by Damien Black
In any case, it wasn’t that Adhelina planned ever to use her more illicit plants – it was just fun growing and preparing them.
And there were few other pursuits permitted a lady, besides reading, riding and the occasional spot of hawking, that really appealed to her. She’d tried taking up the harp when she was younger but had made little progress, much to the consternation of her music tutor. It hadn’t bothered her all that much – like most of the knights and ladies in the castle she could dance well enough, and so long as the household troubadour Baalric was around who needed another noble-born amateur behind the strings?
Adhelina was busy chopping up a fresh crop of Wose’s Bane when there came a knock at the door.
Putting aside her embroidery Hettie picked her way adroitly between the hanging baskets and opened it. Berthal was standing there, dressed in his dark brocade robes of office and looking harried and weary.
‘My ladies,’ he said, smiling at Adhelina and nodding deferentially as he stepped inside. ‘I trust you are both well today! Still busy turning your quarters into the Hanging Gardens of Shamaria, I see.’
‘Hardly,’ replied the damsel, putting aside her work with a smile. ‘And in any case I should hope not to invoke the misfortunes of that fabled city – it was sacked by the Thalamian warlord Tycius if my memory serves me well.’
The old seneschal beamed. Like Adhelina he was one of the few occupants of Graukolos who had bothered to master the Thalamian Alphabet, and he shared her passion for reading the poetry of that ancient realm.
‘Ah indeed – though he reaped the just deserts of his cruel conquests when his concubine slew him... you have been reading my copy of Aedelric’s translation of Hessian’s Fables then?’
‘Several times over,’ laughed Adhelina. ‘You can have it back if you wish – I can probably recite half of it from memory by now!’
Berthal shook his head emphatically, his wispy white beard waving. ‘Oh no, please keep it – I’m afraid an old man hardly has the energy to read after a long day’s work.’
Adhelina’s smile became a frown. ‘My dear Berthal – are they working you so very hard?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ replied the seneschal, his slender wrinkled face darkening. ‘That young rapscallion, the Herzog of Stornelund, has arrived – and I don’t need to tell you what a fuss he’s capable of stirring up! Already he and his men are demanding wine and victuals and complaining about the size of their quarters. Such indecorous behaviour! Really! Not half the man his father was!’
‘Yes well, you don’t need to tell us what an unwelcome guest he is,’ said Adhelina coolly, exchanging meaningful glances with Hettie. ‘But pray what brings you here? You’re obviously far too busy to be making social calls...’
‘Hmm, yes indeed. As a matter of fact I was just discussing some final arrangements for tonight’s banquet with your father, and he requested that I call in on you on my way back to the grind, so to speak. He says he wants to see you in his quarters.’
‘What, right now?’ asked Adhelina, suppressing a sigh.
‘Oh yes, I’m afraid so – the Hanging Gardens will have to wait a little while!’ said Berthal with an avuncular smile. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, dear ladies...’
‘Of course, Berthal, please don’t let us keep you from your work a moment longer,’ replied Adhelina as Hettie showed the seneschal out.
‘Would that you could milady!’ said Berthal, looking over his bony shoulder with a rueful smile. ‘Oh well, goodbye for now – Miss Hettie, a pleasure as always, goodbye.’
Hettie shut the door behind him. Adhelina walked back over to the table and picked up the knife again.
‘Aren’t you going to go and see your father?’ asked Hettie, fixing her mistress with a pointed stare.
‘Yes... yes I am,’ replied the damsel, as she started chopping up the pungent bristly leaves again. ‘Just as soon as I’ve finished doing this.’
When she was done, Adhelina rinsed her hands in the fingerbowl and went to call on her father. His private chambers were just one floor down, the roof of the central keep being lower than its turrets.
Spread across the top floor of the castle’s inner ward, which would have dwarfed many a fortress in its own right, Wilhelm’s quarters afforded him the space a rich merchant would envy. When Adhelina was a small child and her mother was still alive, she had lived there with them, and her younger brother Adhos, before smallpox took him in his third year. By the time she was ten summers old Adhelina was clamouring for her own quarters. Her father, only too glad to have his troublesome daughter out from under his nose, had readily agreed.
