The Queen of Mages (34 page)

“Please, if you can let us in, I will
explain.” He glanced back. They’d come around the side of the
house, and could not see their pursuers; for all he knew the Warden
was mere minutes away.

Alvin hesitated, then swung the door wide
open. “Wait in the sitting room. You remember the way. Keep quiet.”
He looked out past them. “I’ll stable your horse.”

“Give him an apple or you might regret it,”
Liam said as lightly as he could, as he led Katin in past the
major. She curtseyed quickly. Alvin eyed her with no small
wariness, but went out, shutting the door behind him.

Liam led Katin to the sitting room. When he
sat on the couch, he was suddenly overcome by fatigue, and feared
he might fall asleep where he sat. Katin clutched his arm tightly,
keeping him awake. A single hand-lamp burned in the corner of the
room. If the hearthfire was the light they’d seen earlier, it had
since been banked for the night.

Katin seemed as tired as Liam felt, but she
leaned in close. “Liam, where are we? Whose house is this?”

“If the baron’s not here, it doesn’t
matter.”

Her eyes flashed a warning. “Liam—”

He shushed her and waited. A minute later,
he heard the front door open and shut, and Alvin came back in,
tightening his robe around him. Liam forced himself to stand once
more. “I cannot thank you enough. Is the baron home?”

“Yes, and I must go wake him.”

“Please, we don’t mean to disturb him. Can
it wait until morning?”

Alvin’s eyes narrowed. The man was young for
a house major, perhaps a few years past Liam’s age. But canny
enough to smell trouble. They’d only met a few times, when Liam
came with Dardan on some visit or another. “I suggest you stay
here.” He left, slippers whisking on the carpet, and Liam sat
again.

Now Katin outright glared at Liam. “Tell me
whose house this is.”

He said nothing.
She’ll find out in a
moment anyway. Better to tell her than for her to meet the man face
to face unprepared.
But he couldn’t say it. Instead he looked
into her dark eyes. “Please trust me. It will be all right.”

Her fingernails dug into his hand. She made
to object, but he darted forward and kissed her. She was startled,
and when he drew back her mouth hung open.

Footsteps echoed down the hall. Liam stood,
his knees shaking. He drew Katin up as well, and she held tight to
his hand.

“…in the name of the malevolent black
spirits does he want?” came a voice. Two men came around the
corner: Alvin, followed by a shorter, younger, pudgier man, wearing
a silk nightrobe and an expression of distaste.

Liam bowed deeply and Katin curtseyed just
as low. “Baron Parvis, please excuse our late intrusion.”

By the time he straightened, he could feel
waves of fury coming off Katin. She nearly shook. He could not look
her in the eye.
She’ll forgive me. I had no choice.

Baron Parvis Stanton planted his feet and
stared. “I’ll admit this is not your usual mode of arrival. Though
I suppose it makes sense that you arrive without your master.”

Liam’s heart fell. “Pardon me, m’lord, but
does that mean Lord Dardan has not returned to Hedenham?”

“Not that I’ve heard, but that’s for later.
What on earth do you think you’re doing, showing up in the middle
of the night like this? And who is this?” His eyes shifted to
Katin. Then he snapped at Alvin, “Bring up the hearth, it’s
cold.”

The house major nodded and began laying new
wood on the hearth at once. Liam cleared his throat. “This is Katin
Berisha,
vala
to Lady Amira Estaile, Lord Dardan’s
betrothed.”

Parvis made to ask something, but a horse
whinnied outside. Liam froze, and Katin gasped and clutched his
arm. Someone spoke, barking instructions.
The Warden.
He
thought he recognized that brusque voice.

The baron’s head swiveled to the hallway.
“Now what—is this your doing?”

“M’lord, please—please do not tell them we
came in here. I will explain everything, I swear it by Sacrifice
and Courage and Terror, but
please
do not surrender us.”

