Path of Revenge

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  ‘Oh,’ she’d said. ‘It was you with the letter. Well, I must apologise. I’m afraid your letter—more specifically, the hand it was written in—ensured you would never be granted an audience.’ She seemed genuinely sorry.

  Conal found himself…Well, if he was honest, he found himself developing feelings for her. His studies and interviews had led him to expect a cold, scheming woman, haggard, crippled, full of bitterness and hate. Instead he had found a warm and sensitive person, clearly grieving for the loss of her husband and king. She treated him with respect, which was little short of astonishing given the way she was regarded by the Halites.

  She was eighty-eight years old, for Hal’s sake, but it was impossible to remember this when talking with her. Her clear skin and fine-boned elfin features were those of a northern woman in her thirties, certainly no older, though a closer look revealed an old scar across her left cheek, starting from beside her eye and extending down to her neck, perhaps a burn of some kind. Interestingly, her right hand seemed not to function properly: at rest it made a claw. She seemed to have adapted to it, however. She certainly shirked none of her duties. Her hair, silver-edged a month ago, now appeared uniformly black: she must have previously dyed it to look older. Obviously she no longer had access to the dye. And there was something about her eyes, something knowing, something patient, understanding. Day after day he looked into her dark eyes, weighing her words, and felt himself drawn towards her.

  The young priest worried about this. He lay awake on those unbearably hot nights as the barge rocked gently against its mooring, trying to work out whether she had woven a glamour around him. Conal knew himself to be a lonely man, having devoted himself to the priesthood and to his scholarship. While Halites were encouraged to marry, he had never made the time; nor, frankly, had the opportunity ever presented itself. Oh, there had been a shy, plain girl in Yosse, serious and sensible, but her parents sent her away when they realised a priest without prospects courted her interest. So of course he was susceptible to the emotions encouraged by continued intimacy, and grew angry at the thought, the realistic thought, that he might be so desperate for affection he would fall in love with a woman older than his grandmother. So many contradictory thoughts: pleasure that such a famous, formidable figure might confide in him; respect for her courage; excitement at the gradual unfolding of her story; fear that she might be manipulating him for her own ends; apprehension at what the Archpriest would say about his escapades; and self-loathing in the face of his own wilful emotions. Sometimes he thought he could hear cruel laughter in the back of his head. Please, Most High, don’t let me make a fool of myself.

  But the queen was a perceptive woman, and Conal was afraid he already had.

  CHAPTER 8

  LOSS OF A QUEEN

  ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH THE MAN, anyway?’ Robal said. ‘I don’t like him. Windy, opinionated, full of himself. He’ll cause you trouble, that he will.’

  Stella sighed. Her guardsman grew more headstrong by the day as awe faded and responsibility increased. She needed a protector, a companion, not a father figure less than half her age. He ought to be set down, but how?

  The two of them stood in the stern, Robal to starboard, Stella to port, using their long poles to push the barge forward against the current. They were positioned either side of Ma who had the tiller, and who never participated in their conversations nor gave any indication she understood them. The youngest Wodrani boy scurried about amidships, checking their cargo, shifting tradable items to more accessible locations and securing their own supplies, while the two older boys poled either side of the cabin. The river, now one wide channel, flowed somewhat more powerfully than in either the multi-channelled Maremma or the tidal range near Instruere, and even four polers earned them only grudging progress. Conal stood alone in the bow, most of his body hidden from Stella behind the cabin, though every now and again she caught sight of his cloak whipping about in the rising southerly breeze. And ahead of them, visible to all even in the heat haze of late morning, Vindicare sprawled on the southern side of the river, to the right as they looked, like a drunkard sleeping off a bender.

  ‘You think he’ll cause me trouble?’ Stella said. ‘The milksop priest? Does he nag me constantly about other members of the crew? Is he full of admonitions about the Koinobia and the priesthood of Hal? Has he spent most of the morning warning me of the dangers we are likely to encounter in Vindicare? I do not believe he has.’

  Robal’s lips thinned, but he forbore from comment.

