The Bloody Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (19 page)

Feray looked out over the darkened bay and shivered. It was not a cold night but there was a definite chill in the air, a reminder that this was not home. The window for sailing was closing. Soon the winter storms would begin and trap them there.

There had been no message from either the Gaelish nor Abbas’s agents during that long day. The worried spymaster had his men scouring the city, but there was no word and no clue what had happened to her husband.

“Perhaps we should ask King Aidan for help, highness,” he had suggested. “I have thrown a golden net over the city. Most of these Gaelish would sell their own mothers for a silver piece and I have offered them gold. If they cannot find him for us, then we need to search elsewhere.”

Feray had held on to her temper only with the greatest of difficulty. The thought of asking the Gaelish for help made her skin crawl. The only compensation was the thought that whatever price they wanted for Kemal’s return, he would avenge.

“We have to give it until noon tomorrow,” she said finally. “If you have been unable to find him by then, I shall see King Aidan personally. I want you there to write down exactly the price they demand for his return, so we know what to punish them with in the spring.”

She let the frightened Abbas go and keep his agents searching through the night while she walked around the deck. Their sons were asleep in the cabin and she would have to join them soon, even though she knew she could not relax, not with Kemal lost somewhere in the city.

It was strange, she had never thought she could feel so much for her husband of a political marriage. Her family had once ruled a huge land to the south of Kotterman. Hundreds of summers ago they had their own empire but then had come the Kotterman army and they had been swallowed up into the greater empire. But her people still respected her family and the Kottermanis were shrewd enough to allow them to always be visible in the ruling of their old lands, even if they lacked true power. Her marriage to the Crown Prince had been both to cement the ties and stamp out the first flickering of a rebellion among her people.

She had expected to be a political pawn only but soon found that Kemal was not like that. Two of his brothers would have been but he was different. First she liked him, then she loved him and now she could not imagine life without him.

“Where are you, my love?” she asked aloud.

She glanced over to the docks, where companies of angry men stood, swords drawn and arrows in hand. Anyone who tried to come near the ships was going to get a very unfriendly greeting. The guards were in an ugly mood, after more than a score had been killed and another dozen terribly wounded. The two doctors they had brought with them had been working all day to try and save at least some of them.

Satisfied that nothing needed her attention, she stepped down into the ship and their quiet cabin, which took up the whole stern of the ship. The boys would be asleep but she had to see them, kiss their brows and gather some strength from them. Perhaps a cup of herbal tisane might allow her to close her eyes for a turn or two of the hourglass.

Wearily she pushed open the cabin door – and then her eyes snapped fully open as she realized there were two men standing there. One of them the traitor Fallon, who had lured her husband into a trap!

She opened her mouth to shout for the guards but he held his finger to his lips and pointed to where the other man stood, a vicious-looking knife held above her sleeping sons.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice a croak.

*

Fallon smiled wolfishly as he saw Kemal’s wife shut the door behind her and sag back against it, her eyes betraying her terror for her children.

So far it had been easy enough. Thanks to Gallagher, they had stolen a small boat and paddled carefully across the water from the docks to where the Kottermani ships were moored. Approaching from the darkness, the guards on the docks had not been able to see them, for their eyes were dazzled by the light of dozens of torches and lanterns. Gallagher brought them in under the stern of Kemal’s ship and held them there while Padraig went to work. Thanks to him, they were able to throw a rope upwards that fastened itself to the window and, again thanks to him, Fallon and Gallagher had climbed up it with little more difficulty than going up a set of stairs. Without the magic, it would have been too difficult to even dream of attempting.

Once inside, it was just a case of waiting for the Prince’s wife to come back in. Finding the two sleeping children there had been a bonus.

“Your husband sends his greetings. He has sent us to get you,” Fallon said gently. “We were betrayed and attacked this morning but your husband and I escaped. He is in hiding.” He had no idea if she would believe these lies but it was worth a try. If she thought they were being taken for torture, she might just shout for help and take her chances.

“Then why the knife near my children? Why threaten them?” she demanded, her voice low.

“We cannot risk being heard. Come with us and all will become clear,” he said.

“Why did you not bring my husband with you instead?” she challenged.

Fallon did not like the way her voice was getting louder. They needed to be away from here unseen.

“He is in the boat below. Come and see,” he said, stepping away from the window and signaling for Gallagher to put away his fearsome knife.

Kemal’s wife looked suspicious but he held out his hands, palm out, and she edged across to the window, leaning out to see the boat below. Instantly he struck her on the temple, pitching her unconscious to the padded seat along the rear wall of the cabin.

