“Don’t you dare speak of marriages, Bulgris O’routh. T’was you lot who brake yer vows unto us and failed to deliver a promised bride!”
“Sixteen Saints!” Hobrin exclaimed, goggling. “Mother, that was ninety years gone.”
“And ninety years without a word of apology.” She replied hotly. “We should have come for ye then and done ye in, but were too kindly fer it.”
“Kindly?” Laughed Abinar Root from the table where he and his three kinsmen sat, distinguishable by their refusal to bathe or shave and the startling whitish blue of their eyes staring from their dirty faces. “When was you ever kindly, Mama Hag?”
“Don’t you call her that you filthy pig farmer!” Bajar O’root roared, reaching for his knife for probably the fiftieth time. “I’ll gut you, old man!” He was likely of an age with Abinar, and his pop-eyed stare was disconcerting in his seamed and sun-weathered face. Not one of the people in the room was younger than Malkoom D’Arouth, who sat by the fire looking darkly on and was probably fifty, but they acted like children, and rotten children at that.
“Be still, Bajar sheepstealer.” Lakin O’root said. Lakin was of the O’root clan that owned the land the well was on, not the O’roots who dug the well, and his brother had been killed over the thing, even though no one used it. Lakin’s O’roots were the ones who didn’t have pop-eyes. Jahaksi had a hard time keeping the feuds straight, but apparently there were three main feuds, centering on ten stolen sheep about twenty years ago, a well dug seventy years ago and a failed promise of an arranged marriage some ninety years ago. Ancillary feuds had arisen from the subsequent murders, duels and one alleged poisoning (Hagne O’root had invited Abinar’s mother for supper, but she hadn’t made it home) occasioned by the original feuds, and that was just these four families. Represented at the tables were the D’Arouths, O’roots, O’rouths and just plain Roots. There were two branches of the O’roots, however, so maybe it was five clans here.
Bandim, king Otten’s captain, had told Jahaksi that there were some twenty other clans of the Black Duke’s get, if none others so large as these, and that they were all at each other’s throats all the time. In the Empire, families feuded as well, but if the thing couldn’t be settled in a year it went to court, and nobody wanted that, for the judge would typically confiscate property from both families.
The roots had come here, to the castle at the center of the Kingdom of the Green Hills, because it was about the only place they could both speak freely to each other and not murder each other out of hand. Breaking King Otten’s peace was punishable by a wergild none of them could afford.
“About the damned well, Hobrin.” Lakin O’root was saying. “You really intend to give it up?” Hobrin was about to nod when Hagne interrupted.
“We aren’t giving up nothing.” Her voice was bitter. “We dug the well and it’s our’n.”
“T’was on our land, and ye damn well knew it.” Lakin replied. “Only reason I come is for to settle the issue of the well.” He fiddled with a narrow bit of green ribbon hanging from his braided hair while he spoke.
“We are giving it up, mama.” Hobrin said to Hagne, and she gave him a hurt and vengeful look. “We don’t use it. Don’t nobody use it nor likely to. We’re making peace talk.”
“You got nothing to give up nohow.” Lakin replied. “It’s our well, on our land, and you’ve no right to gift it to us.”
“You see how they is?” Hagne’s voice was practically a shriek. “We make a peace offerin’ and they throw it right back in our faces!” She gripped her belt knife as she spoke.
“Well, at least they an’t going to eat no supper you made.” Bulgris said slyly. Jahaksi looked at Jhumar, who was shaking his head and grinning. The two of them were present in case the ‘roots’ decided they wanted to cross the Whitewood, not to keep the peace, and Abinar noticed Jhumar’s expression.
“What are you grinning at, you cat-eyed monkey?” He demanded, and every one of the ‘roots’ turned to look at Jhumar.
“I smile at children who act like children.” Jhumar replied quietly in his broken Mortentian, but his hand was resting on his sword-hilt. The ‘roots’ collectively rose in anger, and all of it pointed at Jhumar. “So you act together some. Good. Maybe stop fucking around and make plan.”
