“Attacking all the Aspects was a diversion,” he said. “They only intended to kill one of them.”
“Perhaps, or perhaps two. In fact if you apply the theory more widely it could be that you were the intended victim and the Aspects merely incidental.”
“Is that your conclusion?”
She shook her head. “All theories require an assumption, in this case I assume that whoever orchestrated this attack was seeking to damage the Orders and the Faith. Simply killing the Aspects would of course meet this end, but new Aspects can be appointed to replace them, like Aspect Tendris Al Forne, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that his ascension has driven a wedge between the Orders. Damage has been done.”
“You’re saying the whole attack was aimed at elevating Al Forne to Aspect of the Fourth Order?”
She raised her face to the sky, closing her eyes as the sun warmed her skin. “I am.”
“You speak dangerous words, Highness.”
She smiled, her eyes still closed. “Only to you, and I do wish you’d call me Lyrna.”
The promise of power wasn’t enough, he thought. So now she tempts me with knowledge. “What did Linden call you?”
There was only the smallest pause before she turned away from the sun to meet his gaze. “He called me Lyrna, when we were alone. We had been friends since childhood. He sent me many letters from the forest so I know how much he admired you. My heart ached to hear…”
“Love must risk all or perish.” He was aware that his voice was hard with anger and his face set in a fierce glower. He was also aware that she had stopped smiling. “Isn’t that what you told him?”
It was only for a moment, but he was sure something like regret passed across her face, and for the first time there was uncertainty in her voice. “Did he suffer?”
“The poison in his veins made him scream in agony and sweat blood. He said he loved you. He said he had gone to the Martishe to win your father’s approval so you could wed. Before I slit his throat he asked me to give you a letter. When we gave him to the fire I burnt it.”
She closed her eyes for a second, a picture of beauty and grief, but when she opened them again it was gone and there was no emotion in her answer: “I follow my father’s wishes in all things, brother. As do you.”
The truth of it lashed at him. They were complicit. Murder entangled them both. He may have resisted loosing the bowstring but he had placed Linden in the path of the fatal arrow, just as she had set him on the road to the Martishe. It occurred to him this may have been the King’s plan all along, sordid murder binding them together in guilt.
He knew now his enmity for her was a deceit, an attempt to avoid his own share of blame, but even so found himself holding to it. She is cold, she is scheming, she is untrustworthy. But more than that, he hated the lingering hold she had over him, her effortless ability to engage his interest.
There was the faintest glimmer of something behind her eyes then as he realised the intensity of the gaze he had turned on her. Fear, he decided. The only man who can make her afraid.
He bowed again, guilt mingling with satisfaction in his breast. “By your leave, Highness.”
Sister Gilma was plump and friendly with a quick smile and bright blue eyes that seemed to sparkle continually with mirth. “In the name of the Faith, cheer up brother!” she had said when they first met, tweaking Vaelin’s chin with a mock punch. “You’d think the cares of the Realm were on your shoulders. Brother sour-face they call you.”
“Are you really sure you want a healer attached to the regiment?” Nortah had asked.
Sister Gilma laughed. “Oh I see I’m going to like you!” she said in her thick Nilsaelin brogue, giving a Nortah a punch on the arm that was less playful.
Vaelin had concealed his disappointment that Aspect Elera hadn’t seen fit to appoint Sister Sherin in answer to his request, although he was hardly surprised. “Whatever you require will be provided, sister.”
“It better be.” She laughed. In the month since he noticed she tended to laugh when she was being serious, employing a humourless tone when indulging her weakness for gentle but effective mockery.
“Another two broken arms today,” she told him with a chuckle and wry shake of her head as he entered the large tent that served as her treatment room. Four men were lying abed, bandaged and sleeping. Another two were being tended by the assistants she had insisted on recruiting from the ranks. To Vaelin’s surprise she had chosen two of the pressed men from the dungeons, slight fellows with quick minds and careful hands who would probably have made poor soldiers in any case.
