by Janny Wurts
Then mature poise shattered. Esfand surged forward in naked relief and burst out, agonized, “Khadrien—”
Cosach swept the lad into a bear hug. Gruff with pride for the young man in his clasp, he said, “Never mind. Later. We already know. Your mother’s well, and you have a new sister to welcome. Cordaya.”
Hard at Esfand’s heels came Siantra. Grown as well, but fretted rail thin, her coltish frame still moved with incongruous grace, but no more in impetuous innocence: under charcoal brows bunched into a frown, her enormous, pale eyes held an unearthly light. Met by her diminutive mother, she burst out, “I’m sorry! The black sword, Alithiel—”
“We’re aware of that, also.” Laithen embraced her daughter, tearful and smiling. “Khadrien’s exploits can be discussed later.” Overjoyed though she was by reunion, the fair-skinned outsider the scout guards hauled in blindfolded had not escaped her. “That won’t be his Grace. Who else have you brought us?”
Cosach scowled at the bound stranger, which prompted the patrol to present the unplanned arrival forthwith. “Inside,” he snapped, then, “You, as well,” to the son just reassessed at arm’s length. “Sit with us. I’ll hear your report once this trespasser’s case is settled to my satisfaction.”
Siantra and Esfand exchanged a tense glance, not canny enough to duck Laithen’s quicksilver intelligence. “Not now!” The jerk of her chin towards the tent implored them to retire without argument.
Commanded to the side-lines, the youngsters watched, silent, as the scouts dragged Tarens from horseback and hauled him to the tent for summary judgement. Laithen settled at the end of the trestle, overshadowed by Cosach, who stalked in and retrieved his sword. The baldric hung in place at his shoulder when the stranger’s person was manhandled before him and shoved onto his knees in the dirt.
“He’s unarmed?” Cosach cracked. “Then cut the wretch free. I would see a man’s face while he’s questioned.” Through the bustle as the scout escort wrestled their trussed prisoner back upright, the High Earl repeated Laithen’s clipped inquiry. “What have you brought us?”
Siantra’s swift assessment, called out of turn, “An ally who knows Prince Arithon better than we do!” entangled with Esfand’s appeal, “Let the fellow speak for himself.”
“Ally!” Surprise never softened High Earl Cosach to leniency. He kicked a stuffed hassock towards the armed scouts. “Sit the trespasser down.” Arms braced on the board at his back, he watched slit-eyed, while the scouts prodded their charge as directed, spring-wound to strike at the least provocation. They severed the knots at the intruder’s roped wrists, then whisked off the cloth bundled over his head.
Blond hair in need of a trim pasted the fellow’s flushed features: a visage moulded by country-bred honesty, handsome before the welted scar that disfigured his broken nose. Weathered to creases by sunburn, blue eyes blinked in the dazzle of sunlight shafted through the open tent flap.
A poised threat recessed into gloom, Cosach sized up the scouts’ catch at stilled leisure. His own stance stayed hackled as he found himself as directly surveyed in turn. The captive did little but chafe his cramped hands, an innocuous gesture that also lent space for his unmasked senses to reorient. Plain as a shout, his incensed silence protested his uncivil treatment.
“Rough times have returned,” Cosach allowed softly. “Town-born strays are apt to be head-hunters’ spies. Best give us your reason for slinking into the free wilds.”
The stranger’s response cut past Siantra’s protest. “I would have your name before I confide.” Head tipped upwards in dangerous inquiry, he laced his limbered fingers.
The realm’s caithdein showed teeth and responded with all of his titles. Then, mocking, he inclined his head and acknowledged the witness of Laithen s’Idir.
“Ah!” Wheaten eyebrows rose with brazen amusement. “By all means, I’ll endorse Sidir’s lineage for probity. Provided, of course, the lady serves also as unimpeachable oversight for my case in turn.” Clasped fists hardened, the rogue leaned aggressively forward. “I am known by Iyat-thos Tarens.” In flawless Paravian, he repeated Cosach’s state titles, added Laithen’s full name with deference, then declared, “Mind your impeccable tradition since I will deliver the tidings I bring on my feet!”
He shoved erect then, palpably angered as the armed guard behind slapped a hostile grip on their weapons.
