Crusade

by Daniel M Ford

  “That is what some of the lords would counsel me to do, what they’d expect me to do.”

  “A good Baroness listens to the advice of her lords, but must bear the responsibility of her decisions alone.”

  “Aye,” Landen agreed. “Perhaps we can come to an arrangement?”

  “It is possible,” Allystaire allowed. “I would need to converse with the other servants of the Mother.”

  “I need to return to my men, take their measure. Some are convinced they’ll hang if you so much as look at them. What news can I bring to them?”

  “You can tell them anything we spoke of here,” Allystaire said. “And tell them to expect further visits from us; I will see that they are properly treated.”

  “Hanging weighs heavy on their minds.”

  “The Mother can be merciful, Landen. Mercy is a kind of strength,” Allystaire said. “Your father was beyond my capacity to grant it, as were the sorcerers. Your men need not be. I have very little stomach for more death just now. If any of them wish to know how such mercy may be granted, tell them to speak to the Voice.”

  “The barefoot girl?”

  “Her name is Mol.”

  Landen stood. Allystaire did the same. They walked towards the door of the Inn, Landen extending a hand that Allystaire shook. The Baron’s daughter made to open the door, then stopped. “Has any mention been made of a knight named Darrus Cartin? Anyone identified his body or kept him prisoner elsewhere?”

  The name pricked at Allystaire’s memory, though he couldn’t quite place it. Suddenly it snapped into place, Delondeur, wearing his ghastly armor, swinging his massive sword, spitting the name out in contempt.

  “Your father had him killed to provide him his strength, Landen,” Allystaire finally said. “He told me as much, when we dueled. I am sorry. Was he a friend?”

  “Aye,” Landen said. “A friend.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “You are right about my father. About looking straight at the thing. He needed to die.”

  Allystaire nodded, clapped her on the shoulder. “That is a hard thing to admit. Keep asking yourself that other question.”

  Landen nodded, then headed out into the cold, a pair of Oyrwyn soldiers having stood by the door to the Inn the entire time peeling away and following her in lockstep.

  Keeping asking yourself that question and you’ll be a better ruler than your father was, Allystaire thought, but did not say, as he watched Landen leave.

  CHAPTER 5

  Power in the Shadows

  Idgen Marte was impressed that Audreyn hardly started when she appeared in the corner of her pavilion. The noblewoman straightened in her chair, carefully balancing the wooden lap desk perched on her legs. Audreyn wore a dress of practical cut, skirts divided to allow her to sit a saddle, but far more richly made than any other garment Idgen Marte had seen in some time, and finely tooled sealskin boots with fur lining.

  “Why did you not simply ask to enter?”

  “First, I didn’t know if your guards would allow me,” Idgen Marte replied, staying, for the time being, in the shadows cast by the flickering brazier that was warming the tent. “And second, it is probably best for both of us if no one sees us talking.”

  Audreyn opened the hinged lid of the desk and set the sheet of parchment she’d been writing upon inside it, shut the lid, set the desk on a folding table to her left, and stood. “My husband might return. The men outside will hear us talking.”

  Idgen Marte smiled faintly. “I expect your brother will keep your husband busy for a while, if I know Allystaire at all. The guards won’t hear me. And if you’re willing to listen to what I have to say, well, I have to wager you’ll not speak of it to them.”

  “And if I do? Is there an ultimatum implied?”

  “’Course not,” Idgen Marte replied with a dismissive shrug. “I’m not here to threaten you. I want to get to know you. Ask you some questions.”

  “I should like to do the same,” Audreyn replied. “What exactly is your relationship with my brother?”

  Idgen Marte walked around the edge of the brazier, putting its warmth—and its shadow, her means of instant exit—at her back. “Eh?”

  “You sat at his bedside during his convalescence, like a troll guarding a cub. You love him?”

  Idgen Marte laughed faintly. “You’re being protective, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. Now answer my question.”

  “I will. It just seems odd. And no, not the way you mean.”

  “Then why? Why the fierce devotion?”

