The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands)

by Glenda Larke

  She didn’t know about the yawl, and he wasn’t about to tell her. In fact, he hadn’t wanted her to climb up the staircase at all that morning, but it had become a daily ritual for them. A way to begin the day, to stand looking down on the Twite River estuary as the sun rose… She would have known something was wrong if he’d refused.

  “Why didn’t you like it?” she asked. “Wasn’t Gromwell always the inheritance of the Ardronese heir apparent?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s why the king made me come here every couple of years.” Even so, he’d never dreamed he would one day need to huddle in such a fortress, under attack by forces nominally under his father’s command.

  Heartsick, he turned away from the sea to regard the interior of the castle. The inner ward, with the Landward Tower at the far end, was divided into two baileys by the wall they called The Belt, and each bailey was already alive with the bustle of men and women going about their daily chores. The holdfast was a grim edifice nonetheless, a castle born of a time when cross-border raiders from East Denva made life miserable for the people of northern Ardrone with their constant plundering. Built on a promontory jutting into deep estuarine waters, Gromwell’s walls on three sides joined seamlessly with the cliff that plunged into the sea. When he’d leaned over the parapet of the Seaward Tower that morning, he’d gazed directly down at the waves beating against the granite at the foot, their foam frothing on the rocks.

  “It’s not such a very drear place.” Bealina laced her dainty fingers into his callused ones.

  “It’s a bleak place for milady. I would I could offer you more.” He smiled down at her. He was a good head taller than she was, and her small stature and sweet smile had once reminded him of one of those cloyingly sentimental porcelain figurines of shepherdesses that had become popular in Throssel: sweet and fragile. The resemblance was ridiculous, he knew that now. Bealina was about as breakable as forged steel. And since the birth of their son, her figure had blossomed. Right then, when the wind teased her tippet back to display the full swell of her breasts above her tight-laced bodice, he felt his cock respond, pushing uncomfortably against his breeks.

  “The view is pleasant,” she continued, blithely unaware of his lascivious thoughts. She’d discarded her coif so her hair could blow free and now she laughed as it tangled in the gusting wind.

  Va, but that was exactly the kind of behaviour that had irritated the old biddies back in Throssel. She was braver than he was…

  “See how the estuary sparkles in the sun,” she said, pointing, “and how the gulls twist and weave over the waves? I even saw a sea-hawk fishing yesterday morning.”

  “Pleasant?” Abruptly brought back to reality, he gave a bitter laugh. “Well, I suppose if we disregard all those grey-clad ensorcelled haggards besieging us below the landward wall, it might be considered pleasant enough. Or if we refuse to see that armed sloop out there, patrolling to make sure we don’t leave.” He waved a hand at the only ship of any size in view. Fortunately the holdfast was too high up for any ship’s cannon to be a threat, but the sloop’s presence had just proven itself to be a menace to those bringing them food and fodder. The yawl was the second casualty in the past month.

  She looked hurt, so he added, “Ah, forgive my megrims, my sweet. My spirits are low, I fear.”

  “Do you hate this place so very much?” she asked, her hand holding tight to his.

  “I’d never hate any place where you were,” he said gallantly. “But I do fear what will become of us all.”

  “You must never lose faith, my lord prince. Va will shield us.”

  He wished he could believe that. Sometimes he found her faith touching; at other times, like right now, it irritated him. Although a well supplied them with as much water as they could possibly need, food was another matter. How much longer would their supporters outside the walls remain loyal if some of their number were regularly blown to pieces, especially when the monetary reserves he used to pay them were dwindling? His father had already cut off the tax revenue from his southern estates.

