The soldiers there were only a loose confederation of Witold’s own household troops and a smattering of the same from his banners, as well as what foresters, hunters, and rangers he could sway from local holds—which was to say, whatever men remained in the aftermath of the war’s great leeching. Some small number of Surinian sellswords were afoot as well, distinguishable by the thick mustachios and dark eyes their people seemed to breed in abundance. Some petty baron’s meager scraps, no doubt, there to guarantee their masters’ shares of whatever loot Witold won. Roswitte welcomed them with the suspicion only a generation of river raids and thievery could evoke.
As the old adage rote: there were no knights in Surin.
Yet all seemed to know the lady Matair, and what’s more, none seemed terribly determined to bar the Little Bear’s path. Soldiers might have been a superstitious lot, and distrusted women with a blade because of it, but they were also practical. Many here had seen Roswitte fight. Many more knew the deceased Matair patriarch, in one form or another. Messengers were scuttling about before Roswitte could even find her lady a seat.
Eventually, they were taken to the heart of Witold’s staging—a grim but study old shack of thatch and poorly shaped timber, likely used by hunters and trappers when the seasons called. It could scarcely fit ten men, but Witold, counting as he surely did for at least two of these, hardly seemed to mind.
The Ulneberg’s count surged to his feet at their entrance, smile nearly as wide and bright as his open arms. Verdan’s liege lord was not at all what one might expect. Presiding as he did over such lean and hardy folk, Witold himself was a broad man, thicker about the middle than the arm. A substantial double-chin waddled when he spoke, with a wire-thin peppering of beard doing its best to cover it, but he was otherwise well-composed, with a hard voice but a clear, jovial presence that left even the bitterest guest feeling as if they had his undivided attention.
This man was a politician, not a soldier, and for that Roswitte could not bring herself to trust him, even though it was a weakness the man himself knew well. This was a man that built himself up on an alliance of skilled advisors, generals, and meticulous planning. At the least, he knew what he was doing, and she had to give him that.
To Witold’s left stood Ivon, bedecked in the artifices of war and looking utterly out of place. He stepped forward at his sister’s entrance, and gallantly kissed her hand in welcome. Good, Roswitte thought. No sign of despair.
To Witold’s right were a handful of his captains, a certain dust knight among them. A smile gleamed for her on that latter’s face as he touched hand to shoulder in a grateful bow. She ignored it utterly and scrutinized instead these others. A short man, a wide man, and a white-haired man. She grinned inwardly. Stumpy, Pudgy, and Snow, she decided.
“My lady, it pleases me more than words could suffice to see you safely here, away from that madness. Though I should have preferred you sooner,” Witold said to Liesa, with all of a father’s seriousness.
Liesa, taking up her brother’s arm, let him guide her around the small skinning table they had taken for a map-holder. Her eyes flitted across it, noting the pegs on the board with a hunter’s clarity, before settling back on Witold.
“I had to see my brother. It was as simple as that.”
“Had to…” Witold paused thoughtfully. “Then I suppose that you have seen him? He is well?” It was masked, but in this, Roswitte saw only politick care from the man—he did not care about Rurik. Not for a boy that had only been embarrassment to him, and lately stood a traitor. Friend’s son or no.
“He was. Before that horrific show this morning. It was he that helped my flight.” At this, Ivon fidgeted. It was a brief thing, but it was there. Those words shook something in him. “But you may thank Roswitte of Verdan for seeing me safely here.”
Witold’s heavy stare shited considerately to her. When she realized she still slouched, Roswitte drew up taut as a bowstring.
“We owe you a great debt then, goodwoman.” To Liesa, Witold added, “And your enigma of a brother—I should like to speak with him, if he emerges from this unpleasantness.”
Liesa bowed her head. “He will.” In those words, there was not a shred of doubt.
Witold had the grace not to rebut. “So,” he said, casting expectant looks around the room, “what brings you here in such haste?”
“The plans to retake my town.” Liesa’s eyes shone hot and fierce at this. “I will not leave it in the hands of that sanctimonious monster. He could make Cullick look a saint.”
