In Siege of Daylight

by Gregory S Close

  Vaujn felt a stirring in his belly. He liked the sound of that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  KEEPING PLACES

  SETH wiped the gathering sweat from his forehead and paused for a moment from his work. They had made good progress for a half-day’s worth of labor, but given what still lay ahead, it hardly seemed enough. He couldn’t fault the girls, who had worked hard and without complaint, though he didn’t expect the same consideration from Burton. There would be no excuses for anything less than perfect. Not for him. Seth felt unreasoning panic grabbing hold of him for the second time in the last ten clicks.

  Just keep working, he told himself, polishing a dressing table as if it were the only thing in his world, enraptured by the depth and color brought to the faded and long-neglected wood by his oiled cloth.

  Iaede and Braede were still busy putting away the belongings from Lord Malminnion’s many trunks. It was clear they’d been through the ritual of packing and unpacking his things many times. They went through the motions unconsciously, moving a little slower than an hour before, and slower still than the hour before that, but it remained a steady pace. Deirdre was still occupied with the larder, securing as much in the way of potable water and fresh victuals as she could pilfer from the kitchens. Seth had decided she’d have better luck than he. Dar had a well-known weakness for pretty young girls, and what Seth couldn’t obtain legitimately himself, he was sure Deirdre could flirt out of him.

  As for the nameless girl, she had taken it upon herself to fill in for the errant porter, carrying in loads of coal and peat after the firewood had been sufficiently stocked, and then making several trips to the well for fresh water. She was off to the cellars now, to find a barrel of spiritless cider for the rather conservative tastes of the elder Malminnion. Unlike Garath, Ezriel was well known for his abstinence from worldly pleasures, whether of the flesh, the pipe, or the goblet.

  Seth finished with the dressing table and took a walk through the suite to survey their progress. Stop worrying, he told himself. Everything of any importance is done already. It’s just the little things, now.

  Seth found a little peace in that revelation, but he still felt anxious. His thoughts kept drifting back to that girl. He even found the accumulating grit on her flushed cheeks attractive. Worse yet, he still didn’t know her name. Why he couldn’t bring himself to ask, he wasn’t sure, other than nerves, but he felt his crush increasingly obvious when he called each of the other girls by name, while she remained only an ambiguous you.

  A trumpet blast, high and clear, interrupted his thoughts.

  “They’re on their way back,” Seth said with a calm he certainly didn’t feel. “Let’s do our best to finish up. We’ve twenty clicks, perhaps thirty, before they reach the Bridge House Gate.”

  Seth went to the window in the sitting room, which overlooked the bailey, to see if there was any evidence of the procession returning from Saint Kaissus Field. He knew it was early for any glimpse of them, but his frazzled nerves demanded that he look. Seth peered out the thin glass of the window that, like all of the fae glass left over from the aulden, never fogged, despite the weather.

  He nearly gasped aloud in alarm.

  Seth calmed himself an instant later, realizing the column of knights was not one of the royal or noble parties returning from the festivities. They were Border Knights, about two dozen of them by his count, led by someone in the livery of the Crown Prince’s Guard. That stood to reason. One could never be too careful, especially not lately, and moving some of the Border Knights from Saint Severun’s to King’s Keep made sense to him. Most importantly, it meant he still had time to put the finishing touches on Lord Malminnion’s quarters.

  “Where should I put it?”

  Seth whirled to see the nameless girl, somewhat bent over from the weight of the cider barrel balanced on her back, standing patiently in the doorway. Quite suddenly, he felt conspicuously empty-handed.

  “In the larder, here,” he said, leading the way at a brisker pace than he’d really intended. His body seemed intent on making up for his momentary distraction with or without his conscious consent. “Right here,” he said, helping her set it down.

  “Ach,” moaned the girl, rubbing at her lower back and making a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “I’d never guess one man could need so much!”

  Seth looked about with quick little motions of his head and brought his finger to his lips. “Hush, or you’ll get yourself in a right lot of trouble. A sharp wit can be more dangerous than a sharp blade, or something of the like. That’s what Burton’s always saying. Best to keep your place, if you don’t want to lose it.”

