The innkeeper told me that father never returned from the Suzerainty, and left his fine white stallion and all of his goods. Elderest's men came to pick them up. I well know that father has no use for the men of Elderest, and cannot imagine a circumstance whereby he would permit them to gather his things. I have made several inquiries, but learned nothing. I fear the very worst, dear brother.
If Elderest has made the move I suspect, it will not be long before he moves on D'root Keep. You would be in his way. I hope this missive reaches you in time to do you good. I have gone into hiding, but am sending it forward at the earliest moment, under our mother's name, which I hope you will have the good sense to assume.
Regards, Levin
Post Script: Do not trust Malli. I have heard unsettling things. I hope that you possess money and a swift horse.”
Aelfric felt the blood rush to his face. The letter fully explained the odd presence of the servants and L'nelle’s impudence. He knew with sudden clarity why Malli had ordered the discharged servants to return. Aelfric had discharged them against Malli's advice. The man wouldn’t have hired them back unless Aelfric's order was to be rescinded. Aelfric would have refused permission, for he could not afford to pay them. Malli had acted directly against his orders. He must be confident of another source of money as well as authority to countermand Aelfric. Such authority could only come from the duke of Elderest.
His father’s armsmen had been retired to Root’s Bridge some years ago, taking up other trades, but they frequently came by the keep, and there were almost always one or two about the place. When Hambar needed help with policing the people, he would sometimes hire them on temporarily. Malli had recently complained of the expense of feeding them, and done so in a way that Andimus O’Morin, one of them, had overheard. Aelfric realized now that it had likely been a deliberate insult, a way of discouraging the visits.
If Malli and the duke of Elderest had conspired to do away with Hambar, they would have to kill Aelfric as a matter of course, to put an end to his father's line of succession and put the lordship of Root’s Bridge beyond dispute. In addition, there was the vengeance of the eldest son to consider.
Moreover, if Elderest's men were already on the road to the keep, the duke must know that Hambar was out of the way. The year promised by the exchequer had not yet expired, there were still five months left, but Elderest was already moving to take the keep.
There was no alternative explanation. Hambar D'root was dead, murdered in Mortentia City by the men of Elderest. Malli knew of it and intended to profit by it. Hambar had taught his son tactics and elementary politics, and the conclusions to be drawn were unmistakable.
Hambar D'root, his father, must be dead. As impossible as it was to imagine that anyone could kill the man, Aelfric knew it must be so.
And he, Aelfric, would be the next to die.
Unless he got moving. He felt tears welling up in his eyes. His father was dead. Dead or not, he heard his father's voice in the back of his head. It was the voice of battle-hardened experience. There will be time to mourn later, the voice seemed to say, for now see to the living.
Mati had said that she and L'nelle were not to be there before noon, so Malli must have planned to be in possession of the keep by that time. Only their coming early and the lucky arrival of his brother’s letter had given him warning. It was now midmorning. Elderest's soldiers had been on the road south of town when the dispatch rider passed them. Hard marching would put them at the keep in an hour easy, and subtracting the time it had taken the dispatch rider to reach him, that left only about half an hour for Aelfric to make good an escape.
At a run, he returned to his room. Swiftly and half in a panic, but with deliberate care, he dressed himself. He scarcely hesitated before donning his weapon belt and taking his longsword from its place in the chest at the foot of his bed. Men did not ordinarily go armed in Root’s Bridge or anywhere south of the Whitewood, but if the need came, he wanted to be ready. He scabbarded the weapon after taking a moment to wipe the dust from its steel length. It was a finely made weapon of good Arker steel, and at least if they caught him he would not be empty-handed.
Bitterly, he laughed to himself. They would hardly bother to meet him with drawn swords when an arrow would do neatly at fifty paces.
He gathered a few bits of clothing and some family papers and stashed them in a large leather sack. He put on his riding boots. From the vault in the laird's room, he plundered all of the family's money, some nine gilders and a few dozen marks. It was a great deal of money to carry, but not much with which to run a freehold. At least that burden would no longer be his.
