by Tom Lloyd
‘Cancelled? But of course not.’ Derran chuckled, freshly shaved cheeks rosy with humour and the chill of without. ‘They’ve been praying for weeks that the snow will come in time. It’s a poor winter hunt without it and more dangerous, unless the ground freezes of course. The wolves get a fighting chance since their coats will have turned weeks back, and riders will be more able to see brichen boars before one’s upon them. Caught unawares, they could be unseated and killed by the fearsome brutes.’
‘It sounds an awful way to spend the morning,’ muttered Calath.
Though he was approaching thirty-five winters, the marshal felt unaccountably nervous at the coming day. He picked idly at the food placed before him, but could stomach nothing more that some honeyed porridge and weak tea. A sudden shiver passed through his body, as if an ominous cloud had unexpectedly covered the sun, and his skin prickled up into an army of goosebumps.
‘My dear man, are you quite well?’ Derran asked with concern. ‘You look as though someone has walked over your grave.’
‘I rather think they have,’ answered Calath without thinking, then shook his head at his own words. ‘Forgive me, I’m talking nonsense now. I do feel rather curious, but no doubt it was the wine from last night.’
‘Is that all? You look like you’ve had a fright. Unpleasant dreams?’
‘I, I don’t believe so. I just have the sense today will not be entirely agreeable, that there is some turn for the worst in the air.’
‘Ah,’ exclaimed the magistrate, ‘you’re beginning to sound like the old men from the village! Never happier than when they’re predicting disaster, those old boys, but I’d always imagined it to be a country trait. Still, I suppose your work must bring you into contact with such superstitions all the time, it was bound to rub off sooner or later.’
His words had the desired reaction. Calath’s colour returned somewhat and he spluttered his indignation at Derran’s suggestion.
‘How can you compare my research to the chatterings of the ignorant? And as for dismissing it as superstition, that’s an impious insinuation as well as insulting. Much of my work concerns …’
Derran held up a hand, holding back the laughter at his friend’s sudden passion. ‘I apologise, Calath! I know perfectly well the validity of your work. Was it not you who introduced me to the king when I last visited Narkang? If that great man endorses and supports your research then I hold it as true as commandments from the Gods themselves. I merely intended to demonstrate to you that the best method to shake an ill feeling is to stir the blood – and don’t you feel the better for it?’
Calath opened his mouth to speak, then thought for a moment. He smiled, embarrassment lurking at the corners of his mouth.
‘I suppose so,’ he mumbled.
‘Exactly,’ declared the magistrate in a satisfied tone. ‘I’m a fat fool only when it suits me, remember?’
With a snap of the fingers, Derran attracted the attention of his wolfhound. By the time he’d picked up a thick bacon rind from his plate the dog was sat at his side, expectantly licking its lips. The rind went down in one snap, but Derran ignored the hound’s hopeful stare as it licked its chops.
‘Right, I think we should be off.’
The magistrate stood and rapped the table with a professional assurance to draw breakfast to a close. Calath dabbed a napkin to his lips and rose to follow. At the door he hesitated for a second, glancing back out through the window nervously as if expecting some wild boar to be waiting for him out there. Nothing returned his gaze, only the idyllic scene of before, but still he couldn’t fully erase the apprehension crawling over his skin. He jumped as the wolfhound scrambled down the wooden passageway after its master, the clatter of its claws echoing loudly in the enclosed space.
Only once the dog was out of view could he bring himself to follow, pushing heavily down on his stick as his leg felt heavier and more unwieldy as ever. The smell of beeswax polish accompanied him as Calath headed to the front porch, carefully stepping around the ageing bearskin rug in the centre of the hall. Its snarling, open maw seemed to follow him as he struggled down the stone steps; Calath could feel the smooth press of teeth upon his neck even as he walked away. Only the slam of the coach door relieved the pressure, and then at last he could see the morning for the beautiful day it was.
