by Widowmaker
For a long bowshot all around the walls, any vegetation that might have softened the grim outline of the fortress had been scoured away, uprooted or scythed or burned, clear down to the bare earth. Now that earth was white, coated with chalk from the hills or the fine white limestone sand from the shores of one of the nearby lakes.
Where it had come from was of small account; why it was there was obvious. On even the darkest night, anyone trying to cross that great pale expanse and approach the fortress walls would have no shadows to hide them. They would be the shadows, and a good enough target to shoot at.
But there was more, and an even better reason for Bayrd and his people to pay close attention to their guides. Someone had been planting lilies.
That wryly-humorous name described not deep-belled flowers with long stamens at their centre, but the interlocking array of conical pits that had been dug into the ground, with a sharp spike at the bottom of each one. They were everywhere; most were covered, but others were left deliberately exposed, as a warning to anyone on horse or foot who might attempt a rush across the exposed ground. There was a route through the lily-field – that was what the guides were for – but anyone trying to find that route without help would do so under a storm of arrows from the fortress walls.
And more than arrows.
Treetrunks had been sunk into the ground at intervals around the perimeter of the cleared area. They formed three or four concentric circles with the fortress squatting at the centre, each ring of posts painted a different colour to act as fall-of-shot markers for the engines on the walls. Those would shoot darts, or rocks, or even nets of smaller stones that would spread out in flight to cover a wider area. And they would shoot them far too accurately for comfort.
“The artillery’s been ranged in, lord,” said Iskar ar’Joren quietly. Bayrd could see that. There were craters bashed into the white ground that had nothing to do with the digging of lilies, and long straight gouges left by the heavy artillery-darts. He wondered for an instant why the marks hadn’t been covered up again, then guessed that, like the presence of the uncovered lilies, such proof of Hold ar’Diskan’s readiness and long reach would do nothing for the courage of any attacking troops.
“All this because of me?” he said dubiously, not really meaning it. Eskra shot him a glance and a crooked smile.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Gerin’s domain is further north than yours. He’s closer to—”
“To something he knows nothing about.”
“To something he’s bloody suspicious about, loved, or he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. And now we have to convince him that where Kalarr cu Ruruc is concerned, it might have been a waste of time.”
“Greetings to you, arl’th-eir, my lord,” said Lord Gerin ar’Diskan. And that was all. It was courtesy as cold as he could manage, and still fall short of actual insult. He didn’t rise from his seat, didn’t make any gesture of salutation, didn’t do anything at all but sit slumped in his chair at the far end of his Great Hall and glower at the people standing in the doorway. Gerin always glowered well. He had plenty of practice.
Bayrd hadn’t really expected to hear the word ‘welcome’, but as he walked easily up the length of the hall, it still shocked him slightly to see how much Gerin had changed from the man he once knew, and not for the better. The ar’Diskan’r were known for being hot-tempered and passionate, great eaters, drinkers and roarers of florid invective. They were – few knew it better – the sort of good friends that made bad enemies. But they had never been bitter, never brooded over their real or imagined wrongs. They had never been like this.
The changes were in more than just his attitude. Now there were strands of silver in the shaggy mane of hair and the moustache that lay across the swarthy features like a black bar. That was age, it came to everyone, but the other changes Gerin had wrought upon himself. He had always been stocky, but now his waist was thicker and his hatchet features had coarsened. His nose and cheeks were patterned with a network of tiny cracked veins, testimony to innumerable bottles of wine consumed over the years in an attempt to blunt frustration over Dunrath and several other such matters, and there was a watery, protuberant look to brown eyes that had once been hot and bright as those of a falcon.
Bayrd felt strangely saddened, but he knew too well that anything he said would be considered just one more affront.
“I trust you, my lord,” he said, ducking his head to give Gerin the quick bow due to an equal.
Ar’Diskan snorted, managing to imply with that one sound that he expected a greater level of respect, and that whatever Bayrd might choose to believe, they were not and would never be equal in rank. “Trust what?” he said. “That I’m well, that I’m sick, that I’m dying?”
