Kitabı oku: «The Black Hawks», sayfa 3

‘And did you do much fighting? Are you a deadly swordsman yet? The finest blade in the provinces, slaying brigands and setting the ladies’ hearts a-flutter?’ She made swooning motions.

He shook his head, smiling. ‘None whatsoever. I’ve been fetch-and-carryman to Sokol’s fetch-and-carrymen since he took me in service. Even the dogsbodies give me errands.’

Sab shrugged. ‘He did promise Mum he’d keep you safe. I bet you’ve learned some salty language from the soldiers, if nothing else.’ She winked, then hugged him again. ‘Oh, Bear, how I’ve missed you. Are you staying long?’

He said nothing for a moment. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Is Uncle Hanush still in Denirnas? Did he send you with the prince? We heard whispers, not long before you arrived, something about a fire at the port? I didn’t pay it much heed, you know what expansive gossips the Star viziers can be, but seeing you here …’

Chel felt suddenly cold, his back prickled with sweat. He felt the muscle in his cheek twitch as images flitted through his mind, smoke and flame, half-dream and half-memory. With a scowl he drove the visions aside, rubbing at his temples with grimy knuckles.

‘Something happened,’ he said, teeth gritted. Focus on the future, he told himself. ‘Listen, I’ve got things arranged. In exchange for getting Prince Tarfel here safe, he’s going to have his brother dissolve my oath to Sokol, and then—’

‘What? What did you say?’

‘I’ve made a bargain with the prince.’

‘To escape your oath? Bear!’

‘The crown can supplant or dissolve inferior pledges, Sab, everyone knows that. It’s law.’

‘I don’t care if it’s law, an oath is an oath. It’s your duty. It’s the honour of the name our parents chose for us. That Dad chose.’

‘Then it’s as worthless as the oath! My sacred pledge pissed away on that waste of air? I’ve wasted years bringing him clothes while he hid from battles. I could be …’ He threw up a hand in frustration. ‘If I’m to be sworn into duty, let it at least be meaningful, or let me go home.’

Sab kept her voice low, but her gaze was searing. ‘Does Uncle Hanush even know you’re here?’

‘Will you stop calling him that?’

‘He’s Amiran’s brother.’

‘And Amiran’s our fucking father now? He sent me away, Sab. Now he’s sent you away, too. Soon it’ll just be—’

‘A-hem.’ The vizier was back. ‘His highness the prince commands your attendance.’

‘Which one?’

‘You, boy.’

‘No, which prince?’

If the vizier had been sneering before, now his expression could have curdled milk.

***

‘Vedren Chel of Barva,’ the vizier announced, contempt dripping from his voice, as he ushered Chel into the grand pavilion then withdrew.

‘My brother’s saviour!’ Prince Mendel strode forward, grasping Chel’s unresisting arm and pumping it, a warm smile beaming from his absurdly handsome face. Thick, golden hair like a mane crowned his head, matching a well-groomed beard. Chel found himself gazing into earnest, cornflower-blue eyes, creased with concern.

‘Dear Tarfel was telling me of the horrors you saw at Denirnas when the Norts attacked, how you rescued him and carried him to safety.’ Chel raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly, expression neutral. Tarfel avoided his eye. ‘You must have been terrified. I know something of life and death situations myself,’ the prince went on, one hand straying to a jagged scar that ran down one side of his face. It managed to follow the line of his jaw, if anything augmenting his already exemplary looks. ‘But witchfire! God’s breath …’

It seemed to Chel an ideal time to remind the princes of the agreement, in case such things had somehow slipped Tarfel’s mind. He could stand his sister’s disapproval — in time she would understand.

‘Your highness, I—’

‘I can only apologize that you had to face it alone. It’s no secret that the siege is going badly – we should have broken Omundi long ago, and been with you well before festival week. I’m afraid it’s the same as it was in Father’s day – these wretched so-called “free cities” would rather starve themselves to death than rejoin the kingdom.’ He shook his head, seeming genuinely rueful. ‘We have …’ Mendel went on, then tailed off, his beautiful face shifting to a frown. ‘We have …’

A robed figure came gliding from the shadows of the pavilion’s inner chamber behind the crown prince. Balise da Loran, still hooded, floated to Mendel’s shoulder and bent to murmur into his ear. The light returned instantly to the prince’s eyes.

