Stormed Fortress (57 page)

* * *

Where the carriages of most well-set ladies were scented with rose leaves, patchouli or lavender. Dame Dawr eschewed flowery perfume. Her conveyance smelled of wax polish and leather, and the cinnamon sticks her manic coachman chewed, since the grandame forbade his pipe while on duty. The skinny man in dapper livery looked harmless. Atop the box, with the lines threaded in gloved fists, he drove like Dharkaron
'
s vengeance.

'
He once moved supply for Duke Bransian
'
s army,
'
Arithon warned at the outset.

His fellow passengers scarcely had time to brace, before the closed vehicle jolted and rolled, with Elaira
'
s slack form once again sheltered in her prince
'
s possessive embrace. The four-in-hand bays surged ahead at a gallop, careening through twisting lanes and steep grades, with Dakar rendered green by the sway.

'
Learned his teams as a child, running cargo from the Sea Gate,
'
Arithon filled in, not quite smiling.
'
He knows every inch of the citadel, blindfolded, which is good for us, since he
'
ll probably mow down anything shoved in his path.
'

'
Carries a mace, I noticed that much,
'
the forest-bred clansman observed, not so dazed, though the rough ride rattled bones and teeth.

'
All of Dawr
'
s servants are hardened war veterans.
'
Arithon closed his eyes.
'
Ease your mind. We
'
re in the best hands.
'

Crushed against Sidir
'
s shoulder as the coach thundered over the cobbles and rocked through the next hairpin bend, Dakar continued to glare at the prince, who snatched rest in the opposite seat. Mearn and Talvish had left them, presumably on their promised mission to confront the duke. Removed from outside eyes, and at last granted enough noise to forestall the long ears of Dawr
'
s servants, the fraught spellbinder resumed his remonstrance.

'
You
'
re stark mad to believe you
'
ll be upright and fit by tomorrow! Don
'
t fool with me, Arithon! Elaira
'
s in shock. Your state
'
s little better. If you expect to have all of your wits for a brangle with s
'
Brydion authority, think again.
'

'
I am not going to delegate you as my emissary,
'
Arithon said without cracking his eyelids. Propped by the carriage
'
s sumptuous upholstery, with his lyranthe and sheathed sword beside him, he ruthlessly quashed the objection.
'
Dakar! You won
'
t minister to Elaira. Or me. The task I am giving you won
'
t permit compromise. Guard our door. Set up ward-watch, once we arrive. I need you for that! Kyrialt
'
s risking his life on my orders with naught to defend but steel weaponry
'

Dakar fumed, stout arms folded. While the carriage barrelled onward, he had to concede that priority. Dawr
'
s concern was self-evident. Her coachman held orders not to spare horses in his break-neck dash to deliver them. A checkpoint flashed past, to a shout from the driver. A snapped whip urged fresh speed from the team. If any sentries came forward to challenge, the dowager
'
s cartouche stood them off. Her frail health might demand a physician. If not that, her keen temper was legend: nothing short of the duke
'
s direct orders would bring any rank-and-file man to risk delaying her vehicle. The breakneck ride at least would be brief. The guest tower lay in the next quarter.

Haste counted, if Bransian
'
s underhand ploy should move on their disarray. The instant the carriage rolled to a stop, Arithon flung open the door. His s
'
Taleyn liegeman was already briefed: Mearn
'
s foresighted gift, that Kyrialt stood at the bridge-head, primed to receive them. The span over the crevice was kept unlit. From behind, the dark doorway threw no silhouette to expose anyone
'
s form as a target.

'
Fionn Areth
'
s already inside,
'
he reported.
'
The guard brought him in, hours past, by routine. They
'
d found him piss drunk and passed out in a heap, during clean-up after a bar brawl.
'
As he talked, Kyrialt peered into the coach, measuring with his scout
'
s faculties.
'
Your Grace? This is back-lash fever, beginning?
'
No answer was needed. He read all the grim signs. His touch stayed respectful as he reached in and gathered Elaira
'
s limp weight out of Arithon
'
s arms.

His prince let him take her, a shocking concern.

'
Inside with her. Quickly. I
'
ll tell Glendien which simples I need on the way to our chamber.
'
Now wretchedly shivering, Arithon snatched his Paravian sword and lyranthe from the coach seat as he stepped out
'
Bed down in the still-room, it
'
s warmer,
'
he told Sidir, who seemed steadier.