  Idgen Marte sighed, dropping her eyes to the ground for a moment. “It is one of my tasks.”

  “What do you mean? Tasks from this Goddess?”

  “Aye,” Idgen Marte said. “The Mother, the Goddess, the Lady. She’s not particular about what we call Her. When She Ordained me, to use Allystaire’s term, told me what I was to become, She also laid duties upon me. And one of them is to keep your brother alive when his own inclinations would kill him.”

  “Are you his shield bearer, then?”

  Idgen Marte smiled at the question. “Carrying a shield would give them a target. No. There are dangers he does not see. And those enemies never see me.”

  “An assassin, then? A strange companion for a self-proclaimed paladin.”

  “If I had to be. I would’ve killed Lionel Delondeur in his sleep in the Dunes, eaten a hearty dinner and slept well that night. But you err,” Idgen Marte added pointedly. “He is not self-proclaimed.”

  “Then why did you not?” Audreyn ignored Idgen Marte’s correction, opting instead to press a new inquiry. “It would have saved lives.”

  “No,” Idgen Marte said, shaking her head. “It wouldn’t. The consequences would’ve been dire. Instant chaos. Recriminations and wars that would still be raging. There would be no future for the Mother’s Temple if we announced it by assassinating a sitting Baron.”

  “No doubt that was my brother’s objection,” she said, moving to a table that held decanters of wine as well as goblets, all glass, expensive to own and to transport. She selected a decanter of white, poured two goblets full, and brought one to Idgen Marte. “He is prone to looking so far ahead, or so intently, that he does not see what is around him, dangerous or otherwise.”

  “That I will drink to, Lady…” Idgen Marte paused, then ventured uncertainly on. “Coldbourne? Or Lady of Highgate?”

  “Either is true,” Audreyn replied with a light shrug, then reached out to nudge the edge of her glass against Idgen Marte’s, and sip.

  For her part, Idgen Marte drank significantly more deeply, nearly emptying the goblet, then gasped appreciatively. “Cold, even this far north you people make some damn fine wine. Innadan?”

  “Damarind,” Audreyn corrected, taking another delicate sip. “Innadan’s primary rival in Baronial wine production.” She tilted her head over her glass. “You are southern.”

  “Concordat,” Idgen Marte confirmed.

  “Precisely what sort of a nation is that?”

  “A massive one,” Idgen Marte answered, pressing her lips thinly as she finished. Damn. She is better at this than I am. She corrected herself. More in practice.

  “Then what brought you this far north?”

  “I am a warrior. Was a blade-at-hire for a long time. We go where the work is, and for a long time the work has been here.”

  Audreyn was already opening her mouth to launch another query, but Idgen Marte cut her off by extending her goblet with a smile.

  Smiling in return, Audreyn took the goblet and moved to the table to refill it. Damn, that smile is much like Allystaire’s. It never touched her eyes.

  “The two of you have such a strong resemblance. Is it your father you favor or your mother?” Idgen Marte moved forward to accept the goblet.

  “Our father, for he is the only par
ent we share. My mother was Anthelme Coldbourne’s second wife.” She smiled wryly. “You know, in Oyrwyn, being said to share my brother’s features is not a compliment.”

  Idgen Marte snorted. “I’d wager he did well enough with the ladies.”

  “Well,” Audreyn admitted, “win enough tourneys and heads will turn. He was, perhaps, fairer in his youth.”

  “And what of your head, Lady Coldbourne and Highgate? Did it turn for a tourney winner?”

  Audreyn smiled, a faint blush moving along her smooth, pale, tastefully powdered cheeks. “I will admit that it did. There is something grand in all the foolishness, after all, the horses, the magnificent tourney plate, and he wears it well. But there is more to Garth than that, I assure you.”

  “Is there?” Idgen Marte said. “He still thinks Allystaire is going to ride north with him and claim Oyrwyn for his own, doesn’t he?”

  Audreyn frowned. “He won’t admit it in the light of day, but I’m afraid he shelters that hope, yes.”