All the same, Wilhelm hadn’t been about to let his only child disappear completely from his oversight – so he’d installed her in one of the inner ward’s four turrets, where just a short flight of stairs and a small landing separated her door from his.
He would never admit it, but most of Graukolos’ inhabitants could see that their liege loved his only surviving child with a fiercely protective passion. Those who had known the elder Lady Dulsinor said Adhelina was the spitting image of her mother. Wilhelm had loved his wife dearly, and grieved for her night and day after she was killed in a riding accident.
Some even said his spousal passion was altogether unnaturally strong: as if to say that a man born to rule other men should never conceive such powerful love for a mere woman.
Adhelina resented such remarks, which were typical of men. Whatever the truth of them, Wilhelm had never remarried. He hadn’t even taken a concubine after Adhelina was moved to her own chamber.
Adhelina knew the castle gossips talked about all these things. She also knew that some even dared suggest that Lord Dulsinor’s obsession with her dead mother had something to do with his letting her reject every marriage proposal she’d had since turning fourteen.
Drawing level with the riveted oak door Adhelina rapped loudly on the iron knocker.
‘Enter!’ Muffled though it was by thick wood, her father’s stentorian voice was instantly recognisable. Pushing the door open Adhelina stepped into his solar.
This was an expansive chamber that ran nearly two-thirds the length of the keep’s western wall. It was perfectly positioned – from windows to either side of the room overlooking the castle’s inner and middle wards the Eorl of Dulsinor could survey his holding at leisure.
Bearskins lined the walls, along with the preserved heads of deer, aurochs and other beasts of the chase: the room was more a collection of her father’s beloved hunting trophies than anything else. A few tapestries mostly continued the theme, depicting scenes of the chase, the largest being a noticeable exception.
Running almost the entire length of the eastern wall, this portrayed the Eorl’s victory over the neighbouring barons of Ostveld and Upper Thulia ten years ago before the gargantuan walls of Graukolos. Stylised knights and men-at-arms being driven back in an embroidered flurry of severed limbs and broken helms dotted its rich fabric.
Adhelina could understand why her father liked it – it was an idealised representation of the violent world they occupied. Just like her courtly romances, it captured the noblest aspects of their way of life – whilst conveniently glossing over its grisly reality. She had treated injured soldiers in the last war, and knew all too well that a few scarlet stitches could not hope to convey the horror of a butchered knight or the screams of the mortally wounded as they bled their lives away.
And yet, a stubborn romantic streak in her refused to subside – surely all the courtly lays and elegiac poems she’d read held some glimmer of truth too...
The only bookshelf in her father’s room held a tatty pile of scrolls and tomes detailing the ancient laws and customs of the Griffenwyrd. The coat of dust filming them testified to their lack of use. But then, Lord Dulsinor was fond of asking, why should he have to memorise the finer points of the law when Lotho, his scrivener and amanuensis, was there to do it for him?
Lotho was there now, sharing a stoop of wine wi
th his liege, and to Adhelina’s dismay her father had a third visitor.
Rising to his feet along with the scrivener, Lord Hengist bowed curtly as she entered the room. He was stocky, as typical Vorstlendings were, but even shorter than average. Worse still, his hairless head was too big for the rest of his body, giving him an absurd look. This was only accentuated by his finery – the latest Pangonian court clothes adorned his uncomely frame, and his carefully trimmed beard was oiled after the fashion of the southern nobles.
Doubtless Hengist meant to be stylish. Adhelina thought he looked like a buffoon.
‘Hengist, Herzog of Stornelund, Sixteenth Scion of the House of Lanrak,’ boomed Wilhelm, rattling off the formalities with a casual wave of his huge hand. ‘You have of course met my daughter previously – Adhelina, First Lady of the House of Markward, heiress to the holdings of Dulsinor and very, very late – as usual! In Reus’ name where have you been!?’