  “I might be on borrowed ground,” she replied smugly, “but ma skin’s ma skin and ma words are ma words.”

  Seth found her petulance a little disturbing. He’d seen more than a few with similarly smart mouths wear the scars of their punishment the rest of their lives. He had no wish to see her soft flesh all bloody and laid open at the whipping post, or her tongue split for gossip and insubordination. “Maybe so,” he said quietly, adopting his most serious and concerned expression, “but the whip won’t much care who owns your skin when they flay it off of you.”

  If that image disturbed her at all, she made no outward show of it. “I know what a beating feels like, if that’s what’s worrying you. Anyway, it’s not what you say as much as who you say it to. Unless you’re doling out the lashes.”

  “Of course not!” he protested. The other girls looked over from their work, but he sent them right back to it with an irritated glance. The blood was pounding hotly behind his cheeks. “Just watch your mouth. I wouldn’t want to be at-”

  “This one giving you trouble?”

  Seth didn’t recognize the voice, but the tone was a familiar one. He pivoted smartly on his heel and found, more to his dread than surprise, Lord Ezriel Malminnion standing in the doorway. He must’ve come in with those knights, if not before, thought Seth. It had been some time since Seth had seen him, but he was a memorable figure.

  Ezriel’s face was lean and distinctive rather than handsome, but the contrast between his blue eyes and his long shining locks of shock-white hair was striking. His thin-lipped mouth was a flat, stern line, surrounded by an immaculately groomed jet-black goatee. He wasn’t in his house colors, but rather the black and silver of the Order of the Star, of which he was the knight lieutenant general, and thus its highest-ranking member. As Seth heard it, only the archbishop and Knight Captain General Tuoerval had more influence in the Holy Quorum. He’d heard even more stories of his exacting perfectionism, and the penalties for falling short of his expectations. His discipline might not be called cruel, but it was certainly severe.

  Seth tried not to wither under that stark and demanding gaze and the punishments he imagined it promised, for himself or the nameless girl. “Your Grace,” he said, bending deeply at the waist and holding his bow for a full three ticks. “No trouble at all, sir. Castellan Burton asked me to make arrangements for your stay. I hope everything will meet with your approval. I was not expecting you quite so early.”

  “I have little patience for feasts,” dismissed Ezriel. He entered the chamber, examining it in what Seth thought a deceptively casual appraisal. The other servants stood well out of his way, heads bowed. He stopped just short of Seth, looking down on him with unmasked authority. “She is a stubborn girl, like all her kind. Obstinate. Prideful. I have warned her once already to mend her ways.”

  “She worked quite hard, Your Grace,” insisted Seth, trying hard to sound disinterested rather than defensive. For her part, the girl was at least pretending to be well-heeled. He hoped she had the good sense to stay that way for a while. “They all did, sir. You run a very orderly household. It was a pleasure working with them.”

  Ezriel studied him for a long moment before turning away and proceeding into his private bedchamber. “I’ll be sure to let the castellan know of your efforts,” he said at the door, “and
you will be held accountable, accordingly.”

  The door shut with a firm click, punctuating Lord Malminnion’s promise. The casual manner of the statement was more disconcerting than the words, despite the potential grief from Burton they threatened. Ezriel could have been discussing a turn in the weather for all the emotion in his voice.

  It was that very lack in his voice that made Seth further appreciate his role in the grand scheme of things. He was a mote of dust, drifting about the heels of those like Ezriel, trying to avoid a chance encounter with the heavy and merciless toe of his boot, however wayward that crushing tread might prove.

  “Thank you,” the girl whispered, as if they might be overheard even now. She squeezed his hand.

  “I’d best get along, myself,” Seth said, his palms sweating. “I have other duties to see to today.”

  “Aye,” she said, and moved away, heading toward the sitting room where her fellow servants had already adjourned to await the beckons of their master.