Cosach’s barked order defused the attack. Equally matched in height and broad stature, he had not misread the capable stamp of the farmer. Yet the balanced stance wearing the guise of a crofter pitched more than his scouts onto prickling edge. Cosach acknowledged the fighting trim on a man whose business screamed primal danger.
Tarens invoked clanbred etiquette, crossed his wrists at the heart, and continued. “I bring word of your own. Be it known to s’Valerient kin that my best effort could not avert tragedy. Your boy, Khadrien, crossed the Wheel in Scarpdale in the brave service of Rathain’s prince.”
Laithen made a sound, hands pressed to her mouth, while Cosach’s chopped signal enforced her silence. “Town-whelped upstart! How dare you presume.”
“To your shame, on the contrary,” Tarens replied. “Explain why three youngsters not grown to majority left the safety of Halwythwood to shoulder a perilous cause for the realm. The answer you give better satisfy, obligated as I have been by the shade of your titled ancestor, Jieret s’Valerient. His outraged memory as a clan chieftain demands a reckoning in full.”
Cosach purpled.
“He’s telling the truth!” Siantra pealed, desperate.
Which shocking breach impelled Laithen to break protocol. A diminutive brown sparrow swooped in to scold at an eagle’s threat to the nest, she flung herself between the insolent stranger and Rathain’s incensed caithdein. “Sit down, both of you!” Her open palm slapped Cosach’s barrel chest, while she spun in chastisement on Tarens. “Don’t condemn the harsh choice you know nothing about. Ath above! If your claim of connection is genuine, then find the civilized reason to air both sides of the matter before you cause bloodshed.”
When Tarens folded back onto the hassock, face masked behind shuttered hands, she pealed over his shoulder to one of the scouts. “End this cruel falsehood. Now! I will not abide! You’re sent. Yes, at once! He’s assigned at the horse picket.”
Yet the person she summoned required no messenger: a sheepish cough and a crack in the privacy flap disclosed the eavesdropping presence of a gangling scamp in trail leathers, the carroty wisp of yesterday’s clan braid gnawed between nervous teeth. “I’m here, actually,” confessed Khadrien, singed red for the prank played on his aghast companions. “Sorry about that. But who could resist? Since you thought I was dead, you deserved the comeuppance for leaving me.” He managed no more, overturned with a yelp as Siantra and Esfand pounced both at once, knocked him flat, and pounded him breathless.
Amid bemused commotion, Laithen transferred her repressive scowl from Cosach. Sympathy moved her to grip Tarens’s wrist as she realized his shaken clasp masked relieved tears.
She said quickly, “We had word from a Sorcerer, yes, within days. The youngsters should have been informed straightaway. Since our miscreant carelessly lost the heirloom sword and the horse, the Fellowship decided he had no further business mucking about in the Kingdom of Havish. Asandir dispatched Khadri home from the focus circle at Fiaduwynne. As you see, he has suffered less than he deserved. I’m so sorry! No one meant to be callous. We had no idea that you’d shouldered a harrowing trip and misplaced anguish in our behalf.”
Cosach recoiled and roared at Laithen, “Dharkaron’s grief, woman! What insanity prompts your trust in an outsider whose outrageous claim is not verified?”
Laithen paused. Rod thin, she glared upwards at her chieftain: who backed off a step, hiked one hip on the trestle, and perched in stonewalled confrontation.
Laithen’s whiplash grin followed. “Likely I’ve seen the same thing as my daughter. This man shares your lineage in truth. You’re n
ot convinced yet? Let me show you proof.”
She bent once more to the town-born on the hassock, stunned yet in mortified after-shock. “Here’s the filthy secret to dealing with Khadrien. If his exploits bother your conscience again, understand that fecklessness runs in his blood. As our High Earl’s family descends from Barach, here’s the flip side of history: Khadri’s branch springs from the sister, who wed Sevrand s’Brydion.”
Tarens lowered his hands. “You say Jeynsa married the bullheaded nephew of Alestron’s warmongering duke?” Through an unembarrassed sheen of stalled tears, his expression showed genuine horror. “The minx! Was she mad to breed with that clutch of rife trouble?” He winced. “Though fiends plague the hindmost, nobody else owned the cast-iron bollocks to deal with her spitfire nature.”
