The Seventh Friend (Book 1)

by Tim Stead

  “This is it?” he asked.

  One of their party was a groom, sent from Waterhill to guide his new master. The man bobbed his head.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  It seemed too grand by far, but if the man said this was it…

  “Well, get the gate open, then,” he said.

  The groom jumped down and unlatched the gate, taking a few moments to swing each half back and rest it against a post placed there for the purpose, latching it into its new position. When he was done he remounted hurriedly, apparently surprised that Arbak was waiting for him.

  They rode on, hooves sounding crisp on the gravel track. They passed beneath a family of great oaks; their branches spread above the path, each tree with a girth as great as a man’s outstretched arms. Then the landscape opened up, and they rode by the side of a lake. Ducks flew up in confusion as they approached, making for the far side of the water where they skidded into the lake again, ploughing little wakes and rousing their feathers and shouting loudly to each other. Beyond the ducks and the lake shore he could see several houses, ploughed fields, and a barn. It was a pretty enough scene. All this? All this was his?

  They rounded another great tree; an elm, he thought; passed a stand of conifers, and then came in clear sight of the house for the first time. It was big, and it was untidy looking, and it was probably the most beautiful dwelling he had ever seen. It looked as though it had been built by a hundred different builders across a span of five hundred years. Brick chased stone chased brick all around its walls. In places it was two storeys high, and in places only one. At the west end a tower rose a full four floors from the ground. Over the years a vine of some sort had wrapped itself around the tower and spread out to seize much of the building’s front in its green hands, softening the structure, making it look as though it belonged.

  Arbak stopped and stared. Sheyani drew her mount up next to his.

  “A house fit for a lord,” she said. There was laughter in her voice again.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It does not matter if I like it, Sheshay. It is your house.” She paused, and seeing that he needed something more, said “but I do like it. It is a fine old house.”

  He nodded, and nudged his horse forwards again. They had been spotted, and he could see men and women in front of the house, coming out of the great arched door. They lined up on the gravel before the house, standing in rank like soldiers waiting to greet their commander. He decided to play the part, uncomfortable as it felt, and reined in a few yards before them, swinging down from the saddle and handing his horse to the groom, who, he noted, had managed to dismount after him and still be at his side to take the reins when they were offered.

  One of the servants stepped forwards and bowed, and this triggered a wave of obeisance from the line, as though a wind had passed through a bed of reeds.

  “I am Hector Talanisant, your steward, if it please you, my lord,” he said.

  Arbak pulled off his riding gloves, beating the dust out of them against his hip, taking his time to reply. “By your accent an Afaeli,” he said.

  “I am Afaeli by birth, my lord,” the man said. “Does my accent displease you?”

  Power. He had that kind of power now. This man had probably spent a good part of his life, and he looked about forty, working his way up to this position, and yet he could be broken and thrown away at Arbak’s word.

  “It does not, Hector. Do your job well and you shall keep it.”

  Hector bowed, and he could see the relief on his face, a release of tension.

  “Who is the best man to show me around the estate, Hector?” he asked.

  And so it began. They ate a lunch that was over large at a table more suited to twenty than two. It felt like trying to row a boat with a twenty foot beam. There was enough food left on the table at the end to feed the entire staff, and perhaps that was the point. Hector deposited them in the care of a man he called the landskeeper, whom Arbak concluded was the person who both managed the farms and looked after the gardens and woodland. He took them on a tour that in the end revealed remarkably little. It was not, perhaps, the grand estate he had envisioned, and he recalled the Duke telling him that it was only two hundred acres.

  There were two farms – the water farm and the hill farm; hence the given name of the estate. The former was low lying and grew wheat, and the hill farm bred animals; which mostly seemed to be large, black cows, though he saw pigs and chickens on both properties. Both farms were well kept and tidy as far as his ignorant soldier’s eye could tell. He was given to understand that one tenth of the produce of each farm went into the estate larder, and the bulk of the rest was sold or traded by the farmers, and a further rent was paid out of the sum raised. The lake was full of fish, and only the lord’s household had a right to them. In addition to the two farms there was a six acre garden around the house, and a thirty acre woodland that provided firewood for the house and the farms as well as the odd game bird for the table.

  Arbak rejected the idea of eating their evening meal at the great table, and Hector suggested the parlour, a smaller and more intimate room. It had been a long time since Waterhill had been a principal estate, and there was no rhythm to the house, no pattern or template of routine to fall back on. He liked the parlour. It reminded him of one of the private rooms in the Seventh Friend, but there was a wall of books as well, and he wondered whose they were and what they said.

  When Hector brought their food and poured the wine Arbak dismissed him.