  “Wait,” said Seth, and she stopped halfway there, twisting to look at him over her shoulder. He gathered his courage, and after a quick swallow, managed a quiet, “What’s your name?”

  She smiled again, and her eyes glittered darkly in the flickering firelight. “Callagh,” she said, “Callagh Breigh.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A FRIENDLY TOAST

  CALVRAIGN could see that these dark under-levels of Saint Kaissus Field provided Captain Vaujn with some sort of comfort. The stiffness in the kinsman’s neck had slackened, and his breathing was more even and steady. Every once in a while, Vaujn’s nostrils would flare, sucking in scents that Calvraign would’ve thought better left alone. Even so, he appreciated the company of his new friend. He could count the hours he’d known the stocky fellow on the fingers of one hand, or close enough, but he felt a sort of trust growing between himself and Vaujn, and even, to a smaller extent, with the hardened Osrith.

  The under-levels were still in quite a commotion. Squires and stable hands were now emptying the underground stables and staging area where knights had awaited their turn in the combat above. Thankfully, a light breeze blew through the corridors of packed dirt, keeping the stench of sweat, oil and horse manure from settling too thickly in the air. As in the construction above, the wood of the supports looked like it was part of a living tree, a dense network of roots bearing the weight of the surrounding dirt.

  Vaujn grabbed the arm of a young page who was hurrying past. “Hey, where’re the wounded at?” Though phrased as a question, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was a command.

  The boy’s eyes shot wide open, and it looked like he might bolt before he finally spoke. “Just down there, sir,” he said somewhat weakly, “and take a right.”

  Vaujn nodded a silent thanks, and the boy scurried off.

  They found the wounded right where the page had said, a half dozen men either immobilized by their injuries or without the luxury of a personal physic. Artygalle fell into both categories, and lay on a straw pallet in the back of the room. His squire sat nervously by his side, standing guard over his master’s discarded armor and sword. Calvraign marched purposefully toward his friend, doing his best to ignore the soft moans of pain coming from the other nondescript inhabitants of the small room. Broken limbs seemed the most common casualty of the joust, along with a bandaged head or two, but it didn’t appear that any of those here were in any life-threatening danger.

  “How fares the champion of the day?” Calvraign said with a wide unabashed smile.

  Artygalle looked up, surprised, and struggled to raise himself on his good arm. “Calvraign!” he said, but words failed him when he saw the kinsman at his side.

  “This is Captain Vaujn,” supplied Calvraign, “from the Underkingdoms.”

  “An honor, Captain,” said Artygalle, immediately attempting to rise.

  Vaujn shrugged and nodded with a tolerant half-smile, uncomfortable with the attention. “Don’t get up, by the All-father,” he chastised, and gently restrained the knight. “The honor’s all mine, anyway. If I ever get up on a horse and hit someone with a pole, I’d want to do it like you. Well fought.”

  Artygalle cast his eyes downward, and his cheeks regained a little color. “As the Goddess wills.”

  “I think she’d be willing to share the credit, at least!” Calvraign laughed.

  “Aye, after all, it’s your arm in the sling, eh?” agreed Vaujn.

  Artygalle proffered a weak smile in response, but said nothing.

  “Have you seen the surgeon yet?” asked Calvraign, looking at the bandaged arm speculatively. There was some blood seeping through the dressing, presumably where the damaged shield had dug into his arm, but it didn’t appear broken.

  “Only a physic so far, and he said I could wait.”

  Vaujn looked around the room at the other injured men, then up at Calvraign pointedly. “I don’t see that Guir fellow here, or Sir William, and they both took a walloping. Is this the sort of preference the champion of the day receives from the king?”

  Calvraign shrugged, angry and confused. He expected such stupidity and nonsense from rival Houses, but not from Guillaume. “It must be a mistake,” he said, trying to sound as if he believed it himself. “We’ll get you to the King’s Surgeon himself, straight away.”

  Calvraign and Vaujn bent down to help the knight up, but Artygalle waved them away. “And what about these men?” he asked. “Who will tend to them?”

