"Wrong on two counts, Devved," Kal said as he turned to his companion. "It was not for pity's sake that you broke cover and committed us to battle on the road. And say not 'us,' for it was not your tender conscience that bore the terrible weight of that moment." Kal raised himself to full height from the rail of the sloop, his demeanour grown stern. "Do you really think that Aelward stood there idle and unfeeling? That he wasn't racked by the choice laid balanced before him? And do you really think your pity overmatches his? Or mine?"
"No . . . I-I don't. Of course not. That's not what I meant."
"Still less can you claim that pity moved you when you slew Lysak. Tromwyn was already dead. He was beyond human help when you let fly."
Devved tossed the bit of yarn into the waters churned by the ship's hull, following its swirling progress with his eyes until it was lost from sight. He sighed heavily and lowered his eyes, rocking his head slowly from side to side like a bull preparing to charge.
"I needed to act, Kal. You don't understand. It was overpowering. I wanted to make them pay, and pay dearly."
"I understand, Devved. I feel the sting of Tromwyn's death. If only he would have listened to me and fled right away. Or I could've brought him along and then we could have put him ashore once we'd reached safety. But once he was dead, you didn't reckon on the evil you might bring upon the House of Uferian, did you? What price might he now have to pay for your rashness, sharing in the taint of Lysak's slaying?"
Devved started from the rail, hammering it with his fists, as though it were his anvil, and turned on Kal. "The whoreson slit his throat laughing, Kal! Slaughtered him right before our eyes—"
"I know. And the image haunted my dreams last night. But who gave you warrant to be both judge and executioner?" Kal met the blacksmith's defiant stare. "No, Devved. You were bent solely on revenge. Revenge, pure and simple. Your very anger in this moment betrays you. And blinds you."
Devved clenched his teeth, his neck and face crimson and corded with barely contained rage. "You have no idea, Kal. No idea. The blood lust—how it comes over me. It's like a craving, as strong as aught else I've known in life."
"As strong as your honour? As strong as the good faith you bear to the memory of your loved ones—wife and children?"
A cry caught in Devved's throat. He gripped the crown of his head with two hands and seized fistfuls of hair. He seemed about to tear the dark thatch from his scalp, but his fingers relaxed and slid down his face until they caged his eyes. His hands trembled.
"I'm sorry, Kal," the blacksmith said at length, peering at the younger Holdsman through his fingers. "What's happened to me, I don't know. The rage within me . . . The raw desire to repay them in kind, to settle the balance . . ."
"The problem is," Kal said, "the more you feed revenge, the more ravenous it grows. It is like a beast within your breast. Its hunger is never sated. And, Devved"—Kal laid a hand on the man's shoulder—"if you commit yourself to the path of revenge, you'd best dig two graves." Devved glanced at Kal. "Aye, for sure as night follows day, the path of vengeance leads to two graves, your enemy's and your own. It is a course that will be the death of you, even as you mete out death upon your enemy." Kal paused a moment and glanced over the water to the other sloop. "And in this particular course, if you choose to continue down it, you'd best be digging a third."
"A third grave?"
"Aye, a third grave, and a generous one at that . . . for your friends."
Devved looked taken aback and scratched his head, brows knitted and face pensive. "I-I'm sorry, Master Kalaquinn. I haven't been thinking straight. My head's been in a fog, in a storm of my own making. I've let my passion get the better of me."
"Your baser passions are the issue, Devved. Not your grief. Nor your love for those you've lost. The strength of your grief and love is good. It marks your depth and measure as a man, a Holdsman stout and true. Why else, do you think, did I choose you as a companion for this journey?" Kal pressed the big man's shoulder.
"I hope you've haven't chosen amiss, Master Kalaquinn. There were others . . . Others might have served you better."
"No, no, Devved. It's you that I've chosen, and you that I need—that we all need, for we rely on one another."
Devved bowed his head. "Many thanks, young Master Hordanu. I pray I will not fail you again." Even as he spoke, the blacksmith's stomach growled in protest of the morning's hour and its emptiness.
Kal smiled at his companion and nodded. "Now go quell that angry stomach of yours, Devved. You'll find the galley well-provisioned."