“Keep driving these men so hard and there’ll be few left to face a battle a month from now.” She was smiling her bright smile, blue eyes twinkling.
“Battle is a hard business, sister. Soft training will make for soft soldiers who will in turn become soft corpses.”
Her smile faded a little. “Battle is coming then? There will be a war?”
War. The question was on everyone’s lips. It had been four weeks since the King had summoned the Fief Lord of Cumbrael and no answer had come. The Realm Guard had been confined to barracks and leave cancelled. Rumours flew with alarming speed. Cumbraelins were massing on the border. Cumbraelin archers had been seen in the Urlish. Hidden Denier sects were plotting all manner of hideous Dark fuelled villainy. Everywhere the air was thick with expectation and uncertainty, making Vaelin drive the men as hard as he dared. If the storm broke they had to be ready.
“I know no more than you, sister,” he assured her. “Any more pox cases?”
“Not since my visit to the ladies’ encampment.”
An outbreak of pox amongst the men had been traced to a camp of enterprising whores recently established in the woods a scant two miles away. Fearing the Aspect’s reaction to the news of a nest of whores so close to the Order House he ordered Sergeant Krelnik to put together a squad of the more trustworthy men to evict the women and send them back to the city. However, the old soldier had surprised him by hesitating. “Are you sure about this, my lord?”
“I’ve got twenty men too poxed to train, sergeant. This regiment is under the command of the Order, can’t have the men sneaking off to… indulge their lust in this way.”
The Sergeant blinked, his grizzled, scarred face impassive but Vaelin felt sure he was suppressing a grin. There were times when talking to the sergeant he felt himself a child giving orders to his grandfather. “Erm, with respect, my lord. The regiment may belong to the Order but the men don’t. They ain’t brothers, they’re soldiers, and soldiers expect to be shown a woman now and again. Take away their… indulgence and there could be trouble. Not saying the men don’t respect you, my lord, they surely do, never seen a bunch as terrified of their commander as this lot, but these fellows ain’t exactly the cream of the Realm and we’ve been working them pretty hard. They get too hacked off they could start taking to their heels, hanging or no.”
“What about the pox?”
“Oh the Fifth Order’s got remedies aplenty for that. Sister Gilma’ll sort it, get her to pay a visit to these women, sort them in no time she will.”
So they had gone to Sister Gilma and Vaelin had stammered out a request whilst she regarded him with an icy visage.
“You want me to go into a camp full of whores to cure them of the pox?” she said coldly.
“Under guard of course, sister.”
She looked away, closing her eyes whilst Vaelin fought the desire to flee.
“Five years training at the Order House,” she said softly. “Four more on the northern border assailed by savages and ice storms. And what is my reward? To live amongst the dregs of the Realm and tend to their doxies.” She shook her head. “Truly the Departed have cursed me.”
“Sister, I meant no offence..!”
“Oh good!” She said, beaming suddenly. “I’ll get my bag. The guard won’t be necessary, though I’ll need someone to show me the way.” She arched an eyebrow at Vaelin. “You
don’t know it do you, brother?”
He grimaced at the memory of his stuttering denial. Sergeant Krelnik had been right, the incidents of pox fell away quickly and the men stayed content, or as content as they could be after weeks of training under his brothers’ bruising tutelage. He opted to forget to appraise the Aspect of the incident and there was a tacit agreement it was not discussed amongst the brothers.
“Is there anything you need?” he asked Gilma. “I can send a cart to your Order House for supplies.”
“My stocks are sufficient for now. Master Smentil’s herb garden has been a great help. He’s such a dear. Been teaching me to sign, look.” She made a series of signs with her plump but nimble hands that roughly translated as: I am a bothersome sow. “It means ‘My name is Gilma.’”
Vaelin nodded, his face expressionless. “Master Smentil is a gifted teacher.”
