“It’s how I—”
A hand took him by the shoulder and yanked him back. The Zuti. He started to explain but the Zuti only shook his head. “Time goes, little backer.” His eyes flickered to the west, and Voren glanced there and back, to the girl, wavering graceful as a willow tree. He spread beneath the boughs with a hasty bow his ownself, and started to move.
There was a whisper at his back, a soft and gentle release. He longed to turn for it, but he knew his time had passed. The Zuti’s hand pressed harder into his back, and he tried to straighten, breathing himself to new heights.
He stepped more fully into the light and drank the heady air. The world moved before them, a churn of horses and gryphons and men beneath the flags. Dust was everywhere, painting the world with a muddied eye. They moved—to death or salvation, he could not say which.
* *
Plains heaved unto plains, as the day surrendered unto night; the world spread before them and was bare. There was no marker to denote one land from the other, save the exhaustion that weighted their bodies and souls alike. Plains heaved unto plains, and the daystar curled into the half-light of the waning and waxing twins.
No one said a word.
One had to beware of crags in the flatness—hidden holes or sudden dips that could lame a horse as surely as an arrow. Yet the further west they drew, the more safely they could let their horses stretch their legs.
It was the land for which their steeds were bred. Numbering just six and ten, the band moved swiftly across the open stretch. Though the opening scramble had lost them good, solid steeds, Ivon was insistent. Even now they rested only long enough to keep their remaining horses fresh, and they moved mostly at night to better mask their movements. For their own part, they moved on adrenaline, fueled by the knowledge of hunters at their backs.
Yet as the days lengthened and farms gave way to villages and ringed hamlets, they began to worry less of pursuit. They had distance and they had speed—a full two days’ advance on their hunters, and horses, where their pursuers had only gryphons. The oversized birds might have been prized by scouts for their maneuverability and their flexibility, and truthfully, it did them well in close-knit spaces or treacherous climbs, but they could not match a horse for speed. The openness was their advantage.
Twice they saw and passed the smoke of not so distant towers. The watchfires, Ivon called these, the outermost shield of the Empire’s settled boundaries. Or at least, Scheyer’s hold. Though each lay within a day’s march of the next, each held but a few dozen men, and certainly none of Margrave Scheyer’s court. They symbolized hope, but not their destination.
Yet this hope was tested but shortly after, when the plains were swallowed up in trees. Old things they were, but dead with the winter, and the wind caught in them and howled and set them ill at ease. This—all of it, from the broad plains to the bowels of this forest—was the place called Neunhagen. New Field. Trails here were hardier than the beaten paths of the Ulneberg, but they could no longer let their horses to full stride. They bunched and bundled and kept their steel close upon their slumber.
A full octave of riding finally put them beneath the walls of Ungerührt Tor, the capital of Momeny province. It was more like Verdan than any proper city. Its walls were high, but wrought of wood, with roads still trudged in dirt, rather than stone. It had a keep where the margrave—Dustan Scheyer—made nominal residence, and this was of stone, but the thatched and wooden huts of the townsfolk were vulnerable and scattered. It was a town of farmers and soldiers thrust together, devoid of commercial value, and deprived of strategic worth.
It was no wonder the margrave spent so much of his time afield. But then, Roswitte supposed, that was probably half the trouble.
Momeny was the newest of the Idasian provinces. Parts further to the west had been pieces of Lucretsia and Usteroy for decades, but with the gains in the war with Effise, the Emperor had seen it time to raise the place up on its own two feet. The baron Dustan Scheyer had been set as its head, but Scheyer was first and foremost a warrior. As the people back home encouraged settlement to “weed out the Effisian blood,” Scheyer took on the mantle of margrave and pushed ever further east, content to rule outpost to outpost, rather than from any one seat.
She knew this for one reason: because Ivon, in his restlessness, spoke on of such detail. It was strange to hear him talk. Stranger not to care.
