by Janny Wurts
Immersed as he was, he paid little heed to the tramp of Bransian’s sentries. They skirted his position, all noise and bluster, or else mincing with unsettled nerves. The careless who trod inadvertently close were warned off by Sidir, whose stripping glance had grown more formidable since his arcane healing. Even the least sensitive soldier must acknowledge his uncompromised character, which had drawn steel to the death without hesitation for his sworn loyalty.
Arithon mapped the cap-stones of the crenels, then moved on to the massive rock that buttressed the fortress foundations. Nothing disrupted his methodical care: not the blistering prod of Fionn Areth’s sharp words, or Sevrand’s impatience, which arrived in a huff and demanded action.
More blunt than the grass-lander, or the armed sentries, the testy heir to the ducal seat was not deferred by the forest-bred liegeman. Brash and dangerous, Sevrand bore in, imposing in chainmail and broadsword. ‘Ath above, prince! When in Sithaer will you snap out of your mooning and move to uphold our defence?’
Since Arithon chose not to answer, Sidir bristled. ‘My liege will respond when he’s ready!’
‘Hah!’ Sevrand snorted. ‘More likely he’ll continue to squat like a gargoyle till he sprouts lichens on our south wall.’ Eyes narrowed, he regarded the prince’s tucked form. ‘Such lack of courage would rival the blooms on a ditch-growing daisy.’
Unlike Erlien s’Taleyn, this hulking young man had no cause to respect the murderous agility masked behind delicate fingers: which, right now, stayed folded in infuriating calm over the Teir’s’Ffalenn’s drawn-up knees. No guess might fathom such obtuse behaviour. Strained silence offered no answer. The s’Brydion heir grew bored soon enough, poking at an unspeaking target. To Sidir’s cool relief, Sevrand stamped off to vent his hot energy sparring.
Naught else could be done but endure the long days. Under full sunlight, or exposed to the wind that moaned in north gusts through the battlements, Arithon crouched with his ear to chill stone, immersed in the depths of tranced calm. At intervals, cued perhaps by his mage-sense, he spoke: asked delicate questions in the lilted cadence of ancient Paravian. Such moments, his tone held a longing and hope fit to challenge the gates of despair. His stretched pauses extended, as though he expected an answer that came, but never quite reached completion.
Outspoken gossip soon claimed he was mad as a dog’s midnight howling, or else foolish as the wool-gathering dreamer. Arithon disregarded such comments. He eschewed the tedium of explaining himself; gave no word in defence, even to the mothers who brought gaunt, tearful children, or the harrowed fathers who begged for encouragement. The gift of s’Ahelas far-sight was his, crossed with the forevision of s’Dieneval: no biddable talent, to stay within bounds, or observe the niceties of convenience. Still raw with that wakening, Arithon traced his way with cold patience. He sought the mystical wardings laced into the stonework, made respectful by the unforgiving awareness that what he encountered might not be controlled.
When his faculties tired, he would rise, hollow-eyed, and slip through the back lanes. Often masked under shadow, he might eat in a public tavern, unnoticed while in plain sight. Except that Sidir’s tacit presence never left his unarmed shoulder; no matter how polite the approach, or how eloquent the appeal, the clansman backed his liege’s odd choice to stay distanced from the distraught populace.
Arithon found his surcease in the guest tower, snugged in the loft chamber, and the scents of the herbals wafted upstairs from the still-room. His enchantress embraced his fraught presence then, and gentled his reserve with humour. Many an evening he played his lyranthe, a furious cascade of wild harmony and fugue, while she mixed her tinctures and remedies. Often as not, his cathartic melody was pitched to increase their efficacy. As though all the agony ignored in the streets could be salved by the balm set into a sick infant’s cough syrup.
‘Beloved, you have not asked,’ he said once, in late evening when the fire burned low, and the quiet wrapped like fine velvet about them.
Elaira raised her eyes to meet his. A smile turned her lips, almost laughter, despite the harsh tide of public opinion caused by his relentless discipline. ‘You haven’t been badgered to mincemeat by everyone else’s impatience? You know that Jeynsa kicked Fionn Areth out on his arse for daring the presumption, that Paravian wardings are biddable?’
Arithon sighed. He laid aside his exquisite instrument, arose, and tucked a strayed wisp back into the ribbon that fastened her braid. ‘No one’s answered that riddle. If a key exists, I’m determined to find it.’
