They kissed again, this time more slowly. Gaise felt unsteady and drew her back to the chair. Then he sat and gently pulled her to his lap. His arms were around her, and he could feel the firmness of her body beneath the green waistcoat. For the first time in his life Gaise Macon felt all his worries and concerns melt away. All but this moment seemed insubstantial and meaningless. Wars, battles, enmities became small, inconsequential matters. He felt he had been granted the gift of a great truth. Their lips parted, and Cordelia kissed his cheek and his brow. Gaise sighed and closed his eyes. Then their lips met again. In those few moments the castle walls of his secret loneliness crumbled away. The cold disregard of the Moidart and a life bereft of close physical contact became a ghostly memory of the past. This was the present, and it was joyous.
In full ceremonial dress of floor-length crimson cloak and tunic emblazoned with the tree of life Winter Kay, his head masked by a black full-faced helmet, strode through the corridors of Baracum Castle’s east wing. Behind him came six other Redeemers similarly clad. Two of them were dragging a small, slender man dressed in a nightshirt of heavy white silk.
All the Redeemers carried swords. Blood dripped from the blades.
Winter Kay did not look down on the bodies that lay sprawled in the corridor. He walked down the circular steps to the eastern dining hall and through it to the hidden panel before the broad staircase leading to the lower levels.
There other Redeemers were waiting. Silently they fell in step behind their lord. Two Redeemers were waiting at the arched double doors leading to a second staircase. As Winter Kay approached, they dragged open the doors.
In the Redeemer hall below, the walls decked with blood-red banners, places had been set at the table. Crystal goblets of red wine stood in rows, awaiting the assembly.
Winter Kay took his place at the head of the table. Lifting the black visor of his helmet, he raised a goblet. Then he waited as the crimson-garbed warriors took their places. “The will of the orb,” he said, his words echoing in the vaulted room.
“The will of the orb,” they repeated. Then each drained the wine.
Winter Kay raised his hand and gestured to the two Redeemers holding the prisoner. The little man was dragged forward. He tripped and fell to his knees. “Lift him,” commanded Winter Kay. “A king should not be made to kneel.”
The little man drew himself up. There was a deep bruise on the side of his face, and blood from his broken nose had stained his pale, wispy mustache. The fourteenth king of the Varlish people looked into the face of Winter Kay. “Not made to kneel?” he said, his voice shaking with anger. “He can be dragged from his bed and brought to a place of murder but not made to kneel? You are a monster, Winterbourne. Foul and treacherous.”
“Ah, my liege,” said Winter Kay, his words echoing with regret, “I and these gallant men around us have served the nation well and loyally. We continue so to do. Who was it that plunged the Varlish people into civil war? Who was it that made a covenant with Luden Macks, offering greater powers to the people’s assembly, and then broke his word and had Macks sentenced to death? Not I, Majesty. Indeed, tonight this tragic war ends. Tonight Luden Macks will be dead or his power destroyed.”
The king looked around at the Redeemers, who had once more pulled down the black visors. Each one was embossed with a bearded, demonic face so that all the warriors looked identical. “Well might you all cover your faces,” said the king. “Cowards will always find something to hide behind.” He swung back to Winter Kay. “As to you, your talent for self-deceit is colossal. You blame me for the arrest of Luden Macks. Was it not you who supplied the information that he was plotting against me? Was it not you who railed against the covenanters, calling them traitors?”
“They were traitors, and you made them so with your vanity and your stupidity,” said Winter Kay. “And now it is time for you to pay for your crimes.”
“I should have listened to Buckman,” said the king. “He warned me you were a wretch.”
“And there is the problem,” said Winter Kay. “The epitaph for an idiot king: I should have listened. You did not. Now your day is over, and your house is ruined. It is time to join your wife and children.”
All color drained from the king’s face. “You killed . . . ? Sweet heaven.”
“I see the full effect of your actions has finally found its way into your thick skull. Yes, my liege, your wife and your two sons had to suffer for your sins. Their deaths were swift and relatively painless. Yours will not be. Your death and the flow of royal blood will enhance an object of great holiness. Through it we shall rebuild this land and enter an age of golden hope and true fulfillment.”
