The Barrow (34 page)

“Cutting across the whole city, that's crazy,” said Cynyr. “But I get it, you're thinking Pierham?” Stjepan nodded. Cynyr and Coogan looked at each other and grinned. “Sure, we can do that. Six Hells, we'll even help you get a boat. Nothing like a bit of fun before we head back north to the Grand Duke, eh?”

Sir Holgar raised his head and his hand. There was definitely someone tapping at the rear gate. He glanced at Sir Theodore and the squire Wilhem Price, frozen in mid gesture as they paused in sharpening their swords. Holgar stood and gazed at the gates through the open arch of the stable's smithy. The double gates were solid oak, bound in iron, and set into one gate was an iron sally port with a spy hole set in its center. The tapping came again.

He slipped his sallet on his head and stepped out into the rear courtyard, shifting his frame and muscles to let his harness settle. Both he and Sir Theodore were now armored in three-quarter plate harnesses, and squire Wilhem wore a mail hauberk under his quilted gambeson. Holgar could smell smoke and ashes from the bonfires in front of the great house, and could hear the muffled shouts and cries of the crowd gathered in the street; a small part of him was as excited as he was scared. But the rear of the house had so far been quiet. There was a small bell set in the wall by the rear gate with which visitors could announce themselves, but whoever was there was ignoring it and tapping on the iron sally port.
Perhaps trying not to attract too much attention?
He strode softly to the gate, his sword firm in his right hand, hearing the others rouse behind him. He slipped the visor of his sallet down, and then carefully opened up the spy hole in the sally port.

He saw three men waiting outside, standing politely and nonchalantly as if they were there to deliver milk and eggs, despite the swords and daggers they bore. He recognized the man in the lead from the funeral.
Black-Heart.
They locked eyes for a moment, and Holgar stared at him through narrow slits.

Holgar finally grunted and slid the spy hole closed.

From the window of his second floor chambers, Arduin could clearly see the entire street in front of the city house of his father, the Baron of Araswell.
Islik's balls, we're fucked
, he thought as he contemplated the end of his father's house and possibly his life. He was grimly cataloging the available defenses for the house in his head:
Eight knights, including myself; five squires; fourteen men of the household fit enough to fight, including six experienced bowmen; twenty women in sufficient condition to give assistance, with Tomas in the kitchens already directing the preparation of hot oil, bandages and stacks of arrows and bolts.
Even against a rabble numbering in the hundreds if not thousands by now, he was sure they could hold the front doors, possibly even for days—
as long as no one brought a battering ram; as long as Templars or the City Watch don't show up, and it stays this street rabble. But if men that know what they're doing show up, then we're done for.

Given how angry he was, it was actually surprising that Arduin could hold a coherent thought in his head. But his livid anger had cooled enough for a kind of acceptance to ease into him. He had known all week that Harvald's death under such mysterious and scandalous circumstances had almost certainly doomed his family to an ignominious fate; and now, with his sister accused of witchcraft by the High Priest of the Public Temple, and his brother's funeral dissolved into a riot to top it all off . . . well, the end would certainly come sooner rather than later. It was almost a relief.
Better that we all die and just get it all over with
, he thought.
Better a quick death than the slow death we've been dying for the last ten years.

Two of the household's squires, Elbray and Enan, were finishing buckling him into his armor, a heavy three-quarter plate harness in the Sun Court style, slipped tight over his pourpoint arming doublet. Rolled edges, etching, and gold gilding marked it as an expensive harness, but in truth it was also slightly out of date; it had been made for him at the height of the family's power by the armorer Leon Lis Wain of the House of the Double Lion, back when Arduin was a Tourney Champion, and that was indeed a decade gone by. The current preference in Therapoli was for a sloped cuirass that came to a low point, while his was decidedly full and rounded; for high shoulder pieces, particularly on the left pauldron, to help protect the neck, but his had none; for large, sweeping couters at the elbow, while his were more medium-sized, if elaborately chased and etched. Still, the harness wasn't terribly less effective than the current fashions, and the armorer's mark upon it was a considerable point of pride. His plate gauntlets, bevor, and sallet rested on a tabletop nearby, awaiting the moment when the house was truly in danger.

“Do you really think they'll attack the house, my Lord?” asked Elbray as he wrapped the King's sword belt around Arduin's waist. Arduin glanced down; Elbray was about fourteen years of age, still young, with several more years of squiring to go before he could attempt a knighthood. Enan was even younger, twelve years of age. They both looked nervous.
Perhaps we can send them out the back, with some of the women
, he wondered.

“No, of course not,” he said, with as reassuring a smile as he could muster. “But we'll be ready for them if they are stupid enough to try.”

He could hear a small commotion outside his chambers, and Sir Helgi walked into the room. “My Lord, visitors at the back gate. Sir Holgar thought you'd want to see them,” he said. Arduin nodded and gestured for Helgi to bring them in before turning back to the window. He eyed the crowd, idly speculating about which one of them he would shoot first with a crossbow.
Probably one of the priests; cut off the head, and this rabble won't know what to do.