  “I can call you if I want anything,” he said.

  “There is a bell, my lord,” Hector said.

  “A bell?”

  “Yes, my lord. The black rope to the left of the fireplace. If you pull it a bell will ring in the kitchen and someone will come to see what you need.”

  He nodded. “I’ll ring the bell, then.”

  Hector withdrew and Arbak pushed his food around the plate. He wasn’t very hungry after the vast meal at mid day. He sipped his wine.

  “I don’t know how to live in a house like this, Sheyani,” he said.

  “You will learn, Sheshay,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not the things, not the bell and the table and all the rest. I don’t know how to speak to these people.”

  “You’re afraid that they will discover that you are just a man like them.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “They already know this. They are servants, Sheshay. You are their lord. A part of what they are comes from what you are. They are pleased to have a lord again, not to be a forgotten part of the Duke’s holdings, and they have already seen that you are fair and interested. They want to like you, and if you do not dismiss them, cut their pay or have them whipped they will like you well enough. If you are thoughtful, they will like you more.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Whatever you like. This is your house. These men and women are no different from your barmen, your brewer, and the men who keep the door at the Seventh Friend.”

  “This house, though; it is too big.”

  “Then fill it, Sheshay. Invite your merchant friends to stay with you for a few days. If I know anything about such men I know that they will be most pleased to be the guest of a lord, even one that they knew before he was raised up. Many would pay to be permitted to come and stay.”

  “Really?”

  “It is true. A bloodline is a kind of gold that you can spend over and over. I have seen it before, in Durandar. In my country everyone aspires to become a mage, and those that have succeeded are courted by those who never will. Money is drawn to high blood like a lodestone to a steel blade.”

  “Yes, I have seen it.”

  He had seen it and he did not like it. Everywhere he had been it was true that money respected blood, but some men took it further, sought out the favour of the high born and the raised up, and flattered them with gifts and praise. He did not like to think that those he had called frie
nds would be so debased.

  “Hector said that we had neighbours,” he said. “Do you think it would be prudent to become acquainted with them?”

  “Yes, but custom dictates that it is they who must take the first step. They will invite you to their homes. It would be thought improper for you to invite them.”

  “How do you know this, Sheyani? You are a Durander.”

  “It is the same in all the five kingdoms, Sheshay. The bloodlines of the kingdoms are more kin to each other than they are to the common people. They have the same rules. They play the same games.”

  “I am glad that I have you by my side to tell me these things, Sheyani,” he said. “Otherwise I would seem a fool.”

  Sheyani did not reply, but she smiled and quickly set about her food again.

  When night came he could not sleep. His room, the master’s room, was vast, and the servants had lit it with twelve lamps. In truth it was two rooms – a dressing room almost as large as the parlour and a bed chamber – and he felt like he was sleeping in a barn. He spent some minutes examining the furniture and the books, and discovered that the furniture was solid and the books were old. He found a copy of the Tales of Karim, and after he had doused all but one of the lamps he read through two of his favourite tales, hoping that the familiar words would bring sleep, but they did not. Instead he lay awake trying to understand what had happened to his life.

  Nothing made sense any more. He could see the chain of events that had led him here, the lie that had started it. It all came from the doctor who had refused to treat him, and his decision to promote himself and keep up the deception. If he had not pretended to be an officer the council would have shunned him. He would not have been given the regiment. He would not have been a general, not a lord.

  How much else in the world comes from a simple lie, he wondered? He had gone from an ordinary sergeant to celebrated general in less than half a year. He had money, lands, friends, and the deep and abiding suspicion that he deserved none of it.

  But what did any of it matter? Winter was come, and on its heels would be spring, and with the spring war would come again, and thousands of men would die. There was a good chance that he would be one of them, and so there was just this one season to enjoy his good fortune, and then one more when the debt would be collected. He had given the matter much thought. For all practical purposes Seth Yarra seemed to have an unlimited supply of men, and no matter what the strategy, no matter how bravely the kingdoms fought, those numbers would tell in the end. If there was a wall across the White Road they might have a chance, but the White Road was wide, much wider than the Green Road, and building something to block it would take years. They did not have years.

  Yet Narak seemed to cling to some hope. Perhaps there was some secret thing, some knowledge or magic that he could bring to bear as a last resort, but if so then why did so many men have to die before they should be saved?

  He was forced to conclude that there was no magic, that Narak’s optimism was no more than a front, a mask that concealed conclusions similar to his own. But then again, perhaps he did not know everything. Perhaps there was some secret, some plan or strategy of which he was unaware. Narak could know the limits of Seth Yarra manpower, or he could know some other forgotten fact that might turn the war their way.

