Besieged (61 page)

‘The deep-bonding.’ In this state, it was hard to speak. ‘It’s all or nothing.’

He covered her hand with his, and went to lower his defences.

‘Wait.’ She wanted to set her gift free, but... ‘Bonding with me will complicate things for you. You’ll have to hide it from your own brotherhood. If the news gets out, it’ll make you a target for men like Kyredeon.’

‘He’s not my all-father. Chariode’s brotherhood is strong.’

‘I don’t want to put you in danger.’

‘It’s all or nothing.’

She smiled. ‘If we do this, there’s no going back.’

‘There never was any going back.’

Imoshen allowed her gift to meld with his.

S
ORNE HOBBLED INTO
King Roitz’s hunting camp, carrying a bundle of firewood on his back. The servants were busy preparing for the midsummer feast. With his head down and the scarred side of his face turned towards them, the men-at-arms did not look too closely; they were too busy watching each other for the first sign of betrayal.

After spending the better part of a year making his way across the kingdom, Sorne had confirmed the rumours. Roitz could not trust his own barons. He’d executed two in the last three years and confiscated their estates. King Roitz went in fear of the men he had once commanded, and had taken to consulting seers and oracles. His last oracle had been executed by the king’s two Khitite bodyguards when she failed to predict an assassination attempt.

Sorne adjusted his protruding stomach. Tucked into the padding around his waist was the orb of power he’d acquired in Khitan all those years ago. It would not glow until it touched both of his hands. It was part of his oracle disguise.

No one in Welcai associated the scarred, white-haired, half-blind cripple – he’d adopted a limp – with King Charald’s advisor, the Warrior’s-voice. If he kept his hands hidden and the hood shaded his good eye, no one realised he was a half-blood.

In the days immediately after leaving Maygharia, Sorne had been sorely tempted to sail back to Chalcedonia and confront Charald, but he’d set himself a duty and he’d come to appreciate anonymity. Norholtz had died in the uprising, killed by his Maygharian queen and, as far as Charald knew, Sorne had perished with him.

So he no longer had to fear assassins.

Leaving his firewood with the rest of the pile, Sorne leaned on his staff and followed his nose to the cooking fire. The king had invited his five surviving barons to go hunting with him and celebrate the midsummer feast. Tonight there would be much drinking and roistering. The cook took pity on Sorne and gave him a chunk of bread to eat while the venison roasted.

As he sat by the fire, he listened to the servants talk and learnt that the camp was teetering on the edge of violence. Roitz and his barons had agreed to bring no more than fifteen men-at-arms each to the midsummer feast, but they’d made sure all their servants were sturdy young men, able to wield a knife or a cudgel.

Sorne wandered through the camp, chewing on his bread. All around him, men-at-arms drank and boasted while eyeing each other, their hands never far from their weapons. Spotting Roitz’s banner, Sorne fed his bread to a horse and hobbled over to the tent.

‘The king will want to see me,’ he said, speaking Chalcedonian with a Khitite accent.

‘And who might you be?’ a man-at-arms asked. A veteran of the wars, he was older than Sorne and missing most of the fingers on his left hand.

‘A seer.’

‘Wait here.’ The veteran went into the tent.

‘What’s in store for me?’ his young companion asked.

‘Give me your hand.’

Sorne accepted the proffered hand and leant forward to sniff the palm. ‘There was a scarred man.’ Everyone over fifteen was scarred around here. ‘He touched his sword hilt when he met your eyes today.’

‘How’d you know?’

Because it was a common mannerism.
‘He’ll come after you before dawn.’

The youth swore and pulled his hand back.

‘The king will see you now,’ the veteran told Sorne. ‘But I warn you, if one of the barons has paid you to stab him, the king’s bodyguards will gut you, slowly.’

Sorne lifted his bandaged hands. ‘I’m unarmed and crippled.’

As he went inside, he heard the youth telling the veteran what the seer had said, and hid a smile. The camp was tinder ready for the flame.

Two sturdy Khitites stood in the shadows behind the king. Roitz had known Sorne when he served King Charald but the former baron didn’t recognise the broken man before him now.

Tilting his head so that the lamplight fell on his scarred eye socket, Sorne studied King Roitz. Drink, fear and constant worry had aged him. His eyes kept darting about the tent, and the slightest noise made him jump.