  She found it so hard to rebuke him, drat the man. After all, he was much less attractive with a frown than with a smile. She liked his smile, and often found herself bantering with him just to watch the upward curve of his lips at her witticisms. His was a strong, generous face, broad and full-featured, with laughter lines and wide-set eyes characteristic of Austrau, the province from where he came. An outdoorsman’s face set atop an outdoorsman’s body: tanned, muscled and well-proportioned. She had not looked on a man, including her husband, in this fashion for quite some time: after all, Leith had been old for twenty years and more, while she remained young. Not that they had ever…She sighed. Yet another of the many curses of her blood.

  ‘You forget yourself. By your own account you have survived fire and water, and have seen more death than any cussin’ soldier I know. You have been betrayed by those you loved and by those who ought to love you.’ Robal took one hand from his pole and gestured widely, as though to encompass all of Faltha. ‘The priest is an unknown. Or worse, what we know of him is not promising. I do not understand your lack of prudence, really I don’t. It makes you easy to talk to, but very hard to guard.’

  She had actually made him angry. Moreover, he had some justification. He thrashed at the water with his pole, forcing her to match his furious strokes.

  ‘For the sake of the Most High, slow down! How am I supposed to keep up?’ she said, beginning to breathe heavily. ‘Conal should be given at least one chance to prove himself. I cannot believe he means to betray me, nor that we remain in any real danger. It has been over a month since we left Instruere. Surely the Halites will have given up the search by now. All I need is a barber for my hair, some henna and tea leaves to add a reddish tinge, and some new clothes—or perhaps I’ll continue with these rags.’ She indicated the sleeveless, rough-edged tunic and knee-length breeches she had been wearing for over a week. The Wodrani had traded for them, along with fresh provisions and replacements for Robal’s guardsman uniform and Conal’s priestly clothes—now very much the worse for wear—from an isolated farmhouse at the western edge of the swamplands. ‘A month of sun on my skin, a month of poling this stupid hunk of wood upriver—’ she nodded towards her muscled arms—‘who would recognise their sovereign?’

  Robal smiled despite his obvious intention to remain stern. ‘I certainly see a young woman and not a queen. But if I was placed in Vindicare to watch for a woman coming from the west who had spent a month in the sun and who would most likely be wearing something other than royal robes, I might want to take a closer look at you.’ He laid a faint stress on the last phrase, making Stella laugh despite herself.

  ‘You are a bad man,’ she said, biting her lip as she shook her head in mock sorrow. ‘And what makes it worse is that you are right. About the warning, that is,’ she added hastily, damping down his cheeky grin before it emerged. ‘I am worried about what has happened in Instruere, whether the Council of Faltha succeeded in taking power, whether another king has been raised or some other faction has assumed the rulership of the city, and the best people to talk to are the traders in the markets. I doubt either you or Conal could gain the information I require. Nevertheless, I will remain on the barge while we are alongside the docks, as you suggest. Conal will go into the city to search for news of Instruere, and yes, you may follow him. Should he seek to make contact with the Koinobia,’ she said slowly, ‘you may take the minimum action required to keep him from doing so.’

  ‘V
ery sensible. And if I may add—’

  ‘You may not. If I should learn that you have precipitated violent action in a misguided attempt to protect me, you may discover that there is at least limited justification for the Koinobia’s fear of me. I want the priest alive and in good health. He may be the only chance I have to correct the written record of the Falthan War.’ And maybe erase the people’s hatred and distrust of the Destroyer’s Consort so central to the Mahnumsen Scrolls.

  ‘You don’t trust me?’ His handsome, lopsided smile dimpled at her. Oh dear. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Not yet. I enjoy your company, and am learning to respect your judgment. But trust is earned, not given, unless one is a fool, and I hope my foolish days are over. Go now and earn it.’

  A shout came from the bow: the barge drew near the docks. They had previously been told that fare-paying passengers would only get in the way and were to go belowdecks. Robal shook his head at her reproachfully, shipped and secured his pole, then offered her his hand. Conal made way for them at the hatch.

