by Robin Hardy
His jaw dropped in shock. “You went to his room? Unsummoned?”
“Y-yes,” she stammered.
“Deirdre, how could you?” he sputtered. “Didn’t you realize what he would think? Here I almost killed an innocent man when you were the one about to cuckold me!”
“No! That’s not true!” she cried. He stared at her while she wrung her hands, floundering to explain herself, and what he saw was the child who had gotten herself into a scrape again which she couldn’t get out of.
He tried to maintain a stern expression listening to her swear repeatedly that she went only to tell Caspar she could not marry him, but when in her anguish the tears came, Roman gathered her in his arms so she couldn’t see him smiling. “Believe me, Roman,” she sobbed.
He held her tightly, relishing her fervent embrace and passionate kisses. “On one condition,” he murmured. “That you convince me you’re glad to see me.” Given that he had not bathed in a week, that was a severe test of her love.
When a moment later a guard came around the corner with Nihl at his side, the Commander lifted his chin and said, “Welcome back to the living, Surchatain.”
Roman unwrapped one arm from around Deirdre to grasp his hand. “Thank you, Nihl. It’s good to be alive.” Deirdre pressed her face into Roman’s shoulder. “But there’s much I need to know,” Roman said, growing serious. “Why have the Polonti under you revolted?”
Nihl’s eyes widened. “Have the Polonti revolted?” he asked. “I know nothing of this. I was removed from my post because I objected to the Surchataine’s coming here.”
“Who removed you?” Roman asked.
“The Counselor. The Surchataine was never informed of it.”
“But what about Bruc’s march on Corona? And what’s become of that crazy Qarqarian emissary?” Roman demanded.
“All that has been taken care of,” Nihl replied. “The Surchataine sent the emissary home, promising him we would attack Hornbound. Meanwhile, I met my brother Asgard at the gates of Corona, and told him to plunder the gold of Qarqar instead. He agreed, and we last saw them marching westward toward Hornbound,” Nihl ended on a note of satisfaction.
Roman studied him. “There’s no gold in Hornbound.”
“Yes, there is,” Nihl contradicted him, and began telling him about the graves of the Abode, but Roman was shaking his head with conviction.
“There is no gold in Hornbound. All that is just legend the Qarqarians invented to give themselves stature among the provinces. They are a poor mining people, which is why I approved a treaty with them for iron and copper, to help build them up,” explained Roman.
Nihl began to lose some color in his brown face. “But . . . Troyce said. . . .”
“Troyce was wrong, Nihl. There is no gold.”
Baffled, Nihl exclaimed, “Then why would the Qarqarian emissary kill you over fictitious gold?”
Roman raised his shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know! That’s why I took the warning so lightly—I could make no sense of it. I suppose he was that determined to protect the legend.”
Grimly shaking his head, Nihl said, “Their legend is rubble by now, along with the rest of Hornbound. And we can expect a visit soon from Asgard. He promised that if he did not find plunder in Hornbound, he would come to Westford for it.”
“He can’t! Polontis hasn’t the army to attack Westford!” Roman insisted.
“That does not matter. He promised it, and he will do it if he has to sacrifice every last man,” Nihl said firmly.
“How long ago was that?”
Nihl stopped to think. “Four days ago.”
Roman thought out, “Then by now they have reached Hornbound, found it empty, and—”
“—started marching to Westford,” Nihl concluded.
Roman passed a hand over his pulsing brow. “No time to gather an army. We may have no army at all if the Polonti have revolted, for it is the Lystran soldiers who have been lining their pockets by robbing. We cannot count on them to fight.”
Caspar’s voice behind them said, “Perhaps I can help you there.” They turned toward him. “I wanted you to come so that we might establish an alliance. Well, here is the opportunity. I will lend you my entire army to fight Bruc’s soldiers—and I have no small force.”
Roman and Nihl studied him. “Why would you do that? No alliance is with-out cost to both sides,” Roman observed.
“There is a price,” Caspar admitted. Deirdre grew suddenly nervous.
“Which is—?” asked Roman.