“Who is out there? Tell me quick and true or
by the Caretaker I’ll let whoever it is have the both of you.”

“A Warden, sent by Taya Relindos to hunt us,
and likely a detachment of men from the garrison.” He held his
breath.

Parvis glared. “Oh, is that all? And here I
was, thinking it might be someone dangerous. Wait here,” he said,
and went out. Alvin stopped his preparations with the fire and
darted after his master.

“Baron
Parvis
?” Katin hissed. “He’s
the one who raped that farmgirl—”

“Quiet!” Liam snapped at her. “Count Asmus
found him innocent, and anyway what choice do we have?” He pulled
from her grasp and stalked to the doorway.

“What are you doing?” Katin hissed at him.
He shushed her and listened.

The front door creaked open again. “Yes?”
came Alvin’s voice.

The Warden answered, that memorable iron
gruffness. “Good evening. We’re looking for a man and a woman who
came this way—”

“What’s the meaning of this, trampling a
man’s yard at midnight?” Parvis snapped. “Who in the—ah, a Warden I
see. Well? A man tries to sleep.”

“My apologies for intruding, sir,” Warden
Penrose said, though Liam had never heard someone less apologetic.
“We are tracking a man and a woman ahorse who may have come this
way. This is the nearest shelter.”

A pause. “The only man and woman here are me
and the lady upstairs, and Wrath take you if she wakes up. The
baroness will not be pleased if her sleep is interrupted.”

“Ah—forgive me,” the Warden said, sounding
not at all contrite. A long silence ensued. Liam’s heartbeat echoed
in his ears. Finally there came a rustling sound, as of parchment
being unfolded. The Warden said, “If you see a man and woman
fitting this description, or with the names shown here, alert the
army garrison, or the local magistrate and constables at once.
M’lord,” he added grudgingly.

“Yes, yes, be on the lookout. Off with you,
before the baroness wakes.” The door snicked shut on the Warden’s
farewell. “Watch that they leave,” Parvis said quietly to
Alvin.

Liam’s gut unclenched. They were safe, for
the moment. He wondered about the “baroness” upstairs. Parvis
hadn’t gotten married, had he? Was there really even a woman up
there? It wasn’t unlikely, knowing the baron.

He tiptoed back to where Katin stood. She
gripped her skirt with white knuckles. “They’ve gone,” he said to
her. Katin said nothing, and turned her head away, jaw set
tight.

Baron Parvis came back. Liam fancied he
could see a halo of muted rancor surrounding the man. “Tired and in
the dark of night is no setting for the discussion we must have.
Alvin will show you to the servants’ bunks. We will speak in the
morning.” He swept out, slippers whispering on the wooden floor of
the hall, leaving Liam to wonder whether they were really any safer
than before.

Count Kirth’s manor erupted into chaos when
he announced to his staff that they would be arranging a wedding
ceremony and feast to take place that very day. His wife, Countess
Tria, swept forth from her chambers bearing her very own wedding
dress. “The Caretaker did not bless me with daughters, and I will
be cursed by the black spirits before I let this beautiful thing go
to waste,” she said. The menfolk looked on bemusedly as she and a
gaggle of maids abducted Amira into the countess’s chambers.

Dardan himself was provided with a simple
suit of black linen that Count Kirth summoned from somewhere. In
short order he had been marched to the town’s temple, which had
been built in the same thrifty style as everything else in Tyndam.
It was narrow, the altars small, and the sacred circle only perhaps
three paces across. Dardan was introduced to
Sendraj
Tevin,
a ruggedly handsome young steward with a flowing mane of golden
hair. Somewhere, girls wailed that the Caretaker had chosen such a
man for his servant.

After an interminable wait, during which a
nervous Dardan was (by custom) confined to the sacred circle, Amira
appeared. The dress might be thirty years out of fashion, but it
did not diminish Amira’s beauty one bit; rather it enhanced her
radiance, and the flowers woven into her hair seemed as natural as
if they had grown there.

