by Dave Duncan
Other than the horse paddock, Klo Sparn consisted of four turf buildings, none of them more than a shed, and if there were other inhabitants, they were keeping out of sight.
Water normally preferred to run downhill, so a place named High Spring would not be located at the top of a mountain. Niall had already recognized the peak he had seen over the paddock wall as the same one that loomed over Fos’parn. Klo Sparn, therefore, must lie in a fold in the hillside, invisible from below. In that case Thencaster was on the far side, and he did not expect to find a trail going over the summit. To pass anywhere close to Fos’parn would be unwise. So, his best option was to ride roughly southeast and come at Thencaster from the Ralop valley side.
Confident now that Diolth would follow, Niall rode alongside Fizz. Her hair and clothes were a filthy mess; she must be as exhausted as he was, and yet she did not act it.
“You’re going to be a national hero,” she said gleefully.
“I doubt that.” The Blades would be reluctant to laud one who had not been properly bound, with a scar, and preferably two, to show for it. The Queen might be grateful, although now the gentry would learn of the trick she and Stalwart had played on the Marquis, which would turn their stomachs, and possibly their hearts.
“We still haven’t learned how your father fared, Fizz.”
“I don’t care either way.”
He was genuinely shocked. “Fizz! That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“He raped my mother. He was determined that I would never be allowed to marry. But now I’ve got you, and he can’t refuse you, the hero, can he?”
Yes he could, but there should be a way to overrule him.
Sleep.... Sleep was the big enemy now. To fall off his horse and break his neck would be a farcical end to a great adventure. The terrain was fairly easy, just grassland over-grazed by too many horses, with scattered outcrops of rock and a few sinkholes, large enough to be easily seen and avoided. He struggled to keep his eyes open and watch for hunters after him. He had slain a king, and must expect pursuit.
And what would that dead king’s army do? Shrug and go home? The more he thought about it, the more certain Niall became that killing Panoleo might have been a monumental mistake. He might have created a martyr. Undoubtedly the Ciarán would have summoned the tribes to rise and help him follow up his victory at Zos’parn. Wylderland would rally to the fiery crosses.
Nothing lasts forever although some things feel like it. At long last the scenery tipped westward and displayed the Frail Estuary and its fishing boats, and shortly after that Thencaster Castle came in sight off to the right.
Diolth uttered a long wail. “I can’t go there! Don’t take me there! There’s Wylds there; they’ll kill me.”
“They’ll have to kill me first,” Niall assured him.
Yes, there were many Wylds in the castle, and after yesterday’s massacre of the cavalry and whatever might have happened to the infantry, the Wylds might even be in the majority. Thencaster might have fallen already. Niall was too weary to contemplate that possibility.
“Diolth, I owe you my life. I promised to defend you and I will. Stay one step behind me and nobody will ever harm you, I swear it.”
Soon, though, he saw the Chivian flag still flying on the highest turret. The portcullis was down at the postern gate. The visitors were challenged by the watch on the battlements, who would be armed with crossbows.
“Halt and be recognized!”
“Maid Fizz and her escort!” Would anyone recognize Fizz at the moment?
The cheer was thin, meaning not many men up there. But it was a cheer, and the portcullis began to rise, slowly.
Niall rode in first, in case it was a trap, but all the faces under the helmets were well browned and weather-beaten, obviously Chivian. “What news of the Marquis?”
The Marquis had survived, but was still ailing. Lord Kranith was in command.
Lord Kranith was a good man with a lute.
Fizz’s maid had already been summoned, and screamed on seeing her. Niall helped his betrothed dismount. She looked as weary as he felt, and was probably close to exhaustion, but they had no time to lose on sleep.
“Be as quick as you can, love,” he said quietly. “We have to get out of here post haste!”
He headed for his own room, with Diolth at his heels like a shadow.
“How long did you work in the stables here?”
“Just a year, my lord. Usual term.”
“Then you must know where we can find some clothes for you, because if we don’t both get cleaned up, we’re liable to be put out with the garbage.”
He was at his door, still fumbling with his keys, when he heard running footsteps. Danark came racing toward him, arms wide, as if to embrace him. He stopped abruptly a couple of feet distant—within smelling distance—and just stood there, grinning and panting both.
“You did it! I told them you would. You brought Fizz safely home!” He had shed all his former finery. He was wearing simple, practical clothes, and his blond hair was tied back with a ribbon.
“She wouldn’t have survived if she hadn’t been as tough as rawhide. How is your father?”
“Badly. Enchanter Osthorn has called in a couple of healers from Swaid. They haven’t arrived yet.”
“They may never, if the Wylds put you under siege.”
Danark lost his smile and nodded. “I warned Kranith about that.”
“And how is he doing?” Niall asked quietly.
The lad hesitated, glanced appraisingly at Diolth, and answered even more quietly. “He’s doing his best. I, um, I’m trying to help him as much as I can.”
“Good. Do that! Don’t rattle him or annoy him, but warn him if he wants to do something stupid. I’ll go talk to your father as soon as I’m presentable. Meanwhile, this is just for you and your brother. The Wylds had a new Ciarán leading them.”
