Blood and Memory (22 page)

She growled now into his ear. “Because, damn you, Aremys of Grenadyn and your constant interference, I am Wyl Thirsk.” Wyl shoved the burly man away.

Aremys staggered forward, clutching his arm, but managed to turn and face his companion. Faryl looked like a wild animal—he half expected her to pounce again and felt sure that if she did it would be for the last time—he would take his final breath on this earth as she slashed her knife across his throat.

She was breathing hard and there were tears in her eyes. “Leave me, Aremys!”

But he could not. He was too shocked. Stupefied by her whispered words, he risked her wrath still further. “Faryl…please?” His voice was gruff, thick with alarm and emotion.

“My name is Wyl,” came the bitter reply, and he watched Faryl turn away to hide her grief.

He left her alone for a few minutes so that both of them might steady themselves. Finally he walked toward her, clutching at the wound in his arm, which was really protesting now.

“Please explain it to me.” He was begging, he realized, adding, “I want to help.”

“Help?” she said sadly. “All I ask is that you leave Ylena be.”

Aremys swallowed. “I promise you I will not permit a hair on her head to be harmed—not as long as I can draw breath to protect it.”

He watched Faryl or Wyl—whoever it was—turn slowly and he saw a new gleam in the feline eyes. He read it as hope.

“On your honor?”

He nodded wearily. “I’ll make a blood oath if you wish it.”

“And in return?”

“Your whole story.” He held up his hand at the retort he could see coming. “And I will help you to achieve whatever it is you are setting out to do.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, too confused. “Because it was wrong of me to turn you over to Jessom.”

“You owed me nothing. I’m sure he paid well.”

“Not enough for my loyalty. You have that—not that I really understand who it is I pledge such loyalty to.”

Wyl reached for the bladder of water and handed it to Aremys. “Here, drink some. Then you had better sit down and listen well.”

If Aremys thought he was a man who had seen and heard it all, he was sorely mistaken. As the full tale of Wyl Thirsk unfolded, the mercenary felt his head begin to spin with the startling notion that he was now in the company of three people.

It was done. Both sat within a post-cathartic silence and watched the bees buzz merrily about them, crawling into and out of the bright yellow and orange wildflowers at the edge of the stream. Sparrows chittered overhead and a frantic blackbird, clearly with a new nest of fledglings to fatten up, busied himself nearby.

Spring is here, Aremys realized absently. “Thank you,” he murmured, not trusting himself to say much more.

“Now I will definitely kill you if you betray me,” Wyl threatened, feeling similarly awkward yet vaguely relieved that the story had been shared.

Aremys breathed deeply. “I have pledged my loyalty to you. It is not given lightly—no man has ever had it before.”

“I’m grateful that you consider me a man,” Wyl said with relief.

The mercenary snorted. “And I wanted to sleep with you.”

Wyl was lost for a response and they both laughed, embarrassed, which surprisingly helped diffuse the awkwardness.

Aremys did not want to let the laughter go. “You know you’ve got the greatest tits?”

Wyl lifted one of Faryl’s eyebrows. “Apparently.”

“I don’t suppose—”

“Certainly not!” came the indignant reply and more healing laughter. “I don’t own them—I’m…er…I’m simply the caretaker.”

“Who else knows?”

“A boy called Fynch, whom I trust implicitly. An old woman—a seer—who first sensed I possessed this strange magic within me. Mind you, I don’t know if she still lives. Her niece, Elspyth, who I hope has already found Ylena,” he said wistfully before adding, “and a brave warrior from the Razors.”

“A mountain dweller?”

“His name is Lothryn and I believe he gave his life to save mine.”

“You believe? You don’t know if he’s dead?”

Wyl shrugged. “I hope he is.”

Aremys eyed his companion with a look of surprise.

“I suspect death is far preferable to his probable fate at the hands of Cailech,” Wyl answered, obvious sadness in his voice.

Aremys did not push. “So Queen Valentyna thinks you’re dead?”

Wyl smiled wryly. “Well, I am really. Her friendship was with Romen Koreldy. Faryl of Coombe is his murderer.”

“And the Queen knows nothing of this enchantment or the magic that has touched your life?”

Wyl shook his head. “I believe Fynch has tried to talk to her about it, but Briavellians are even more closed to magic than Morgravians. It was not so long we ago that we still hunted down, tortured, and burned suspected witches. Briavel simply doesn’t accept that such power exists. No, I don’t think she could comprehend the truth.”

“I’m finding it pretty hard myself,” Aremys admitted. “But I believe you—there is too much that was odd about you not to believe it.” He was still trying to come to terms with the fact that the person sitting before him had inhabited the body of the infamous Romen Koreldy from his own island.

“Do you ever feel them?” he asked.

