by Duncan Lay
“I was searching for the evidence you need, your grace,” Fallon said instantly.
“And?”
“Nothing you could take to the other nobles,” he admitted. “I did find strange lists of each county’s population and tax take with other documents about Kotterman. But I could not bring it with me, for it could have been nothing.”
He glanced across at the Duchess to see her face was blank and hard, her jaw set firm.
“That is a pity,” she said. “But things have moved on from there. The King’s revels were disturbed by news of the Kottermani fleet arriving in the harbor.”
“A fleet, your grace? I thought it would be just one ship?”
“No, it is three ships. All of them bigger than anything we have in the water. No doubt they are packed with both soldiers and goods for sale. Anyway, the King has been talking of nothing else and all his usual thoughts of drunken debauchery were thrown away when he heard of their arrival,” she said, talking out of the side of her mouth, her words barely reaching his ears. “It even stopped him talking about you.”
“Me?”
“Nobody can talk of anything but your magnificent victory, getting rid of the last of Swane’s men! Even if that filthy little toad gets free, he cannot do anything now,” Dina said with satisfaction.
“To defeat so many so easily – not even Hagen could have done that. We will be glad to follow your orders,” Gannon agreed, holding out his hand.
Fallon shook his hand but still felt uncomfortable. Not just at the praise for a victory that seemed, at the end, to be too easy, but because he hated the idea his old friend was the traitor who had betrayed them all to the Kottermanis.
“This puts us in a powerful position,” Dina said happily. “What you have done has made yourself easily as powerful as any Duke or Earl.”
“Surely not!” Fallon protested.
“True,” she said. “I would say you are more powerful. For people only do things out of duty to their Lord, and because they fear being thrown off his land if they do not follow his commands. You they will follow out of love. I do not know why the King has chosen to make you such a hero but it has played into our hands. Together, you and I can bring down Aidan and see that Swane is punished for his foulness.”
“Duchess—”
“Oh please, call me Dina when we are alone like this,” she said warmly. “If we are to defy the King together, we need have no airs and graces.”
“Dina,” Fallon said, the word feeling strange in his mouth. “The King plans to attack the Kottermanis. He boasts of humiliating Prince Kemal and wants me to lead the people against them.”
Her face creased in thought. “That could mean several things, none of them good,” she said. “To threaten the Kottermanis risks everything. He would have to be very confident that we can beat them. Or he will never give up and will only yield Gaelland when the place is a smoking ruin. If he cannot have something, then nobody else can. Or it could mean he will pretend a defense and then blame it on a popular uprising, arrest the leaders and hand them over to the Kottermanis as a peace offering.”
Fallon licked suddenly dry lips. “That would be me and my men,” he said hoarsely.
“Exactly.” Dina nodded. “So the first question must be, can we defeat the Kottermanis?”
“Yes, for now,” Fallon said instantly. “Winter is coming and they will only have one chance to land an army. We cannot let them take a town like Lunster and settle in for the winter. We have to make them strike here, let them into the city and then destroy them by using the tight streets and rooftops against them.”
“But they will arrive again in the spring, bringing more men next time,” she said.
“Aye. But we have the whole winter to get ready for them. And, even in spring, we just need a week of storms and they will have to run for safety. They will see it will cost them too much to take us.”
Dina shook her head. “We might defeat them a first time but not a second. They will bring three times as many ships and men as they need. But if we defeat them and then negotiate, we could win a much better deal for ourselves. This is what I fear Aidan plans. He will use you and then offer you to the Kottermanis to buy peace. You will be back with your families yes, but not in the way you imagined.”
Fallon rubbed his sweaty hands along his tunic. “What do we do then?” he asked.
Dina smiled but there was no humor there. “We have to use a little patience. My fellow nobles are greedy men. They do not care who is ruling them, if the backside on the throne above them is Kottermani or Gaelish. But if they think they are going to lose their position, their power and their money, they will squeal like pigs in the slaughterhouse. We just need to present them with the truth and they will turn on the King. With your army and me to lead the nobles, Aidan will not stand a chance.”
Fallon smiled at the thought but it faded as they rounded the corner to Cavan’s rooms to find Regan arguing with Gallagher at the door.
“Ah, here is Captain Fallon now. Not asleep in his room after all,” Regan said coldly.
“I am sorry, my dear Regan,” Dina said instantly, her voice radiating warmth. “I begged Captain Fallon to come and tell me all about his exploits in defeating the scourge of Berry, those evil snatchers. As you know, the Captain served my husband’s county all his life and he feels the old loyalty because of that. I did not want to embarrass him, or make my fellow nobles think I was somehow trying to use that old loyalty to influence such a hero, so I asked him to keep this quiet. Your guards were happy for me to take him for a quick walk.”
Fallon glanced at the guards, who were very much awake and standing to attention. He knew Gallagher and Padraig had planned to wait and watch, and hoped they had woken the men up before Regan arrived. Although they had not given any such permission, the guards were all nodding their heads frantically in agreement. Fallon also noticed that even Regan was not immune to the Duchess’s charm. She did everything but hold his hand and kiss his cheek.
“Please, do not punish me or Fallon for my silliness,” she implored.