  “If there is something grand in all the foolishness, the crashing of lances and fine armor atop finer horseflesh, why does that grandeur give them the right to turn your entire country into their Freezing melee ground?”

  Audreyn considered the question, eyes hardening again. “How do you suggest I stop them? Don armor myself and beat them all at their game?”

  “Armor just makes one a big slow target anyway. Better to never be there when they try to hit you. But there are things all of us can do. Before I elaborate, I need to know. How badly do you want to see the world change, Lady Coldbourne?”

  “See the world change? How, exactly?”

  “Your brother wants to end the wars, the Succession Strife, whatever you people prefer to call it. Foolish an aim as that seems, I’ve learned not to get in his way, just to cover his flanks while he does what he’s said he’ll do. And I could use your help.”

  Audreyn’s lips were a thin line, her eyes narrowed. It wasn’t that she looked like her brother so much as her mannerisms put one in mind of him: the deliberation, the care, the gravity.

  “Answer me one question.”

  Idgen Marte shrugged. “If I can.”

  “You followed him before he was ordained. Why?”

  “He hired me to guard Mol while he killed a warehouse full of slavers.”

  Idgen Marte was hoping that her frankness might cause Audreyn to stumble. There was no such luck as she didn’t even blink. “He must owe you quite a bit of weight at this point.”

  Idgen Marte laughed as lightly as she could. “We’re well past counting links, Ally and me.”

  “And then you were, what, immediately drawn into this new faith? You don’t seem the zealous type.”

  “I took some convincing.”

  “Then why’d you stay? A true sword-at-hire is only as good as the daily weight. I know this. You haven’t the connection to him that the Ravens do, so why?”

  “Suppose I could sense the story gathering around him.”

  “And you’re a collector of tales, then? A jongleur?”

  That brought Idgen Marte up short, glass halfway to her lips. “That’s three questions now, Lady of Highgate. Time to answer mine.”

  Audreyn inclined her head very faintly, hiding a smile behind her lifted wineglass.

  “What are you willing to do for your brother?”

  “I have convinced my husband to invade a neighboring Barony in small numbers in the dead of winter. I don’t think that’s a question that needs answering.”

  “Then what can you do to help him end the war?”

  Audreyn took a seat on one of the folding camp chairs, composing herself carefully. “I am not the sort to put on armor and go to battle. That is not unknown, of course; you’ve met Landen. And it is more common in the eastern Baronies. However,” she went on, raising one hand, and one elegant finger. “ Do you know what we’re taught in Oyrwyn, after things etiquette and needlework and music?”

  “Dancing,” Idgen Marte guessed, her tone flat.

  “Well, yes,” Audreyn admitted, flushing a bit. “Yet after all that, we are taught to manage the gold, the silver, the gemmary, the household stores. The lady of a fief takes charge of its supplies and its links.”

  Idgen Marte set her wine down and licked her lips. “And?”

  “I can make the weight disappear,” Audreyn said flatly. “No links to hire warbands, to pay the smiths and farriers, or to buy the horses. I can’t stop them from calling up the soldiery, or from culling the harvests to feed them. I can’t stop the knights, who must pay for their own arms. But I can damn well make it harder for Oyrwyn to carry on a war I don’t want it to fight. The weight of two of the largest fiefs are under my control.”

  “And would you? Make the weight disappear?”

  “If I have to, to keep it from Gilrayan Oyrwyn’s hands.”

  “You know I am asking a dangerous thing from you, Audreyn.”

  “I told you. If my brother would see it done, then so would I.”

  “I would not have taken him for the kind to inspire that sort of filial affection.”

  Audreyn smiled, but in a way that didn’t reach her eyes. “And yet, you follow him, for a reason as vague as ‘chasing stories.’ I will tell you why, and shed some light on who my brother is, Idgen Marte. But you must do the same for me.”

  In for a bent copper half, in for a chain of gold. “What would you ask, Lady Coldbourne?”

  “When I asked if you were a jongleur, you flinched.” Audreyn paused. “You are not a fearful woman, but that word hit you like a blow. Why?”

