In a Time of Treason

by David Keck

  THEY RIGHTED ONE of the rowboats and shoved its nose onto the gilded flash of the mere. With a couple of nods, Durand was off, rowing out as his father and brother squinted from the bank. The Vairian’s boy watched as well, the Eye of Heaven glowing in his face. Durand watched the three dwindle as he hauled the oars. And grunted at a pang of loneliness when, long past waving distance, he saw them turn from shore.

  GUNDERIC’S TOWER STOOD like one pale tooth in the black sweep of the moonlit shore.

  He’d heard the buggane, but the thing had never come near.

  As Durand rowed nearer the ruined city, however, shapes bobbed in the waves all around him. Some resolved themselves into casks and boxes. Most, however, were the swollen forms of corpses urged into the bay by the flow of the Banderol. More than once, the tip of Durand’s oars fingered some yielding bulk under the waves. If he glanced, a face might roll into sight before sinking away once more. He muttered charms.

  Watching the city walls, he edged as near as he could to the harbor mouth without drawing the eye of Radomor’s sentries. Finally, he could hear voices and see the glints of helmets in the moonlight. And so he put the oars overboard, laying them on the ripples and sloshing down into the cold himself—every gasp and splash sharp over the water. The empty boat skittered away like a nutshell.

  For a few moments then, he clung to the oars, waiting for a next breath full of arrows and razor points, but nothing broke the stillness.

  With a narrowed eye, Durand struck off, swimming into the pull of the Banderol. For a time, he swam hard with his head down. He blundered past a barrel and a corpse. Heaven knew how many of the things tumbled around him.

  When he glanced up to check his bearings, he found that the tower had come no closer. His abandoned rowboat had scudded off like a bit of thistledown on the current, and the water was very cold.

  There was nothing for it. Seeing the wall falling away from him as the current dragged, he set to work once more.

  A body bumped past him. He felt his fingers snag in long hair. But he kept swimming.

  Radomor’s fools must hear him soon. He couldn’t keep quiet.

  Then he heard a splash—very close.

  And he froze; his heartbeat shuddered out through the water. Gunderic’s Tower was dark against the Heavens. He was glad he couldn’t see the bodies. He pictured the buggane looking on.

  It occurred to him that he might easily have imagined the sound.

  A thrash shattered that thought. Durand twisted. It could have been a fish leaping, but Durand couldn’t see the length of his arm. Whatever had made the sound would be on him before he knew what it was.

  At the sound of yet another splash, Durand vowed that he would at least make a race of it, and lit out for Gunderic’s Tower.

  His fingertips jabbed a wet bulk like a bladder of lard. Before he could flinch, an icy hand had raked his ribs.

  The waves erupted all around him as he swam. Empty faces thrust forward. Here were men he had seen in the streets, women, the children who played in the crossroads. Vagrant spirits had taken up each shape. And now, though every eye was like a bead of gray glass, every hand was reaching.

  He did not get far. Dead hands curled in his collar and clamped his wrists. His mouth filled with water, but fists threatened to rip him apart before he could drown. Everywhere were white faces whose eyes bulged with blackness. They pulled him down. He thought of the garrison in the castle, waiting for word of an army. They must be ready.

  Suddenly, the mere was full of light.

  Every blue visage twitched toward the surface where an impossible daylight had touched the dark with crystal brilliance.

  Overhead, the bow of a ship rocked on the glassy waves, light throwing blades of shadow down.

  A man’s voice tolled within the bones of Durand’s skull, deep. “Go mockers! Leave what you have stolen. In the name of Warders, I command you. By the light of Heaven, I charge you: Go!”

  At this last word, the revenants twitched as if they were about to rush away—then water seemed to catch them. Each body hung slack, abandoned.

  Durand floated where they had left him, watching the rag-doll corpses adrift. The body of one child hung in a gray skirt that flared as if it were the cap of a mushroom. Her dangling legs looked as pale and soft as curdled milk.

  Durand kicked for the surface.

  The light had dimmed by the time he reached the air.

  Strong arms pulled him from the mere. Tall men surrounded him in a pocket of sudden mist.

