“My Lord Duke,” both the midwives gasped, standing back from the bed.
“How goes it?” he asked. “How goes the lady bitch my wife giving birth to her fatherless son of the night?”
The midwives exchanged worried glances. What did he want to be told? Finally the older woman, the senior midwife, spoke as Searlas shot a hard glance their way. “The babe sits wrongly in the womb, Lord Duke. He is twisted about so that his hip blocks the birth canal. We cannot turn him. Your wife has laboured now for close on two days. She cannot go on much longer.”
It wasn’t until the midwife addressed the Duke, that Faraday remembered that Rivkah was the previous Duchess of Ichtar; and the man was her father-in-law, Searlas. Then, as it had her marriage night, the ruby ring pinched her finger. This line deserves to die with Borneheld, Faraday thought very clearly, then blinked, startled. Where had that thought come from? Why did Borneheld’s line deserve to die with him? Why did her ring bite so?
Rivkah looked at her husband. Hate and loathing twisted her lovely face. “I curse the day I agreed to marry you, Searlas. I am glad I dishonoured your name!” A moan escaped her as another pain wracked her body.
“Bitch!” Searlas spat. “You die the death of a careless whore, Rivkah. Wonder, while you lie dying, if your lover was worth your life.”
“Twice and twice over,” Rivkah whispered fiercely. “I would die a hundred deaths for one more hour cradled in his arms!”
Searlas cursed Rivkah so foully that the midwives blanched. Then he leant down and seized her left hand, tearing a ring from her heart finger. “Then give me back what is mine and Ichtar’s,” he said harshly. Faraday caught a glimpse of the ring he held; it was the same one she now wore. The Duke turned to the midwives, pocketing the ring. “I care not if they both die. Don’t save them for my sake.”
Then he was gone. The door slammed behind him so hard it reverberated on its hinges.
The older of the two women, the one who had spoken to Duke Searlas, sat down beside Rivkah on the bed. She took Rivkah’s hand and spoke softly but urgently. “Lady, we can still save your life. Let us dismember the babe. He is surely dead already. If we can remove him from your womb then you will live.” Her voice broke. “Please, let us do this for you!”
Rivkah hauled herself up from the bed and fastened her free hand into the startled woman’s hair. “If you do a single thing to harm the baby I will come back from the grave to haunt you and yours for eternity. Do you understand me? You will do nothing to hurt the baby!”
The frightened woman nodded. “Then try to turn him again,” Rivkah grated, “try, damn you!” The midwife knelt down at the end of the bed and took a deep breath.
The next few minutes were a nightmare. Rivkah’s screams echoed about the chamber until it seemed there was no escaping them. Faraday felt Axis’ whole body convulse in her arms in sympathy with his mother’s agony and Faraday held him as tightly as she could, trying to block the tormented woman’s cries from her own ears against his chest.
Finally the midwife stood up from the end of the bed, her right arm bright with blood to the elbow “Artor knows, it is done,” she said hoarsely. Rivkah was still sobbing in pain and the midwife rinsed her arm and sat down by the woman again, stroking her forehead in a vain effort to soothe her. “He has been turned, Lady. If he is still alive I do not know. If you have the strength, then birth him. But do it quickly or you will both die.”
Rivkah bit down on her lip and strained as hard as she could. The other midwife looked up. “He comes, Marta.” A show of blood stained the sheets about Rivkah’s hips. Marta hurried to help and, moments later, the baby slithered into her waiting hands. “The cord is about his neck,” she said urgently. “Quick, hand me the knife!” She sliced the knife around the cord, releasing the baby’s neck so he could breathe.
With the last of her strength Rivkah struggled onto her elbows. “Please…is he alive?”
The door opened slightly, and the two midwives looked up. What they could see Faraday did not know, but Marta nodded imperceptibly and, seizing a waiting sheet, wrapped it about the baby, blue and still in her hands. She hugged the bundle to her chest. “I am so sorry, my Lady, but he is dead. The cord strangled him.”
Rivkah moaned and held out her hands. “Please, let me hold him! Please!”
