Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord (44 page)

She sighed, moving back and sitting on the bed. He came in, closing the door and sitting next to her. She was surprised to see he had no bottle with him. They sat in silence for a moment, Reva trying to form words that might make some sense to him. “It was big,” she said eventually. “The barn. No animals, no ploughs, just me and him, and a lot of straw. My first clear memory is of climbing up and down the beams. If I fell, he’d beat me.”

“He did that many times?”

“More than I could count. He was skilled with the cane, leaving no scars, save this one.” She pulled back her hair to reveal the mark above her right ear from the time he had beaten her unconscious.

“Do you know where it was, this barn?”

“It sat amidst broad fields, the grass was long and visitors were rare, stern men who looked at me with odd expressions. He called them his brothers, they called him the Truepriest. There was one man though, different from the others. He came only once or twice a year, and the priest would make me stay in the shadows when he did. I couldn’t hear what they spoke of, but I’m fairly certain the priest called him ‘my lord.’”

“Can you describe him?”

“Broad across the shoulders, not particularly tall. He had a bald head and a black beard.”

She saw recognition dawn in his eyes. She waited for him to name the man but instead he said, “Go on. What else can you remember?”

“As I grew older he began to take me to the village where he went for supplies. I had little experience of other people and hardly any notion of how to act around them, shouting and pointing in excitement the first time. That earned me a beating. ‘You must not be noticed,’ he said. ‘You must pass through the lives of others leaving no mark.’ Later he would send me on my own at night, either to steal or to contrive a means of overhearing a conversation. Practice for my holy mission, I suppose. I began to know the villagers quite well, their gossip giving me a fine insight into their lives. The baker’s wife was carrying on with a tinker who came by every two weeks. The wheelwright had lost a son at Greenwater Ford. The village priest was far too fond of the ale. Then one night, I happened upon an open window . . .”
I knew her only as the carpenter’s daughter. She stood before a basin, guiding a washcloth over her skin. The light from the lantern seemed to make her skin glow, her hair like gold . . .

“Reva?” Uncle Sentes prompted.

She shook her head. “The priest had been following me, every night, without my knowledge. I lingered by that window too long. The next day he gave me this.” She touched a hand to her scar.

“The name of the village?”

“Kernmill.”

This seemed to confirm a suspicion in his mind and he nodded. “I’m sorry, Reva,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “I may not be the best Fief Lord, but I’m resolved to be the best uncle. And as a present to my niece I intend to find this priest and watch when you gut him. Would you like that?”

She blinked away tears and returned his embrace, whispering. “Yes, Uncle. I should like that very much.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The days that followed saw her settling into a routine at the manor. Practice in the sword room with Arken in the mornings, lunch with Veliss and the Fief Lord in the afternoon followed by an interminable hour or more of sitting in the corner whilst one or both of them met with some merchant or lord asking for something. Evenings saw her free to go riding with Arken, her uncle having secured a place in the stables for Snorter and Bumper. They would range beyond the walls until night came, hunting when opportunity arose. Arken had acquired a longbow from somewhere, proving capable of drawing it which was still more than Reva could do, although his ability to find his mark was meagre compared to her skill with the wych elm. Every Feldrian she was also required to sit through the petitions, Veliss quizzing her on their relative merits when the whole boring palaver was done.

“I don’t know,” she groaned as Veliss asked her opinion on a disputed land grant. The land had been gifted to a former House Guard by her grandfather and now his two eldest sons were fighting over it. “Divide it in half or something.”

“The quality of the land is variable,” Veliss explained. She had a seemingly infinite well of patience despite Reva’s continued air of tired indifference. “Rich pasture sits alongside rock-strewn bog, like a patchwork of good and bad cloth. Such land is not easily divided.”

“Then tell them to sell it and split the money between them.”

“The elder brother would like that I’m sure, but the younger lives on the land with his wife and children and wants to stay.”

“‘All land is the Father’s gift,’” Reva quoted, stifling a yawn. “‘But only the man who works the land can lay claim to it.’ The Seventh Book, Alltor’s judgement on the greed of landlords.”

“So just give the land to the younger brother and risk angering the elder?”

“Is he an important man?”

“Not especially, but he does enjoy the patronage of some minor nobles.”

“Then his anger shouldn’t matter. Are we done yet?”

That afternoon she went to badger her uncle for news of the priest, something that had become a near-daily ritual. She found him in his rooms, buttoning his shirt whilst a large man in a grey robe stood at the window, holding a small bottle up to the light as he shook it.