He left her with the wounded and went outside. Everywhere men were training, clustered in companies around brothers struggling to impart skills learned over a lifetime in the space of a few months. It was an often frustrating task, their recruits seemed so slow and clumsy, ignorant of the most basic tenets of combat. So much so that his brothers had complained bitterly when Vaelin forbade use of the cane. “Can’t train a dog if you can’t whip it,” Dentos had pointed out.
“They’re not dogs,” Vaelin replied. “Not boys either, most of them anyway. Punish them with extra training or menial duties, cut their rum ration if you think it appropriate. But no beatings.”
The regiment was now at full strength, numbers swelled by the pressed men from the dungeons and a steady flow of new recruits who, true to the king’s prediction, had been drawn to a soldier’s life by Vaelin’s legend, some having travelled great distances to enlist.
“More times than not it’s the rumble in a man’s belly makes him enlist,” Sergeant Krelnik observed. “This lot seem hungry only for the glory of serving under the Young Hawk.”
As the weeks passed the training began to take hold, the men growing visibly stronger, aided by a healthy diet which many had never known before. They stood straighter and moved faster, handling their weapons with greater skill, although they still had much to learn. Gallis the climber soon recovered much of his physique, his spirits brightened by repeated visits to the whores’ camp. He became one of the regiment’s characters, ever-ready with a cynical quip to draw laughter from his comrades, although he was wise enough to curb his tongue during the training sessions. The brothers may have been forbidden the cane but they knew a thousand ways to hurt a man in the tumble of a sparring match. Most gratifying for Vaelin was their discipline, they rarely fought amongst themselves, never questioned an order and there had been no attempts at desertion. He was yet to order a flogging or a hanging and lived in dread of the day when he had no option. War will be the test, he decided, recalling the miserable months in the Martishe and the many men who had chosen to risk escape through the Cumbraelin infested forest rather than face another day in the stockade.
He found Nortah teaching the bow to a group of their more burly recruits. All newly enlisted soldiers had been tested at the butts and most found wanting, the more keen–eyed collected into a company of crossbowmen, but a few had shown sufficient skill and strength to warrant further tuition. They numbered only thirty or so, but even a small number of skilled bowmen would be a valuable asset to the regiment. Nortah again proved an able teacher; all his charges could now sink a shaft into the centre of the butt from forty paces and one or two could repeat the feat with the rapidity only usually displayed by brothers of the Order.
“Don’t kiss the string,” Nortah told a student, a brawny fellow Vaelin recalled from his trip to the dungeons. His name was Brak or Brax, a renowned poacher before the King’s wardens had caught him quartering a freshly felled deer in the Urlish. “Get the arrow back behind your ear for every loosing.”
Brak or Brax forced the extra effort into his muscles and let fly, the shaft striking home a few inches higher than the bulls eye. “Not bad,” Nortah told him. “But you’re still letting the stave swing out after you loose. Remember this is a war bow, you’re not hunting game with it. Get that string back as quick as you can.” He noticed Vaelin’s approach and clapped his hands to get the attention of his company. “All right. Move the butts back another ten paces. First man to hit the bull gets an extra inch of rum tonight.”
He turned to give Vaelin an extravagant bow as his men went to move the butts. “Greetings, my lord.”
“Don’t do that.” Vaelin glanced at the men, joking and laughing as they worked their shafts from the butts. “They’re in good humour.”
“With good reason. Plenty of food, rum every day and cheap harlots a short walk through the forest. More than most of them could ever hope for.”
Vaelin took a close look at his brother, seeing the familiar haunted look that had continued to cloud his eyes ever since their time in the Martishe. He seemed tired and distant when off duty, taking an excessive interest in the various rum-based concoctions the men would brew of an evening. Not for the first time Vaelin found himself on the verge of telling him the fate of his family but as ever the King’s order stilled his tongue. He seems so aged, Vaelin thought. Not yet twenty and he has the eyes of an old man.
“Where’s Barkus?” Vaelin asked him. “He’s supposed to be teaching the pole-axe.”
“In the smithy, again. Hardly away from the place these days.”