Even as he finished saddling the great gray stallion that was a favorite horse of his father’s, he could make out the figures of more than twenty marching men, less than half a league distant on the Root’s Bridge Road. The men were dressed in Elderest blue. Two horsemen rode at their head, and as they spied him they broke away from the ranks of footmen and began trotting toward the keep.
It was a good stout keep, built in the days of the hundred kingdoms when raids were frequent. With five good men, Aelfric could have held it for days, he reckoned bitterly, but he had only himself. Hambar’s half a dozen warders were all in town. Still, he shut the front gate and barred it, making for the rear postern gate that led down to the ferry. It might delay them for a minute or two.
"Make way!" He shouted at the two or three housekeepers who had gathered in the courtyard to witness his strange and hasty activity. They stepped out of his way as he led his horse through the narrow postern gate and swiftly mounted. As he trotted his horse down the cobbled way to the ferry path, he saw two men at the bank of the river.
Fat Loseth loafed while the half-Aulig handler made a mess of the lines bringing the boat across from the western bank. Aelfric dismounted and ran up to the two great wheels in which the lines lay tangled.
"Here, you!" He shouted. "Get away from that!" He pushed the big man aside and surveyed the ropes. It was better than he had hoped. The ferry line ran through two large spindles, or drums, on this side of the river, and the lines lay tangled between them. But each spindle had a stop in case the line should break, and there was still enough play in the lines to bring the ferry within a yard of the near bank. Rolling up his sleeves, he began rotating the great drum, hopelessly tangling the outlines as he did so.
"Hey, Aelfric!" Shouted the suddenly alert Loseth, the honorific milord conspicuously absent. "You come away from there. We've orders not to let you pass."
Aelfric stepped back in a moment of panic. Even though he was lord of the keep, he was but nineteen, and accustomed to obeying his elders, noble or common. "What? Orders from whom?"
"Master Adkel said Duke D'Cadmouth wouldn't allow it. You're to stay on this side of the water and face his judgment. Besides, you're tangling the lines."
The big half-breed turned and regarded the ferryman and Aelfric standing together. As tall as Aelfric but half again as broad, he looked like he could lift the ferry himself. His hair was cut short and the color of coal and his dark eyes wary.
"The Duke means to kill me, Loseth. You know that don't you?" Aelfric said to the chief ferryman, a man he had never known well or liked.
"Aye, well, that's between you and him, I suppose." Loseth replied, making a motion of wiping his hands clean on his dirty and sweat stained shirt. "I just know I'm not to let the ferry leave the bank, per Malli's orders. If you've got a dispute with Malli, I guess you can settle it with him."
"Who owns this ferry, Loseth? Malli Adkel or my father?" Aelfric responded heatedly.
"I guess maybe the Duke of Elderest owns it now." An insolent, broken toothed grin accompanied the remark.
The big half-breed, who had remained silent up to that point, suddenly interceded on Aelfric's behalf. "I knew you was a piece of shit, Loseth." He declared in a voice that seemed to come from the bottom of a well. "Do you mean to stand in the way of this man's crossing the river? After you took his
money and worked for him?" Aelfric noted it was the first time he had heard the big man talk.
"You stay out of it, Haim. You mind your betters."
"Like damn I will." Said Haim, and he began pulling the ferry closer to the bank, gigantic muscles bulging beneath his simple wool jerkin. "You just get yourself on the ferry, man. Pay no mind to Loseth there. You needs to cross, I'll draw the lines."
Loseth made a move as if to come forward and interfere. Suddenly Aelfric found himself drawing his sword. Never in his life had he drawn a weapon in anger, and he surprised himself by doing so. Neither of the ferrymen were armed, and both took a moment to survey the young man in surprise. Aelfric nearly stammered. "By the first light of my birth, Loseth. You stand out of the way or I'll put this blade in you. I will."
Loseth stood back, raising his hands. His face turned ugly, or uglier, as it were. "We'll just see who eats steel little lord D'root." He mocked Aelfric as he turned and walked away. "Or maybe I'll get to see them hang you."
