Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) (22 page)

So she would explain, she told herself firmly, that Master Rauffe was needed back at Taw Ricks to manage that household’s affairs, if only to stop his wife and Doratine from finally coming to blows. Since Lady Ilysh insisted that her place was at Halferan itself, Zurenne was here to show her how a manor should be properly run. And to offer whatever assistance she might with the business of rebuilding.

And who better to chaperone Ilysh than her own mother? Zurenne clenched her fists. She would dare Corrain to challenge her on the grounds that he was Lysha’s husband.

‘Raselle, if you please.’ She nodded at the coach door.

The maid secured the window and opened the door. Unfolding the step down to the dirty cobbles, she got out of the coach and opened her arms to Esnina. ‘Come on, my pet?’

For a tense moment, Zurenne thought the little girl would refuse and start wailing again. To her relief, Neeny stepped forward to be lifted out of the carriage.

The toiling men cheered in greeting. Raselle struggled for a moment but the child would not let herself be put down. She settled Neeny on her hip and the men all laughed indulgently as the little girl buried her face in the maid’s shoulder.

Zurenne gathered up her skirts and stepped carefully out of the coach. She looked around, startled by the fervour of her welcome. Just as it was dying away, Ilysh’s appearance at the flap of her tent prompted a fresh hurrah.

With the devastated kitchen, brew house, bakery and laundry now all levelled, Zurenne could see the household’s temporary accommodations stood on the laundresses’ drying ground, between the manor’s storehouses and the encircling wall.

Zurenne was pleased to see that Ilysh’s tent was separated from the rest by an emptied wagon and still more pleased to see Lysha’s apprehension. It was only right and proper that she should shrink from the prospect of facing her mother after such disgraceful defiance.

Then she wondered if the girl was merely hesitating over the uncertain footing. Her path was littered with the shards of broken tiles.

‘My lady mother.’ Well short of the baronial tower, Ilysh sank into a low and apparently dutiful curtsey.

Zurenne curbed her first impulse to chide her for dirtying her petticoat on the ashy ground. There was little point. Despite what must have been Abiath’s best efforts, the girl’s skirts were sadly creased and grubby.

Zurenne offered a measured curtsey of her own, hitching her hems rather higher than was dignified. She had noticed the ground glittered with splinters of glass, for all the sweeping brooms propped against the great hall’s steps. ‘My lady of Halferan.’

She held her tongue as Lysha’s eyes widened with surprise. There would be time enough when they had some privacy to explain that her forbearance didn’t mean that Lysha was forgiven, not in the slightest. But Zurenne knew what was due to the Halferan barony’s dignity even if Lysha had that to learn. Along with so much else.

‘Where is your lord and husband?’ she asked her daughter with the remote politeness she would once have used to greet a previously unknown guest.

Even Neeny was so surprised at her mother’s tone that she raised her head from Raselle’s shoulder and stared, open mouthed. The maid seized her chance to put the child down.

Ilysh raised her chin, folding her hands together at her waist. ‘He is consulting with Master Vachent, on the far side of the hall.’

Zurenne had no idea who this Master Vachent might be but nodded calmly all the same. She wondered what to say next. She could see that Lysha had no idea.

Abiath stepped into the awkward silence amid the bustle resuming all around them.

‘My ladies both, shall I arrange a tisane tray?’ She stooped to offer a hand to Neeny, though that was no great effort given her short stature. ‘Would you like some blackcurrant griddle cakes?’

As Neeny nodded mutely, Zurenne saw Corrain come round the corner of the tower. He was accompanied by a man she wasn’t familiar with, his voluminous workman’s tunic heavy with stone dust.

‘The first statue in your shrine after Saedrin’s should be Misaen,’ the man insisted, ‘and you’ll go down on bended knee to thank him before you start rebuilding.’

Ilysh asked before anyone else could. ‘Why should we be so grateful, master mason?’

‘My lady.’ Master Vachent ducked his head in swift obeisance and then bowed lower to Zurenne. If she didn’t know him, he clearly recognised her. ‘My lady.’

