Sevenfold Sword

by Jonathan Moeller

  If they were stranded here, if his sons grew to manhood in Owyllain, Ridmark wondered if they would remember their homeland at all. Gareth likely would, but Joachim would barely remember anything of Andomhaim. The thought saddened Ridmark, but he said nothing of it as his sons talked.

  After they went to bed, Ridmark went alone to the domus’s balcony.

  The top floor of the domus had a balcony that faced west towards the Palace and the sea. It was wide and narrow, with a door on the left and a door on the right, and Tamlin never used it for anything. The young Arcanius had disappeared for the day, and Ridmark suspected he had gone to visit one of his romantic conquests.

  That was just as well. Ridmark did not feel like company.

  He wanted to think.

  His thoughts turned around each other as he leaned on the stone railing, gazing at the city. One of the first spells the Arcanii learned was a long-lasting spell of elemental fire that produced light, and the Order sold the resultant lanterns at low prices. Consequently, the city was well-lit at night, and Ridmark had to admit it was a beautiful sight.

  But the symbol he had seen in Cathair Valwyn occupied his thoughts.

  Seven Swords. Seven high priests of the Maledicti. Seven spikes piercing the strange double ring.

  Ridmark feared that symbol was at the heart of the War of the Seven Swords. There was a connection that he could not see, and the thought of it filled him with alarm. Many things weighed upon his mind. The safety and future of his sons, and his concern for Calliande. The dark legend of the New God and the Kratomachar, and the coming battle with Justin Cyros. The probable return of Calem and Khurazalin and Qazaldhar. All of that troubled him, and it ought to have occupied his attention.

  But that symbol. That damned symbol. Somehow, Ridmark knew it was at the center of everything that had happened.

  But what did it mean?

  He sighed and stared at the lights marking out the Great Cathedral. His worries were chasing themselves around his head in circles. Best just to go to bed. Tomorrow would be a long day, and King Hektor was holding a grand banquet for his knights and Companions. Ridmark needed to attend, at least for a while.

  The day after that, the rest of the army would cross the river and head north to Castra Chaeldon and Justin Cyros.

  Ridmark sighed, straightened up, and turned to the right.

  Kalussa Pendragon was watching him.

  She looked so beautiful he was frozen for a moment. Kalussa wore one of the sleeveless red dresses favored by the women of Owyllain, and it fit her well. Her blond hair had been woven into an elaborate crown, highlighting the curve of her neck. She had even donned makeup, and somehow her blue eyes looked larger. The entire time that Ridmark had known her she had worn a tunic and trousers for the field, or the bronze armor of an Arcanius. The transformation was so stunning that it locked his mind for a moment.

  Of course, he had already seen her naked on the day they had met…

  He shoved the thought away.

  “Lord Ridmark,” said Kalussa.

  “Lady Kalussa,” said Ridmark. “The banquet’s tomorrow. I think you got dressed a little too early.”

  Kalussa blinked and then laughed. “Do you like the dress?” She hesitated, walked closer, and stopped a few paces away. The smell of her perfume came to his nostrils.

  “It’s not the sort of thing that’s suitable for traveling through the hills,” said Ridmark.

  Kalussa laughed again. It hadn’t been that funny. Ridmark realized that she was nervous, that she was laughing too much to cover her fear. “No, I suppose it’s not. I don’t think this is something you would understand, Lord Ridmark. But after traveling for weeks, sometimes a woman just wants to look pretty.”

  Ridmark inclined his head, uncertain of how to respond. He ought to just bid her good night and go. But part of him did not want to leave.

  “How are Gareth and Joachim faring?” he said, for lack of any other suitable conversation.

  “Well,” said Kalussa. “I know you fear for them, Lord Ridmark, but they are doing well. They will both be fine knights one day.”

  “I know,” said Ridmark, “if they live long enough to become knights. If Justin or the Confessor do not kill us all first.”

  “You will prevail,” said Kalussa. “You are the Shield Knight. You prevailed against Archaelon.” She stepped closer, gazing up at him. “What troubles you, my lord?”