Snickers went around the room, save to Witold himself, who whitened considerably at that mention. Already, Roswitte had heard why. Children were the world to Witold, and Isaak, a son. The thought that Cullick still held his granddaughter compromised his character as a leader. He would be, in many ways, as broken as a roped calf. Any normal person would, she supposed.
“Let us not—”
“After today,” Ivon said, cutting off his lord with a courteous gesture, which Witold only belatedly returned, “I think it should not be hard. Tessel will surely watch the river now, but he will see the folly in remaining. Especially since his only token to legitimize his occupation has now fled.” At that, his grip on his sister visibly tightened. “It’s not as if the place stands a breadbasket.”
That was not, however, entirely true. “My lord?” All eyes flicked to Roswitte. They made her shift uncomfortably. But someone had to voice it, lest they go too far on presumption. “If Rurik is still with him, he may seek to use the boy.”
“An exile?” Witold’s head perked.
“A bastard,” Stumpy pointed out. Witold bobbed to this, staring deep into his map’s heart.
Ivon’s lips tightened with a suppressed sort of outrage, but it was Liesa that replied. “He is not.”
“How can you be certain?” Witold’s head did not rise.
“Because he hates the Bastard. He told me so himself.”
“But at the river…” Ivon hesitated. He could not finish the thought.
His sister twisted on him, a wolfhound scenting blood. “What happened at the river? Tessel’s soldiers bundled him there, when he sent me off.” Ivon looked to her, but the words would not come. The eyes could not hide it, though. They offered enough to know. “No…” Liesa shrank, eyes wavering. “You—you don’t mean…” But his own, hollowed by the long hours dwelling on that bitter scene, did not falter. She let out a moan of such utter devastation that no less than two of Witold’s captains started forward as though to catch her.
Instead, she rounded on Witold, snatching her arm from her brother’s grasp. “We must go back. And soon. We—we can’t…”
“Tessel pulls his scouts back,” Snow offered. “Like a turtle retreating to its shell.”
“It’s true,” Roswitte said. “He will be wearying and wary of our ambushes.”
“But if we could lure him out…” Witold’s head bounced agreeably.
Then the dust knight stepped forward. “My lords. You do not see the crux of this thing. With respect, Tessel is a soldier through and through. Your ambush worked once. But it will not again, and if you face him in force, he will smash you utterly.” Looking around at the hard stares that met these cold truths, Ser Ensil put up his palms defensively. He had no friends here. “I mean this as no disrespect to your prowess, but it is fact. I have seen him fight. Likewise, his host is too great to take through these shadow strikes alone.”
“Cannot fight him by shadow. Cannot fight him by light. Do you take him for a god, ser?” Stumpy said bitterly. “Are we to just lie down and die?”
“No.” At this, the knight turned to the table. “If I may?” Witold shuffled aside, to allow him room. He stared a moment, then pointed to the mark that indicated Verdan. “Not all shadows are yet exhausted. The host may never be consumed in them, but this one man—let a small group go. Find a way to penetrate his camp, or draw him out. That host holds together only by his binding thread. If we end him, the rest will s
under.”
“Assassination?” Stumpy blanched. “Dishonorable.”
Roswitte all but laughed. A dry, mirthless chortle. “Had you seen Oberroth, you should not be worried of that.” No amount of time would relieve her of that bitter memory, and the knowledge that these very men might have been there—should have been there—and might have turned the tide.
Given how Witold’s face thinned into darkness, she thought better of that remark—and any more like it. Too much time in Kasimir’s company. That was one lord that encouraged the habit of speech among “lessers.”
Liesa turned her a look that summoned images of mothers reaching for a wounded child. “Believe me, sers, I am all for Tessel’s end. Yet Roswitte brings a clear point. We cannot simply ignore Oberroth. If you tell it true, and that horde stands so tenuous a thing without Tessel’s guidance, I frankly dread what will come to Verdan at so sudden a removal of his influence.”