Wyl looked up at him. “Romen and Faryl?”

“No, your tits.”

At this Wyl exploded into laughter. Aremys took immense pleasure at this, for in Wyl’s strange existence, there seemed little, if anything, to smile about.

“It’s good to hear you laugh,” the big man said.

“Haven’t had much to laugh about in recent weeks.”

“I did mean the others,” Aremys admitted sheepishly.

“Yes. They are always present, but more as a spiritual remnant of themselves. I can tap into some of their memories, although those fade very fast, but strangely I possess their skills and much of their learned knowledge. Still there is plenty that is lost to me. Wyl Thirsk just takes over.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Get your arm stitched.”

“Wait. Before I turned you over to Jessom, you were headed for Baelup. What was there?”

“Ah, yes,” Wyl said, sighing. “I was trying to track down Myrren’s mother. I still will once Ylena is safe. I’m hoping the mother may shed some light on my situation or lead me to where I might find out more.”

“You’re hiding something,” Aremys said. “Remember, the whole tale, you promised.”

Wyl nodded, struggling against his reluctance. “I’ve learned that the man Myrren’s mother was married to was not Myrren’s true father. I need to find her blood father. The old seer from Yentro I spoke of—Elspyth’s aunt—said he would tell me more about this so-called gift I’ve been given.”

“Is it dangerous for you to travel to Felrawthy?”

Wyl shrugged. “No more so than to Baelup.”

“But you’d rather be tracking down Myrren’s father than chasing across the realm for your sister, who you already admit may well be in safe hands.”

“I can’t be sure about that, not with Celimus hunting her down.”

“But he’s not. I am. Celimus is under the presumption that he’s already sent off his agents and I suspect he will not dwell on it further for now.”

Wyl looked puzzled. “What’s your point?”

“I’ll go after Ylena. You find Myrren’s father.” There was a silence and Aremys knew what Wyl was thinking. “You can trust me. I will protect her with my life.” Then he unexpectedly added, “I had a sister but she died in an accident. My father had left her in my care. I was the youngest of the brothers, so it was my job. But I wanted to go hunting with my father and the rest of the boys, so I left Serah in what I thought was a safe place in the woods.”

Wyl was listening intently now—so it was not just he who had secrets. “Go on.”

“She was killed. A wild pig gored her. I’m not sure it wouldn’t have killed both of us, but I have still never forgiven myself for deserting her. I’m not sure my family ever did either,” he added quietly.

“Forgive me, Aremys. That’s a shocking story. But I’m still uncertain of why you feel obliged to fight my battle,” Wyl admitted.

“Perhaps if I shared the whole truth with you, it might be more clear,” the mercenary replied. “My father is a noble. We were visiting Pearlis many years ago as a family. I would have been around ten, my sister just four summers old. Celimus was perhaps eight.”

“Celimus!”

“Yes, I’m afraid we both have reason to hate the King of Morgravia.”

“And?” Wyl encouraged, mindful of Aremys’s saturated sleeve. Thankfully the bleeding had been stanched again.

“My father and brothers were invited to hunt with the royal party. My mother, bless her, was asked to bathe with the court ladies. Coming from Grenadyn, none of us had seen such resplendence as Stoneheart offered, so she asked me to look after Serah for a couple of hours. Play with her, she said. Keep her safe.” Aremys looked to the sky and grunted. “As soon as mother’s back was turned I took Serah to the woods where I wanted to be. I was furious that I couldn’t go on the hunt and blamed Serah. Along came Celimus and his friends. They told me they were going to beat sticks in the woods higher up where the wild pigs roamed and see if they couldn’t coax out their own game to hunt.” Aremys shook his head. “It was stupid but we were just boys, eager to be grown-up and keen for our fathers’ respect. It didn’t occur to me that Serah wasn’t safe. I joined the trio of friends and suffice to say we not only flushed out a pig but we also made him angry enough to stampede straight into Serah’s path.”

“Shar’s Wrath, man! And Celimus doesn’t know who you are?”

Aremys shook his head. “I wasn’t important enough to remember, and besides, at that age my parents called me Remy. He hasn’t made the connection. I spent years planning how I was going to kill him. I blamed him, you see. When I was old enough, I realized the folly of youth. I was not going to kill the heir to Morgravia and I am certainly not going to kill its new king. Instead I bleed him of the money he loves so much.”

It all fell into place now for Wyl. “You!”

Aremys looked abashed. “I’m afraid so.”

“You told them where the taxes would be coming from,” Wyl stammered. “You guided Rostyr and his men.”

“It’s true. And I’ll continue to find ways to make the King’s life miserable while all the time helping myself to his coffers doing some of his dirty work.”

“But those seven men?”

“All deserved to die. They were corrupt.”