Devved bowed his head again, and politely took his leave, his courtesy not disguising the struggle the man fought within himself, a struggle that revealed itself in the dark expression that had settled on his face. The big smith turned away and strode back to the quarterdeck.
Kal glanced over to the other sloop. There Gwyn stood on deck, waving in greeting. Kal lifted his hand in brief reply, then moved back to the rail, where he leaned, looking pensively over the gunwale. His eyes drifted upriver to a barge laden with lumber, its mainsail taut against the rising wind, which was freshening from the west. The stiffening breeze caressed his face and hair. In the sky above the barge, a gull struggled against the gust with fluttering wings. Suddenly, it stopped resisting and turned, so that it flew now without effort before the wind, its wings outstretched and graceful on the draft.
Clever creature, Kal mused, choosing not to spend itself fighting a facing breeze but rather to use the opposing winds to its own advantage. And so shall we—he smiled wryly at the thought—so shall we not fight the winds of fate's caprice that have driven us from our intended course, but harness them, and so tame them to our own purpose!
It had been a good decision, a natural decision to improvise, to seize upon and exploit the new circumstances into which they had been thrown. Kal's thoughts turned to the evening before, to the bizarre twining string of events that left them shipboard and bound downstream towards Dinas Antrum, the very heart of Arvon—and the very heart of danger.
Straightaway, as breeze and current carried them downriver into the night, he had held hurried conference with Galli and Gwyn, Devved having stolen away below deck in stony silence. The events that had befallen them at Woodglence presented them with an opportunity, Kal averred, and though it meant changing the course of action they had agreed upon at Aelward's Cot, they would have been foolish not to use it to their end. Galli had been of the same mind, as was Gwyn.
Then, even as the Holdsmen whispered one to the other, Uferian had approached. He had been profuse in his gratitude. He had claimed that he stood now in great debt to Kal twice over—not only for his own life, but for that of his daughter. In words of sweeping generosity, Uferian had laid his every resource at Kal's disposal. Though unspoken by Uferian, it had become evident to Kal that the king had recognized in him something more than an itinerant and seafaring highland bard.
Kal had asked leave of Uferian to continue downriver with the king and his retinue, and allowed that he and his fellows had intended to head north through the Marchlands to the Dumoric coast. Uferian had been more than delighted to accede to Kal's request and had agreed to carry them however far they wished along the river.
Later, it had been a growing excitement that blunted the edge of Kal's anxiety as much as the Arvisian wine that the king had insisted upon sharing with his guests and new companions, in token of their agreed-upon arrangement. Bethsefra had been in attendance, her face radiant in the lantern light, her green eyes luminous, as she, time and again, regarded Kal with a steady gaze. The evening had slipped away as the Winfarthing's waters slid beneath the ship's hull. Too soon, it seemed to Kal, had the companions been compelled to bid good-night and retire for the night, Gwyn and Galli to the other sloop for reasons of space and lodging, and Kal to a private berth below deck, in which he had tossed and turned, resolving a new plan in his mind.
Now the two boats rounded a steep bluff. Kal started from his reverie. He
found his eyes fixed in amazement on the starkly changed landscape that now marked their passage. Crude hovels sprawled across dust-ridden fields right down to the banks of the river. Ill-clad women milled about the decrepit buildings, children in tow, carrying water pots or tending open cooking fires. Kal wrinkled his nose. The air had turned acrid. A massive building came into view, its walls uneven with roughly dressed stone, the roof covered with grimy slate, belching smoke from half a dozen enormous chimneys. Around it thronged a busy hive of men, countless in number, shirtless and smeared with toil. Some were loading donkey carts with ingots of metal, hoisting them on wooden cranes and tackle from huge piles in a sprawling workyard. Others drove the loaded carts into the dark recesses of the building. At a wharf before the building, a barge, dangerously overladen with slabs of wood, was only just docking. Before it had even come to rest, a caravan of wagons descended upon it, and a small army of men began to strip it of its cargo.
"Welcome to Medue, Kalaquinn."
Kal turned at the sound of the voice.
"My lord Uferian, good morning." Kal inclined his head in greeting to the king, who wore a cloak against the coolness of the morning, his thick silver hair framing a face as weathered and austere as his home seat at Swanskeld.