Count Barnard and his wife served as
witnesses, standing across the upper edge of the circle from one
another. Their
valai
stood between them on the other edges,
forming a cross. At a properly planned wedding, a crowd of family
and friends would encircle them in deep ranks, but four witnesses
was the fewest that
Sendraj
Tevin could accept.

Amira was so lovely that Dardan could barely
attend to the steward’s words. Amira recited the bride-oaths, and
Dardan the groom’s, and then at the last moment a young boy came
running into the temple, carrying two thin golden bands. Dardan had
no idea who he was, but Count Barnard smiled at him and ruffled his
hair, then handed the rings to the steward. As Tevin led them all
in the final chant, he handed one ring each to Dardan and Amira.
She slipped the larger ring onto Dardan’s right hand, and he put
the smaller ring on hers. Tears fell from her eyes when they
clasped their hands together, and Dardan felt a lump in his
throat—but he was more stunned than anything else.

The ceremony ended. Dardan clutched Amira in
a kiss as the count and countess and their
valai
applauded.
Amira was embraced by the countess and her
vala
while Count
Barnard shook Dardan’s hand vigorously. “Well done, my boy.” He
nodded to the steward.

“May all that is good and holy lead your
way,”
Sendraj
Tevin announced.

“May all that is good and holy lead our
way,” Amira and Dardan replied in unison. And like that, it was
done.

———

If the townsfolk had any objection to a
feast being arranged the day after a dance, Dardan saw no sign of
it. The trestle tables reappeared, accompanied by long benches and
a motley assortment of tables and chairs fetched from individual
homes. Something of a dais was erected out of wooden boards at the
edge of the square, and it was there, in the cooling evening, that
Dardan found himself with his wife at his side, confronted by a
townful of happy strangers.

Two whole pigs roasted on spits in the
middle of the square, attended by a squad of local lads taking
turns at the cranks. A variety of other dishes had been whipped up
by supportive townsfolk: scalloped potatoes in butter, peas and
carrots roasted with herbs, a salty beef stew, a soup of roots,
fresh greens with little plump tomatoes, and more besides.

Dardan glanced over at his wife during a
lull in the stream of townsfolk who came up to the dais to wish
them well. She smiled charmingly at everyone, but when she met
Dardan’s eyes, her smile turned a little thorny. “Enjoying
yourself, husband?” she muttered through her teeth.

“Shouldn’t I be?” he whispered back. “It was
kind of them to throw us such a celebration on such short
notice.”

“Indeed, they needn’t have bothered. We
should have left. What if Edon is coming?”

Dardan felt that his face had screwed up
into a glower, and he smoothed his features. They needed rest and
stability. A day or two here wouldn’t make much difference. He
sighed and turned away as Count Barnard introduced some baron of
the county to him.

A few minutes later, he suddenly felt
something pinch his arm. He looked over to see Amira’s hand
gripping him tightly. “Dardan,” she hissed. “I see silver light out
there.”

Dardan started. “What?” He gazed out over
the crowd of jubilant, increasingly drunken townsfolk, then
realized how foolish that was, as if he could tell who in the crowd
she might be referring to. A panic seized him for a moment when he
thought that Edon might have snuck into the crowd—but the idea of
the king skulking about in disguise as a townsman was
preposterous.

“There. Halfway back, on the right. See that
one man standing? The boy next to him.”

Dardan squinted into the dimness; he picked
out the standing man she’d referred to, and realized that he was
one of the fellows who’d been involved in that brawl at the dance.
The boy sitting beside him did not look familiar. “Are you
certain?”

“Every time he turns his head, I can see
it,” she whispered again, and Dardan heard a pleading in her voice.
“I must speak to him.”

“We cannot march up to him
now
,”
Dardan muttered, glancing over at Count Barnard, who was thankfully
distracted by a discussion with some merchant. “Tomorrow we’ll find
out who he is. You can speak to him then.”

