King Petrus stood. “High King, under-kings, can we conclude?”
King Otho was on his feet almost before King Petrus finished. “Let us be done.”
The door burst open like a breached gate. Cedrick and Hal rushed in, Murrow borne between them, his head bloody. All color drained from the High King’s face at the sight of another son’s limp body.
“She escaped,” Cedrick panted as they lowered Murrow.
The High King was there in an instant, his hands running over Murrow’s head. “He lives.” He shuddered, control cracking at last.
I knelt beside them, wiping at the blood with Murrow’s cloth, which I’d not yet returned after cleaning my knives. The hurt was not as bad as it seemed, a gash and a lump above his right ear, but it bled yet. I pressed the cloth against it. King Otho took a clean kerchief from his belt pouch and gave it me to use instead. Murrow stirred but did not waken.
“Cedrick is also wounded,” Hal said.
“I’m fine,” Cedrick jerked his chin up. One hand clamped over a wound on the other arm, blood seeping between his fingers.
The King turned to him. Cedrick tried to wave his father off but the King peeled back my brother’s fingers. “It’s not bad. But it’ll need to be stitched. Maudlin?”
“I can do it. Can you take Murrow?”
My father shifted, his hand replacing mine on the kerchief. I went to fetch my needle and thread from my bag, stored—so long before, it seemed—in the King’s cupboard. Birnan, who had been searching the cupboard for clean bandages, joined me at Cedrick’s side as I returned.
“What of Yvein?” King Petrus asked
“Dunstan’s men are chasing her.” Cedrick picked up the bottle of wine I’d grabbed from the King’s table, to clean the wound, and took a swallow. I took the bottle back and sluiced the cut. “Hold still.”
Birnan held Cedrick’s arm as I finished threading my needle, but for something to do as much as anything. Cedrick did not move his wounded arm even as his other swung out to retrieve the bottle.
“Don’t drink it all,” I said. “I want to wash it again once I’m finished.”
He looked at the nearly-full bottle, then shared a glance of exaggerated disbelief with Birnan, shaking the bottle to demonstrate, and took another drink. “I don’t know how she got her hands free.” He looked at our father rather than my fingers, poking the needle through his flesh and pulling it closed. “As we were passing through the hall, she seemed to stumble. I tried to pull her up, but she rolled away, came up with rock in her hand, and hit Murrow. Then she grabbed his knife, slashed at me, and ran.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if Dunstan had assigned new doorwards yet.”
As if summoned by his name, Dunstan appeared in the doorway. “She is gone, lord.”
The High King stood, Birnan taking over holding the cloth to Murrow’s head. “She had help?”
“Rummell was waiting with a boat. My men saw them both as the ship rowed away. She was whipping the slaves.”
The High King turned his head but I saw what word he mouthed. It certainly mirrored my thoughts. “Within the Keep?”
“I’m not sure, lord,” Dunstan said. “We came when we heard Cedrick’s shouts. We saw no one but her.”
I finished stitching, and washed the wound again.
“Dunstan,” the King said, “would you have hot water and more bandages brought?” Dunstan bowed and stepped out.
“I’d like to know where that rock came from,” Cedrick said. “Stones aren’t just lying around in the Black Keep.”
“She put it there, of course,” the High King said. “A weapon of last resort, hidden and safe because it is not a weapon. Rocks are not strewn on our floor, but if one appeared a few days could pass before someone cleared it away.”
Murrow stirred. “She said her foot hurt. She fell. Then...” Birnan helped him as he struggled to sit up. “She hit me.” His searching gaze stopped at Cedrick. “A rock?” His eyes went to the King. “She got away?”
“She did.” The High King looked at each in turn. “Free, and I do not doubt, hating every one of us.” His gaze rested on Birnan. “Possibly you most. Or will as she soon as she learns that you are now King of Verun.”
“He is?” Cedrick said.
Murrow blinked, as if not certain he was fully awake.
“I urge you to gather your troop and leave with all possible haste. To hold Verun, you must hold the castle in Verten. To do that, you must get there before she does.”