The tall Companion unfolded his cloaked frame from the carriage, renewed humour alight in his eyes.
'
I expect that you want your privacy, liege?
'

'
Damn well he won
'
t have it!
'
the Mad Prophet rebutted, and elbowed his way to the forefront. Like a sack of loose stone lofted out of a catapult, he shot after the crown prince
'
s heels.

So brief a snatched rest should not have permitted the speed which saw Arithon over the plank-bridge, to the tower
'
s entry. As Dakar pounded after, prince and Shandian liegeman ducked inside, rounding the cot where Fionn Areth sprawled, loudly snoring amid crumpled blankets. Now forced to give chase at a lumbering sprint, Dakar puffed on, livid, and wheezed his objections while climbing the stair.
'
Your Grace! You ought not... to be . . . alone ... in recovery. What if . . . you fall asleep? Or succumb ... to the fever . . . you
'
ve earned . . . from your state ... of over-extension?
'
The first landing flashed past.
'
Damn all to Dharkaron!
Arithon!
Will you hear
sense?
'

Dakar caught up by the lit door to the still-room, where Arithon languished, one arm braced to the jamb. Glendien was receiving his rapid instructions, while Kyrialt bore Elaira ahead to the empty bedchamber above.

Dakar mopped his soaked face. Swore through hitched breaths in brothel vernacular, as he moved to block Arithon
'
s path.

'
I won
'
t have you as nurse-maid,
'
Rathain
'
s crown prince attacked.
'
In fact, I
'
ll have no one
'
s intrusion at all.
'

'
Your permissions,
'
Dakar threatened, pink fingers clutched to the doorframe in hopes of a bulwark.

He was shoved aside.

'
Revoked!
'
Arithon reeled past, dodging through the burdened work trestles with their crocks of salts and herbs, then the looming gleam of the still, the covered baskets, and glass mortar and pestle. He needed both hands to keep his wracked balance.

'
Blood oaths are not malleable,
'
Dakar snarled back. The one sworn at Athir still binds you!
'

'
Then guard the door!
'
Arithon commanded, regardless.
'
We shall do well enough.
You
'
re not
my
keeper!
And more than one method can heal the surge of overload that afflicts us.
'

Dakar flushed beet red.
'
You don
'
t
dare!
'
Yet stunned eyesight confirmed the outrageous suspicion by noting which remedies Glendien bundled.
'
Arithon! You randy fool!
'

His shout earned the clanswoman
'
s laughter.
'
And you
'
re not the black pot berating the kettle?
'
she gibed in her warm, southcoast accent

Dakar ignored her. Lashed white by fresh panic, he launched his stout frame through the clutter of the herbalist
'
s paraphernalia. Jostled Glendien sideways, as his frantic rush broached the darkened spiral of the upper stairwell.

'
Did you learn nothing by your past failure in Halwythwood?
'
he cried in desperate appeal.
'
Arithon, please! You have everything to lose, if you pursue this with your faculties compromised!
'

Still, nobody listened.

Panting fit to drop, the Mad Prophet reached the threshold above, just as Kyrialt straightened from laying Elaira down on the feather-bed by the casement. The sheets were remade, surely Glendien
'
s work, done with forethought since Fianzia
'
s departure.

One lamp burned low. By that febrile light, Arithon shed his sword, then unwrapped his lyranthe. His chipped-quartz expression left no further doubt: he was set upon claiming his place at his enchantress
'
s side straightaway.

'
I can
'
t let you try this.
'
Dakar bulled forward, only to wince as a crippling grip latched his forearm.

'
You will not stay to watch! No matter the cause.
'
Arithon
'
s clamped fingers steered the spellbinder backwards, then spun him around and thrust his resistant bulk back outside. This hour is mine!
'

Beyond all persuasion, the Prince of Rathain dismissed Kyrialt. Then he kicked the door shut upon Dakar
'
s appalled protests and sealed the latch with a binding that showered white sparks.

'
Don
'
t!
'
Dakar yelped, as the rebuffed liegeman surged forward.
'
You
'
ll just blister your hands, and for nothing. You
'
re not going in, now. And neither am I. Not again. No matter which Fellowship Sorcerer shows up brandishing self-righteous thunderbolts.
'

'
How else will Glendien deliver the simples?
'
Kyrialt grumbled with blunt practicality.

