Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands

by DAVID B. COE

  The Qirsi dreaded these visits to the dungeon, though he would never have dreamed of staying behind. Not only was the place foul and dismal, but the conversations between Javan and Tavis had grown painfully awkward. Yet each day the duke returned. Fotir would not have expected Javan to go to his son so often under such circumstances, but the duke surprised him. Perhaps he had not fully appreciated Javan’s affection for the boy, or perhaps Javan himself had not realized until now how much he cared for his son. After the first day, Tavis seemed surprised to see his father as well, but he had the good sense to express only his gratitude at their return.

  When they reached the dungeon on this morning, Tavis looked to be in worse condition than the day before. Javan had prevailed upon the jailers to lengthen the chains holding the boy’s arms, but had been unable to do more for him. His legs were still bound, allowing him little movement. His meals remained meager and vile—mostly stale breads and half-rotten meat—and his allotment of water so small that his lips had grown dry and cracked. He was soiled and filthy, his hair matted with sweat and Qirsar knew what else. Overnight, the sores on his wrists and ankles where the manacles held him had grown darker and angrier. There were fresh bites on his arms and legs from the vermin in the prison. But more than that, Fotir saw nothing but despair and surrender in his eyes. The boy seemed to flinch at the merest sound, and he was shivering, though it was not particularly cold in the prison. It was as if the stench and the darkness, and the oppressive weight of the stone walls, had battered his spirit into submission. The duke and his men had yet to hang him, but their prison was killing him a bit at a time.

  It took the young lord some time to realize that they had come, and even then, he did not appear to trust his senses.

  “Father?” he said weakly, his chains ringing as he roused himself.

  Javan regarded his son with a pained expression. “Yes, it’s me. Fotir and Xaver are here as well.”

  “Good morning, my lord,” Fotir said, trying to sound cheerful.

  Xaver could not even bring himself to speak. He merely stared at his friend, looking like he wanted to cry, or perhaps kill.

  “What day is it?”

  “It’s the first day of the waning,” Javan answered. “Last night was the Night of Two Moons.”

  “In which turn?” Tavis grimaced. “Forgive me, but I can’t remember.”

  “Elined’s Turn.”

  The planting moon, Fotir thought. It hadn’t even occurred to him until now. Throughout the land, farmers had sown their last crops the night before by the light of Panya and Ilias. Most of the planting took place earlier in the year, with the return of the rains and warm nights, but the last seeds were saved for the Night of Two Moons in Elined’s Turn. Planting on this night, legend told, would bring a successful growing season. The same legends also warned that if these last seedlings were not up by Pitch Night, all the crops would fail. Had they been back in Curgh, the duke would have been riding last night, visiting as many of the towns around the castle as he could reach, sharing in the ritual plantings with the people of his realm. Instead, they were here, and the simple beauty of Curgh’s farms seemed terribly far away.

  “When am I to be executed?” Tavis asked.

  Fotir shivered to hear the words spoken so plainly.

  “They’re not going to execute you,” Xaver said. “We’ve told you before that we won’t allow it.”

  The young lord closed his eyes and gave a small, sad smile. “There’s no preventing it, Xaver. You haven’t found anything yet, have you?”

  For a moment none of them answered.

  “No,” the duke finally said. “They still haven’t allowed us into the room. But one of the guards told us to return today, so perhaps Aindreas has had a change of heart.”

  “Have you told Mother yet?”

  Javan’s mouth twitched. “I sent a messenger the first day. I’ve heard nothing back yet.”

  “You should go to her, Father. You can do more for her than you can for me.”

  “Your mother is a strong woman. She’ll be all right. And she’d never forgive me if I left you without doing all I could to win your freedom.”

  Tavis conceded the point with a nod.

  “My lord,” Fotir said, “have you remembered anything more from the night you spent with Lady Brienne? Is there something we should be looking for in the room?”

  He shook his head, as he had each time Fotir asked him the question. “I was drunk. I remember very little. We were together, I remember that much. I remember kissing her and locking the door at her insistence. A few moments later she fell asleep; soon after I did as well. Too much wine.” He shook his head a second time. “The next thing I knew the guards were pounding on the door and Brienne was dead.” The young lord swallowed as if to keep himself from being sick. “I wish I could tell you more.”

  “It’s all right,” Xaver told him. “Maybe we’ll find something in the room.”

  “You’ll find nothing. It’s been days. They’ve probably cleaned the room by now. Ean knows I would have.”

  “Did you see anyone in the corridors?” Fotir asked. “Do you think you were followed?”

  “No. We followed a winding route back to my room. I barely knew where she was taking us. She wanted to be sure that we weren’t seen by any of her father’s guards. We were very much alone.”

  Javan let out a low sigh. “Well, someone must have known where you were going.”

  “Or perhaps I really did kill her.”

  His father looked at him, his dark blue eyes glinting like a dagger blade in the pale light let in by the dungeon’s high window. “Is that truly what you think?”

  Tavis hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I dream of her when I sleep and I think of her constantly when I’m awake. I honestly believe that I could have loved her. I just wish I could remember.”