Wyl could barely mask the sarcasm. “A selective assassin.”

“You could say.”

Wyl smiled grimly. “Well, I’m not so forgiving as you, Aremys. I aim to bring about Celimus’s downfall.”

Aremys grinned back. “And I will help you. I hate him as much as you. Do you believe my loyalty now?”

Wyl nodded. “Let’s get you sewn up and then go find my sister. Both of us.”

Duke Jeryb’s estate was a series of elegant buildings, running off the main two-story house. It sprawled amid a glen, protected on all sides by picturesque hills, flanked on its north by a small forest.

The family had a long and close history with the Crown and a reputation as fearless defenders of the north. In days gone by, previous Briavellian Kings had thought to storm Morgravia through its north but had met solid, tireless resistance from Felrawthy. And like the Thirsks to the south, this family boasted an impeccable bloodline of warriors. It had not been a fertile family, however, until Jeryb had assumed the mantle as Duke quite late in his life. Although his wife had already given him a son, Crys, he had no intention of following in the family tradition of siring a single heir.

It had become a joke in the early days of their marriage. “It just takes practice, my love,” Jeryb had said, a sparkle in his eye.

And the young Aleda had smiled forthrightly back and replied that they would just have to practice each evening.

The twins, Daryn and Jorge, followed this rigorous routine, with young Alyd arriving as a special surprise five years later. By that time Aleda had suggested to the man she loved that they practice a little less.

“I think we’ve got the hang of it now,” she had declared one night, to Jeryb’s high amusement.

Jeryb had fought alongside Fergys Thirsk as a trusted leader. Not only had their two wives found a common enjoyment in each other, but the two heads of the families knew they could trust each other…and in battle, trust was the most precious of commodities.

Fergys relied entirely on Jeryb to hold the north in the increasing agitation between Morgravia and the mountain people. He knew of no other soldier he could trust as much, other than Gueryn le Gant, or a more loyal noble to the Crown. Although Jeryb rarely managed to come south other than on highly formal occasions, his relationship with King Magnus was strong. They had talked once over a warmed ale on a frigid night on yet another battlefield, of their sons holding the realm as strongly as they had done over the years.

Ylena looked out now across the glen to the elegant manor that she had previously dreamed of visiting with her new husband. A fresh wave of sorrow bit at her heart as she accepted that she was here without him, clinging to the waist of a kind, bright-eyed stranger who reminded her too much of that same man she had loved. She and Crys had ridden as fast as the horse could go carrying two people. Crys had left instructions with his men to make their way back to the duchy; in the meantime his father had left with just a couple of his men as escort, riding at breakneck speed to reach Tenterdyn first.

“To safety, my lady,” Crys said gently over his shoulder. “Welcome to our home.”

His voice was so kind and so reminiscent of another that she smiled and no one watching her could have failed to be arrested by her beauty despite the days’ worth of traveling grime.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Are you?” she replied.

“Too shocked and distraught at your news to think,” he admitted, and she appreciated his candor. “The worst is yet to come, I fear. Telling my mother will not be easy, although hopefully my father has already prepared her. Alyd was the favorite, you see.” He looked around and chanced a thin smile. “Not because he liked it that way.”

He shrugged. “He was the youngest…the last. Everyone spoiled him and adored him, and as you know, it was easy to do both.”

She forced back the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “I’m ready. I’ve not come here to hide, Crys. I’ve come here to ask your father to help me fight the person who brought this atrocity about.”

“You’ll find willing warriors, my lady, for Alyd’s sake.”

“Wait until you learn who our enemy is, sir,” she said, more bitterly than she had meant it to sound.

He kicked the horse into a trot down the hill, raising a hand to his father, who had emerged from the house.

Jeryb’s wife, Aleda, met them alongside her husband. Her face was pale and lined with building grief, but she found a brief smile of courtesy as their guest arrived.

“Welcome, child,” she said bravely, reaching to hug Ylena, whom she had only known previously as an infant.

Both women felt the gravity of the moment, the rush of emotion that cared not for circumstance or timing. It boiled over and they gave in to it, sobbing in each other’s arms, two strangers linked by the love of a young man whom they had lost. They remained like that for long enough that the men could no longer bear to watch the upsetting scene and disappeared into the house.

Finally Aleda pulled away. “I’m glad you came here, Ylena.”

“I have nowhere else to go, Duchess. Forgive me, but my story is more sordid and upsetting than you can possibly imagine.”

“We shall hear it all, child, in all its painful, unmasked truth. But now come, I want you to first bathe and rest.”

Ylena looked at the handsome older woman with disbelief.

“You will tell your torrid tale more succinctly if you are refreshed and rested. I can certainly wait a little longer to hear your news.”

