The Sword Of Erren-dar (Book 2)

by R. J. Grieve

  The room was not a large one but could have been pleasant were it not for the fact that it was in a rampant state of disorder. The air smelt stale and unlived-in. The bed, unoccupied for weeks, had been left unmade. An easy chair, its leather cover splitting to allow its horsehair stuffing to burst forth exuberantly, was piled with discarded clothes. Books were scattered carelessly over the floor and a plate sat on a table by the bed with a lump of uneaten bread on it, now sporting a luxuriant fuzz of green mould. A basket by the empty fireplace, filled with pinecones and nuts, bore evidence of previous foraging expeditions. The room took up the full width of the narrow building and hence there was a corresponding window on the far side, shielded by closed curtains, that overlooked the stable yard.

  Iska, satisfied that the room was undisturbed, shoved her hand under the mattress and withdrew a small leather purse which she stuffed into her pocket. Then, on detecting the sound of voices in the stable yard, she crossed to the window and peered out between the curtains.

  What she saw made her smile. A number of young recruits to the Palace Guards were being put through their paces by a grizzled master-at-arms. Not one of them was more than twenty years old. About a dozen pleasant, fresh-faced lads were perched on a fence watching two of their number being instructed in the noble art of swordsmanship. They were using blunted weapons, so that their youthful enthusiasm didn’t result in a fatality. The master-at-arms was not being overly strict with them and was allowing the spectators to call out facetious advice and slanderous comments about their colleagues’ lack of skill.

  It was all rather good-natured, and she watched for a moment or two, a smile lingering on her face, when suddenly the laughter in the stable yard abruptly ceased. The lads on the fence jumped down and hastily stood to attention. Craning her neck to see what had caused the transformation, Iska found herself looking down at her brothers.

  They both had the family black hair and amber eyes, just as she did , but there the resemblance stopped. Kerac had an anxious face and eyes that shifted about restlessly, as if afraid that if they stayed too long in one spot, some undesirable secret might be revealed. Although only in his mid-thirties, his dark hair was already salted with grey. He signalled his constant state of deferral to his elder brother by standing a pace or two behind him. Mordrian was by far the more striking figure. He was tall and broad shouldered and carried with effortless ease an air of command. Unlike Kerac, his eyes were steady and unblinking, his gaze looked not so much at the outward person, as into their depths. These were eyes that tried to pierce a man’s thoughts, even his very soul.

  The combatants had stopped fighting and were standing awkwardly to attention, not sure what to do with the blunted swords they carried.

  Mordrian gave them one of his rather feline smiles and waved his hand at them dismissively.

  “Carry on, gentlemen, carry on,” he announced airily. “Do not stop for me. We do, after all, have need of good swordsmen, so I’ll be interested to see how you are progressing.”

  Even from the height of the window, Iska could see the two protagonists cast each other a look of consternation at being made to practice before so formidable a figure. The grey-haired master-at-arms spoke to them kindly: “Just continue what you were doing. Remember to concentrate and let the Prince see you at your best.”

  Mordrian leaned one shoulder negligently against the wall and folded his arms, apparently prepared to be entertained. Kerac, as usual, hung back, looking as though he didn’t know what to do with himself.

  The two young men began to circle each other, all trace of their former light-heartedness gone, but as they began to attack and parry, Iska saw her brother’s expression change. He started to tap his foot impatiently and a frown appeared between his dark brows, for it was perfectly obvious that the recruits were being careful not to injure one another.

  Finally, losing patience, he stepped forward, halting the fight.

  “I had expected better of you, master-at-arms,” he chided. “This is not training. This is play-acting. Fetch me a couple of real swords and I will see what your recruits are made of.”

  The master-at-arm’s battered face, normally impassive, could not entirely conceal the alarm that the order produced, but he dared not disobey.

  He picked up two sharpened weapons that had been sitting on the bench by the stable door and handed them to the Prince.

  Mordrian, clearly enjoying himself, selected one of the combatants, a fair-haired, ruddy-faced lad and handed him one of the swords.

  “What is your name?”

  “Temrin, my lord,” he replied, looking at the sword as if it were a snake about to strike. Summoning up his courage, he added haltingly: “My lord Prince, it is not fitting that I fight you. If I injured you, it would be treason and my life would be forfeit.”

  The Prince laughed. “Nonsense. It’s just a little practice, besides, there is very little likelihood of you injuring me, as my skill with this weapon is not exactly in doubt. Is that not so, master-at-arms?”

  “Yes, my lord,” he acknowledged in a subdued voice. “It is well known that you are the finest swordsman in the Kingdom. The boy is privileged to have the opportunity to learn from you.”

  As they began to circle each other, Iska’s grip on the curtain tightened. She knew her brother and knew not only his skill with the sword, but also his nature, and consequently, she feared for the young man.

  Temrin did his best, but it was not enough. Mordrian’s skill was so far superior that the practice session became like a cat toying with a captive mouse. Every attempt at attack was dismissed with contempt. The young man was beginning to understand the peril in which he stood and tried to take risks to get out of trouble. But it was to no avail. The spectators were silent, every frightened face evidenced the fact that they were all aware that the Prince was not merely practicing.

