Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  My eyes quickly took in the rest of the crowd. About a hundred grim-faced farmers and tenants, most known to me, some from Landers holdings. The wealthiest man in the crowd (excepting Sullay of course) likely owned fifty acres of swampy fields, if that. Perhaps half of them had actually poached game when they were in a pinch, but all of them had thought about it. They all saw themselves as Feyril Styles. And all of them were fighting mad, mad enough not to consider the consequences of seizing a prominent man and subjecting him to this humiliation. Or perhaps they had considered the consequences and simply didn’t care. Either way, we were in a dangerous spot. A few of the men even had blood on their clothes, cuts and scrapes and black eyes scattered throughout the hoard. There had been fighting already today, and unless I pacified them somehow, there would be fighting again. Likely right here.

  “What can I do for you men?” I asked, my hand on my sword hilt in a subtle gesture. By resting my hand on the hilt, it meant I was willing to talk but also willing to use violence if required.

  One of our tenants, Geril Pence, stepped forward. “Sir Mordric.” He acknowledged me with a nod.

  I nodded in return. “Geril.”

  “We’ve brought this murderer-by-proxy for your judgment, sir.”

  “We need the magistrate of this province to take him into custody properly before a judgment can be rendered. You men know that.”

  One of them, a leathery, white-haired grandsire, spat on the ground. “Sir, the magistrate wouldn’t take him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We been to the magistrate--he set his men on us.” Mutters rumbled through the crowd.

  “Is that why some of you are wounded?” Damn Lemara.

  There were nods and murmurs of assent, and Geril said, his voice stiff, “There were too many of us, and Lemara’s men retreated after a few minutes, but not before they broke Siler’s arm here and made some of us bloody.”

  “Our women can tend your wounds . . .”

  “To be honest, sir, we want the judgment before any wounds are tended. Who tended Feyril Styles? This man’s a killer and so are his retainers.” One of the men restraining Sullay kicked him forward then, and he landed on his knees at the bottom step.

  He looked up at me, his face haggard as a skull. “Mordric, please . . .”

  “Be quiet,” a husky yeoman barked, giving Sullay a warning prod with his boot.

  “I’m speaking with Geril, Sullay. Your turn will come.”

  “These brigands--how dare you treat with them?” This flicker of Sullay’s usual arrogance was snuffed by another prod from the yeoman, this time less gentle. Sullay yelped.

  “Shut up,” the yeoman said, calm and solid as an ox.

  “I know you!” Sullay scrambled to his feet and whirled around, gesturing at the men surrounding him. “I know all of you. All your lands will be forfeit for this outrage, your families homeless, your necks on the block--do you want the entire king’s guard to hunt you down like the curs you are . . .”

  I strode down the steps and grabbed his arm before he could spew any more idiocy. At this rate, he would incite a riot in minutes and get us all killed. “Be quiet. Of all the men here, you’re the one who’s committed the outrage.”

  He struggled against my grasp, still pointing at the offending peasants. “I’ll see you all hang . . .” he hollered, his voice trailing off when he felt the bite of my dagger against his neck.

  “That’s enough from you,” I said quietly. "I could kill you myself right here, right now, for that arrow in Merius's back." There was silence all around as I pushed him ahead of me up the steps.

  The silence broke when we reached the top step and started into the house. “It’s a trick,” one of the men at the back yelled. “These nobles and merchants all protect each other. He‘ll get that murderer in there and shut the door, and nothing will come of it. You wait and see.” The ominous murmur started again, like the buzz of a thousand angry wasps in the distance.

  I turned around, my dagger still at Sullay’s neck. “Who said that?”

  The men fell silent again, glancing at each other. The uncomfortable quiet persisted for an interminable moment until a young man with a sunburned face and a shock of blond-white hair stepped forward. “Me, sir,” he said, defiant even as his voice trembled a little. I was, after all, the provincial minister, directly under the king as far as these peasants were concerned. “I don’t believe a one of you,” he continued.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jasper Styles, Feyril’s brother.”