“Reva,” the Fief Lord greeted her. “Do you know Brother Harin?”

The large grey-robed man turned to offer her a bow. “The niece I’ve heard so much about? Can’t say I see a resemblance, Hentes. Too pretty by half.”

“Yes. Fortunately for her, she favours her mother.”

Reva found herself unable to suppress a pang of suspicion at the presence of the large man. “You are a healer?”

“Indeed, my lady. Once Master of Bones at the House of the Fifth Order, sent by my Aspect to care for your uncle . . .”

“And all the heretic Faithful I allow to remain in this city,” Uncle Sentes interrupted. “Don’t forget them.” There was a hardness to his tone making Brother Harin raise his eyebrows and hand the Fief Lord the small bottle in silence.

“Same dose as before?” her uncle asked.

“Probably best to increase it. Four times a day . . .”

“Mixed with clean water, yes I know.”

Brother Harin pulled a leather satchel over his shoulder. “I’ll be back next week.” He went to the door and gave Reva another bow before leaving.

“He doesn’t address you properly,” she said.

“Because I told him not to. Seems a little silly to stand on ceremony with a man who’s had his finger up your arse.”

She nodded at the bottle. “What is that?”

“Just a little tonic.” He placed it on a table. “Helps me sleep. You’ve come to ask about the priest.”

“Let me hunt for him,” she said. “Send me and I’ll bring him back bound and ready for judgement in a month. I swear it.”

“This is hardly the best time, with the Realm Guard roaming our borders people are uncertain enough. Uncovering whatever schemes the Reader may have indulged in will only add to the alarm.”

“You know who that man is, the one the priest called a lord. I could tell.”

“I don’t know, I suspect. And I’ll not upset a long-worked-for peace by proceeding on suspicion alone. We’ll act, Reva, you have my promise. But we’ll act soft and slow so the old bastard doesn’t see us coming.”

“I can be stealthy,” she insisted.
You’ve no idea how stealthy . . .

He shook his head. “I don’t doubt your abilities but I need you here. The people must become accustomed to seeing you at my side.”

She bit down her disappointment. “Why? You’ve acknowledged me. Why do they need to see me?”

This gave him pause, his brows creasing in realisation. “You don’t know, do you? You honestly have no notion at all.”

“No notion of what?”

“Reva, you may have noticed but there are no children in this house. Nor are there likely to be. I had no heirs, no-one to follow me to the Chair. But now, I have you.”

She felt a cold hand creeping across her chest. “What?” she said in a thin sigh.

“A few of your father’s . . . indiscretions have come calling over the years. Some seeking acknowledgment, only to be disappointed. Most just asking a favour or a full purse. I was happy to send them all on their way. Until you, Reva. How old were you when the priest took you away from your grandparents, do you think?”

“I know how old, he told me. I was six.”

“Your father died nigh on nine years ago. That means he took you three years before Hentes assassinated our father and plunged this fief into war. Of all Hentes’s children, he came for you. He saw what I can see.”

She shook her head in confusion. “What can you see?”

“The next Mustor to sit in the Lord’s Chair.” He moved closer, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Sent to me by the Father Himself, for surely He heard my prayer.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“A girl can’t be a Fief Lord,” Arken said as they rode out that evening, cantering along the causeway and off towards the forested hills to the north.

“Fief Lady,” Reva said, the cold hand still gripping her chest. Her tone was flat, the enormity of her uncle’s words leaving no room for emotion.

“That doesn’t sound right,” Arken said. “You’ll have to think of something better. Countess maybe.”

“You only get countesses in Nilsael.” She pulled on the reins, Snorter coming to a halt. She sat in the saddle for a long time, the coldness gradually giving way to a heart-thumping bout of terror. “I can’t stay here,” she decided in a tremulous voice. “I should never have lingered.”

“Your uncle has been good to you, to us.”

“Because he wants an heir.”

“Not just that. He loves you, I can tell.”

Or the memory of his brother, the man he couldn’t be.
Reva ran a shaking hand over her forehead. “The Northern Reaches,” she said. “We can go there. You said you’d like that.”

“When there wasn’t anywhere else . . .”

“We can go now. We have horses, weapons, money . . .”

“Reva . . .”

