by T. O. Munro
Again a knock. “Can I come in?”
“Be all means, Haselrig,” she replied. “Let me see how well the years of separation have treated you.”
The antiquary stumbled in bearing a tray on which was set a simple breakfast and a burning lamp. Quintala had in mind a comment about demotion from chief advisor to kitchen footman, but instead expostulated, “God’s blood you’ve change Haselrig!”
He set the tray on a side table and returned her gaze. His grey hair and thinning scalp were a good match for the sombre cloak and shrunken frame. “You haven’t, Seneschal,” he retorted sourly.
She blinked at the formality. “I think we can dispense with the title, Haselrig. I am fairly sure I have succeeded where none of my forbears did. That is too say the Queen has doubtless stripped me of the post and honour of Seneschal to the Throne of the Salved Kingdom.”
“How shall I address you then?”
She had picked up a slab of coarse black bread, turning it over in her hands, but his fearful question drew her attention. She looked at her fellow traitor through narrowed eyes, seeing the hands tightly clasped in a vain bid to suppress their trembling, seeing also the sheen of sweat upon his brow.
“Are you scared of me, Haselrig?”
“Rondol says the master sealed his mouth shut for speaking out of turn in your presence.”
“It can’t have been a permanent affliction if the red-bearded twat told you so himself.” She gave a derisory snort. “But, to answer your question, you may call me simply Quintala, it’s a good enough name. My mother gave it to me, her only gift.”
“I knew the master held you close in his counsels, all through the years of waiting.” Haselrig swallowed. “I did not realise until now that you were ranked so far above all others in his confidences.”
“Of course you didn’t Haselrig. How could you know? You saw me with the master for a single night, that night we freed him. And then he sent me back to be his spy at court, while you and the unlamented Xander set about carving him out a new army beyond the barrier.”
“But you were more than a spy.”
Quintala gave a self-deprecating shrug. “As you said, Haselrig, I have been close in the master’s confidences for the last seventeen years. He has been much in my mind, and I in his. That kind of intimacy counts for far more than a mere physical proximity.”
“And what happens now, now that you are back, now that we have no agent in the enemy camp?”
Quintala shrugged her indifference. “There may be none as close to the seat of power as I stood, Haselrig, but there are others who would serve our cause. There are strings we can still pull and puppets who will dance to our tune.” She looked around the room with an approving nod. “I’m glad he kept the orcs and outlanders from ransacking my apartments.”
“What will you do?”
Quintala gave her most winning smile before answering with steel sincerity. “What I have always done, Haselrig. I’ll do whatever I can and whatever it takes to bring the bitch, the bastard and all their people tumbling into ruin.”
“I didn’t know you had such hatred in you.”
“Oh, Haselrig, your own resentment was a feeble thing, brewed over a few short years of professional disgrace but think what treachery it moved you to. My malice has been maturing for centuries. There is a cold heat to it that will make nations burn.”
The antiquary was backing away towards the door. “In truth Quintala, I don’t know you at all.”
“You never did, Haselrig. No-one did. But they’re going to know now.” A playful smile lit upon her lips. “Still, you didn’t come here just to bring me…” She looked at the meagre breakfast; a thin oatmeal gruel accompanied the hunk of bread. “To bring me this dog’s breakfast.”
“It was all I could get from the kitchens.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “Then your star and your influence has fallen further than I thought.”
He glanced to the left, the fingers of one hand mangling the other. “I have served the master as best I could, but he has given me no further tasks or direction since the night of the lady’s escape.”
Quintala stood up with a broad grin and strode across the room to the antiquary. He hovered in indecision between retreat and obeisance, like a dog uncertain of its master’s mood. She clapped both hands upon his shoulders. “Ah ha, I see it now, Haselrig, I see it clear.”
He gave the slightest whimper of a query
“You fear you have become unnecessary to our master, and it is such a short path from there to oblivion.”
“I am sure there is service I could still render him, if he would trust me with it. But there are others who have his ear, who would be glad to see me fall.”
“Rest easy, Haselrig.” She pulled him into a hug and murmured in his ear. “We founding conspirators must stick together, so much more so now that there are just two of us. You will enjoy my protection.”
The antiquary’s gratitude was pitiful, mumbled thanks tumbling from his mouth.
“Save your breath, Haselrig.” She patted his shoulder companionably. “Any debt you owe me for keeping your hide safe will be more than repaid in the annoyance I know it will cause that pillock Rondol, for as long as I allow him to live that is.”
***
“Is it safe here? Can we be sure it is safe?” Bishop Sorenson demanded.
Niarmit let Rugan answer. Despite the trauma and exertions of the previous night the half-elven prince was eager to take the floor of their new council chamber. “We know now that my witch of a sister could conjure gates of varying sizes through the planes,” Rugan growled. “And that these allowed her to hear, or to see, or to step into all manner of places which she had no business in.”
There was a murmur of distressed agreement around the gathered company which quietened as Rugan went on. “But, we know also that these gates can only be opened on a place that the caster has already visited.” He gestured around the canvas enclosure and stamped on the wooden floor. “This makeshift hall did not exist before yesterday and while Quintala may have walked through my gardens, I am sure she did not fly above them. So a marquis set on a stilted floor ten feet above the ground is the greatest surety we have against being overheard or overlooked by magical means.”