For a moment Regan looked cold, then he smiled. “Of course not, my dear Duchess. As always, it is a pleasure to see you.”
“What did you need Fallon for?” she asked.
Regan produced a scroll. “Captain Fallon, you are required to attend the meeting with the Kottermanis tomorrow. You and four men will escort Prince Swane, as before, giving no indication he is not Prince Cavan. Afterwards, the King would speak to you.”
Fallon merely nodded as he took the scroll. “I’ll be there,” he said.
Regan did not wait around but simply walked off, pausing only to give a little bow to the Duchess and a quick glare at the sweating guards.
“Thank you,” Fallon said softly.
“It is the least I can do. He is a revolting little man but we have to step carefully around him,” Dina said. “I shall see you tomorrow then. And, after you speak to the King, come speak to me.”
“Yes, your grace,” Fallon said, already wondering what he would hear from the Kottermanis – and what the King wanted. It seemed the more he tried to get out of the pit he was in, the deeper he fell.
*
“You need to keep Caley with you,” Kerrin said firmly.
Fallon rubbed sleep out of his eyes. Darkness had been another bout with nightmares. “Thank you, son, but she is your dog. I couldn’t take her away from you.”
Kerrin ruffled Caley’s fur. “She is not mine, she belongs to all of us, and she’s here to help us,” he said. “I don’t need her as much any more but you do.”
“I do, do I?” Fallon asked, amused.
“Well, you are the one having the bad dreams now,” Kerrin pointed out. “I have talked it over with Caley and she agrees she needs to help you.”
“Really? She is not just saying that because she wants to sleep on my bed?” Fallon suggested.
“Dad, this is serious. She helped me and now she wants to help you. Whe
n Grandpa did that thing to her, gave her a word to be quiet, he let her talk to me. She lets me know what she wants and she wants this. She knows you are missing Mam, just like I am, but she can also feel how upset you are over Prince Cavan.”
Fallon leaned over and hugged both of them. He did not trust himself to speak. How could having a dog around wipe out the guilt he felt for killing the Prince he had sworn to protect – Gaelland’s only hope?
“Please, Dad. Do this for me,” Kerrin said.
Fallon looked at his son and saw the new lines of determination around his eyes and forehead. He had wanted his son to show some of that for many moons but, now it was there, he felt saddened.
“Then I will watch her, and she will watch me,” he said.
“You need to shake on it,” Kerrin said.
Caley obligingly held out a paw and Fallon took it, unable to keep the smile off his face. “Just as long as you don’t hog the bed,” he told the dog.
She chuffed at him in return.
“I have a gift for you as well,” Fallon said.
“What is it?” Kerrin asked.
“It’s a small crossbow, specially made for you. Brendan will make you up enough bolts so you can practice with it.” He produced the bow they had taken from Guild master Allen, cleaned up and reworked by Brendan.
Kerrin ran his hands over it reverently. It was beautifully made, the actual bow some type of hardwood reinforced with horn, the stock more polished wood, with the strange grip that jutted downwards at a sharp angle. It was designed so you could curl your hand around it and still reach the trigger with your first two fingers.
Kerrin flung his arms around him and Fallon hugged his son back – only to push him away at the sound of fighting outside.
“Stay here!” he ordered Kerrin as he swept up his shillelagh. While Kerrin obeyed, Caley was at his heel, her teeth bared as he threw open the door and raced out.
But he slowed down as he saw it was a pair of his villagers wrestling with each other, rather than some sort of attack from Swane’s agents.
“What in Aroaril’s name are you doing?” he roared.
They appeared to be trying to choke each other, and he used his shillelagh to shove them apart, punching an end into each man’s stomach, dropping them to their knees as a dozen other men came out of rooms to see what the fuss was about.
“Does someone want to tell me what is going on? Do we not have enough enemies as it is?” he spat.
“It was his fault – he was making sheep’s eyes at the maid who brought breakfast,” one of them gasped.
“So?”
“Well, she’d been smiling at me!”
Fallon shook his head. “I should give you both a whack over the head for stupidity! Not that it would hit anything vital, for Aroaril’s sake! What has that got to do with anything?”
Gallagher cleared his throat.
“What?” Fallon turned on his friend.
“It’s got nothing much to do with maids. But we’re all on edge. I mean, it’s been a long time since they last saw their wives,” he pointed out.
“So everybody is on edge because nobody has had a shag in more than a moon?” Fallon looked up and down the corridor.
“Well, not just that,” Devlin said. “But it has been a bloody long time. It makes you feel like every nerve is on a knife-edge.”
“And it’s not as if we know when we are going to get them back. We are just waiting around for the King to decide what to do with us,” one of the men on the floor said.
Fallon tapped him on the head with his shillelagh without even looking. “We are getting closer,” he said. “The Kottermani Prince is here now and we shall see him tomorrow. Then the King will finally tell us what is going on.”
“But you keep saying that. And it gets bloody hard to stay patient,” the other man on the floor said.
“And for some of us, it’s just bloody hard all the time,” Gallagher said with a wink.