‘You’re certainly ugly enough to be a seer,’ Roitz said. He had started roistering early; two pretty girls went to serve him wine, but he pushed them both aside. ‘What can you tell me?’

‘Give me your hand.’

Sorne made a performance of kneeling, groaning as though his body ached. Tonight was one of his better nights, his belly hardly pained him. He accepted the king’s hand, bent low and sniffed. One of the girls made a disgusted noise.

‘I see... a cell with bars, lit only by moonlight. I see a captive woman with copper hair and wine-dark eyes...’

The king pulled his hand back, swearing softly under his breath. Roitz licked his lips. ‘What about this woman?’

Sorne held out his hand again. He did not speak until the king’s hand lay in his. Then he swayed and moaned. ‘There are several men, four... maybe five. They laugh when they see she cannot get away. They take turns with her. One of them, I cannot see his face, puts his hands around her throat and strangles her.’

‘Ferminzto,’ Roitz whispered. ‘What about her? What is she to me? All this happened more than a decade ago.’

‘She is here, tonight.’

‘What?’ Roitz jerked back.

The girls both gave squeals of fright and darted away to crouch in the shadows. The Khitites shifted from foot to foot, infected by the king’s fear.

‘What’s she doing here?’ Roitz asked.

Sorne tilted his head, as if listening. Then he shrugged. ‘Makes no sense. She has no eyes, yet she says she came to watch you die.’

‘The barons are coming to kill me.’ Roitz lurched to his feet, turning to the Khitites. ‘Go quickly, out the back. Rouse my men.’

They hesitated, glancing to Sorne, who slid both his hands inside his robe, cupped the orb and held it at chest height. As it began to glow through his vest material, he began to babble in T’En. Crying for help and cursing... as he imagined the she-Wyrd would have done.

The girls wailed and fled from the tent. The Khitites drew their weapons and followed them, leaving Roitz alone.

Roitz sank to his knees, moaning.

After a moment, Sorne heard shouting, and then the clash of metal on metal, as seething tension erupted in violence. He let the orb slip down into its padded pocket and flicked back his hood. ‘Why did you take her eyes, baron?’

Roitz lifted his head, took one good look at Sorne, then gasped, clutched his chest and pitched over. He jerked twice, then lay still.

Sorne checked, but there was no pulse.

Satisfied, he replaced his hood, picked up his staff and hobbled out the back of the tent.

I
MOSHEN PEERED THROUGH
the gap in the awning. A dozen lantern-lit, richly-decorated barges floated on the dark lake, while music and laughter drifted across the water. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘You’ve never been out on the lake on midsummer’s night?’ Ardonyx asked as he ran a hand down her bare thigh.

‘You know I haven’t.’ She shivered and felt him harden against her buttocks. The melding of their gifts enhanced and shared every sensation. It was intoxicating, and rather overwhelming.

This was only the third time they had managed to escape alone together. Yet, tomorrow... ‘I can’t believe you’re going to sail off tomorrow.’

‘Strictly speaking, I am going to ride off. I can’t set sail until I reach–’

She thumped him. They wrestled, laughing softly. She let her gift rise and felt the moment his responded. He sensed her sorrow.

‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Blame your sisterhood. I can’t risk Captain Iriane making it through the northern passage before me–’

‘How long will you be away?’

‘No more than two years.’

‘Two years?’ She could not bear it. Not when the bonding was so fresh and intense. To make matters worse, in two years’ time, her choice-son would be seventeen, just before winter’s cusp.

She hadn’t told Ardonyx of Egrayne’s plan to make her all-mother, hadn’t suggested he become all-father. ‘If you find the southern passage, you’ll return with so much stature you could become all-father.’

‘If I wanted to paint a target on my back.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, Chariode is honourable. What kind of man would I be if I swore loyalty to him, then undercut him?’

Imoshen had to admit he was right. If he could kill to satisfy ambition, he wouldn’t be the man she loved. ‘I want to change the way we live, but I’m not talented like Rutz.’

‘Rutz, that silly dreamer?’ He cupped her cheek. ‘You are Imoshen the All-father-killer. You’ve already changed the way we live.’

‘For the worse.’ Tears stung her eyes. ‘And not by choice.’

He kissed her. ‘I wasn’t here when the all-mothers made your sanctuary conditional on killing Rohaayel. When I came back, it was all the brotherhoods could talk of, that and the injustice of the covenant, the way it divides us.’