“I trust you,” Bayrd repeated, trying not to let this nettling have any effect. It was strangely easier than it had been with Vanek ar’Kelayr. Gerin had never learned the knack of getting under a person’s skin to the same extent, not unless he used a blade. “As an honourable man.”
“Ah. I see. You trust me not to kill you out of hand, is that it?”
“Something like that. After all, I came here myself, of my own free will.”
Gerin grinned unpleasantly. “If free will means because you had no other choice, then I’ll accept it. From what I’ve been hearing, ar’Talvlyn, you’re having to do a great deal for yourself nowadays. Just can’t get the help, eh?”
It was true enough, even though Gerin’s sneering voice made it sound much worse. Trust and sincerity aside, this was the sort of duty that was assigned to Bannermen, especially in dealings between lords who might reach for a taiken at first sight of each other. But in the absence of such a high-ranking retainer – and when sending anyone of less status would be not just an insult but cause the death of the unfortunate messenger – there was indeed no other choice.
Bayrd’s response was just a bitter smile. He had hoped that Gerin might be more impressed. Small chance of that. One thing about Lord Gerin ar’Diskan had not changed at all, and that was his stubborn streak.
“Set aside why I came myself, then. Will you hear what I have to say?”
Gerin shrugged. “It hardly matters. Nothing you might have to say to me matters any more.”
“Do you know the whereabouts of your children?”
“What kind of a question is that? And what concern is it of yours in any case?”
“Curiosity.”
“Hah!”
“All right then. Call it the concern that one lord might have regarding the affairs of another, when those affairs might overlap his own.”
“Light of Heaven, but we have learned a fine and proper way to talk in the past few years, haven’t we? Where? Cerdor?”
“Now there’s a place I try to avoid.” Bayrd waved Eskra, Kian and Iskar to seats, then shifted Widowmaker where she hung in peace posture across his back for the first time in months, and perched comfortably in one himself.
“I didn’t grant you permission to sit down,” growled ar’Diskan.
“I didn’t ask,” said Bayrd pleasantly. “You’d get too much satisfaction from refusing.”
After almost six years, he was remembering how to deal with the members of Clan ar’Diskan. The most successful way had always been nicely-measured, always humorous impertinence. Not insolence – straying too far in that direction was dangerous where a high-clan lord was concerned, even with those more even-tempered than Gerin. But a carefully-judged level of cheek was something that had always worked when he had been Bannerman and Companion to the man in front of him. For all his own roaring, Gerin seemed to equate it with conviction in the rightness of an opinion, even though that opinion might differ from his own.
Even though the speaker was an enemy.
He rumbled something low in his chest, but didn’t press the point. Bayrd could see that despite everything else, he too was growing curious about
such bold behaviour. It was a relief. Despite all the reasons he had given Eskra about why Gerin wouldn’t kill them all out of hand, Gerin himself had reasons enough to do exactly that, and probably enough justification that he would get away with it. But the blow had been withheld so far, and Bayrd suspected it would continue to be so. For all his many faults, no-one had ever accused Gerin ar’Diskan of being stupid.
“Your children, my lord,” he said again. “Do you know where they are?” Gerin stared at him, twisting the tips of his moustache between finger and thumb, trying to understand the reason for the question before he answered it. Bayrd kept his face as unreadable as he was able.
“Cerdor,” Gerin said at last. “Arren is, at least.”
“But doing more than merely learning how to express himself correctly, I think. Yes?” Gerin said nothing. “Gerin-eir, let’s stop pretending. We both know each others’ policies in the matter of the Overlordship. Neither candidate meets with our approval, for,” –he waved his arms shoulder-high in an extravagant shrug– “for several good and proper reasons. But neither of us can come straight out and say so. Instead, we maintain our balance between the two. Yes?”
“If you say so.”
“I just did. And Arren is trying to ensure that whichever faction comes out on top – once the High Council finally makes up what passes for its collective mind – will be the faction that you, his wise and far-seeing father, have been secretly backing all along. He’d better work fast. I have news of Erhal ar’Albanak. He’s declared himself Overlord.”