The gates were already open to them when they arrived, but the soldiers were less inviting. Though accustomed to the motions of armies, they seemed less keen on the authoritative notion of provincial knights. The local steward was at first warm and receptive, only to sharply adopt his men’s concerns when he realized they were not messengers from the Imperial march.
Rather, from the look in the man’s squinty eyes, she guessed he had them pegged for deserters. The muck the long nights had made of them likely didn’t help the image.
Spreading his hands against the light of the setting sun, the steward murmured apology. “You must understand, this is all a bit…difficult.” He looked to his men arrayed about the gates, to them, and back to the keep. Deciding what to do with them.
More than anything, this is the problem with politicians, Roswitte disdained. They were suited to a certain element. They were even good within the confines of that element. But when you cast new factors, new twists into their orderly role, they floundered.
“Truly, I understand how it must sound,” Ivon replied, still attempting diplomacy. “We ask only for riders to be sent, and stables for our horses—some provisions for the short trek ahead. We make for Verdan, and from there, to Count Witold. But the Emperor must be warned, and he surely must be advised. It is true—we do have a new emperor, do we not?”
“Forgive me. But if what you say is true, why do but five haggard knights come with the word, a paltry sum between them—no offense to your station, sers. And with the same due respect: why a Matair? If you had some sign from Lord Scheyer, perhaps, but, as it stands…”
“Good master, what would you have me do? I come to you as a knight of the realm, with word of great danger to it—and to you, in particular, as you are our border, man.”
The man’s head shook pitiably. “Be that as it may. I will see what we may do. In the meantime, I hope that you and yours will accept our hospitality.”
The pikes of the guards fanned out around them, even as pages reached out for the reins of their horses.
As if we have a choice.
Their host’s “hospitality” proved nigh another octave in the keeping, with Ivon and his brother knights sequestered in the keep, while Roswitte and the rest were kept in less extravagant cells—one of the common rooms the soldiers used. Exhausted, deprived of their horses, and roundly “attended,” they were caught as fish in the net. All they could do was wait, and hope.
On the second day of captivity, they were informed that certain messengers had been turned away at the gates, after asking for them. There had been four in all, astride gryphons, and they had identified themselves as servants of Marshall Othmann himself, with orders to seize deserters and bear them back for proper punishment. Had they been bearing the Imperial seal, the steward might have acquiesced. As it was, Roswitte had to thank Assal for small favors.
At noon on the third day, they were startled by the cacophonous ringing of the church bells, and the clamor of crowds in the street. From their window, they could see little, but it was apparent the guards held the people’s concern, rushing in armored lines down the dirt paths.
Roswitte’s first thought was that the Bastard had come for them. It was dismissed as quickly as it had come, however, for logic dictated no army could move so fast—and certainly not one as bloated as his. It might have been more hunters, but they would not have earned so great a fuss. In truth, she could not imagine anything less than royalty would.
From their vantage, the captives could but barely see the gates, opened and inviting to whomever called. The crowd bloomed around
them, cheering and crying out, and littering the street with the petals of flowers. Whoever it was, they were treating him as one might a triumphant general. Even those who could not join the crowd did so in spirit, leaning from their windows or slouched within open doors.
Gradually, a small train of men appeared to push through the crowd. At their head was a wedge of exhausted-looking pikemen, followed by what could only be knights. It was the horses more so than the men that gave them away, for the men were as battered and weary as they, with none of the banners of their station.
“They come as poor as we,” one of her companions snipped. “Why should they earn such noise?”
They leaned close. “Who comes, who comes?” But as soon as her eyes narrowed on the surcoat of the riders’ head-wedge, Roswitte eased to hear the laughter of the Brickheart. Even from afar, that one could not mistake the red-struck gate, dangling from three Visaji rings.
Baron Scheyer had returned, and he did not look pleased.
“You are lucky I do not have you flogged, Carmile. Get out, and let me not see you slinking about these halls before day’s end.”