  SOPPING WET, DURAND stumbled from a window into the Painted Hall, aided by calloused hands that smelled of incense and candle wax and dead man’s balsam. The strangers hadn’t uttered a word since the confrontation on the mere. And, though pale light shimmered in the links of the strangers’ hauberks, not one of Radomor’s sentries had spotted their climb from the boats.

  In the Painted Hall, the crowd shrank.

  Forty white knights had appeared from the darkness. They could only be the Holy Ghosts, the Septarim, the Knights of Ash. If half the rumors were true, the duke might find himself chained to an altar while the Holy Ghosts sharpened their knives.

  The staring crowd parted as the duke tottered from his sanctuary beneath a mountain of bedclothes.

  “What in the name of Heaven?”

  At this, a giant knight stepped forward. Over a chest like a cask balanced on its back edge stretched the battlemented blazon of the Warders’ Shield. Heavy-knuckled hands lifted his helm to uncover a face all knots and hollows under hair like gray wire. One eye stared down from this face of crags: blue as a child’s sky.

  Abravanal wavered in his tracks.

  “Greetings, Lord of Gireth,” the one-eyed giant said, his voice the rumble under Silvermere. And he bowed in a whisper of iron rings.

  “Who are you?” breathed the duke.

  “My brothers and I are newly come from the Court at Eldinor,” he said evenly. “I am Conran, Marshal of House Loegern. Servant of the Warders. My brothers and I have come to aid your cause.”

  “I had begun to think the king would send no aid to Gireth,” Abravanal murmured. They had sent no hostage to Ragnal’s oathtaking.

  The blue eye shivered like a blade’s point. “Ragnal moves against his royal brother now: Prince Eodan has withdrawn his lands from Ragnal’s rule, declaring himself sovereign in Windhover. Archers steal among his trees. The king summons his host to flush his rebel brother from his forest fastness, but the barons are slow to answer Ragnal now.”

  Abravanal closed his eyes. “The sons of Carlomund . . . Brother wars against brother.”

  “Neither will relent.”

  “But Ragnal sends you, his Knights of Ash.”

  “No, Your Grace. The king cast my brethren from his side. The court is a web of whispers; for the first time in all the rolling years since my order was founded, a king of Errest marches to war without his sworn guardians.”

  “Lord of Dooms,” said Abravanal. “Whom must we thank for your coming?”

  “Biedin, youngest of Carlomund’s brood. The prince stole a moment as we rode from the court. He must march with his brother Ragnal; a whisper was all he could offer.”

  The old duke’s fingers fluttered at his lips. “For that much we are grateful, Marshal Conran, for it is more than his brothers spared us.”

  “We have slept too long,” rumbled the marshal. “Accident, fire, and war have thrown down high sanctuaries in Ferangore, Acconel, Beoran, Lawerin. Soon, only Eldinor by the Mount of Eagles will stand. I tell you power works to shake the Wards of the Ancient Patriarchs: to loose the bonds that tie crown, Banished, men, and land. On the mere we met an old buggane of the water, making free as in former days. And we have heard whispers of these dark twins who walk with the Leopard of Yrlac. Errest comes apart around us.”

  Abravanal glanced to his councilors: Lamoric, Kieren, Coensar. His lips met. Shivering half out of sight, Durand remembered Landast and Alwen and Adelind. There had even been
a grandson now lost somewhere with Alwen. He wondered why the Septarim had chosen to act only now.

  Wings flapped at the black windows.

  “Your Grace,” said Marshal Conran. “These twins work their sorcery even now. Radomor has been still too long.” People around the hall raised the fist and fingers sign, looking to the arrow loops. “We will mount the battlements and watch from the high places.”

  Abravanal’s voice, when he spoke, was hardly louder than a whisper. “Only a fool would refuse aid at such a time. Do as you see fit. I . . .” He swallowed. “I commend your courage in joining us at this dark hour.”

  Marshal Conran bowed deeply in another whisper of steel rings. And, with that, the one-eyed knight directed his men to the stairs.

  Every soul watched the strange company file out—leaving Durand, dripping, alone at the head of the hall.

  Someone gasped across the hall; he found Deorwen’s face in the multitude. He could see the wet glint of her eyes.

  “Host of Heaven!” This was Kieren the Fox, gaping around his red-silver mustaches. “Durand! Have you been there all along?”