But the midwife rose to her feet, clutching the baby close to her. “No, my Lady. Best you do not see him. Come,” she said to her assistant, and the pair of them hurried out of the room without a backward glance.
“Nooo!” Rivkah screamed. “Bring me my child! Bring me my baby!” She half fell out of the bed, trying to reach the women as they passed her, but she was too weak to do any more. She lay there, panting and sobbing, twisted so that her head and shoulders hung below the level of the mattress. Faraday moved as if she would go to her, but Axis held her tight. “No,” he whispered. “I must see what happens now.”
For a moment or two Rivkah hung there, then she pulled herself back onto the bed. “Help,” she whispered to no-one in particular. “Help me! They have stolen my son!” The door slowly swung open and Rivkah turned to look. “You,” she said woodenly, all hope draining from her face. “I might have known it would be you. Have you come to kill me then?”
Two Brothers entered the room, walked over to the bed and stared at Rivkah dispassionately. Neither said anything. They looked at each other, then the larger bent down, wrapped Rivkah in one of the stained blankets she lay on, and picked her up. As they turned from the bed Axis and Faraday had a clear look at their faces. Even Faraday recognised them. Jayme and Moryson.
“You have advised me well,” Jayme said in a conversational tone to Moryson. “We will take her to the foot of the Icescarp Alps and dump her there. Let the crows eat her tainted flesh.”
“Quite,” replied Moryson as they left the room. “We need her no more.”
Faraday released Axis and stood back to look at him. His face was hard and brittle. “If there was a body in the crypt here it wasn’t my mother’s,” he said harshly. “The ravens have undoubtedly picked her bones well-clean by now.” His face turned to Faraday’s. “I trusted that man for almost thirty years, Faraday. He was the only parent I ever knew. And now I find that he and Moryson murdered my mother.”
Faraday started to speak but her mouth was so dry that she had to clear her throat. “Axis, why didn’t they murder you as well? Why keep you alive?”
“I don’t know. But rest assured that one day I will ask them both—just before I slit their throats.”
Faraday leaned close again and hugged him, but this time Axis’ arms hung limp by his sides and his eyes stared into space. The lies that had bound him all his life were shattering about him.
Below them, hidden deep in the shadows, Timozel waited, dark with anger, for Axis and Faraday to emerge from the Retreat. An hour or so ago the old brother had trotted out the door and back up the street towards the fort, but Axis and Faraday remained within. What was she doing in there with the BattleAxe? Only the fact that his Lady Faraday had walked into this building of her own free will kept him from decisive action.
He would have to remind her that her future lay with Borneheld. She was weak, and she needed a strong hand to guide her.
The battles were over. Timozel sat before the leaping fire with his Lord, Faraday at their side. All was well. Timozel had found the light and he had found his destiny.
They drank from crystal glasses, sipping fine wine, Faraday in her wedding gown.
All was well.
Unseen by Timozel, a Dark Man stood behind him, a hand on Timozel’s shoulder.
He was crying with silent laughter.
45
THE GROVES
At the beginning of the third week of Snow-month, four days before the most sacred festival of Yuletide, the GhostTree Clan arrived at the groves of the northern Avarinheim at the foot of the Icescarp Alps. Over the past week they had met up with the last of the other Avar Clans who were m
oving towards the groves and by the time they arrived their group was some eighty strong. Barsarbe cautioned Azhure not to speak with the other Avar until after the Clans had met to discuss her case. Mindful of Barsarbe’s cold eyes Azhure avoided the other Avar Clans, sitting lonely by a small campfire at night while the Avar gossiped and passed news about, joined only by GoldFeather, and occasionally Pease and Shra or Raum. She was glad to have left Smyrton behind her, but daily wished she had found some better way to free Raum and Shra.
Sometimes GoldFeather worried that Azhure was unnaturally quiet, but she had grown into such a reserved woman herself that she easily accepted reticence in others. And since Azhure had revealed the shocking news that the BattleAxe, Axis, was her son, GoldFeather had thought of little else. Rivkah. She thought she had buried Rivkah on the slopes of the Icescarp Alps. Over the past thirty years GoldFeather had rarely let herself think back on her last year of life as Rivkah, burying her old life with her dead son. She had established a new life as GoldFeather, finding a new meaning and a new happiness.
