by Damien Black
‘It’s more than fair,’ said the King. ‘Did you really think I’d let you go on ravaging my hinterlands unchecked? No, you’ve done a sound job for me – those truculent northern lords are no better than their southern ilk, always using distance to keep my royal rule in abeyance! Their lands you shall keep without reprisal on our part, provided you play your part in the wars to come.’
‘And what about Gaellentir?’ pressed the highlander. ‘We’re at their gates but they’re holdin’ out – we’ve overrun the province, be a shame not tae… finish the job, if ye ken wha’ I mean…’
‘Gaellen is part of my offer,’ clarified the King. ‘Raze the castle, depose its liege – I care not, so long as you cease your hostilities against the crown thereafter and swear fealty to me as your leal sovereign.’
‘This is madness!’ cried Vertrix, stepping forwards. ‘You cannot mean to abandon our homeland to a pagan savage like Slangá! Do you think these highlanders will really take part in your war against their own kin?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ replied Cadwy, unperturbed. ‘Kinship didn’t stop our ancestors fighting the war that saw them banished to these shores in the first place.’ Turning to face the highlanders, he added: ‘Emissary, what say you? Think you that your leader would be tempted by our offer?’
The highland savage whispered briefly with his fellows before turning back and nodding: ‘I’d say he’d be very interested indeed, sirrah.’
‘Good,’ said the King. ‘Then get thee gone from my hall, and back to him with all due speed. I’ll expect answers from him and Tíerchán by the next moon. And I trust your business in Gaellentir will be concluded by then – your energies will soon be needed elsewhere.’
Barely suppressing his look of surprise (if that wasn’t just a sham), the emissary favoured the King with a curt half bow, before turning to exit the throneroom with his men.
‘This is preposterous!’ cried Vertrix, now addressing the courtiers. ‘How can you…?! You cannot all support this mad venture? The Island Realms are bewitched, their lands long cursed by the very spirits they saw fit to meddle with in the first place!’
But the faces of the courtiers were mostly blank slates. Some did indeed look troubled, but if they agreed with Vertrix they dared not speak up.
‘Our King’s will be done,’ said one, an ashen-faced man in middling years.
‘We shall win glory for Thraxia and build an empire,’ said another. He was younger, but Vertrix could see no excitement in the knight’s glazed eyes as he spoke.
And then he realised it was hopeless. Abrexta had won.
Turning back to face the King he said helplessly: ‘Are you resolved in this matter, Your Majesty?’
The King nodded. ‘I am.’
Abrexta leaned forwards in her chair, her dark hair catching the light dully. ‘Be of some cheer, sir knight,’ she said. ‘You have lost a home today, but gained a profitable place in a burgeoning new empire. Surrender the past! Give yourself up to a bright new future!’
He could feel her pressing at his will. She was so beautiful and powerful and… maybe she was right. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Bryant and Regan staring at her open-mouthed. Perhaps she was trying to enthral them too.
Closing his eyes he clenched his fists and thought of his beloved wife, Rihanna, dying amidst the fires of war…
He opened his eyes. ‘I’ve seen the error of my ways, Your Majesty.’ He took a knee and bowed his head, clinging painfully to the image of his wife and children burning and screaming as the walls of Gaellen castle tumbled about them. ‘I was a fool to question the royal vision – thy will be done, in this as in all things.’
‘Your service will be justly rewarded,’ said the King. ‘All who serve me shall share in the glories to come.’
‘A grand command thou shalt have in the King’s new army,’ said Abrexta, her voice sounding sultry and breathless, as though she were whispering in his ear. He felt her pushing harder into him. He fixed his mind’s eye on his family burning to death, as all he had ever held dear collapsed about them.
Vertrix felt a tear roll down his cheek.
‘Your humble servant thanks thee,’ he said in a voice that nearly choked.
‘Good. Now get thee gone back to thy chambers, and prepare for a feast we shall give to celebrate the coming war.’
It was Abrexta who had spoken. She had not even bothered to keep up the pretence of the King being in command. Swiftly wiping the tear away Vertrix rose and beckoned for Bryant and Regan to follow him from the throneroom.