All at once, he succumbed to the irony, threw back his blond head, and laughed.
When finally Iyat-thos recovered his breath, he bypassed the shield of Laithen’s acceptance and tackled Cosach’s recalcitrance directly. “I’ve been endowed with Jieret’s memories and the full measure of his trained skills. Not to supplant your sworn charge as caithdein, but to grant Arithon a reliable ally to access his forgotten past.”
Cosach fielded the remarkable statement, prepared to seek disposition. “This is an appeal?”
“Perhaps,” Tarens ventured. “I came to help your effort to contact his Grace and restore his connection with Rathain’s feal clans. As a friend, I entreat your council to weigh my attributes in good faith. My background bought your youngsters safe passage through Backwater.” Through the distraction of Khadrien’s glib talk, and Siantra and Esfand’s recounted experience, the outsider offered, “A town-bred crofter might move freely where clansfolk would face deadly risk.”
Granted his own shrewd angle of insight, Cosach spun and accosted the youngsters in cahoots by the curtained alcove. “I’ll have your opinion before your report! Do I rely on this fellow to keep the integrity of our affairs?”
As observer, Laithen interpreted two boys’ crest-fallen consternation, then lost her breath, chilled by the uncanny depth in her daughter’s regard. “Surely we must.” She brushed off her chieftain’s disgruntled surprise. “Well, how else can we hope to thwart these three miscreants from trying their next lame-brained escapade?”
But Cosach’s assessment of the errant trio belied her dismissive remark. The stunning expansion of Siantra’s talent, offset by Esfand’s obdurate commitment and Khadrien’s hot-headed impulses, suggested that the three together posed something greater than their individual destinies.
“Ath wept!” muttered Cosach, jellied by a fore-running tremor of prescience. He folded onto the nearest hassock and dismissed the scouts’ guard from the tent. His capitulation called upon Laithen to scrounge someone’s brandy and a suitable vessel.
“Iyat-thos!” he concluded in outright demand. “You’re prepared to swear a guest’s oath of amity?”
Shown the man’s unreserved acquiescence, Cosach’s broad gesture invited the townsman to claim a proper seat at the trestle. “Let’s hear your story. Leave nothing out! You say our dead ancestry has seen fit to provide living guidance from beyond the veil? Then I’ll have the facts on the matter straight up! What under Athera’s mysteries are Rathain’s liege folk being stiffened to face?”
Summer 5923
Realignments
Called onto the carpet before the High Priest at Erdane, the Light’s First Commander, known as The Hatchet, accepts the new orders for his beaten troops; and while eyes chill as ice chips flick down the lines, his clamped lips flex into a predator’s grin, that his proposal to harden morale has been endorsed to his satisfaction …
Amid the rainy streets of East Bransing, a charitable, blond aristocrat halts his retinue for a destitute elder who pleads to black his boots for a penny; and when the fellow’s deft expertise brings up the reason for his unemployment, the tale of a master’s demise in the war prompts a kind invitation to serve in his Lordship’s household …
Briefly returned to Althain Tower from the High Queen of Havish’s late coronation, Asandir sees his black stallion stabled, then all but collides with Sethvir, caught descending the stairwell in agitation: “The Prime,” he admits. “Her next move’s set in motion, a play of deceitful exploitation far worse than anything she’s tried before …”
Summer 5923
II. Entanglement
The swift onset of evening in the high Storlains welled a breath of dire cold off the glaciers, even in summer. Arithon shivered, chilled since the cloud-bank that rolled over the peaks had shrouded the sunlight. Caught in the gloaming with clothing and hair still damp from his wash in a freshet, he secured his gleaned bundle of rushes. Then he turned his dispirited steps towards the cabin in the ravine.
Night’s gloom deepened his cankered malaise. He skirted the feathered boughs of stunt firs, unmoved by the primal thrill of a wolf pack howling beyond the ridge. The vigorous rustles of nocturnal creatures failed to shake off his low spirits. Though a night and full day of hard labour had laid Vivet’s knifed attacker to rest, the nameless man’s violent passage left a nagging sense of unease.
No record remained to decipher the final words left unsaid. Arithon’s sensitive talent had failed to sift meaningful clues from the roiled cascade of the regional flux lines.
