“You caught that too, huh?” She didn’t bother to pull the leaf out of her hair, just left it there as she kissed him. Even through the activity that followed, it stayed there as though some sort of badge until the breeze kicked up the following morning and it was carried it off on the winds in a way that Cyrus’s past never could be.
Chapter 72
The towers of Vernadam were higher than Cyrus remembered, as the castle appeared on the horizon the day after they passed over the bridge at Harrow’s Crossing. The former battlefield had been quiet, the dead all cleared and few reminders to show that there had even been a clash there some eight months earlier. It was a clear day, with little of the chill that had been so prevalent farther north.
They rode through the town at the base of the hill that Vernadam was built upon, and it was quiet as well, as though everything had died down after the harvest. There were no soldiers, no women plying their wares outside the inn. The market was much less active than when last they had been through, and by the time they were climbing the switchback road that led up to the castle, Cyrus wondered if Galbadien’s army was even still stationed in the area.
At the castle gates they met no resistance. Guards saluted Longwell, who led the procession. “It would appear we are expected,” J’anda said.
“They watch the roads,” Longwell said. “No one gets this far unless they’re wanted. Apparently, my father is amenable to my visit.”
There was a stir at the far side of the courtyard as they rode in, and Cyrus saw Odau Genner’s bulk coming down the long stairs that led up to the keep. He was flanked on either side by guards with polearms.
“Hail, Odau Genner,” Longwell said as he handed the reins of his horse to a stableboy. “How fare thee?”
“I fare well enough, Lord Longwell,” Odau Genner said, “though I admit my surprise to see you.”
Longwell frowned at him. “Surely you were apprised of my journey here by your spies.”
“Oh, certainly,” Genner said, making a sweeping bow as he reached the bottom steps. “We knew of your crossing all the way up at Gundrun. That you came at the head of such a small force while your army remains engaged north of Enrant Monge was of some interest, however.”
“You know that they are engaged in battle, then?” Longwell asked. “Do you know what they battle?”
“Some form of creatures,” Genner said slowly, “or so the rumor goes.”
“The reports your spies give you about my passage through our land are treated as certainty,” Longwell said, his fingers hanging upon his prominent chin, still smooth from the shave he had given it that very morning, as Cyrus watched with some amusement. “Yet the words of your spies about a threat that will swallow our entire Kingdom whole are said to be rumors. Very interesting, your somewhat schismatic approach to gathering intelligence.”
“Well,” Odau Genner said, nervously, “we have had several descriptions, but of course His Majesty says—”
“You need not acquiant me with what ‘His Majesty’ has said about the whole endeavor,” Longwell said dryly, “for I suspect that it will be almost as nonsensical as an army of the living dead sweeping south out of the mountains, killing every living thing in sight. Of course,” he went on, “at least the latter has the actuality of truth on its side; whatever my father has said has only the grounding of a throne and crown that count for less and less as the days go by.”
“That … is a very … unkind thing to say about your father,” Odau Genner said.
“It’s also fairly accurate,” Longwell said. “I have need to speak with the King. Is he about?”
“He remains in his throne room,” Odau Genner said. “I am told that there are quarters prepared for you, that you may wash the dust of your journey off, and that you may then be seen for dinner. If you would care to follow me,” Genner said with a sweep of his hand.
Cyrus gestured for Longwell to lead the way then followed up the long, wide stairs that took them into the foyer, the massive tile and marble entry to the castle. Stewards waited, taking each of them in turn. Cyrus followed his and felt Aisling shadowing just behind him. He turned and saw Martaina beyond, her sharp eyes looking in all directions at once, head swiveling around to keep watch on everything. He started to ask her if she expected an ambush but dismissed the idea; only a fool would not be paranoid here, especially given how we parted last from the King.
They wandered through the corridors, following the stewards. No guards were in sight, something Cyrus thought slightly odd, and it increased to his worry. They were led along the back side of the castle, to the hallway where Cyrus had stayed during his previous visit. He felt the bite of tension as the steward led him straight to the door of the suite where he had stayed when last he had been at Vernadam, and he turned to give Aisling a hopeful smile. She seemed unaffected, cool, still there at his left elbow, just behind him.