Back in their chamber, Vertrix poured cups of wine for the three of them and stared out of the window. It overlooked the courtyard, but it was quiet save for the odd servant scurrying between the hall and kitchens: all the nobles would be preparing for supper.
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Sir Bryant at last. ‘You can’t mean to go along with this, Vertrix?’
‘Aye, I mean to – for now,’ replied the old knight, turning to face them. Bryant’s face looked grave in the late afternoon sunlight. Regan was sitting on his cot and staring, holding his winecup in limp hands. ‘We need to persuade the King – persuade her – that we’re beaten,’ Vertrix continued. ‘Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer…’
Bryant fixed him with a quizzical look. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’
‘We’re under guard here night and day,’ said Vertrix. ‘That means the only time we can get to her is at feast-times.’
‘Get to her? What do you mean?’
But Vertrix was scarcely listening. He went on, as if talking to himself. ‘We don’t have access to any weapons, but our squires will need daggers at feast-times so they can cut our meat…’
‘I don’t like where this is going, Vertrix,’ said Bryant. ‘If you’re proposing what I think you are… why, it’s suicide!’
‘It is.’ Vertrix looked up and caught Bryant’s eyes. ‘But what choice do we have? Gaellen will fall – when that happens everything we’ve ever fought and lived for will be gone. I for one will not live out the rest of my days knowing I stood by and did nothing.’
Silence filled the room. Bryant remained locked in his gaze. Regan sat staring into his cup.
‘All right,’ said Bryant. ‘Go on.’
‘We need to do everything we can to convince Abrexta that we’re under her spell – literally or otherwise,’ said Vertrix. ‘Offer suggestions about the invasion, try to set ourselves up as trusted advisers. She’s made it clear she wants me to be part of this. So we play to her wishes! The more we succeed in doing that, the more likely we are to get a place close to her at table, as befits court favourites. Every yard we gain – and I mean that literally too – will be crucial. Once we’re close enough we can do it. I’ll be the one who strikes, the responsibility’s mine. We’ll need our squires to pass us their knives when I give the signal. Then it’s down to you both to cause as much of a distraction as you can, give me a few precious seconds to get to her and…’
He passed a hand across his throat meaningfully.
Bryant looked at him sadly. ‘They’ll kill us all for this, you know that.’
‘I’m as good as dead without Gaellentir and everything in it,’ replied Vertrix. ‘But no, it’s our duty, Bryant, like it or not. It’s what Braxus would want us to do. In any case, we might just live through this, if we do it right.’
‘How?’ asked Bryant.
‘Braxus and Lord Braun seem to think that a witch’s spell won’t survive the witch herself… That was the whole idea behind our planned rebellion in the first place. Assuming they’re right, that means if I kill Abrexta quickly enough there’s a chance Cadwy will come to his senses and call his guards off before they do us in.’
Bryant considered his words. ‘It could work,’ he said at last, nodding. ‘It’s a plan on a knife-edge, but it might just work. And if we can get ourselves a seat at the King’s high table sooner rather than later we might just do it before Gaellen
falls. Then we can have the King muster a relief army and put a stop to this madness once and for all.’
‘Exactly,’ replied Vertrix, his spirits slowly returning. ‘So get the squires in here now, I’m going to brief them before we eat. We’ve no time to lose.’
Bryant nodded and left. Regan had raised his eyes from his cup and was staring at Vertrix.
‘Well?’ he asked sharply after the guards had closed the door behind Bryant. ‘What say you? Not heard a peep out of you since we left the throneroom.’
Regan sighed heavily. ‘It sounds like as desperate a plan for a palace coup as any I ever heard,’ he said. ‘But lacking a better alternative, I’d say I’m in.’ With a wry smile he drained his cup.
Vertrix laid a calloused hand on the young knight’s shoulder.
‘That’s the spirit,’ he said. ‘Be of some cheer, lad – Reus willing we might just live to see this through.’
Regan heard the old knight’s words as if from a distant speaker at the end of a long corridor.