"She's close enough." Haim said to Aelfric. "Guess we'd better get aboard."
Aelfric drew the horse onto the ferry, then turned to Loseth. “I will remember this day.” He promised darkly. The ferryman only grinned in reply.
The lines, which were really but two sides of the same rope, remained tangled between the spindles, so once they had gone about ten feet into the river the ferry came to a stop. "We're stuck here, man." Said Haim. "Unless you want to cut the rope."
He need not have spoken. Aelfric was already sawing at the wrist-thick line with his longsword. Cutting the line would engage the stops, leaving the ferry at the mercy of the current and requiring a team of men several hours to repair, but the ferry could still be drawn across by the men on it if they undogged the line and drew it hand over hand. A part of him recoiled at the thought of damaging his father's property, but death was in the offing.
He was three-fourths of the way through the line when he saw the two horsemen approaching down the ferry path. He had no doubt they were the leaders of the troop from Elderest. Desperately he began sawing harder on the wet rope, which resisted his sword as it drew tighter.
"Here, let me help you." Haim declared, taking a hatchet from the rope box and pushing Aelfric out of the way. "They start shooting at us and they'll hit me likely as you. Besides, if I ever get back I guess Loseth will have a bad word for me. Looks like you cost me a job." He hacked through the rope with a single blow, a satisfied grin on his large square face. Aelfric observed that he had parted the rope in a different place than where his own ineffectual sawing had left its mark. Haim pulled out the dogging pins, letting the rope run freely. "Now pull like there’s devils on you!" The big man shouted, taking up a length of the rope leading to the western shore and giving it a great heave.
Together the two strong young men walked the line, drawing it over a shoulder or against a hip and heaving backward. With only the weight of Aelfric's horse to burden it, the ferry made good time across the current, and the two were more than halfway across the river before the first arrow landed in the water nearby. Aelfric paused to look back at the eastern shore. He could clearly see the bowman, a stocky soldier in dark Elderest blue with the white braids of a captain on his shoulders. At his side stood the other horseman, now resolved into the figure of Malli Adkel, his father's treacherous regent.
The two men stood now on the misty shore far to the east of the ferry, which had been drawn south by the current so that Aelfric and his companion now struggled half against the river's flow as they pulled. Even as Aelfric watched, the archer let loose another arrow, which narrowly missed Aelfric and embedded itself in the rail near his hand. His aim was definitely improving.
"Stop your gawkin' and pull, damn you!" Shouted Haim, and Aelfric snapped suddenly out of his reverie and retook his place on the line. "They cut the line loose and we'll be working twice as hard!"
Aelfric bit back a hot retort. It was no way for a servant to speak to his lord, and certainly no way for a freeman to speak to a member of the nobility, no matter how fallen from that estate. On the other hand, by taking up the line Haim had saved his life, and was now fighting for his own. It seemed a piss-poor time to bring up the fine points of etiquette.
Besides, the big man was right. If they did not get the ferry out of the current and close to the western dock before Loseth thought to cut the line, the current would sweep them into the shallows or sandbars that still lingered near the western bank and they would likely founder. Aelfric did not fancy a swim in the icy waters of the spring thaw, so he renewed his efforts with vigor.
More arrows fell near them, but as the distance increased, the archer's accuracy diminished. The eastern bank seemed shrouded in mist now, and the western side of the river hove clearly into view. When they were within a few dozen yards of the western shore the line suddenly went slack, splashing into the water. Malli or his friend must have just thought to cut the ferry line entirely. Aelfric quickly grabbed both lines, and they nearly stripped the skin from his hands as they went taut. Haim dogged one line into place while Aelfric gritted his teeth and held onto the bitterly cold wet rope. His feet slid across the ferry’s deck until Haim tied the back line off to the ferry rail and resumed pulling, slowly narrowing the gap to the western landing.
They were now directly downriver from that dock, and the eastern shore had disappeared in mist. No more arrows fell near them. The desperate flight became simple drudgery as both men fought against the cold, the wet line, the weight of the ferry and the flow of the current to bring the ferry finally to rest against the pole and plank landing.