Winter Kay gestured once more to the Redeemers alongside the king. Taking his arms, they dragged him to the rear of the hall. Broken by the news of his family’s fate, he did not at first struggle, not until they laid him on a blood-encrusted length of timber and a third Redeemer stepped into view bearing an iron mallet and several iron spikes.
He screamed as the first spike was hammered through his wrist.
For Winter Kay the sound was eerily musical. He felt his body relax and his mind free itself of burdens. The screams continued as other spikes plunged home. Then the timber was hoisted into place. Unlike the unfortunate Lord Ferson, the king was crucified upside down, his head only a few feet from the marble floor.
Someone laughed then. Angry that such a ritual should be marred by such behavior, Winter Kay swung around to see the source of the amusement. The king’s white nightshirt had slipped down over his head. Winter Kay strode to the victim and drew a knife, cutting away the garment, which he hurled to one side.
Returning to the table, he opened the black box that had been set at his place and removed the velvet-covered skull. Holding it lovingly in his hands, he walked back to the king and gently laid the skull on the ground beneath his head.
“Now it begins, my liege,” he said softly as he sliced open the flesh of the king’s throat, carefully avoiding cutting deeply into the main arteries. Blood ran over the monarch’s face and into his hair, then dripped and splashed onto the skull beneath.
Winter Kay stood and raised the knife high. “The new age begins, my brothers,” he said. “Let us pray.”
11
* * *
The Wyrd of the Wishing Tree woods rose from her chair at the bedside of Call Jace. The once powerful Rigante leader was sleeping fitfully. Saliva drooled from his twisted mouth. On the other side of the bed Chara Ring reached out and stroked her father’s face. Then she looked up at the Wyrd, her eyes questioning. The Wyrd shook her head and gestured for Chara to follow her from the room.
“There must be something you can do, some magic,” said Chara. “I cannot bear to see him like this.”
“The damage to his brain is permanent, Chara. I cannot restore it. He will not survive more than a few days. Already his spirit is weakening, as if he knows he will be naught but a cripple.”
“Are there not herbs to aid him?” persisted Chara. “I know you never liked him. He told me that. He said you thought him to be too much like the Varlish.”
“Whisht, child! If I was at the bedside of the dying Moidart, I would heal him if I could. I was not given this gift so that I could make judgments about who to save. Also, despite the fact that you are right about me not liking him, I do love him. I love all the Rigante people. If I could restore his health, I would, child. That I promise you.”
Chara looked into her green eyes, then sighed. “I am sorry,” she said. “That was wrong of me. It is just . . . he was so powerful. It seemed to me that nothing could ever lay him low.”
“Aye, he was a man of great strength and great appetites. Those appetites laid him low. His liver has all but been destroyed by the quantities of Uisge he has consumed. Even had the stroke not paralyzed him, he would not have seen out the year. I am truly sorry, Chara.”
“I’ll sit with him awhile,” said Chara sadly. “There are things I want to s
ay. Can he hear me?”
“I think that he will.”
Chara turned away and reentered the bedroom, quietly closing the door.
The Wyrd drew her shawl around her slender shoulders and walked out to the gallery steps and down into the wide hall below. Scores of clansmen were waiting there, but by the door she saw the hulking figure of Draig Cochland. She moved toward him and noted that he looked away, embarrassed.
“How are you faring, Draig?” she asked him.
“I am well, Dweller. You?”
“I have known better days. What are your plans?”
“Chara has offered me a job at Ironlatch. A job.” He laughed nervously. “I have never had a job.”
“Perhaps it will suit you.”
“Aye, and perhaps not.”
“What is troubling you?”
“Who said I was troubled?”
“Do not play games with me, Draig Cochland. I am the Dweller by the Lake. I know these things.”
“I don’t feel right here, Dweller. Like a spare prick at a wedding, if you take my meaning.”
“Delicately put.”