“Will you be providing a more secure stairway though,” Lord Tybert injected, rubbing forlornly at the scraped knee where a stumble on the step had torn his fine hosiery.
“And canvas is such a poor guard against the cold at this time of year,” his brother Lord Leniot added with an exaggerated shiver.
Niarmit scowled the Lords of Oostsalve into silence. “The council owes a debt of gratitude to Prince Rugan, for the energies both magical and physical that he has exerted in erecting this safe refuge for our discussions.” She shot a smile at the half-elf and got a confused frown in response. The night’s events may have inverted the prince’s world, but his habit of suspicion still remained weighing even simple praise half a dozen times before he would accept it.
She turned back to the recalcitrant lords. “If a comfortable warmth is more precious to you than contributing to our counsels, then you are at liberty to leave, my lords. I am sure I can manage well enough with those advisors that have the fortitude to bear such minor discomforts.”
Immediately the brothers were overflowing with assurances of their commitment to both the council and the venue, offering sidelong expressions of thanks to the chamber’s architect. Rugan gave a sharp harrumph of indifference and took his seat again at Niarmit’s right hand side.
To her left, Giseanne spoke up. “If any should withdraw, your Majesty, it is I. I was only here as regent while your right to rule was held in doubt by some.” On Niarmit’s other side, Rugan settled lower in his seat at his wife’s tacit rebuke. “But now, that all doubts are set aside, that all present have seen you wear the Vanquisher’s Helm, my role as regent is redundant and I gladly surrender it.”
The Princess of Medyrsalve, made to rise
but Niarmit caught her arm and pulled her back. “Lady Giseanne, your advice and your actions these past weeks have been full of wisdom. You are the very last person I would dismiss from my council. Please stay, I have need of you still.”
Niarmit saw the doubt in Giseanne’s expression. There was a baby boy a few months old who had seen too little of his mother in the tumult of war and argument which had followed his birth. The queen had never had a child of her own, but she had come to care for her cousin Hepdida so deeply that it at times it hurt. If that feeling was a mere shadow of what motherhood felt like, then she knew what a demand she was making of Giseanne, but she could not let her go. “I need you, my lady,” she said when the princess still hesitated.
With a sad smile, Giseanne settled back in her chair. “Then you will have me, your Majesty,” she said.
Niarmit gave Giseanne’s hand a squeeze of gratitude and looked around her small council. There were just the six of them. A bishop distracted by thoughts of his northern home and the dangers facing the lady he served. A prince whose paranoia might taint his new-found humility as much as it had previously warped his pride. A princess and mother, serving from loyalty rather than desire. Two wastrel lords of Oostsalve dragged from their respective vices of gambling and womanising. And a queen who but a few months earlier had nothing more than a forest camp and a ragged thief to call her realm. It was hardly an auspicious group through which to orchestrate the defeat of the greatest evil the world had ever known.
The tent flap was pushed open and Tordil stepped inside. “I found him, your Majesty,” the tall elf announced, holding the canvas aside to let another enter.
Niarmit felt a blush sear her cheeks as Kimbolt walked through the opening. “Captain Tordil, Captain Kimbolt, you are both most welcome,” she said dry mouthed. The elf and the man bowed low and rose as one. She held her gaze on Kimbolt, searching his expression for something, though Goddess knew she wasn’t sure she would have recognised it if she had seen it. The captain’s face was unreadable, his eyes steady and unblinking. For what seemed like an age Niarmit said and did nothing.
She wanted to ask where he had gone, why she had woken alone again. The memory of a long shuddering moment seized her, when she had lain with one hand tangled in this man’s hair, while the other gripped her pillow. A moment when nothing had mattered but that moment in time. Yet still she had woken alone.
“Captain Tordil said you wished to see me, your Majesty,” Kimbolt snapped the stretched out silence.
“Yes,” she said, swallowing hard. “Yes, Captain, I did.”
Rugan broke in on the hiatus of her indecision. “Perhaps the captain has something to say to me after his damnably false accusations last night.”
Kimbolt turned to the prince and bowed with deep formality. “I am more sorry than I can say for the grievous suspicion I unjustly held against you, my lord.”
Niarmit saw the slight twitch of his mouth as Kimbolt seemed to consider some further comment, some qualification perhaps, to his apology. But the captain pursed his lips in a line of resolute firmness.
“That is not why I asked you here, Captain,” Niarmit stirred from her mental lethargy. “Though I am glad to see past grievances forgiven and forgotten.”
“I am at your Majesty’s service,” Kimbolt replied. “Always.”
She frowned at that. Was he laughing at her? But there was no glimmer of amusement in his expression of parade ground seriousness. She looked quickly around at the rest of her council. “We are a small group to decide the fate of the nation. I wish to enlarge our number. I would propose that Captain Tordil take the place once reserved for the Lord Feyril of Hershwood, the truest of our elven friends. I have always valued his honest advice and I know Tordil will never fear to give it without regard to whether it pleases me or not.”