  He squeezed her hand in an attempt to reassure, although he wasn’t sure she needed it. She never dwelled on anything she could not change. Upon learning that they had to leave the luxuries of Throssel Palace and flee into exile with their son, she could have bemoaned her fate and cried; instead she organised the packing with a minimum of fuss. Once they’d arrived at Gromwell, instead of complaining about the lack of elegant furnishing or glassed windows, she had turned the bleakness of the holdfast into an efficient, well-run household. Still later, when King Edwayn’s madness had deepened and he’d ordered them besieged because they would not surrender Prince Garred to him, she had taken charge of ensuring all those within the castle were fed. The inner baileys were given over to pigpens and goats, roosters and hens; vegetables were grown on the flat roofs; grain and hay were laboriously hauled up the cliff from the estuary on particularly dark or misty nights.

  “Have faith, not just in Va,” she said, “but in those who came with us into exile. You have good friends in Lord Anthon Seaforth and Cousin Beargold, and good men in your own guards, like Sergeant Horntail – not to mention all those armsmen who chose to leave the King’s Company to follow you.”

  “More motivated by their hatred of Grey Lancers than any particular desire to place me on the throne,” he pointed out, not for the first time.

  Father, how could you ally yourself with Fox and those madmen?

  He sighed, knowing the answer to that one. Sorcery. The Pontifect had told him enough about Fox to make that clear. The Prime even sucked the life out of his own sons to extend his longevity, or to give him added power.

  “It’s not your fault, Ryce,” she said gently, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Fox can make people believe – and see – things that aren’t real, that’s what the Regala Mathilda wrote. That’s what the Pontifect told you. How could you stop it from happening when your father did nothing?”

  Just thinking about the future made him feel ill. Saker, I wish you were here.

  A stupid thought. Va only knew where that wretched cleric was now, and besides, he was banned from the kingdom anyway.

  “I must go downstairs before I’m blown away,” Bealina said and turned to leave. “Ah, here is Horntail come to talk to you, anyway. I shall depart so you may both discuss affairs of much more moment than mine.” She smiled at Horntail, who gave her a stiff military bow as she passed him on her way down.

  “A word, if I might, Your Highness?” he asked.

  “Of course.” His heart sank. There was something in the set of the man’s jaw that told him there were ill tidings.

  “The sentry on the spyglass spotted a military force up on the northern road from Broom. Looks like another contingent of the grey bastards.”

  Curse them to beggary. Was there no end to the men who would join the fobbing lancers with their penchant for torture and other horrors he didn’t even want to think about?

  “And that’s not the worst of the news, Your Highness. They have cannons.”

  The cold fingers of fear that never left him nowadays dug a little deeper into his bowels.

  “How many?” At least he could pride himself on being good at hiding his dread. His spoken words were firm and calm.

  “Four. Gun carriages drawn by oxen.”

  “Ah.” He tried to sound as if he was pondering what to do, but in truth he was thinking that he never used to be so scared. But then, back in the days before his marriage, he’d only had to worry about himself. Now there was his son and Bealina, and all the men and women in the holdfast. Not to mention that Gromwell, with its complement of soldiers and servants, was all that stood in the way of a sorcerer and a ruthless contingent of men who killed anyone, anywhere, without compunction.

  Dear Va, where was everyone else? Where were the unseen guardians? Where was the Pontifect and her clerics? He’d heard that Vavala had fallen, and Fox had taken her place…

  Fob it, I wish I’d ne
ver been born a prince.

  He asked, “The cannon, how large?”

  “Too far away to say as yet. Might be twelve pounders.”

  Twelve pounds referred to the weight of the cannonball, not the cannon itself, he’d learned that much. It could have been worse, he supposed.

  “They could be local made,” Horntail added, trying valiantly for optimism. Cannon cast locally had a poor reputation for reliability. Pashali-made ones rarely blew up, but they weren’t common except on ships.

  “Any other encouraging remarks, sergeant? I could do with such.”

  “Well, gunpowder is usually in short supply. Oh, and their gun carriages are a bit bogged down at the moment,” Horntail added.

  “Ah.” They exchanged grim smiles. Heavy rain and the besieging army had churned up the road into a quagmire – and a cannon on a gun carriage could weigh two thousand pounds.

  “I don’t think they’ll get them here before nightfall,” Horntail continued. “We could try a raiding party tonight. Blow them up before they arrive.”