‘Or not.’ Elaira returned his needful embrace. While the fragrances of honey and cinnamon met his swift, inhaled breath, she laced her hands at the base of his neck. The muscle was rock-hard with tension. ‘You’ve taken too much weight on your shoulders. You can’t spare everyone’s threatened life with only your two mortal hands.’
‘Could I stop trying?’ he asked. ‘Who would I be, then?’ Green eyes wide open, he savoured her face. Each candle-lit detail became more exquisite with the delight of his familiarity.
‘My own love,’ she chaffed. ‘You are freezing! Didn’t you notice?’
‘I had.’ He gathered her up, herb-stained skirts and mussed braid and soft laughter. She held him close as he bore her to bed, chilled, and half-unspun from the depth of his seeking. Aware that such cherished nights must stay numbered until the Prime’s plotting was thwarted, Elaira gave without stint. Morning came, always, too quickly. She let him go, open-handed, and smothered her grief for each moment that his restless quest commanded his absence.
Small things became gifts: given Sidir’s bold lead, Kyrialt accepted the enchantress as royal mate under his oath of crown service. That grace lent the strength to match Glendien’s saucy flirting with dignified tolerance. If not ties of friendship, Elaira could teach her the principles behind the ways Ath’s adepts mixed their simples. The young woman often accompanied her efforts to ease the suffering populace. Willing enough to dirty her hands, Glendien helped treat the chilblains in the garrison, as well as the coughs and the elders’ sore joints and complaints. If her wildness sometimes strained Elaira’s schooled patience, or her passionate jabs incessantly sought to tease Arithon’s masculine instincts, no provocation she could devise shifted anyone’s inner composure.
Doggedly set, the Prince of Rathain pursued the old wisdom imbued in the citadel and never once broached the inevitable sacrifice: that Jeynsa’s deliverance must come at the cost of the protected love shared with Elaira.
‘We will find this, again,’ he avowed in the dark, while the black sword murmured star song around them. He cupped her face. Kissed her lips with a tenderness fit to sear spirit and flesh incandescent. ‘Whatever comes, know that I live and breathe for the day that no obstacle stands between us.’
Immersed deeply enough to track his intent, etched into the light of his being, Elaira sensed the reach of his focus. His defiant promise was a blind claim, with the future uncertain before them. Torbrand’s descendant: he would brook no half-measures. Though the twined glory they had nearly experienced in Halwythwood could only be glimpsed, through the citadel’s warding, his vow affirmed that commitment. As clear in his heart was the love in the choice that had claimed his blood oath at Athir: the imperative drive to uphold the mysteries sustaining Paravian survival. He had come too far to abandon that charge, which also demanded her place at his side, in the ecstasy of freed union.
‘For this, we exist,’ she agreed, melted into his living embrace. She let the musician’s hands, that fore-promised the brightening hope of the world, uplift her, cherished and close. ‘I will be there for you, whatever the trial demanded to secure our freedom.’
And the night fled again. Alone in the icy, steel gleam of dawn, Elaira ate her light meal. She loaded her satchel for the day’s rounds, while Glendien grumbled at being rousted from bed, despite Kyrialt’s warmth being absent.
‘Your man’s out to fetch water,’ Elaira replied, tart, while the stinging epithets
continued, muffled under wool-blankets. She added without sympathy, ‘If you dally to bathe, I’ll be at the barracks, treating yesterday’s toll of bashed fingers and aching heads.’
Crisp words reached coherence. ‘Are you mad?’ Glendien’s tangled, bright hair emerged into daylight. ‘There’s not enough spirits left in this citadel to drive any drunk to a hangover.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ Elaira flung on her mantle. ‘There’s still the odd stash that hoarders like Dakar lose, gambling.’
Glendien fixed her with a distempered glance as she swept past the work-table towards the stair. ‘You aren’t going alone. The mood in the citadel’s ugly enough to make Kyrialt spit like a hackled cat.’
‘He has that choice,’ the enchantress agreed. ‘I was not born to soothe his taxed temperament.’
Elaira departed without hearing the retort fired back in forest-bred accents. Given such driving hunger for novelty, Glendien would kiss her man into submission, and probably catch up by sunrise.
