Without waiting for an answer, he turned to the benches where Kermorvan sat. ‘My lord, the last holder of the Marchwarden’s office died in disgrace, and without nominating any successor. In a time of danger such as this we need not delay. I appoint you to the office.’
Alais gave a little gasp of delight. Kermorvan’s roar turned into a cough, and he hugged his side and rocked an instant before he answered ‘Me? My lord, you hate me about as much as I loathe you. And if I were any nearer dead you could save time and bury me! If it hadn’t been for that loudmouthed beggar and his battle cry I might have slipped into my last sleep ere now.’
‘You seem stronger by the minute,’ observed Bryheren. ‘I am sure you will recover. And as to matters of feeling, Merthian … A proper man, I thought, an upright young man, as so few are. One I could risk, there being no other safe contenders. Well, I am proven wrong. A man without faction, a man who can be trusted – these are what the office demands. You have proven yourself, and earned a great reward. Perhaps, since I cannot trust my favour, I must rely on my dislike.’ There was a trace of a wintry smile, but the tone beneath was bitter.
Kermorvan said nothing for a moment; and then he sighed wearily. ‘I might accept, my lord. Provided that I may resign when I wish, upon the grounds of my health; and that I enjoy immediately all the privileges of my office, the castle, the estates, the nomination of my deputy, my successor and so on.’
‘That is only reasonable,’ said Bryheren, with an air of some relief. He stalked back up to his chair, skirting the wide patch where the blood had been swabbed up, and turned to the Syndics around the chamber. ‘My lords, you have heard. In such a time as this I urge you not to debate. I do not doubt my own judgement, and I know of none of you who would not arouse too much rancour to fill the place safely. This is a Kermorvan, you may say; but he has one invaluable recommendation. By his actions in exposing a conspiracy he could very well have joined to his advantage, he has proven that he has no interest in establishing any kingship. Are you therefore content that my Lord Kermorvan of Morvan should this day enter into the place of Lord Warden of the Northern Marches, and all the titles and estates thereunto appertaining?’
The chamber fell silent. The lord called Carthen looked momentarily very black, but silenced his followers with a shake of those long locks, like a dog’s ears. Only the old lord Ternyan appeared disposed to argue, whispering urgently among those around him, as if seeking support. He found little, it seemed, and sat back angrily.
‘Not one contrary voice, my lords?’ said Bryheren evenly. ‘Then let the question be passed as answered. My Lord Kermorvan, you may take the oath seated, in consideration of your wounds …’
Repeating the oath seemed to go on for a very long time, but Kermorvan’s voice, if anything, grew stronger. Alais looked on with shining eyes, and hugged Kunrad’s arm. He forgot his own troubles in his gladness for his friends; and watched in astonishment as, when the oath ended, and Kermorvan was confirmed in his office, the old man levered himself to his feet, and treated the assembled Syndics to his most unpleasant glare.
‘My lords! I thank you for your confidence. It makes a change, believe me! You need have no fear, it shall not be abused. I shall take better care of your northern lands than you have done, perhaps. For there is no better way I can do so than by appointing my deputy at once, and my successor; and I name Kunrad of Athalby, Master-smith of the North, and our proven friend.’
Bryheren jerked to his feet like a string-pulled puppet. Kunrad sat down hard on the end of a bench, as if his strings had been cut.
‘You cannot!’ snapped the Chief Syndic. ‘He is a foreigner, neither lord nor citizen!’
‘Not so, my lord. For before you and all these noble witnesses – and who could be more fitting? – I give him my only daughter in marriage. And so adopt him into our clan and blood, as a lord of the line of Morvan. And may he bring it increase!’
Uproar rolled over them, but Kunrad hardly heeded it. A voice rang in his ears, but he fought it down. ‘Has anybody bothered to ask me about this? Or Alais? Alais, do you want this?’ he demanded. She struggled to say something, and then kicked him on the shin, hard.
‘Well, that’s all right, then,’ remarked Gille.