Caspar answered, “Deirdre.” Her stomach turned upside down. “Give me Deirdre, and I will lend you a fully equipped army, now and whenever else you might need it.”
Roman took no time to decide. “That alternative was given me once before, and I made the wrong choice. No thank you, Caspar. That’s too high a price, even if it means losing Westford. The Lord will have to show us some other way.”
Deirdre leaned gratefully on his chest and Nihl observed, “I like a challenge, Surchatain.”
Chapter 33
When Caspar seemed finally resigned that Deirdre would not be his, Roman readily accepted his hospitality for the night. Caspar, in turn, conducted himself with dignity and surprising grace. In the morning he set them a fabulous breakfast of wine and valley-bred lamb in the private banquet room. She seemed uncomfortable there a second time.
Roman reclined on a plush cushion as a servant filled a massive goblet before him. Having bathed and shaved the evening before, and slept with Deirdre in his arms all night long, he was feeling good. He asked, “Do all you Calleans eat lying down, Caspar?”
Deirdre flinched at what sounded like a taunt, but Caspar smiled. “It’s a custom I observed during my travels, and it appealed to me.” He could smile because he was watching Nihl tangle with the pillows—he did not like reclining on them because he kept rolling off, but he could not sit on them because that placed him too far above the table. Finally he shoved them aside to sit on the floor.
A serving girl offered him a selection of fruits, which he rejected, not recognizing any of them. When he caught the smirks over his ignorance, however, he sullenly selected a hairy brown kiwi fruit and studied it suspiciously.
“So, Roman,” Caspar took his attention from the Commander, “What will you do about these Polonti? Return to Westford and muster what army you have?” Roman nodded grudgingly. Caspar sighed, “You can’t win that way, you know. You should reconsider my offer. Is it worth sacrificing your country over your pride?”
“It’s not my pride at stake; it’s my wife,” Roman returned without smiling.
“Perhaps I was too demanding. I will ask you only to leave Deirdre here, for her safety. You may reclaim her afterward.”
“No,” said Roman.
Caspar shrugged in resignation. “Then at least I will furnish you and your entourage with fresh horses and provisions for your return trip to Westford.”
Roman agreed, “I will take horses for myself, Deirdre, and Nihl. You may keep the servants as compensation for your trouble.” He would not be indebted to Caspar for anything. “The rest of the entourage is dismissed.”
Caspar looked surprised. “Am I to host your soldiers while you go fight?”
“Do with them what you will. They are not mine,” Roman said coldly. He had learned much from Deirdre and Nihl last night, such as how she was kept deliberately uninformed of Nihl’s dismissal. So Caspar leaned to a guard and spoke in his ear, who then left smiling.
After they had eaten, Caspar took them out to the drawbridge bay where their horses and bags waited. He ordered the drawbridge lowered, then asked Roman, “May I speak with Deirdre alone?”
“Within my sight,” Roman replied.
Caspar took her several feet away and whispered, “This does not change anything. I will still wait for you.”
“Please, Caspar, don’t,” she begged. “You are such a good man. You deserve to have someone by your side.”
“If i
t can’t be you, I don’t want anyone,” he said stubbornly.
“Oh, Caspar—don’t waste your life waiting for something that will never happen! I’m not worth it. No one is.”
“Someday,” he said. “Someday you may yet be free. . . .”
She tossed her head sadly—not for herself, but for him. This romantic stubbornness was not love, it was foolish make-believe. But he might have to reach the end of a long, lonely life before he realized that. Roman said, “Deirdre.”
Caspar escorted her back to where Roman and Nihl waited with the horses and said, “One thing I would like to know, Roman: How did you get in?”
“Across the drawbridge, of course. How else would I get in? Just walked on across it,” Roman said. While he helped Deirdre onto her horse and mounted himself, Caspar looked darkly over to his drawmen. Roman saluted, and the three riders clattered across the wooden drawbridge.
Once across, Deirdre gently chastised him, “You didn’t even thank him for his hospitality.”
Roman glanced at her. “I know why he did it, and it wasn’t for me. I don’t feel obligated to thank him for lusting after you.”