  They’d raided the besiegers before, with some limited success. It meant lowering men and their small rowboat to the foot of the cliffs in the middle of the night, after which they had to row – unseen by the enemy’s sloop – to a beach further north, then backtrack overland. In the end, they’d ceased these forays because too many had died.

  “I don’t like sending men to their deaths,” he said.

  “If the cannon get to where they can bring the walls down, we all die,” Horntail pointed out. “Repeated pounding with cannon shot will make blighted rubble of the outer wall eventually, probably at its weakest point – the gate. In fact, just lobbing cannonballs over the wall would be right proper messy, given what we’ve got out in the open in the baileys.”

  He meant their livestock and the vegetable gardens. He was right, of course. Horntail usually was. “All right. We’ll call for volunteers,” he said. “Where’s Lord Seaforth?”

  “He and Sir Beargold are over on Landward Tower. They are taking a look through the spyglass.”

  “I’ll join them.” He tried to sound calm, but his feet felt leaden as he clattered down the stones of the spiral stairway.

  For some odd reason, it was Mathilda who came to his mind. Mathilda, who had always said she’d make a better prince than he would. He’d certainly made a mess of this. He ought to have spent more of his income buying cannon for the holdfast. But how could he have foretold this war? Apart from the odd skirmish at sea between Ardrone and Lowmeer, the Va-cherished lands had been mostly at peace for generations. The union of the Ways under Va had achieved that much.

  Too late now to change his past. He had to think of the future.

  He stayed atop Landward Tower most of the night with Seaforth, Beargold, Horntail and Gromwell’s commander, Rossworth. They weren’t the only ones who kept watch. Many of the other defenders, even those not on sentry duty, arrayed themselves along the parapet walls. Who could sleep anyway? Not when you knew what was happening out there, and certainly not once you’d heard the screams.

  The night rang with their cries, those men who’d left by sea after dusk hoping to render the cannons unusable. Instead, they’d been captured and brought close to the walls so that their agony would be heard as they were tortured to death.

  “Consign the grey maggots to a Va-less hell,” Ryce muttered, the words heartfelt as he stared out into the darkness. The lack of moonlight and clouded sky that had offered his men cover were now providing their torturers with the same protection. A couple of candles lit by the lancers failed to illuminate the details for those on the wall. He had to clear his throat before he could speak again. “Horntail, I want unlit torches, four or five of them, and a glowing coal. The best archers, and some men with strong arms. Right now.”

  It was one thing to give the orders; it was another to listen to brave men scream while you waited out the minutes of their agony as those orders were carried out.

  “Your Highness,” Rossworth asked, “what are you intending?”

  “First, we light the torches and throw them out there so we can see what’s happening.”

  “You think they’ve made themselves vulnerable by coming so close? It’s possible. But more likely the whoresons have dragged their wicker hurdles with them, for protection. And they’ll be gone by sun-up.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re right,” he replied. “Nonetheless, I want everyone except the archers and the strong-armed fellows off the wall.”

  “Your Highness, are you s—”

  “Do it, Rossworth! Now!

  “Yes, my liege.”

  Ryce didn’t say anything more until the men he’d asked for had assembled. His commands to them, given coldly and precisely, left no doubt what he intended. There was a sharp intake of breath as he finished. “This is on my head,” he said. “You are absolved.”

  The men selected for their strength lit the pitch of the torches and flung them out as far as they could.

  The scene revealed was unbearable. Yet it had to be borne, by him, with stoicism, because he was the prince. Four young men stripped naked and tied spreadeagled between upright wooden stakes, easily visible to anyone on the walls several hundred paces away. Being flayed alive, their skin removed, one small strip at a time, by two men. Other Grey Lancers remained out of sight, protected by portable wicker hurdles.

  The archers stepped forward and loosed their arrows.

  When they were done, there were six dead men, and four of them were Gromwell’s own.

  “May Va grant them peace in the Way,” someone muttered.