From the uncomfortable silence that traded space about that stodgy map, she was not the only one to see the possibility. It was enough to make Roswitte beam inwardly. Good to know there still stood Matairs that could leave a room breathless.
When the silence snapped, it was Pudgy that at last offered some words. “We must lure him out.” Ah. A toady, that one.
“I volunteer,” Ivon immediately replied. Otherwise, he was as still as a statue.
Pudgy looked dubious. “To lure him out? What makes you think he shall answer?”
“For all of it.” His face betrayed no emotion, but the others more than made up for it. There was much stirring, and more than one uncertain breath. “By now, Tessel has no doubt heard of my presence at this morning’s attack. His honor and his pride are beasts of burden—as they are for many of us. By now, I should think my actions have put more than sufficient burden to them. If he thinks I move against him, I guarantee these same beasts will not let me pass another time. He will put himself to the hunt. My lords, if you would so oblige me?”
Witold’s nod was curt. He accepted the logic and he trusted Ivon. Liesa, however, clawed at her brother’s arm as though it were the last bit of wood in a raging sea. The anger, the hurt, flaring but moments before, had died as quickly as the notion of losing a second brother had risen. “This—this isn’t about Rurik, is it? You don’t…”
But he did. They could all see that. Ivon shook Liesa off, though his hard eyes rested only softly on her. “No, my lady, this is of something else entire.” The man might have been ice when it suited him, but all his stoicism did not make him a good liar. It was in the way he tensed. The shoulders and the eyes. A brother for a brother. A life for a life. Roswitte looked away in disgust. It made little sense, though it was hardly the first time.
The sister, however, would not give up. She cast her wild gaze out at the other men, looking for aid in any corner, but they averted their eyes from anywhere it crossed. Emotion—especially a woman’s emotion—had ungainly effects on such men, the Little Bear had found. They liked to hide it behind crude humors.
“Surely,” the lady Matair stammered, “surely aid comes from the west? They cannot let the Bastard do as he will.”
It was Witold to speak to this, and he sighed heavily for it—clearly a thought that had been weighty on his own mind. “I am afraid we are the aid, lady. The Empire is depleted and what little remains wastes itself between a foreigner and an idiot. As far as they are concerned, the east stands alone.” Alone among the men in the room, Witold’s eyes met hers directly. “I am sorry, Liesa.” Then, almost as an afterthought to Ivon: “Take whatever men you need. I will see it done.”
How Roswitte longed to go to her. Without support, Liesa looked as pitiable and alone as ever a creature could. Her haunted eyes roved between the lanes of men, pleading, but it was a child’s cry in an empty wood. Roswitte longed to lead this child from the room, and to hell with these men and their grim news. Yet she did not. She remained, as ever, too well trained. Funny. That might have comforted her once. Like them, she looked away.
“My lady? My lord?” To Roswitte’s shock, it was Ser Ensil that stepped forward. Liesa’s hope rekindled on that goodly shape. Witold turned to it, however, with only a slit of a gaze. “If it please you, I should like to accompany Ser Ivon in this. If men he needs, mine will be glad to join us as well.” The words alone seemed to earn an inward squeal from Liesa. Were she any less composed a lady, she might have flung herself at him right there.
“That is not…” Ivon started to say. Liesa slid her wrath round to him, and some of his fire ebbed. Her brother shuffled from it. His eyes, now, were the ones to search, and they measured the others, lastly coming to Roswitte. Without planning to do so, she felt her head dip. Affirmation. Ser Ensil, she knew, could protect this man. With a sigh, Ivon came back to Ensil, and dipped his own head into the barest of acknowledgements. “I should be honored for your aid, Ser Ensil. Your party’s reputation precedes you.”
A smile grew on the sellsword’s face, too bright and innocent, Roswitte thought, for any man so battle-hardened as this one to possess. It made her stomach churn. Apparently she was not the only one incensed by it. Snow scoffed openly, earning a sterner look from the knight.
“What should prompt you to this, dust knight? You’re not even Idasian. It’s not as though you have anything to gain in this.”