Embarrassed, she kept quiet for a while after that.
Passing the outskirts of the fair, Roman felt a sinking sensation at the sound of a familiar voice: “Whoa, Surchatain! You never came back for your ale!”
He turned in the saddle to greet Thane and Braxton. “What must I do to lose you?”
“You can’t. But you found the Surchataine!” Thane studied her with approval, nodding, and she lifted an eyebrow.
“Deirdre, meet renegades Thane and Braxton. And this is Commander Nihl,” Roman told Thane.
“Say, do you know your men have revolted?” Thane amiably asked Nihl, who merely eyed him in return. “I’m glad we found you, Surchatain. You’re really going to need us now.” Uninvited, the renegades joined the three. Roman tried to ignore them, as well as the fact that he was beginning to like the young rogue.
They embarked on the eastbound road out of Crescent Hollow. Nihl pulled up close to Roman to murmur, “Surchatain, I do not see how we can make it back to Westford and prepare an army before Asgard comes.” Thane leaned forward to hear.
“What choice is left to us?” Roman asked dismally. “It does seem hopeless, but. . . .”
“Whoa!” Thane exclaimed under his breath. They stared ahead at a mounted unit of Polonti, at least two hundred, advancing toward them.
“Is it Asgard already? Here?” Roman asked in alarm.
Nihl held his breath. “No,” he said, exhaling. “No, it’s not Asgard. It’s Cy, Captain of the Green. He went with me to Corona.”
“They’re not in uniform,” Roman observed. “If they have revolted, then we’re the first they’d come looking for.”
“If the man I appointed captain is treacherous enough to lead an attack on his Surchatain, then I am unfit to be Commander,” Nihl replied stonily. So they stopped in the middle of the thoroughfare while other travelers scattered from the approaching Polonti.
They drew closer and closer, coming at a run. The five held their ground as Cy, in front, signaled a halt and saluted. “Greetings, Surchatain. You are not dead.”
“Not yet.” Roman returned the salute. “Where are you going, and on what orders?”
“The Counselor ordered us out on the road to stop the soldiers’ robbing. And also to find the Commander and inform him that he is reinstated to his post,” answered Cy.
“Nihl has always been my Commander,” said Roman. “So what have you done about the soldiers?”
Cy shrugged, “We caught only a few. When word got out about us, they returned to the palace to regroup and come after us as one army.”
Deirdre gasped, “Ariel! What of Ariel?”
“Your son is well, Surchataine. The soldiers hold no ill will for you. Actually, they think they are protecting your interests,” Cy said dryly.
“You think they’ll be coming after you on this road?” Roman asked Cy.
“Yes, Surchatain.”
“How many are you?” Roman inquired, looking over the mounted ranks.
“Two hundred and ten,” Cy answered.
“If they muster all that are in Westford, they’ll have over five thousand,” Roman murmured.
Nihl added, “Further, if they are traveling westward now, we can never get them back to Westford in time to fight Asgard, even assuming they obey you at once and without question.”
Roman stared ahead in tense concentration. “How many does Asgard have, Nihl?”
“About two thousand.”
Roman deliberately turned his horse to face north. “We can intercept Asgard and bypass the Lystran soldiers if we cross the Poison Greens.”
There was not a word to answer him. No refusal, speculation, or question, not even from Thane. But Roman turned to Deirdre. “Have you ever heard of the Greens?”
“Virl told me they were impassable,” she said, casting a long glance toward the slopes.
Roman offered, “I will allow you to return to Caspar, Deirdre, if you—”
“No. If you are crossing them, I am going with you,” she said.
With merely a gesture to signal them forward, Roman led the troops off the road toward the sleepy mountains.
In a very short time they were approaching the foothills, and already their progress was slowed. Before they could climb the hills, they had to cross vast stretches of mire covered with thick, thorny bracken. When the horses became bogged down and tried to jerk their hoofs free, they were scratched and pricked to a panic.
Nihl ordered several of the Polonti off their horses and to the front. Using their long swords, they cut down the bracken in front of Roman so the troops could inch up the mountains.