“Aroaril! Fallon! Hitting a woman?” Gallagher gasped.

“That is the least I will do,” Fallon said. “Come, help me get them down.”

*

Kemal tried to block out the pain from his crushed toes. He did not even want to look at them, for they made him feel weak. The throbbing agony was making him feel sick but he would have sooner given up his birthright than let those bastards know how he was hurting. He almost welcomed the pain from his crushed lips and bruised face, for it distracted him from his foot. He balanced on his heel, not wanting to put any pressure on what was left of his toes, and every movement sent a fresh surge of agony through him.

He clung to one thought, that he would escape and get his revenge. They would not defeat him. Whatever happened, he would never bow to this peasant. As long as he held true to that, they could not truly hurt him. Pain would pass. Injuries would heal. And he would have proved he was stronger than them.

The door banged open and he looked up swiftly, squinting through his bruised eyes to see Fallon stride in. The man walked over and squatted down right in front, his face calm.

“You have my wife. You have my friends’ wives and children. I tried to give you the chance to help us, to admit your mistake and give them back. But you refused to talk. So I have decided to give you a taste of what we have been going through. We now have your wife and children,” he said, his voice low and reasonable.

“You are lying!” Kemal sneered. “They are too well protected. If you think I am going to fall for that, then you are an even bigger fool—”

He felt his voice trail away as two of the Gaelish, the giant and the short one, dragged Feray and his sons Asil and Orhan into the room. His heart seemed to stop, then leap up into his throat and, instantly, the pain in his foot and face was nothing to worry about. Not compared to seeing his family in the brutal hands of these Gaelish. His careful control, which he had tried to maintain even in the face of torture and humiliation, dissolved in an instant.

“Let them go! They had nothing to do with this! I swear, if you harm them, I will make you suffer in ways you have never imagined!” he screamed at them, tearing at his bonds with all his strength, heedless of the surges of agony this flared in his foot.

Then Fallon leaned in and slapped his face, nothing hard, more of a tap, something you might give to a child who was lost in a screaming tantrum. It silenced him, as well. “Now you know how we feel. Now you know what we have been going through since you took our families from us,” the man said. “You know what I am prepared to do. Don’t make me hurt them. Tell us what you know.”

Kemal looked over at his family, seeing their terror and feeling it strike deeper than the hammer blows that had smashed his toes. But he was the Crown Prince, the heir to the Elephant Throne. This man was a peasant and, besides, his friends and accomplices were visibly unhappy at using a woman and children. They would not go through with this. It was all a bluff. He just had to hold his nerve and Fallon would give up. Victory would be his and then he could make promises, win their freedom – and take a terrible revenge. He just had to hold strong.

He looked at Fallon and shook his head.

“Do you think this is a game?” Fallon snarled at him, then whirled and strode over the room, where he grabbed Feray by the arm and dragged her over, forcing her down to her knees so she was staring right into Kemal’s eyes, the pair of them close enough to touch if their arms had not been bound.

“No. Let her go,” Kemal ordered, trying to put all the power and authority he had into his voice. “You do not want to do this. Once you harm her, you have crossed the line. There is no way back from there.” He locked eyes with Fallon. Everyone else melted away, even Feray and the boys. It was now a test of wills between them. And his will would prove the greater.

*

Fallon saw the iron in Kemal’s eyes but the man’s words were soft as wool. Crossed a line? He had killed Prince Cavan! He was so far over the line, he could no longer see it. Only one thing mattered: getting Bridgit and the other families back. Even if he were as good as destroyed himself, at least his friends and his son would have some chance of rebuilding lives they could bear to live, of healing from the terror of the past moons. This arrogant bastard was all that stood in the way of that, and nothing was going to stop Fallon now. The prick was bluffing. That might work with his wife there, who looked like she would back him up. But not his sons.

Fallon dragged the wife away, then he grabbed the younger of the two boys and hauled him over, putting him right in front of Kemal’s face. He locked eyes with the Prince, seeing the man not even look at his obviously terrified boy, instead keeping up his defiant stare.

The Prince said something to his son in Kottermani, probably some sort of encouragement, so Fallon backhanded Kemal, rocking his head away, and then drew his knife and held it in front of the boy’s eyes, letting him see the edge, roughened from all the sharpening. The boy’s eyes grew wider than ever and his breath was coming in short, urgent gasps.

“What if I take his eyes?” Fallon asked conversationally, putting the tip of the knife right in front of the boy’s nose, making it seem massive.

The young boy, who was surely not more than six summers, was shaking like a leaf in a winter breeze and then his bladder let go with fear, urine puddling around his feet and some of it washing towards Kemal’s wrecked foot, making the Prince move his injured toes away with a hiss of pain.