  “Ah--perhaps you would like to come with us, see what happens to this alleged murderer-by-proxy.”

  He peered at the house, suspicious. “Your men’ll probably kill me when I get inside there.”

  Geril turned on him. “Be still, Jasper. You don’t know what you’re saying. Sir Mordric’s fair. His own son took an arrow in the back from Sullay.”

  “It’s all right, Geril. His brother was killed--his suspicions have a legitimate foundation. I want you men to elect a contingent of three to accompany Jasper into the house, both for his protection and so I can consider all sides before I make my judgment.”

  “Sir, can’t you hold such proceedings out here, where we all can hear?” the grandsire demanded gruffly.

  “I would, but I suspect the magistrate will be along presently with all his guards on horses to arrest the lot of you. You were fortunate this morning he was unprepared for your arrival at his headquarters, but he'll have mustered all his men to follow you by this point. Now, before he comes, I have the power to pardon you and let you disband to go home to your fields and families. Once he comes, that power goes to him.” Sullay shook with rage or fear in my grasp, perhaps both as I let his captors debate amongst themselves.

  After several minutes of conferring, Geril and two others came forward with Jasper. “We’ll take your offer, sir,” Geril said.

  “All right. The rest of you disband then. You‘re all pardoned.” They slowly broke off in groups of two or three or four, scattering in different directions. I breathed an inward sigh of relief, then turned to go into the house, Sullay and his accusers in tow.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  As I had predicted, Lemara arrived a few hours later, the entire provincial guard with him. They rode into the courtyard, the clatter of their horses’ hooves rattling the foundations of the house and deafening all within range. The stable hands spent all the next day clearing the cobbles of the mess.

  Lemara, all bombast, stormed into the front hall, demanding to see me--I could hear him even in my study. Baldwin appeared a moment later, looking harassed. “Sir . . .” he began.

  I waved my hand. “I hear him, Baldwin. Let him wait.”

  “But sir, he’s pacing . . .”

  “Let him pace. He needs a little exercise.”

  For fifteen minutes, Baldwin fidgeted while Merius and I finished tallying the tenant ledger. Finally, I looked up and removed my spectacles. “All right--bring him here. And don’t offer him any refreshments--he’ll eat the whole pantry.”

  After Baldwin left, I leaned back and pulled out my pipe. The pipe weed flared when I touched it to the nearest candle. I inhaled deeply, tasting the smoke. When Lemara strode into the chamber, I glanced up but did not bother turning to face him.

  “Mordric, where’s Sullay?” he demanded, his black-bristled jowls shaking. One side of his face was partly shaven, the other side all stubble, like he had been interrupted in the middle of his morning routine. More likely he had been too lazy to finish the job.

  “Locked in our cellar, awaiting his sentence.”

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  Finally, I turned to face him. “You tell me. Why didn’t you arrest him earlier, when the peasants brought him to you?”

  He looked taken aback, his bluster deflated. “But Mordric, he’s a prominent man at court . . .”

  “He can be arrested like anyone else.”

  “I couldn’t do th
at--I’d lose-”

  “Favor at court? I thought your position was above the vagaries of court politics.” I took a long draw on my pipe and puffed out a cloud of smoke.

  Lemara was evidently incapable of grasping the subtleties of my remark, for all he did was gape and sputter, “But I just can’t put him in irons, like some common peasant . . .”

  “The common peasants would have killed him this morning, and it would have been due to your negligence.”

  “Damned vigilante brigands! I’m going to hunt them down, every single last one of them--they came after me and my men.”

  “You can‘t go after them--I pardoned them.”

  “Pardoned them?! They could have injured us, even killed us . . .”

  “You haven’t been performing your sworn duties as head magistrate of this province--you should have arrested Sullay three days ago, when he answered Ragnar's summons with an arrow in my son's back. No wonder they wanted to remove you from office. Permanently.”

