Arsinol nodded. “See to it that a thousand heavy horse are added. Take them equally from the other three Captains.”
“Yes M’lord,” Ja Brude answered, then spotting the small form of Rovena huddled near a sidewall of the tent and asked. “Will we be contacting the High King tonight, or in the morning?”
Arsinol sighed. “Tonight…tomorrow we will need all speed. Contact Gan immediately,” he told Rovena.
ǂ
Tar Kostek rode quickly along, pushing his mount a little faster now that he’d put the banks of the Parm River behind him. He left the city of Herra directly after the meeting with the High Council. It was a meeting that left him empty and sad, despite the fact that the Council officially granted him the rank of High Tar. He felt inadequate to the task. The whole of the Inland Sea was falling into chaos around them, and he lamented his inability to sway the Council to go to war. He was positive Tar Amon would have shared his views of the present situation. He also was sure that the previous High Tar would have rallied the frightened old men on the Council, persuaded them to oppose the recent injustices being dished out by High King Mastoc. As it was, his skills as an orator had fallen woefully short.
‘Short,’ he thought with a laugh. ‘I couldn’t convince a man dying of thirst to sip from a cup of water.’ He’d failed, even with the help of the Zarina Monde, and with the news that the Temple Knights were now in open war with the Toranado. The Council failed to believe the reports from Speaker Tearrio, and declined the invitation from Monde to go and see the truth for themselves; instead they elected to go the safe way, the sure way. The Council felt it was a path that would ensure the survival of Noble Island. Kostek did not hide the fact that he found such pandering to the High King distinctly distasteful and utterly wrong. At first he was surprised when they elected him to the office of High Tar, but then he realized he won by default, because not one of them coveted the position in such dire times.
‘They know!’ he thought. ‘They know, and still they decide to do nothing.’ Such blatant disregard for justice smacked of cowardice to Master Kostek. But the thought of cowards on Noble Island was something harder to believe than the thought of the sun rising in the west.
The new High Tar was disgusted with the Council and himself for his failure to persuade them to act as needed.
Zooey, his mount, finally emerged from the trees and they came to a large clear valley. Higher up, at the very base of Mount Erato, sat a small white washed cabin. It was a lovely setting, and as Kostek approached closer he noticed that Tar Nev was sitting on the front porch calmly drinking a cup of something and looking for all the world like he was waiting for a visitor he shouldn’t know was coming.
“Greetings High Tar,” Nev said with a smile, as Kostek pulled Zooey to a stop in front of him.
Kostek smiled despite his grim mood. “You’ve heard?”
Nev shook his head negatively. “But you were the only man for the job. Amon would have wanted you to succeed him.”
Kostek frowned at Amon’s name. He was still getting over the loss of his close friend and mentor. He steered his mount around to a small corral and tied her off. When he returned Nev was waiting with an extra cup. Kostek took it. It was hot and smelled slightly of sassafras.
“My own creation,” the solitary Tar said. “Good for the spirit, good for one’s confidence, though it doesn’t do much to cure rejection.”
Kostek looked at the other man suspiciously.
“You know why I’ve come?”
Nev shrugged. “I can guess.”
“The High Council has voted against going to war with the High King, or even threatening the man with such a possibility,” Kostek said hoping to shock the solitary with the recent decision, but Nev just nodded.
“It’s the safe path,” the man said, his bushy blonde hair blowing slightly in the soft mountain breezes. “Perhaps the conflict will work itself to a satisfactory conclusion without any interference from Noble.”
Kostek scowled. “It’s what the Council strives to believe, though how they could do so is beyond me.”
Nev shrugged again.
“Gwaynn needs us,” Kostek finally blurted. “If he still lives and the Deutzani do not kill him, I fear he may yet again face the High King’s Temple Knights.”
“He lives,” Nev said with finality. “He’s just took a beating, but his forces have defeated the Deutzani at Manse.”
“How could you know that?”
