Bloodheir

by Brian Ruckley

  “And I was the betrayed, not the betrayer,” muttered Aeglyss. “But you, Voice? What do you say?

  What conclusions have you reached in all your pondering, your delay?”

  “I have not decided,” the Voice said carefully. “There has not been enough talk. Not yet. You live, for now, and I . . .” she stumbled over her words, twitched her head in a kind of sudden uncertainty that no Voice should every display “. . . there is no decision yet. Until there is a decision, you cannot die. That must be enough.”

  Aeglyss laughed. The healing woman started away from him, alarmed at the raucous human sound. He held her there at his side; leaned on her.

  “Not enough. No. Never enough. Never . . .”

  He swayed. His eyelids fluttered, his chin sank down towards his chest. The healing woman, freed of some intangible restraint that revealed itself only by its absence, darted away from him, making for the protection of the Voice. Aeglyss staggered a few steps to one side. The Voice watched impassively. The na’kyrim steadied himself. His eyes opened, clear and sharp once more. He lowered himself gingerly down onto the sleeping pallet, and smiled ruefully at the two women.

  “It will take time, for me to learn. To control this. I need one thing from you, though. Now, not later, not after any decisions. I will give the White Owls a gift of great strength in time, Voice, but first, you must do this one thing for me: send spear a’ans south. There is a woman, a Heron-born na’kyrim , who will come to me from out of the south. We – I – must have her.”

  The Voice was shaking her head. She tried to deny him. His brow furrowed. His mouth tightened. He held out his hands, palms up, towards her.

  “You must do this one small thing for me, Voice,” he whispered. Quite soft. Quite calm, but his voice was daggers in her ears, a cold compulsion in her heart. She nodded once and went, shivering, from the lodge, the healing woman close behind, casting fearful, awed glances back over her shoulder.

  And in the lodge, Aeglyss the na’kyrim sank back on the pallet of juniper and hazel boughs. He held his arms flat at his sides, a little away from his body. His lips trembled now, in pain or fear or horror. The blood came freely from his wounds, saturating the cloth wrappings about his wrists, falling in viscous drips down amongst the twigs and fronds beneath him.

  II

  The road ran up from the south towards Kolkyre through flat farmlands. Inland, low hills filled the eastern horizon; to the west there was nothing but foaming waves rumbling on weed-strewn beaches and, far out beyond those breakers, the distant hump-backed mass of Il Anaron.

  The High Thane’s army snaked its way up the coast beneath wintry clouds. Aewult, the Haig Bloodheir, rode at the head of the column. The last of his ten thousand warriors were the better part of a day behind him, still straggling out of Donnish even as the Bloodheir came in sight of Kolkyre. His host had become a rough, ill-disciplined thing during the long march from Vaymouth. There had been trouble in Donnish the night before: drunken warriors thieving from the townsfolk, then fighting with the hawkers and pedlars the army sucked to itself as a rotting corpse drew flies. There had been desertions, too. Many of the men in this army had only just returned from war against the rebellious Dargannan-Haig Blood. They had expected rest and revels, not another punishing march and the promise of battle against the Black Road.

  The Bloodheir remained ignorant of most of the problems afflicting his army. Those who commanded his companies judged it wiser to manage the difficulties as best they could, rather than to risk the Bloodheir’s ire by reporting them or – still worse – suggesting that he slow the remorseless pace of his advance. They all knew why Aewult drove onward so quickly, with so little regard for the cohesion of his forces. He hated the harsh realities of the campaign: the cold and the wet; the potholed roads; the hours in the saddle; the impoverished, dirty villages through which they passed. The Bloodheir wanted to win his victory and get back to his palace in Vaymouth as a matter of the utmost urgency.

  So when the vanguard of the army of the True Bloods swept down the long, gentle slope that led to Kolkyre’s southernmost gate, the Bloodheir himself was in its midst. His heralds blew horns and his bannermen snapped flags back and forth. The giants of his famous Palace Shield, haughty in their shimmering armour, let their horses run on and came hammering down the cobbled road like harbingers of glory.

  Orisian oc Lannis-Haig stared up at the soaring spire of Kolkyre’s Tower of Thrones, oblivious of the crowds gathered around him. A blustery wind was driving sheets of grey cloud eastwards off the sea.

  Seagulls were spinning about the Tower’s summit, playing raucous games with the gale. They cut wild arcs and curves across the sky, screeching at one another as if in celebration. When Kilkry had been first among the Bloods, the Tower of Thrones was the axis around which the world turned. Now its austere grandeur remained but the worldly power of its inhabitants was more circumscribed.

  Orisian forced his gaze back to the scene before him. He did not want to be here but in this, as in so much else, he seemed to have far fewer choices than once he did. The Tower stood atop a low, broad mound. A thick wall ran around the base of the mound, studded with gatehouses and small watchtowers.