  Listening to Tavis speak, Fotir found himself remembering how he had spoken of the boy to Shurik several nights before. At the time he had been truthful. He saw the boy as undisciplined and thoughtless. He resented the young lord’s disregard for the standing of the House of Curgh and his father’s reputation. But seeing Tavis now, listening to him struggle with his own doubts and fears, it was hard to hold onto such feelings. If the boy was innocent—and Fotir wanted to believe that he was—the gods had been terribly cruel to him. No one deserved such a fate.

  “We should go,” Javan said abruptly. He started to reach a hand out to his son, faltered, then grasped the boy’s shoulder, causing the chains to rattle slightly. “Ean willing, we’ll find something in your chamber.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  The duke pulled away and started up the prison stairs. Fotir nodded once to Tavis before following. Xaver lingered, however, looking as if he wished to say more.

  “We’ll find something,” he said at last. “I’m sure of it.”

  Tavis lowered his gaze, but managed a nod. The MarCullet boy frowned.

  Xaver had offered similar assurances during earlier visits and they had started to sound forced. It was no longer clear if Xaver even believed them.

  The MarCullet boy gripped Tavis’s arm, then hurried to the stairs. A few moments later the guard at the door let them out and Fotir felt a cool breeze touch his face, like Morna’s hand. Still, the stench of the dungeon seemed to cling to his clothes, and he longed to strip them off and bathe. Small wonder Tavis was losing hope.

  They walked back to the guest quarters in silence, Javan setting such a quick pace that Fotir and Xaver struggled to keep up with him. The duke did not bother stopping at his own room, choosing instead to go straight to Tavis’s chamber. The new door to the room had been put in place the day after Brienne’s death, and had been locked ever since. On this morning, however, it stood slightly ajar. Javan glanced briefly at Fotir, a question in his eyes. Then he pushed the door open.

  Shurik was standing in the middle of the chamber gazing at the empty space where Tavis’s bed had been. There wer
e three guards there as well, two by the door and one standing closer to the first minister.

  The Qirsi turned at the sound of the creaking door hinges.

  “My Lord Duke,” he said, offering a halfhearted bow. His eyes flicked in Fotir’s direction. “First Minister.”

  The duke stepped into the room. “One of your guards said that we would be allowed to examine Tavis’s chamber today.”

  “I know,” Shurik said. “I’m here to oversee your search.”

  Fotir entered the room as well, and as he did he felt what little hope he had left wither and die. Not only had the bed been removed, but so had all of Tavis’s clothes and the flask of wine. The floor was spotless and smelled vaguely of soap. Tavis was right: there was nothing to be found here.

  “Any evidence that was here has been washed away,” he said, looking at Shurik. “This is what you intended all along, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all,” the Qirsi said. “But what would you have had us do? Leave the bed as it was? Leave the lady’s blood on the blankets and the bedding and the floor? We had the duke and duchess to consider. Our first duty was to them, and to the memory of their daughter.” His expression changed, and Fotir suddenly had the impression that the man was enjoying himself. “Besides, it seems to me that Lord Tavis’s blade was the single most important piece of evidence in the chamber. And if memory serves, First Minister, you shattered it that first morning.”

  Fotir took a step toward him. “You bastard!”

  “That’s enough, Fotir,” the duke said. “What’s done is done. We can still search the room. Perhaps the washers missed something.”

  He glared at Shurik for another moment before nodding and turning away. Xaver and Javan were already moving in slow circles around the perimeter of the chamber, examining the floor and the pieces of furniture that remained, the tapestries that hung on the side walls and the stones they covered.

  Fotir crossed to the window. The wooden shutters were open, allowing the bright daylight to fill the room. It was hard to believe that Brienne had died here. He looked down at the inner ward far below, and at the closely fitting blocks of stone that made up the castle wall. The duke had suggested a few days before that the murderer might have entered the room through this window, but seeing now what that would have entailed, Fotir was even less inclined to believe it. Even assuming that someone could have made the climb, he felt certain that at least one of Kentigern’s guards would have noticed.

  “What do you think?” Javan asked, standing behind him. “Could someone have reached the chamber from below?”

  “I think it unlikely, my lord,” he said, not bothering to turn. “It looks like a difficult climb.”

  “Difficult, but not impossible.”

  “No. Not impossible.”

  “What about from another chamber on this level?”

  Fotir hadn’t considered this. Whoever it was would have had to come from the east; approaching the window from the west would have meant climbing past the duke’s window as well as Fotir and Xaver’s. This was the easternmost room on this, the south wall of the castle, and though there was a small ledge below the windows on this wall and on the east wall that abutted it, the rounded wall of the corner tower stood between. From what Fotir could see, climbing around the tower would have been difficult, but far from impossible and far less difficult than the climb from the ground below.

  “Yes, my lord. It does look—”

  It caught his eye like a ruby hanging from the throat of a noblewoman. It was small, no bigger than the tip of a finger, but it was unmistakable. On the far edge of the right-hand shutter, ending abruptly at the corner so that it looked like Ilias halfway through his waning, was a dried crescent of blood.