“Your room, sir,” the steward said. He was a teenager, but his voice was high like a eunuch’s, and Cyrus didn’t pause to ponder that possibility too deeply.
“Thank you,” Cyrus said, and gestured for Aisling to enter first. “I don’t need a tour.”
“Very well, sir,” came the high-pitched response. “I’ll be back for you in two hours, when dinner is about to be served.”
“Thank you,” Cyrus said, and shut the door.
Aisling was already slinking around, her shoes padding on the marble floors as she examined the tapestries near the window. “Very impressive,” she said. “Much better than my accomodations last time I was here.”
“Oh?” Cyrus’s eyes caught on the rug before the hearth, where a flame was already lit and the logs were piled high inside. The rug was just as he recalled it, a fluffy mass of fur. He recalled the softness of it to the touch, the feeling of what he had been experiencing when last he had been here.
“Yes,” she said, jarring his gaze up to her. “You got one of the most impressive suites, according to one of the stewards I spoke with last time.”
“Is that so?” Cyrus muttered. “Apparently I’m still just as honored a guest as I was last time. I assumed this time it’d be the stables for certain.”
“For the hero of Harrow’s Crossing?” Aisling said demurely, sliding behind a curtain in front of the window, then stepping out of the other side, smiling. “Surely a welcome of the sort you deserve is in order.”
“Surely,” Cyrus said weakly. “I suppose we’ll have to dress more formally for the dinner.”
“That does seem to be the norm,” she said. “Though your armor wouldn’t be out of the norm at all for you …”
“I suppose not,” he said, and his feet carried him to the bedroom door, where he nudged it open to reveal the familiar space; lush carpets, fine furniture. It was still shadowed in darkness, and he was reminded of the first night he had spent here, with Cattrine—before I knew who she was. Back when I thought I knew who she was.
“Fond memories?” Aisling’s voice came from behind his shoulder this time, and he started when he realized she was close behind him.
He began to answer but faltered. “Some, I suppose. Some not.” He looked around the room. “Do you find it … uncomfortable … knowing that when last I was here I—”
“No,” she said, and pushed past him gently to enter the bedroom. Her belt came off, daggers and all, and she left it on the vanity on the other side of the bed, the clink of metal scabbards on the wood as loud in this room as any shout he might have been able to recall from when last he was here. She grabbed a brush off the smooth wooden surface and ran it through her tangles of white, putting it all into lines, easy curves coming off her forehead. She put down the brush after a minute and then unstrapped her leather armor and undressed before a full-length mirror. “You may have been here with her last time, but you’re not here with her now, and I trust you’re grounded enough in reality to tell the difference.” She delicately made her way across the floor. “I care less about the fact that she once held you; I c
are more about the fact that I hold you now.” She kissed him, long and deep, luxuriant, smooth, and he was reminded for a flash of the soft fur of the rug against his naked skin, of the caress of his fingers against scarred flesh in the bed.
She took him by the hand, and led him there to lie down. “Besides, whatever memories you have of what happened before are a welcome challenge.” She swayed over, pushed him onto his back and then climbed astride him. “I have no doubt of which you’ll remember more strongly when you leave this time, after all.”
Chapter 73
When the steward arrived to collect them only an hour or so later, it was after Cyrus had had a bath drawn and luxuriated in it for a while. He wore his armor—as though I could have escaped it, he thought, as they marched along the corridor. The others were with him, all dressed in their battle garb, though with slight adjustments.
“I don’t suppose any of you could find it in yourselves to wear the more elaborate dress clothing they left for us?” Cyrus asked, sotto voce, as they came around a corner and two servants jumped back against the wall, flattening themselves against it so the Sanctuary procession could pass.
“I wore the scarf they left with my ensemble,” J’anda said, his fingers tracing down a purple silk piece of finery that Cyrus had to concede went well with his robes. “Is this not dressy enough for you?”
