The Dagger's Path

by Glenda Larke

  Fathers did not condemn their sons to that.

  Still unspeaking, the king reached for the chamber door’s carved ivory handle. Tightened his jewelled fingers around it. Started to pull.

  Salimbene sat up. The pain sank its talons deeper into his corrupted flesh, but he ignored it. With her dying breath his mother had warned him… but he’d refused to believe her. How could he believe her? He was the king’s son. His pride. His joy. His heir.

  “Please, my lord. Wait. Speak to me.”

  The king said nothing. The door kept closing.

  “Father! You’d abandon me? Leave me to die? Why?”

  The door’s closing paused. The king sighed. “A true prince would not have to ask.”

  A soft, final thud of wood against wood. The chamber sank into deeper shadow, its only light the small lamp on the table beside the bed.

  Stunned, Salimbene screwed his crusted eyes tightly shut. Betrayal was a dagger twisting in his heart. Salt tears flooded his eyes, unstoppable, and spilled to sting the weeping lesions on his face. But not for long. Soon enough rage rose to burn away the grief. To burn away kind memories, leaving nothing but hate. And with the hate came fresh strength.

  Beneath his wool-stuffed mattress was hidden a great secret. His mother’s last and greatest gift.

  Biting his scabbed lip, smothering the pain to a thin mewl, Salimbene kicked free of his sheet and half-rolled, half-fell, out of his princely bed. His linen sick-shirt tore free where seeping pus had glued it to his skin. Swift blots of blood spread across the older, yellower stains. He had to wait again, unevenly breathing on hands and knees, until he was strong enough to lift the mattress and grope beneath it. When at last his fingers touched the book of spells that had once belonged to his mother, Jelani of Osfahr, the true queen of Zeidica, it felt like a kind of coming home. Bound in gold-stitched calfskin, each stiff page covered with careful ink, no Zeidican would know what the book said. Its words were written in Osfahri.

  “Keep this safe from prying eyes, my love,” his mother had said in her native tongue, that they’d shared since first he learned to speak. “No one can know you have it. Your life is forfeit if it’s found.”

  Bidding farewell to him on her deathbed, she was so thin he was sure he could see the bones and slowing blood below her skin.

  “The key to my power, the same power that sleeps in you, is in this book, Salimbene,” she’d whispered, despite her suffering. “You feel the power waking, don’t you? You’ve had the dreams.”

  Of course she’d known, without him telling her. Never in his life could he hide the truth from his mother. She was a witch. A sorceress of Osfahr. Since learning the truth of her as a child, just turned four, he’d held her life in his hands. But it had been safe there. She knew it.

  “When the time comes, use your magic freely,” she’d told him, her sunken eyes brilliant even as the shadows closed in. “Never fear it. Salimbene, my precious son, one day you will be a sorcerer king, the most magnificent the world has ever seen. This is your birthright. Do you believe me? ”

  “Yes,” he’d said, weeping. Not sure if he did believe, only desperate to please her. “But I know nothing of magic, of power. How will I—”

  Seventy-two empty days had passed since she died, and still he could feel her thin, cold fingertips on his wet cheek.

  “Everything you need is in the book, my son. Trust it. Trust yourself. But Salimbene… you must beware the king. After I’m gone he’ll be a danger to you.”

  His father a danger? How could that be? Shocked, he’d tried to argue. But she wouldn’t let him. And even as her gasping breath failed, and her brilliant eyes dimmed, she fought to save him.

  “Salimbene, I beg you. Do not trust the king! And know there is one more danger you must beware. The Oracle of Nicosia. It has the power to destroy you. Find it, my love, no matter the cost. Find it and destroy it. Only then will you be untouchable. Promise me, Salimbene. Promise!”

  So he’d promised her, not understanding, and then held her close as she died.

  Now, with her warning about the king come true, he pressed her book of spells hard against his chest, feeling his heart beat through the old calfskin and thickly inked rough pages, and stared at his chamber’s door. The king had closed it like a funerary closed the lid on a coffin. Mute as the grave he’d shouted: I have no son. My son is dead.

  Salimbene looked down at his hands, blotched with the bloodied lesions that marred the rest of his body. Felt the fever within, and the dangerous weakness… and beneath them both, his slowly stirring newborn power. He smiled. His father had proven false, but his mother never would. Of that he had no doubt. All he had to do was keep his promise. Destroy the Oracle… and claim his birthright.