  “’Ware!” Horntail yelled. “Arquebus!”

  Everyone ducked down as a few balls peppered the parapet. After the firing stopped, there was silence beyond the walls. Their thrown torches flickered and died, one by one, returning the horror to the darkness.

  The next morning dawned bleak and cloudy, leaden skies to match leaden hearts. The four men still hung on the stakes, their wrists and ankles tied. Each had two arrows in their chest. The two who had tortured them lay sprawled on the ground at their feet. The rest of those responsible had retreated out of arrow range, leaving their dead behind.

  “They were skinning them,” said Horntail, his voice gritty with grief.

  “Intended to keep them alive as long as they could,” Seaforth added. “What manner of men are these?”

  King Edwayn’s men, Ryce thought bitterly. We blame Fox, but it’s my father who allowed the rot to start. Those bodies would stay there, on display for them all to grieve over, for however long they remained besieged.

  “They are our arrows, aren’t they?”

  Ryce whirled around to see Bealina behind him.

  Shocked, he said, “My lady, you should not be here! This is not a sight for women to have to bear.”

  “Oh, tush,” she said, wrapping her shawl tighter around her body and tucking her hair more securely under her coif as the wind whipped around her. “I will never understand why men have this strange idea that we women don’t know about pain and blood and death and loss. Do you think that keeping us blind to sights like this –” she waved her hand at the dead men “– shields us from enduring the agony of losing those we care about? What we don’t see, we imagine.” She rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes to dash away the tears. “They died to keep us safe, and we should all bear witness to how much they suffered for us, and how much distress those who ended their suffering must feel.”

  Seaforth and Beargold exchanged glances with Horntail and Rossworth, then all four filed away down the steps, pretending they hadn’t heard.

  Ryce, embarrassed, was still hunting for words to say when she added, “Are those the cannon there, the ones these men were trying to destroy last night?” She was looking at the top of the rise in front of them.

  He nodded.

  “So our men didn’t succeed.”

  “No.” He swallowed, but the bitterness stayed in his mouth. He’d asked f
or volunteers. Thank goodness the boat only held four men other than the boatman, who had waited for them. When they didn’t come, he’d brought the boat back.

  “When will the cannon be ready to use?”

  He shrugged, trying to look as if he wasn’t afraid. “Tomorrow perhaps. They will need to construct some kind of timber shutters to protect those who light the fuses. We heard at least two arquebus last night too.”

  “What – what will happen?”

  “Once they have the cannon working… it depends on how much ammunition they have. Bealina, we might be able to hold them off for a few weeks. Maybe even months. But you and Garred must leave. Soon.”

  She stared at him in horror.

  “By boat. It will be dangerous, but it will be worse if you stay. You have to see Garred safe. You must go to your father. You’re still a Staravale princess; they’ll welcome you home.”

  “No.”

  “Bealina, please, let’s have no argument.”

  “Indeed, no argument would be agreeable. Let us go below and discuss this over breakfast. The table is laid in our room, awaiting us.”

  He stifled a sigh, knowing she would not capitulate without a lengthy fight.

  It was hard to look at food with the memory of the night’s horror fresh in his mind, but he ate to please Bealina.

  “Let’s consider this now,” she said. She sat with her hands demurely folded in her lap, but he wasn’t fooled. There was never anything demure about her when she’d made up her mind to get her own way. “You want me to be dropped down the cliff, in the middle of the night, with Garred, into a boat. A rope broke once, I seem to remember. A man fell into the sea, and he drowned because he couldn’t swim. Neither can I. And certainly Garred can’t. Then there’s that sloop out there. But worst of all, think of all the other things that can go wrong on my way back to Staravale! From what little we hear, there are Grey Lancers everywhere.”

  “You would not be alone. I would send the best of my men with you—”

  “Now that’s another reason why this is a bad idea. You can’t spare anyone, not now. Ryce, you know in your heart that sending me away is not without danger to me and to your son. Will you at least admit that much?”