  The boy, his face shining with sweat, chest heaving with fear, made a wild lunge. The Prince, with a lightning fast twist of his wrist, brought his blade underneath his opponent’s and flicking it upwards, prised the sword clean out of his hand. Every astonished eye followed it, flashing in the sun, as it flew across the stable yard to land in the dust.

  Temrin, his heart gripped with fear, went down on one knee. “I acknowledge that I am defeated, my lord Prince,” he conceded. Then seeing something disturbing in the Prince’s eyes, he said hastily: “I ask for quarter.”

  The Prince smiled. “There is something that you do not know about me, Temrin,” he said pleasantly. “I never give quarter.”

  Then without hesitation, he drove his sword with dreadful force into his kneeling opponent’s chest.

  Temrin gasped and for a moment clutched the blade as if he couldn’t understand how it came to be there, then he fell, his eyes still open in surprise, at the Prince’s feet.

  Mordrian jerked his sword free and tossed it nonchalantly to the grim-faced master-at-arms.

  “That’s how to teach them,” he remarked casually.

  As he turned to leave, he glanced up at the window above the tack room, causing Iska to draw back sharply with a gasp, but he gave no sign of having seen her and left without waiting for his brother.

  As Iska watched the grieving group carry the body into the building, her hand tightened convulsively on the curtain until it formed a fist. Looking in the direction in which Mordrian had gone, she said tightly between clenched teeth: “I hate you, brother. I truly hate you.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Betrayal

  Vesarion had been looking forward to the prospect of stretching out on a proper bed in a comfortable room, but perversely, when presented with the opportunity, he found that he was restless and unsettled.

  The inn was unpretentious, with a steeply-sloping roof clad in grey slates, pierced by many tiny dormer windows like sleepy eyes. Inside was a little dark and old-fashioned but the rooms were spotlessly clean and the beds comfortable. His room was at the back, overlooking a narrow alleyway, but Sa
reth and Iska’s room, just across the corridor, looked out over a pleasant square with an old chestnut tree growing out of the cobbles. When they had arrived at the inn, he had let Iska do the talking, and the landlord, fortuitously distracted by the sound of crashing dishes in the kitchen, accepted without question that they were from an outlying district, visiting relatives in the city.

  Vesarion was honest enough to admit to himself that the source of his unease was their total reliance on Iska. It was not so much that he distrusted her, but that he could no longer direct events himself – a situation with which he was not comfortable. So he restlessly paced his room, obeying his instructions to keep out of sight, until the time approached when they were due to meet her.

  He crossed the corridor, and gently knocked on the door of the room opposite. On receiving no reply, he came to the logical conclusion that Sareth must have fallen asleep, and indeed, upon softly opening the door, he found this to be the case.

  Sareth had taken the bed beneath the little curved window set snugly under the sloping roof. The window was open, admitting a soft waft of warm summer air and the sleepy cooing of the many pigeons who were sunning themselves on the slates. Her breathing was soft and even, and she seemed so peacefully asleep that he was loath to wake her. For a long time, he stood looking down at her with great tenderness. Her hair, always a little unruly, had escaped from restraint and a fine strand lay carelessly across her cheek. Lightly, he lifted it between his fingers and drew it back, and as he leaned closer he studied every line of her face as if he had never seen it before. He saw the sweep of her brows, the crescent of dark lashes, the curve of her lips. And all at once, just as in his dream, he experienced the overwhelming urge to touch his lips to hers. He realised with a shock, that in all the years he had known her, he had never kissed her. To his shame he recalled with painful clarity the day he had asked her to marry him. All he had been able to summon up on that occasion was one chaste peck on the cheek, and casting his mind back, he could not decide if it had been indifference or merely cowardice on his part.

  He looked back at himself on that day that now seemed so long ago, and it was like looking at a stranger whose thought processes were alien to him. He remembered that she had once called him cold and distant, and although at the time he had dismissed the words as merely being spoken in the heat of the moment, he knew now that the accusation was well-deserved. He had assumed the outward form of the Lord of Westrin with such dedication that he was in danger of losing his true self altogether. He now knew that in the last few weeks he had changed beyond return. Their journey had stripped away the veneer he had worked so carefully to assume, and now, for better or worse, he was Vesarion, a man uncertain of who he really was.

  Carefully, he sat down on the bed beside her, wondering how to tell her all this. He wondered how to tell her that she was the catalyst which had caused this upheaval within him. He thought of the arrogant man who had felt that she should be grateful for the honour he was bestowing upon her, and the memory now filled him with distaste. How could he convince her that he was no longer that man? How could he make her love someone she had never known?

  So deep in thought was he, that it was with a start that he suddenly realised that her grey eyes were open and she was looking directly up at him.

  He knew he had been taken with his guard down and wondered what she saw. She was returning his look with great intensity, not moving, her eyes unblinking. For some strange reason, to him the moment seemed almost suspended in time, as if the forward passage of the minutes had stopped and they were caught in a glass prism that was the present. Although his eyes never left her, he was acutely aware of everything around him. He could hear the sound of footsteps in the street below. He was aware of the pigeons’ caressing call and the gentle breath of air from the window brushing his cheek.