  “That symbol we found in the ruins,” said Ridmark. He found himself speaking more than he intended. “It reminds me of things I’ve seen before.”

  “What things?” said Kalussa in a soft voice.

  Ridmark shook his head. “Years ago, I went to Urd Morlemoch to find the secret of the Frostborn. But it was all a trap laid by the Warden. He was imprisoned within Urd Morlemoch, and he wanted to transfer his spirit into Calliande’s flesh so he could escape and conquer Old Earth.”

  “But you defeated him, of course,” said Kalussa, “for you are the Shield Knight.”

  Ridmark kept speaking. “I wasn’t back then. Before that, Calliande and I visited a village in the Wilderland called Aranaeus. People were disappearing. An urdmordar was talking them. The entire time, the urdmordar had disguised herself as one of the villagers. I never even suspected until it was far too late.” He shook his head. “We barely survived that.”

  “But you survived nonetheless,” said Kalussa.

  “And now I feel the same,” said Ridmark. “There is a mystery here, Kalussa, some dark and terrible secret. I can feel it in my bones, but I cannot comprehend it. And if I do not comprehend it in time, I fear many people will die.”

  She touched his hand, and he looked down at her, startled. When had she gotten so close? She was standing right next to him now.

  “You will discover the truth,” said Kalussa. “I’m certain of it. You are the Shield Knight.”

  Ridmark snorted and rubbed his jaw, mostly to give himself an excuse to move his hand away. “You are too kind.”

  “I’m not,” said Kalussa. “I’m really not, Ridmark.” She smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a warrior like you. I…don’t think I’ve ever met a man like you.”

  “That’s because you’re young,” said Ridmark. “There’s time yet.”

  “I may be young,” said Kalussa, “but I know my own heart, and I know what it desires.”

  He started to answer, but she leaned up and kissed him, her arms sliding around him. Ridmark flinched, froze, and then found himself kissing her back. Her lips were soft, her body warm, and he had not been kissed like this for a long time. He felt his body eagerly responding to her touch. His bed was just down the corridor, and…

  No. No, no. What the hell was wrong with him?

  Gently, he grasped her arms and pushed her away from him. Her blue eyes blinked at him, bewildered.

  “Ridmark?” she whispered.

  “This cannot happen,” said Ridmark. He let go of her arms and took a long step back. “I am sorry, but I will not do this.”

  “But you want to,” said Kalussa. “As much as I want to. I can tell.”

  Ridmark grimaced. “I am married. I am not going to…”

  “But I’m not asking you to betray Lady Calliande,” said Kalussa. “Not at all. She is a great and noble woman. I can serve her as a proper concubine should. Indeed, it would be an honor.” She was talking faster and faster, a hint of desperation in her voice. “I can give you more children. I can be Calliande’s apprentice. I…”

  “No,” said Ridmark, taking another step back. “I am sorry, but no. I cannot do this. Good night, Kalussa. I…”

  Kalussa covered the distance between them, seized his arms, and kissed him again, harder this time, almost frantic.

  And something in Ridmark’s control snapped.

  All the fear he had felt over the last year, the grief for Joanna’s death, the gnawing dread as Calliande sickened and mourned and slipped into something like madness, the fear for his sons and his ra
ge when they had been taken captive, all of it had been churning in his mind like acid. But he had kept his emotions under rigid control. He had done so because his wife needed him and his sons needed him. And he had refused Kalussa once already. She was beautiful and she desired him. Refusing her had been difficult, but he had done it.

  Yet she kept testing his control again and again and again.

  Something in that control snapped, and all the anger and pain in his mind came boiling out.

  Ridmark shoved her away from him. Kalussa lost her balance, stumbled, grabbed at the railing, and barely kept from falling to the floor. Her eyes were enormous, her face full of shock and pain.