That arcane endeavour, and the back-breaking chore of hauling loose stone for a grave cairn, yielded an exhaustion without numb relief. Subsequent pursuit of wild herbals fell short as a peaceful distraction. Scraped hands and the ache of spent muscle could not blunt the appalling wound to his spirit.
Arithon had never grappled the scope of such pain. The brute history packed into a sliver of crystal seared his heart-strings to anguish and unreeled a desolate future.
Last place on Athera he wished to revisit, the cabin offered the nearest shelter. He needed the immediate warmth to dry off and sleep before he moved on.
The rose tint of the afterglow bled from the ranges as he retraced his path down the remnant track, cut by the harness mule that had once hauled an ice cutter’s sledges. Spent, he crossed the streamlet and mounted the log stair, zigzagged upwards from the deep ravine. His arrival at the derelict shack found no one inside. The unlatched door swung open to fastened shutters and quiet.
Except yesterday’s velvet-thick darkness had changed. No longer musty, the air wore the spiked fragrance of balsam. The boards underfoot were swept clean of debris. Once his fumbling, chilled hands lit a spill, he took stock of Vivet’s industrious tenancy: a bed of cut pine boughs arranged in one corner; also a table fashioned from the salvaged wreck of a muleteer’s sleigh. Logs hewn from a deadfall served as makeshift seats, with birch kindling stacked by the hearth.
The axe wielded to split the stockpiled fuel seemed nowhere in evidence.
Arithon ignited the woodchips in the grate. The quickened flame melted the shadows and confirmed: the tiny cabin lay empty around him, with Vivet gone off on her own.
The small blaze burned fast. Arithon added more logs. Then he shed the cross-strap of his baldric, unslung his sheathed sword, and settled to rest by the fireside with the black blade propped against his bent knees. He soaked in the heat, grateful for privacy. Later was soon enough to assist Vivet’s busy intent to claim residence. Since noose traps for game were best set before daybreak, he catnapped, forehead braced on the crooked forearm that cradled his weapon.
If the exquisite enchantments forged into the weapon spun him uncanny dreams, he was not given solitude to plumb their content. The scrape of the door, then the icy draught wafted over the threshold signalled Vivet’s return.
Snapped awake, Arithon surged erect in apology. “I shall leave at once for your peace of mind.”
But if his presence seemed cause for dismay, the woman did not shrink from the surprise encounter. The knot torch in her hand revealed tidied hair, russet coils pinned at her nape with a hazel sprig still jewelled with peridot leaves. She carried two woodcocks strun
g up by the legs. Also a resourceful haul of wild berries, tubers, and greens, bundled up in her mended overskirt. Pale cream, marked with bruises, her oval face turned. Wide-eyed, she regarded him.
“Please stay. I don’t fear you.” The hatchet looped through her sash lent teeth to a statement at odds with her tremulous grip on the brand.
Moved under the whispered flutter of flame, Vivet spilled her bounty upon the crude table.
“I brought food for two. In case you came back.” She nodded towards the evergreen bed, where the brightened light showed a cache of muddied belongings. “My things tumbled down-slope in the scuffle last evening. I saw your work during my search to recover them. You need not have shouldered my troubles to start with, far less stayed on to give decent burial to a criminal stranger’s remains. A meal’s the least you deserve for the kindness.”
Pain hitched her hesitant step. The livid bruises on her throat and neck strained her voice husky with swelling. Defiantly able to fend for herself, she jammed the knife used to dispatch her assailant into the boards, then attacked the gruesome task of dressing game.
Her presumptive gesture of repayment galled. Arithon shook off a stab of pique. Tired past sense, he recovered his misplaced courtesy. “At least allow me my fair share of the plucking.”
“I require no help!” Vivet’s quaver banished him to a safe distance.
Arithon tried conversation to soothe her jagged aggression. “You mentioned before you were on your way home?”
Vivet’s pinched mouth jerked. “Why not say what you think?” Knife brandished to lop off the birds’ heads, she sighed. “Surely you’d say these rugged mountains are no place for a woman alone.”
Which venomous bitterness attacked first in assumption: that men believed female vulnerability invited the opportune assault of a predator. Masterbard, healer, Arithon let her stung denouncement flounder in silence.