Nev smiled. “I have my ways,” he said, but did not mention his ability to project anywhere, anytime, into any corner of the Inland Sea. Nor did he mention that since Gwaynn’s departure, he’d kept a keen eye on his one and only student. Nev had grown fond of the boy, but he was not so fond, or so foolish as to take up the yoke destiny placed squarely on the boy’s shoulders.
Kostek looked at the other man closely but could see no jest in his manner. “I thought you were supposed to be a Solitary.”
Nev threw back his head and laughed loud enough to scare a few nearby birds from their roost. He continued to smile at Kostek as if he were a source of great amusement but said nothing more.
“Will you aid the boy?”
Nev shrugged again. “I trained him; that should be sufficient.”
“Against the Temple Knights?”
Still smiling Nev stood. “It’ll have to be sufficient. I’ll not take this struggle from Gwaynn. It’s his destiny and I’d not rob him of it.”
“But without your help he could fail,” Kostek said. “He could be killed.”
Nev smiled his mysterious smile. “He has died, many thousands of times already. I cannot and will not save him from one more.”
Kostek didn’t understand such an attitude, but he’d never understood any of the Solitaries and their mystic ways. He was not a thinker and just conversing with one was likely to cause his head to throb.
“Don’t you care for the boy at all?”
Nev paused for a moment, and for the first time gave his visitor a hard look. “More than you know, Master Tar. Now if you will excuse me,” he added and turned to enter the cabin.
Kostek’s shoulders slumped visibly. He’d failed yet again, and managed to offend the greatest Tar of them all in the process. But Nev stopped as he opened the door and turned once more.
“Fret not Kostek, my friend. You may yet get your chance to help the Prince, before this is over.”
ǂ
For the next three days de Baard kept a discreet eye on Prince Gwaynn Massi, trying to learn his habits and movements. But because he was the leader of a now rapidly growing army, he was not often alone. He spent his nights in a tent he shared with his Weapons Master near the central fire where there were always sentries. It would be a hard task to kill him there. The only other time he was relatively open to attack came in the very early hours of the morning when he ran along the river, also with Krys. The two religiously ran three miles downstream and three miles back, and at speed. It was impressive, but to kill Gwaynn at that time she would have to kill them both, and for that task she would need a good deal of help. It would be best to attempt the kill at the farthest point of their run when they were miles from the camp. If she could kill them both she could then just flee, and even if the attempt failed she may still be able to elude the army and make her escape. Where she would go she did not know. She could not fail!
‘He has to die, and soon,’ she thought to herself as she picked through the ashes of a nearby building. For some reason the thought chilled her, and it took her over an hour to realize that she did not want Gwaynn Massi to die; she did not want to kill him. It was an exceedingly strange thought for an Executioner, and she fought against it as she worked.
She was hunting metal alongside Emm and Taylor. Robert was still struggling with his injury, which became infected shortly after the battle. Currently he was back at the mill, feverish and ill tempered. de Baard found what appeared to be a belt buckle and she tossed it into her new basket weaved from
river reeds. They were searching for any metal which could be used to forge weapons. Each day more and more Massi crossed their country to join the army and to join the fight. Some came with weapons, some came with horses, but many came with nothing but their courage and perhaps a knife or an axe. Most were commoners no better than a mob, but sprinkled in, de Baard could spot a few of quality.
She continued to search through the charred rubble until she caught sight of the whore with the red hair.
‘She will die slowly,’ de Baard thought with satisfaction. ‘And if she dies…perhaps Gwaynn would…’ she toyed with the thought of joining with the Massi, joining with Gwaynn, and her heart began to thump strangely in her chest. She watched as the whore sauntered by as if she were a queen, looking neither left nor right. There was a large man following closely behind.
‘Cobb, yes that was his name,’ she thought.
