Hearts in Cups (50 page)

Instructed by her mistress
to bring a bed tray and shawl and to find a table for his lordship's use, Moira
quickly fetched the requested items and then, again on Angharad's orders, left
them alone to eat. The talk as they ate their meal together was remarkably
relaxed and amiable. Angharad proved to have a sharp wit that complemented
Ian's, as well as an unexpected gift for mimicry. Their talk was light and
dwelt mostly on pleasant incidents from the past. Ian learned much of
Angharad's upbringing at Creon's court and, in turn, he compared and contrasted
it to his own childhood at Langstraad's court. Painful or unpleasant subjects
were, by an unspoken agreement, avoided by both of them until the meal was
over. Then Angharad brought them both back to the present by speculating that,
after yesterday's defeat, Lord Brescom might now be willing to leave Langstraad
in peace.

Ruefully Ian shook his
head. "No, my lady, he will not quit these walls until they are somehow
breached and he possesses the keep. It is my guess that Niall has promised him
these lands for his betrayal of the Pentarchy." A stony look of defiance
came over his face. "I have many accounts to settle with Lord Brescom when
I get the chance." It was through his lands that Holly had ridden, and she
had been killed just outside his borders. The foundation of a strong friendship
with Lord Alwyn had also been sundered by Brescom. Many of Langstraad's people
were even now dying for the earl's advantage. The accounts, as Ian saw them,
would cost the Earl of the Inner Ward dearly.

"Well, since he
outnumbers us, we will simply have to find a way to outwit him," Angharad
said briskly, recalling Ian's thoughts.

He returned his
attention to her with a smile. "You are quite right there, and it reminds
me that I am due to tour the walls and review our position with Griswold this
morning." He rose to take his leave. "I don't suppose you'd care to
walk a couple of miles of rock this morning...?"

"And miss seeing
how well my efforts of yesterday have taken the wind out of the earl's sails?
I'll meet you on the main steps of the keep in an hour's time," she
replied with a laugh. Impulsively she held out her hand to him.

Taking the hand, Ian
raised it to his lips while keeping his eyes on her face. As his lips barely
brushed her hand, he confirmed, "In an hour then, my lady." With a
quick grin thrown over his shoulder as he reached the door, he departed.

Three days later, from
Lir's walls, the red stag of Tuenth was seen flying above the enemy camp,
supplanting the black tower of the Inner Ward. The Duke of Tuenth, followed by
his army, had ridden into the encampment at noon. After the victory in the neck
of the Gannerly Vale, in which the formidable power of their duke was revealed,
Tuenth's army had marched almost unopposed up the road to Castle Lir. There had
been one last desperate effort to stop their advance, but a sudden landslide
thoroughly routed the opposition.

The manifestation of
his power, which proved him to be Head of House Tuenth as well as its duke, was
vastly satisfying to Blaise. He noticed that his men, common soldiers and
officers alike, now exhibited both fear and admiration, responding to his
commands with instant obedience. What he did not see was the misgiving by many
of those same men that their duke's self-confidence was all too rapidly
inflating to arrogance.

Setting up his pavilion
close to Brescom's, after ordering the earl's vassal whose tent was originally
on the spot to move, the Duke of Tuenth announced that he wanted all
high-ranking officers to attend his ducal court in the field that afternoon.
When everyone was present and seated in the largest room of his tent, Blaise
coolly informed all those present that he, being the ranking nobleman, would be
directing the siege from now on. Without waiting to gauge their reaction, he
next required Lord Brescom and his general staff to explain why the offensive
had progressed no further than it had.

Stiff with anger and
affront, Lord Brescom explained in a tightly controlled voice how their major
offensive had been foiled four days previously by arcane means. With a derisive
laugh, Blaise told of using his own arcane means to bring his army up the
enemy-held road to Castle Lir. As he spoke many of his own men shifted
uncomfortably in their seats, but confirmed that their duke had indeed made the
earth move and given them the advantage.

