The innkeeper took a quick look around the room, gestured to another man in an apron, then said, "Aye, I can, for a wee bit, at least." He pulled up a chair from the empty table behind him, and sat, legs splayed, backwards on the seat, leaning on the chair's back. He eyed the four Holdsmen questioningly as the blacksmith set in place the ales, one before each of his companions. "Friends of yours, Trom?"
"Aye, of mine . . . and of the crown."
"Indeed?" The thin innkeeper looked at him, then again at the Holdsmen. "Friends of the crown? Well, sirs, you are welcome here. Any friend of the crown is a friend in the Crown." He glanced over his shoulder, then returned his attention to the men. "How might I be of service to you this evening?"
Kal grew wary. To his mind drifted the image of Old Golls, Persamus Meade, with his open face and broad smile between hanging jowls, looking so welcoming, so avuncular, just the sort of man to confide in—to one's peril! Kal left his ale untouched and fixed the innkeeper with a level gaze.
"We are but travellers through these parts that have had the good fortune of making the acquaintance of Tromwyn, a fellow smith to Devved here." Kal laid a hand on his companion's thick shoulder. "I am Kalestor, and this is Galli. And this, Gwyn." Kal nodded to his friends in turn. "We have been travelling the byways these past few weeks and have not had occasion to learn the recent happenings in Arvon, though by the look of things on the roads and in Woodglence here, there is much to learn. Tromwyn brought us here, saying that you were a man to know."
"And from whence do you hail? Ah," the innkeeper said and raised a hand, "forgive me. It is you that seek information, not I. I should not have asked."
"No, Master Paerryn, it is a just question. We are from Pelogran, recently. But our business, you understand, we will keep to ourselves. So, what news is there?"
Paerryn nodded, though his eyes narrowed slightly. Tromwyn seemed to sense the innkeeper's suspicion.
"Peace, good innkeep, all is well." Tromwyn smiled and slapped Kal's back gently. "Our young friend here is too modest. In truth, he is son to a Life Guardsman, so he has told me. Son to one Frysan, who quit the Guard rather than turn Mindal, to his credit."
Kal lowered his head. Fear clawed his gut. Beside him, Devved scowled and Galli and Gwyn exchanged quick glances. Instinctively, Kal reached for the grip of Rhodangalas beneath the table, but realized, in the instant, that, even had he his weapon, there would be no fighting his way out of this.
"Indeed? The son of a Life Guardsman?" the thin innkeeper said, raising a bristling eyebrow.
"Aye," Kal said, looking up at the man. "But I think our new friend oversteps his bounds. Come, will you share what news there is to be had, or will you not?"
"Come, come, Kalestor. There is no call to be nettlesome. Tromwyn is trustworthy, as am I. Both of us have seen action in the service of the king, though it be years ago now, eh, Trom?" The blacksmith looked somewhat crestfallen at having been chastened, but nodded his agreement. Paerryn leaned away from the table. "Well, now . . . The news of happenings in Arvon. Its telling may take longer than I have time to afford you."
"We will be grateful for whatever you can spare us," Kal said, forcing a smile and bowing his head in an attempt to humour the innkeeper.
"Very well. As you can see, there are many travellers abroad. Most notable ones, at that. Lord Ferabek has called a council—"
"You would call him 'lord'?" Devved interrupted.
"Aye, it's prudent to do so, given the nature of the times in which we live."
Kal placed a hand on Devved's arm. "My apologies, Master Paerryn. Please, do go on."
"Aye, well, he has called a council—a Convocation he calls it—of all the lords of the counties, clanholdings, and keverangs of Arvon. Many have already passed through Woodglence in the past two days. Many more still may. The council is set to begin in little more than a week's time. It is supposed that he intends to assert his authority. No doubt he'll play the puppet Gawmage until Gawmage is no longer useful. Then he'll dispense of him. And I'd not be surprised if he, with every manor seat in Arvon vacant during the gathering, moves Scorpions to fill them all. Aye, but that's no more than idle chatter, that." The innkeeper paused and again looked behind him over the noise-filled hall.
"And Lammermorn's fallen," he said as he turned back to the table. "No doubt that news, at least, has reached your ears."