Before the ‘roots’ could mob Jhumar, Malkoom rose from his place by the fireplace and kicked over a heavy wooden chair. It banged and rattled as it settled on the floor, and for a moment, everyone looked at the enormous farmer. He held up his heavy arm, thick with the power to push a plow, for silence. “We didn’t come to settle no fucking well.” He declared, and in his face was a fury that only Hagne O’root could have matched. He repeated his statement for emphasis. “We didn’t come to settle no fucking well, nor no old marriage nor no sheep. I put a dead cow down the well two weeks gone, and I reckon she’s ripe by now, so that settles that.”
“You’d no right.” Growled Hagne, but when she saw her mortal enemy Lakin agreeing with her, she squinted hatefully at him and was silent.
“I’d every right, by damn.” Malkoom said. “You old fools have drug our name in the dirt for a hunnert years and they laugh at us in the King’s Town now. They call us a fallen house, and nobody fears the Black Duke no more. We been cheated and robbed and murdered now, and come to find out ‘tis the new bloody king of Mortentia who done it, and you lot want to argee about a fuckin’ well.”
“Bah, who are you, Malkoom to tell us?” Abinar mocked, but Malkoom stared him down.
“I’m of a line to the Black Duke, same as you lot.” He replied. “But unlike you, I an’t ashamed of nothing. The Black Duke was promised a bride, and the old king betrayed him, and so we all pay the price. Unlike you, I hold family as the thing that matters most. You lot don’t know it, but young Aelfric D’root’s up in Northcraven fighting fer his life, probably with a price on his head. Young Levin D’root’s likely been murdered. Hambar’s been murdered sure, and all of them cheated of their lands. I’ve had word from Root’s Bridge. There’s a man there in the pay of the blackguard king and he’s robbing us of thousands in gold even today.
“And you lot want to argee about a fuckin’ well don’t nobody use. You want to argee about a wife nobody delivered to a man whose been dead now thirty years and you want to argee about ten twice damned sheep, also long dead by now. Meanwhile we get no farming done, we get no treasure stored up and our people is murdered with no answer.”
“We got legitimate grievance.” Hagne O’root replied hotly.
“Oh, shut up, mama.” Hobrin replied, and her pop-eyes bugged out even more while she sputtered. Jahaksi was surprised to see her son rise against her. “He’s right, and you all know it. We’ve no more than a hundred fighting age men betwixt our families, and every year fewer with killing each other. I’m for the kin Arouth, and I’m for Malkoom. If you lot won’t get behind this, be damned to you, I’ll no longer call you the Black Duke’s get. We’ve murder to do, and hands to do it with, and not a one of you getting to the business of it.”
Loud clapping from large hands cupped to give maximum effect startled the people in the room, and now every eye was on the king. “About fornicating time.” Otten Ottenson said from his throne, where he had passively sat, apparently asleep, for the past two hours. “You people swat flies when there’s a wolf loose in the house. This Maldiver D’Cadmouth now, he’s murdered his cousin and took his throne. That’s a matter that concerns the Green Hills, for he doesn’t seem the type to leave us in peace. I will help you to get your lawful vengeance however I might.”
“And Malkoom should be the captain of this vendetta.” Hobrin said. Fortunately, the D’Arouths in Malkoom’s district were not presently at feud with any of the families here, so after a few muttered oaths and a few furious glares from Hagne O’root, the representatives agreed.
“This don’t settle the matter of the well.” Lakin O’root muttered in a voice intended only for Hagne O’root’s ears.
> “Why don’t you come over fer a nice bit of pie and we’ll discuss it.” She replied with a sugary smile.
Chapter 72: Lanae in Diminios, Whitewood Forest and Walcox, latter Kastanus
Raine Unhalsen reined in his pony and held the horse tightly, for even at three hundred paces the little mouse-colored mare was half-panicked at the sight before him. Raine was riding the late summer gather, rounding up the half-wild cattle that still roamed freely on the Diminios Plain, and driving them to market in Silver Run. It was a lonely and dangerous business, this, for these were unbranded bulls and cows, and not a one of them gelded. The bulls would charge with little or no provocation, and their curved horns could open up the belly of a man or a pony with equal ease. Still, if a free cattleman wanted to get rich, now was the time.