“I can’t do this!
I’m just a filthy, Fatherless sinner! Don’t you understand?
”

She spurred Snorter to a gallop, making for the trees. She was halfway there when something made her pull up, another horse cresting the hilltop ahead. It moved with the ragged trot of an exhausted animal, foam covering its flanks and mouth, the rider slumped forward, barely able to keep himself in the saddle. Well-honed instincts brought one word to mind.
Trouble.

She watched them straggle closer, Snorter stirring beneath her, nostrils flaring at the unwelcome stench of a fellow horse near death, keen to keep running.
The Northern Reaches,
Reva thought.
Al Sorna will welcome you.

She kicked Snorter into motion, closing the distance to the horse. The rider was so exhausted he barely noticed when she reached out to grab the reins, tugging his mount to a halt.
Realm Guard,
she noted from his garb, taking in the red-brown smears on his breastplate and the empty scabbard on his saddle. “Where’s your sabre?” she asked.

His head snapped up in alarm, a face of encrusted sweat and dried blood, regarding her in naked terror before he blinked and took in his surroundings. “Alltor?” he croaked.

“Yes,” Reva replied. “Alltor. What has happened to you?”

“To me?” The man bared his teeth, a strange light in his eyes as he giggled. “They killed me, girl. They killed us all.” His giggle turned into a full laugh, the laugh into a choking cough before he slumped forward, falling from the saddle. Reva dismounted, taking the waterskin from Snorter’s saddlebag and holding it to the guardsman’s lips. He coughed again, but was soon gulping down water in great heaves.

“I . . . need to see the Fief Lord,” he gasped when he had drunk his fill.

Reva looked back at the city, shrouded in the pall rising from many chimneys, the dim outline of the manor where the servants would be preparing the evening meal, and the great twin spires, home to a great old liar. “I’ll take you to him,” she said. “He’s my uncle.”

“T
he Volarian Imperial Army is formed of three principal contingents,” Brother Harlick said, voice rising and falling as he bounced along on the back of a pony. “The citizen conscripts known as Free Swords, the great mass of slave-soldiery known as Varitai, and the Kuritai, highly trained slave-elite of fearsome reputation. A basic structure that has been in place for nearly four hundred years.”

At Vaelin’s command he had been talking constantly for hours, relating all he knew about the Volarian Empire as they journeyed back to the tower. “Individual units are grouped into battalions, which are in turn grouped into a division comprising eight thousand men when at full strength. A typical division will include both Free Swords and Varitai with smaller specialist contingents of engineers and Kuritai. An army grouping consists of three or more divisions under the command of a general . . .”

Vaelin had insisted on setting off the night before, having recovered from the vision which laid him low on the beach. Despite its intensity, the vision had been brief, the chill lingered but without the same depth as before, although the images it left brought all the discomfort he could want, the conclusion inescapable.
Something very bad has happened.

He could offer only a brief farewell to Nortah and Sella, sensing their alarm and feeling a liar for the comforting words he spoke as he left. “It’s likely nothing,” he had said. “I grow overly cautious with age.”

“Burning!” little Lohren was saying in a sing-song voice as he made for the door, jumping in excitement. “Burning houses! Burning people! Bad men burning everything! Uncle’s going to kill them!”

He roused Captain Orven, finding scant surprise at the sight of the Eorhil woman’s head poking out from his tent as he stumbled into his boots. “Battle order,” Vaelin told him. “Scouts on both flanks. Torches for every man. Send a squad to the beach, they’ll find a man in a hut. He’s coming with us. If he objects, tie him to a horse.”

“Officers of general rank are typically drawn from the small but immensely wealthy ruling class,” Harlick was saying. “The only class of Volarian society entitled to wear red. Although such privileged status affords the chance of high command, appointments are given only to those of proven leadership experience . . .”

“What do they come for?” Vaelin broke in. “What do they want?”

Harlick thought for a moment, perhaps considering a complex response, but seeing Vaelin’s expression replied simply, “Everything, I imagine.”

He began a description of the working practises of the Volarian Governing Council but Vaelin waved his hand. “That’s enough for now.”

The Lady Dahrena had ridden in silence, her expression one of controlled concern as she listened to Harlick’s knowledge. “I know this reaction may seem excessive . . .” Vaelin began but she shook her head.

“I trust my lord’s . . . judgement.”

“I regret the necessity of making my next request . . .”

“Tonight,” she said. “When we return to the tower.”

“It’s not too far?”

“It’s a fair distance, but I have managed it before, during the riots after the Aspect Massacre. Father was concerned the Realm might be undone.”

“My thanks, my lady.”

“Thank me when I bring news all is peace and harmony.”