  He would just have to trust the Wolf. He wished that he could choose to have faith, to believe, but belief was not a choice. It just was, or in his case was not. Narak was a strategist without equal, however, and he could choose to trust that skill.

  He reached out to snuff out the last lamp, and stopped with his arm half way to the light.

  “Sheyani?”

  She was standing at the foot of his bed. He had not heard her enter the room, or caught any movement as she crossed the space between the door and the bed. She could have been standing there for minutes, watching him. Wrapped in a dark cloak she looked for all the world like a disembodied face, her skin the colour of dark honey in the lamp light, her eyes black, her hair a dark cap about her head.

  “Sheshay,” she said. Her voice was barely audible.

  “Do you need something?” he asked. “Why are you here?” She looked afraid, or nervous. He could not make up his mind.

  “I must speak,” she said. She took a half step towards him. “I must tell you.”

  “What is it?” He was half out of the bed. Something was wrong, for sure. She was sick, or there was some danger that he was unaware of. But her hand stayed him. She held it up in front of her and took a half step back again, and the weight came off his feet as he sat back down.

  “What?” he asked. “What?”

  “You have my heart, Sheshay,” she said. “I want to give you what remains of me.”

  “What?” For a moment he did not understand. The meaning of the words eluded him because they were so unexpected, like hauling up your fishing line to find a rabbit on the hook. Her heart?

  Incomprehension was followed by confusion. She was declaring her love to him; her love of him, of Cain Arbak. It was a strange moment for him. This was something he had wanted, wanted so much, but had never dared to hope for. She was younger than him, prettier by any measure, unscarred, high born. She was everything that he was not. It was a match of such uneven character that he was forced to protest it.

  “Sheyani,” he said. “You are the daughter of a king, a Mage of Durandar, and I am low born, crippled…”

  “Again you say this,” she replied, cutting him off, and there was a touch of frustration in her voice, even desperation. “You are a rich man, a Lord of Avilian, A Knight Talon of the Order of the Dragon, an elected general, a councillor of Bas Erinor, and I am a refugee with no title, no money, no position. Yet none of this matters. You do not see that none of it matters, but it is the truth. You are kind, and just, and generous. The men who work in your tavern love you, your soldiers would die for a kind word from you, your words to them are as powerful as the music I play.

  “I love you, Cain Arbak. Of all the men in the world I choose to give myself to you, but say that you do not want me and I will go away and not trouble you again.”

  Her words struck him like a blow to the face. Go away? No, he didn’t want that. He had to say something. He had to say the right thing because this was the most important moment of his life, however short the rest of it turned out to be.

  “Sheyani Esh Baradan, my most trusted friend,” he said. “If you bear for me one tenth part of the love I bear for you then I am a fortunate man indeed. I did not dare to hope that this would be so, but now I find that it is, and yes I want you, as much as I can and for as long as I draw breath.”

  He saw the relief on her face, even in the lamplight, and was amazed by it. She had been afraid that he would reject her – something that he could never have contemplated. But now the words were said. Sheyani let the cloak fall from her shoulders, and he saw that she was naked beneath it. He watched open mouthed as she came to the side of the bed, drew back the coverings and stepped in beside him. He felt her warmth, the softness of her skin.

  “One thing,” he said. His hand was on her shoulder, her scent filled him up and her face, her eyes, were inches from his own.

  “Sheshay?”

  He took a deep breath. Cain Arbak was not a stickler for form. He was a practical man, a do before you’re done sort of man. Never in his life had he worried about doing the proper thing when he knew it wasn’t what worked. But he knew what he had to say, and he knew that he had to say it now, or it would never sound as right, it would never work as well as it would at this moment; right now.

  “Will you be my wife?” he asked.

  He felt her warmth wrap around him, her face press close to his ear.

  “Yes, Sheshay.” He could hear the smile on her lips. “Yes. I will be your wife.”

  54 Sara Bruff

  The Lord of Latter Fetch was a busy man. Indeed he was so busy that he had yet to visit his recently gifted estates. At least now that his bl
ood was raised up again he was entitled to board and lodgings in the high city, in Aidon’s castle.

  He didn’t spend much time there, though. Mostly it was just an evening meal, a few ales with a friend if he could find one, and then sleep. There were few people from before the war that still called him friend, and he didn’t have time to make new ones. He missed Feran. He spent his days on the fields outside the city overseeing the training of his new regiment.

  It was getting cold. Even this far south he often had need of a woollen tunic and a heavy cloak. Many times he took a hand with the training, beating aside the blades of new recruits, putting their feet into stirrups, correcting their stance or their handling of a bow. Mostly it was just to keep warm.