“An admirable trait in an advisor,” Sorenson concurred.
“And the captain?” Tybert interjected. “The other captain?”
Niarmit clasped her hands in her lap and made a last audit of her reasoning. It was a sound decision, she told herself, a matter of state, not of emotion. It withstood all scrutiny. “There is a vacancy,” she began. “For the post of seneschal.” Rugan’s spluttering response began before she had even finished. “And I am minded to appoint Captain Kimbolt to that dignity.”
“You would replace one turncoat traitor with another, your Majesty,” Rugan exploded beside her.
“It is too great an honour,” Kimbolt exclaimed with scarcely less vehemence. “I cannot accept.”
“Why ever not?” The captain’s plain rebuttal both stilled the chatter and drew the stunned demand from Niarmit.
He spread his hands in supplication. “I am a simple soldier,” he said. “Never more than a captain in the fortress of Sturmcairn.”
“And we are all well acquainted with what glory you brought to that position,” Rugan sneered.
“I am not fit for this high office, your Majesty.”
“A dog that knows its place, at least.”
“Rugan, be quiet!” Niarmit snapped, running fingers through her hair as her plans ran awry. She turned to the captain whose face was white with fear. “Kimbolt, it is a simple matter. Captain or no you are the highest ranking officer to survive the fall of Morsalve. There is no other diplomat or soldier I can call upon. If not you then next in line stands Sergeant Jolander.”
There was a snigger from Lord Tybert at the prospect of the moustachioed cavalrymen taking on the mantle of seneschal. “There must be someone else,” Kimbolt pleaded.
“See,” Rugan growled. “Perhaps he doubts his own treacherous heart. You know well what service he has done for the enemy.”
“He was bewitched.”
“And he may be again. A man with such a weakness has no place at the heart of government.”
“Enough!” Niarmit sprang to her feet in fury. The rest of the company abruptly rose in observance of protocol that none should sit while the monarch stood. She looked around at them all at faces filled with confusion, sympathy, maybe a little suspicion. “Enough,” she repeated with slightly less force. “My decision is made. It will be obeyed. Captain Kimbolt is to be seneschal.”
“Your Majesty,” they bowed in unison as she settled once more upon the ornate chair which served as her throne.
Sorenson noisily cleared his throat as Tordil drew up seats for himself and Kimbolt. “Well, now that is settled,” the bishop began. “Perhaps we may proceed with council business.”
“And in particular,” Rugan added. “Unpicking the web of lies and untangling the damage wrought by my treacherous half-sister.”
“Not a short meeting then,” Tybert observed with a sad involuntary rub of his stomach.
***
“We should stop, Kaylan,” Prior Abroath told his swaying patient.
“When we get there. Not a moment before.” The thief’s voice was a distorted mumble. His jaw, despite the prior’s best efforts, was still a swollen mass on which the bruises from lost and loosened teeth had expressed themselves in vivid purple shades. The fractured bones in his legs might have been knit together, but in joins not yet firm enough to be worked without pain. Abroath saw Kaylan wince and pale with every nudge of knee against his horse’s flank. Twice now, the thief had all but fainted in the saddle, and Abroath had no desire to add a split skull to the list of injuries which had required his healing gift.
“Kaylan!” Abroath drew his own mount alongside the stubborn thief’s. “You test the Goddess’s patience. You have been beaten to the brink of death and broken both legs in a thousand foot fall. The Goddess’s grace may have grant me her servant the power of healing, but there is an expectation that the invalid will allow a few days rest for the cure to be complete.”
“She didn’t wait,” Kaylan retorted. “She rode off and all we know is that she was headed into danger at Rugan’s court.”
“She had Tordil to keep her safe.”
“She needed me. She needs me. Sh
e has always needed me.”
“Maybe she does, but she also needs you healthy.”
Kaylan made an unwise attempt to stir his horse into a trot. Abroath had to seize the thief’s arm to steady him as another wave of pain nearly overwhelmed him.
“Haul your wind, Master Kaylan,” the prior told him. “We’ll get to Laviserve all the sooner if you’d only stop trying to get there so fast.”
Kaylan returned the entreaty with a sullen but defeated glare, before turning his eyes back to the broad straight stretch of the Eastway. The winter snow on the cobbles had turned all to slush, milled by the passage of the few carts and horses that had braved the commercial paralysis of wartime.
As they crested a gentle rise, Abroath saw the length of the Eastway dipping and rising in a line five miles or more to the next low escarpment. He pointed to a collection of buildings in the middle of the shallow valley on the south side of the road. “There, Kaylan,” he pointed. “The village of Hatcham. The road to Laviserve leads north from there. There is an inn at which we can take an hour or two’s rest, before we set off again.”
“I don’t need an hour,” Kaylan told him. “Maybe a drink to numb my legs, but not an hour.”
Abroath didn’t hear him. The prior’s attention was suddenly drawn to a group on the road halfway between them and the distant village. “What is that? Who is that?”
The horses’ ears had pricked up. It may have been the promise on the wind of the comfort of a distant stables, or perhaps the curiosity of the riders was contagious. “It is a long road to walk,” Kaylan agreed as their horses stepped a little quicker on the downward slope.