Fallon could feel his own temper rising. He did feel some sympathy for them. Aroaril knew it had been a long time for him too and, while it should have been the least of his problems, it was still one that was difficult to forget about. But he was not about to admit that, not with Kerrin in earshot.
“You all need to be working harder. I’ll make sure we’ll be back training from tomorrow. You won’t have the energy to do anything after I have finished with you,” he growled.
“And how is that going to get our families back sooner?” one of the men on the floor complained.
“You just have to hold on for a few more days and all will be clear,” Gallagher said.
“It’s all right for you. You’ve got that hot priestess to keep you warm at nights,” the man muttered.
“What did you say?” Gallagher growled, his long knife appearing in his hand.
Fallon cleared his throat and looked down the corridor to where Sister Rosaleen stood, her face stony.
“You should use the power of prayer to keep yourselves pure. What would your families say if they knew what was happening here?” she declared.
“An excellent idea, Sister,” Fallon agreed. “I will run them around the castle until they pray for it to stop!”
*
“Highness, we have had no contact with the agents of Prince Cavan.”
Kemal tugged at his beard thoughtfully. “And we have waited in the usual place?” he asked his agent, Abbas.
“Indeed, highness. But we dared not linger for fear of questions being asked. The rumors around the marketplace say there has been trouble, and fighting, in the streets. Prince Cavan is being kept safe in the castle,” Abbas replied. He looked like a plump, prosperous merchant, one of dozens who kept Gaelland supplied with the latest in luxuries from across the sea. But behind the round face and twirling moustache was a mind like a steel trap.
“Do you think the King suspects his eldest son has been speaking to us?”
Abbas spread his hands wide. “Who knows what goes in the mind of that mad king, highness? But there is a new name on the streets: a captain of the Prince’s guards. His praises are being sung by both the commoners and high-born and even in their churches they speak his name.”
“And who is this new hero of theirs?”
“His name is Fallon, highness,” Abbas said. “We have never heard of him before but then he is said to have come out of nowhere to defeat the darkness that has plagued Berry’s streets.”
“There is no darkness on the streets,” Kemal said irritably. “We both know what is behind that.”
“Apologies, highness. I was merely reporting what the people are saying. They worship this Fallon—”
“What?” Kemal sat up straighter in his chair, the repetition of the name cutting through the many thoughts crowding out his head. “Who is he?”
“Fallon? We do not know, highness. He seems to have appeared out of the backwoods of Gaelland to rise quickly. It is said he saved Prince Cavan’s life.”
Kemal leaned back, not even looking at Abbas. Could it be the same man? A touch of disquiet struck him. The Gaelish woman Bridgit had spoken of her husband many times and he had even laughingly suggested he would seek out the man Fallon on his return to Gaelland. But could it be the same Fallon? Perhaps it was just a coincidence. But better to be safe than sorry. “I want to know everything about this Fallon. Especially his hometown. Get it to me as fast as you can,” he ordered.
Abbas bowed floridly. “Your will, highness. I shall have it for you within the day.”
Kemal watched him go. As soon as the door was shut, Feray stepped out from behind a curtain, where she had been sitting silently. For all his skills, Abbas would have been uncomfortable at delivering his messages in front of her, while Kemal wanted the benefit of her good sense.
“What do you make of that?” he asked.
“I don’t think you should go to meet the King,” she said immediately. “Not until you know what is really going on. It feels too much like a trap. Why ha
ve Prince Cavan’s agents stopped talking to ours? And this Fallon is another concern. All of a sudden this hero comes out of nowhere. Why now? You should send a message to the King, saying you are tired from your long sea voyage and cannot meet him for a few days.”
“And if we are unable to discover anything by then? Will I keep on making excuses? No, this is not a negotiation. We are here to give him terms. I cannot show even the slightest weakness: King Aidan must realize he is but a King in name only and I am the real ruler here,” Kemal said firmly.
“One day is nothing. At least try to make contact with Prince Cavan’s agents,” she urged.
He sighed. “Your words make good sense but I must ignore them for now. I must show Aidan his days on the throne are numbered.”
“You should be careful, my love. Desperate men can do foolish things,” she said.
Kemal smiled. “I will take more than enough guards. We planned to keep several hundred here to keep an eye on Aidan over the winter as it is. He will get a taste of our power and that will knock any thoughts of foolishness out of his head.”
*
King Aidan gathered all those who would be attending the meeting with the Kottermani Prince together before they entered the throne room.
“The rules of this meeting are simple. Nobody is to say anything. I will be the only one who talks. Anyone who breaks this rule will wish they had never been born,” the King declared, staring around the room carefully.
Fallon felt the burning intensity of the King’s gaze, then, when it swept past him, glanced around the room. Everyone was dressed in their finest clothes, though nothing Kottermani. It was Gaelish outfits only. These were not nearly as rich and colorful but, as the King was making abundantly clear, it was them against the Kottermani.
He had received a detailed list of instructions from the chamberlain Regan and had no doubt everyone else had been given something similar. Even Swane had lost his customary mocking look, replacing it with a blank face. He locked eyes with Fallon for a long moment, before looking away slowly, as though he were not worth the effort. Fallon restrained a surge of anger only because he knew he would not have to hear the bastard’s voice.