  “I am Salimbene, a sorcerer king,” he whispered to the empty room. To the waiting world, which could not hear him yet. “And though I am declared dead, on my mother’s bones I swear: I will escape this coffin. I will live again. From the shadows I will rule you… and you will never know.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Brassy-sweet, a single wavering trumpet blast rent the cold air. The destriers reared, ears flattened, nostrils flaring, then charged each other with the ferocity of war.

  “Huzzah!” the joust’s excited onlookers shouted, throwing handfuls of barley and rye into the pale blue sky. The dry seeds fell to strike their heads and shoulders and the trampled, snow-burned grass beneath their feet. Blackbirds, bold as pirates, shrieked and squabbled over the feast as children released from the working day’s drudgery shook rattles, clanged handbells, blew whistles and laughed.

  Oblivious to all save sweat and fear and the thunder of hooves, the two battling nobles dropped their reins and lowered their blunted lances. A great double crash as both men found their marks. Armour buckled, bodies swayed, clods of turf flew. Their destriers charged on despite each brutal strike.

  With a muffled cry, his undamaged lance falling, abandoned, Ennis of Larkwood lurched half out of his saddle, clawed for his dropped reins, lost his balance and fell. For three strides his horse dragged him, both arms and his untrapped leg flailing wildly, helmeted head bouncing on the tussocked dirt. Then the stirrup-leather broke and he was free. Squires burst from the sidelines like startled pheasants, two making for the snorting horse, three rushing to their fallen lord.

  Heedless of the vanquished, the crowd cheered victorious Black Hughe, youngest son of old Lord Herewart. Hughe let slip his ruined lance, pushed up his helmet’s visor and raised a clenched, triumphant fist as his roan stallion plunged and shied. The mid-afternoon sun shimmered on his black-painted breastplate, thickly chased with silver-inlaid etchings.

  “Fuck,” Balfre muttered, wishing he could reach beneath his own armour and scratch his ribs. “Did a more rampant coxcomb ever draw breath?”

  Standing beside him, sadly plain in undecorated doublet and hose, his brother sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t do this.”

  “Someone must,” he said. “And since you refuse, Grefin, who else is there? Or are you saying our dear friend Hughe isn’t ripe for a little plucking?”

  Grefin frowned. “I’m saying the duke will be ripe to toss you into the dankest dungeon he can find once he hears what you’ve done. You know he’s got no love for—”

  “Aimery clap his heir in irons?” Balfre laughed. “Don’t be an arse, Gref. His pride would never let him.”

  “And your pride will get you broken to pieces, or worse!”

  Hughe had pranced his destrier to the far end of the makeshift tourney ground, so his gaggle of squires could prepare him for the next joust. Ennis was on his feet at last, battered helmet unbuckled and tugged off to reveal a wash of blood coating the left side of his face. Much of his close-cropped flaxen hair was dyed scarlet with it. He needed a squire’s help to limp off the field. As the shouting for Hughe died down there came a scattering of applause for Ennis, no more than polite recognition. Harcia’s rustics had little patience for defeat.

  Balf
re shook his head. “You know, if Hughe’s a coxcomb then Ennis is a pickled dullard. Any donkey-riding peasant with a barley-stalk could push him off a horse.”

  “My lord!”

  Turning, he looked down at the eager young squire who’d run the short distance from their rough and ready tourney-stall and halted at his elbow.

  “What?”

  The squire flinched. “Master Ambrose says it be time for your bout, and to come, my lord. If it please you.”

  “Tell Ambrose to polish my stirrups. Fuck. Does he think the joust will start without me?”

  “No, my lord,” said the squire, backing away. “I’ll tell him to wait, my lord.”

  Balfre watched the youth scuttle to Master Armsman Ambrose. “Speaking of pickled dullards…” He grimaced. “I swear, Grefin, that turnip-head must’ve snuck into Harcia from Clemen. He’s witless enough to be one of scabrous Harald’s subjects. Don’t you think?”