A sentinel line of straight-backed ash trees stood on each side of the driveway, kissed by the low, crisp golden light. The fields were fragments of a childhood memory; too perfect for the here and now and yet they endured for the entire journey. By the time their driver announced sight of their destination, Calath was as cheery as his hearty friend. Through the coach window he watched the country house grow large against the horizon and, as they drew nearer, was struck by the sprawling bulk of the hall.
Alscap Hall was a house far larger than his own; a mansion without fortification and cultivated grounds stretching far off in all directions. Despite its traditional architecture, Calath realised it had to be a recent construction. Only with the peace and prosperity of King Emin’s reign could someone build in these parts with so little regard for defensive measures.
Made of reddish sandstone that seemed to glow in the sunlight and laced with snow, Alscap Hall was built in a square with thin towers reaching up from each corner. High arched windows were spaced down each flank, the near-side looking over frosted flowerbeds and statues to a large yew maze that stood in the midst of cropped lawns.
‘An attractive pile, isn’t it?’ Derran commented. ‘The count is new money so a little ostentatious – those towers for example, my goodness – but an excellent sort all the same.’
‘Where did his money come from? It must have cost a fortune to build,’ breathed Calath, mentally estimating the number of rooms the hall must contain.
‘And it did by all accounts, but Alscap worked hard for the money. He started as a merchant’s apprentice so he claims, but by the age of forty held a near monopoly on the coastal trade route. It’s said he was instrumental in the submission of Denei to the king.’
‘And was rewarded accordingly?’ mused Calath, tearing his eyes away from the building. The magistrate nodded.
‘And the rest; trade routes, preferential taxation, royal commissions, even swifter justice if you believe rumour. But perhaps you’d know more about that than I, being a confidant of the king.’ Derran was mocking him now, but the serious look on Calath’s face stopped Derran’s amusement short.
‘Hardly a confidant, but the king is a master when it comes to recognising ability and using it to his own gain. The man would be a tyrant of the most monstrous order if his goals were meaner.’
‘How do you mean?’
Derran’s questioning face reminded Calath that few men were blessed with their king’s luminous presence. Few outside his enclosed circle knew much at all about the man who wore the crown. King Emin, for all his political genius, was a secretive individual who disdained the social scene his queen deftly ruled.
‘Well now, I suppose the best way to describe it is that though I feel I know King Emin only slightly, he remembers everything he’s ever been told about me. The man is so intelligent he can quite capably debate with me on my own field of study – though he holds no particular interest in the subject. As men become your firm friends after five minutes of conversation, so they become Emin’s awe-struck acolytes. But as much as I respect him, I fear him more so. There is nothing beyond him if he feels it necessary.’
‘But still you align yourself to him?’ asked Derran, his voice tinged with ghastly wonder.
Calath looked deep into his friend’s large, red-veined eyes and nodded sadly. ‘Oh yes, though sometimes I wonder. But if you spoke to him about such matters – with a spirit bolder than mine – I have no doubt you would fail to dispute a word he says. What sets him aside from a despot is that this nation is his life, his reputation and his legacy. No, perhaps that does not set him sufficiently apart – in addition, the strength of the nation at every
level of society is his concern and the man assesses his work with an unbiased eye.’
‘So you would not be surprised by the rewards he bestowed upon Alscap?’
‘Not at all, Emin is a man you can trust. His enemies can trust that he will destroy them entirely, whether through ingenuity or force. His friends can trust that he will not forget a bargain, however unforgiving he may be to those who fail him.’
Derran stared at his friend for a moment before he shivered at the bleak world of politics. ‘Then I’m glad that’s isn’t my life. The law may have its faults, but at least it follows rules I can fathom. The boundaries are set and written down for men to read and conform to. In your world it seems a man can die without even knowing what he did was wrong.’
‘My world?’ exclaimed Calath suddenly, as if waking from dream. ‘Please don’t think that I have any interest in that life at all. You’ve seen how I live; I’m hardly Count Antern. The king only maintains a relationship with me because there are few academics within the civil service. He seems to enjoy exercising his brain more than he has need of my knowledge.’