Now she let herself think back to the day when StarDrifter had landed on the roof of Sigholt. GoldFeather had known instantly what he was. An Icarii Enchanter. Although she had listened to the Seneschal’s teachings about the Forbidden, GoldFeather—Rivkah as she had been then—had developed a fascination for the Forbidden in her early teens. A new troubadour had arrived in Carlon, a handsome man with coppery hair, and he spent many days performing before King Karel and his court. But he had also entertained the young Princess, singing songs for her ears alone. Songs about the lost Icarii and Avar and their magical lives. He was a very unusual man, sitting wrapped in a dark cloak even on the warmest days, but Rivkah had been fascinated by the songs he sang…and she had remembered them for years after the troubadour had left Carlon. So she had not been afraid when StarDrifter alighted before her; she had looked up from the baby she nursed, looked into his eyes, and was lost. They had conceived their magical child that day, and both had yearned for the moment when they could hold him in their arms.
But Jayme had deceived her! GoldFeather’s lips curled in fury when she thought of how Jayme had stolen her son and tricked her into believing he was dead. Her grey eyes hardened when she thought of how the midwives had fled the room with her son still breathing in their arms. She had thought that she would have died, except that somehow, from somewhere, enough strength and love flowed into her to enable her to survive her trial on the mountain.
Within two hours of CrimsonCrest dropping to her side and asking politely, with the utmost arrogance, as was the Icarii way, if she truly intended to die beneath his favourite roost, StarDrifter had held her in his arms. Soothing her, loving her, healing her, crying with her at the death of their son, he had carried her personally back to Talon Spike, refusing all help from his fellows. Her healing had taken weeks, weeks during which StarDrifter had not left her side, refused to let her die, refused to let her give in to self-pity. “We have our lifetimes to create other sons,” he would whisper, and in the end GoldFeather had believed him.
Yet neither had ever totally recovered from the loss of a son who had been conceived among the joy of newly discovered love. StarDrifter had been enthralled with the growing babe, spending hours with his hands planted on her belly, feeling his son wake to awareness within her womb. He would sing to him for as long as Rivkah could sit still without her legs cramping, and one day during her sixth month of pregnancy he had lifted his remarkable face from her belly in astonishment. “He sings back!” StarDrifter whispered, amazed. “He sings back to me! Truly, Rivkah, you have conceived a child that will wake Tencendor with his voice!” They had laughed then, but the laughter had died when Searlas had returned. Before StarDrifter could act Searlas had spirited her away to the Retreat in Gorkentown.
GoldFeather had eventually come out of her healing process in Talon Spike with her body completely healed of its injuries. The Icarii Healers had even managed to return the blood flow to her frozen extremities so that she lost none of her fingers or toes. The only sign of her physical ordeal was her magnificent auburn hair which had turned completely silver except for a golden streak where StarDrifter had rested his hand on her brow. But even safe within Talon Spike at StarDrifter’s side GoldFeather could not find complete happiness. The Icarii were a prickly lot with their damnable pride and haughtiness and their obsession with enchantments and mysticism, and though they quickly overcame their initial suspicion of her and tried to be kind, GoldFeather could often sense their pity for her not far below the surface. And StarDrifter’s insistence on taking a Groundwalker for his wife caused more than a few raised eyebrows.
Now StarDrifter and she shared another sorrow. One that they never, never spoke of, yet one that nevertheless caused them deeper unhappiness with each passing year. The Icarii were a race of remarkable longevity. They easily lived five or six times the span of a human or Avar life. StarDrifter was an Icarii Enchanter still early in his life and his natural lifespan would carry him hundreds of years past her death. The knowledge that she would age and die before he had reached the middle years of his life was a knowledge that both refused to ever mention. Already GoldFeather was ageing before his loving eyes. She found that difficult to accept. Part of the reason she was spending longer and longer periods away from Talon Spike with the Avar was her discomfort in the disparity in their ageing and in the as-yet-unconscious pity she could see in StarDrifter’s eyes. It is difficult, she mused, for a human woman to love an Icarii. The love will never last. Already she had doubts about StarDrifter’s continued commitment to her. She sighed. What would she do once she could no longer tolerate the pity in his eyes? GoldFeather shivered and turned her thoughts to her daughter.