‘The walls of the great hall are sound!’ Corrain declared this news to the assembled men rather than answer Ilysh directly.

Zurenne had seen them all slow in their labours. Some had been looking hopeful; others braced for bad news.

Corrain grinned at the workforce’s cheers and exultant whistles. It was the first time that Zurenne had seen such an unguarded expression relieve his severe countenance.

‘The topmost course of masonry gave way—’ Master Vachent was determined to explain to Ilysh ‘—when the joists tying the roof together across the width of the hall burned through. If the stonework had held firm, then the whole weight of the roof would have borne down straight through the rafters right onto the wall beams.’ He shook his head, his expression dour.

‘That would have pushed the whole wall out of true, maybe brought it down, both walls front and back. But when those topmost stones gave way, the wall beams were shoved over the edge and the rest of the roof fell down to the hall floor.’

He nodded with what struck Zurenne as unwarranted satisfaction before his mouth turned down at the corners.

‘Of course, all that wood fuelled the fire. There was no hope of saving the glass once the leading started to melt. So that all needs replacing. But the roof is the real challenge. We need wagonloads of seasoned timber. We can rebuild the barrack hall with green wood, since needs must but with Baron Karpis refusing us—’ He shook his head.

Zurenne raised a hand. ‘What has Baron Karpis refused us?’

‘Seasoned wood, my lady.’ Master Vachent girded himself for further explanations. ‘We cannot use fresh-felled timber. The sap—’

‘Enough.’ Corrain cut him short, addressing the men in the compound once again. ‘Now that we need not fear the walls falling in on us, start clearing the hall’s interior.’

Ilysh moved to stand in front of Corrain. ‘This is surely something that wizardry could help with.’

Zurenne recognised that tone of old. So Corrain remained firm in his refusal to seek wizardly aid and Ilysh was still refusing to take no for an answer.

Corrain’s expression turned severe. ‘My lady wife, I suggest that you see to your lady mother’s comforts.’

Seeing rebellion flare in Lysha’s eyes, Zurenne intervened. ‘I would like to visit the shrine. Will you accompany me, Lady Ilysh?’

She held out her hand, ignoring Master Vachent’s assurances that the shrine was structurally sound.

Corrain was already walking away, shouting loudly to summon the blacksmith and the village reeve. Lysha had little option but to salvage her dignity by acquiescing to her mother’s request.

‘Of course.’

As they walked to the shrine at the other end of the stricken great hall, Zurenne noted the newly polished pennies nailed to the outer face of the door. When she had last been here, she had seen that the plundering corsairs had stripped away every last token in their godless greed.

Ilysh’s barely repressed fury got the better of her after barely a handful of paces. ‘Mama—’

‘A moment.’ Somewhat to Zurenne’s surprise, Ilysh heeded her until they entered the low-roofed building.

The emptiness within silenced them both for a moment. When they had last been here together, the floor had been covered with broken statues, shattered urns and spilled ashes. Now all that destruction had been swept away to leave only hollow emptiness.

The structure had not escaped entirely unscathed, whatever Master Vachent might say. Narrow shafts of sunlight struck drying puddles on the patterned floor where roofing tiles had fallen away overhead. That must have happened when the Mandarkin mage killed all the corsairs. Zurenne shivered at the thought of the slaughter which Corrain had confessed to her.

‘Mama.’ Ilysh wasn’t to be denied any longer. ‘If we must have seasoned timber for the great hall’s roof, can’t wizards turn green wood into whatever we need?’

‘Perhaps.’ Zurenne had been wondering what Corrain had told Ilysh of the part he had truly played in the manor’s destruction. ‘Or perhaps we could simply purchase seasoned timber?’

‘Why spend good coin when we have the Archmage’s goodwill?’ protested Ilysh.

‘Why be beholden to any wizard?’ Zurenne countered. ‘Why not let Halferan’s populace restore their own homes and livelihoods and regain some measure of pride? Let them throw their achievements in the teeth of the Karpis folk or whoever else might mock them.’