  Stella glanced towards the stern just before the hatch closed. Ma looked up for a moment, her eyes clear and far too knowing, then hunched back down and continued her muttering.

  Vindicare, the second city of the Kingdom of Straux and the administrative capital of Austrau, suffered badly in the autumn drought. An ugly city at the best of times, it was beset by the traditional problems of second cities everywhere, having been used by a series of rulers to line the pockets of rich nobles and merchants in Mercium, the chief city of Straux. There were no notable public buildings, few of the streets were cobbled, and to Conal the people seemed shabbier and duller than those in Instruere. The authorities clearly had no idea about the need for an efficient waste management system, he noted as he made his way between the market stalls. He imagined writing a treatise on the subject. Drains: The Key to Civilisation. Not a promising title for a scholarly paper, but certainly one Vindicare’s leaders ought to read. Perhaps they had, and the overpowering stench of the city was due to the lack of water. The place could certainly do with a good downpour. He took another breath. Several good downpours.

  The instructions given him by the Destroyer’s Consort had been specific. He was not to draw attention to himself, was not to ask any leading questions that would identify him as having been away from news sources for a month. Instead he was to listen while bargaining for essential supplies. She had drawn him up a list. There had been nothing on the barge with which to write other than charcoal and poor-quality parchment, but her hand was neat and precise, with none of the ornate affectations common among the women who served the Koinobia. Not that the medium allowed affectation, he allowed.

  The priest was having difficulty keeping his mind on his task. The first day in a month he had not spent time with her and already he found himself pining for her company like some pathetic cur. He actually felt physically ill. Could she have cast a glamour over him? Would he really be able to sense magic, as the Archpriest had assured him he would? He had certainly sensed unearthly powers during his few terrifying days on Andratan as a spy for the Koinobia. But nothing he experienced there felt like this. That power had been cold, this feeling was warm.

  He shook his head at his own folly.

  ‘Sir? Sir? Are you well?’

  ‘Eh? What? Ah…no, I am feeling a little unwell, in fact,’ he said. A friendly-faced girl smiled at him from her side of the stall.

  ‘You’ve been looking at our wares for a long time,’ she said. ‘Can’t decide what to buy your love?’

  He looked down at the display. He appeared to have stopped in front of a jeweller’s stall, guided there by his unconscious mind while he mooned over the Destroyer’s Consort. The Archpriest would be scandalised if he could read minds. Was there any hope for him?

  ‘It’s just that Gor over there gets twitchy when people spend too long staring and not buying,’ she continued, still smiling. Her head nodded to one side, indicating a tall, broad-shouldered man standing six paces away. ‘Gor the Mite,’ she added helpfully.

  ‘Oh. No, I don’t want to buy, I want to sell. Would you be interested in this?’ He flipped the queen’s leather pouch out from his borrowed jerkin, upended it into his hand and held out the four stones, small but undoubtedly valuable even bereft of their settings.

  The girl’s demeanour changed, the false smile put away for the next customer. ‘Gor,’ she barked.

  ‘Mistress,’ the man said as he strode over to them.

  ‘The list, please.’

  The exchange, the sudden change in attitude, made Conal uneasy. List? What could have gone wrong?

  ‘Two rubies, an emerald and a singstone,’ Gor the Mite read carefully from a crumpled note. ‘Singstone flecked with gold. Should have two small grooves if removed from its setting.’

  ‘Like this, do you think?’ She picked the deep blue singstone from Conal’s hand before he was able to close his fingers over it.

  ‘Just like that,’ the broad-shouldered man rumbled.

  The girl took the note. ‘Apprehend and detain anyone with stones of this description, then notify the guards,’ she read, then looked up. ‘Why doesn’t it say anything about a reward?’

  Belatedly Conal realised the trouble he was in. ‘I don’t have all the stones on that list. It’s just a coincidence.’ He found himself breathing shallowly, but could not clamp down on the panic he felt.