“Or what if I take his fingers? Has he learned to feed himself yet?” Fallon asked harshly. He grabbed the back of the boy’s head and made him look down at his father’s broken toes. “Or maybe I’ll smash his feet, like yours?”

He reached down and began to tug on the boy’s damp boot, making the child scream with fear, his terror muffled by the gag.

Behind him Fallon could hear the mother going crazy, but she could do nothing against Brendan’s huge strength. She was shrieking something in Kottermani and Kemal said something back, his voice cracking a little.

Yet he refused to give, still meeting Fallon’s eyes.

“Don’t make me do this.” Fallon glared at him.

“You won’t do it. You can’t!” Kemal spat back, eyes burning with hatred.

Fallon snarled at him and showed him the knife. He bent and sliced it lightly across Kemal’s lower leg, drawing a thin stripe of blood and pooling it on the blade.

“This is your doing, not mine,” he hissed, then placed the blade on the boy’s cheek.

The lad shrieked at the touch and Fallon turned the blade, not cutting the skin but allowing some of Kemal’s blood, which was already on the blade, to ooze down.

He looked into Kemal’s eyes as he did so, saw the defiance begin to crack. The boy was sobbing helplessly now, his brother and mother screaming.

“I will peel him and you will watch. I will skin him and wear him like a cloak!” Fallon spat.

His eyes were locked to Kemal’s and, although the man was trying to hold strong, Fallon could see it was breaking apart. He took all his own anger and guilt and agony and fear and let them show through in his eyes.

“You know I will do it,” he whispered.

For a moment more Kemal held him, then his eyes snapped shut and a tear trickled down his face. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice a broken murmur.

“Here, have a drink.” Fallon poured a cup of water for Kemal. “You have a lot of talking to do.”

“Where is my family?” Kemal demanded. “How are they?”

“They are safe. My wife’s father, Padraig, is with them now. He is a wizard and is no doubt showing them small magic tricks and telling them jokes, which, if they could understand them, would horrify them,” Fallon said briskly.

“I need to see them.”

Fallon shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. They stay somewhere safe. You talk, or they come back and start screaming.”

He watched Kemal sip the water and nodded to his friends. The moment Kemal had cracked, he had hustled the wife and sons out of the room, where the youngest boy could be cleaned up and the three of them could recover a little. Sister Rosaleen had arrived, Gallagher having gone to get her while Fallon used Kemal’s wife and children to make the Prince talk.

The Sister had been horrified at what they had done but she still used her powers to heal the Prince’s wounds. She was now sitting beside Kemal, her face like stone. Fallon had braved her disapproval and insisted she be there. He did not trust the Prince not to try and offer a few lies mixed in with the truth. And he’d had enough of being lied to. More than enough.

“Sister Rosaleen will be testing the words you say. Aroaril has given her the power to tell truth from lies. Lie to us and your family will be punished, understand?” he growled at the Prince.

“I understand,” Kemal said softly, glancing at Rosaleen.

She held Kemal’s hand, which seemed to calm him, and had her eyes closed, mouthing silent prayers. Fallon was not sure what Rosaleen was praying for and suspected it might be punishment for him. But he was past caring about that. She would prove he had made Kemal bend to his will and then he could be sure the man would return their families. The truth was no longer enough, but it was a good start.

“Our families. Are they safe?”

Kemal nodded. “They are all together. They are at the port of Adana, the closest point to Gaelland. Your wife, Bridgit, is their leader.”

Fallon felt his head whip around so fast to look at Rosaleen that he swore his neck cracked.

She nodded that this was the truth, her eyes wide.

“How is Bridgit the leader?” Fallon demanded.

“She fought back at your village, took down three of my men, and then began demanding better food and conditions for the children. It just grew from there and now she is their leader. She and two of her friends are caring for all the children while the rest of the adults work, preparing for their new lives as slaves.”

“What were the friends’ names?” Devlin demanded.

Kemal screwed up his eyes as he thought. “I can’t remember,” he admitted. “But they were chosen by Bridgit.”

“Nola and Riona. It has to be,” Fallon said.

Devlin leaned back in his chair, staring at the roof and blinking his eyes rapidly, while Brendan buried his face in his hands.

“They are safe and will be well treated. They are valuable property,” Kemal said.

“And they are all still in this Adana?”

“For now. They will be sold off around the Empire within a moon.”

“Well, that is not quite true. But more of that later. Now tell me why you attacked our villages?” Fallon asked.