Gerin grunted, but didn’t look overly surprised. “Old news,” he said. “Last week it was the woman. A month ago, it was Gyras ar’Dakkur, acting on behalf of the Council.”
“I mean it,” Bayrd insisted. Without proof, that was all he could do, and the time was not right to explain how he knew the difference between new fact and old rumour.
“They all do. And it’s all a great secret – except that everyone knows it already.”
“All right,” said Bayrd, abandoning his attempt to convince Gerin, at least for the present. “But now let me tell you a secret.” The Clan-Lord ar’Diskan’s expression didn’t change – he was working as hard as Bayrd to keep his thoughts concealed – but had he been a dog Bayrd was convinced his ears would have pricked up at that one word. “I am on the point of declaring for Yraine ar’Albanak.”
Gerin stared at him, blinked twice and then roared with laughter. It had an unpleasant edge to it, and Bayrd listened to the sound with a sour smile on his face. Gerin’s support, he recalled, would of course be for Erhal, once he was finally pushed into making a decision.
And that was ironic, since it was supposedly Erhal leading a force northward, to destroy Clan ar’Diskan for not giving such support earlier.
“Declare for a woman,” spluttered Gerin, wiping his eyes and regaining control with difficulty – if he had ever lost it in the first place. There had been something very forced about the last few hearty guffaws. “A woman Overlord…? In this country and at this time! By Heaven, ar’Talvlyn, you missed your calling. That was as good a joke as I’ve heard in weeks.”
“Which one? The woman, or the support for her?”
“Both, man, both. How many of the other lords would stand for it?”
“As many as were commanded to, Gerin-eir. Especially if there was a sword at their back. Or at the back of someone dear to them.”
“So that’s it, eh?”
“It, my lord? Which it do you mean?”
“Persuasion. Or at least attempted persuasion.” Gerin heaved his bulk from the embrace of the chair and strode to the side door of the Hall. “Come here,” he said, beckoning. Bayrd followed him, and looked up in the direction indicated by Gerin’s pointing arm.
Six heads leered back at him from their spikes atop the citadel’s inner wall. The birds, the insects and the hot weather had all been at them over the past while, but Bayrd could still guess at how long they had been there. About as long as a similar number of corpses had been moldering in unmarked graves beyond the outer walls of Dunrath.
“Attempted persuasion,” said Gerin again. They came looking for hostages, and they found nothing but a pain in the neck.” He was smiling with a dour satisfaction, and the smile broadened when he saw Bayrd’s face. “You too, eh?”
“Equally attempted,” said Bayrd. It was grotesque – but somehow appropriate – that it should need such macabre relics to bring them even this little distance closer together, but for the first time in six years, he and Gerin ar’Diskan had a trace of common ground.
“The funniest part of all,” he heard the older man say, “is that there was nobody here for them to kidnap. Arren in Cerdor, the wife with her family at Hold ar’Lerutz in Datherga—”
“They raided Datherga, my lord,” said Bayrd, “and took Lord Keo’s sister and his youngest daughter.”
“Yes, I know. But they didn’t know my wife was there. Careless of them, don’t you think?”
“Very. And your son Ivern, my lord…?”
“Wasn’t here.” The shortness of the reply was intended to deter further questioning. It didn’t.
“Was he not, my lord?” Neither of them had heard Eskra come up behind them, and Bayrd had the small but definite pleasure of seeing Gerin start at the sound of her voice. “Then where was he? In Cerdor, with his brother? Or somewhere else?”
Gerin ar’Diskan swung around and his black brows drew together as he scowled down at her, breathing hard but saying nothing. The contrast was an interesting one, thought Bayrd. Gerin was head and shoulders taller than Eskra, and maybe twice her weight; but there was no doubt at least in his mind about which of them was the stronger person. It had nothing to do with physical strength: Gerin could have snapped Eskra in two pieces like a twig, if she let him live so long. But there was more than mere brawn under consideration here, and all three of them knew it. Lord ar’Diskan had the look of a man who wanted more than just a taipan shortsword at his belt, but equally, he had the look of one who wouldn’t dare try drawing even that.