Four years after she had joined StarDrifter in Talon Spike GoldFeather had given birth to EvenSong. Her birth brought them great joy and EvenSong was a beautiful daughter, her voice reflecting the soaring notes of the bird she had been named after. She was now approaching her twenty-fifth year, the year of coming of age for the Icarii. Soon she would join the Strike Force for the obligatory five years of military service. Stars help her if she was in the Strike Force during the time of the Prophecy of the Destroyer.
EvenSong had inherited little from her mother; her Icarii blood ran stronger than her human. Though all Icarii children were born as human babes, at about the age of four or five the children started to develop the buds of their wings which, by age seven, were developed enough to carry them. Because of her human blood EvenSong literally had to have her wingbuds coaxed out of her, and when she was a child StarDrifter had spent many a long hour singing to her, stroking her back, encouraging the wings to form.
Would her son have developed wings too, had StarDrifter been there to assist him? Had he inherited the Icarii longevity, as EvenSong had in its entirety? What other Icarii characteristics were coursing about in his blood? He had not forgotten to sing, if he had sung the Song of Recreation for Shra. GoldFeather breathed deeply, thinking of that. No Icarii Enchanter, not even StarDrifter, the most powerful of them all, could sing the Song that well. Yet…Axis…had not had a moment’s training, had not had the benefits of years of preparation and study that all other Icarii Enchanters had. What had she and StarDrifter bred?
Axis. GoldFeather’s mouth slowly lost its hard line and curled softly. What an unusual name. It was not an Acharite name. Who had given it to him? Jayme? She and StarDrifter, like all joyous parents, had discussed names as they waited for the birth of their son, but had left it too late to fix on one or the other. Well, Axis it would have to be. It was, somehow, appropriate.
Now as GoldFeather helped Azhure and Grindle’s two wives set up the tents in the trees beside the groves she fretted for StarDrifter’s arrival. It had been almost three weeks since she learned that her son had not died, and in those three weeks she had not been able to get word to StarDrifter. All her thoughts were now of Axis and StarDrifter. Azhure had told GoldFeather all she knew about the BattleAxe, b
ut it was not much, and it left GoldFeather hungering for more information.
Had GoldFeather not been so lost in her own thoughts and tumbling emotions she would have seen that Azhure was suffering much the same way that she herself had when she first joined the Icarii. All races, whether the haughty Icarii, the suspicious Avar, or the blinded Acharites instinctively regarded newcomers with some degree of intolerance or pity.
Azhure looked about her curiously as they set up camp about thirty paces into the tree line that surrounded the groves. She and Pease were staking down the first tent while Fleat and GoldFeather were starting on the second, lifting the heavy leather covers over the rigid framework of wooden poles. Around them the Avar Clans that had joined them during the last few days were also setting up their tents, and there was an air of suppressed excitement that was impossible to ignore. Both Pease and Fleat had been very quiet since arriving at the groves; even the children moved quietly about the GhostTree camp, helping their mothers clear a space for the campfire and lay out some cold food for a simple supper. Raum and Barsarbe had left to meet with the other Banes, while Grindle and Helm had vanished into the trees almost as soon as they arrived.
Pease noticed Azhure looking about and smiled at her. “You have felt the excitement, haven’t you?”
Azhure nodded. “Everyone seems very quiet, though. I would have expected, oh, I don’t know, people greeting each other, exchanging news, that sort of thing. The Clans don’t normally meet together very much, do they?”
Pease shook her head, sucking her thumb to relieve the sting where she had caught it between one of the leather thongs used for tying the tent flaps down and a tent pole. “No. We only congregate in these numbers for the Yuletide and Beltide Meets. This evening we will all gather in the Earth Tree Grove and exchange greetings and news. Tidings will have to wait until then.”