Alais embraced Kunrad tearfully, while Bryheren rested his head in his hands. ‘If we gainsay this,’ he said, in carefully modulated tones that cut through every shouting voice in the chamber, and left a jarring silence. ‘If we gainsay this, then my Lord Kermorvan will only resign, and we will be left without a trustworthy hand in the north. And no, my Lord Ternyan, neither your friends nor your foes will tolerate you in the place, any more than you them. Can you advance a candidate of proven worth or trust, Lord Carthen? I thought not.’
‘If we must have a Kermorvan,’ suggested Carthen smoothly, ‘might not his sons—’
The brothers looked startled, and then alarmed. Bryheren smiled. ‘I could not manage without my First Secretary and Lord Treasurer, my lord; although I am sure you would be eager to nominate replacements. Besides, the rigours of such a remote life might not suit them.’
Alais stifled a giggle.
‘Moreover,’ added Bryheren, ‘we need a man capable of war, yet not dominated by it. No, we could debate a month, and end with drawn swords, and still be no nearer a trustworthy candidate. Speaking for myself, I would prefer the Northerner. A new landholder is needed for the estates of Anlaithann, and they will supply enough to maintain him without further drain upon the common purse. But one thing concerns me. My Lord Kermorvan, if we honour this, will you not resign the next moment, and leave us to install your successor?’
Kermorvan, settling painfully back in his seat, savoured his moment. ‘Yes, my Lord Bryheren. I will.’
Kunrad felt as if the bench slid out from beneath him, into a bottomless pit that opened up. The chamber was shocked into silence.
Bryheren heaved a deep sigh. ‘Then in the name of all the Powers about us, let us save time and trouble!’
Carthen was on his feet, tugging at his long grey curls, almost stammering in outrage. ‘One of our highest offices? Passed to an – an—’
‘—outsider?’ sputtered Ternyan.
‘Precisely,’ said Bryheren, without expression; and it dawned on Kunrad that he too was savouring the moment. ‘Because, in large part due to yourselves and your perpetual factions, my lords, there is no insider we dare trust. Destiny has plucked this man from obscurity and tossed him into our laps; and I am not such a fool as to waste him. After all, he has already achieved something unheard-of in this chamber; and that is to make you two noble gentlemen agree. My Lord Kunrad, will you rise? And repeat after me—’
Giddily, wondering if he could command the rolling phrases of the sothran tongue, Kunrad rose. He tried to hold on to the panelled railing before him, but Merthian’s blow had smashed it, and it wobbled. But the ancient words he heard were closer to the book-language he had learned than the spoken tongue of the day, and the lords around him whispered in surprise as he spoke.
He found himself swearing loyalty to the land of Bryhaine; and as he thought of the mountains and the forests, and all the wide lands he had trod in his long quest, and most of all the Lake of the Winds, it no longer seemed as strange to him as it might have. Athalby, its lands and folk lay far behind him. They had rejected him, and he had outgrown them as the child outgrows the womb, or the bird the shell. He had passed through the horror of the Marshlands into a new life, and these lands had shaped him anew. And, more than anything else, they had given him their own, Alais. He looked upon her, shaking with delight and wonder, and knew no regret at all.
Kermorvan was nodding proudly to himself. The two brothers contemplated Kunrad with mingled amusement and suspicion, but no more than a sister’s suitor might expect. That would be the least of his problems.
‘—and thus, into thy hands it is given, by the Syndicacy and State of this Land of Freedom, to fortify, hold and defend in all honour, with all it
s subject lands, estates and strongholds, the Castle of the Northern Marches, called the Castle of the Winds, to be thine own while life and office last. Kunrad of Athalby, now Kunrad, Lord Kermorvan of the line of Morvan – it is fulfilled!’
Bryheren’s voice turned to a dry croak under the strain, and sweat spangled his bald head. The chamber was silent, and deathly tense. Lord Ternyan rose suddenly, and stalked out of his seat. Kunrad was uneasily reminded that his sword had gone with Merthian. The white-haired little man looked him up and down, and snorted. ‘Forty years! And cheated by a … a savage!’
He hawked and spat at Kunrad’s boots; but he missed. He turned on his heel and stamped out, with an imperious wave; but only two lords made as if to follow him. Carthen half rose, appeared to see something, and sat down. He was looking at the splintered floorboards.