‘We have received more news from the port,’ Mendel declared, as if the interruption had never occurred. Da Loran slid back into the shadows, to where a trestle stood at the pavilion’s wall, piled with message scrolls and missives. Chel watched as she picked up one of the messages and cracked its seal.

‘Yes, brother?’ Tarfel was leaning forward, pained and anxious. He was awfully pale in the lantern light. ‘Have the Norts laid waste to all Denirnas?’

‘No, dear Tarfel, indeed they have not. It seems Grand Duke Reysel may have overreacted to their initial overtures, and they made their point on the sea-fort in return. We’ll have to add that to the reconstruction tally. For now, however, they seem content to sit in blockade, until their demands are met.’

‘Demands? What are they demanding, brother?’

Behind them hung a giant embroidery of Mendel’s late twin, Corvel, a golden sun framing his golden visage, white lions rampant each side. The embroidery bore the legend ‘The Wise’. The twins had been known as ‘The Wise’ and ‘The Fair’ respectively – there was even a song about them – and from Chel’s current vantage, Mendel was very fair indeed.

Balise da Loran was back at the crown prince’s side, and to Chel’s shock he seemed to be deferring to her. ‘Their demands are unimportant,’ came a gravelly and thickly accented voice from beneath the hood. ‘Acknowledging them would be catastrophic.’ She fixed Tarfel and Chel in turn with her hooded gaze, her face within lost in a void from which no light could escape. Mendel was looking at the floor. Chel kept his own eyes fixed on the crown prince; the prelate made his skin itch.

‘The League’s troops remain mired in the siege,’ da Loran continued. ‘Attempting to march everyone to Denirnas now – this close to the end of the campaigning season, with Omundi on the brink of collapse – risks an uprising in our own ranks. But we cannot show weakness in the face of this foreign provocation. We must hold firm, until we can marshal the forces to expel these godless savages.’

Mendel was nodding along, past the end of her words and into the silence beyond. After a moment, Tarfel said, ‘Meaning what, brother?’ forcing Mendel to look up again.

‘Meaning—’ da Loran began, but Tarfel cleared his throat, spots of colour on his waxy cheeks. Chel realized he was as unnerved by the prelate as he was.

‘I’d say my brother can speak for himself in matters of state, wouldn’t you?’

Da Loran stared very hard at the young prince, who seemed to lose an inch in height beneath her gaze. After a moment, she rumbled, ‘Of course, your highness,’ and turned her gaze to Mendel, who looked momentarily surprised. Da Loran muttered something, and the crown prince’s eyes came alive.

‘Meaning, Tarf my boy,’ the crown prince proclaimed, refocused, ‘that the festival celebrations in Denirnas must go ahead as planned. A symbolic gesture, true, but hugely significant. We will show the north that the crown of Vistirlar does not bow or flee in the face of heathen aggression. We stand tall. We celebrate the festival of our father in defiance of savage alchemy, and we show this fractured kingdom that we are not afraid.’

Chel listened with his brow crunched in rising incredulity. Tarfel seemed no less astonished. ‘We do?’

‘We do. And I can’t think of a better representative of the crown to oversee the festival proceedings at Grand Duke Reysel’s side.’

Nobody spoke for a moment, Tarfel slow to meet his brother’s beaming gaze. A heartbeat later his pallid face became entirely bloodless.

‘Brother! What the fuck?’

‘Tarfel, language. You must be our avatar, little brother. You must bear witness to the splendour of the festival’s events, first-hand.’

Tarfel’s voice was very small. ‘But they have witchfire …’

‘Let them … Let them …’ Mendel wasn’t listening, ‘Let them bob and rot in the harbour-mouth. Our people are resourceful, resilient. We will find ways to cope without sea trade. We can lump supplies over the hills from Sebemir’s river docks, that should prevent total starvation.’

Tarfel looked to be gagging, unable to speak. Eventually he said, ‘But you’ll send reinforcements? The army, the League, some will be coming too? We’re at war …’

Da Loran answered this time. ‘The forces of the League are needed in the east. Omundi must fall.’

