“No thanks, I’ve seen all of Her Serene Highness I want to.”
“You two can argue the lady’s finer points some other time,” Jenga snapped. “Right now, I have to decide what to do with her.”
“We could ransom her back to Cratyn,” Tarja suggested. “Surely he will sue for peace if it means the return of his wife.”
“I’m not so sure,” Damin said with a shake of his head. “She seemed very determined not to go back to Karien. And if that Fardohnyan you killed was to be believed, then the Kariens have betrayed them.”
“But Adrina never got the message. There has to be another reason she left.”
“What of Hablet?” Jenga asked. “Perhaps knowing his daughter is our hostage will stay his hand?”
Damin shrugged. “He’s a treacherous bastard. He could just as easily abandon her to her fate as try to get her back.” He smiled sourly. “We’ve more chance of trading the jewellery, I fear.”
“Maybe we should consult her Highness on the matter?” Tarja suggested. “She did, after all, demand to be informed of any negotiations regarding her ransom.”
“You jest, surely,” Jenga said.
“If only he was joking,” Damin sighed.
“Well, I’ll leave it up to you, Lord Wolfblade. You captured her, so I’m making her your responsibility. You may use whatever men you need to keep her guarded, but I don’t have time for this distraction. Give me your recommendation when you’ve decided what to do. And put those gems somewhere safe. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m going to bed.”
Damin watched the Lord Defender leave with an unfamiliar feeling of despair. He turned to Tarja, who seemed more amused than concerned. The captain wrapped the jewels in their velvet cover and tucked them into his belt.
“You’ve a fortune there, you know.” Damin finished his wine with a grimace and then glared at Tarja. “Don’t look at me like that, you have no idea what she’s like.”
“Oh, I got an inkling today. You’re welcome to her.”
Damin rose from his seat by the fireplace and poured himself another cup of wine. He drank it in a gulp.
“She tried to kill my uncle, you know.”
“Adrina?”
Damin nodded. “Hablet sent her to Greenharbour for Lernen’s birthday a couple of years ago – the same year you were recalled to the Citadel, as I remember. Adrina had obviously been well briefed about my uncle’s various weaknesses before she arrived and she pandered to them very effectively. She dragged him along to the slave auction and coaxed him into buying a pair of twin boys. The cunning little bitch even made the boys ride back to the palace in his carriage, no doubt hoping to whet his appetite. That night they slit their wrists in my uncle’s bed and bled to death while he slept. The blade they used was Adrina’s table knife. She must have slipped it to them in the carriage. I wonder how she sleeps knowing they killed themselves rather than do as she demanded.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t go to war with Fardohnya over an attempt on the High Prince’s life.”
Damin shrugged and poured another cup of wine. “Nothing definite could be proved. I was out hunting that day, and didn’t return until late, but I was told Adrina claimed at dinner that she had lost her knife. We could never connect the boys to her afterwards, and we tried every avenue of investigation. In the end, we had no choice but to let the matter drop.” He swallowed the wine and thumped the cup down on the table. “You know what really irks me?”
“What?”
“That bitch and her slave are wearing the collars Lernen gave those two dead boys. I’d recognise them anywhere. Lernen and I had quite an argument over their cost. It’s how my mother met her gem merchant, incidentally. Adrina no doubt kept them as a souvenir.”
Tarja frowned, as if he could not conceive of anything so callous. “So take them back.”
“No, I think I’ll leave them right where they are for now. Another thing you may not understand about Fardohnyans and Hythrun, Tarja, is that for a noblewoman to be collared like a slave is the worst kind of insult. Her Serene Highness could well do with a little humiliation. Anyway, she thinks I need a key to open them. I can keep her collared for quite some time, while I’m waiting for the keys to arrive from Hythria.”
“Have you sent for them?”
“No need. There’s a concealed clasp. But the idea that her good behaviour will earn her release might keep her tractable for a time.”
“I could always offer to dismember her slave,” Tarja suggested with a grin. “It worked on the Karien boy.”