Ensil stiffened as though struck, but the breath that left him was easy, if pained. “Ser. Some matters of honor have nothing to do with country nor coin.” He did not elaborate on what those things were. Roswitte had an idea all the same. Some men lived with codes that bore nothing of a nation’s influence. It was her suspicion that his did not permit such a thing as Oberroth to pass without a stain on his own character. Not while he still drew breath.
“I should also like to bring Vardick of Tarney with me. He was my father’s man, and none may doubt his prowess.”
Roswitte cleared her throat loud enough to be sure no one took it for simple hygiene. “Ser? With respect, Vardick’s injury won’t stand it.” She had been beside him at Oberroth when it happened. A spear thrust through the leg. True to form, he had killed the man that did it and fought like a mountain lion through the aftermath, hiding it even through the early throes of their march, but by the time they had made camp that first night, the extent of the injury had been plain. Infection had followed—a deep, pus-ridden affair. For a time the doctors had feared the loss of the limb.
Not the Brickheart. “It’s a wonder he’s rallied so—I should not think it wise to risk a fever resurfacing, or the slowing of your party by it.” The way Ivon shuffled uncomfortably, she knew he recognized the truth of her words. That his shieldman, Jörg, had also perished in that madness, she knew weighed on him as well. So many good men now unable to aid him. “I humbly request to take his place.”
It was, perhaps, to their credit—and the wellness of their person—that none of Witold’s captains snickered at the last. More than a fair share of soldiers would have, noble or common alike.
Ensil traded a glance between them. When Ivon held himself aloof, he offered: “She does know the woods, ser.”
“Aye, that she does,” Ivon conceded. “Very well, Ros.”
Witold nodded sagely, though his eyes crinkled with only a weary sort of mirth. “Best of luck to you all, than. I shall see what we can do to aid you from this end, of course. But be wary. I tell you, take care. I think you are not the only ones for the hunt.”
Ivon’s puzzled look asked the question his lips did not.
“I wished to tell you before but, as you shall be leaving us, I cannot hold it any longer. I’d word from Mariel the morning last. You Matairs seem to be trickling back into these woods at a gryphon’s pace.” One fat finger wiggled before Witold’s face, and landed with a thud on the marker of his capital, Gölingen. “We had a vague shadow of a Matair about, asking for information on the lot of it. Though his interests seemed…pointed.”
“Isaak?” Liesa squeaked. “That’s…not possi
ble. Cullick wouldn’t release the last male at his hand. Not—not when he wouldn’t give him to you.” Her brows knitted, calculating. “Why?”
“Does Witold fear the Bastard as well?” Ivon’s cold demeanor cracked just a little with the mention of another brother. Another chance, Roswitte supposed.
Witold sighed heavily, legitimately sinking away from their questions. Unease. “Not…that. No. And Kana is still…still in Cullick’s hold. That much I know. For that, I reason him to be Cullick’s creature. Mariel said there was an eclipse about him, of person and of purpose, and feared…” He trailed off, turning his pain pointedly on Liesa. “Your brother may have something to do with it.”
“Myself?” Ivon asked, incredulous.
“No. The other. The one you fear…well. Yes. I think we all know how little love Cullick spares the boy.”
A little sound broke from Liesa before she spoke again. “The dogs,” she said breathlessly. Some dark image seemed to glaze her eyes. Roswitte quirked a brow, uncertain what she meant. Yet the girl quavered. “You don’t mean…Why? How could Mariel know?”
Ivon inched a hand toward her, but did not touch her. “She is right. Isaak would not give his purpose if it was…so.”
“What’s more, why would Mariel care?” Liesa spit this last carelessly, and it earned her a spiteful stare from her brother. But not from Witold.
“Mariel loves your brother dearly. As I do: as a son. For all that, the greatest character in my Mariel is his loyalty. However little a thing, I know it. He fears for your brother, and rightly—kinslayer is no easy burden to lift.”
A burden that hung on Ivon’s own shoulders like a noose. “Then our effort gains a double purpose. I will find him.” There was no hint in his tone of what he might do if that man did not look on him with the same brotherly care, however.
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