Tarfel had visibly slumped, his head slung from the sloping mound of his shoulders. Chel watched with a sort of vicarious horror. This plan seemed ludicrous, and he could not wait to be as far away from these people as possible. ‘For how long?’

‘While the campaigning season lasts, although I suppose at that point the League will be breaking up for winter.’

‘But then you’ll come? To the winter palace? You’re expected …’

‘It wouldn’t be fair to leave Father on his own down south, would it? We’ll send a couple of regiments, maybe a free company or two, but this is a battle the Norts cannot win, and they know it. They’ve spent what threat they have, and now they must sit and wait. They cannot break our resolve, our unity. Take heart, dear brother, they will be slinking back over the sea sooner or later – storm season in the north is but a couple of months away.’

‘A couple of months?’

‘Fear not, you won’t be defenceless. Master Chel, I understand my brother made a promise to you?’

Chel swallowed. This was it.

‘He did, your highness.’

‘Good, very good. And who is your current liege?’

‘Hanush Revazi, Lord Sokol.’

‘Do I know him?’ A quick look toward Balise. ‘Not to worry.’ A warm feeling began to creep over Chel. ‘Would you mind kneeling?’

Chel knelt, almost unsteady, his hands trembling with anticipation. Mendel summoned a flunky with a clap of his hands.

‘Right, you, vizier, get this down. Vedren Chel of Barva, by decree of the crown of Vistirlar, your oath is dissolved. All restitutions and so on through the usual whatsit and so forth – Balise knows this bit.’ Chel bowed his head, a fluttering feeling in his chest. ‘Ready with the next one? Splendid. Master Chel, your hand, please.’

The warm feeling vanished, replaced by a sudden tingling cold.

‘I can’t think of anyone better suited, dear Tarf. Now, Master Chel, if you wouldn’t mind repeating the following …’

A short time later, and with very little fanfare, Chel found himself sworn into the service of Prince Tarfel Merimonsun of Vistirlar, under oath to serve, honour and protect. Especially protect. The whole thing felt oddly close to marriage. As he stood, he exchanged a glance with his new liege. Tarfel looked just as miserable as he felt. Back to Denirnas. Back to the Norts. Back to the Rose. Back to the muscular embrace of Brother Hurkel. Chel was reasonably certain he was going to vomit on the crown prince’s gleaming boots.

Mendel clapped his hands again. ‘There. You two will do wonderful things for the kingdom, I just know it.’ He turned to the vizier, who had done little to mask his disdain during the proceedings. ‘Now, please escort Prince Tarfel to the riders. At least, dear brother, you will have a proper escort for your return to Denirnas.’

Chel found himself marching out beside Tarfel. He swallowed down the rising bile, managing to hiss, ‘You have to do something, highness! I was supposed to be released, not sent back to die!’

Tarfel returned his imploring stare with wet and haunted eyes. ‘You heard my brother. This is the crown’s will, and we will obey.’

Chel almost put a hand on his sleeve but thought better of it. ‘This is the will of the Church! You saw what happened in there, that prelate was—’

‘Enough, sworn man. I know what people say about my brother since his injury, but he is the crown’s representative, and his commands are a royal decree. Now be silent!’ The young prince looked to be on the verge of tears. Chel’s own eyes were wild and giddy.

Outside the pavilion, a phalanx stood at the circle’s edge, their robes shimmering in the light of the freshly lit torches. Tufted hair, rust-red robes, gleaming maces at their belts. The lead figure, of course, wore white and vermilion, if a little dusty from the trail, and was already in conversation with the hooded Balise. Vashenda had come to collect them. Chel felt like laughing, manic and loud. How could things be otherwise?

FOUR

‘Welcome home, Master Chel! Back in time for the feast!’ Heali fell in step alongside Chel, fleshy face all smiles. It was, Chel supposed, nice to encounter someone pleased to see him for a change.