  Durand stirred himself from the shadows. The cold had him stiff as a palsied old man.

  “Yes, Milord,” he managed.

  After the shock of the Septarim, the crowd was done with silent gawking. Now they chattered.

  Lamoric took Durand by the arm. “When we saw nothing by nightfall, Coensar had me thinking you were done for. Is the army with you?”

  “No, L-lordship.” They’d be slogging south of the Bay of Acconel now, or just swinging north.

  “Oh, no . . .” breathed Lamoric.

  Coensar pressed: “Did you find them, boy? Is there an army at all?”

  Durand waved a hand. “I—it’s Sallow Hythe, Captain.” He tried a smile. “The plan’s to march on the city by night. They are coming.”

  Lamoric wheeled slowly as comprehension dawned. “Sallow Hythe . . . Him I knew from the Burrstones. That man never walks a straight path if he can find a crooked one.”

  “They were camped just where that messenger said they’d be,” Durand said. “We must make ready. By dawn, they should be on top of us.”

  A broad grin was spreading on Duke Abravanal’s face, and he seemed about to speak. Just then, a strange sound became audible. As they stood, bewildered, the sound grew louder until the monotonous syllables of a chant had risen up all around the hall. All the knights, Durand included, had hold of their swords.

  Coensar narrowed his eyes. “Another attack?”

  But Abravanal spoke then. “No. Listen. It’s priest craft.”

  And the eyes of the crowd looked from the walls to each other. The chant sank deep roots through the stones of the old keep. It seemed that Durand could almost feel the brush of lips at his ears.

  Abravanal was shaking his head.

  “Father,” said Lamoric. “What is in your mind?”

  “That man. Conran. When I was a page in Eldinor—under old King Carondas before he set his crown aside. Before Bren, his brother, before Carlomund the son and now Ragnal. There was a marshal of the Septarim standing guard at the Hazelwood Throne, always there. I am sure he was called Conran. I remember he was so big.” The old man was blinking, staring off into memory. “And that eye.”

  The old man smiled. “We must prepare the garrison or Sallow Hythe’s plan will be straws in the furnace.” His eyes flashed Durand’s way. “And it would be a shame to waste two cold nights on the mere.”

  AT A NOD from the revitalized duke, men stole up the battlements, keeping lookout over the southern approaches to the city. Hauberks, gambesons, and blades were passed from hand to hand, and every tower whispered with the hiss of whetstones.

  Before Durand could join in, Guthred, Berchard, Heremund, and Kieren had cornered him and were working him over with rugs and rough blankets, having stripped his soaking clothes.

  “There’s no time for all this,” said Durand.

  “Hells,” grunted Guthred. “Dullard.” And Durand was blinded by a hairy fistful of blanket.

  “Hey, Badan, you bugger,” said Berchard, “there’s still a bed frame and at least one good trunk up in Abravanal’s chamber. Lug ‘em down and we’ll have some heat.” And somewhere beyond the woolen rasps, Badan was spitting oaths.

  “He can work some of that out of him, busting up the furniture, I reckon.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Durand said.

  “Shut up,” said Guthred.

  “Yes,” said Kieren. “We’re all glad to see you back.”

  “Just help me find my gear.”

  “Everyone will hear how you crossed the mere and brought back the army when all the lords here had given in.”

  “Mooncalf,” said Guthred.

  “You’re cold as a Harskan’s arse, boy,” said Kieren. “And the man whose raft you borrowed? We lost him two hours after you pushed off.”

  “Stone dead—and I reckon he’ll keep till midsummer before he starts to go off, poor bugger,” said Berchard, pouring out something thick from a red pot. “And he wasn’t making a habit of the crossing.”

  “Fool,” said Guthred.

  “I’ll take Lamoric’s old blade off you. And then it’s by the fire with you—when we’ve got one,” ordered Kieren.

  “And shut up,” said Guthred.

  His four nurses nodded, the Fox peeling Durand’s fingers off the Sword of Judgment.

  “Lord o’ Dooms,” said Kieren, shaking his head.

  DURAND SQUATTED BY the fireside as long as he could hold still. He felt like a bull in a bin full of darting mice the way the castle folk swarmed past him. Finally, he stole a corner from the scurrying mob to wrestle the weight of a gambeson and hauberk over his head. He blinked at the reek of it, but it felt good to have the gear on. The wait would soon be over: one way or the other, it would all be done before long.