"It wasn't long ago that it used to be one of the most charming towns on the Winfarthing, believe it or not. Not long ago at all. When I was a lad, in fact."
Kal's eyes strayed back to the industry and squalor that spread in seemingly equal proportion along the riverbank.
"What happened, you ask?" Uferian said, a half-smile on his face. "The Mindal, that's what happened. That's an ironworks"—the king pointed to the towering edifice—"and there, a smelter, just ahead of us around this bend in the river. It provides the raw iron blocks you see laid up there. They decided to build them here, using forced labour—forced mostly from any folk impolitic enough to grumble against their policies, and those that have been taken off their land on account of the mines."
"The mines?"
"Aye, iron mines. It was discovered that the land north of the Winfarthing close to Medue was rich with ore. The people were driven from their farms. Good dark soil it was, too. Fed half of Arvon. But that didn't matter to the Mindal."
"And close enough to the river for ease of shipment," Kal said.
"Aye, that and with wood enough to feed their furnaces from the vast forests of Rootfall Frith. They lie near to hand as well. The manufactories make mostly armaments—swords, shields, pikes, armour, anything you care to name—and send them downriver to Dinas Antrum for their own lowland levies. For Ferabek's armies, as well."
"And make a tidy profit for themselves in doing so, I'd wager," Kal said.
"Aye, that they do. It is the perfect place for their schemes." Uferian watched the foundry loom over them and slip past as the ships glided along the Winfarthing. "And speaking of schemes, Kalaquinn, have you given further thought to your own plans, and where you might want to be disembarked? I was thinking myself that Queen's Hythe would serve you well, if you want to travel overland to the coast—plenty of wild, hidden country around the Lake of Swallows for you and your companions to pass unnoticed to the north."
"Actually, my lord, I've been considering another way."
Uferian looked at the Holdsman with open curiosity.
"I've been thinking long this past night," Kal said. "I think that we will remain with you on board all the way to Dinas Antrum. That is, if you'll have us."
"To Dinas Antrum? But that's madness, Kalaquinn. Much as I'd like to prolong the pleasure of your company, you'd be marked as a highlander—as a probable enemy—the moment you stepped foot in the city. You'd be entering the very lair of the Boar."
"With all due respect, so will you, my lord. These days a seaholdsman's hardly more welcome than a highlander to them that hold the reins of power."
"But I am King of the Oakapple Isles, a thane of Arvon. I and my retainers enjoy immunity of person under the Truce of Convocation that holds force in Dinas Antrum. Not Gawmage, nor even Ferabek himself, dares break faith with the custom of the Truce."
"Which makes this plan of mine all the easier."
"Easier?" Uferian's face furrowed in a frown, his brows knit, shadowing the crow's feet that spread in deeper lines around his eyes.
"Aye, easier, my lord, much easier than travelling roundabout over hard terrain to the Dumoric Sea."
"But how so then easier, man?" The king scowled.
"Forgive me, my lord Uferian. I do not mean to speak in riddles. It's just that I balk at my request for fear that I should impose more than is meet upon your goodwill. I would not have you add kindness upon kindness to friends such as we that are but newly met and untested."
"Untested? Having twice rendered me life-saving service?" Uferian clapped a hand on Kal's back, and his bearded face broke into clean lines of laughter. "For a highlander bred far from the smooth-tongued arts of the city, you are the very soul of subtle court craft, Kalaquinn. Come, out with it then! Tell me your plan, and tell it to me plain."
"If my companions and I . . . If we were to wear your livery, my lord, and make as though we are of your court, we'd share in that protection provided your entire retinue under the Truce of Convocation. We would have the freedom of the city. It would afford us a way to quietly gain passage on one of the many vessels that are sure to be bound for Gorfalster by way of Lake Lavengro."
"Ah, so it's to Gorfalster you're bound?"