‘How very modest of you,’ beamed Derran unexpectedly, ‘I shall introduce you to Alscap as special intellectual to the king!’
‘If you do so I shall get right back in this coach and you can walk yourself home. I’m sure that bag of fur there will enjoy it more than you,’ Calath snapped back, waving a hand at the wolfhound curled peacefully under the seat.
Derran barked a laugh, at which the dog pricked up its ears but made no effort to move.
‘I’m serious, Derran. I despise the men that any association to the king tends to attract. Please don’t mention I know him, even as modestly as I do.’
The magistrate’s merriment was hushed immediately by the earnest, near desperate expression on Calath’s face and he nodded in acquiescence. Calath’s mood softened at his friend’s immediate acceptance, but before any more could be said the coach came to a halt.
Calath stepped down to see a fair range of coaches standing idle in the wide driveway, a handful of footmen gathered around the gaudiest, hunched into greatcoats against the chilly air and puffing away on thin clay pipes with their peers. An immaculately liveried footman opened the door and stepped back to reveal the mansion in all its glory. Only the skeletons of creeper around its wide domed porch seemed the slightest shade out of place and in the low winter sun even those sparkled magnificently with frost.
On the first step of the porch was a second servant, a silver tray of steaming goblets perched on the fingers of his right hand. As Calath approached, the man noted his struggle on the gravel and gave a click of his free fingers. The footman smoothly slid around Derran’s portly form to arrive with an assisting arm, one that was gratefully accepted by Calath as he contended with the high steps.
He reached the top, noting with pleasure that they held no treacherous sheen of frost, took a goblet of the spiced wine and turned with his spirits restored to the great double doors before him. At that moment they opened and a tall, burly man marched through, stopping short when he saw Calath standing there. Noticing Derran following, the man’s face split into a huge grin and he strode forward to grasp the magistrate’s hand.
‘Magistrate Derran! How good of you to come,’ he exclaimed loudly. A slight coarseness to his accent affirmed Calath’s assumption that this was Count Alscap. A working man come good in both voice and appearance; possessing the sort of hearty assurance and purpose that Calath, with his deformed leg and bookish mind, had never managed to cultivate as much as he admired it.
‘My dear Alscap, you have the finest wine cellar in the county. More than enough reason to endure the strain of your company,’ replied Derran, laughing and pumping hard on the Count’s hand. ‘May I present the most magnificent of my friends? Count Alscap, this is the Marshal Calath of Narkang.’
Calath found his slender hand engulfed to the wrist in a muscular grip.
‘A pleasure, Marshal Calath,’ Count Alscap declared. ‘I’ve heard Derran speak of you often; he tells me you’re the foremost scholar of our age.’
‘Derran flatters me,’ replied Calath, well aware how timid his soft voice must sound in such hale company. ‘Such a claim I might only assert in my tiny field of study, and mostly because my contemporaries are of a rather less scientific nature. Also, I do not herald from such noble lands as Narkang; that is simply where I prefer to live and work. My family is from the rather more modest parts – Inchets, to the south-east of Narkang.’
The count nodded encouragingly. ‘Not been there, but I know the name from my travels. They’re said to brew some good beers in those parts, the Gods only know why I never managed to visit! Nonetheless, you’re more than welcome to my home, I’d never have forgiven Derran had he denied me such rare company.’
Alscap’s manner was so disarmingly honest and welcoming Calath found himself going against his nature and warming to the man immediately. They were the words of court flattery perhaps, but the count’s deportment could not be further from that condition. He looked a man unafraid to be exactly who he wished to be, and Calath envied him that.
‘Exactly as I predicted,’ declared Derran with satisfaction. He opened his mouth to speak again but noticed a sternly dressed man hovering behind Alscap, wringing his hands anxiously. The count followed Derran’s gaze and his face became stormy.
‘Ah yes. Derran, Marshal Calath, please excuse me. My man here has some catastrophe he needs to show me,’ said Alscap, adding in an irritated tone. ‘Quite what, he’s yet to bloody tell me, but apparently it’s disastrous enough to drag me away from my guests.’