  But his brother wasn’t listening. Instead, Grefin was raking his troubled gaze across the nearby jostling villagers, and Ennis having his split scalp stitched by a tourney leech, and beyond him the small, untidy knot of lesser men who’d come to test their armoured mettle and now stood defeated, and the heavily hoof-scarred tilt-run with its battered wicker sheep-hurdle barrier, to at length settle on Hughe and his squires. The chuffer had climbed off his destrier and was exchanging his dented black-and-silver breastplate for one unmarked but just as gaudy. It would be a vaunted pleasure, surely, to dent that one for him too.

  “Balfre—”

  If this weren’t such a public place, be cursed if he wouldn’t hook his brother’s legs out from under him and put his arse in the dirt where it belonged.

  “Hold your tongue, Grefin. Or better yet, since you’ve no stomach for sport, trot back to the Croft and lift your lance there, instead. Plant another son in your precious wife. After all, you’ve only sired one so far. You must be good for at least one more.”

  “Balfre, don’t.”

  “I mean it,” he said, keeping harsh. Refusing to see the shadow of hurt in Grefin’s eyes. “If all you can do is carp then you’re no good to me. In truth, it havocs me why you came in the first place.”

  “To keep you from breaking your neck, I hope,” said Grefin, still frowning. “What havocs me is why you came! Look around, Balfre. We stand in an open field, far from any great house, and those who cheer and groan your efforts are villagers, herdsmen, peddlers and potboys.”

  “So you’d deny the local churls an hour or two of entertainment? You’re turning mean-spirited, little brother.”

  Grefin hissed air between his teeth. “It’s a question of dignity. Aside from you, and Hughe, and Ennis, who of any note came today to break his lance? Not our cousin. Not even Waymon, and he’s a man who’ll wrestle two drunk wild boars in a mire.”

  “Come on, Gref,” he said, grinning despite his temper. “Even you have to admit that was funny.”

  “Side-splitting, yes. And I’m sure the squires who broke themselves to save Waymon from being ripped wide from throat to cock laughed all the way to the bone-setter!”

  “Grefin—”

  “No, Balfre. You’ll listen,” his brother said, and took his elbow. “You’re Harcia’s heir. You owe its duke more than this joust against a gaggle of mudder knights fit only to ride the Marches.”

  Wrenching his arm free, Balfre looked to where Ambrose and his squires stood waiting. His stallion was there, his unbroken lances and his helmet. Catching his eye, Ambrose raised a hand and beckoned, agitated.

  He looked again at his niggling brother. “Where and how I choose to romp is my concern. Not yours. Not Aimery’s.”

  “Of course it’s Aimery’s concern. He has enough to fret him without you risking yourself here. Those bastard lords of the Green Isle—”

  Familiar resentment pricked, sharper than any spur. “You can throw down that cudgel, Grefin. When it comes to the Green Isle, Aimery has his remedy.”

  “Balfre…” Grefin sighed. “He needs more time.”

  “He’s had nearly two years!”

  “It’s been that long since Malcolm died. But Mother died in autumn, and here we are scant in spring.”

  “What’s Mother to do with it? She wasn’t his Steward!”

  “No,” Grefin said gently. “She was his beating heart. He still weeps for her, Balfre. And for Malcolm. Both griefs are still raw. And now you’d have him weeping for you, too?”

  The chilly air stank of churned mud and horse shit. A troupe of acrobats was amusing the crowd as it waited for the last joust. Motley painted canvas balls and striped wooden clubs danced hand-to-hand and man-to-man through the air, the jonglers’ skill so great they never dropped even one. From time to time they snatched a cap from a villager’s head and juggled that too. The field echoed with delighted laughter.

  Balfre glared at them, unamused. Aimery weep for him? That would be the fucking day. “I never knew you had such a poor opinion of my lance-skills.”

  “This has nothing to do with jousting,” Grefin retorted. “Please, Balfre. Just… let it go. Who cares what a sophead like Hughe mutters under his breath?”

  “I care!” Blood leaping, he shoved his brother with both hands, hard enough to mar Grefin’s dark green doublet. “When what he mutters is heard by a dozen men? I care. And if you cared for me, you’d care.”

  “I do! But Balfre, you can’t—”

  “Oh, fuck off, Grefin! Before I forget myself and give those gaping churls reason enough to gossip for a week!”

  Grefin folded his arms, mule-stubborn. “I don’t want to.”