“I fervently hope to.”
Hope all you want,
his doubts mocked him.
You know what she’ll tell you.

◆ ◆ ◆

Dawn was breaking as they clattered through the cobbled streets of North Tower, the courtyard gates swinging open as they approached. Vaelin climbed down from Flame’s back, fighting weariness and calling for Captain Adal.

“My lord.” The captain’s greeting was clipped, his hard gaze evidence he still smarted from Vaelin’s threat of dismissal.

“Sound the muster,” Vaelin told him, ascending the steps to the tower. “Every North Guard is to report here forthwith. Send emissaries to the Eorhil and the Seordah. The Tower Lord calls for all the warriors they can send.”

“My lord . . . ?”

“Just do it, please, Adal,” Dahrena said, moving past him and making for the stairs. “I’ll need a few hours,” she called to Vaelin before disappearing from view.

For want of another resting place, Vaelin slumped into the Lord’s Chair, wincing against the din of shouted orders as Adal went about his business.
Can I do this again?
he wondered. The canvas bundle rested on his knees, feeling heavier now.

“Vaelin?” Alornis stood before him, a shawl over her shoulders, feet slippered against the chill of the stone floor. Her eyes were wide with uncertainty and her gaze continually drawn to the commotion outside. He noticed her fingers were stained with dried paint.

He held out a hand and she came to him, sinking down to rest against his knees. “What’s happening?” she asked in a small voice.

“It seems, as ever, my mother is shown to be a very wise woman.” He smiled as she frowned up at him, teasing the hair back from her eyes. “There’s always another war.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“The palace is a ruin,” Dahrena said, her features pale and eyes red with recent tears. However, her voice was clear and free of any tremble as she made her report. “Bodies lie thick in the streets. Volarian ships fill the harbour. People line the docks, hundreds of them, in chains.”

Vaelin had convened a council in his rooms on the upper floor. Captain Adal stood by the window, arms crossed. Brother Kehlan, invited at Dahrena’s insistence, sat at her side, face drawn in concern. Also present, at Vaelin’s invitation, was Brother Hollun of the Fourth Order, clutching a bundle of scrolls, eyes wide with unabashed fear as he regarded Dahrena. She had waved aside Vaelin’s suggestion she contrive to conceal her gift from those not already party to the knowledge. “After what I saw, I fear secrets are of small use now. Besides, I’ve long suspected most already know.”

Seated in the corner was Brother Harlick. Although appointed archivist to the tower he made no notes of the meeting, Vaelin knowing he would remember every word spoken here for transcription later. Alornis sat at Vaelin’s side, hands clasped tight to conceal the tremble that had begun the night before.
She worries for Alucius,
he thought.
And Master Benril.

“The Realm Guard?” he asked Dahrena.

“I saw no sign of them, my lord. Clearly the City Guard made a stand in several places, to no avail.”

“The King? Princess Lyrna?”

“I lingered over the palace as long I could, seeing only corpses and blackened ruin.”

Vaelin nodded and she sat down, Brother Kehlan grasping her hand as her head slumped in sorrow and fatigue. “Captain,” Vaelin said. “What is our strength?”

“Over two thousand have answered the muster so far, my lord. The remainder should arrive within seven days. The North Guard on hand numbers three thousand and will be at full complement when the outlying companies report in. That may take over two weeks, given the distances involved.”

“It’s not enough,” Dahrena said. “The army I saw must number five or six times our strength, even if the Seordah and the Eorhil answer our call.”

“Expand the muster,” Vaelin told Adal. “All men of fighting age, including the miners and fishing folk.”

Adal gave a slow nod. “I shall, my lord.” He gritted his teeth in hesitation.

“Problem, Captain?” Vaelin asked him.

“There’s been some grumbling already, my lord. Amongst the men.”

“Grumbling?”

“They don’t want to go,” Brother Kehlan said when Adal hesitated further. “Half of them were born here and have never seen the Realm. The other half will be well pleased if they never see it again. They ask, not without justification, why they should fight for a land that sent no aid when we faced the Horde. It’s not their war.”

“It will be when the Volarians get here,” Dahrena said before Vaelin could give vent to his anger. “I saw their souls, they burn with greed and lust. They won’t stop at Varinshold, or Cumbrael or Nilsael. They will come here and take all we have, and any they don’t kill will be made slaves.”

Vaelin took a breath to calm his temper. “Perhaps if you spoke to the men, my lady,” he said. “I feel your word will carry great weight.”