“No!” Amira snapped, then suddenly looked
mortified. “No thank you, I’m full,” she said loudly to cover it
when Count Kirth and his wife both glanced at her with alarm. Amira
forced a smile until they looked away again.

“Be reasonable,” Dardan said. “You cannot go
over there. And this feast will likely last to the small hours. You
know we are obligated to stay here until all the guests have left.”
At least, such was the tradition. Dardan knew almost no one here,
but still, tradition was tradition. “Whoever the boy is, he must
live nearby. It will not be hard to find him, I promise.”

Amira ground her teeth, and after long
moments she sighed at him and crossed her arms petulantly.

Dardan’s own mood was subdued the rest of
the night. He hoped it would be taken as mere fatigue. The boy
Amira had pointed out left early, helping some other older
man—white-haired, probably an uncle or grandfather—totter away to
sleep off what was likely a surplus of liquor. Amira seemed to
glower even more deeply at this, but there was nothing Dardan could
do about it.

Another one like her,
Dardan mused.
He’d wondered whether she and Edon would be the only ones. It’d be
simpler that way, wouldn’t it? Well, this new one was just some
harmless boy. It couldn’t hurt to go talk to him, could it?

———

Dardan vaguely hoped for a repeat of the
previous night’s activities—this
was
their actual wedding
night, after all—but they were both exhausted beyond words by the
time they reached their borrowed bedchamber in the Kirths’ manor.
Besides that, Amira still seemed tense from their disagreement at
the high table. Well, she’d get over it once they found that boy in
the morning.

Finding him took longer than they hoped.
First Countess Tria showed up at the crack of dawn with an array of
dresses and gowns for Amira to try on, so that she could have
something proper to wear. The wedding gown was no longer
appropriate, and the countess would not hear of a noblewoman—or,
perhaps, any woman—wearing the dirty old wool and leathers Amira
had arrived in. She settled on a plain silk dress, clearly
something Tria had worn in her younger, slimmer years. It was in
good condition, in a gray that complemented Amira’s eyes.

Afterward, they attended a leisurely
breakfast with the Kirths, which was served late on account of the
feast. Then the count insisted on introducing them formally to
several of the merchants and barons they’d met last evening at the
feast. The newlyweds were naturally the center of attention, and it
proved impossible to extricate themselves. Amira did her best to
provide charming conversation, but Dardan saw how she eyed the door
every five seconds.

Finally Amira simply stood up and excused
herself on account of exhaustion. She dragged Dardan along, and
some of the nobles sniggered at what they assumed were amorous
newlyweds escaping to their bedchamber.

Instead they went out the side door. In
spite of all the delays, tracking down the boy’s identity proved
easier than Dardan expected. The first townsman they came across
knew all about the brawl at the dance. “Why, sure, that’s the
Carmichaels and th’ Allisters,” he said, shaking his head. “They
been feuding for years. Th’ usual nonsense. Someone steals
someone’s pig, and then before y’know it, there’s blood on th’
fields.” He said that the boy was likely Dexter Carmichael, Sedge
Carmichael’s younger son. “Always gettin’ in trouble, ever since he
was little. His countship had to order them families to keep
apart.” He gave them directions to the Carmichaels’ farm, a couple
of miles east of town, up the slope toward the pines. Amira thanked
him with an unseemly exuberance and nearly dragged Dardan away.

They’d need horses for a trip like that, but
before they went more than a hundred steps back toward the manor, a
ruckus arose. Four men carrying shovels and staves raced past them,
in the direction of the town square. It took Dardan a moment to
realize that the oldest of them was the same man he’d seen in the
brawl, the same man Amira had pointed out standing next to the boy
with the silver light. Sedge Carmichael. “That was him,” he said,
and Amira’s eyes went wide. She lifted her skirts from the dust and
began to run after them. Dardan grimaced and followed. What sort of
trouble was this?