He watched the Prince slowly sip his water, wincing as the cup touched his lips until he realized there was no pain from them since Rosaleen had healed up his facial injuries too. Fallon sighed and ostentatiously laid his knife on the table.

“It was a bargain with your King Aidan,” Kemal said tiredly.

Fallon leaned back in his chair and glanced over at Rosaleen. She nodded slightly and he pressed on.

“Tell us all,” he said.

“For years we have traded with your people, but always we have been looking you over, seeing if Gaelland was worth bringing into the Empire. My father, the Emperor and ruler of the Elephant Throne, decreed it was time for Gaelland to become part of the Kotterman Empire. He sent me, his first-born son, along with a small fleet of ships, to inform King Aidan of what was to happen and to allow him to prepare his people. We did not want to bring you into the Empire with blood and fire. We would be far happier for Gaelland to see the benefit of being part of the Kotterman Empire.”

“And it would mean you wouldn’t need to waste money rebuilding all the towns you sacked,” Fallon said sourly.

“Of course,” Kemal nodded. “King Aidan was at first furious, then he calmed down and accepted what I said. He offered us a bargain. We would help him prepare his country to become part of the Empire and he would ensure a peaceful handover. For the first year or two I would be here, to make sure all was going smoothly but, after that, he would merely have a Kottermani administrator at his shoulder, checking and approving all his decisions and ensuring the correct tax was being paid back to the Elephant Throne. A few companies of Kotterman soldiers would be stationed here but, once he had proved he would obey all orders from Kotterman, things would go on much like before.”

“What was the bargain? How would you prepare us for being Kottermani?” Fallon demanded.

Kemal took another mouthful of water. He looked tired beyond belief but his voice was still strong.

“King Aidan said he needed to use his people’s superstitions to terrify them and make them think that becoming Kottermani was the only way to keep their children safe. At his request, we gave him three of my father’s bodyguards, men trained to run and fight and hide and move silently. Aidan was going to use his wizard, Finbar, to help them kidnap children and hide them away, tell his people it was witches taking them.”

“And really they would be shipped to Kotterman as slaves?” Fallon asked.

“No! What would we want with children? They cannot work properly. They would be worth little to us.” Kemal sniffed. “No, the King would hide them and then release them when the country came into the Empire, thereby proving that the people were now safe.”

Fallon looked immediately at Rosaleen, who slowly nodded. He glanced around at his friends, who were also looking horrified. There were many more questions here. Why had King Aidan wanted them to kill the snatchers if they were really working for him? It was obvious this was not all the answers: just half of the story. But the really important part was still to come.

“And our villages?”

“King Aidan wanted to use another legend, of seals that come to life as men and commit evil in the night. Your selkies.”

“Aye,” Gallagher said sourly.

“Yes. He gave us a local guide and we used our ships and men trained to dive deep under the water to catch lobsters, to instead take men from fishing boats and isolated houses. And from two villages, one small and one large,” Kemal said.

“And were these people to be returned after we all became Kottermani?” Fallon interrupted.

Kemal shook his head. “No, these were slaves. The first payment of many to come from Gaelland and a deposit on the bargain we made with Aidan, a sign of his good faith.”

“They were our wives and children, you bastard!” Brendan thundered.

Kemal faced him without flinching but Rosaleen put up her hand in warning and the big smith subsided.

“The local guide? Who was he?” Fallon demanded, thinking of his friend Hagen and wondering if the man really had been a traitor, or just forced to do it by the King – and then killed by the King’s agents for his trouble.

“I do not know. We would meet them by boat every other day and be given a list of places to avoid and others to hit.”

Fallon clenched his fists together. He dearly wanted to know the truth about their betrayal. “And the Duke of Lunster? Was he taken because he disagreed with the King?” he asked, remembering Hagen’s warning to him.

Kemal looked down at the table. “I never attacked the Duke of Lunster’s ship. The biggest boat we took was a fishing boat with ten men inside,” he said.

Fallon shook his head. “I thought we understood this was only to be the truth?” he snarled. “We saw the Duke’s ship! It sailed right into our village, stripped empty, and there was a bloodstained quarrel in the Duke’s cabin, one just like the ones you used when you attacked our village!”

“As I told your wife when she asked me, I don’t know what you are talking about. If the Duke’s ship was attacked, it was nothing to do with us. In any case, we were only taking those approved by the King,” Kemal replied, his voice rising in pitch.

Fallon did not need to glance at Rosaleen to confirm what he already suspected – Kemal was speaking the truth.

“When did you speak to Bridgit about this?” he demanded.