Birnan looked a question at Murrow. When he nodded that he could sit unaided, Birnan rose. “How?”
“Yvein will probably strike for the shortest route,” the High King said. “But no matter how she whips them, slaves cannot row at full speed all the way to Verun. If your boats go south, around Punlan, the westward current should get you to Verten first.”
Dunstan returned, bringing the water and cloths himself.
“Dunstan,” Birnan said. “Come with me. We have a force to select.”
Dunstan looked at the High King. “Lord?”
“Captain.” The High King took the basin from him. “Please assist the King of Verun with assembling a troop of our best warriors. Any man but yourself is his to request.” He jerked his head toward King Otho and King Petrus. “His fellow under-kings have given leave to choose from their men as well, with the guidance of their own captains.” He went to Murrow and began washing the gash on his head.
Dunstan stood unmoving for a moment, taking this in. He turned back to Birnan and bowed deeply. “Lord. A better man now leads Verun.”
“Not unless we can secure it,” King Birnan said. He took his leave of the men, kissed my cheek, and went out, Dunstan following.
King Otho looked at the High King. “If Yvein holds Verten, Birnan will not take it with a troop, even of Reud’s best.”
The High King’s face stiffened, clearly too weary and too distressed to smooth away his thought. “You need not tell me I have bet Birnan’s life on Yvein choosing badly. I knew already.”
Chapter XII
I was alone with my father. And Utor’s body.
The under-kings had taken leave. The High King had asked Hal to go with Cedrick and Murrow, to watch over the injured princes as they slept. Hal, of course, agreed, and the arrangement was made—over the protests of both princes.
The King stood within the circle of chairs, his gaze fixed upward. “We will have the internments tomorrow.” He walked back and forth, not looking towards the hearth. “Not the day dawning.” He nodded towards the one narrow window, lightening as dawn approached. “The one following. Kimbur. I should talk to her. Make sure she understands what is required. And Dunstan. I need to ask him if the bodies have been burned.”
I went to him. “Father.”
He met my gaze, fearsome and bleak at once. “I want to watch his ashes strewn beneath my pigs’ feet.”
I held one of his hands in both of mine. “Father.”
He pulled his hand free and strode to the door. “I forgot. How could I have forgotten? We must send word to Logan.”
I hurried after him. “What for?”
“Utor’s marriage. We finally found the perfect princess. Waited for her to grow up, more like. She’s twelve years younger than he...”
His head tipped forward against the door.
I touched his shoulder. “Come. Sit.” I shook him gently. “We will have plenty to do, Father. But none of it will change this. Come.”
He allowed me to lead him to the hearth but refused a chair, letting himself drop to the floor like a frozen rope finally thawing and spilling in an untidy pile on the ship’s deck. One hand reached to stroke Utor’s hair. His face shuddered with what I realized a moment later was thunderous rage. “If she comes into my hands again, I will behead her myself.”
He held out his free hand and I seized it as I would that of a man in peril of falling over the gunwale. “Birnan was right,” he said at last. “Had Utor been back-guard, he coul
d have taken Verun with his sword and flung a knife into the other. No one bettered Utor at knife throwing.” His hand, held in mine, clenched. “Would I had seen Verun draw.”
“I saw him. Too late.”
“This is not your fault.” He shook his head viciously. “Nor Birnan’s.”
“Nor yours.”
His mouth twisted, his gaze unseeing.
“You hold us excused and keep the blame for yourself. Father.” I touched his face, as he had Birnan’s, and waited until his eyes focused on me. “Verun. Yvein. Ulton. No one else.”
“After Utor is...” he drew a trembling breath, “given back to the mountain, we will plan. Verun is dead. Yvein and Ulton are not. I will have them.”
“I know.”
He sighed, drawing his other hand slowly away from Utor’s head. “Murrow is Prince now.”
“Yes.” I did not loosen my grasp on his hand.