Sounding like his old casual self was difficult; he felt as if his body were a puppet on strings, and he wasn’t quite sure who was pulling them. Everything had changed since he’d entered the throneroom. She was so beautiful. He’d lain with many women, but every one of them had vanished from his mind the minute he had laid eyes on her.
Abrexta the Prescient – didn’t that say it all? She knew, she saw – everything. How foolish of Vertrix to think he could oppose her, how foolish of anyone to think that! She was perfect in every way. Even her beauty was just a tawdry cover that hid the endless richness of the soul beneath. He felt something (was it her? he hoped so) controlling his every decision. It was a delicious feeling, one that had enveloped him like a warm shroud when she was talking to Vertrix. How nice not to have to think for oneself any more! To have every action, every thought, dictated by a higher power…
He wanted to thank her – ah, but that thought brought him pain! It reminded him he wasn’t in her presence right now. He wanted her, full stop. Maybe she’d let him have her, if he did everything she told him.
That thought warmed him as he got up to prepare for the feast.
CHAPTER IV
A Dream Shattered
‘Come on, drink up – you know it’s good for you.’ Adhelina practically forced the tincture down Hettie’s throat.
But it really was for her own good. St Elenya’s Root had worked wonders for some of the women in her care, women who’d suffered far worse than her friend had.
And on top of that, Hettie was a noblewoman. Adhelina was damned if she was going to watch her lady-in-waiting succumb to melancholia.
‘There now,’ she said, trying to sound soothing as Hettie grimaced the last of the potion down. ‘You’ll start to feel better again in a few minutes, you’ll see.’
Hettie nodded dumbly, staring around the hospice with the eyes of a frightened deer. The tarpaulin roof did nothing to keep out the heat, and Adhelina was already beginning to sweat profusely. It was near noon and she had been up since dawn tending the sick and wounded. Woodfolk injured in the fighting had swelled the ranks of the ailing; it had been three days since Horskram and his motley band of heroes had left, and the hours had passed in a giddy blur. Not since her father’s last war had she been so busy.
Looking at the wounded and sick, some of whom were weeping, Hettie’s own eyes filled with tears. Her lower lip began to tremble.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ cried Adhelina, grasping her friend by the shoulders and shaking her. ‘I know it was horrible, but you’re barely nineteen summers – you can’t give up the rest of your life to despair!’
‘I’m sorry, milady,’ Hettie managed to mumble, snuffling back tears. ‘I just… never thought we’d see such things…’
Adhelina’s frustrated anger gave way to a tide of guilt. It was herself she was really angry with. Her mad dash for freedom had nearly got them killed, and brought anguish on her dearest companion.
But then men did that all the time – brought ruin on themselves and the ones they loved in pursuit of wealth, fame, glory. All she had sought was her own freedom.
Taking Hettie she rocked her gently, whispering things she hoped sounded soothing in her ear.
‘I’m sorry t’interrupt ye milady, but ye’ll want to see this.’
Adhelina turned and saw Madogan addressing her. She had treated him and his arm was healing well enough, though he’d be wearing a sling for weeks to come.
‘See what?’ she asked brusquely, letting go of Hettie.
The woodlander had several women with him. She did not recognise any of them.
‘These are some o’ the best healers from our communities – thought ye could use their ‘elp.’
‘You thought correctly,’ she said, regretting her harsh tone. ‘I’ve been rushed off my feet day and night. Are they familiar with all the herbs and poultices I’ve been using?’
Madogan cocked an eyebrow at that. ‘Think ye’d be the best judge o’ that milady’, he said with a smile.
Adhelina flushed. ‘Of course – why I’m so exhausted I’m barely thinking straight. Well now, women of the Argael, come with me and I’ll show you the ropes…’
An hour later Adhelina was taking the noon meal with Hettie, Madogan and other woodfolk. The women had proved able enough, and despite some language barriers she had managed to hand over her duties.
That was a relief and no mistake. As well as allowing her some respite, it meant she could plan the next stage of her journey. She had already decided to await the outcome of the friar’s mission – if she understood correctly the death of this warlock should make the forests safe to travel through again. On top of that, Anupe would need to be paid for her extra services. Assuming she survived.