Kemal shrugged. “She was asking about the Duke, wanting to know why he was not the leader of your captured people. I gave her the same message. The King demanded that his nobles be protected. None of them were to be harmed. We were to only take ordinary people as our slaves.”

Fallon rubbed his hands through his hair. Something at the back of his mind was jumping up and down, demanding attention. He closed his eyes for a moment and then it swam out of the depths of his memory. The scroll he had found in the King’s rooms, detailing the counties and villages and their tax take, filed in the Kotterman section, now made sense.

“What else?” he asked harshly.

“On my return, I was to deliver the final terms to the King, which I have done. He has until the next full moon to formally sign over Gaelland to the Kotterman Empire, or we shall come back in the spring and take it by force. I am just awaiting his acceptance.”

“And the meetings with Prince Swane? Or men you thought to be from Cavan?”

Kemal shrugged. “We always knew that King Aidan was going to be a difficult man to deal with. He is unpredictable and volatile. It seemed sensible to meet his heir. We were approached by men claiming to be from Prince Cavan and, after a series of meetings, we had agreed to him replacing King Aidan. That was what was in my scroll to your King. The final act of his reign is for him to hand over his power to Prince Cavan and to take no further part in running Gaelland. It was the justification I used for taking your country. At least it would be governed properly and we would see that life improved for the ordinary people.”

“Really?” Gallagher asked sarcastically.

Kemal glanced over at him. “We have done this before, many times. Once we tried to keep the nobles happy but we learned that was not enough. The nobles can do nothing without the support of the people. Get the people happy and they will cause no trouble.”

“Except for the ones taken away for slavery,” Devlin added.

“What, do you think we are going to keep storming into homes and tearing people away? That was for your King’s benefit, not ours. We would take slaves, yes, but they would be criminals. The penalty for thievery, rape and murder would not be flogging or hanging but the rest of your life as a slave far from home. Everything we have learned about Gaelland told me there would easily be two hundred men a year to fill that quota.”

Fallon had to agree that was probably true. He looked across at his friends. Something had changed in the last few questions. It was as if Kemal were getting his confidence back.

“So what was Swane’s plan? Why have these meetings?” Fallon asked.

Brendan, Gallagher and Devlin all took turns to shrug.

“It may have been to test us. Or me,” Kemal said into the silence.

“What do you mean?”

“When I first came here, it was to promise King Aidan that he could remain as a figurehead. Orders from Kotterman would have to be obeyed, of course, but he would still have power, and respect. Soon after that, the request to meet with Cavan – sorry, Swane’s men – came to my agents. Perhaps King Aidan was seeing whether we could be trusted.”

“He’s certainly playing his own game,” Fallon said sourly. “We killed your father’s three men and rescued many of the people they were holding. But there has been no sign of the lost children they took.”

“You killed them?” Kemal asked. “I did not think they would die easily. They had been trained since birth in fighting.”

“And they had been given some magical help as well,” Devlin added.

“Now the King has many questions to answer,” Fallon said, then pointed at the Kottermani. “But first we need to deal with you. This is what is going to happen. You are going to return to your ships, this night, and sail for Kotterman. Once there, you will release our families, put them on a ship and return them to us. And to make sure you do, your wife and sons will be staying here with us. If our families do not return, or if you come back with an army, I can promise you that your family will die in ways that will give you nightmares for the rest of your life. But, as soon as our families are back, your wife and children will go back on the same ship, unharmed.”

“How can I believe you will just let them go? How do I know you will not try to keep using them against me, or give them to the King to do the same?” Kemal demanded.

Fallon held out his hand to Sister Rosaleen. “I will swear on anything you want,” he said. “All we want is our families back. Once we get them, then your family is no longer needed.”

“But you will be trying to live in a country ruled by me, or at least by my father. Surely you must be thinking that I will return to take a terrible revenge on you, unless you have something to use against me,” Kemal insisted.

Fallon stared at him. “We shall not be staying here. As soon as our families are back, we shall be leaving here and sailing away from Gaelland and away from you. We will live free, and live in peace, and you will never find us.”

Kemal looked thoughtful. “I wish I could believe you,” he said. “But this is my family’s lives we are talking about.”

“Prince Cavan discovered a deserted island, big enough for our village, hidden amid rocks and sandbars,” Fallon said. “I would show you but I do not plan to have any visitors once we are there.”

“Why do you not come on your ship with me? We can exchange families at sea,” Kemal suggested.

Fallon shook his head. “That would put us in your power,” he said. “It would be too easy for you to surround us. No, this is the way we will do it. And I will swear an oath before Aroaril on Bridgit’s life that I will protect your family as my own until ours are returned.”