A dozen Brothers of the Thorn, their robes the colour of blood in the evening sun, had flanked the crude carriage that passed for royal conveyance. Chel had been stationed on its back plate, bounced by every rut and divot, exhausted by the first hour on the road. He’d exchanged little more than a shocked sentence with his sister before they’d swept him away, but her confused and reproachful stare had stayed with him long after Omundi’s broken valley dropped from view, along with her parting words.

‘Duty isn’t swearing to obey a person, Bear. It’s about service to the kingdom, its people. It’s about trying to make things better. Serve the people, Brother Bear. Make Father proud.’

He’d had no response for her.

Vashenda had ignored him on the road – which just served to make his anxiety worse – with the exception of a pointed remark to the prince that he was at least properly guarded for his return voyage. ‘Do you know what would happen if any harm came to you, highness?’ she’d said. ‘Do you know the trouble it would cause?’

With the sun sinking over the bay at their journey’s end, the column was dispersing at the city gates, the body of their escort departing for the croft and taking the carriage with them. Vashenda remained, a harbinger, to supervise the prince’s slow climb to the winter palace in person. Chel wondered if Hurkel lay up there in wait. The population of the refugees’ shack-village at the foot of the outer walls had trickled back after the screaming exodus of the days before, but the port’s fringes still looked strange and empty to Chel’s eyes. Odd shapes dangled from the walls, indistinct in the gloom of the structures’ shade, but his gut told him they were bodies. Bone-weary and ill-at-ease, part of him was glad when Heali appeared, unbidden, at his elbow, as what remained of the royal procession approached the gates.

‘You survived then, Heali? What did I miss?’

The big man chuckled. ‘A lot of bluster, Master Chel, then a lot of nothing. Norts calmed down a bit after making their point on the fort.’

‘I heard.’

Heali leaned in close. ‘Truth be told,’ he said, his odour unimproved in the days since Chel had seen him last, ‘the duke calmed down a fair stripe too. Think maybe he saw the merit of negotiation.’

‘Perhaps the duke’s a sensible man after all. Have they said what they want?’

Heali shrugged. ‘They’ve declared a blockade, it seems. Something about mistreatment of a citizen, or the return of stolen property … but what would a lowly guardsman know of international intrigue?’

‘What indeed?’

‘So now they just sit there, stopping up the bay. Nothing goes in or out. People in the port are going mad, whole place is …’ he waved a frustrated hand ‘… constipated.’

They began to climb the winding trail to the palace. The black ships lurked at the edge of Chel’s view, out at the harbour’s fringe, huge and dark and implacable. Heali followed his gaze, looking pained. ‘There have been some incidents. Place is swarming with refugees and pilgrims, watch can’t control all the outsiders, their notions of justice.’

Chel thought of the little man and his oven, his stern-eyed little daughter, and felt suddenly sick. He didn’t ask, afraid to hear the answer.

‘Duke’s insisting the festival is going ahead, ordered the folks to stay for the celebrations, but word’s out that he’s sent most of his own family south. Not sure most in the port can summon the enthusiasm.’ He scratched himself. ‘And you’re quite the popular fellow, it seems.’

‘Popular? What do you mean?’ Chel was hoping for something positive, but Heali’s words did nothing but stir queasiness in his gut.

‘Had a few folks asking after you – you know the types, funny little haircuts, like to wear a lot of red. Don’t worry, I told them you were long gone, although I wasn’t expecting you to come riding back into port by return, was I?’

‘Five bloody, blasted hells …’

‘Still, word is you’re the prince’s man, now. Quite the stroke of fortune, that; might even keep your ecclesiastical friends at bay. If you’re lucky.’ He raised a beetle-thick eyebrow. ‘Makes you a connected fellow, though, wouldn’t you say? An elevation like that could provide many opportunities. As it happens—’

They approached the palace gate, which stood wide open as ever. Chel blinked. ‘What does it take to close this bastard? City’s full of destitute and vigilantes, bay’s full of heathen alchemists, the palace is piled with feast-food and lingering nobility and still nobody thinks to shut the fucking gate?’ He threw up his hands. ‘How in five hells am I going to protect that pointless prince if we can’t even keep the door closed?’

Heali was looking at him through narrowed eyes, his gaze glittering in the light from the gate-side braziers. ‘You expecting trouble, Master Chel?’