"Yes, Brescom, I
am now the power-wielder for House Tuenth," bragged Blaise. "And what
is more, I intend to use my power to put an end to this stalemate
situation."

"Very good, your
grace," Brescom replied with more civility than he felt. He had not liked
Blaise ap Halberstad from the beginning and had argued with Niall against
letting the youngster into their plans. Despite his title of Head of a Minor
House, the Earl of the Inner Ward had neither talent nor interest in arcane
matters, and felt that they had no place on the battlefield. Furious at the use
of arcane trickery from the castle's defenders in the destruction of his
missile-throwing machines, to now be told by this young upstart that he was
going to take over and use his brand of magic to break the siege galled the
earl inexpressibly.

Blaise dismissed the
general staff with the admonition to have their troops mounted and at the ready
tomorrow morning when he would open up the castle. Asking the earl to remain a
moment or two longer, he proceeded to keep him waiting impatiently while he
called for his personal physician to prepare something to soothe his headache.

"Now, Larth,"
he began, using the earl's personal name without leave, a liberty that his rank
but not his experience entitled him to, "why don't you sit down and tell
me about your various adventures in getting to Lir?" Blaise sank back down
into his chair, stretching his long, booted legs and leisurely crossing them at
the ankle.

Wary of alienating this
young lord, who outranked him and the strength of whose influence with
Mirvanovir's duke he did not know, Brescom took the offered seat and related
the fight and capture of Morna's castle, the march to Castle Lir and its besiegement
in plain military terms. Blaise listened without interruption, sometimes
closing his eyes, so that when his recital was done, the earl was unsure how
much he had really attended to it. His next words dispelled the notion that he
had not listened.

"Alwyn is dead
then?" Blaise asked without looking at the earl.

"Yes, he died in
battle."

"And what of
Idris? She was Morna's baroness and niece to our now deceased regent."

"She's here,"
was Brescom's reply.

"What? You're
joking?" Blaise, who had been leaning back, slouched in his chair,
straightened and looked directly at the earl with disbelief. "Why did you
drag her along? Couldn't you have left her in Morna locked up under guard, or
sent her back to Greystone?"

Exasperated as he had
become with the young duke, Brescom managed a steady voice as he answered what
he considered to be a question that Blaise had no right to ask. "There are
too many people loyal to her to be able to safely leave her in her own lands. I
could not risk chancing her escape and raising an army at my back. My orders
from Lord Niall were to strike through Morna and get to Castle Lir as quickly
as possible. To send her back to Greystone under guard was, I felt, inadvisable
in view of the distance they would have to travel with the children."

"Children?"

"Three.  All
under ten years of age."

"It sounds as if
you are collecting quite a nursery in camp," Blaise drawled with something
just short of a sneer.

"She is a very
valuable prisoner, your grace," Brescom reminded the young man before him,
keeping his temper in check. "Their merit as hostages outweighs any
inconveniences they might cause."

"Oh I dare say she
is, but to carry her along like excess baggage with the army...never
mind." Blaise waved his hand to summon his personal adjutant standing near
the doorway. "My head is not feeling better! Go tell that physician to
brew me something that actually works," he snapped angrily. "That's
all for now Larth Brescom; I'll see you in the morning." With a wave of
his hand, he summarily dismissed the Earl of the Inner Ward.

Lord Brescom left
quickly, secretly wishing the Duke of Tuenth's head to be split asunder like a
rotted melon.

The next morning,
things did not go quite as Blaise had so confidently predicted they would. The
troops were drawn up into formation beyond bowshot range, facing the walls of
Castle Lir in the subdued light of a cloudy morning. From the tops of the
walls, curious and mildly apprehensive looks had been cast by the castle's
defenders. Brescom sat pensively, waiting with his men for the duke's arrival.
Having waited until the stage was set to his liking, Blaise rode out with his
standard-bearer and down the line in front of his troops. An adjutant came
forward to take the duke's horse by the bridle when Blaise dismounted, and the
duke turned to stand before the castle. Nervous silence enveloped the armies on
both sides of the walls. Blaise's own troops, who had actually seen him at
work, were only slightly less disquieted then their brethren, who only knew
from whispered rumour what was about to happen. On the main gate-tower, Ian and
Griswold turned perplexed expressions on one another.