‘I bet they talked of how they hated me.’

‘Many did,’ he conceded. ‘But the thinkers could see the underlying problem. Four hundred years of custom had made us blind to it. The wrong had to be exposed before we could begin to devise ways to fix it.’

‘The day Kyredeon’s warriors killed the healer’s sacrare daughter, I was so angry, I felt the covenant was justified.’

‘Her death shamed us all. We should not have to live in fear, not the sisters and children, not the brothers.’

‘It’s been years since Rohaayel died, and we’re still divided.’

‘These things take time.’

‘You...’ Imoshen smiled and propped herself on one elbow. ‘Who would have thought? Rutz, the biting satirist, is secretly an optimist.’

He laughed.

‘So, is it true?’ she asked. ‘Is Rutz more than a wordsmith, capable of crafting a clever rhyme? Can he imbue words with power?’

Ardonyx rolled his eyes. ‘If Rutz could imbue words with power, do you think he’d be a lowly sea captain? He could rule the T’Enatuath, the world even.’

‘Only a madman would want that.’

He threw back his head and laughed.

Imoshen watched in wonder, as happiness formed a bright ball in the centre of her chest. She savoured the moment; it would have to last a long time. Tonight, when she went back to the palace, she would memory-share with her devotee, while everything was fresh in her mind. That way, it would be preserved.

Frayvia was covering for her tonight. Egrayne did not know Imoshen was out of palace. The list of suitable T’En men for trysting had been returned with no names selected. Ardonyx hadn’t been on the list. She was glad. She didn’t want anyone suspecting they shared the deep-bonding.

Ardonyx was an optimist, but she...

‘Where have you gone, Imoshen?’

‘I’m right here, with you.’ For tonight. ‘Student-she is going to miss student-he.’

He took her hand, placing it over his heart and opened the link again. ‘Student-he loves student-she far more than he should.’

She laughed and he silenced her with a kiss, but she suspected he was right.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Year 319

S
ORNE CURSED.
I
T
had taken almost a year to get to this point, but it had taken only a moment of overconfidence to undo everything.

He’d travelled through the kingdom of Dace into Navarone, where he’d searched for news of Barons Bazajaun and Ferminzto. They’d fled Chalcedonia, when Charald returned as High King of the Secluded Sea. Taking their families and loyal men-at-arms, they’d crossed the pass into Navarone.

When Nitzane’s brother, King Dantzel, turned down their offer to help him conquer Chalcedonia, the barons had taken to the foothills of the Navarone Mountains. Like all landless men, they’d faced a choice: serve other men or serve themselves. They’d become bandits, which meant he had to follow the trail of their raids. No one had heard of a bandit leader called Ferminzto, but Bazajaun was well known. Sorne tracked his band of men until he finally wandered into their camp, late one evening in early summer.

There’d been sentries, but they hadn’t bothered to stop a blind, lame beggar. Eyes bandaged, back bent as he leant on his staff, Sorne picked his way through the tents. With its fierce women, quick-fingered children, scrawny goats, raucous chickens and mangy dogs, the camp was a roving village.

After leaving Roitz’s hunting camp, Sorne had earned his way by telling futures, never staying long enough to be proven a fraud. The ploy had served him well, and he planned to use it again.

Bazajaun the Bandit led the most successful of the fugitive barons’ bands. The locals described him as cunning, capable of executing daring raids on estates and merchant caravans. He was also described as ruthless, often using cruelty to prevent the locals from betraying his band’s whereabouts to the king’s men.

The last time Bazajaun had seen him, Sorne had been a half-blood youth of seventeen, skin soft as a girl’s. He approached the bandit leader’s tent, confident he wouldn’t be recognised, and that his ruse would get him close to the baron. Every man was curious about his future. Time spent in Bazajaun’s company would reveal his weakness. Every man had one. He’d exploit Bazajaun’s, learn where he kept the she-Wyrd’s hair and...

There it was. Sickened, Sorne stared at the bandit’s banner. The she-wyrd’s hair hung long and thick, glinting copper as it stirred in the breeze. His gut clenched with sorrow and anger. He could grab the hair and be off, escaping across the foothills of the Navarone Mountains. But, after seeing what Bazajaun’s men did to the last merchant caravan, Sorne had decided to kill the baron, then retrieve the trophy, before going in search of Ferminzto.