“Heard of him—Panoleo. Dangerous?” The youth seemed about a year closer to manhood than he had a couple of days ago, even taller. His mustache looked almost deliberate. Already he might make a better commander than his older brother.
“Not any more. I killed him. But don’t tell anyone else.”
Danark grabbed Niall’s hand in both of his own and shook it wildly. “I won’t. But that’s wonderful news!”
“I hope it is. I may just have banged the wasps’ nest. Meanwhile, it’s bath time. This is Diolth. He helped us escape, so he’s a fugitive too. So is your sister! I’ll report to your father as soon as I can.”
Admittance to the Marquis’s sickroom was barred by four armed guards and Enchanter Osthorn, a sad, soft, stooped man, who looked as if he was well past whatever modest best he had ever achieved. He stressed that his grace had been seriously smitten, the arrow having penetrated his lung. Only the amazing, wonderful, et cetera, efforts of his grace’s team of enchanters had dispersed the assembling Death spirits. Until certain consultants arrived, only rest and complete quiet. And so on.
Niall had no real authority in Thencaster; he was merely a senior flunky. But now he had unpacked Denial’s original scabbard, and a cat’s eye sword at his side gave him quite enough stature to overawe Osthorn.
He was allowed to pass. But his Wyld companion....
“I have just returned from Wylderland,” Niall told the sergeant-at-arms, “where I was escorting Maid Fizz, at his grace’s request. We had a very narrow escape from the rebels. It was only made possible by the aid of this staunch young man. His name is Diolth, and you may remember him from his days as a stable boy here. I worry that some of the Wyrds presently serving in the castle will equate his gallantry to Maid Fizz as betrayal of their revolution, so I have sworn that we will keep him safe. I hold you responsible for his safety while I make my report to the Marquis. Do you accept this charge?”
When did bending the truth cause it to s
nap into fragments of fabrication?
The sergeant inflated indignantly at the implication that the young man in question could come to harm on his watch, and Diolth reluctantly agreed to wait in the ante-room with the Marquis’s guards, since none of them were Wylds.
Niall tapped on the door and after a moment it was opened by Acting Castellan Lord Kranith. He still looked like a younger version of the late King Ambrose, except that Ambrose would never in his life have appeared so haggard with worry.
“There you are!” he barked. “Danark told us you were back an hour ago. Where have you been?”
“Your clock is running fast, my lord.”
Kranith reluctantly made way for Niall to enter.
The bedchamber itself was vast and overly cluttered with furniture and flamboyant art, but too dim for Niall to make out much detail. It was unpleasantly warm and stank of scented candles. Close to one edge of the enormous four-poster bed, Neville lay back against a heap of pillows. Only his head was visible. He seemed to be swathed in bandages from the neck down. Absent all his customary finery, he appeared very ordinary, and very sorry for himself.
Niall bowed. “I am happy to report that your daughter is home and safe, Your Grace.”
“With her maidenhead still intact?” The Marquis whispered the words as if every breath hurt. It probably did. For a man to live more than a minute or two after taking an arrowhead in a lung was almost unheard of. Enchanter Osthorn had every right to brag.
Kranith made a faint sound of protest in the background
“You must ask her yourself, Your Grace.”
“What’s this nonsense about the Ciarán?”
“I swore to Her Majesty that I would uphold her reign. Panoleo was leading a revolution, so I considered it my duty to kill him. Which I did.”
Kranith almost shouted, “You expect us to believe that?”
Niall swung around to face him. “You accuse a Queen’s Blade of lying about something like that? Ask your sister. She was there.”
“He must have had bodyguards.”
“Three of them. Equally dead, I regret to say. I cannot predict what will happen now. The revolution, being leaderless, may simply wither away. Or the entire population of Wylderland may rise up in fury, screaming for Chivian blood. You may be well advised—”
“We do not need your advice,” snapped the son.
They were certainly wrong there. Ignoring him, Niall bowed to the father.
“Then you must see, as I do, Your Grace, that my continuing presence here may endanger you as well as me. I dare not sleep here while you harbor so many Wylds under your roof.” That was meant as a hint, but was probably wasted. “I have enjoyed our brief association, but my duty now is to report to the Queen as soon as—”
The door swung open and in flew Fizz, a multi-coloured blur, like a racing butterfly. “Daddy! Oh, my darling Daddy, what did they do to—”
She seemed about to throw herself on the patient, so Niall, standing close, caught her arm to stop her. She beamed at him and turned the contact into an embrace. Everyone spoke at once:
Kranith: “Take your hands off my sister!”
Niall: “Careful you don’t hurt him, love.”
Fizz: “Did Sir Niall tell you that we are going to be married?”
The Marquis’s whisper was lost in the tumult.
Niall had recently decided that he would never, in ten lifetimes, learn how to predict what his newly beloved would say or do next. She had certainly just provoked a family uproar, probably deliberately. Judging by the Marquis’s expression of agony as he tried to shout, and the loudness of Lord Kranith’s protests, she had succeeded admirably.
So he kissed her cheek, whispered, “I’m going off to pack. We must leave.”
He gave the invalid a nod and headed for the door. Kranith louder than ever, yelled, “Come back here, Cleaver! You have not yet received my father’s leave.”