Since their return from the Martishe Barkus had lost his reluctance to work metal, presenting himself to Master Jestin and spending many an hour in the smithy helping to fashion the new weapons needed by the regiment. Master Grealin’s armoury was extensive but even the racks of weapons in the vaults were insufficient to arm every man and still provide for the Order’s needs. Vaelin did not object to Barkus taking up the hammer once again, especially since it seemed to make him so happy, but found it irksome that it took him away from his duties with the regiment. He would have to speak to him, as he had to speak to Nortah.
“How much did you have last night?”
Nortah shrugged. “Stopped counting after my sixth cup. Slept well though.”
“I’ll bet.” He sighed, hating the necessity of saying what he had to say. “I don’t begrudge a man a drink, brother, but you are an officer in this regiment. If you must get drunk, please do so out of sight of the men.”
“But the men like me,” Nortah protested with mock sincerity. “‘Come sup with us, brother,’ they say. ‘You’re not like the Young Hawk. We’re not scared shitless of you, oh no.’ They even invited me to come roger some whores with them. I was touched.” He laughed at Vaelin’s appalled expression. “Don’t worry, I’ve not quite sunk that far. Besides, from what I hear a visit to the camp will most likely leave a man with a fire raging in his britches.”
Vaelin decided it best not to enlighten Nortah with the news that the pox outbreak was now under control. He nodded at the bowmen. “How long till they’re ready?”
“In about seven years they’ll be as good as we are. Think the Cumbraelins will give us that long?”
“I can only hope so. I meant will they stand? Will they fight?”
Nortah looked at his men, his haunted eyes distant, no doubt picturing them in battle, hacked and bloodied. “They’ll fight,” he said eventually. “Poor bastards. They’ll fight all right.”
Chapter 5
He was dreaming of the Martishe when Frentis came to wake him, back in the clearing listening to the maddening enigma woven by Nersus Sil Nin. But now the red marble pattern of her eyes was jet black, like the stone that sat in the empty socket of the one-eyed man. The warm summer sun that had bathed the clearing in his vision was gone now, the ground thick with snow, the air cutting with its chill. And her words, whilst still mysterious, were cruel.
“You will kill and kill again, Beral Shak Ur,” she told him with a sickening smile, small points of light gleaming in the black orbs of her eyes. “You wil
l witness the harvest of death under a blood-red sun. You’ll kill for your faith, for your King and for the Queen of Fire when she arises. Your legend will cover the world and it will be a song of blood.”
He was kneeling in the snow, his hands entwined on the hilt of his dagger, the blade slick with blood that shone black in the moonlight. Behind him there was a corpse, he could feel its heat seeping away into the snow. He knew the face of the corpse, he knew it was someone he loved. And he knew he had killed them. “I didn’t ask for this,” he said. “I never wanted it.”
“Want is nothing. Destiny is everything. Your are a plaything of fate, Beral Shak Ur.”
“I’ll choose my own fate,” he said, but the words were faint, empty, a child’s defiance to an indifferent parent.
Her laugh was a mocking cackle. “Choice is a lie. The greatest of lies.”
Her spite-filled features faded as a hand shook his shoulder. “Brother!” He came awake with a start, Frentis’s pale, worried face swimming into clarity through clouded eyes. “There’s a messenger here,” his brother said. “From the palace. The Aspect wants you.”
He dressed quickly, forcing the lingering nightmare from his mind as he made his way to the keep. He found the Aspect in his rooms reading from a scroll bearing the King’s seal. “The Fief Lord of Cumbrael is dead,” the Aspect told him without preamble. “It appears his son, his second son, has murdered him and claimed Lordship of the Fief. He calls for all loyal Cumbraelins and true servants of their god to rally to him and throw off the hated oppressor and heretic King Janus. He orders all adherents of the Faith to leave the Fief or face righteous execution. Reportedly some are already burning in their bonfires.” He paused, watching Vaelin’s face closely. “You know what this means, Vaelin?”