by Daniel Ford
His voice was low, rumbling with his anger. Not without melody, she thought, a voice that could shout commands or orders and be heard at great distance. A voice meant for a more handsome face.
“Why were assassins sent against me, and what did they know?”
“Because I watched you destroy the mercenaries, and kill the gravekling with your bare hands, and it seemed that you healed with your left.”
“And the poison? Where did it come from?”
“Ismaurgh knows a useful apothecary.”
“Where is Symod?”
“He took a crew of Dragon’s Scales and set sail. Some matter of a broken Oath to be punished and—”
“Where,” he bellowed, before she finished, and tightened his hand around her wrist again, leaning forward till she could smell the mingling of iron and leather and horse upon him. Evolyn could no more resist his question than the beach could repel the waves, yet she smiled as she answered.
“Upon a ship; at sea; on a river. In the embrace of the Father of Waves if the journey has been poor. I do not know.”
He released her hand and she caught herself before she fell back into her seat. There was a clattering of boots in the corridors outside, and she smiled more widely. His face shot to the broken door, then back to her, and he hefted his hammer once again, menacingly.
The Marynth Evolyn began praying silently, expecting that she would die very soon. Father of Waves, Master of Trade and Accords, Dragon of the Sea, your faithful servant begs to be embraced…
She saw that he hesitated before he chose his next words. “If ever we cross paths as enemies again, Marynth, I will kill you. Why I do not do so now, I do not know; perhaps it is that there is a strength and a dignity in you that is hard not to see. Perhaps you remind me of my sister.” He shook his head, looking almost disappointed. “You could do great things in this world, Lady Lamaliere, if you would but choose. You still might.” He looked to the hallway and hefted his hammer in both hands.
“Choose this, now; order the guards in the hallway to allow me to leave, and I will heal this man Ismaurgh, as I said I would. Know that if you refuse, you are ordering them to their deaths. They are ornamental, and I would break them as easily as I would a lady’s bauble.”
“There are at least a half dozen of them.”
“Then there will be at least a half dozen corpses in your hallway. I did not come here to kill un-blooded tradesman’s sons playing at being guardsmen, but I will.”
Evolyn thought for only a moment before calling out. “Guardsmen. Stand down. This has been a mere misunderstanding. You will allow Sir…”
“Allystaire,” the paladin volunteered.
“Sir Allystaire to leave.” The Paladin nodded, shifted his hammer to his right hand and then to his belt, and bent down to Ismaurgh’s side. She crumpled into her chair, even as she heard Ismaurgh moaning and the paladin asking some insistent question, to which her guard responded with a mumbled street name. Then Allystaire swung Ismaurgh up onto his feet, clutching the front of his tunic with both hands, and tossed him roughly against her desk. Papers, pens, inkbottles, paperweights, and arcane instruments scattered and broke upon the ground as Ismaurgh fell backwards over her desk.
To his credit, her guard tried to scramble back to his feet, but the paladin was on him again, grabbing his collar with his left hand, and raising his his gauntleted right hand, balled into an iron-banded fist, threateningly.
“And you. You coward. You ought to die here today, but I said I would heal you, and I did. Understand something, you craven pig. Weapons are forbidden you from now on. To have one to hand in my sight is to die, as swiftly as I can manage. And I will be watching.”
Ismaurgh said nothing as Allystaire straightened; slowly and carefully the guardsman pushed himself off the desk and tried to stand up straight.
“Go for your knife,” the paladin nearly whispered. “Do it. Bend and put that blade in your hand and die like something resembling a man. I will make it quick. Or go on living, knowing yourself such a coward that even though you hired men to assassinate him, the Arm of the Mother thought killing you a waste of his time.” His gloved hand descended to the haft of his hammer and began to loosen from its ring.
Ismaurgh dropped his eyes to the ground and turned halfway, his one good eye tightly shut.
Then Allystaire stood, turned his eyes back upon the Marynth Evolyn for a moment, and left. She listened to his boots ringing on the tiles as he moved off down the hallway, heard the clatter of guards as they raced for her study.
Suddenly Ismaurgh snarled and bent to pick up his knife, half-lunging toward her shattered door.
“Don’t,” she ordered. “You are no match for him.” Ismaurgh glared at her, then collapsed into a spare chair against one wall, as Evolyn considered the paladin’s words to her. You could do great things in this world, Lady Lamaliere, if you would but choose, rolled across her thoughts in his deep and flowing voice.
CHAPTER 39
An Invitation
Idgen Marte was waiting for him in an alley when Allystaire strolled out of the temple, and the two of them put some distance between themselves and Braech’s glittering hall before they spoke.
“Symod?”
“Gone, with a crew of islandmen, to punish an oath-breaker, she said.”
“She?”
“The Marynth Evolyn, Lady Lamaliere of Tideswater Watch, daughter of one of Delondeur’s more powerful lords,” Allystaire replied, pausing to think a moment. “I did not know the Sea Dragon had priestesses.”