The big droving families had taken in the gentle stock all summer, and if they spotted a free cattleman anywhere near their herds, they were likely to run him off and take his stock at the least, or fill him with arrows and leave him for the vultures at worst. Now they were at market, and the best stuff either sold off or being sold. With stacks of gold in their purses and winter coming on, they had mostly retired to their large ranches and freeholds, or some of them gone down across the river to winter in Brenwater Commons or Pulflover or Arker.
The range was open now, and the free cattlemen picked over what they could from their leavings. Raine had a nice little gather, fifty head of decent cows and a dozen calves, and it was either the start or the end of something, he hadn’t decided. Plenty of open country lay between him and the southern bounds of the Whitewood, and he could find a nice creek near to the woods and build himself a little shack, and a lean-to for the cows. By spring he’d have the makings of a nice little freehold, and after a couple years he’d be able to take a wife, hire some men and start something. Or he could take what he’d gathered and run it into Silver Run, put a couple of gilders in his pocket and go to live in Brenwater until summer came again, ending this summer’s gather in style.
The first option meant more work now and a better future later, but the second offered wine and women and plenty of fun until summer came back and he started over, either at this or some other line of work. He was leaning toward selling now, and Silver Run was only fifteen leagues away.
That’s what had been on his mind until he saw the eagles. Two of the things, no less, giant birds that could panic his herd and run the fat off of them with a single flyover, which was why he was approaching the two king’s eyes in the first place, to let them know he was there and to beg them not to run off his stock by mistake. He dismounted his pony and hobbled her, for he only had three ponies in his string, and this mare the best of the lot. He didn’t bother with his sword. He didn’t really know how to use it, and had just bought it because it was a thing to buy. It was death to threaten a king’s eye with a blade, and not much one could do against an eagle with one in the first place, he reckoned.
He held his arms out to his sides, palms open as he approached the eagles’ riders. He’d never met a king’s eye before, but he’d heard stories. One of them looked just like he’d imagined, a small and thin girl with a wary eye and earth brown hair like a pony’s mane hanging down below her shoulders. She was pretty, with doe’s eyes and fine and delicate features, and looked to be maybe fifteen. The second king’s eye looked older, possibly in her twenties, and she looked large and heavy compared to the first, although really she was no bigger than a girl ought to be. Her hair was as dark as charcoal, shiny and wrapped up in a complicated bun with strands hanging out. She held her chin up high and proud as she looked at Raine, and her cheeks were full and pink from the cold.
Seven Hells, maybe it was because he’d been a man alone all summer long, but these two girls looked mighty fetching to him. Realizing how he must look, with two weeks of beard on his face and his clothes dirty with dust and blood from gelding calves, he tried on a smile. He didn’t want to alarm these two, but neither did he want them running off his cattle.
The bigger girl smiled back. Her teeth were straight and white, he noticed, and she looked to still have all of them, so maybe she wasn’t as old as he’d thought. Horse, cow or woman, the teeth never lied. “’Allo.” He began. “Name’s Raine Unhalsen, and I’m a freeman cattleman. How are you doing?”
“I’m Eleinel.” The bigger one replied, and Raine noticed she was carrying a bundle close by her chest. “We are fine, just resting.”
“Eleinel. Like the queen.” Raine replied, surprised to see a look of concern pass across her pretty face. “I was hoping to have a word with you lot. I’ve a small gather lying just the other side of yon hill.” He pointed to where his cattle were. “I was hoping I could convince you lot not to fly over their heads. They get the idea they’re being hunted by eagles, and I’ll have seven devil’s worth of time trying to get them all took back.”