“What? Oh. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You don’t offend me, Draig. What you have done has made me proud. You should be proud, too.”
“Yes, well, I’m not. If I could do it all again, I wouldn’t. I’d have my brother with me, and we’d be safe and warm back home.”
“I think you are wrong, Draig. If you did have your wish granted, you would have set out alone. Regret your wasted life of stealing and whoring, by all means. Do not allow yourself to regret the one great action of your life. You are a hero, Draig. Not many men can say that. Three lives will be lived out because of your deeds.”
He reddened and shuffled his feet. “How is the great Jace?” he asked.
“Dying.”
“Nah, he’ll pull through. He’s tough. He’s Call Jace.”
“He is a man, Draig. Death has called for him.”
“Seems like the whole world is changing,” he muttered. “Nothing is as it was.”
“There’s truth in that,” she replied, moving away and out into the night.
Rayster was standing in the moonlight, his long cloak fluttering in the breeze. He seemed to the Wyrd to radiate loneliness. He turned as she approached. “How long?” he asked.
“A day. Perhaps two.”
“Was he my father, Dweller? I often wondered. I felt close to the man.”
“No. He was not your father, Rayster. Why are you not inside with the others?”
“I prefer my own company at such a time. How is Chara taking it?”
“Badly. There is no other way.”
“First Jaim and now Call Jace. It seems all the great highlanders are leaving us.”
“You are one of the great highlanders, Rayster. Kaelin Ring is another. Then there is little Feargol, who killed the bear. If he lives, he will be great, too.” They stood in silence for a while, staring at the clouds drifting over the mountains. “The nights are getting warmer,” she noted.
“Aye. It will be good to see the sunshine and watch the flowers grow.”
Reaching out, she took his hand. “If ever you decide you need to know about your parents, just speak to me.”
He shrugged. “What does it matter, Dweller? I am who I am. I am Rigante, and that counts for much.”
“The desire to be Rigante is what counts,” she said.
Hundreds of miles to the southeast the first drop of the king’s blood splashed to the yellow bone of the skull.
The Wyrd staggered back and cried out.
Rayster rushed to her side, supporting her just as she began to fall. “Are you ill?” he asked.
“Move away from me,” she whispered, her eyes wide and staring toward the south. She began to tremble. Rayster moved back a pace, worried now. “Farther back,” she said, waving her arm at him.
As he watched her, Rayster saw the wind begin to billow her white hair. Her shawl fluttered out, then blew away from her, flipping in the air. Yet where Rayster stood there was no wind, merely a slight cooling breeze. The Dweller leaned into the gale all around her and cried out in a language Rayster had never heard. Then she toppled to her knees and fell. Rayster stayed back no longer. Running in, he knelt by her, lifting her unconscious body from the cold ground.
Inside the great roundhouse someone shouted. Rayster carried the Dweller inside and saw men running up the stairs. He thought at first that Call Jace had died. Laying the Dweller upon a long, leather-covered couch, he touched her neck, feeling for a pulse. Reassured by the steady beat under his fingers, he left her there and followed the men upstairs. Several women were standing in the doorway of a bedroom. Rayster eased his way through the crowd. Little Feargol Ustal was sitting on the floor. A large bed had been upended and was resting against the wall. Rugs were scattered everywhere, and a blanket was hanging from a ceiling rafter. Rayster moved into the room.
“What happened, little man?” he asked.
Feargol look up at him. “The man with the antlers came,” said Feargol, tears in his eyes. “He brought a storm with him.”
Rayster knelt by the boy. There was a deep bruise on his cheekbone and a small cut on his brow. He was trembling, and Rayster took him into his arms, lifting him from the floor.
Moving back through the crowd, Rayster saw the fear in their eyes. “The boy is possessed,” he heard someone say.
Ignoring the comment, Rayster carried Feargol downstairs. The Dweller was conscious now. Rayster took the boy to her.
“What is happening here, Dweller?” asked the clansman.
“Darkness and death,” answered the Wyrd.