Relief, tangible as a breeze, lightened the dusty air. No other lord moved, or spoke. Kunrad caught Kermorvan’s eye, and realised with horror that he was expected to make some address in answer. His mouth opened, and almost without thinking, he spoke.
‘My lords! I thank you, the more so as you do not know me, yet, or what to expect from me. You think I may favour my own land, or the line which has made me one of you. My lords, I will not, save as it is for the benefit of all. That must be so, because I need some such aim to pursue. I had a great talent once, that I let rule my life to the exclusion of all else. I studied metal, and scarcely knew men – still less women. I shaped the means to kill, and never truly understood what must lie behind them. I found, today, that that talent was ruled by a need still greater – a need to reflect before I act, to be sure of that action, to hesitate. I will hew and shape metal no longer. I will put it behind me, as a childhood thing; and strive with sterner stuff. My Lord Bryheren said to me, I could not hammer out the hearts and minds of men upon my anvil. But I will!’
The words seemed to flow from within him, from the same fount and source as the words he sang over metal; but now they came more freely than ever before. The hammer was no longer in his hand; but it rang true in his voice.
‘What is dull and cold now, I will heat, and purify of dross, and shape as truly and justly as I am able. I will make men sweat in my fires, and hammer them into correction, if I must; but I will never use such blows for their own sake, or let them warp or weaken my purpose. That, I will follow with as much care as I lavished upon that armour, and as much determination as when I pursued it. I will shape the steel you entrust to me, not this way or that, by fashion or favour, but to make the best of it that can be made, most useful – and most fair. I could no more betray that purpose than I could make a mean and unsound work. Judge me by my actions, my lords.’
A sudden quiet settled upon the hall. Then the dust motes swirled as the Syndics rose, one after another. Kunrad caught his breath. But one after another, they bowed to him. Some bowed deeply, with hand to heart, some stiffly, some with the merest inclination of the head, barely willing; but they bowed nonetheless. Kermorvan’s pale eyes glittered, and he hauled himself to his feet, and bowed also. Last of all rose Bryheren, and they bowed to him; and began to file out, quietly, avoiding the stain where the blood had been washed off the boards.
Kunrad bowed his head; but it was only partly in answer to the accolade. A truth had been brought home to him. He held the Marchwarden’s castle now, his lands and goods. Merthian had paid him his asking price for the armour, after all.
The Chief Syndic paused in front of Kermorvan, expressionless, but it was to Kunrad he spoke. ‘You and the Lady Alais shall dine with me this evening. No banquet; there are concerns we must discuss. There is much you will need to learn, and urgently.’
‘Alais will be my teacher,’ said Kunrad happily.
‘I do not doubt it!’ said Bryheren dryly. ‘She is a Kermorvan, with all that that implies. But perhaps she brings us a greater gift than we know. Until this even, then.’
He bowed again, and strode on his way. The younger lords Kermorvan, with apologetic nods, busied themselves with clerks and papers of record. Their father grinned at them tolerantly, raked his matted hair, sighed luxuriantly, and hauled his stiff leg up on the vacant bench.
‘And you, my lord?’ asked Kunrad.
‘I? Still feeling every last hoofprint! Pain, weakness, ill knit at every seam. But not a trace of fever, after my sleep. That beggar, wakening me with that deafening war-cry! I began to feel hungry. So it seems I may linger a few days longer – few enough if you throttle me that hard, girl!’
‘Years and years and years!’ Alais carolled, spreading her arms as it to embrace the world. ‘The beggar, you said ? He worked a miracle, waking you! Kerynan, send out after him, we must reward him!’
Kunrad shook his head. ‘I do not think you will find him. Any more than we could, that night in Saldenborg. I should have known him as we passed, if I had not been so worried. The stance was the same, and the voice. You may lose even if you succeed – and gain even if you fail … If you wish to thank him – well, you might feed the ravens that wheel about your towers.’
The touch of the unknown, cool but thrilling, laid silence about them once again. Alais frowned. ‘They say the Powers rarely intervene to help mankind without some counterbalance, some service or debt in return; for they wish us to learn reliance on ourselves. What will he ask of us?’