"Aye, sadly, it has. And the Talamadh taken as trophy to Dinas Antrum, I've heard also," Kal said.
"Indeed. So not all is news to you, then."
"No, not all is news. But what else of the Boar of Gharssûl?"
"Well, Lord Ferabek has indeed taken the Talamadh to Dinas Antrum. He intends to have Messaan sing the Summer Loosening on it, to begin ten days of pomp, before the council begins in earnest."
"What of the true Hordanu? Any news of Master Wilum?"
"No, none. Only rumours. It is said that the Stoneholding was completely destroyed by Black Scorpion Dragoons, with all who were in it as well. It is said that the High Bard perished there, and that the Great Glence itself is fallen. If that be so, then these are dark days, aye, dark days indeed." The innkeeper fell silent. For a while, no one spoke.
At length Kal broke the lull in conversation. "Aye, these are dark days, darker than any in a long, long while," he said. "But what of the thanes? You said many had travelled this way."
"Aye, thanes and their retainers, their liegemen, their emissaries, and some of them, their henchmen. Look you there . . . ," Paerryn said, pointing with his thumb to a group of revelers dressed in bright blue surcoats, each affixed with the image of a white seabird with wings outstretched. "Calathros. And there," he continued, indicating now a party clad in deep red, each man with a silver mountain embroidered on his chest, "that's the thane of Tanobar and his retinue. Aye, the thanes travel, you see. Here one, there another. Never has Woodglence seen such a fuss and bother.
"Melderenys arrived today . . . ." The thin innkeeper bent his frame over the chair again, settling into a story. "Aye, and there's news there to be told. It seems that tragedy has visited that house. It was the young lord, Lysak his name, that arrived this morning with his men. And a surly lot they are, too." Kal looked up first at Paerryn then at Galli. "Aye, you've heard?" the innkeeper said. Kal shook his head and encouraged him to continue with a gesture of his open hand.
"Well, the young lord has taken his father's place after the old thane was most brutally slain. Word has it that it was their neighbouring seaholding, the Oakapple Isles, that killed him. Uferian, the lord of the Isles, was next to dead himself and only recently restored to health. And a wonder that, too. He, saved from gravest illness. It is he that's been accused of rebelling against Torras—that'd be the thane of Melderenys, or the dead thane, leastwise. Torras claimed all the isles of both seaholdings as his own by right. Uferian murdered him, or so reports seem to claim. Mind you, Kalestor, as the most vocal condemnations come from the new lord of Melderenys, the arrogant strut-cock, Lysak, I have my doubts about its truth. Lysak's too friendly with Gawmage and Ferabek to be trusted.
"Anyway, we've had strangers aplenty in Woodglence these days, so you should be able to pass through here without being noticed, if that's your intention. Just follow the stream of livery down the Westland Road. Or down the Winfarthing, if you prefer. There's more than one pretty boat being decked out for the journey east."
"My thanks, Paerryn, for your intelligence," Kal said, bowing his head to the thin man. "You'll forgive us, however, if we keep our intentions to ourselves. Be content to know that our allegiance lies with the king and the old order of things, and that we are about the king's business, you might say, finishing something that my father began many years ago."
"Aye, that I will, Kalestor," the innkeeper said, then leaned even farther over the chair. "But perhaps you might better share with me than I with you how things fell out in Lammermorn?"
Kal gripped the edge of the table. Beside him, his fellow Holdsmen stirred.
"Master Paerryn," Kal said with slow precision, "I am not sure that I follow your meaning."
The innkeeper pushed himself away from the table and smiled. "Come, Kalestor, I served long in the Life Guardsmen. Perhaps too long. But in my time, I knew but a handful of men named Frysan in the service of the Crown, and only two were highlanders. By the cast of your face, the sound of your voice, I know you for your father's son. And he was no more from Pelogran than I am from Arvisium. If I guess aright, and I'd wager I do, you are of Lammermorn, and have escaped the Boar's rage, if only for the time being."
"Aye, Master Paerryn, you do guess aright, and I'll not play at denying it. I, and a few others, have escaped the destruction of the Stoneholding and the Boar's rage, and we'd like to keep it that way. The Great Glence is fallen and the Hordanu dead. More than that I will not say—"
"Other than that you are about the king's business and finishing the work of a highland Life Guardsman?" The thin man raised an eyebrow.