"That's it." Haim said, breathing heavily as he tied them up. "We're across. That'll be two silver pennies."
Aelfric shook his head and laughed despite himself. As he looked into the mist across the water, he could just make out the one bent piling near the center of the mighty Dunwater River. It was the last he ever saw of Root’s Bridge.
Chapter 2: Lanae, Eagle's Rider
29 Mardis, Falante 3, Mortentia City
"I just know you aren't taking Sentinel again." Limme said, with something like a frown creasing her doll's face. She pulled back her curly golden hair in an unconsciously imperious gesture. King’s eyes were supposed to be equals, but it was impossible to forget that she was the daughter of the Duke of Elderest, a D'Cadmouth, and a member of the first family of Mortentia. "That's three times in the last seven days. You know Bansher doesn't like us spending too much time with one bird."
"You just hush your mouth, Limme." Lanae pertly replied, brushing back a single strand of her own limp brown hair. She wished, and not for the first time, that she had been blessed with golden curls like Limme's. It was like her that she failed to appreciate her own quiet beauty, and she would have dismissed as laughable any suggestion that a girl like Limme D'Cadmouth would secretly envy her own delicate features. "I like Sentinel the best. He's the strongest, and I'm too big and awkward to ride any of the others."
"That's not true, Lanae Brookhouse." Limme responded. "You know you could do equally well on Wraith or Crimson. You like Sentinel because he's the prettiest."
"Well, so what if he is?" Lanae laughed. "He hardly gets flown at all by the rest of you. If I didn't take him up he'd hardly ever get to stretch his wings."
"That's because you are the only one crazy enough to fly him, Lanae. After he dumped Vallia, its little wonder the other girls are afraid of him."
"What’s to fear?" Lanae responded, turning on the smaller girl. "Vallia dumped herself. It's not Sentinel's fault she went up half-trained and half-drunk to boot. The only reason she took the leather at all was because her family demanded it. ‘Noble birth does not equal noble worth.’" She quoted her mama's expression without thinking, and immediately regretted it, seeing the hurt expression on Limme's face. "Excepting you, dear Limme, of course."
"I'll have you know my family didn't want me to fly." The smaller girl responded angrily. "They said I was too young and they wante
d to marry me off. If Bansher hadn't made it clear that I was a good choice I'd be sitting court over some cothold in Ioli right now."
"Oh, my dear Limme!" Lanae exclaimed, grasping her friend's hand and pulling her into a friendly hug. "Of course I didn't mean you. If you were in Ioli I never would have met you, and I wouldn't have a single true friend. Really I wouldn't."
"Neither would I, Lanae. Truly."
Together the girls put on their high waisted leather jackets and surveyed their choices critically. Lanae looked closely at the glistening silver plumage around the head and ran her hands carefully over the thick dark feathers at the crest of the giant eagle's breast. Obligingly the great bird spread his dark wings, and they nearly reached both walls of the cavernous hall. At thirty-five paces, Sentinel's wingspan reached from wall to wall and was at least two paces longer than that of the greatest of his twenty nestmates. Here was the glory of Mortentia best reflected in any living creature.
The Duke of Elderest might have his endless libraries; the Baron of Pulflover his stacks and stacks of gold and the Duke of Flana his thousand barges of grain, but here was the making of a king. The twenty great eagles were the king's eyes and their riders his ears and the bearers of his commands. From Fortress Arias in the south to Northcraven City in the distant north, the king's law was carried on the wings of eagles. Lanae, a simple girl from a little orchard in Walcox in far off Northcraven Duchy carried the messages of the king throughout the land. It was simply glorious.
When she flew she could forget that she came of a poor family. When she sent home the gilders she earned as a part of her flying privilege, she knew that her father could afford to put in more seed or buy land that meant the security of her hardworking mother and sister. The day Bansher D'Bregen came to her village, looked over her scrawny frame and asked her if she had ever dreamed of flying had changed her life, changed it forever and for good.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 3