  Idgen Marte sighed. “If I’m going to tell you this, I’m going to need more wine.” She started to move for the table and the decanters it held, but Audreyn stood and beat her to it.

  She poured, passed, and sat on the bed while Idgen Marte took the chair.

  “So. Jongleur. Minstrel. Bard. Call it what you like. I was bound to be one,” Idgen Marte said, suddenly conscious of the low, grating rasp of her voice. “Apprenticed to one of the finest in all of the Concordat. Deitering Thale.” The name brought a palpable longing to her mind and body, her heart beating louder. “In the Concordat a minstrel is a glorious thing to be. It brings freedom, even power. In the right hands, a song is a devastating weapon. None were better at it than my master, until the day he came too close to a line. He was too well known to attack, but his student?”

  Idgen Marte reached to the collar of her cloak and shirt, hooked her fingers on them and pulled the garments down, exposing the scar that started at the side of her chin and drew a fissured white line well down the side of her neck. “The hired men knew what they were doing, with a blade so thin and fine and a knowledge of the body that most chirurgeons wouldn’t equal. In the Concordat’s greatest city, gold can buy any knowledge, no matter how obscure.”

  “They did what? Damaged your voice?”

  “Destroyed it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Killed the men who did it, and the man who hired them, and a whole lot of people in between. And I was the one called an outlaw for it.” Idgen Marte pulled her collar back into place. “What end did this questioning serve, Lady Coldbourne?”

  “If we are to work together, I have to know who you are.”

  “Fair enough,” Idgen Marte said. Self-consciously, she tugged at her collar again, pulled the right side of it a touch higher. “Now. Enlighten me about your brother. Show me that he’s not just a blunt instrument.”

  “Our father died when I was very young, my mother soon after. Both carried away by a particularly bad flux. I was barely five years old and I hardly knew my brother except as a man who always smelled of horses and steel and sweat and was never home. When he came back to Coldbourne Hall that autumn, I was terrified of him. I hid in a wardrobe. Do you know what he did?”

 
“Hammered it open and lectured you on your responsibilities?”

  Audreyn laughed. “No. He just told me that he would be in the courtyard with a new pony he’d just brought home and needed to exercise. The riding lessons that followed earned my trust. He spent the entire autumn earning my affection. Allystaire knew if he didn’t take charge of me, no one else would. He made sure I had tutors, took me with him to Wind’s Jaw in the winter. He promised that whenever he could be near me, he would be. And he was as good as his word. When he returned from campaign, he would bring presents, speak to me of what my tutors had taught me, and he always brought me with him to Wind’s Jaw for the winters,” Audreyn said, finally pausing to reach for her wine to wet her lips and tongue.

  “He was your father as much as your brother.”

  “Some combination of the two. Anthelme was not terribly interested in me, and my mother was ineffectual. Almost everything I learned, I owe to him.”

  Idgen Marte paused for a moment, sipped at her wine. “An autumn flux after your father’s death, is that the same flux that killed Allystaire’s…” She paused, searching for a word.

  “Love? Dorinne. Yes, it was,” Audreyn said. “I never met her, or if I did, I do not recall. I didn’t even know about her until years later.” She smiled. “You know he is secretly a romantic, yes?”

  “Allystaire? Cold, he only told me about her because he thought we were going to die within the turn. Said that plenty of time had passed, enough to heal the wound.”

  “He would say that,” Audreyn replied. “Do you know what he did?” When Idgen Marte shook her head, Audreyn continued. “He had her remains moved to a guard tower just outside Wind’s Jaw, on a southerly approach. It sounds a bit morbid, yes, but he did it so he could visit her grave when he was there, for her home was a long, impassable journey in the winter. You’d never see it unless you knew to look for it, as it sort of hangs off one side of the tower, hidden by the battlements. He kept it planted with her favorite flowers. Mountain veitch and loosestrife, as I recall. He never rode that trail, to or from Wind’s Jaw, without stopping, climbing the tower stairs, and slipping down to the graveside. Not once.”