"I will say no more."
"There is really little more to say. There is little that could be done for a deposed and dead king . . . . But there is one thing you might attempt?"
"I will say no more, Master Paerryn. I ask that you press me no further," Kal said. A strained quiet settled over the table, and the Holdsmen sat, staring at Kal, who was ashen and shaking. Not one day out of Aelward's keeping, he castigated himself bitterly, not one day, and already he had broken the man's sage counsel.
"Whatever it is, whatever you venture, let me join you." Tromwyn broke the stillness, speaking in a hoarse whisper, his black eyes wide and flashing with eagerness.
"No," Kal said, not looking up from the table. "Will you let us depart, Paerryn? Will you permit us to leave now, or will you raise the alarm? Call the guard? Turn us over?" Kal lifted his eyes from the coarse-grained boards to the thin man across from him. "I've no doubt that there is a rich purse offered for our capture."
The innkeeper nodded his head, pushed himself from the chair, returning it to the table behind him, then stood looking down at Kal.
"Aye, mayhap there is," he said, "mayhap there is. But I'll take no gold, not in any amount, from the likes of the Boar. Not for him to do with the rest of Arvon what he's done to your clanholding. Rest you easy on that, Kalestor, rest you easy on that."
"Let me join you, please." The marchland blacksmith leaned towards Kal.
Paerryn's face broke into a smile as he wiped his hands again, wringing them in his apron. "Don't fret, lad, your secret is safe with me. They'd have to stretch this old frame of mine to get a noise out of me—and then it would only be the sound of my bones snapping."
"You'll let me join you? I've nothing here. Kalestor, please . . . To make right an old wrong, let me join you now."
"Tromwyn," Kal said, looking now to the marchland blacksmith beside him. "You do not know what you ask of me."
At that moment, Paerryn straightened. "Ah, I see that Mearie is tending to your more immediate needs." He held out an arm as the boy, Sahn, approached the table with two large platters. These the boy set on the table, one laden with fat sausages, the other brimming with boiled vegetables—potatoes, turnips, carrots, and onions. The boy nodded, excused himself, and scurried off to fetch plates and knives.
"And, so, I leave you to your meal," the innkeeper said with a bow of his head. "Rest assured—I will do what I can to aid you. Do not worry." He looked again at the men around the table, then said to his fellow marchlander, "Tromwyn, would you join me for a moment?"
Kal watched the two marchlanders stand aside to speak with one another as Sahn quietly came and left again.
"What did Paerryn say to you?" Kal asked the blacksmith when he had returned and the men had fallen to their meat.
"Only that I should no longer press my suit with you. He said that yours is a venture that I should not be a part of—but I would go with you. I would help you, however I may."
Kal smiled at the man's earnest enthusiasm. "And I would that you could join us, Tromwyn, but I do not think that Wuldor destines it to be—" A look of surprise sprang to the blacksmith's face. "What is it?" Kal asked.
"Nothing. Only that few now invoke that name."
"Indeed? Would that more folk did."
"Not in these days, Kal. And you might do well to be wary of it, for you'll draw notice to yourself, too," Tromwyn said and turned to the plate in front of him.
The men ate in the silence of their thoughts amid the clamour of the Mourning Crown's patrons. More than once, Kal caught Paerryn casting a glance in their direction while he bustled about the business of the inn. Kal paid it little mind, though. He had garnered from the innkeeper what news he could and had shared with the man more than he wanted. But there was nothing he could do about that now. And nothing he could do but trust that the man would be faithful to his word, although trust, he remembered, had cost him dearly in the past. He looked at his fellow Holdsmen. They would have to be on their mettle now, and they knew it, too, for anxious caution marked the faces of each of them. Gwyn glanced up at him and smiled thinly, then fell back to his food. They would finish their meal, Kal decided, and then he and his companions would leave Woodglence as quickly and as quietly as possible, make for the lowside post, collect the animals, and head northward immediately, tonight, under cover of dark.