“The hospitality of my father’s dining room called for a certain sort of fashion,” Longwell said in a muted tone, his armor clinking. “I dressed appropriately.”
“Perhaps you should have worn a scarf as well,” J’anda said.
They were led into the room off the foyer, the long space looking the same as last time, with its plaster walls hiding the stone that Cyrus knew was back there. The fires were burning and there were fewer chairs around the table this time; there were however, Cyrus noted, just as many servants hovering around the table.
After being seated, Cyrus waited, his nose already flooded with the smells of the kitchen, a symphony of delights to the olfactory sense. The King’s seat to his right remained empty when the servants came through with the first course, a soup that was thinner yet more satisfactory than the last he had been served in this very room. It was heavy on the broth, and when he sniffed it, the spices reminded him of Arkaria.
Odau Genner made his way into the room with another man, taking their seats without fanfare or announcement. Count Ewen Ranson made his way across from Cyrus and seated himself without any assistance from the servants, who fawned and fussed over him. He spread his own napkin in his lap as Cyrus watched the older warrior brush them off.
“It is of course a pleasure to see you again, Count Ranson,” Cyrus said, halting his spoon halfway to his mouth.
Ranson looked up at him, hesitant at first, looking to the empty chair to Cyrus’s right as if for approval. “And you as well, Lord Davidon of Perdamun, Warden of the Southern Plains.” He gave Cyrus a half-hearted smile as he said the full title. “I trust all goes in the north as we have heard?”
Cyrus looked back down to the soup. “I suspect so. Have you heard that these enemies will be the end of your entire land?”
Ranson’s face shifted not at all, but his eyes fell to his own bowl. “That would be the gist of what I have heard, yes.”
“Yet your army remains idle here,” Cyrus said then took a sip from his spoon. It was hot but not too hot, and the scent of the tomato that flavored it was perfect, no hint of acidity to be found.
“My army remains as my King commands,” Ranson said stiffly, and then lapsed into a silence with the rest of the table.
It was not until the main course of duck was brought out that the King finally made his appearance, looking even more drawn than when Cyrus had last seen him. Cyrus noted for the first time that Samwen Longwell was seated considerably down the table from him, where before he had been seated at the right hand of his father. Cyrus wondered at his place directly left of the King, and Ranson across from him. Aisling was to his left, but she seemed to be keeping quiet, and he could not hear even the faintest slurp as she daintily attacked her soup. He began to make comment to her about this then decided the better of it, finding no tactful way to tell her that she could suck more quietly than any woman he’d ever known.
The duck was soft, slightly greasy but succulent, as Cyrus chewed the meat. The King had entered to little enough fanfare, but he had said nothing since seating himself. He was far from jovial normally, and now he seemed even more downtrodden and quieter than ever he had been before. His paunch was still obvious, but the rest of his body was skeletal, shriveled, as though all the life had gone out all of him but his belly. His skin was badly settled on his bones and he carried an ill humor about him.
“King Longwell,” Cyrus said, halfway through his duck breast, “might I speak with you about the situation in the north, sir?”
“Speak all you would care to,” the King said, “and I can even guarantee that I will listen—until such time as I want to hear no more.”
Cyrus chose his words carefully. “Surely you know, as wise and informed as you are, that we have come from the battlefield up north where Syloreas and Actaluere have faced this new threat to Luukessia. You have heard that our armies were beaten back by this enemy, nearly broken, and survive only through sheer force of will.” Cyrus leaned heavily on the table with his elbow, trying to get the King to give him his attention. The King was plucking at the duck breast with his fingers, tearing strips of meat from it. “These beasts are coming south, even now, and will surely reach the gates of Vernadamn by this time next year, at the latest.”
