. The latch plinked and caught. Sheltered on the far side, the Prince of the West pressed his cheek against the painted panel, punished to a vista too harrowing to admit the balm of tears.