The count glared at his man, who wilted visibly but kept his lips firmly pursed as he shot a nervous glance at the newcomers.
Derran stared at the servant in puzzlement, but then shrugged and his cheer returned. ‘Well we shall have to find our own way; I hope your mystery is worthwhile. If it is, come and fetch us!’
With that he stepped aside and bowed to the pair to let them past. Calath shuffled back as much as he could, for form’s sake rather than any lack of space on the enormous porch, and received a cordial nod of acknowledgement from the count. His path clear, Alscap took up a furious pace with the servant scurrying alongside and Calath realised they were heading toward the stable-block, where three men stood with pitchforks before an open door.
Now,’ announced Derran, dismissing the curious scene. He took his friend’s arm and began to manoeuvre him inside. ‘Let us join the others. They are on the east terrace?’ The question was directed toward the servant who had been staring out after his master. The man jerked back to the present and nodded hurriedly.
Once inside the magnificent hallway Derran had to urge his friend on yet again as Calath hesitated to admire the room. A great staircase rose ahead, branching out both left and right and curling back to a landing above. A magnificent chandelier hung above them, while tall lacquered cabinets and a pair of stag-heads adorned the wall. The magistrate led Calath around the staircase to a passageway directly behind it.
This took them to a serene courtyard where a pair of orange trees overlooked an ornamental pond. Alscap Hall rose on each side of this square haven, while a single path meandered through the gravel to a second door up ahead. As they entered, the sound of casual chatter met their ears and they quickly found themselves entering a crowd all dressed for either hunting or walking; most also sporting badges of rank and title.
Calath hesitated in Derran’s wake at the open doorway, surprised at the numbers gathered. The large reception room was full, as was the terrace beyond its three open doors. Children ran through the forest of bodies, young men posed and competed in their army uniforms or the latest fashion, while ladies did likewise or admired the colours and trappings of honoured soldiers.
A few knights wore their full colours over hunting leathers, and one scarred veteran even displayed the green-and-gold of the Kingsguard, to the admiration of all. Calath could see a formidable woman
of about fifty keeping close to the veteran’s side, basking in the esteem her husband was being shown. Though the man bore several scars to the face and one eye was concealed by a patch, this did not seem to hinder the confidence with which he addressed the fluttering young lady before him.
Derran stopped when he had advanced half a dozen steps into the room, matching the gaze of those who had turned to stare, nodding to others and staring through a handful until he saw his quarry. He turned, surprised to find Calath not at his heel, and gestured for the marshal to accompany him.
Calath did so, discomfort accentuating the weight he put on his faithful stick, but he managed to keep his head up as he made his way onto the terrace behind the widely welcomed magistrate. It quickly became apparent their destination was a handsome family of three men and two women. Ruling the conversation was a knight in full colours whose fiercely earnest expression melted to a smile when he saw the newcomers.
‘Magistrate Derran, so good to see you again.’
Derran beamed to all and pumped the outstretched hands of all three men with his usual fervour, before graciously kissing the hands of both ladies in tailored riding dresses.
‘Sir Pardel, may I introduce a dear friend of mine? Marshal Calath, not of Narkang as he has already corrected me today, but of Inchets.’
Calath felt himself redden, but the smiles were friendly and he managed to join them rather than shrink back.
‘Marshal Calath, it is an honour to meet you,’ said Sir Pardel, bowing and then raising one hand to introduce the others. ‘My son, Adim,’ he supplied, indicating a broad youth dressed in regimental colours of white and blue. Father and son had more than a similarity between them, both men tall with deep chests and twinkling green eyes.
‘My younger brother, Unmen Corl.’
Calath had reached out to grasp the hand of the unmen, but swiftly moved to kiss his onyx ring at the knight’s words. The unmen wore no other sign of his position as parish priest and had dressed as any man of property might. He was still tall, with a pale complexion and smooth hands, as well as the vague generous smile Calath had noted on the faces of many priests.