Lanae looked the young cattleman over. He was no taller than Eleinel, with a wiry build and a shock of corn-colored hair that sprouted up from his head in unruly clumps now that he’d taken off his wide hat, which he held smashed and shapeless before him in two nervous hands. His clothes were dirty, but she could see that the dirt was from honest work rather than neglect, something she’d learned to distinguish on her family’s farm. ‘If you can’t tell a loiterer from a laborer, you’ll never manage an orchard’ was one of her father’s favorite sayings, and to her keen eye Raine was plainly a worker.
They were five days out of the King’s Town, and they were still a full flight from Walcox, and that was her fault. Well, sort of her fault. The queen had insisted that they visit her father’s mansion in Pulflover, although Baron Brego D’Tarman had not been home, and once there, Eleinel’s mother, a flat-faced and shrewish woman named Fiorina with mannish shoulders and a bitter edge to her voice, had insisted that they spend the night. They’d nested the eagles in a barn, and when they rose in the morning it was to hear the news that the king, Maldiver D’Cadmouth, had issued an order that they were to be detained. They’d left Pulflover Barony two days later, but their spending so much time there had been a serious mistake.
Annika Holser had come on the night of the eighteenth flying Crimson and bringing a copy of the king’s writ, and Annika had left within minutes of arriving and delivering the message, which meant that the orders would now be issued at every eagle’s landing both ahead of and behind them. They could no longer hope to outrun the orders. For lack of a better option they had, after much preparation and under repeated verbal assault from Fiorina, who was a D’Cadmouth by birth, flown here to Diminios, seeking a lonely place far from the eyes of others.
It was not easy to hide an eagle from eyes below, and even harder to hide two, but in Diminios there were many places where you could fly for leagues and not see a single person on the empty plains below. Unfortunately the plains were empty of shelter as well.
It had been two unseasonably cold nights, and the two women had sheltered under Sentinel’s wings for much of the time, each one taking a turn holding the baby prince while the other slept. Seeing the young cattleman Lanae instantly took a liking to him.
“We won’t trouble your beasts.” She promised. “I’m Lanae Brookhouse, and we are on the king’s business. I don’t suppose you have the makings of a fire?”
“I’d guess I surely do, Madam King’s Eye. I’d sure guess so.” Raine practically ran back to his little gray pony to get a faggot of wood, some tinder and his flint.
“Why did you ask him that?” The queen asked Lanae.
“I’m cold. People like to help the king’s eyes.” Lanae replied. “I don’t see any trouble in the man.”
“There’s trouble in any man.” Eleinel responded sharply. “It just takes the right circumstances to bring it out. It’s not like we can just fly away. He could be getting anything.”
Lanae frowned briefly. The queen was right about one thing, they couldn’t just fly away. Her mama had said that life was trials and troubles, and she’d been
quite right about it. From the moment of their escape, it had been one trial after another. Eleinel didn’t just puke once, like nearly every first-time flyer did, she puked every time Sentinel left the ground. Prince Kaelen took after his mother, for no sooner had they left the ground but he’d be puking up milk, with that awful smell baby puke had, or he’d be filling his nappies. The seams of Lanae’s riding jacket were full of dried puke, and she knew there was no power on earth or in the heavens that would ever get that smell out.
Sentinel didn’t like carrying an unfamiliar rider that couldn’t even seem to learn the basics of flight, and he’d taken to mischief, rising to his full height as soon as the queen was unstrapped and dropping her on her tailbone or doing little half-rolls while he flew to make her shriek.
Darkwing was little better, skittish and wary of anything nearby. When an owl broke from a cluster of pine trees beneath them, Darkwing had nearly pitched Lanae over his neck in veering off. When the two eagles hunted, they took a long time to make their kills, at times leaving Lanae wondering if they would come back for their riders.
It was cold, cold like Kastanus should never be. Lanae had tasted snow on the wind during their last flight, she needed to find a place where the eagles could nest, and she needed to get the prince out of the cold right away. The cold had prompted the request for the fire.
Raine returned shortly and began arranging the wood he was carrying into a small cone shape. “If I light this now, it’ll likely be burned up in half an hour.” He said conversationally while he worked. “But if you lot can stand the smell, I can put together enough fuel to last quite a lot longer.”
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 95