“Adrina would probably tell you to go right ahead and then ask if she could watch,” he predicted sourly. “Speaking of the boy, he is your responsibility. I don’t want him anywhere near her. He’d probably run one of us through if she asked him.”
Tarja nodded, his expression suddenly glum. “I miss R’shiel already. She seemed to be able to get through to the child. And I’d be happier if Mahina were here to deal with Adrina.”
“So would I,” Damin agreed. He poured a cup of wine then poured another for Tarja and pushed it across the table to him. “Here. If I’m going to get drunk, then you’d better join me. It has been a thoroughly unsatisfactory day. That battle was as glorious as a cattle cull.”
Tarja took the wine and sipped it as Damin downed his in a gulp. They were silent for a while, only the crackling fire and the hissing torches disturbing the silence. Damin filled his cup again.
Tarja glanced at him curiously. “You said it was common practice among Hythrun and Fardohnyan nobility to have their sons and daughters trained by court’esa. Does that mean you were?”
“Absolutely!” Damin could feel the wine making his head spin. It was a rough blend, too young to be drunk with such determination. He drank it anyway. “Her name was Reyna. I was fifteen when she came to Krakandar.”
“It beats fumbling around in the stables with a nervous Probate, I suppose.”
“Having never fumbled around in a stable with a nervous Probate, I’m not in a position to comment on the comparison, but I imagine you’re correct. Drink up, Captain. I’m getting very drunk here and you haven’t finished your first cup.”
“Perhaps you should get some sleep, Damin. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes, mother.”
“I only meant —”
“I know what you meant.” He studied the bottom of his cup for a moment. “You know, we call rough wine like this ‘Fardohnyan courage’ in Hythria.”
Tarja smiled. “We call it Hythrun courage.”
“I shall ignore such a heinous insult, Captain, because I like you.” Suddenly, he hurled the cup at the fireplace where it shattered into thousands of clay shards. “Dammit! Why couldn’t she stay on her own side of the border?”
“You really should get to bed, Damin. You’re drunk and you’re not thinking straight.”
“I’ll grant you that I’m drunk, Tarja,” he conceded. “But as for thinking straight, I’ve never been surer. Shall we pay her Highness a visit?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“All the more reason to wake her up. Her Royal Sereneness tried to kill my uncle and she allied herself with the Kariens. She sent her men to be slaughtered and then fled the scene of her crime like a cur in the night. I intend to rattle that bitch until her teeth come loose.”
Ignoring Tarja’s pleas for reason, Damin took the crumbling stairs to the chambers so recently vacated by Joyhinia, two at a time. Voices filtered up to him, as someone entered the hall at a run. Damin ignored them, his eyes focused, (as much as they could focus in his present state), on the door at the end of the landing, guarded by two red-coated Defenders. He had no clear idea what he would say to Her Serene Highness, but he was going to say something, by the gods!
“Damin!”
Tarja’s voice held an edge of urgency that made him pause just before he reached the door. He leaned over the balustrade and looked down into the torchlit hall.
“Forget the princess! The Fardohnyans have surrendered!”
Sobriety returned quickly as the cold night air caught Damin unawares. The camp surrounding the Keep was surprisingly busy, considering the lateness of the hour. Men normally well abed by now were sitting in small groups discussing the battle, dissecting its every nuance with varying degrees of expertise, depending on how much ale they had consumed. Morale in the camp was high. Nobody had expected to weather the first attack with so few casualties. Laughter and the off-tune baritone of men singing victory songs filled the air. Fires blazed with little thought to the fuel they were consuming. Thunder rattled in the distance and a light rain had fallen while he was in the Keep, dampening the dusty ground. Soon enough, these men would be forced to take shelter. There would be no frost tonight with this cloud cover, but if it got much colder it would snow, which should slow the Kariens down somewhat.