“What of it?” King Longwell said, looking up as he took a bite of duck. Flecks of half-chewed food fell upon the table, landing just short of where Cyrus’s gauntlet rested. “Let them come, I say. Let them chew up the Tiernans, those whores, and the Ungers, those brutish fools. Let them eat Syloreas and Actaluere whole.” Utter distaste dripped from his words. “I welcome them. Let them come, this … scourge. Let it scour the land, cleanse it, and when it is done, we will march forth from Vernadam and destroy them, unifying all of Luukkesia under the banners of Galbadien. He cracked an odd, loathing smile. “Don’t you see? These things, they are the vessel of our ancestors, a sacred cleansing for a land torn asunder. This is our destiny. This is that which will deliver us from the fools that have run us aground with their dishonor and lies. Let them come. Galbadien has stood for ten thousand years. We shall rule the land of Luukessia for the next ten thousand.”
There was a quiet that settled over the dining room, one that lasted for almost a minute unbroken, until J’anda spoke. “Oh.”
“Oh?” King Longwell said, looking up from his duck breast, another strip of meat clutched in his greasy fingers. “That is what you bring me? ‘Oh?’ Such a measured reaction, such a clever deduction, really.”
“I think it was probably just shock,” Cyrus said, “considering I just heard the most wholly unbelievable idiocy I have ever heard breathed, and it came out of the mouth of a King.”
There was quiet again, and J’anda’s voice was heard once more. “Oh. My.”
King Longwell’s putrid loathing turned toward Cyrus. “You come into my hall and insult me. You have done nothing but insult me since the day you arrived—”
“And save your Kingdom from your own incompetence,” Cyrus said, interrupting the King, who did not stop speaking. “Don’t forget that.”
“—the day you arrived with your arrogance,” King Longwell said, his speech now heated, “and bringing with you these westerners, these— these— magicians,” he imparted a sort of vitriol to the word that made it sound like the lowest form of insult, “and in the company of the great whore of Actaluere—”
Cyrus stood at that, his chair falling over behind him, the sound of wood cracking and splintering upon landing on the marble floor. He kept his hand well clear of his sword but glared down at the King. “Just because you’re a King, it doesn’t give you license to speak that way
of her.”
Aron Longwell looked up at Cyrus with a malignant glee buried under sheerest loathing. “Doesn’t it? Didn’t you as much as say so yourself to her? Did you not cast her back to her husband’s loving embrace? Did she not fill your ears with lies and poisons even as she lured you to her bed and kept you entranced with her feminine wiles? Is she not the whollest example of a harlot run amok, doing the bidding of her husband and brother, stirring chaos, whoring herself to a man with power, drawing him in while she worked her way into your confidence—”
“I consider myself a patient man—” Cyrus said.
“Though none of the rest of us would,” J’anda breathed quietly—but not so quietly that most of the table didn’t hear him, even over the crosstalk.
“Amen,” Aisling said.
“—but you are rapidly straining any patience I might have,” Cyrus said.
“As though I give any sort of a damn,” King Longwell said, and slid his seat back with great effort. He stood to look Cyrus in the eye. “You were a man ensnared not months ago, and now you come to my court, to my house, and think to speak to me of all you know? You are a fool and you think to tell me how to run a Kingdom. You think to tell me what threatens me, when you could not see a threat with your own eyes as it dangled tantalizingly in front of you. You know nothing, Cyrus Davidon. Nothing,” the King repeated. “Nothing of our land, nothing of our ways, nothing of us. You think we are easily defeated by some creatures that come from the north.” He waved a hand at Cyrus. “Go back to your land, fool. Take the Tiernan harlot with you, if you wish to be further deceived. This is Luukessia, where reign the men supreme, the architects of our own fate, keepers of our own lands and counsel. I’ll be damned if some western fool that falls for the first thing dangled in front of his crotch will tell me there’s a threat to my Kingdom when nothing is of worry to me—”
“You are the fool, Father,” Samwen Longwell said, standing abruptly. His chair did not fall, Cyrus noted, though the dragoon stood with force of his own. “You spend all your time crafting insults and none of your time trying to use your wits. Your Kingdom—our Kingdom,” he said, and drew a vengeful glare from his father, “was mere days from falling when the army of Sanctuary came to our aid. You could not even save your own land without help, but now you insult the man who led his army here to save us.”
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four Page 65