Striding forward so all
could see him, though still remaining a cautious distance from the walls, Blaise
took several calming breaths and began the process of reaching inside himself
for the key that would unleash his power. Feeling the by now not unfamiliar
sensation at the base of his skull of something pushing from within, he tapped
into it and directed its energy at the walls before him. Nothing. Thinking that
he had not released enough of his hold on the power, he tried again to direct
the tremendous force he felt welling up in him towards the stone walls. A
slight tremor shook the ground and a few loose bits of mortar shook loose and
slid down the wall. A froth bubbled from between his lips as he felt something
resisting him. For the third time he tried, this time throwing the whole of his
will into the effort. The world went black.

He became conscious to
the inner scream of a headache that left him retching over the side of his cot.
Opening his eyes brought blinding stabs of light and colour that made him long
for the oblivion of unconsciousness. A towel, cool with water, was laid over
his forehead and it seemed that its weight would crush his skull like the
cracking of a shell. Determined to master himself, he pushed an elbow
underneath him and strove to sit up. The blackness lasted much longer this
time.

His next surfacing to
consciousness was not pleasant but it was bearable. Sitting beside him was his
personal physician who helped raise him up off his pillow and gave him
something thick and noxious from a spoon, followed by a long drink of plain
water. Lying back, Blaise oriented himself and ventured to ask for details.
Embarrassed to be the one to tell him, but seeing no way to avoid the task, his
physician described as tactfully as he could Blaise's fall into a faint before
the walls of the castle and his being carried back to his tent as Lord Brescom
ordered the troops to step down.

Blaise avoided the
inevitable confrontation with the earl the rest of that day by refusing to
leave his bed. His bruised ego was not yet up to the further humiliation of
hearing Brescom's no doubt unpleasant opinion of the matter. Also, Blaise
wanted time to think about what had happened and to analyze it. He was certain
that he had tapped the power correctly, just as Rashara had taught him to, and
as he had done so successfully a few days previously. The only reasonable
explanation for his failure was that there was an arcane power of some kind
within the castle capable of resisting him.

By the next morning,
Blaise had recovered enough of himself to no longer feel mortified, only angry
and in a mood to do something about it. He had not finished eating his
breakfast when Lord Brescom was announced. In a foul humour over having been
defeated and made to look foolish twice in one week due to arcane machinations,
the earl stomped ungraciously into Blaise's presence and gave the most
perfunctory of bows.

"So, have you got
any more magic tricks to entertain us with today, your grace?" he inquired
sarcastically. "Yesterday's was very impressive."

Wiping his mouth on a
napkin, Blaise regarded his fellow general with a cold stare. "Yesterday
was unfortunate, but my powers were not to blame."

"Oh yes, your
wonderful House Power which was supposed to bring the castle walls tumbling
down at our feet," Brescom openly jeered.

Blaise rose to his full
height, half a head taller than Brescom though nowhere near as broad as the
older man. "I think that you are forgetting yourself, Earl of the Inner
Ward."

Brescom stared
balefully at Blaise. "You may be a duke, but my pledge of loyalty is to
Mirvanovir. I suggest you come down off that high horse of yours before someone
topples you from it!"

The pale brown eyes
under their shaggy, iron grey brows fixed themselves belligerently on Blaise's
scornful green ones. The young man's mouth twisted into a chilling smile as he
stared down at the earl. When my Lady Rashara and I sit on the throne of the
Pentarchy you will dearly regret this little outburst, Blaise thought to
himself. Curbing his ire, Blaise turned his back to the earl and retired to his
chair.