“He will grow quickly into his new role. A second son always knows what may be required.” His free hand balled, pressed to his mouth, and when he spoke again his words were muffled. “Four sons! They all lived, and grew into fine men, worthy of their rank. They learned their duties, and did them, and behaved like gentlemen. Serving women in the Black Keep do not fear to encounter a prince in an empty room.” He pulled a wet breath. “Even after your mother’s death, and the babe with her, I knew I was fortunate. I had four sons. And you, of course, Maudlin. All of you lived.”
I said nothing. Myriad dangers stalked the lives of children, and royal children faced human enemies as well.
He pressed his hand flat on Utor’s chest where the heart no longer beat. “My son. My firstborn. My Prince. Utor.” The name burst from him in a shuddering heave. I clutched his hand, all—and nothing—I could do.
Some time later, he spoke again. “I sat here the night he was born. Close to the fire as I could get, cold with fear I never felt on a field of war.” He glanced towards the cupboards and the hidden door to his room. “I could hear your mother in our chamber, sounding like she was fighting a battle of her own.”
“I don’t remember her very well,” I said, my thumb rubbing warmth and sparse comfort on the back of his hand.
“Pity. She adored you. All of you. How proud she was of Utor, that night.”
I listened as my father drew out his memories of his young wife and her dark-haired babe. How that infant hair had fallen out, leaving him bald until after his first birthday. How Utor, at three, had tumbled halfway down one of the staircases and their terror at the lump on his head. His comprehension, even as a child, of his role as Prince. How readily he learned to read and write. His insistence that he be taught knife throwing earlier than Anhud would have allowed, and his persistence in practicing once the Armsmaster agreed.
“Maudlin...would you...” My father’s disjointed speech broke.
I squeezed his hand. “Of course. Whatever it is.”
His parched swallow echoed in the quiet room. “Your mother…my sisters…are dead.”
My heart chilled, knowing then what he asked. Brusterian women had made the dead ready for internment as long as Brusterian men had been fighting and dying. I had never done so alone. But, as he had told Birnan, you did not choose your duty. It merely was.
***
I prepared Utor as the older women had taught me.
I cut away his clothing. In a poor family the clothes of the dead would be reused. For royalty, they were burnt in mourning but not with the body. I steeped mullein in boiling water to wash him, fragrant steam billowing like a storm coming in over the sea.
There was almost no blood. The knife must have struck his heart. The wound was a small thing, barely a finger’s width. It hardly seemed possible. All that was Utor, gone to a wound I could close with four stitches. I had not wept with my father, trying to help him with his grief, but if I wept now, it did not matter. I was alone with the dead, bathing him with water warmer than tears.
I cleaned and shaped his nails though they did not need it, immaculate as he had been for the Court feast. Then I took up my scissors and trimmed his beard. His face was disconcertingly calm, as if he were sleeping. I could not help feeling that my touch on his cheek might wake him even as my fingers knew his skin was too cool to be living flesh.
His braid was disheveled, hair escaping at his temples and above the ears. I hesitated. If I combed it out and could not force the memory of its creation back into my fingers, there was no woman in the castle who could help. Another of my brothers would have to come, breaking the burial custom.
Easing him onto his side, I loosened the leather tie and dipped my comb in the water. On my eighth attempt, the skill returned, sudden as summer rain. His hair slid like fine linen thread in my hands as I wove it into place. I took a silver bell no wider than my thumbnail from my belt pouch and fastened it to the tie at the end. Our mother had had four such bells, which she wore in her braid on festival days. They were all I had of her. I dried him with clean cloths, and rubbed his body with oil steeped with rowan berries.
Then I sat, reluctant to take the final step. Sprinkle him with dried rose petals and tansy, and sew him into his shroud.
Six years, Maudlin.
How often I had heard Utor in my mind since the Saradenian letter had come, speaking wisdom in the voice from which I was most accustomed to hear counsel and most likely to heed it. What a stubborn, witless, proud fool I had been. I had listened to his words when they had risen but uncritically, never asking myself why Utor—why all my brothers—crept into my thoughts more and more. I had wanted to come home at last, finally grown ready to return and make peace, and, perhaps, amends. But I refused to let myself hear what the still gray quiet at the core of myself had been whispering. Now Utor was dead, and I would never hear him again but in those thoughts.