  “It does look what?” Javan asked.

  “My lord!” Fotir whispered, as if afraid that he might scare the stain away. “Come look at this!”

  He stepped to the side, making room for the duke to join him at the window, but he kept pointing at the spot.

  “Ean be praised!” Javan said, seeing it as well.

  “You’ve found something?” Shurik asked, sounding doubtful.

  “Indeed we have,” the duke answered. He looked at Fotir, grinning for the first time in days. “Thank you.”

  The first minister joined them at the window, as did Xaver. Javan pulled the shutter back in toward the window and pointed at the stain.

  “That’s blood, First Minister,” the duke said. “Somebody entered the room through this window, killed Brienne, made it seem that Tavis had done it, and then left, again through the window.”

  Shurik examined the spot for several moments, a slight frown on his narrow face. “I agree that this seems to be blood,” he said at last, stepping back from the window and facing Javan. “But I fail to see how a single spot of this size supports such a wild claim.”

  “How else do you explain it?” Fotir demanded.

  “Lord Tavis might have gone to the window after killing her.”

  Xaver shook his head. “You saw how much blood the murderer put on Tavis’s hands. If he had gone to the window, there would be blood all over the frame.”

  “Perhaps there was, but the servants washed it away. Or, for that matter, maybe the servants got blood on their hands while they were washing the room and then put that spot there themselves.”

  “That’s absurd!” said the duke.

  “No more so than the notion of a wall-climbing assassin, my lord.”

  “You’re just determined to blame this murder on my son! And so is your duke.”

  “And you, sir, are desperate to save him, even if it means fabricating these ridiculous tales.”

  “Watch yourself, Qirsi!” the duke said, leveling a rigid finger at the man. “Remember to whom you speak!”

  “I wouldn’t care if you were already king, my lord,” Shurik said, meeting Javan’s gaze. “Your son would still be in our prison and I would still be skeptical of all you’ve said. Justice in Kentigern is meted out fairly, without regard to station.” He turned and started toward the door. “You found what you were looking for. Now I’d suggest that you return to your quarters.”

  “I demand that you inform your duke of what we’ve found!” Javan said, his voice booming in the small chamber.

  The minister stopped just short of the doorway and faced the duke once more. “I have every intention of informing him, my lord,” he said, his voice even and low. “I’ll tell him as well what you think it means. And I’ll offer my own opinion, which is that your little discovery does little to counter all the evidence pointing to Lord Tavis’s guilt.”

  He turned again, and left the room, accompanied by one of the guards.

  For some time, Fotir and his companions said nothing. Then the MarCullet boy returned to the window and stared at the crescent of blood.

  “It has to mean something,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”

  Fotir wanted to tell him it did, but he knew the true answer even before Javan spoke it aloud.

  “It only means something,” the duke said, “if Aindreas allows it to.”

  The screams of the other prisoner had become hoarse and ragged. They were softer as well, almost feeble, as if the man’s strength was finally flagging. Since his first day in the dungeon, Tavis had tried to ignore the screaming. To some extent he was finally succeeding. He could sleep now, which was an improvement over the first several days, and there were times when the sound seemed to fade to the back of his mind, like the crash of the breakers on the cliffs below Curgh Castle.

  Still, he always noticed when the sound stopped, because of the relief that silence brought, to be sure. But also because it meant invariably that someone was entering the prison.

  So when the screaming stopped this time, trailing off uncharacteristically into a fit of coughing, he assumed that his father or Xaver had returned yet again. His father had already come to see him a second time this day, to tell him of the blood they had found on the window shutter outsid
e his chamber. It was news that might have heartened him, had he dared to allow himself to hope. Perhaps another visit would again offer good tidings. Even after the prisoner’s coughing ceased, however, the door at the top of the stairs did not open. Tavis waited, listening for the sound of the bolt being thrown or of voices on the far side of the door. After a time, he began to listen as well for some sound from the other man in the dungeon. But all in the prison remained still.

  Had the prisoner lost consciousness? Had he died? It had never occurred to Tavis that he would, though of course it should have. The man was in the forgetting chamber. Ean knew how long he had gone without food or water. It was amazing that he had lasted this long. Yet Tavis could not bring himself to accept that the prisoner wouldn’t resume his screaming in another moment.

  He should have been relieved. How many hours had he spent praying for silence? How many times had he wanted to shout at the man to stop? At last he had peace. But at what cost? As unnerving as the screaming had been, the thought of being truly alone in the dungeon was worse. As ridiculous as it seemed, he had taken some comfort from the other prisoner’s mere presence. Or maybe—was it possible? —he had taken comfort in the man’s misery, in the knowledge that his own fate, though wretched, was better than that of the poor fool in the forgetting chamber.

  Suddenly the dungeon felt darker, smaller, colder. The terror he had struggled for days to control began to rise again in his chest, clawing at his heart like some demon from the Underrealm. He thought about calling to the man, asking him if he was all right. But what if he answered? What if he didn’t?