Niall stopped, turned, and made a shadow of a bow toward the bed. “By your leave, Your Grace? My immediate and urgent duty is to report to Her Majesty.” He resumed his departure, leaving the Fitzambrose family to settle its differences. He was quite confident now that Fizz would always get her own way in the end.
Chapter 28
I seem to have mislaid my shining armour
sir niall
Packing was harder than he expected, because his magical back scabbard had to go in first, diagonally across his bag. Everything else would then have to rolled up and wadded in higgledy-piggledy. He decided to concentrate on linens that he would need on his journey, and just abandon all his spare outer garments, which Stalwart had bought for him. That must be a tradition among secretaries leaving Thencaster, but at least Niall was still breathing. So far.
Diolth sat on the edge of the bed and watched nervously.
Niall had just tied a bow in the bag’s drawstring when there was a peremptory rap on the door and Fizz let herself in. She looked a little flushed, as if she had been running. Or fighting. Or both.
She spread her arms and Niall accepted the embrace with fervour. The ensuing kiss went on for a scandalously long time, until she was as pink as any purebred Chivian. Possibly he was more so. Diolth was wearing an authentic ear-to-ear grin. Niall had never seen him as much as bunch a cheek before.
“Baggage, love?”
“I already sent it down to the stable and ordered three horses saddled.”
Diolth stopped grinning. It was a long ride to Grandon.
“And Spoiler?”
“What?”
“The Blade sword I took off Garbeald.”
“It’s there. I didn’t forget it!” she said with a childish So-there! smirk.
Despite his nearly total ignorance of women, Sir Niall knew enough to assure her then that she was wonderful, while displaying all the admiration he could muster. “Did your father consent to our marriage?”
“No. Who cares? We’re common-law married, aren’t we?”
“It certainly felt like it last night.”
A common-law marriage needed no more than a public statement by two consenting adults, and preferably a bed. But the wealthy or well-bred, whose couplings involved property or bloodlines, preferred official wedlock, which required a ceremony of blessing in an elementary, plus a contract signed by both parties and the bride’s father. If he refused consent, the groom could appeal to the father’s overlord to override his refusal. And Niall’s overlord was Queen Malinda. Or possibly Lord Hedgebury. Either should do.
Down at the stable, the lines of empty stalls appalled. At least fifty horses had fallen at Fos’parn. Niall had not even asked what the human toll had been, and must do so before leaving. They had two other problems. Firstly, Fizz had so much baggage that they would need four horses, not three. Secondly, Lord Kranith was there, insisting that they should not have any. He had brought two men-at-arms along to protect him from the rogue Blade. That felt like an insult.
Five stable hands stood around in the background, waiting to see who would win. A couple of them waved to Diolth.
“My Lord,” Niall said. “I came with a mount of my own, given to me by Lord Hedgebury. It died yesterday on your father’s crazy expedition. You owe me a replacement, a mount at least as good as my Pepper.”
Kranith’s efforts to seem implacable made him look like a sulky child. “We have no horses to spare at the moment. Leaving now is your own decision. I suggest you walk.”
“Have you sent word to the Queen, warning her about yesterday’s ambush?”
“You’re the secretary. You write it.”
Spirits of Death, do not tempt me!
Niall sighed, and then spoke up loud enough for the hands to hear. “My lord, I learned years ago that arguing with a fool is a waste of time, so I will not dispute with you. This castle belongs to the Queen—fact. The hors
es likewise belong to her, and her Blades have first claim on royal horses by law—facts. Your father is her servant, as am I. This area is now a war zone, and your father is a war casualty—fact. I sincerely hope he recovers his health, but he is presently out of action. You are not qualified, and have no authority, to command this fortress—fact. My first destination will be Rhapsody, to report to my immediate superior, Lord Hedgebury. As a member of Her Majesty’s council, he will undoubtedly hasten over here and take control.”
He lowered his voice, because there might be Wylds within earshot.
“In the meantime, I must do my duty as I see it. I will use as little force as necessary, but as much as required. Ciarán Panoleo had three bodyguards, and I killed them all in less than a minute. But I am sick of killing, so send these popinjays away.” He flashed Denial from her scabbard and aimed her at Kranith’s gem-studded belt buckle. “Give the orders, or suffer the consequences.”
Niall was quite proud of that speech, for he felt that he had earned the right to sound pompous just this once. Then Fizz spoiled the effect.
“Why didn’t you mention that sooner, darling? On a calm day like this, we can manage one of the ponies on the boat. I can ride it up the hill to Rhapsody, and Uncle Stalwart will send down all the horses you need.”
That sounded reasonable, except that the neighbourhood was undoubtedly now a war zone and might already be swarming with bloodthirsty Wylds. Kranith was smiling, which was ominous. A party on a jetty loading a boat would be ripe apples for a Wyldish war band, far more vulnerable than three people on horseback.
“You will send some guards to see that we get away safely, my lord?” Niall asked. “Your sister is coming with me.”
Kranith swelled like a fighting cock. “That is abduction! Until she turns twenty-one, she cannot marry without her father’s permission.”