Scheyer’s steward bowed as low as his honor would allow—though not so low as Roswitte wished to lay him—and skittered from the room without a word of protest. The baron-margrave was not pleased, and there was nothing anyone could have said to appease him.
Though his troubles clearly extended far beyond his own walls, Scheyer had fallen into a red fury when informed of the captives in his keep. All had heard it. Never had Roswitte beheld a calm man so readily sundered, the margrave even going so far as to strike one of his soldiers as the man tried desperately to explain why they had been detained. When he had summoned them all to a consequential meeting with his steward, there was no doubt it was for the sole reason of furthering the man’s embarrassment.
By Roswitte’s reckoning, it was about as comfortable as watching a wolf tear down the straggling youth from a herd of deer.
“My sincerest apologies, again. He is a good man. He meant well. But meanings and actions…” Scheyer shook his head, and hung it in his hand, looking suddenly weary.
Ivon, for his part, seemed content to simply push on. In his mind, she supposed, they had already lost too much time. “Think nothing of it, grace. A misunderstanding anyone could have made.”
Their giant of a host rubbed his temples as he settled back into his wicker throne. They were in the keep’s dining hall, a hall which doubled as its place of meeting. The chairs, the table, the windows—all were simple things, wood and air, without hint of courtly arrogance. The only concession to station was a tapestry hung over the room’s hearthfire, depicting some ancient hunt. Slender Aswari picking at gryphons with spears.
She squinted. How they might have managed to hit the things in flight was beyond her.
“I admire your calm, but I fear it has little place anymore.”
This tipped Ivon’s head to acceptance. “Still. There is no need to mistreat your man on my account. We were not harmed, or any such thing.”
“Merely our prides,” the Brickheart grumbled. He stood at Roswitte’s side, behind their lord, arms crossed and body leaned away defensively, searching ever for the hidden blade that seemed to stalk his dreams of men. He looked aside when Ivon thrust a glance at him, however.
At least he didn’t choose to share his true feelings. She still snickered at his first thoughts of Scheyer’s initial approach. Something about sheep and cunts.
Scheyer scoffed, his face crooked. “I fear you don’t understand the half of it, Ivon. The Bastard’s on the hunt.”
“I did somewhat put him on the spot. But we could bear no more. Please, I need but to return—”
“A moment, would you?” Scheyer waved off his concerns as if they were nothing. “It’s not just you he’s hunting, lads. Did you not wonder at my own return?”
“I…” Ivon began, only to fall silent. He did not like to presuppose, but the baron put him on the spot. Dark brows knitted instead, and he only offered: “My concerns were elsewhere, I will confess.”
Scheyer smiled. “Honesty. Admirable. Still—you need to broaden the scope of your sight. A bird came for me days ago, from Anscharde. Imperial decree told me I was to await the Bastard’s arrival here, and to accept him in chains.”
All heads clustered around the table perked, Ivon not excepted. “What?”
“There was no word at camp,” Ser Lorenn quipped, seated opposite Ivon. The man may have looked like the wrong end of a pig, but he was one of the young lord Matair’s closest company.
“Seems there has been a change of notion, regardless,” Scheyer barked. “That damned fool Ibin and his pups took steel to the Bastard.”
Roswitte might have gasped, if she had expected anything different. Truth be told, she could have seen it coming. There was only so far men could be pushed, and titled men were more likely to act. The lowborn had everything to gain, but the titled had everything to lose.
It was a butting of heads, of male bravado, insofar as she was concerned—and they were all idiots for it.
But then, dead was dead. Corpses rarely had a chance for regret. But Imperial decree. What had the Bastard done to them?
Yet even still, another question begged: how came he to such information? A note could scarce suffice, and a rider as little likely—there had been nothing as they left, and none had passed them save farmers on their way to Ungerührt Tor. If spies were this man’s wont, though, than Tessel stood still and ever the losing man, for Scheyer was a warrior—he wore it on him like a cloak—and he would surely see the man laid down for any such crime as treason.
“Where come you to this?” Ser Lorenn challenged.