  “Sareth?” he said, his voice quiet in the still room.

  “Yes?”

  The words that he wanted to say were there, right at the very forefront of his mind. He could hear them in his head. He could hear his heart urging him on.

  ‘Say it,’ it tempted. ‘Just say it’.

  Then, like a curse, there flashed into his mind that fateful day in the Wood of Ammerith when he had let her go with such careless ease, such lack of concern, that it had been bitterly hurtful. And he knew that whatever her reasons had been for agreeing to marry him, she could not possibly love so cold a man as he had allowed duty to make him.

  Seeing him hesitate, she prompted him. “Vesarion?”

  “Nothing,” he replied a little harshly, angry and dissatisfied with himself. “It’s time to go.”

  The library was an impressive, porticoed building on one of the grandest avenues. Tall, polished oak doors opened onto room after room lined with shelves right up to the high ceilings, and every shelf was loaded with books and scrolls. Bethro gazed around him with his mouth open in a rustic manner that totally belied his intellect. He compared it with his crowded, rather poky domain in Addania and found himself humbled. Iska led them unerringly through each room, mostly deserted, except for the occasional dusty scholar intent upon his work. When they left the public part of the library behind, they entered a seemingly endless rabbit-warren of narrow corridors at the back. Her mentor was finally run to earth in a private room in the depths of the building. The title ‘King’s Physician’ was emblazoned on the door in gold lettering but the interior was much more to Bethro’s approval. The room was filled to overflowing with books and potions, medical instruments and diagrams, pestles, powders and brightly coloured jars, all meticulously labelled, set on shelves and tables in fascinating profusion. There were some stuffed animals, part of an unidentifiable skeleton, and a glass jar with some tiny fish swimming aimlessly around in it.

  Callis was seated at one of the tables measuring out powder on minute scales but when the door opened, he started to his feet, his face breaking into a smile and crossed to them to embrace Iska fondly. He was a tall, thin man with a dry, academic face and the calm manner of one who has seen many sorrows in life. His dark eyes fastened on Iska with fatherly affection.

  “My dear child, I have missed you dreadfully and have prayed every day for your safe return. It is strange how a great city full of people can seem empty because just one is missing.” He turned his attention to her companions and when she had performed the introductions, Iska said without preamble: “They have come back with me because I was too late, Callis. The sword had already been stolen. My friends have come with me to take it back again. I have assured them that Mordrian will have brought it here, and can only hope I am not mistaken. You must tell me all that has happened in my absence.”

  Catching her words, Bethro, who had been prowling around the room, examining all its treasures, burning to find out more from someone so obviously learned in his profession, knew that he had missed his chance. He was tempted to interrupt, but was forced to resist, for he was acutely conscious of the fact that, having already incurred everyone’s displeasure, he must be on his best behaviour. It really wasn’t fair, he reasoned, for it had been as much Eimer’s fault as his. When Eimer and he had left the inn to keep the rendezvous at the fountain, he had lagged behind to look longingly at the wares on display in a bakery. Soft bread rolls, warm from the oven, tartlets filled with apple or jam, little honey cakes decorated with nuts. Bethro beheld heaven set out before his adoring eyes. When he had finally prised himself away, Eimer was nowhere to be seen, and panicking a little at being on his own, he had promptly lost his way. As a consequence, he had been late for the meeting. When he finally got there, the others were on edge - doubly so, when it emerged that he had stopped a butcher’s boy to ask for directions. Iska had distributed to each of them a small sum of money in the local currency, just in case of emergencies, but was constant in her advice to avoid contact with the residents of the city, and to his indignation, had even taken the trouble of singling him out for a lecture on the subject.

  So Bethro cont
inued to prowl around the fascinating room, his curiosity unsatisfied, hoping for a chance to collar the physician before they left.

  Callis gestured to his other guests to sit down. “Much has happened since you have been away, Iska, and none of it good. For the first time in the history of Adamant, the King has ordered an army to be assembled. A camp has been set up on the plains to the east of the city and levies of recruits come in from the countryside day by day. The officers and masters-at-arms have been training them intensively, driven on relentlessly by Prince Mordrian, as if he were running out of time. Every forge in the city is busy making weapons. Horses are being requisitioned in great numbers, as are wagons and carts. The quartermasters are buying up all the grain the country can produce. Wherever it is that this army is intended to fight, it is not nearby. Clearly a long journey is anticipated.”

  “Eskendria?” asked Vesarion in an ominous voice.

  “I do not know. The destination is being kept a closely-guarded secret but I think we must assume that it is. Moreover, the fact that Mordrian is contemplating taking an army beyond the borders of Adamant, suggests that he has found a way of lowering the curtain. Don’t forget the curtain works both ways. It keeps out, but it also keeps in. Even the women of Parth with the gift of power, never found a way of controlling it. The small tear that Iska found probably occurred as a result of the curtain’s great age, but it is of no use to an army. No, Mordrian must be confident that he can control it, that he can not only lower it, but raise it again behind him, for he would not leave this kingdom unprotected once his army has departed.”