  “They’re lowborn scum! How can you defend them?”

  “Because they could have killed me and all in this house, and they could have killed you and all your men. There were enough of them for that. Do you realize what you and Sullay almost loosed in this province this morning?”

  “But they don’t have the right to oppose us or our judgments. We’re their leaders.”

  “That may be true in theory, but there’s a lot more of them than of us. Have you ever heard of the SerVerinese slave uprisings, Lemara?”

  “Bunch of half-naked, swarthy heathens.”

  I sighed inwardly. Too bad I couldn’t remove him from office right now. Unfortunately, only the king had that discretion, and he wanted to keep his uneasy alliance with Herrod. The king despised Herrod, but he couldn’t very well afford to offend him by sacking his uncle. If Herrod commanded it, most of the royal guards would desert their posts and follow him instead of the king. Then where would His Majesty be?

  “You don’t mean to say that our peasants will rebel like the SerVerinese slaves?” My God, he had made the connection without my prodding. I could hardly believe it. “Mordric, that’s absurd,” he continued, with a nervous chuckle. “We have stability here, control over our people . . .” he blathered on, oblivious to the muffled sneeze I heard. I glanced around the chamber, looking particularly closely at the floor length drapes half pulled over the recesses of the tall windows. Merius met my gaze, his eyes sharp--he had heard the sneeze too. I touched my finger to my mouth, and he nodded, understanding. We would look after Lemara had gone, not let on we had an eavesdropper in our midst. Likely it was someone in our household, a situation best handled privately without outsiders here.

  I took another long draw on my pipe before I interrupted Lemara. “Where was that control this morning?"

  He gulped. “I didn’t . . .”

  I cut him off. “I don’t have time for your pathetic excuses. Take that murderer Sullay to the prison and get him out of here.”

  “The prison?”

  “I judged Sullay this afternoon according to the evidence. I convicted him of murder by proxy and attempted murder, so you can lock him up in the Calcors prison for now until I determine his sentence.”

  “But Mordric, you can’t decide that without my . . .”

  “You’ve already played your part in this, and a poor one it was. Your judgment is forfeit in this matter. You should be happy about that--Sullay’s and your friends at court will blame me for his fall from grace, not you.”

  His face reddened. “You’ll not win any friends for this.”

  “It’s not how many friends you win, but who those friends are. Merius, show him your back, what Sullay did to you when you helped Ragnar deliver the summons."

  Merius rose, his movements jerky as he lifted his shirt. He couldn't wear a doublet yet because the weight of the cloth would have pressed down on his back. The SW stood out in shiny white against the angry red of Merius's skin, showing this to be a recent brand. "I had to witness a blacksmith pull Sullay's arrow out of my son's back and then cauterize the wound myself. Don't tell me what I can and can't do about this matter in my own province. I'm prepared to take this before the council, and rest assured, if I have to do so, you will lose your position. Are you going to continue to argue my orders?”

  “No, sir.” Lemara's face looked like he had bitten into his favorite pastry only to discover it was filled with horseshit. “I’ll take him to the prison tonight and put him in one of the noble cells.”

  “Good.” I smiled around my pipe before I set it in the porcelain tray on my desk. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Merius and I looked at each other, then silently began to patrol the chamber, him on the left side of the fireplace and me on the right. At the third window on his side, there came a scuffling of leather against wood as he wrenched Eden from her hiding place on the window seat behind a curtain.

  He let go of her shoulder as she tugged her frock straight, her manner all cool bravado. “I thought you would never be finished,” she said, her gaze deliberately escaping mine.

  “What were you doing there, Eden?” Merius asked.

  “What do you think, cousin?” She fixed him with her amber eyes, the usual sardonic smile widening her full lips.

  “Obviously you were eavesdropping. I meant to what end,” he said.