He could hear men filtering into his chamber so he turned; Elbray and Enan expertly turned with him to complete their last remaining buckles and adjustments. Sirs Helgi, Holgar, Clodin, and Colin were escorting three men into his presence. One of them he recognized instantly, and he contemplated the man coldly for a moment.

“You are Stjepan, son of Byron of An-Athair, yes, and a cartographer at the High King's Court?” Arduin finally asked. “We spoke briefly this morning on more than one occasion,” he added with a slight hint of irony.

Stjepan nodded. “I am, Lord Arduin,” he said. “Let me again offer my condolences. My companions are Erim, once of the city of Berrina, and Master Gilgwyr Liadaine. As you may recall, Gilgwyr and I knew your brother from our days at the University . . .”

“Your days at the University?” Arduin snorted. “You almost burned the city down. Rabble rousers and street brawlers, you were, the lot of you. You earned my brother a black mark against his name and life as a petty clerk at Court. Hardly fitting for a scion of our lineage.” He waved in the general direction of the windows, indicating the commotion outside. “And trouble seems to follow you both, even to his very funeral. Even to the doors of this, my father's house.” That last was almost a shout.

“Yes, my Lord,” said Stjepan with a wince. “I do regret the manner in which his funeral ended, and the part I played in it.”

Arduin contemplated him for a long moment, calming himself. “Is it true, what Harvald said about you?” he finally asked. “That you are a witch's get. I mean, everyone always says that about the Athairi, that you're all witch-born and
fae
-born, but Harvald, he said in your case it was actually true, that your mother was . . . what was it? Argante, called the Witch of An-Athair, who was burned at the stake some years ago . . .”

Stjepan set his chin higher, his mouth tight. “My mother was indeed Argante, daughter of Yirgane, of the line of Arfane, and Urfante, and Morfane,” he said, though he was not sure that Arduin knew what that meant.

Arduin nodded, satisfied, and started to walk out of the room, signaling for him to follow.

Arduin and then Stjepan entered a dark, austere chamber, followed discreetly by Sir Colin and the squire Elbray, and paused. The chamber's window shutters were drawn shut, and looked out over the rear courtyard, so the cries of the street rabble were distant and muffled but still audible. There was a gauze curtain around a divan, with figures behind it. They began approaching the curtain, and soon Stjepan could see a semi-conscious Annwyn tossing and mumbling to herself in the arms of a fearful but defiant Malia, who stared up at them wide-eyed.

Arduin stopped, and Stjepan stopped right behind him, but then Arduin glanced back at him and with a slight inclination of his head indicated that Stjepan could approach more closely. Stjepan nodded and walked past him toward the curtained area. Annwyn was still in her mourning dress and in obvious distress, her eyes unfocused, a faint gleam of sweat upon her face and neck, now unveiled. Her golden hair was tightly wound behind her head, though a few strands had come undone and were plastered by sweat across her forehead and face.

Stjepan crouched before her, and cocked his head, listening.

“The images on her body were bad enough,” said Arduin quietly in the dark behind him. “But then the . . . words started. At first I thought they were just mad ravings . . .”

“No, it is an old tongue she speaks; has your sister ever studied Old Éduinan or its dialects?” Stjepan asked. Éduinan was the original language of the Danians, Daradjans, and Maelites—the
language of the mountains
, literally, for the peoples that lived upon the Éduins mountains or within their shadow.

“My sister has been brought up with the education befitting a Lady,” said Arduin coldly. Stjepan grunted noncommittally as Arduin paused. “So . . . where do these words come from, then? Is this indeed some sort of witchcraft, then, as the High Priest said?”

Stjepan took a deep breath. “Your sister is in the grips of a Sending, an enchantment of the mind and body sent by your brother as his dying act, and I believe with a clear purpose. The images upon her skin are part of a map, sent for us to follow.”

Arduin gaped at him. “My brother? Are you mad? My brother, the
clerk
, placed an enchantment upon my sister? He was no magician!”

“Perhaps you did not know your brother as well as you thought you did, my Lord,” said Stjepan quietly. “A rudimentary understanding of the hermetic arts is taught to almost all students at the University.”

“My brother . . .” Arduin began, then stopped. He thought on the questions of the Inquisition and the City Watch and the Magisters that he'd heard all week:
Did Harvald consort with wizards and sorcerers? Where might he have learned the arts of higher magic? Have you ever seen Harvald with magical amulets or talismans?
He thought about the glimpse of the body he had, before the priests and undertakers began their work on it. “My brother . . .” he started again, struggling. “My brother . . . my brother died from a curse and was unrecognizable to me even as we put him on the pyre. What is this a map to? What is so important that Harvald would risk death for it and endanger our sister?”