Chel tutted in irritation. ‘No more than I have already. But two nights ago, I swore to give my life that Tarfel Merimonsun might keep his, and I’m thrice-damned if I’m giving it up to the first mask-wearing Nort or murderous Rau Rel partisan who wanders in off the fucking mountainside.’

The courtyard was eerily empty, devoid of its customary bustle. The minor damage from the preceding days had been patched and festival decorations were distastefully strung from every pillar and ledge, but unease permeated the atmosphere like a stink. No one from the palace was there to meet them. Chel wondered if Mercunin the ominous porter was still around.

Heali was still talking. ‘… fellow like you who walks beside a prince, he’s got a certain cachet, might find certain opportunities …’

Vashenda had stopped ahead of them and was addressing the prince in the manner of a stern master to a hopeless pupil. She instructed him to wait, then swept around to face Chel and Heali. Heali muttered something and excused himself immediately. With the slightest frown, Vashenda moved off to confer with another robed figure. Chel and the prince were left alone at the edge of the deserted courtyard.

Tarfel affected a semblance of regal bearing as he surveyed the festival decorations. Chel tried to sound reassuring. ‘Not what we were hoping for, highness. You were supposed to be safe with your brother by now, and I was supposed to be on my way home.’

‘No, no, indeed.’ For a moment the mask dropped, and Tarfel looked at him with wide, watery eyes. ‘Vedren Chel – our bargain stands. We just have to wait it out until reinforcements arrive, until storm season, whatever it takes. Keep me alive, keep me safe through this, and I’ll get you released. Again. Yes?’

Chel blinked. ‘I swore to serve you and protect you, highness. I mean to keep that oath.’

‘Of course, right you are. I’ll release you at the end of all this, prince’s word.’

Vashenda was back, a pair of guards at her heel; with a gesture she dismissed the prince in the direction of the residence, and the guards went with him. As Chel went to follow, she stepped in front.

‘You,’ Vashenda said, her silver scalp gleaming in the torchlight. ‘With me.’

Chel realized he was clutching his sealed oath scroll in his sweating hand, held against his body like a talisman. She can’t hurt me, he told himself. Not now I’m sworn to a prince. He swallowed, flicked a brief, troubled glance around the courtyard, and followed the good sister.

***

‘Get in my way, put one foot out of line or release any more heretics back into the city and you will spend your final days learning new meanings of pain,’ Vashenda said as they entered a small but plush bedchamber within the residence, adjoining a far grander set of rooms that Chel assumed belonged to the prince. ‘Am I understood?’

Chel nodded. He could feel the sweat beading on his brow.

‘Good. And thus let our understanding be reborn in the light of the Shepherd’s mercy,’ Vashenda continued, a sudden smile transforming her features into something even more terrifying. ‘The past marches ever away, and we must watch the grass before us.’ Chel wasn’t sure if that was scripture or merely church-speak. ‘You are now Prince Tarfel’s man.’

Although phrased as a question, it wasn’t delivered as such. He relaxed his sweaty grip on the oath scroll and nodded again.

‘These will be your new chambers, at the prince’s side. You will clean yourself, dress for the feast and await collection. You will attend the prince utterly, you will not leave his side.’

He nodded, too tired to do much more. At least he’d be able to collapse on the bed the moment the sister left; his legs were quivering beneath him.

Vashenda inclined her head, apparently satisfied. ‘Then do not leave this room until they come for you.’ She moved toward the door. He noted the bundle of sealed messages tucked into her robe; she looked in a hurry to deliver the last issuings from the pavilion at Omundi.

‘Wait,’ he called. ‘I need to talk to Lord Sokol, or at least send him a message, or something. I need to tell him what happened.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘I would suggest the latter, lest you strain your voice. Lord Sokol and his retinue departed the same day you did.’

‘What?’ With the port’s population looking so restored, he’d unconsciously assumed Sokol and his band had returned or remained.

Vashenda narrowed her eyes at his impertinence but continued. ‘I believe he had urgent business to attend to in the southeast, quite unexpected I’m told. So unfortunate it should coincide with the arrival of our northern cousins in the bay.’ She was entirely deadpan.