  The girl stared at him disbelievingly. ‘Singstones are rare. And this one matches perfectly the description we were given. Where did you get it from?’

  ‘The stones are my mother’s, well, from her estate really. You see, she died recently, and—’

  He stopped. Neither one believed him, he could see it on their faces. He wasn’t very good at lying. At that moment a grey-clad guard emerged from a side road, and the brute Gor beckoned him over.

  ‘Bathania, we have a problem—’

  Conal chose that moment, while the guard was still a few steps away, to try his escape. Gor made a lunge for him, missing his collar by a finger-width. The guard cried out and gave chase: at least Conal thought it was the guard, for he caught a glimpse of grey close behind him as he pelted down the busy cobbled street. Bitter thoughts lanced through his head. Failure, whether or not he was captured. He’d not heard a thing about the political situation in Instruere, had not purchased anything on the queen’s list, had not even sold the jewels. She would not be happy…

  Within fifty or sixty strides he was gasping for air, sucking at it as though he breathed through wool. Unfit. Must find a hiding place. Turn this into a contest of brains rather than stamina. A glance over his shoulder revealed the guard close behind him, and gaining, while further behind two figures picked themselves up off the road. The guard shouted at him to stop. He looked for something, anything, to throw at his pursuer. The stalls were all behind him; he’d run the wrong way. Nothing here but people. He could use them. Groups of citizens who were angered by someone jostling his way through them were more likely to hinder than help a second person. There had to be an open door, an alley, somewhere to hide…

  A loose cobble gave way under his left foot, sending both him and his pursuer to the ground in a mass of uncoordinated arms and legs. A loud crack, like the smack a heavy scroll made when hitting a stone floor, came from somewhere underneath him. He wriggled clear of the guard’s struggling weight, then screwed his eyes tightly shut as agony washed over him. The cracking sound had come from him, from his left arm. He got unsteadily to his feet, cradling his left forearm with his right.

  The guard twitched, stirred and raised bleary eyes in his direction. Conal took a few steps and whimpered with each one. He tried, but the pain was horrendous. All his energy drained from him, obliterated by shock. I failed her, and it hurts.

  ‘Now, Mister Running Man,’ the guard said, panting out the words, ‘tell me why you refused to stop for a Guardsman of Vindicare.’

  ‘I…I thought you were a thief,’
Conal replied before his tongue could recall the lie. ‘I thought you wanted to hurt me.’ That was true, at least. ‘My arm hurts. Can you take me somewhere to get it fixed?’

  ‘You could see I was wearing the grey, so why did you run? You know only Koinobia-appointed guards wear the grey. You’ve had a three-week to get used to us. And why did the jeweller want to speak to me?’

  ‘She thought I had stones like those written on a piece of paper,’ Conal answered.

  ‘Emerald, rubies and singstone?’ The guard placed a hand on Conal’s shoulder, sending a shockwave of pain through the priest’s frame.

  ‘I…I have a singstone and a ruby,’ he answered, licking his too-dry lips. ‘At least I had a singstone. The jeweller has it now.’ Something the guard had said tried to get his attention, but could not compete with the incessant throbbing of his forearm.

  ‘And are these stones the ones we’re looking for?’ asked the guard.

  Why would you ask so directly? Do you expect criminals to tell you the truth? His thoughts must have revealed themselves on his face, because the guard stooped a little and looked into his eyes.

  ‘You didn’t know about the grey, and you have the stones. You’re not from ‘round here, are you? Otherwise you’d know that the grey Koinobia guards of Vindicare always give citizens a chance to tell the truth.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘She’s here, isn’t she. The Consort bitch. Here in Vindicare.’

  Look into my eyes, Conal willed desperately. See my truthfulness. ‘No, she’s not in Vindicare.’

  ‘Too careful an answer, Running Man, and not careful enough,’ the guard said, smiling grimly. ‘To know she’s not here means you know where she is. You will take me to her, so the Koinobia’s justice can be executed upon her.’

  No need to lie. No need to run. No need to think. He hoped he would be better at defiance.