I pulled the end of my braid over my shoulder, touching the leather tie he had put there.
At last I mustered my courage and threaded my needle. Ulton. Yvein. I stabbed the needle through linen. If I found either of them before my father did—
Realization struck, hot and sharp. Yvein wasn’t rowing to Verun. She knew the High King would send a force there, and she wouldn’t count on the loyalty of her husband’s men after his death. She was going to Vere. To join Ulton and plot their next step.
I finished my stitching with more haste than custom would usually condone, and went to my father.
***
The under-kings’ chairs had been cleared from the King’s room by the time I returned. It was as it had been when I arrived. Only hours before? It seemed liked months. A lifetime.
It had been. Utor’s lifetime.
The King was at his work table but rose when his guard admitted me. I stood before him once more, this time without the reassuring presence of Utor, and explained what I had guessed. He looked skeptical when I began, less so once I’d finished.
“Perhaps,” he said. “It’s possible.” He picked up the quill he’d set down, cleaned the nib, set it down again. “I hope you’re right. Birnan will have better odds.” He pushed the cork back into the ink bottle. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”
“I—what?”
He frowned. “You know Vere. You alone of us know Ulton on sight. I’ve not laid eyes on him since he was a boy.” He went to the high seat and lay a hand on one arm, letting me know what he would say next was a command, not a request. “You will lead a force to Vere. Find them. Bring them back. Breathing. Or not. As seems best to you.”
I felt my mouth fall open. “Lord?”
“An hour? Two hours?” His eyes went upward as he considered. “No more than two. Take Master Carlson. A quiet one, I grant you, but he acquits himself well in difficult times.”
I thought of returning to Vere, a band of warriors at my back. If we were fast, we could catch them before they fled or hid. The Pedagno might yet live. We might save him. I thought of Utor, pale and still in a shroud I had sewn closed. I looked down, and saw my knives in
my hands. I had not realized I’d drawn them. Ulton. Yvein. One for each. “One hour, lord. I’ll go tell Hal.”
“Will a force of two dozen men be enough?”
“Yes, lord. Ample.” I sheathed my knives. “Vere keeps no fighting men, and Yvein could not have gotten away with half so many.”
He smiled. “I will order your boat ready.”
***
Hal was doing as he’d been asked, keeping watch over Murrow and Cedrick, but my brothers were not. Neither were asleep, nor looked as if he had slept. All three of them were on their feet before I’d closed the door behind me.
Cedrick took one look at my face. “What’s happened?”
I made soothing motions. “Nothing…else. But something is to hand.”
Cedrick pulled a long breath. “Finally. There’s something to do.”
“What?” Murrow returned to his chair and folded his hands, the picture of a man about to be forced to renounce a deep desire. Which, of course, was certainly the case. The Prince could not be risked. Not now.
I explained for the second time why I believed Yvein was heading for Vere rather than Verun. The High King’s assessment that it might be true, and the raid upon Vere he had ordered in response. Under my command. With Hal as one of the party. I flicked a glance in Hal’s direction, wondering what he thought. Of making up one of a Brusterian warrior band. Of the delay in our search for Saradena. But he listened without speaking, his face as bland as any noble’s
Cedrick turned an uncharacteristically grim expression upon me, his eyes narrowing like someone weighing where to strike. “I’m going.”
“I have no objection,” I said. The surprise that flitted across his face was almost amusing. I raised a hand. “If the King does not.”
His face went rigid as the granite of the mountain. “He won’t.” He pivoted and strode towards the door, then paused, his hand on the latch. “I will be ready when the boat is.”
Murrow was on his heels. “I’ll go with him.” He gave a lopsided, wan smile that did not touch his eyes. “To mediate.”
Homegoing (The Tall Ships of Saradena Book 1) Page 43