Outside, hooded against the chill mist, Elaira stepped onto the narrow foot-bridge over the chasm. At the arch of the span, she encountered Duke Bransian, planted four-square in her path. Relieved his armed pique at least had avoided Kyrialt’s hair-trigger instincts, the enchantress seized the initiative. ‘Whether or not your complaint can be answered, I will have you step aside.’
‘I say your prince means to forswear his promise,’ Bransian declared, despite himself rubbing the crick that yesterday’s sparring had set in his neck. Hard-bitten and mean as an aging lion, and too proud to ask for restoratives, he snarled, ‘What else does his Grace buy, except wasted time? How long should we dangle our hopes on his wool-gathering?’
Before he ran on, lamenting the grain shortage, or the recent movements of enemy troops observed by the men keeping harbour-side watch, Elaira rejected the premise. ‘My lord of Alestron, we already know the extent of your citizens’ predicament.’
‘Aye, well!’ groused Bransian. ‘You should be aware if your Prime is involved. I’ve seen her nefarious meddling before! Her stirring fingers might raise Lysaer’s curse. This war is nothing straightforward or canny. What sort of stake does your sisterhood hold? Are they angling for our defeat?’
The duke sucked a taxed breath, while Elaira confronted his challenge, unflinching. She would not lie; could not disclaim that Selidie Prime was not playing on Lysaer’s warped instincts with ill intent. Yet before allowing the insult, that her beloved’s activity was aimless cowardice, she cut the duke’s thundering bluster short shrift. ‘You won’t shift the Teir’s’Ffalenn’s choices through me! Learn from your mistakes. Save your effort.’
‘Well, my people aren’t his Grace’s bargaining chips!’ Bransian rebuked with vexed warning. ‘Not like those duped shepherd bowmen at Vastmark, to play at cold-cock war and posture for his tricks of sleight-of-hand conjury.’
‘No, not this time!’ Elaira snapped, white. ‘However you push, his Grace knows your bull-headed methods too well. He’s awake to the error that bought his past blood debts and too wise to be goaded through temper. You’ll not press him. Or move him to solve this with weapons, however you angle to try.’
Bransian raised his brows in reproof, while the wind tugged at the iron-grey hair that poked from beneath his cap helm. ‘Don’t claim the bland pacifist he postures in public! Or is it not true, that the Prince of Rathain never sleeps, except by his unsheathed sword?’
‘Yes,’ Elaira said, steadfast. ‘Because the star song the Paravians laid into the steel sings him to safe harbour, and guards his integrity.’
Yet Bransian had a deaf ear for all nuance. He edged aside, finally, allowed her to pass, since no threat of arms could unseat the enchantress’s uncompromised honesty.
Another day passed, and another. Then, as the turn of the tide might begin with the whisper sown by an eddy, the deadlocked grip of the siege shifted its precarious balance.
Duke Bransian was back in his element the instant the incoming mirror signal brought the messenger banging on his bed-chamber door. Urgent speech, through the panel, let in breaking news: the deathless stagnation had broken. Enemy forces now crossed their drawn line for a sortie in the dark before dawn.
‘The watch turrets have spied furtive movement, ashore!’ gasped the breathless young man that Liesse tripped the latch and admitted. ‘Seems a sneak effort to launch skiffs carried in over land. They’ll shortly be trying to breach our inside harbour from behind the guarded chain.’
‘About time we had an opportune target!’ The duke thrashed off the bed-clothes, his scowl melted into an effusive mood as he snatched for his clothing and weapons. ‘Lysaer’s Lord Commander’s got ice in his veins. Kept his battle-lines planted so long, it’s a wonder his troops haven’t sprouted like daisies.’ Clad enough for decency, Bransian bowled past his wife. With his boots left abandoned in her outstretched hands, he bolted, still talking apace. ‘We’ll give the poor bastards a fitting retort, since ours are foamed white at the mouth for the chance to bash heads.’
Minutes later, his familiar hulked form loomed over the seaside embrasure. With fists braced on the battlement, he heard the details from the captain on duty, whose crisp speech was not Mearn’s. The youngest s’Brydion sibling had not stood that post since the forced assize for Rathain’s formal settlement.
Bransian grinned. ‘If the fools think we’re napping, we’ll let them come in.’