Idgen Marte sighed heavily and wheeled around to face Allystaire, stopping him short and staring at him eye to eye. “Don’t tell me you were, ah, impressed by this Marynth Evolyn? What in Cold is a Marynth, anyway?”
Allystaire shrugged, armor clanking. “Damned if I know what their titles mean. And yes, I was impressed, though not how you think.”
“‘Course not. You’d be blind to an incarnation of Fortune if she strolled up to you naked,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Violence was afoot. There was no time to notice any of that.”
“Just how much violence did you do?” Idgen Marte stepped away from him and started walking again.
“Very little. Nothing permanent. I even healed a man on the way out.”
“Who?”
“The one who hired the assassin and supplied him with the poison.”
“And you let him live?”
Allystaire reached out and grabbed Idgen Marte by the shoulder, turning her around to face him again. “I will not murder a man I have already defeated. Execute for a heinous crime I know he has committed, yes, but simply crushing his head while he writhed on her floor in pain, no. I wanted him to know he was beaten and that he could be again. Nothing was gained by killing him.”
“What about her?”
He sighed and dropped his gaze as Idgen Marte’s brown eyes searched his face, and she scowled. “You couldn’t, could you? Because she’s a woman.”
“No. Because there was something in her. A kind of strength,” he said thoughtfully. “Not unlike you,” he added, lifting his eyes to meet hers again. “Not unlike my sister. Planted in different soil, she might have been one of us. Mayhap Symod’s way is not entirely hers. Not yet.”
“You’re a fool. And when I have to kill her, I’ll remind you of that.” Idgen Marte slid quickly past Allystaire and strode angrily down the alley until it spilled out into a wider thoroughfare. Allystaire was close behind.
“This city’s too…too tidy,” Idgen Marte was saying, as Allystaire reached her. “Look at these main streets. Not narrow enough. No squatters, no beggars, signs everywhere you can see.” She pointed to a tall post at the nearest corner; it bore signs pointing in every direction, with painted symbols for those who couldn’t read; a threaded needle, a wine jar, a bushel of wheat, and a hammer poi
nted west, east, south, and north, respectively.
“There are no beggars on these streets because they are swarming around the army camps along the walls,” Allystaire pointed out. “Trust me. They are here.”
“How d’ya know?”
“Because I probably made half of them,” he replied. “When a soldier is too hurt to soldier anymore, he is likely too hurt to work. What do you think becomes of them then?”
Idgen Marte was silent a moment. “Still, the place feels unnatural. A proper city needs to grow up on its own, like a person does. Develop scars and boils and ugly places and cowpaths that become streets. This smacks of too much lordship.”
“The Delondeurs have ruled here for hundreds of years, an unbroken line. Bound to happen.”
Idgen Marte spat and pointed north. “We ought to be after Torvul, now. Figure he’ll be there.”
“I would try the wine jug.”
“Well we’ve already established that you’re a fool,” she replied somewhat bitterly, and strode off without another word, leaving him to follow fast at her heels once more.
It was perhaps half a turn of the glass before their ears began to catch the sounds of ringing hammers and pumping bellows, and the scents of smoke and hot metal filled the air.
Allystaire suddenly realized that Idgen Marte was no longer looking at the signs or pausing; she was simply walking with determination and speed. He said, “You do not need to guess where he is. You can sense it, aye?”
“Try it yourself and tell me,” she replied, her voice still short and angry.
Allystaire focused, inwardly, and realized he quickly felt, as much as saw, Idgen Marte’s presence a pace away. He knew how fast she was moving, where she was going, and most of all, that she was angry. He could have closed his eyes and kept pace with her, followed her. He tried to push that feeling outward from her and found that he could, indeed, sense another presence, like a bright and sparkling point of light in the map of his mind.
“Goddess,” he murmured, smiling despite himself. “Is there no end to Her Gifts?”
He was distracted by the new intricacies of this sensation when he suddenly felt Idgen Marte come to an abrupt halt. He shook his head to focus. The road ahead was barred by a squad of brightly-mailed, green-tabarded soldiers—a dozen in all—carrying spears, shields, and an assortment of swords, maces, and axes.
One, with the a black bar across the top of his shield and twined bands of rank around his upper arm, stepped forward and spoke loudly and nasally. “Sir Allystaire Coldbourne, lately Lord of Coldbourne Hall, former Castellan of Wind’s Jaw Keep, and war-leader of Barony Oyrwyn: our Lord Baron Lionel Delondeur wishes your presence for a private audience in his keep.” A beat. “Immediately.”
By the time Allystaire’s hand had dropped to the haft of his hammer, Idgen Marte’s sword had cleared its sheath. He hadn’t even registered the whisper of metal against leather.
Three feet of curved steel, gleaming and deadly, hung in the air inches from the bannerman-sergeant’s eye. Idgen Marte had simply slid across the intervening distance, gliding into a fighting stance, feet spread, weight shifting, with a light but firm grip upon the hilt of her weapon.
“And what if he doesn’t come,” she asked, calmly, evenly.
“Then we’re to make him,” the bannerman-sergeant replied.