They had not but half finished eating when a disturbance at the riverside door to the Mourning Crown attracted their attention. Above the din of the crowded hall, voices were raised, though indistinct. Four men had entered the inn and now stood bullying a group of boatmen that sat at a table near the entrance. One of the newcomers, clearly the leader of the lot, stood by and watched, laughing and egging on his fellows, but before things got out of hand, Paerryn intervened. The leader engaged him, and Kal could tell by the man's gestures that he was making demands of the innkeeper. Paerryn was evidently not intimidated by the abuse, but just when it seemed to Kal that the innkeeper was about to throw them out into the street, he turned and pointed across the room to where the Holdsmen and their companion were seated.
Kal felt the sinking dizziness of panic as the leader called his men to heel and started pushing his way across the room. Closer they came and closer, until, coming to the empty table beside the Holdsmen, they dragged out the chairs and sat down, talking loudly among themselves. The leader ran fingers through his fair hair and pushed his chair back, rocking on its back legs. He placed his booted feet on the table, then commenced to twist the two points of a forked red beard. One of the men, noticing that the Holdsmen had been watching them, leered at the group.
"Eh! What you looking at?" he barked and slammed a fist on the table. His fellows, laughing, turned to look at the Holdsmen and Tromwyn.
Devved began to rise in his seat, but Gwyn laid a hand on his arm, stopping him.
"We've no quarrel with you," Kal said in a level tone.
"Not yet!" the man snapped to continued laughter.
"Aye, not yet. And let us keep it so. You let us eat our meal in peace, and we'll let you eat yours in peace." Kal gave his attention to the remains of his sausage.
The newcomers cursed at Kal, who ignored them. Soon enough, they tired of deriding the Holdsman, turned back to their own table, and began calling loudly for ale to be brought.
"They mean trouble, Kal," Devved leaned over and said.
"Aye, well, they'll find it soon enough, if they're not careful. Do you know these men, Tromwyn?"
"No, I've never set eyes on them before. No doubt they're with some thane. First time in a big town. They'll swag around 'til someone gets fed up with them and knocks them about, clears their thinking for them." The blacksmith grinned.
"Aye, you may be right. All the same, I'd like to be moving on soon. We've got what we came for, and a good meal besides—"
At the table next to them, the conversation had increased in volume.
"Will he be looking for you there?" one man said to the leader.
"N
o, but he'll surely find me. I've as much a right as ever my father had."
"But he had little success in his embassies—"
"Aye, he did have little success," the leader said, removing his feet from the table and leaning forward in his seat. "Little success happens when little action is taken, and he was a man of little action." He sat back in his chair again. "But not me!"
"Nay, not you!"
At that moment, pots of ale were placed before them. These were snatched up and lifted.
"To action, and men of action!" the leader crowed, then drained his mug to the loud approbation of his fellows.
"You see," he said, wiping foam from his whiskers, "one should not waste time in artful negotiation, politicking with the mincing subtleties of court. No, rather, one should—no, one must—take what is his to take. Seize it. Own it. Power is in the will to do . . . . And now he is dead, and I will have what is mine!" A boot heel struck hardwood as he crossed his ankles on the table and rocked back in his chair again.
Kal listened, not looking up, pretending to be engaged in conversation by Tromwyn. Without a doubt, here was a ruthless man. His cruelty was etched upon his face and gestures, and rang from his words like battle-struck sword steel.
Another man pressed his way across the room towards the Holdsmen, but stopped short, breathless, before the other table. He nodded his head.
"Well?" the leader snapped.
"My lord—my lord Lysak . . . ," he blurted and paused to catch his breath. Kal sat bolt upright and shot a glance at Galli and Gwyn.
"What is it, Kal?" Devved asked.
"Shh, later," Kal said, his eyes fixed on the men at the other table.
The leader put his heels against the table's edge and shoved the table skidding away from him. It slammed into the midriff of the man across from him, doubling the man over with a yelp. As the others sniggered, the leader stood and faced the new arrival.
"What news, Hogur, you louse? Out with it now, as you value your hide," he said slowly through clenched teeth, spittle flecking the air, his eyes narrow and his face furrowed in lines of anger. The messenger glanced to the others at table. There was no help for him.
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