It was slow going. The men on foot sank in mud up to their ankles as they hacked at the bracken. When they tired, fresh volunteers took their places, but still it was two hours before they had cleared five hundred feet of briar.
Suddenly the mire gave way to rock, which was covered with a slimy green moss that made it treacherously slick. The twenty-degree incline at which the company ascended further hindered their progress. All through the ranks, horses and heads bobbed erratically as they slipped around. Roman could not resist a jab at Thane, falling back in the midst of the Polonti. “Easy, isn’t it?” Hearing him, Thane grinned sheepishly.
“Should we dis-mount?” Deirdre asked, jolted when her horse took a dip.
“No. The extra weight helps give the horses traction,” Roman replied. “Besides—” he pointed down, and Deirdre recoiled. The clattering hoofs had disturbed a nest of scorpions, which came crawling en masse from a crack. A few tried to climb up on the horses’ legs, but the riders were alert to knock them off.
After conversing momentarily with Cy, Nihl gingerly guided his horse to Roman’s side. “Surchatain, the men are discussing how best to camp on these mountains—”
“Camping is impossible,” Roman said briskly. “We must cross them today.”
Nihl paused as his horse staggered. “I do not believe we can get over them by nightfall.”
“Then we will have to cross at night.”
Nihl nodded, plans and contingencies crowding his mind. He edged over to Cy to tell him, and Roman could see the captain become animated with gestures. He knew what Cy was saying, but it did not deter him. There was no other way.
Nihl spoke to Cy alone for several minutes, then two other Polonti joined their conversation. Roman noticed all this because he respected his native brothers as hunters, trackers, and fighters. He could not safely ignore their opinions.
By the time Nihl skidded toward Roman again, he and Deirdre had reached a plateau of lush green weeds. “Watch your skirts,” Roman warned Deirdre. “Stinging nettles.” She quickly gathered up the folds of her skirts and tucked them tightly beneath her.
“Surchatain, the men are agreed on several points,” Nihl began cautiously, and Roman’s jaw tightened. “One, we canno
t cross the Greens before sundown, and no one with us has flint or torch. Again, if we somehow managed to cross in time to meet Asgard’s army, we are not enough to stop two thousand Polonti, nor even slow them much.”
“You are right, Nihl,” Roman murmured, feeling his confidence crumble before these facts. Inwardly he prayed, Lord, what do I do? I am responsible for these men—and Deirdre—but how do I stop the Polonti? He waited, listening, but received no answer.
Just as the last riders were clearing the slippery rocks, they were met by a bedraggled man riding a donkey. He cut across their path and Roman reined up. When the lone rider turned a gap-toothed grin his way, Roman recognized him to be the seller of scorpions.
“Where are you going?” the scorpion man laughed.
“We must cross the Greens. I will pay you well to lead us,” Roman said, feeling a great relief. Here was the answer to his prayer.
“I?” the other laughed. “No, no, ha, ha, ha!”
“I will pay you whatever you demand,” Roman offered urgently.
“No, no. You’re a stranger to the Greens. There’s more to fear here than scorpions,” the fellow insisted.
“Yes, I see, but—”
“No, no. You don’t see. You can’t see them at all. But they’re here—all around. And they come out at night. Lead you through? No!”
“What? Who is here?” called Roman. The wild man was kicking his donkey to run out of sight.
Although they could no longer see him, his shouted answer came echoing back over the mountain: “The dead!”
Roman stopped, and the Polonti were quiet behind him. Was this a warning to stop or a challenge to go on? Back, or forward? What did the Lord say? Roman sought desperately for an answer, but the Lord was silent.
Roman kicked his horse to go on. The Polonti followed without a murmur. But Nihl rode up close to Roman’s side and asked so that no one else could hear, “Is this wise, Surchatain?”
“I see no other way,” Roman murmured. “I have to trust that the Lord will guide us safely through.”
“Yes,” Nihl agreed. “But . . . every mortal man must die some time. When his time comes, the Lord will not let him pass untouched.”