‘But what about me? I should have been with him!’

The eyebrow raised again. ‘Indeed, you should. And now you are the prince’s man.’ She walked through the doorway. ‘Do not leave this room until they come for you.’ The door closed with a clunk that sounded suitably final.

He flopped down on the bed. Sokol gone, fleeing home from the sound of it. And now Chel was anchored to a whelp of a prince, parked on a cliff-top, a beacon for belligerent Norts and their rains of witchfire and shrieking fireballs. If Hurkel didn’t wander in and stave in his skull first.

A basin in the corner took care of the worst of the road-grime, and the clothes laid out on the bed fitted no worse than anything else he’d worn since he’d left Barva. They were absurd, of course: garish and gaudy, fine working on the details without any investment in comfort or utility. He guessed this was the uniform of the royal guard, perhaps even specific to the junior prince himself. He’d seen no one dressed in such ridiculous fashion anywhere near Prince Mendel. A belted scabbard completed the ensemble, and he was irked to find that the short blade sheathed within was an edgeless ornament.

And how, he muttered to himself, am I supposed to defend a prince with that?

The palace was deathly quiet, only occasional distant kitchen sounds echoing up from the grates. He saw no guards in the courtyard, or on the towers above. The place seemed deserted. An unease began to settle within the pit of his stomach. The situation seemed absurd. The Norts were still in the bay and Prince Mendel had no intention of granting their wishes. Surely they wouldn’t simply sit and wait for the storms to wash them away? Why would the Norts not simply raze the rest of the port if they felt they were not being heard, and the rest of the north with it? And why would Mendel send his own brother back into the teeth of their alchemy for a mere festival?

No, not Mendel: Balise da Loran. And now Vashenda, another prelate, had ordered him to sit here and wait. Something untoward was happening, and he was at the centre of it. He should never have left the prince’s side.

Dark clouds scudded overhead, the fat moon behind them shining through in scrappy patches, throwing slow-moving patterns over the tiled rooftops. He watched them flow and shift, eyes glazed, when movement in a moon-patch drew his eye. At last a guard had appeared, moving slowly along the rampart above the courtyard. Chel squinted. The figure was too ragged to be a guard. It shuffled forward, climbed over the wall and dropped to the roof below. As it dropped, Chel saw a long staff in its hand and its ash-streaked and tattered robes. Chel’s heart stopped in his chest. It was the man from days ago, the beggar who had tripped him, who had landed him in the mess with the Rose in the first place. An intruder inside the walls.

‘Pig-fucker!’

Chel almost tore the door from its hinges as he raced from the room.

***

He pounded through the empty, darkened hallways of the residence, making for the main courtyard. The winter palace had more hidden corners than he’d given it credit for, and his fuddled brain was struggling to process navigation as well as haste.

A large figure stepped from the darkness into his path and he careered into it, sending them both sprawling.

‘Easy there, Master Chel! What’s the commotion?’

‘Heali?’ Chel knelt, dazed. ‘What the … Are you lying in wait for me or something? Where is everyone else?’

Heali dusted himself off as he got back to his feet. His clothes looked different, but it was hard to tell how. ‘Why, attending to duties, Master Chel, as I assume you are too. But as it happens, glad to run into you, a stroke of fortune, you might say—’

‘Not now, Heali.’

His dark eyes were narrow in the distant torchlight. ‘Something amiss, Master Chel?’

Chel shook his head, then looked past the heavyset guardsman into the courtyard. The main gate still stood open. A single sentry leaned against it, looking to all the world asleep. ‘Just look at this place! Guards missing from their posts, the gate hanging open, and I’ve seen an intruder climbing over the wall.’

‘Someone’s inside the palace? One person?’

‘Not just anyone, Heali. Something is going on! We need to rally the remaining guards, close the gate, secure the duke and his remaining family, the prince, everyone.’

‘You absolutely certain, Master Chel?’

‘I know what I saw, Heali. I’m heading for the walls. Maybe we can still catch him. Are you coming?’

Heali muttered something in reply, but Chel was already sprinting for the stairs. Somewhere a distant bell was ringing.