Ivon and the others blanched, and started to question, but Scheyer held them off.
“Tragedy is they only grazed him. If Pordill is to be believed—and I do—it set off something of a stampede. Must have happened just after you cut to the wind, for he and his, all swift and addled, came upon my towers scarce an octave from what must have been your crossing. And today? I am weighted down with other letters telling of still more noble houses come crashing on my shore.”
Ivon drew grim indeed. “Pordill—how fares? Is he here?” And this, as it carried, seemed much echoed in the other knights’ looks. Even Vardick cast an uncertain eye.
“Thick with thirst, and mad with curses for the Bastard and fool-Ibin both, but otherwise well. He shall meet us when he is well enough to ride anew. The Bastard, I fear, shall not wait so long.”
Another knight—some loyal lord of Witold’s beholden son—dared speak then. “By all that is good and right, some enterprising lout should put him down while he still stands.”
Scheyer drew on him dark as a winter storm. “Fool, do you not hear me? There are none left to do it! All flee here! And my own men upon that country do write me now he stirs them to some dark purpose, marching, I tell you, not east, but toward our own border.”
They march on their own home? Roswitte bristled at that. The thought of Imperial men burning Imperial homes, bloodying hands on neighbors for some vengeful fool’s thought of right made the blood chill and the anger rise. She looked to the Brickheart, still as a stone, but for him, it was in the eyes. They no longer looked aside. They burned on Scheyer—through him, even.
All men are dogs.
“Madness,” Ser Lorenn muttered.
“Birds and riders are going mad out there, and the plains are littered with skittish flights. And I cannot imagine the Bastard marches here to turn himself in.”
“I don’t understand,” Ivon said. “How…why? What does he intend?”
Scheyer stared at him like one might a child. “Are you daft, lad? You stab a fellow, he tends to hold a grudge.”
“But Effise and—the men,” another of Tessel’s knights—Ser Ombert—stammered. “Why should they follow him? If he strikes at their lords—”
Scheyer barked, “He speaks to their base natures. And he speaks of plu
nder. How long has it been since any of them have been paid? The bulk of the booty has long since headed back for Anscharde, and their own homesteads, and all they see in us are traitors and cowards. It is a mess. I can only hope to muster my own men before he arrives—and that the Effisians pick off his scraps. I’ve sent letters to Othmann but—who knows how quickly he will receive them. Or if the Bastard even left him alive. Assal above, I hope he has.”
“If this is true, we must be off swifter than ever, ser. We have lost precious days here. I know not how my own lands fare. Witold must be warned,” Ivon said gravely.
“We need to ready additional levees,” Lorenn added. “If the Bastard is allowed to move unchecked—”
“You’ll do no such thing.” The margrave’s eyes glittered like dulled diamonds. They focused on Ivon, but they swept the room, making sure every soul heard him, and took measure. In that brief instant, Roswitte saw a flash of the man Scheyer was supposed to be. The guardian. The hammer. “You’ll stay with me,” he continued, less harshly. “Send a letter to Witold, see if he can’t scramble those levees here before the Bastard arrives. His army’s swollen, starved, and wanton. Rabble. These are the gates, Ivon. My lands. If we are to stop him, we shall do so here. My banners will be shortly set to gather their troops, as I set an eye on that one. All we need is fresh bodies, and we’ll smash him at the gates.
“They call this my home, you know. My seat. Do you know this is only the third time I have even seen it? Fighting, fighting, fighting—it’s all I’m for these days. But someone has to be. The Emperor—winds carry him—put me here so men like Witold wouldn’t have to fight.”
“My lord—”
“Could you imagine that fattened old toad with a sword in hand?”
The margrave pshawed, the warrior in him devolving into something less—a child, or a pup. Roswitte winced. He did not see how his taunt dug at his own guests. All five were Witold’s men, after all, and some closer than others. Kasimir would have rattled this margrave with the back of his hand, but Ivon only stood, poised and seething.
At Faith's End Page 23