She nodded. “Of course, my lord.”

Vaelin turned to the captain. “And any further
grumbling
must be stamped on, hard. I rule here by the King’s Word, not by their consent. Their war is what I say it is.”

“The question of numbers is still pertinent, my lord,” Brother Hollun said. He had scribbled some figures on a piece of parchment and placed them under Vaelin’s gaze.

“Just tell me,” Vaelin ordered the rotund brother.

“With an expanded muster, I calculate we will have perhaps twenty thousand men under arms, a figure at least doubled by the Eorhil and Seordah. We have one warship in harbour and the merchant fleet numbers a little over sixty ships, half of which are currently at sea. To transport so many men and horses to the Realm, with weapons and supplies, will take at least four round-trips.”

“Assuming we are spared storms,” Captain Adal added.

“A moot point,” Vaelin said. “We won’t sail, we’ll march.”

Dahrena’s head came up slowly. “There is only one land route to the Realm from the Reaches.”

It had happened as he surveyed the map earlier, a clear note of confirmation from the blood-song when his eye tracked over the dense mass of symbols comprising the Great Northern Forest. The note had summoned a memory, a blind woman in a clearing on a distant summer day. “I know.”

◆ ◆ ◆

They established a camp outside the town for the growing army, the mustered men falling into their assigned companies with well-practised ease. Tower Lord Al Myrna had insisted on four musters a year to ensure their discipline didn’t slacken. The new recruits were a mixed bunch of artisans, miners and labourers, many openly resentful at the interruption to their lives, although Captain Adal had been quick to crush any signs of mutiny and Dahrena’s repeated speeches to each batch of new arrivals did much to assuage any doubts over the need to muster. “Many of you ask, ‘What would Tower Lord Al Myrna have done?’” she would say. “I tell you as his daughter his course would have been the same. We must fight!”

Adal set the North Guard to work training the recruits and picked out those he knew had distinguished themselves in the battle against the Horde, making them sergeants or captains. The lack of equipment was a worry, although every smith, tailor and cobbler in North Tower was working to exhaustion to produce the weapons, armour and boots needed by an army. Vaelin knew every day spent in building their strength was precious, but the need to begin the march was a constant nag.
Varinshold fallen in a day. Where do they strike next?
Dahrena had offered to revisit the Realm every day if need be, but the depth of fatigue that had gripped her after her first foray convinced him it would be best if she saved her strength. “When we get through the forest,” he said. “Then you’ll fly again.”

“You’re so sure they’ll grant us passage?” she asked as they toured the camp, Vaelin keen to be seen by as many of the men as possible. “My father was the only Realm subject allowed to walk there, and even then he was permitted no weapon or escort.”

He just nodded and moved on, his gaze drawn to the sight of two men sparring with wooden swords amidst a circle of onlookers. The taller of the two batted his opponent’s stave aside and swept his legs from under him in a smoothly executed combination of strokes. The tall man helped the defeated recruit to his feet, spreading his arms wide with a broad grin. He was a well-built fellow with long hair, tied back and reaching down to the middle of his bare back, his skin slick with sweat, toned muscle shining. “Number four! Who’s next?”

Despite his evident skill he was young, barely twenty by Vaelin’s reckoning, with the confident swagger of youth. “Cowards!” he berated the audience with a laugh when none stepped forward. “Come on! Three silvers for the man who can best me!” He laughed again then sobered as he caught sight of Vaelin in the crowd. His grin flickered for just an instant, his gaze narrowing as the blood-song told Vaelin an unwelcome truth.

“How about you, my lord?” the young man called, holding up his wooden stave in a salute. “Care to honour a simple shipwright with some gentle sparring?”

“Another time,” Vaelin said, turning away.

“Come come, my lord,” the young man called again, a slight edge to his voice. “You wouldn’t want these good men to think you afraid. Many already wonder why you wear no sword.”

One of the North Guard in the crowd stepped forward to rebuke the man but Vaelin waved him back. “What’s your name, sir?” he asked the young man, stepping into the circle and taking off his cloak.

“Davern, my lord,” the man replied with a bow.

“Shipwright eh?” Vaelin handed his cloak to Dahrena and stooped to retrieve the wooden sword from the earth. “Skills like yours don’t come from swinging an adze.”

“All men should have interests beyond their work, don’t you think?”

“Indeed.” Vaelin stood before him, meeting his eyes. Davern hid it well, but Vaelin saw it—deep, festering hatred.