It was only a short run to the square. As
Dardan stopped to catch his breath, he saw two clusters of
townsfolk facing each other angrily, fists shaking and voices
raised. Like Carmichael, the others all clutched improvised
weapons: rakes, shovels, broom handles.

“There he is!” Amira whispered fiercely. She
pointed at the young man, Dexter Carmichael, who stood in the
middle of one group—not the one with his father in it—held by the
arms by two other lads. Behind Dexter stood another older man, the
second brawler from the dance. He was grizzled and windblown, and
sported a mild black eye. No one else seemed to be wielding a
blade, but the old man—Allister, hadn’t that been the name?—held a
big kitchen knife in one hand. Dexter sweated and shook,
terrified.

Hoofbeats and a neigh distracted Dardan as a
horse pulled up beside the group. “What in Chaos is going on here?”
its rider demanded. Dardan took a moment to recognize him: Henry
Jarvis, the town magistrate. They’d met at the feast; the man had
been ebullient with drink, but now showed no trace of humor beneath
his wide-brimmed hat. The horse huffed and danced around, mirroring
its rider’s agitation.

“He burned my barn!” old Allister shouted.
“I told you he was always gonna be trouble, didn’t I? I did! And
you didn’t listen, and now everything I built is gone!”

“Charlie, settle down and tell me what
happened,” Magistrate Jarvis said.

Amira tugged at Dardan’s arm. “We have to
help him,” she hissed.

“We don’t know what’s going on,” Dardan
said, holding tight to her arm. She glanced up at him, her eyes
burning. “Don’t. Don’t do anything. Please.” He clutched her close
and she wrapped her arms around him, but her eyes returned to the
mob.

“…and I found him out in the trees, and he
had soot all over him. Look!” Charlie Allister grabbed Dexter’s
hand and raised it up. It was streaked with black, and so were his
sleeves. “I ain’t never gonna recover from this, Carmichael!” he
shouted at someone in the other mob.

“You give us our boy back!” a middle-aged
woman yelled back, perhaps Dexter’s mother. She stood right by
Sedge Carmichael. The woman stepped forward, but threatening glares
from several of the Allisters checked her. “He didn’t do nothin’,
and if he did it were an accident!”

“Bull puckey!” Allister shouted back. “Your
boy’s been stealin’ from my fields for years, and now I’m ruined.
Well so are you!” And he plunged the knife into the boy’s back.

Amira screamed, but so did several other
people, drowning her out. The Carmichaels surged forward, swinging
their makeshift weapons. Dardan had left his sword at the manor,
but he swung himself between Amira and the mob anyway.

She tore herself from his grasp and reached
a hand out. In the melee, no one would know how the old man died,
but Dardan did. There was a faint
pop
, almost lost amidst
the yelling and clanking, and old Charlie Allister dropped to the
ground, crashing into another man’s legs and taking him down as
well.

Dardan shouted incoherently and grabbed
Amira, lifting her bodily and lumbering away from the fight. The
magistrate bellowed for help.

Amira sobbed, her face red. “He killed him!
I found one, and he killed him!”

“Shut up!” Dardan grunted at her through
gritted teeth. He put her down at the door of the inn. Amira was
crying, hands flailing in a panic. Dardan spared a glance back at
the ongoing scuffle, then yanked open the inn’s door and shoved
Amira inside. “Innkeep! I need ale!” he shouted.

The young girl who’d manned the desk before
came out from the kitchen, eyes wide. “What’s going on? What’s all
the shouting?”

“Ale! Now!” Dardan roared, and the girl
squeaked and disappeared back into the kitchen. Dardan guided Amira
to a chair. She clenched her arms tightly together and rocked back
and forth, sobbing. His impulse was to hold her, to comfort her,
but the thought of what she’d done brought him up short. How could
she be capable of that? Bandits were one thing, but this was an old
man, a farmer…