  “I do believe you’re angry with me, Merius. That won’t do at all,” she mocked, grinning up at him as she brushed his shoulder with her fingers. I felt a sudden twinge of emotion that had nothing to do with sanity but everything to do with irrational jealousy. That evil vixen.

  "When did you arrive from court?" I demanded.

  "Just a few hours ago--I slipped through the kitchens in the midst of all the excitement."

  Merius stepped back, out of her reach. “You shouldn’t have been hiding there."

  “I’ll handle this, Merius,” I said, moving toward them. Eden finally met my gaze, her eyelids blinking in a brief flicker that let me know how tense she was.

  “Sir, if you expect me to run errands for you at court, spy for you, then you can hardly blame me for what I‘ve done. Those left in the dark blunder and make errors--I‘m surprised I haven‘t blundered before now, with what little information you give me.”

  “You dare to defend yourself?”

  “I don’t dare not defend myself.”

  “You could grovel, beg forgiveness.”

  “Is that what you want?” she asked, her voice low and her eyes half-lidded. “It wouldn’t be sincere.”

  “I know better than to expect sincerity from women, especially one of your character, my dear.” I began to pace in front of her and Merius, my hands clasped behind my back.

  “My character is what you trained it to be,” she retorted. “I never would have thought to eavesdrop but for you ordering me to spy on your opponents. I am, after all, but a woman, a formless lump of clay waiting to be molded by a man.”

  I snorted. “If you’re but formless clay, then you’ll be silent and not argue and take your punishment with nary a murmur. Somehow I doubt it.”

  “What’s my punishment to be?”

  I came to a halt in front of her, so close I could feel her breath. “You don’t want to know.”

  Those eyes flamed, not the least hint of smile at the corners of her mouth. It made her lips even fuller when she didn’t smile, probably the effect she intended, the ripe wench. “Really, sir?”

  “I could have you put in the stocks and whipped for three days, if I wanted. I could do worse than that, if I wanted. Don’t mock me.”

  “Father,” Merius said evenly. “What she’s done is underhanded, but I hardly think it warrants such threats.”

  I glanced in his direction. He had that set, determined look about him, when all the lines of his face seemed sharper, the same look he had whenever he openly defied me. I turned my gaze to Eden, and she gave the barest of shrugs, as if to say How can you expect him to understand what’s re
ally happening here?

  Indeed. I didn’t even understand it myself. “Merius, consider yourself dismissed. We’ll see you at dinner.”

  “Yes, Father.” He gave a stiff nod and left the chamber, sparing one glance at me and Eden before he shut the door behind him.

  “He’d defy me if I said the sky was blue,” I grumbled, leaning against the settle.

  Eden laughed. “You can hardly blame him, Mordric. He can’t bear to see a woman abused, even in jest--you know that.”

  “Who said my threats were in jest?”

  “Sir, really, what did you expect from me?” She trailed her fingers down my jaw to my neck to my shoulder. I swatted her away, irritated.

  “What if Lemara had seen you? How would I have explained that? It’s bad enough Merius saw you.”

  She crossed her arms. “If you want me to be any help to you at court, you have to trust me more.”

  “I trusted you to stay at court, and you didn't. You're here against my orders."

  "Are you really so displeased at my presence? I'll leave if you are," she said softly, draping herself around me like a cat.

  I stepped back to escape her--it was the only way I could maintain control. "Eden, we have to talk about this. Have you completed the tasks I set out for you?"

  "So serious," she purred.

  "You be serious, damn it. Did you let the prince know you'll no longer be his mistress in public?"

  She straightened, her eyes narrowing. "With Princess Esme's arrival, there hasn't been the opportunity. I thought perhaps he would end it on his own."

  "End it on his own--that's what I'm afraid of," I muttered. Out loud, I continued, "did you at least let him know that you've written out your suspicions of his true proclivities and hidden it in safe place in case he decides to dispose of you?"

  "I'll not play your cat's paw and issue threats for you, not with him." Her voice rose as she stepped back this time.