Ylena liked Alyd’s mother immediately, admiring the strength she sensed the woman possessed. It must have taken much courage to have greeted her son’s bride so graciously, knowing what she had come to explain to them.

They entered the double doors of the mansion known as Tenterdyn, arm in arm, drying the tears from their cheeks.

Aleda, noticing that Jeryb was nowhere to be seen, looked toward her eldest child and watched him grin crookedly. She saw not only her husband reflected back but the youngest son she suddenly ached to hold again. She nodded, tight-lipped. “This girl needs a bath and a rest and then we will all talk.” Her glance brooked no argument. “Let your father know, please, and call the boys in,” she added, referring to his brothers. “We’ll sit down in an hour or so.”

With Ylena settled privately in a chamber and left to her toilet, Crys followed his aristocratic mother down the stairs and into her private reading room. It was her escape from her brood of lively sons and booming father. Here she did indeed read, but also did her quiet thinking. A servant stepped in with a tray and then left, having poured them each a goblet of the promised sweet wine.

“You look tired, son,” Aleda said, before sipping.

“Has she told you anything yet?”

Aleda shook her head. “I don’t want to hear it anyway.”

Crys watched the pain flicker across his mother’s face before she checked and masked it. He knew all too well how she did not like anyone to read her thoughts.

“Here, my dear. Come and sit down,” Aleda said to Ylena when she finally emerged and joined the gathered family in their main chamber. The gown she wore was loose on her—it was one of Aleda’s—but she suddenly looked every bit the noblewoman she was. “Crys, call for some spiced ale.”

Her son, entranced by the woman his brother had chosen to marry, moved swiftly. Aleda gestured her guest toward a comfortable armchair. The room felt suddenly crowded.

“Thank you,” Ylena said, mustering her courage. “Let me tell you everything.”

“Let’s wait for Crys,” the older woman said gently, squeezing Ylena’s hand. “He must hear this too.”

A ghost of a smile flicked across Ylena’s hauntingly beautiful face. “Yes, of course,” she said, “for I fear I will not want to tell it again.”

Crys returned, his expression grim. He glanced at his still-shocked father, who caught the look and roused himself from his own silent stupor in the corner.

“Tell us, my girl,” he commanded in his deep voice. “Tell us everything.”

She spared them none of the horror of their son’s death or of her own traumas. No one interrupted her, and by the time she finished speaking, a frigid silence had gripped the room. The room’s atmosphere chilled still further as they heard how his head had been left to rot nearby his wife in the dungeon. The silence that followed her final word was like death itself.

“Alyd was formally executed, you say?” Crys asked, his voice hollow with disbelief His father, normally bluff and hale, looked suddenly every one of his threescore years and ten. His mother, pale and rigid, bit her lip, the only indication that she was fighting her own demons. Alyd’s two other brothers stood by, stunned into silence.

Ylena swallowed. “Alyd was killed before my eyes.” She fought the tears for their sake. “They used an axe,” she added bitterly. “Didn’t even give him a noble death.”

Aleda pushed aside her despair. She felt sick to the marrow of her bones, but she wanted to hear it all before she began to grieve. “And you were married?” Aleda asked.

Their guest nodded. “As I explained, it was the only way we could outwit Celimus. He planned to bed me, claiming Virgin’s Blood. His intention was to hurt Alyd and, in doing so, draw Wyl into the confrontation he needed to start dismantling Wyl’s power over the Legion and his standing.”

She looked steadily toward Jeryb. “I will rally men from Argorn, sir, if you wish it,” she said, and he knew now why she had come to Tenterdyn.

“We will avenge Alyd and Wyl Thirsk for this atrocity,” boomed the Duke, looking toward his eldest son, in whose handsome face he saw a painful echo of his youngest, now headless and rotting in an unmarked grave in Pearlis.

At his words, Ylena’s tightly held composure crumbled and she began to sob helplessly in exhausted relief. Aleda suggested a rest and called for a mild soporific to be made up and administered. The Duchess decided only a blanketing sleep would offer the release this young woman needed from having been made to relive her ugly memories. The others had no such relief and had been left to pick over the horrific account of how Alyd had been so brutally beheaded…without trial, without even so much as conviction of a crime. Even armed with proof of a crime, most noble families would have been petitioned by the Crown before any further action was taken.

The agony of looking upon the remains of their loved one shattered everyone. It had been left to Crys to withdraw Alyd from the sack. Aleda privately wished she did not have to see what was left of her son, preferring to remember the sunny, generous boy as he had been when he had left Tenterdyn for the last time.

The viewing left each of the Donal family shaken and withdrawn. Jeryb finally took his leave to shut himself away in his study, where he mentioned he would be considering the right path for retaliation. His words, though carefully chosen and delivered, left his family in no doubt that Felrawthy would shortly provoke civil war against the Crown.