The man followed her everywhere like a bodyguard, but de Baard did not fear him. He was an idiot. Perhaps the red-haired bitch was also a simpleton; perhaps the Prince only wanted her for the pleasure of her body. If this was so, the Prince may quickly lose interest in the girl. de Baard had witnessed it many, many times. Men were like that, fickle in their loyalty toward women, or perhaps they were just driven by their desire for someone new, someone fresh. de Baard rubbed some ash from her arm, before reaching up to smooth her hair. She was fresh. She took one last look at the bitch as she walked toward the bridge and the camp situated on the Plateau beyond. ‘The strumpet had to be simple to suffer the big man’s inane chatter all day long.’
de Baard spotted a couple of deformed metal goblets and added them to her catch.
“She’s the girl Gwaynn saved from the Executioner Navarra,” Emm said with a shudder, having watched de Baard glare at Samantha while she passed. Emm felt for Cyndar, after all she knew what it was like to have a crush on someone beyond your station. She thought wistfully of Krys Logan for a moment, completely oblivious to the look of shock that flittered across de Baard’s face.
“They’ve been seeing a lot of each other,” Emm added trying to break the news to her friend. “I think Prince Gwaynn may be sweet on her.”
“The Executioner Navarra…Gwaynn killed him?” de Baard asked frowning, trying to show only passing interest. She heard the last statement but chose to ignore it.
Emm nodded and squealed with delight as she found a stash of silverware. She held it up to show Cyndar, who just stared at her intently.
“Up by Koshka somewhere,” Emm continued. “Cut his head clean off, so they say.”
de Baard stood completely still for a moment. “Gwaynn killed him,” she muttered mostly to herself.
Taylor looked up from where he was. “He’s a fighter. Have you seen him fight? He and Krys killed Fakir and his men like so many ants. Everyone was afraid of Fakir.”
de Baard did not bother to ask who Fakir was, but instead stood, and pretended to stretch her back.
“I think I’ll go back. I need to check on Robert,” she said, and she would, though she truly just wanted to be alone for a while to think things out.
“Alright,” Emm said and smiled. “I’ll pick through the next house.”
de Baard didn’t hear her as she left, and greeted those she met on the way back to camp in an automated way. She looked for Gwaynn after dropping her metal off at the smithy, but did not catch sight of him, and then made the long walk back to Lonogan’s slightly annoyed and disappointed. The mill, along with most of the extreme eastern part of town survived the fire. At the moment, the mill was packed with men, and very, very busy.
“Hallo Cyndar,” Lee Brandt said rushing from his work to greet her. de Baard groaned silently. The large man was becoming a nuisance, as was her constant need to act civil to everyone. He may want to stick his prick in her, but she would much rather gut him with a clean, slow stroke of her kali.
“Lee,” she said with a false smile, but Brandt was so dazzled by her beauty that he thought it true and just for him.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet,” de Baard answered. “I’m going to check on Robert and clean up. Can you have something brought up to my room?”
Brandt hesitated for a moment.
“I just have to get these clothes off and wipe this ash from my skin,” she added sweetly.
The thought of her naked and washing left Brandt a little pink and speechless, but then he nodded. “Sure…I’ll bring you up something myself,” he croaked and she smiled at him again then reached out and touched his arm.
‘Fool!’ she thought as she passed. She moved slowly up the stairs, conscious that at least a dozen men watched her as she walked…Brandt included. So for the crowd, she moved her backside like a hypnotist’s watch, back and forth, back and forth.
Robert was sleeping, but she could tell from the door that he was running a good fever. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and his hair was wet and clinging to his scalp. She walked over and touched his head. He was hot, and his cheeks flushed but when he opened his eyes she could tell he was lucid.
“You have to kill him,” Huntley demanded weakly.
“I’ll kill him,” she snapped back and began to unwrap the bandages to check his wound. The Toranado doctor had placed a poultice on the wound, but around the edges de Baard could see the angry red lines of infection.
“How is it?” He asked softly.
“If the infection can be contained you’ll live,” she answered coldly, annoyed at his weakness.