She might well offer her a third job if so, escorting her and Hettie to the coast. Events had taken them well out of their way, and Urring and Meerborg were roughly equal distances away. She still favoured the Northlending port, assuming the way through the Argael was safe enough to reach it. But there was the complication of the woodlander Kyra: Reus only knew what the Harijan’s sapphic tastes would mean there. An extra travelling companion might slow them down. Then again, perhaps another sturdy female to have along might not be a bad idea…
She was just about to voice some of her thoughts to Madogan when she noticed another group of woodlanders had joined them in the clearing in the middle of the camp. About a dozen strong, they were all armed and ready for travel.
Madogan stood up and looked down at her. ‘Well, milady, now ye’ve finished yer lunch, I think it’s time we discussed something.’
Adhelina felt herself tense. She didn’t like the way the woodlander was looking at her. Or the fact that he’d taken to his feet while she was still sitting. The rude manners of wild men took some getting used to.
‘Indeed,’ she replied, trying to keep her cool. ‘Now that you have brought your own healers from the woods, I think it time we were thinking about leaving – but first I must needs wait for my – ’
Madogan cut her off. ‘Beggin’ yer ladyship’s pardon,’ he interjected. ‘But I’d say leavin’ is abowt the sum o’ it, though there’ll be no waitin’.’
Adhelina glared at him. ‘How dare you address me so? I am the heiress of Dulsinor, whose lands – ’
‘Aye,’ Madogan cut her off again. ‘Y’are. An’ the heiress o’ Dulsinor belongs in Graukolos, wi’ her kith an’ kin.’
‘NO!’ she rose to her feet, panic coursing through her as she grasped his meaning. ‘You have no right – ’
‘On the contrary, yer ladyship,’ interrupted Madogan, motioning for the armed woodfolk to come forwards, ‘I’ve a duty to perform – if your father the lord o’ these lands finds owt I had ye and let ye go, there’ll be trouble fer us woodfowk. I’ve not fought a battle wi’ beastmen only to bring an eorl down on our backs.’
‘This is foolishness!’ cried Adhelina as the group surrounded her and Hettie. �
��My father would never do such a thing – the Argael forms no part of his holdings in any case!’
‘Oh, I’d say that’s a matter o’ how ye look at it,’ countered Madogan, smiling humourlessly. ‘And since when have high lords ever respected borders anyway?’
‘My father has never fought a war except in self-defence!’ protested Adhelina. The woodfolk respected her station enough not to lay hands on her, but clearly there was no walking away from this situation. Hettie started to sob again.
‘My father is a just man – you have no cause to fear any reprisals on his part!’
‘In that case, ye shouldna be runnin’ away from ‘im in the first place,’ said Madogan. ‘A just man deserves to ‘ave the things he owns returned to ‘im.’
‘No man owns me!’ snarled Adhelina. But she knew the lie to her words even as she spoke them: out here in the wilderness men took what they wanted, just as they did in the high-walled cities and keeps.
‘I can reward you richly if you let us go,’ she said, desperately changing tack. ‘I have jewelled rings, bracelets, pendants – a white gold circlet my father gave me…’
‘Aye, I ken that right well,’ said Madogan. ‘Took liberty o’ checkin’ on all yer possessions when we were packin’ ‘em this morning.’ He shook his head. ‘Canna take the risk, I’m sorry Lady Markward.’ Then he smiled again. ‘Besides, yer father bein’ a just man, I’ve no doubt he’ll reward us richly fer bringin’ ye back safe an’ sound.’
He barked an order and another group of woodfolk brought up a string of ponies, saddled and ready. ‘Everything’s been prepared as ye can see,’ said Madogan. ‘I thank ye on behalf o’ the woodfowk fer all ye’ve done, but now it’s time fer you to leave.’
‘And this is how you show your gratitude?’ asked Adhelina disgustedly.
‘World’s no place fer gratitude,’ said Madogan sadly. ‘Be a sight better if it were, but it’s not oors to make as we want it. Now come along, yer ladyship, I’d prefer it if ye came o’ yer own free will – we’ve a lot o’ respect fer ye, an’ none o’ the lads an’ lasses rightly wants to lay ‘ands on ye.’