  “Goddamn it, woman! I will not take you as a concubine,” said Ridmark, his voice a harsh rasp. “I will not betray my wife. I do not care if your father, Queen Adrastea, and every goddamned Companion, knight, and Arcanius in Owyllain line up to tell me to do it. I will leave Owyllain and take my chances traveling to Cathair Animus before I betray my wife. Have I finally made myself clear to you?”

  Kalussa’s face crumpled, and her lips trembled. She pushed away from the railing, whirled, and fled through the right-hand door without another word.

  Ridmark watched her go, shaking with a mixture of anger and frustrated lust.

  “Goddamn it!” he spat in fury, disgusted with himself, and he turned and hit the railing with his left hand.

  That was stupid. It just made his hand hurt.

  “Goddamn it,” he said again, shaking his hand till the ache subsided.

  He turned and saw Calliande standing in the left-hand doorway, staring at him.

  ###

  Calliande watched Kalussa kiss Ridmark, and her heart turned to ashes within her.

  Something like paralysis gripped her, and she watched as the scene from her worst imaginings started to play out.

  Except it didn’t.

  Ridmark pushed Kalussa away, tried to dissuade her. She kissed Ridmark again, and Calliande saw something she had rarely seen.

  Her husband’s temper exploded.

  He never lost his temper, not with her, not with the children, not even with his enemies, but it snapped now.

  Ridmark’s voice rasped like a drawn blade, his eyes wide and harsh. Kalussa quailed under his furious glare and fled. Ridmark paced back and forth and hit the railing, his agitation plain. Calliande had seen him angry, had seen him in grief and in pain, but she had rarely seen him look so…upset, that was the word, angry and frustrated and remorseful all at once.

  Then his furious eyes fell on her.

  He closed his eyes, took several breaths, and he was almost calm when he opened them again.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said, his voice quiet.

  The paralysis lifted from Calliande.

  “I…” It took her a bit to find her voice. “I wasn’t spying on you. I came back from the blacksmith. The apprentice was burned, but I healed him.” She walked to join Ridmark. His face was mostly calm, but a muscle in his jaw kept twitching and his hands kept opening and closing. “Michael said you were up here, and I walked through the door just…just as…”

  “Just as Kalussa kissed me,” said Ridmark. “I’m sorry.”

  “You…you didn’t do anything to be sorry for, Ridmark,” said Calliande. She touched his arm. “I saw what happened. She kissed you, you tried to dissuade her, and then…”

  “And then I lost my temper,” said Ridmark. He rubbed his face. “God and the saints.” He shook his head. “What a damned fool I am.”

  “Ridmark.” She took his hands. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

  “Don’t I?” said Ridmark. “That seems unlikely.”

  “I heard what you said to Kalussa,” said Calliande. “How you wouldn’t betray me.”

  “I won’t,” he said, and the hard determination in his voice warmed her heart. “I thought I made that clear to her.”

  “I think you did,” said Calliande.

  He shook his head. “I should have handled that better.”

  “How?” said Calliande. “And…don’t blame yourself. It is my fault. Not yours.”

  He looked baffled. “How could it possibly be your fault?”

  She looked away. “It was…it was difficult for you to refuse her, wasn’t it?”

  There was a long silence.

  “I haven’t lied to you in the past,” said Ridmark, “and I’m not going to start now. I haven’t often been tempted since we were married, but…Kalussa was difficult to refuse. Very difficult.”

  Calliande nodded. It stung, but like he said, it was only the truth. And he had refused Kalussa, no matter how much he had desired her.

  She made herself look him in the eye. “And maybe it was so difficult to refuse her because we haven’t lain together in such a long time.”

  Something inside her heart trembled.

  “Calliande.” His voice was soft, and he touched her cheek. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Wasn’t it?” said Calliande. She took his hand and held it against her cheek. “I couldn’t save Joanna…”

  “No one could have saved Joanna,” said Ridmark.

  “But maybe I was the reason she was sick,” said Calliande. The thing inside her trembled more. “I slept for two centuries under the Tower of Vigilance. Maybe I poisoned myself with the spell. Gareth’s birth was hard, Joachim’s was harder, and Joanna’s…maybe I did it to myself. Maybe I killed our daughter with my pride and idiocy and…”

  The trembling within her worsened.