“You must kill him, kill him before his army grows too strong,” Huntley repeated. “Kill the Prince and the fight will go out of the Massi.”
“Kill him…kill him,” de Baard mocked. “Did you see him fight?”
Huntley’s eyes grew blank. “I saw him,” he said and she could hear the awe in his voice and for some unknown reason she felt pride.
“He killed Navarra,” she blurted, then frowned. She was losing herself. Thoughts of the Prince were causing her to lose her composure and she did not like it.
“Navarra,” Huntley repeated and his eyes went wide.
de Baard felt another momentary flash of pleasure.
“It will not be easy, but I will kill him,” she said, but in her mind she kept wondering what it would be like to have the Prince naked and between her legs, pounding into her as Raga had done. Her stomach gave a little flip and she felt a surge of warmth moving upward from between her legs. ‘Perhaps I should set a different kind of trap for him along the river,’ she thought to herself. She was a master of death and had expertly led countless men into the cold arms of the Black Horseman, but she felt she had another talent, a talent to lead men into the very fires of passion. She often used carnal promises as a lure, and men were such easy prey. Perhaps she would cast her talents the Massi Prince’s way and perhaps he would take the bait few men could resist.
‘Yes,’ she thought, ‘I will try to land the Prince for myself. We would make a formidable team, and our children….’ Her eyes widened in surprise. She’d never entertained the idea of motherhood before. She hated children; hated their sniveling; hated their dependence, hated their clinging ways. It was an awful, nightmarish thought.
She glanced at Huntley who was watching her curiously.
“I will kill him,” she insisted mostly for his benefit. She did not want to kill Gwaynn. She wanted to be with him, fight with him, love with him, and if he was sweet on the bitch with the red hair, well she would just have to change that, or perhaps she would, in fact, do some killing after all. She would kill the whore.
ǂ
“Damn your father!” High King Mastoc shouted in genuine anger. He roared and strode about the room causing Captain Rye to remain still and Gan to shrink in on himself. Only Audra, the girl Queen remained impassively unimpressed. She sat comfortably in her large stuffed chair, legs crossed at the ankles and both hands resting on her ever-growing midsection. She was pregnant again, having conceived only a month after delivering M
astoc a son. Blaine, they called him. He had large dark eyes and a shock of dark hair and Audra thought him as beautiful as Mastoc thought her. She raised her elfin face toward her husband.
“My father must control Massi,” she said, her voice more like a child’s than a Queen, but at fifteen she was still more child than woman. “What does it matter if the Toranado fall and we lose Massi once more? My father and his army would be cut off from Deutzani lands.”
Mastoc turned and looked down on her, the anger was slow to bleed from his face, but it finally did so as she stood and went to him. She was over a foot shorter and so small it was nearly impossible for him to believe she was of the same race. She took his large rough hands in her small soft ones and smiled up at him. He gripped her hands gently, afraid of the delicacy of her bones. He’d beat and whipped other women at times, but Audra was his pride and no harm would ever come to her.
“If the Toranado fall, then your father would have not only his army but the Temple Knights and the Palmerrio army with him. Massi could not last against such a force,” he explained calmly, slowly, as if to a child.
Audra pouted a little. “Father will hold Massi, and he will kill the Prince. He doesn’t need your help.”
‘He did the first time,’ the High King thought, but did not say such aloud; his desire for the young woman was getting the better of him.
“Leave us my Queen. I will join you shortly,” he said taking her chin into his hand. At first he thought she might rebel, but she smiled up at him, and then stood up on her tiptoes.
“Come quickly,” she whispered, but it was loud enough for all to hear. The King laughed as the Queen coyly bounced from the room and the other men were thankful for her presence. At times she was the only person who could soften the High King, but even so when the door closed behind her, he turned sharply on them.
“Have you made contact with Rovena? Arsinol must turn back and help with the siege of Eno,” he barked at his Speaker.
Assassin of the Heart: Book Two: The Temple Islands Series Page 27