His lazy stretch unkinked the sleep from his bones. His breech laces half-tied, he stood on bare feet, hauberk and mail tossed on over his night-shirt, and his helm crammed atop his mussed hair. Too rushed to trifle with buckling his sword-belt, he had brought his weapon unsheathed. The massive blade lay on the wall at hand’s reach, while he strained to peer through the darkness. ‘Ath! Just look at yon pack of foxes creeping in! They’ll have my warm welcome. Get the Sea Gate’s heavy mangonels trained. Then I want six of the arbalests that hurl lesser stones, and not shafts. Mount four of those under the wharf-side embrasure. Have the others set on piled rocks, flush with the boards of the docks. We’ve got calm, and the low tide in our favour. The platforms need do no more than keep the torsion ropes dry, and the men will only get wet as they crank the winch and release.’
‘We’ve had the mangonels swivelled, first thing.’ The captain coughed behind his mailed fist. ‘But the arbalests? Man! Those cockle-shell boats will explode into slivers, to some Sunwheel officer’s shame. He’ll be on his knees wailing for Light, once the first boulders plonk into the laps of his oarsmen.’
Bransian rubbed brisk hands in the cold and bellowed for someone to fetch him a cloak. ‘We’re the life of the party, waging a war. If Lysaer’s faithful can’t sort that out, they’ll take what we sock in their guts till they’re mumbling their unhallowed creed to the Fatemaster. Just keep our men quiet! I want these trespassers in close enough to get stomped like the flies on a dog pile.’
The Light’s covert sappers never drifted under the Sea Gate wharf to make landfall as they had planned. Alestron’s trained crews placed their harbourfront engines, and on the duke’s signal, let fire. The foray was systematically smashed into drift-wood and silenced disaster. Dawn broke, with no more shrilling, agonized screams. A flotsam of corpses and wrecked planks rode the ebb tide, with Bransian spouting his manic ebullience.
‘Numbskulls!’ he declared, launched off to scrounge a late breakfast. ‘Had the arse itch from sitting through sermons, then puckered up their eager, young lips and kissed face-to-face with stupidity. One can hope that lot never lived long enough to plough bastards onto a wench. War could get too easy if the ignorant breed sires up clutches of idiot soldiers.’
If the duke was happy, noon gave rise to elation when the pre-dawn assault proved to be a feint for a subsequent effort, to infiltrate the ruined town and place archers across the tidal chasm. Alestron’s drilled crews responded forthwith. Shot slung from the trebuchets brought down the infested walls, with the enemy screams loud on the midday bre
eze, and their mangled bones and bloody, crushed flesh macerated under the ruin.
‘Where’s your mincing, wee snip of a masterbard, now?’ Bransian crowed in high fettle to Talvish. Since the blond captain’s company was vindictively reassigned the drudge labour of scrubbing the privies, the duke liked to snipe with disparaging comments. ‘Is his Grace still dithering, one ear clapped to cold rock, insisting our fight can be won without bloodshed?’
When the victim shrugged off that sour baiting, the duke added, loud enough to reach anyone else within earshot. ‘Ought to fetch your prince here. Show him how virile men get things done! Or do you really believe you’ll live to grow old at the heels of a cringing moppet?’
Talvish grinned. His easy nature did not come unglued, despite the disfavour earned by his changed loyalty. ‘If any of us survive to die free, then someone must shift the Alliance war host away from your gates. That can’t be accomplished by hurling a few rocks, however much fun you have trying.’
In fact, today’s petty attacks only jabbed every veteran instinct. Arithon’s presence must wake Desh-thiere’s curse: each aggressive move meant that Lysaer slipped closer to the plunge to untenable madness.
As Bransian must realize also, underneath his chaffing slurs. ‘I can’t trust you, perhaps, now you’re Arithon’s puppet. Still, I know you well enough to ask why you aren’t speaking your mind, when that ornery glint in your eye says Dharkaron’s Five Horses are riding you.’
Yet Talvish’s fierce worry stayed tucked in reserve: that surely, the Teir’s’Ffalenn might be the more vulnerable to his half-brother’s assault, now that the yoke of cursed influence had been lifted. Arithon would not lose restraint at this pass. Regrounded in mastery, he could reject the use of dire force, even if need demanded a fight to defend himself.
Stonewalled to the last by Talvish’s silence, the duke sought the final word. ‘Hear fair warning, my friend! If Arithon continues to sit on his arse, waiting for rocks to hatch chicks, one of my sentries is certain to lose his natural temper and knife him.’