Granted, he was biased, Bayrd conceded to himself. But equally granted, he knew what he was seeing.
The big clan-lord was furious that she had made him jump, and seen him jump. He hated her because for all these years he had believed it was her sorcery that had played a part in his loss of the Dunrath domains, since it had given Bayrd the courage to put his hand at hazard. And he didn’t care for women who, what was it he had said once? ‘put themselves forward.’ Who ‘didn’t know their place.’ Eskra was a sorcerer, and even though he had been married to her for the past six years, Bayrd still didn’t know what her proper place might be.
Except beside him.
“Dyrek ar’Kelayr was keeping some strange company before he died,” Bayrd said into the awkward silence. For a few seconds he thought that Gerin hadn’t heard him.
Then the dark eyes shifted and registered his presence again, and when they blinked it was as though Gerin was a man coming awake after a deep, uneasy sleep. “Before Dyrek died?” he said. He glanced at Eskra again, but his gaze slid away without meeting hers and touched briefly instead on the black steel of the sword-hilt at Bayrd’s left shoulder. “You mean, before you killed him.”
Bayrd would have groaned with impatience, had there been any point in it. “Do you still believe that?” he said.
“What else is there to believe?”
“Try the truth.”
“Your truth, or my truth? They aren’t the same thing.”
“The choice is entirely yours, my lord. But Dyrek killed himself. I watched him do it. And not for fear of worse,” he said to forestall the accusation gathering in ar’Diskan’s face. “Because I would have killed him, have no doubt about that. You would have killed him yourself, for what he did.”
Bayrd looked at ar’Diskan’s face and reconsidered. “Well, you might, anyway. After all, the people he roasted were nothing but Elthanek peasants – and don’t bother to pro
test, my lord, I’ve heard it all before. But there’s the difference. He burned my vassals in their own house, and listened to them scream until the roof came in. Out of consideration for his rank – and for nothing else, he didn’t deserve any more – I would have taken his head off, quick and clean. And he knew it. So he killed himself to spite me.”
“Spite…?”
“To prove something.”
“Father of Fires, man, what could he prove on the point of his own knife—”
Bayrd favoured Gerin with a sardonic smile. “So you did hear the whole story after all. And because it was me, you refused to believe it. Ah well. But what could he prove indeed? That he was braver than I was, because he wasn’t afraid of dying? Ramming a tsepan through your own skull doesn’t prove that to me. It might prove that you were stupid, or impatient, or… Never mind.”
Bayrd looked out of the door again, back up at the six heads with what remained of their lips stretched in permanent, ragged grins. “But it might also prove that you were more afraid of someone else than of the man who was going to kill you. Dyrek threatened me with reprisals, you know. On the edge of oblivion, he still threatened me. With the Red Serpent.”
Gerin concealed the involuntary twitch of his mouth very well, but not well enough. Bayrd saw it; Eskra saw it; and both of them let it pass. For the present.
“Kalarr cu Ruruc,” said Eskra. “High Lord Gelert’s son. Late of Prytenon. And no lover of the Albans who took his land away. You know what that feels like.”
Bayrd was expecting the rage those words ignited in ar’Diskan’s eyes, but even so its intensity still took him aback. “Through no fault of mine, my lord,” he said. “I told you then, and I’ll continue to tell you. It was never my intention to cheat you. The Overlord Albanak—”
“Is dead and out of my reach.” The low growl of Gerin’s voice was far more menacing than any shout of fury could be. “You’re not. Remember that, both of you. And don’t try my patience again.”
“I meant no insult, my lord,” said Eskra, so smoothly and sincerely that she almost convinced even Bayrd. “But I had to focus your mind on what this Kalarr feels, and why. Hatred such as you cannot encompass. For all of us. You, my husband, my children, every Alban in this land, down to the child born today. And the ones he would call traitors. People who live with his enemies. People who were conquered and dare to be still alive. People like me. Do you understand?”