Taybard Jaekel always enjoyed night duty. It was cold and lonely, but it meant freedom from the social interactions of the day. His thoughts could roam, his mind relax. It was not that Taybard did not enjoy the company of friends like Banny and Kammel Bard or even that he disliked sitting in taverns with his comrades. It was just that the night was so tranquil.
He had hunkered down in the small garden outside Gaise Macon’s cottage, his cloak and an extra blanket around his shoulders, and his thoughts were all of home. Much had changed for the young rifleman in the last four years, and at times he looked back on the wildness of his youth as if viewing the life of someone else entirely. He had been loud then, and arrogant, looking down on highlanders and seeing himself as a Varlish, proud and unconquered. It was such grand nonsense. Almost all the Varlish in Old Hills had highland blood. The pure-blooded folk of Eldacre town referred to them contemptuously as “kilted Varlish.”
On this night Taybard found himself once again thinking about Chara Ward, the only girl he had ever loved. She had been murdered. Her killers had been found slain and mutilated some days later. One of the men had been a friend of Taybard’s named Luss Campion. Even now it was incomprehensible to Taybard. Luss had grown up with Chara, children together, playing in the meadows behind the shop of Apothecary Ramus.
No one had ever discovered who had killed Campion and his uncle, the vile Jek Bindoe. Many thought it to be Jaim Grymauch, the one-eyed highland warrior. Taybard knew this was not so. Jaim might well have killed them, but he would not have mutilated them afterward.
At times like this Taybard would imagine what life might have been like had he and Chara married. They would have had children by now. Perhaps a girl and a boy. The boy would be like me, thought Taybard. Only I would not let him become loud and arrogant. Taybard sighed. Even had they married, where would they have lived? He had no skill and would have sought work as a laborer. They would have ended up in rat-infested rented rooms in Eldacre.
Taybard pushed himself to his feet and strolled out to the gate. There was no movement on the roads, and even the wild dogs were silent. Taybard recalled that several of them had been killed the previous day as meat grew scarce. At some point during this war I guess I’ll find out what dog tastes like, he thought. He glanced across to the low wall. Kammel Bard w
as lying on the snow fast asleep, his blankets drawn up tightly under his chin.
If Lanfer Gosten or Captain Mulgrave were to come by, Kammel would face a flogging for sleeping on duty. That did not seem to worry Kammel. He was a man of little imagination who believed the whole world was more stupid than he. The world would be in a harsh and dreadful state were that to prove the case, Taybard thought, with a wry smile. Kammel’s Emburley rifle was beside him. He had at least thought to place it under the blankets with him but had then turned over in his sleep, exposing the weapon to the elements. Taybard walked over and retrieved the weapon. There was snow on the flash pan cover, but the barrel was clear. With nothing else to do, Taybard returned to the doorway, cleaned out the flash pan, and recharged it with fresh powder. Then he laid the rifle against the inner wall of the small porch.
He had spent the last two days on scouting trips and had seen a large number of troop movements. It seemed odd to him that so many men were on the move during a truce, but then, the army rarely seemed to operate along lines of logic that Taybard could understand.
He was just starting to wonder about what role he would have in life when the war was over when he saw Lanfer Gosten running down the street, another man behind him. Taybard left the porch and ran across to the sleeping Kammel, nudging him with his boot.
Kammel grunted and opened his bleary eyes. “What the hell?”
“Lanfer is coming.”
Kammel rolled to his knees as the burly sergeant arrived at the wall. He was breathing heavily. “This man says he has urgent news for you and the general,” said Lanfer, casting a hard glance at the soldier beside him. “Wouldn’t tell me a damned thing.”
“I need to talk to the Gray Ghost,” said Jakon Gallowglass. “And it better be pretty quick or we’ll all be dead.”
Gaise Macon listened in silence as Jakon Gallowglass reported the surprise attack that was planned. The soldier had sneaked away into the trees as the column had advanced through woods not three miles from Shelding. He had then run all the way there. Gaise thanked him, then ordered Lanfer Gosten to rouse the men from their billets. He also sent Taybard Jaekel to summon Mulgrave.