"Aye, my lord." Kal's heart beat faster, and he took a breath, trying to assuage the recurring twinge of fear and doubt that he had revealed too much. In the assurance of his heart, however, he knew that the man before him was a man he could trust. "It is to Gorfalster that we—"
Uferian raised his hand to stop Kal, turning his head to the side. "Say no more, Kalaquinn. Your argument carries much force. Sometimes it's to one's best advantage to be bold and so hide in the plain sight of one's enemy." The king stroked his beard and nodded with decision. "Yes. Good," he said. "Consider the matter settled between us. I'd be honoured to have you wear the silver swan of the Isles. We have court garb to spare in the locker. The ship's master, Voiquan, will see to your apparel."
Once again, Kal expressed his thanks to Uferian. The king demurred, saying that it was but a little thing in balance of the debt he owed Kal. Then, pleading the infirmities of age to excuse himself, he withdrew to his cabin, leaving the young Holdsman to his thoughts.
A strange uneasiness had settled over Kal, prompting him to doubt the soundness of the line of argument he had used with Uferian. There were deeper motives to his decision, he realized, veiled motives he had not ventured to voice aloud. Most immediate was a sense of responsibility and protectiveness towards Uferian, born of the possible repercussions arising from Devved's vengeful slaying of Lysak. The venerable seaholdsman might have need yet of their four stout sword arms in his defence, for Kal wondered how much stock could wisely be placed in the Truce of Convocation in a world roiling with the faithless intrigue of power politics, a world increasingly bereft of loyalty and honour. And if Uferian were to stand pressed and in need, beleaguered in Dinas Antrum, so, too, would his daughter, Bethsefra.
"Stand by to gybe!" The words rang out across the deck. Kal looked up from the glistening ripple of the water. Before them, a headland loomed over the river, forcing a turn to starboard. With questioning eyes, Kal turned from the rail and looked to the seaholdsman who had given the command. It was Voiquan, the man whom Uferian had mentioned, and he had noted Kal's glance.
"We're running before the wind, lad. A stiff river wind. We must trim sails and make ready our helm," the seaholdsman said. "In mainsheet!" he cried again.
One of the deckhands pulled on the line that controlled the mainsail, bringing in the boom amidships, letting the great spread of canvas go slack. Kal glanced back to the steersman, who bore away, putting up the helm. For a moment the sloop drifted dead before the wind. The boom wavered listlessly until wind ca
ught the other side of the sail and Voiquan shouted another command. The mainsheet was played out, and the sail billowed again.
"Opposite helm!" At Voiquan's words, the steersman put down the helm, and the sloop veered past the jutting point of land into the middle of the Winfarthing.
"Ah, Gloamseeker. She's a fine ship. Handles like a charm," said Voiquan, standing above the main hold hatch. He beamed at Kal.
"Gloamseeker?"
"Aye, that's her name. Uferian's father had her built. Years ago, when Uferian was still a youngling. Kept her berthed at Woodglence for trips downriver to Dinas Antrum. Used her any time he crossed the mountains from the Isles. Old Nastraf named her Gloamseeker. He meant it to have a double edge—the name, see?" Voiquan nodded and winked at Kal knowingly. "Gloamseeker . . . Aye, it's a word on the state of affairs in Dinas Antrum. Even back then, he had a low opinion of the way things were unfolding there. He could see the signs, right enough, he could. It turns out there was more than ample reason for his fears." Voiquan wrinkled his nose and looked away towards the riverbank at another building, one even more immense than the forgeworks, belching huge clouds of black smoke from its chimneys, the surrounding landscape bleak with misshapen heaps of slag skirted by milling swarms of sweat-grimed men and draught animals.
"A smelter?" Kal asked.
"Aye, that it is, a smelter. Provides the iron for the forgeworks just back of us," Voiquan replied, then turned to face Kal again. "Well, it was Nastraf's son, Uferian, who put the craft to good use. Drawn to the bustle of Dinas Antrum was he. As you'd expect from a young man. As for Nastraf, he came to avoid the lowlands. Preferred the measured peace of Swanskeld and the waters around the Isles. Spent his days exploring. Now there was a sailor bred to the bone. Loved the sea. So my grandda told me, when I was a lad. He was Nastraf's ship steward. Performed service like mine. On Gloamseeker here, same as me. Ah, but she's a well-built ship, a ship that trimmed well in my grandda's time. Trims like a beauty now."
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