This morning’s battle had been a desperate attempt to break the Medalonian defences before winter set in. Damin was rather proud of himself for working that out. Maybe he wasn’t as drunk as he thought.
The young man in command of the Fardohnyans was a Second Lanceman named Filip. He wore an expression of defeat along with his battle-stained uniform. His eyes were dull, and his exhaustion seemed to be warring with an emotion that it took Damin a little time to identify: self-loathing. The thirty or so Fardohnyans stood in a loose group, surrounded by Defenders, their torches hissing as the occasional tardy raindrop vanished into the flames.
“Lord Wolfblade.” The Fardohnyan bowed low, obviously relieved to see someone who might speak his language. The Defenders who had taken their surrender had disarmed the men behind him. A few were wounded and four lay on the wet ground, too seriously injured to stand. Tarja, who always seemed much better organised when it came to these things, ordered the wounded removed to the Infirmary Tent and the sleek Fardohnyan steeds moved to the corrals, leaving Damin to deal with the prisoners.
“I’ve seen many a strange sight in my time, Lanceman,” he said in the young man’s native tongue, “but Fardohnyans surrendering is not among them.”
The lad’s expression clouded. Surrender did not sit well with him. “We were ordered to surrender, my Lord.”
“What did he say?” Tarja asked, coming to stand beside him.
“He says they were ordered to surrender.”
“By whom?”
“Who ordered you to surrender?” he asked in Fardohnyan.
Filip hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the men behind him before answering, rather reluctantly. “Princess Adrina, my Lord.”
Tarja did not need that translated. “Ask him why.”
Damin turned to Tarja impatiently. “You don’t think I might have thought to ask that by myself?”
“Sorry.”
“Did her Highness give a reason?”
The Fardohnyan shrugged. “She was beside herself with grief, my Lord. She said she did not want any more Fardohnyan blood shed for Karien.”
“Pity she didn’t decide that before she sent her men to be slaughtered,” he muttered as he turned to Tarja and translated the young soldier’s words.
“Grief for whom?” Tarja asked, his sobriety allowing more clarity of thought than Damin was capable of.
“Captain Tristan, my Lord,” Filip replied when Damin translated the question. “The captain was the princess’s half-brother. They were very close.”
“And where is her Highness now?” He was curious to discover if this surrender was part of a plan, or if the young soldier was an innocent pawn in some devious game that Adrina was playing. Damin desperately wished his head was clearer.
“With her husband, of course!” Damin would have known he was lying, even if Adrina was not currently being held in the Keep behind them.
“I see.” He turned to Tarja questioningly. “What do you want to do with them?”
“That’ll be up to Jenga. For now, I suggest we find some place to hold them until morning.” Thunder rumbled louder as another storm rolled in. Tarja glanced up at the sky with a frown. “Put them in the Keep. They’ll be out of the rain, at least. We can make more permanent arrangements tomorrow.”
Tarja began issuing orders to his men. Damin watched them being herded toward the Keep, wondering about Adrina’s paradoxical behaviour. The woman had cold-bloodedly plotted the murder of the Hythrun High Prince, yet she’d ordered the remainder of her troops to surrender, rather than see them come to harm. Suddenly he was very glad that he had not made it to the princess’s door.
He had a feeling the only way to face Her Serene Highness, Adrina of Fardohnya, and survive, was stone cold sober.
Chapter 34
Although discovery by the Medalonians had been a risk, Adrina had not really expected it, and was therefore unprepared for her sudden change of circumstances.
For two days, she paced her prison cell impatiently, waiting for something to happen. Meals were delivered regularly by silent, grim-looking Defenders, but they refused to answer her questions. A wan, desperate smile – the precursor to establishing a rapport with her guards – was a wasted effort. Each shift was made up of different men entirely, and once they had left she never saw them again. Nor was Tamylan allowed to leave the chamber, although the slave did not seem nearly as bothered by captivity as her mistress. The waiting began to wear on Adrina’s nerves, and she found herself reassessing the intelligence of her captors. They were smarter than she had given them credit for.