  “And I don’t care what you want.”

  Holding his brother’s resentful stare, unflinching, Balfre waited. Grefin would relent. He always did. There was a softness at the core of him that made sure of it. A good thing for Harcia he wasn’t Aimery’s heir. Such a softness would leave the duchy’s throat bared to faithless men like Harald of Clemen.

  At last Grefin huffed out a frustrated breath. “Fine. But never say I didn’t warn you,” he said, and retreated.

  Still simmering, Balfre returned to Ambrose. The Master Armsman near cracked his skull in two, shoving his gold-chased helmet onto his head.

  “For shame, my lord,” Ambrose said in his rasping voice, come from a sword-hilt to the neck in the desperate, long-ago battle that had made Aimery duke. “Dallying like a maid. This might be a rumptiony shigshag we be at but still you should be setting of a timely example.”

  Balfre bore with the reprimand. The armsman had served two dukes of Harcia already, thereby earning for himself a small measure of insolence. With a nod, he held out his hands so the turnip-head squire could gauntlet him. The burnished steel slid on cleanly, cold and heavy.

  Ambrose started his final armour inspection. “You been watching that rump Hughe?”

  “I have,” he said, twisting his torso to be certain of no sticking points in his breastplate, which was gold-chased like his helmet and worth more than Hughe’s horse. “Nothing’s changed since the last time we bouted. He still drops his lance a stride too soon, and sits harder on his right seatbone.”

  “True enough.” Ambrose slapped his pupil’s steel-clad shoulder. “And shame be on his tiltmaster. But for all that, he be a brutey jouster. You’ll be kissing dirt, my lord, if you don’t have a care.”

  “Then shame be on my tiltmaster,” Balfre said, flashing Ambrose a swift smirk. “If I do kiss the dirt, I’ll have to find myself a new one.”

  Because this was no formal tourney they lacked judges to keep time or award points and penalties. There was the lone hornblower, though, for the sake of the ragged crowd. As Hughe remounted his restive stallion, one of his squires ran to the man and gave an order. Obedient, the appointed villager blew his horn to alert the crowd to the next joust.

  Balfre nodded at Ambrose, then crossed to the wooden mounting block where his destrier was held fast by two squires. As he approached, one of them was doltish enough t
o shift too far sideways. The stallion lashed out its foreleg and caught the man on his thigh with an iron-shod hoof. Squealing, the squire crumpled.

  “Maggot-brain!” said Ambrose, hurrying to drag him clear. Then he gestured at turnip-head. “Don’t stand there gawping, you peascod. Hold the cursed horse!”

  The excited villagers set up another din of handbells and rattles and whistles. Stood at a distance in their second-rate armour, Ennis and the vanquished mudder knights cast envious looks at the stallion. Quivering with nerves, eager for the joust, the horse tossed its head and swished its thick black tail. As Balfre reached the mounting block it bared its teeth and snapped, strong enough to rip fingers from an unprotected hand.

  “Bah! ” he said, and punched the stallion’s dish-round cheek. “Stand still!”

  Walking to and fro, the hornblower sounded another rallying blast, coaxing more raucous cheers from the crowd. On the far side of the tourney ground Hughe kicked his roan destrier forward, scattering his squires like beetles. One tottered behind him, awkwardly carrying his lance.

  Rolling his eyes, Balfre picked up his reins, shoved his left foot into his stirrup and swung his right leg up and over his jousting saddle’s high cantle. The moment he settled on his destrier’s back he felt the animal tense beneath him, its breath coming in angry grunts. Not even his heaviest gauntlets muffled its throttled energy, tingling from the curbed bit to his fingers. Through the steel protecting his thighs and lower legs he could feel his mount’s barrel ribs expand and contract, and the pent-up furious power in the muscular body beneath him. This was his best horse, and they were well-matched in both temper and skill. Only for Black Hughe would he risk the beast here. But Hughe was owed a mighty drubbing, and to be sure of it he’d chance even this animal.

  With a decided tug he closed his helmet’s visor then held out his hand. “Lance!”

  The weight of the carved, painted timber woke old bruises and strains. Stifling an oath, he couched the lance in its proper place, pricked spurs to his horse’s flanks, then softened the bit’s sharp bite.