  As he hauled his surcoat over his head and then the heavy layers of mail and padding, he found someone giving him a hand. He turned to find Deorwen tugging his surcoat down and sliding his belt around his waist.

  “Deorwen!” Durand said.

  “That’s better, I think,” she muttered.

  “Soon, this will be over.”

  The woman caught a fistful of his surcoat, looking up at him. For an instant, it seemed as if she didn’t remember him. Then she blinked hard. “Durand.”

  When he peered close, her eyes darted. “You’re still seeing them?” he said.

  “It’s hard to sleep.” She seemed as pale as the things in the mere.

  “Hells, Deorwen. Soon, I’ll have you out of this place. I found the army. And they’re coming for us now. They’ll give Radomor a good shock, no matter how many sellswords he’s bought. We may get ourselves free of this place by noon.”

  It was all muddled. He couldn’t serve Lamoric and love Deorwen. But he couldn’t let her die.

  He squeezed her shoulder, but felt her start in his grip.

  He thought of his hand. “I know it’s cold—”

  “What is that sound?” she said.

  Across the Painted Hall, dozens shifted uneasily, looking round.

  “Heaven knows, Deorwen. There’ve been engines, and prayers, and—” Durand began, but he faltered.

  For there were whispers.

  “I hear . . .” he said.

  And he knew the sly sibilance. He’d heard the same whispers across a prince’s table at Tern Gyre while the Rooks preened and grinned at him.

  “You are tired,” the whispers said. “It has been a valiant stand. Who could fault you?” Each hissing syllable chased the next round Durand’s head, beating in circles like a thick plague of moths.

  He saw others around the room catch at their hair; he pitched against the black wall.

  “Come with us,” said the whisperers. “You have done so much. It is time to rest. No one could expect more. It is time, I think. Yes.”

  Deorwen was staring back at him, the only one not clutchi
ng—or falling.

  “Durand,” she said. He saw her lips moving.

  But the room around her was shuddering. Pale flames shivered at the lips of every soul in the long hall. Creation itself twitched before his eyes. And, while the whispers stormed, he thought, That’s what I’m seeing now. The world from the pale flame.

  Deorwen was catching him as he slid to the floor. She shoved at his mouth with her bare fingers—ramming his soul into his body. She might have been screaming.

  He tried to mouth a word—

  But another voice spoke with his, louder than he could imagine.

  “No.”

  The word shuddered through Creation, and the whispers shrank.

  “By the Host of Heaven, by the King, Queen, and Warders.” It was fearsome Conran on the rooftop, and each slow word drove the whispers back. “By the Champion, and the Maid of Spring, Errest is not yet fallen. And the Eye reigns unconquered.”

  Durand felt Deorwen’s hands on his shoulders, pulling. He shoved himself from the floor, meaning to give her a word or two of comfort, but she was quickly on her feet. “Almora!” She was off for the girl.

  They found the Patriarch of Acconel sprawled like a fallen eagle in the duke’s sanctuary, overcome. Almora sat beside him with her dark eyes full of tears. “Don’t worry,” said Durand. He gave the little girl a squeeze. And, together, they saw the old Patriarch’s eyes flicker open.

  Durand smiled. Tonight, they’d scotched the Rooks. Tomorrow, they’d fix their master. After that, Durand’s doom was his own to work out.

  IN THE NARROW stone lane that was the inner yard, Durand found two hundred men in greasy gambesons and rust-red hauberks. Some were still making the Eye of Heaven.

  Lamoric had the whole garrison of Acconel crowded there. On the walls above, archers crouched in the predawn twilight.

  Above them all, the Knights of Ash stood like carved icons atop Gunderic’s Tower, motionless except for the wind in their surcoats. Each man stood with his hands on the pommel of a bared sword. And their chant rolled on.

  As Durand took in the scene, a wry smile—mirroring the expression dawning on his own lips—spread from face to face in the garrison. A few nodded his way. It was as though they had been waiting to share their joke with him, the Bull of their festival. He breathed deep and saw the wild edge of his own smile gleaming back at him in the teeth of two hundred men.