The only advantage her isolation provided was the chance to consolidate her plans to deal with the Medalonians. Her first problem, she acknowledged readily, was Damin Wolfblade. She had always imagined him to be something of a dandy, powdered and spoilt, as used to having his every whim indulged as his uncle was. She had known he was a Warlord, of course, but she had pictured him as a figurehead. A gloriously armoured fop who sat astride his decorative stallion while others did the work for him. That assessment had been wildly inaccurate. He was a damn sight more ambitious than his uncle, and all together too certain of his place in the world. But he was still a man, she reminded herself, and a Wolfblade at that. The family was too inherently degenerate for the differences to be more than skin deep.
Tarja Tenragan, on the other hand, had been a pleasant surprise. Dark-haired, handsome and remarkably well mannered, his worst fault, she decided, was his attitude to poor Mikel. He obviously commanded a great deal of respect in the camp, and his opinion would carry a lot of weight with the Lord Defender when it came time to decide her fate. If she could engineer a meeting with him alone, she was certain she could entice him to see things her way. She might even enjoy it.
There were good reasons for avoiding such a dangerous game with Damin Wolfblade. He was a prince of Hythria, for one thing, and while it was perfectly acceptable to entertain oneself with the lower classes, frivolous liaisons between members of the nobility were frowned upon. Such a complication between the heir to the Hythrun throne and the Fardohnyan King’s eldest daughter did not bear thinking about. The most compelling reason, however, was that while Tarja might be seduced by her court’esa-trained skills, Damin would more than likely see straight through them. He probably had a court’esa as a nursemaid.
No, she would not play that game. She would pick the easier target. If only someone would please put the target where she could reach it...
Adrina plotted and planned and rehearsed her story a thousand times, but day after day she was left alone with nothing but Tamylan and her own anxiety for company.
By the time they finally came for her, Adrina was seething. Nothing was going according to plan. She had been locked up, her possessions stolen, her demands ignored and her imagination had had time to devise all sorts of dreadful fates in store for her. When finally a sergeant opened the door, without knocking, to escort her downstairs, she turned on him, fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind.
“I demand to see someone in authority!”
“Certainly, your H
ighness,” the man replied calmly, although he did not bow. Hardly surprising. These Medalonian peasants had no experience with royalty. “I’m here to take you to Lord Wolfblade.”
“I want to see the Lord Defender!”
“That will be up to Lord Wolfblade, your Highness. You’d better wear this. It’s raining and you’ll ruin that fur.”
Adrina snatched the plain, but serviceable woollen cloak from the man and threw it over her shoulders. She still wore the flimsy court’esa costume and it was ill suited to the bitterly cold chamber. The fur cloak she had brought with her from Karien was the only thing that had kept her from freezing to death.
“If Lord Wolfblade had any manners he would come to me!”
The man smiled, as if her posturing amused him and led the way down into the main hall. Two more Defenders fell in behind as they crossed the hall and stepped outside into a torrential downpour. Even wrapped in the Defender’s cloak, Adrina was drenched in seconds.
She stumbled along beside the Defenders as they walked through the camp, her sodden skirts hampering her steps. The slave collar was cold against her skin and her hair was plastered to her head, the braid slapping wetly against her back with every step. The hem of her skirt was splattered with mud and she was shivering uncontrollably by the time they reached the edge of the neatly laid out Defender’s tents and crossed the open ground between the two camps. She squinted through the rain, trying to pick out any tent that looked as if it belonged to a prince, but there were no banners flying, no obvious declarations of rank. When they finally reached their destination, it proved to be a plain tent, larger than those surrounding it, but bearing nothing to indicate its occupant was of noble blood.
“Wait here,” the Defender ordered as he stepped inside, leaving Adrina standing in the rain.
Adrina fumed, but did as she was told, certain this little expedition was nothing more than an attempt to humiliate her. For the first time in months Adrina found there was someone she hated more than Cratyn.
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