'
She won
'
t. Not tonight
'
Dakar sighed.
'
Ath
'
s mercy go with them. They
'
ll bide on their own.
'
He let his knees give, then. Slumped into a crouch at the stair-head, he jammed his exasperated fingers through his frizzled hair.
'
Have your wife leave the kettle and packets outside. His Grace will have to fetch for himself if he
'
s got the wits left to realize he still needs them.
'

* * *

The wind had dropped to a whisper, then stilled, the brisk scent left by the rain-storm overlaid by a stinging, fresh frost. Talvish huddled into the oiled-wool cloak, returned from his loan to Fianzia. Off duty, but still armed since the side trip to Dame Dawr
'
s that had ended inside a wrecked tavern, he paused on the exposed trail leading upward to the outcrop that crowned the inner citadel. There, Watch Keep
'
s squat crenels cut a stark outline against the starred sky. Shadowed by his helm, his jade eyes surveyed Mearn, who had paused on the grass where the open stair carved into the steep terrain.

'
Are you sure, Captain?
'
the youngest brother s
'
Brydion asked.
'
Be certain, now. Or turn back
'
The odd opal stud flared errant fire, as he shivered in his jewelled doublet. The rapier at his waist was no weapon for war-time; he had always hated the blood sport of the hunt. Even so, his taut frame
had the set of a man who was pressed beyond desperate, and dangerous. Nor was his plea spurious.

Talvish
'
s mood also eschewed humour.
'
Go up there, you
'
re going to need backing, my friend.
'

Mearn
'
s slim shoulders recoiled. The sentries on duty below had not paused to question their passage: none of the watch sergeants realized, yet, that aught was amiss in the citadel. The check-point stayed relaxed, and the routine of the night guard, flat quiet, throughout their wary approach. Yet
nothing
was ordinary.

Somewhere, the man who had skewered Sidir in a fight on Duke Bransian
'
s orders still believed that Jeynsa
'
s abduction could be covered in secret.

The word of a clan girl, still in her minority, against three dead soldiers, and one of those a respected veteran in the duke
'
s right-hand pocket? The story won
'
t have to stretch much to seem plausible.
'
Mearn had seen his last illusions stripped off. Shocked reaction now rocked his foundation.

Talvish refused to withdraw his concern.
'
Mearn, you need my witness, as well as my sword. I won
'
t risk the chance, that a covert attack for extortion could be white-washed with impunity.
'

The indecent plot had been carried too far. Everything pointed towards Bransian
'
s intention to frame Jeynsa
'
s reaction as impolitic youth, then pin a murderous breach of guest relations upon Rathain
'
s crown delegation.

'
Discredit Arithon
'
s standing in public, and our law could demand restitution as forfeit!
'
Mearn anguished,
'
We won
'
t have till noon. My brother
'
s planned his strategy to entrap. He
'
ll push through the assize in the morning. We have too much fear and resentment, run rampant. High feelings will raise hysterical sentiment against every shred of hard evidence.
'
Mearn grimaced in sickened disgust.
'
We are better than this. Or we were, once, as a founding family.
'

Yet that had been before the unrest of four kingdoms had come to roost on the s
'
Brydion ancestral seat. The night view from the cornice spread out unremitting: the dense sprawl of the enemy campfires on the mainland a closed ring that relentlessly grew, as inbound ships daily unloaded fresh levies brought in from Shand.

'
Like plaguing locusts,
'
Talvish remarked, bitter with the wound left by Vhandon
'
s absence.
'
Such effortful wreckage, and for nothing more than a liar who preaches a threat from diverging ideas.
'

'
How that poison has twisted our standards, as well.
'
The unspoken question remained: just how far had Bransian
'
s insanity led them? Who
else
beyond Liesse, and quite likely Sindelle, had spun tonight
'
s threads of deceit? Mearn measured the turn of the stars overhead.
'
Let
'
s move, then. My feet are freezing, and my bollock sack
'
s sucked up so tight, I
'
m likely to squeak in falsetto.
'

The visceral hurt festered, that the truth must be walked without quarter. Talvish
'
s tact understood
that
brute fact, though a brother might agonize over the need to expose the infamy of his family.
'
More than my sword at your back
'
he said gently. Knowing his act was now informed treason against Alestron
'
s titled duke, the blond captain climbed the stair and overreached his authority. His voice delivered the password to the watch, with intent to suborn the mirror man
'
s relay.

The return challenge came, and found Mearn snapped back into feisty recovery.
'
Priority orders!
'
he rapped, and without saying whose, shoved into the tower the instant the portal was unbolted.
'
Upstairs! No delay
'
He barged past the sergeant posted inside.
'
Send signal in code and recall Sevrand from the harbour mouth garrison. I
'
ll receive him here. If the boatman takes his time with the skiff, or the winch crew
'
s asleep at the cliff-head, I
will
string them up in the galley-men
'
s bar and pink their stripped navels as targets.
'