  Calvraign stopped, his lips working silently on an explanation that didn’t come. Vaujn hardly paused, dragging Artygalle up into a sitting position by his good arm. “Nice sentiment there, sir, but they don’t have to fight again anytime soon. We’ll send somebody down to check on them, but they’ll keep. Now get up.”

  Artygalle got up to his feet with a wince and steadied himself on Calvraign’s ready shoulder. Vaujn was now preoccupied with the armor and shield next to the pallet, running his fingers over the metal in an expert caress.

  “I think this armor’s in worse shape than you,” he decided.

  “We’ll both manage,” said Artygalle, defensive but not quite angry.

  Vaujn wasn’t paying him any attention, however. “Bring this along,” he told the waiting squire, pointing at the armor.

  The squire looked to his master.

  “It’s all right, Inoval, do as he says,” confirmed Artygalle, though he didn’t seem all that certain himself.

  They made their way up through the under-levels, moving at a relatively slow pace. Though putting up a noble show of it, Artygalle had lost a lot of blood, and anything more would have risked him passing out. Calvraign took most of the knight’s weight on himself, and Vaujn had wrestled most of the armor from Inoval, shouldering the burden without much apparent bother.

  Calvraign wondered how the kinsman made himself so at home in such an alien environment. Whatever adjustments he himself had made to life in Dwynleigsh, it had to be much harder for the kinsman. Language, environment, custom and appearance were all foreign here, not to mention the political make-up of the capital. Vaujn just seemed to slice through it all, and though he might raise eyebrows, it didn’t appear that he had raised any hackles.

  The surface of Saint Kaissus Field was mayhem, a din of roars and shouts and songs that, when taken as a whole, resembled nothing more than a great waterfall of incoherent noise crashing on the witless ears of those who dared listen. The glowlamps above and the fire pits all around cast flickering shadows with abandon, dancing with beings of actual flesh as if they were one and the same. Men and women were running to and fro amidst the mob, bearing trays of food and drink to the hundreds gathered around.

  “It’s worse than when we left it!” Vaujn complained to whoever would listen.

  “It’s barely started, sir,” Inoval shouted. “The festivities will last much longer than the food and drink.”

  Vaujn grabbed a small roasted bird from a tray as it whisked by them. “And why do the
y go to all this bother, again?”

  “Tradition,” explained Calvraign. “During the Civil War, a famine threatened the Midwinter Feast. King Argys’ son Malaín distributed food and drink from his personal stores. The practice persisted long after the war, and it’s become a show of thanks of sorts for all of His Majesty’s subjects.”

  “Sounds expensive,” said Vaujn, halfway through his snack.

  “I’m sure it is, but it’s not as if they feed the whole city anymore. Brohan said the privilege is decided by lottery now.” Calvraign ducked a flying bone. “Still, there’re several hundred here, at least.”

  “You should all stay and have your share,” suggested Artygalle. “I’m not so terribly hurt as you’re making out. I can find my way back to Saint Severun’s with Inoval’s help.”

  “Don’t be daft!” admonished Calvraign cheerily. “There’ll be food aplenty at the keep. Besides which, we’ll have the honor of dining with today’s champion!”

  “As you wish,” relented Artygalle, his eyelids sagging even as he spoke. He was obviously too tired to argue.

  “May I make a suggestion, sirs?”

  All eyes turned to the nervous young squire.

  “Of course, Inoval,” Artygalle said, smiling. “What is it?”

  “Once we’re outside the Field, we could rent a carriage. It would take us at least as far as the Harbor Gate, and be much less tiring for my master.”

  Everyone considered that to be a splendid idea, and once they’d escaped the rapidly evolving chaos that was the Feast of Prince’s Bread, they did just that. There was a large selection of carriages available, lined up along King’s Boulevard in a row of polished wood and brass. Most of the nobles remained within, paying their token respects to the old tradition even while they waited for their own raucous party to follow at King’s Keep. The carriage masters clambered down from their seats, in a race for the first highborn customers of the evening, all claiming to have the most luxurious coach at the most reasonable price.