  “That is nonsense,” said Ridmark. “Many women have difficult pregnancies without sleeping for two centuries first. You were your mother’s and father’s only child. Perhaps your mother had a difficult time conceiving, and you simply inherited that.”

  “I talked to Queen Adrastea this morning,” said Calliande. Her voice was starting to shake. “She thinks I should persuade you to take Kalussa as a concubine, that it would be better if you did. Maybe…maybe she was right.”

  “What?” said Ridmark, incredulous. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because,” said Calliande, swallowing as she tried to take a breath. It was suddenly so hard to breathe. “Because I’ve failed. I’ve failed as a mother, as a wife, I couldn’t save Joanna no matter how hard I tried, and I can’t lie with you, and you deserve better, and I…and I…”

  The thing inside her snapped.

  The next thing Calliande knew she was sitting on the floor, her face buried in Ridmark’s chest as she sobbed uncontrollably. His arms were around her, one hand stroking her hair. She leaned against him, letting all the grief and fear she felt flow out in a torrent of tears. After a long time, she cried herself out, her eyes stinging and raw, her nose running.

  She felt emptied.

  It was sort of a relief.

  “I never used to,” murmured Calliande.

  “Never used to what?” said Ridmark.

  She lifted her face from his chest and looked at him. “I never used to cry this much when I was younger. Before…before the Tower of Vigilance.”

  “You didn’t have children back then,” said Ridmark.

  “No,” said Calliande. “That wasn’t it. I didn’t have you. I didn’t have someone I trusted enough to hold my heart.”

  “I love you, Calliande,” said Ridmark. The hard edge had faded from his eyes. “While you live, I will be with you, or no one.”

  “I love you,” said Calliande. “And the thought of sharing you…it is too horrible to entertain.”

  “Then don’t entertain it,” said Ridmark. “It’s not going to happen.”

  She leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder, and they sat in silence, gazing the lights of the city through the stone railing.

  “Oh,” she said at last.

  “What?” said Ridmark.

  “I just realized what an ass I must have been,” said Calliande.

  “I’m sorry?” said Ridmark.

  “
When we were younger,” said Calliande. She looked up at him. “When I kept lecturing you to get over your grief about Aelia’s death. It was so presumptuous of me. I understand better now. About grief.”

  Ridmark nodded. “It is a bitter lesson.”

  “It is.”

  They lapsed into silence again.

  “And you weren’t an ass,” said Ridmark.

  She smiled against his shoulder. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Exasperating? Yes. But an ass? No. Just exasperating.”

  “Ridmark Arban.” She gazed at him in mock outrage. “Such a thing to say to your wife.”

  “Maybe I needed to be exasperated,” said Ridmark. “I couldn’t have saved Aelia. I couldn’t have saved Morigna. I didn’t understand that then, but I do now.” He let out a long breath. “And neither of us could have saved Joanna.”

  “No.” Calliande wiped at her eyes. “I’ve saved so many people, Ridmark. But not Joanna. I couldn’t ever have saved her.”

  “No,” said Ridmark. “We couldn’t have. I’m sorry I couldn’t save her, too.”

  Again, they slipped into comfortable silence.

  “Ridmark,” said Calliande at last. “Thank you. For…for…” She tried to think of what to say, how he had looked after her for the last horrible year, how he had fought with such ferocity to save their children from Archaelon, how Ridmark had kept her from collapsing, how he had refused Kalussa. “For being my husband.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Ridmark. “Can I ask something in return?”

  “Of course,” said Calliande. “Anything.”

  “Can we stand up now? I’m getting too old to sit on the floor for long.”

  Calliande burst out laughing. Ridmark blinked at her, and he started to laugh, too.

  “Of course,” said Calliande. “Of course.” She slipped out from under his arm, and Ridmark stood with a grunt, picking up Oathshield from where he had propped it against the wall. “I think…I think we could both use a good night’s sleep after a day like this.”