‘I was tending to my herb garden, my lord,’ replied the damsel, curtseying coldly at the Herzog and doing a bad job of masking her contempt. ‘I did not realise the matter was so urgent.’
‘Did not realise...?’ echoed the Eorl peevishly, fixing her with angry grey eyes. He was a mountain of a man, more than a head taller than average, with huge powerful shoulders. His bushy greying beard was cut in a square shape that had looked fierce in his youth but was now somewhat at odds with his rotundity.
‘Fie! You and that blasted herb garden! Your horticultural obsession is taking over your life, young lady! That and the blasted books! You should see it, Hengist – she’s only gone and covered one of my turrets with creeping ivy! Not content with turning her chamber into a pleasure garden, she has to do likewise with the outside of it too! Make me a laughing stock all over the Griffenwyrd! Next thing she’ll be turning the whole bloody castle into a forest!’
‘It looks becoming,’ replied Adhelina softly. She knew when it was best to raise her voice to her father – and when it was more amusing not to.
‘Dammit, a castle isn’t supposed to look becoming!’ yelled Wilhelm, taking the bait and slamming down his wine cup with such force that Lotho almost dropped his own. ‘It’s supposed to inspire awe and terror! For miles around! Not look pretty – Reus’ sake! And next time I send you a message to come see me in my quarters directly, it means now, do you understand? You may be of age but you’re still living under my roof while I’m alive – and don’t you forget it!’
‘Yes, my lord,’ replied Adhelina coolly, doing her best to suppress a smile. Her father’s capacity for washing the dirty linen in public was as legendary as his prowess at hunting, feasting and fighting. Childish though it was, she still found it rather funny.
But then, didn’t the philosopher Tachymus say that the essence of humour was the perceived difference between the ways things ought to be and the way they actually were? Her father certainly had a habit of behaving in a very un-lordlike manner at times... one of many reasons why, in spite of all their differences, she still loved him dearly.
The Eorl’s desk was located towards the south wall for optimal light, but Wilhelm had characteristically forsaken quill, parchment and seal to sit at a low broad table near the huge fireplace.
To either side of this reared a pair of sculpted hippogriffs, each bigger than a man. The arched lintel was surmounted by another sculpture of similar stature, its great stone wings centring on a frescoed bust of the Archangel Ezekiel, avatar of defensive war. The House of Markward had invoked Ezekiel’s essence for three centuries, since King Danton had given Wilhelm’s ancestor Ranveldt the castle as his seat, back when Vorstlund had been a united realm.
Since that time the kingdom had crumbled, fragmenting back into its constituent baronies, but the Markwards had held onto their ancestral holding. Directly above the fireplace, surmounting Ezekiel’s stoical features, was a great cloth of woven silk depicting the Markward coat of arms: a black gauntleted fist on a silvery-grey background.
The Eorl had remained seated while the other two got up to greet Adhelina. At the former’s insistence Lotho sat down again, but Hengist remained standing.
‘My lady, the months have been too long – it seems an age since I last saw you,’ said the Herzog obsequiously.
His voice had a horrible rasping tone, like broken ceramic being drawn across gravel.
‘Really?’ Adhelina replied with a frosty smile. ‘To me it seems an age since you returned.’
‘Adhelina!’ roared her father, leaning forward menacingly in his creaking walnut chair. ‘Be civil! How dare you insult an honoured guest!’
‘Forgive me father,’ replied the damsel without losing her composure. ‘But how can I be expected to be civil to someone who used my lady-in-waiting so churlishly the last time we met?’
Turning to regard the flustered Herzog with frosty eyes she addressed him coldly: ‘I hope you will find the time to apologise to Hettie now you are settled in. If you do, I promise to show you every courtesy while you are here, as befits your station.’
The Herzog smiled thinly. She could sense his displeasure and knew her hatred of him was mutual. What was her father playing at, holding a private audience in his chambers? Adhelina supposed the Great Hall was given over to preparations for the feast, but still...
‘It is hardly becoming for a peer of the realm to give apologies to a lowly maidservant,’ said Hengist flatly.