If the sight of bared steel frightened him, his face didn’t betray it. He had, Allystaire thought, a kind of professional resignation. He’d rather be doing something else. Yet he’ll do this because he believes he must.
“D’ya think ya can, sergeant? Willin’ t’die to find out?” Idgen Marte taunted.
“Stay your hand,” Allystaire called out sharply. “And think this through. Could we cut down this dozen, we would still not make it past the ward gates between here and the outer wall, and we could never force a crossing there.”
“I asked him a question,” Idgen Marte insisted, her blade still and gleaming.
“I think your lord spoke sense just now, woman,” he replied, with the casual aplomb of a man who’s had blades pointed at him before. “And I think if I died in finding out whether you could cut us down, I’d only be doing what I was sworn to do: carry out the orders of my Lord Baron.” The bannerman-sergeant swallowed once, his eyes moving to the blade, then back to Idgen Marte. They were dark green, unruffled, and set in a face that was hard to age, given the way it was framed by a mailed coif.
Looks on the young side to have rank. Eyes aren’t young, though, Allystaire thought, then nodded very lightly as he came to a decision. He strode carefully to Idgen Marte’s side and reached up to her sword with his armored right hand and pushed it gently downward. She looked to him, eyes wide in anger, but he forestalled her.
“They have done us no harm, made no threats, drawn no weapons. I will go with them.” She opened her mouth to protest, and he shook his head quickly. “They said Lionel wanted an audience with me, and they came with courtesy, not chains. I will go.” Goddess grant that I am right, and this one boon. He focused, for a moment, narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to Idgen Marte, and thought. If you hear this, sheath your sword and find Torvul. Wait till morning. If you have not heard, do as you think best.
You’re a fool, he heard, almost immediately. And if I don’t see you by the morning I’ll kill everyone in this city wearing Delondeur green. But she slid her sword back into its scabbard and backed away, nodding.
The bannerman-sergeant took a breath, but otherwise showed no signs of relief. “Your servant may accompany you, m’lord.”
“She is not my servant,” Allystaire replied. “She is a friend, and has other business.” At this, Idgen Marte nodded and turned on a heel and disappeared into the crowd.
Allystaire fell into step beside the bannerman-sergeant. “What is your name, Bannerman-Sergeant?”
“Chaddin, sir,” the man replied, briskly.
“Chaddin of…?”
“Of Londray, I suppose, m’lord.”
“You have no surname or place?”
“None that I care for,” he replied. His clipped and forceful tone indicated that the conversation was over. The bannerman-sergeant picked up his pace, and soon he and Allystaire were surrounded by the green-cloaked and tabarded soldiers.
Allystaire looked back into the crowd—futilely, he knew, for Idgen Marte had melted into it as soon as she stepped away, as completely gone from his vision in an instant as if she had slipped underwater.
And so I am alone, he thought, for the first time in months.
Never alone, rang the smallest echo of the beautiful voice he longed, every waking moment, to hear.
CHAPTER 40
Every Link of the Cost
The columns along the polished marble floor of the Great Hall of the Dunes were decorated with the banners and weapons of defeated enemies. The smooth, sand-colored walls bore tapestries depicting hundreds of years’ worth of Delondeur victory.
Though none against Oyrwyn, Allystaire thought, immediately chiding himself for the flush of pride he felt.
Looming menacingly over the Seat of Station at the far end was the polished skull of a Gravekmir. The creature alive and intact would’ve stood twelve feet tall or more, with protruding teeth, a sloping forehead, and arms that could tear a man like a piece of bread. Beneath the massive skull lounged Lionel Delondeur, the man who, in the errantries of youth, had killed the giant, along with, Allystaire knew, countless other men and beasts.
Lionel looks older, Allystaire thought. Statesmanlike silver had chased all traces of blond from his hair, and his face was as lined as parchment that had been crumpled and then unrolled. Lionel still looked every inch the warrior, though, with his sword leaning against his chair, his shoulders unbent by the mail he wore, his green silk cloak casually tossed over one shoulder. The many windows in the hall were thrown open to admit great stream
s of light, the cries of gulls, and the briny odor of the bay. A table sat next to the Baron Delondeur’s chair, along with a cut-crystal decanter of wine and a pair of pewter goblets.
No other guards were in the room besides the detachment of three, headed by Chaddin, which had brought Allystaire to the audience.
As they approached the seat, Allystaire took a moment to study Chaddin’s face again. Something about the man’s features was niggling at his perceptions, but the professional distance he’d maintained was impenetrable, so he simply shook his head and turned to face the baron.
Lionel stayed seated, shifted in his seat so that he leaned back a bit, studying Allystaire’s face. “Coldbourne,” he finally said, his tone all companionable-old-soldier on the surface. Beneath it, though, lurked a kind of ice. Fear, or anger, or both, Allystaire thought.
“Baron,” Allystaire said, inclining his head only the barest inch. He kept his eyes level, though, locked on his old enemy.
“What in the Cold are you doing in my barony, you old Oyrwyn dog?”
“Things that need doing,” Allystaire replied simply.