‘What we have given already, perhaps,’ said Kunrad. ‘The Ice frustrated, the realms of men made more secure. My old life lost, my new life found. So he set the price; and it was high enough, by Raven’s name! But there is more to be done yet. More than our lives will hold, maybe. We must set out for the north again soon.’
Kermorvan chuckled. ‘You may. I’ll see it no more. My bones are too old and broken to stir any further. My sons and I are agreed. I’ll come back here, to my old house with its lemon tree, and live out my days, whatever’s left of them. The north and the castle, I leave it to you. May you dwell there in good fortune!’
And it was as if that wish brought it all home to Kunrad. Land, mountains, forest, lake, the white walls and towers below which he had languished in deepest despair, and on which he had felt the fresh touch of light and freedom – all, now, were his own, in boundless lordship, ultimate mastery. And at their head, all of them together and more, the girl with the dark red hair and bright eyes, whom he had first set sight on out of night and horror, the princess who had stood against his pursuers, and delivered him out of darkness and despair to win a new hope and a new destiny. It was more than his heart could contain.
He took her hands, carefully. ‘You always wished Ker an Aruel could be your home, princess, didn’t you? It is, now; and your children’s. Our children’s.’
They trembled. ‘You don’t … regret it? All you are giving up?’
He laughed, aloud, and it echoed beneath the high roof of the empty hall, loud and free. ‘Gille and Olvar will fill my place! For, given their toils in the forges, and on the great furnace, I can now name them journeymen!’
‘A mighty long journey we had to earn it!’ said Gille, and they bowed. ‘But we thank you – my Lord Marchwarden!’
They draped his old jacket around his shoulders with all the pomp of a ceremonial robe. He hardly noticed, unable to take his eyes from Alais. ‘For me, I’ll seek out gentler things. A weaponsmith’s house is not one to raise children in. Too many sharp edges!’
‘You’ll have enough of those yet!’ said Kermorvan dryly. ‘The Castle of the Winds is no lordly bed of ease! But with the pair of you to look after it, it may hold. It may hold!’
And so it came to pass. Of Kunrad’s reign as Warden, the Chronicles record much; for he lived long, and through their many children he and his lady became renewers of the royal line. It is said to be through him that that ancient house of Morvan acquired a glimmer of the true smithcraft in the blood. He governed well, striving always to lessen the gulf between lord and man, and deal justly with both; and under his wise guidance the two lands gradually lost much of
their distrust, and lived in harmony, at worst, for hundreds of years. He was the first of many to become citizens of both Nordeney and the Southlands, and owe allegiance to both. His name soon became honoured in the Northlands also, even as far as Athalby, which derived great lustre from it – though he never did find the time to go back. Gille and Olvar did; but all their lives they passed between North and South as the bravest and most determined of merchant smiths, and at last the richest. This also, as they acknowledged, they owed to their old master.
The Marshlands he scoured of the remaining corsairs, and threw down their citadel; and though the inhuman terrors of that realm were never overcome, it became far safer for trade to pass, both by land and sea. In Kunrad’s lifetime, as he foretold, he saw the Great Causeway across the Marshlands begun, with its inns and hostels made safe for travellers by the powers of the Northern smiths, and the strong arms of sothran warriors. The Ice remained as it had been, a threat behind the mountains; and it was slow thereafter to meddle so directly in the affairs of men. These were no small achievements, and Kunrad lived content to the end of his days.
Most of the time. For in moments of anger or frustration, even into his old age, he would don an ancient and barbarous coat of fleece, and retreat to his most secret chambers, in the castle’s highest tower. And the commoners in the estates around, it is said, would tremble at the lights that came therefrom, and the screech and clangour of tormented metal that drifted across the lake, and the strange and terrible oaths. But the wise ones remembered how he had once conjured a river of fire from the very hillside to shrivel up their foes, in the place that could still be seen today. And they were sure that their strange lord was once more making his Northern magic for their prosperity and protection, and the growing of the crops and swelling of the herds; and they too were content.
The Castle of the Winds Page 45