‘That “lowly maidservant” happens to be the daughter of a knight of the realm!’ flared Adhelina. ‘Landed or not, that makes her of noble birth!’
‘Now, Adhelina!’ interjected Wilhelm in a warning voice. The damsel struggled to suppress her anger, biting her lip. Why was it always like this? Men ganging up on women and changing the rules of courtesy to suit them? A nobleman could behave like a boor and get away with it, but if a lady so much as spoke out of turn...
‘Of course,’ Hengist replied in his cold, cracking voice, stroking the over-elaborate mustachios he wore to compensate for his bald pate. He was a young man but an early receding hairline had piqued his vanity, obliging him to shave off the rest of his ailing locks.
‘I understand that I have given some offence to the honourable lady since I was last here,’ he continued without emotion. ‘The Herzog of Stornelund does not forget his debts. As such, it would please me greatly if my lady would be so kind as to accept this humble gift, by way of recompense for my... misbehaviour last time I was here.’
Clicking his fingers, he beckoned to a liveried squire who had been standing to attention by one of the south-facing windows behind Adhelina. The squire approached, bearing something in his arms.
He drew level and proffered the gift: a purple ermine cloak trimmed with gold lace set with precious gemstones.
She paused for a second or two then, with all eyes on her, she took the cloak before turning to face the Herzog again and curtseying perfunctorily.
‘The Lady Adhelina thanks the Lord Storne for his kind and generous gift,’ said the damsel, deliberately mocking his bombastic speech. ‘But it was not I who was offended – rather it was my lady in waiting, Hettie Freihertz, who was the aggrieved party. And so I will accept your gift and pass it on to her along with your sincerest apologies – since it does not befit you to condescend to the daughter of a household knight who served your host faithfully for thirty years.’
‘Adhelina!’ The loudness was gone from her father’s voice now; he merely breathed her name in shocked disbelief as he lurched to his feet. Even by her rebellious standards this was overstepping the mark. Adhelina knew it, but she didn’t care.
‘Father, will that be all?’ she asked peremptorily, ignoring Hengist, his flushed face now rendered even more ugly by an angry scowl.
‘As a matter of fact, no it won’t,’ rumbled Wilhelm in an ominous tone. He placed a broad hand on the Herzog’s shoulder. ‘Lord Storne,’ he said, ‘best if you leave us a while – as you can see my only daughter is wilful and headstrong. When her passions subside you will
find her to be of a sweet and forgiving nature.’
‘I can only hope so,’ snarled the Herzog. ‘As you wish. I go now to join my retinue – I trust your kitchen scullions are more welcoming than your noble heir!’
Spitting out the last two words he gave a curt bow to each of them before clicking his fingers at his squire to follow and swaggering out of the room.
‘Detestable man,’ said Adhelina when they had gone. ‘Why do you let him talk so? I wonder that you even invite him to our table!’
‘All right, young madam,’ replied her father, his voice sinking to a low growl. ‘We’ll have this conversation in the appropriate place, for this is formal business – Lotho, drink-time is over! Assume your post!’
Lotho, a skinny, nervous fellow in early middle age, dutifully complied with the Eorl’s command, taking his seat at his own table, positioned at a right angle to Wilhelm’s desk. The lord of Graukolos strode over to sit behind it, taking a full cup of wine with him.
‘Take a seat!’ he growled, indicating the finely carved walnut chair opposite his own. Like all the others in the room it had been imported at considerable expense from Mercadia, the most southerly of the Free Kingdoms. As if in recognition of its provenance the sun was finally making its presence known, streaking in through the windows. Its cold rays did little to cheer Adhelina’s spirits. Something was up, she knew it.
Walking slowly over to her father’s table she sat down in the chair as she was told. In the clear sunlight she could see tiny motes of dust floating languidly through the air. For one absurd instant she felt she could almost identify with the aimless specks, moved by a power beyond their control.
Her father took another slug of wine, looked at her with deep grey eyes. Then he spoke.