Since Zurenne had learned the full story of Corrain’s dealings with the mage he had found in the distant north, she had agreed that Halferan should have no more dealings with wizards than was strictly necessary. The less they had to do with Hadrumal, the less chance there was of the corsairs’ true fate becoming known in Caladhria. The barony needed no more scandal.

‘The master mason is right.’ Zurenne sought to turn the conversation as she contemplated the empty shrine. ‘We must set up new statues and beseech every god and goddess’s blessing on our new beginning. That’s a fitting task for you as Halferan’s new lady.’

A crash from inside the great hall startled them both. Before Zurenne could stop her, Ilysh ran to the interior door leading from the shrine onto the wooden dais. The high table had stood there, raised above the hall’s flagstoned floor, along with the great canopied chair, as a visible symbol of the barony’s authority.

Ilysh hauled open the door, intact though its frame was ominously charred by the fires which had raged beyond it.

Zurenne hurried to hold Lysha back on the threshold. She saw that her fears were justified. The dais was burned black with gaping holes where plummeting rafters had smashed through the boards.

‘Mama?’

Zurenne looked up, expecting to see men opening the main entrance at the far end, ready to make a start on clearing the charred remnants of the fallen roof timbers.

‘Who is that, Mama?’

Zurenne watched dumbfounded as the man walked across the wreckage. Because he was not clambering across the burned beams, nor cowering lest some perilously balanced truss tumble down to crush him.

This unknown man was walking across the top of the debris as easily as he might stroll along the highroad. Granted, he was undersized but Zurenne doubted that a mouse could leap so nimbly from one scorched foothold to the next without prompting some catastrophic collapse.

‘Where is Corrain?’ the stranger demanded.

As the man crossed the distance between them, Zurenne saw that his bare feet barely touched the charred wood.

‘Who are you to ask so familiarly for the Baron Halferan?’ Ilysh demanded incredulously.

‘Hush!’ Zurenne couldn’t think how to warn her daughter.

This must surely be the Mandarkin mage. Corrain had described Halferan’s saviour with unsparing accuracy; a dark-eyed man, his blond hair matted with filth, half a generation older than he was. Wretchedly stunted by lifelong hunger, he was so accustomed to privation that living unwashed and unkempt didn’t trouble him.

Yet he spoke the Tormalin tongue, the language of all scholars and it seemed, most especially wizards. Though he looked nothing like Hadrumal’s mages, dressed in an overlarge blue silk tunic belted with a length of dirty rope over baggy orange trews.

‘Where is Corrain?’ The Mandarkin cocked his head to study Ilysh. ‘I am Anskal.’

His courtesy unnerved Zurenne. ‘What do you want with us?’

‘You might offer me some thanks for clearing your house of vermin.’ The Mandarkin’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed. ‘I will take that silver trinket which you wear to begin with.’

‘You received recompense.’ Zurenne fought to keep her voice level. ‘All the corsairs’ loot!’

Threading her fingers through her daughter’s, she squeezed hard enough to make Lysha gasp. Better that than risk her speaking.

‘Your business with Baron Halferan is concluded.’ For the second time that morning, Zurenne summoned up the disinterested courtesy of a noble lady.

‘Our agreement was based on trust and now I know that he lied.’ The Mandarkin looked unblinking at Zurenne. ‘I see that you know it too.’

‘I have no notion what you mean.’ Zurenne trembled. Was her ignorance to be the death of her and Lysha?

The Mandarkin’s harsh laugh startled them both into a backward step.

‘You lie to my face with the evidence hung around both your slender necks? Enough!’ he continued impatiently, jabbing a dirty finger at Zurenne’s pendant. ‘I have searched but I cannot find where he has hidden more such treasures as those. So tell your man to deliver up all such magic that you have.’

His face hardened, more menacing. ‘Or I will bring my corsair ships north to take such treasures, along with anything else that my raiders desire.’ He looked Lysha up and down, blatantly lascivious.

Then he smiled, as sudden as a lightning flash. ‘I’m willing to trade something that he values. I have his boy, the one taken with him.’