  Between wall and Tower, on the slopes, a succession of Kilkry Thanes had created gardens. With Winterbirth gone, there was little by way of colour or greenery to show for all those years of effort, although the signs of meticulous husbandry were apparent. As Orisian looked around he saw not one rotting apple upon the lawns, not one fallen leaf marring the perfection of the flagstone paths.

  The crowd now assembled on the grass was as well prepared as the gardens. Every tunic, every dress had been cleaned, every child firmly tutored in how to behave, every blade and shield polished to radiance. Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig’s entire household stood ready to greet the Haig Bloodheir and his mighty host.

  Orisian, though he had insisted upon keeping to the outer fringes of this great welcoming party, still felt absurdly conspicuous. He was wearing borrowed clothes – the few fine vestments he once possessed had burned along with the rest of his life in Castle Kolglas – and they fitted imperfectly. He was flanked by Rothe, his shieldman, and by Taim Narran: two warriors who, Orisian imagined, made him look frail and only half-grown by comparison. None of which would have mattered, were it not for the fact that he felt curious eyes constantly upon him. He was, after all, the youngest Thane any of the Bloods had seen in many years.

  “Lheanor looks a weary man,” murmured Taim Narran.

  Orisian watched the Kilkry-Haig Thane for a few moments. The old man did indeed have the air of one burdened by years. He had a slight stoop, and all the majesty of his flowing, fur-trimmed robe only accentuated the pallor of his complexion. His long grey hair was limp. He and his wife Ilessa who stood beside him were quiet, still. All around them their attendants and officials held murmured conversations, adjusted their fine clothes, cast expectant glances in the direction of the Haig Bloodheir’s approach.

  Lheanor and Ilessa did none of those things. They gazed off into the distance. They made no effort to hide the fact that their minds were elsewhere.

  Orisian had seen this several times in the past few days. Every so often Lheanor or Ilessa – more often the Thane than his wife – would lose track of the world around them and drift away on some melancholic current of thought. The loss of their son Gerain had sorely wounded them. For Lheanor in particular, Orisian suspected, his son’s death in battle against the Black Road had cut one of the moorings that bound him to the world. Orisian could understand that. He had seen more than enough loss of his own since Winterbirth to know what it could do to the heart, to the spirit.

  An exuberant drumbeat rose up from somewhere in the streets. It ebbed and flowed, snatched to and fro on the sea wind. A ripple of anticipation spread through the crowd gathered by the Tower of Thrones.

  “Aewult’s Palace Shield,” muttered Taim. “They have the drums specially made.”

  “Rumour h
as it they spend more time practising with their drums than with their swords,” someone said behind Orisian.

  He turned to find Roaric nan Kilkry-Haig standing there: Lheanor’s one surviving son, now destined to succeed him as Thane. Orisian had met him once or twice when he was a child, though Roaric had never paid him much heed then. Now, the Kilkry-Haig Bloodheir was a brooding, intense presence. Wherever his eyes fell, they seemed to find fault and to gleam with accusatory anger.

  “The Palace Shield certainly haven’t fought any battles in my lifetime,” Taim Narran said.

  “They wouldn’t want to mar the shine on their breastplates,” said Roaric. He and Taim had an easy manner in one another’s company. Orisian assumed that it sprang from their recent shared service in the war against Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig, and their shared anger and resentment at what they had seen –

  and suffered – there. A bitter kind of mutual sympathy seemed to lie at the root of it.

  “How is your father?” Orisian asked the Bloodheir. “This must be hard for him.”

  Roaric glanced down at the ground.

  “He presses on, as do we all,” he said. “He blames himself for Gerain’s death, and will not hear any argument. And now he must smile for Aewult, and pretend we are honoured to receive the High Thane’s son.”

  “Honoured or not, we may need the swords he brings with him to drive the Black Road from our lands,”

  murmured Taim.

  “I don’t think so,” said Roaric, with a grimace. “And I don’t believe you truly do either. Your lands –

  Orisian’s lands – could be reclaimed by Lannis and Kilkry marching together. It hardly matters, though, which of us is right. It won’t be you or me making the decision. Not now that Aewult’s here. My father’s a better man than me: I could find no words of welcome for that ill-born creature.”

  “It’s one of the curses of being a Thane,” said Rothe. “Having to wear one mask or another all the time.”

  Roaric nodded at Orisian’s shieldman. Rothe’s face was rather colourless, his skin a little slack in appearance. One arm and shoulder were bound up in a sling. There was a suggestion of weariness in his stance.

  “You, Rothe Corlyn, look like a man who should be somewhere else,” Roaric observed.

  “Resting,” agreed Orisian, “under the care of healers. I can’t even make my own shieldman do as he is told.”

  “I’ve seen enough of healers these last few days,” Rothe grumbled. “Good air will serve me just as well.”

  “How’s the arm?” Roaric asked.

  Rothe glanced at his bandaged limb. “Of little use – for the time being, anyway.”

  “And the shoulder?”

  “Better than the arm. It’ll take more than one Horin-Gyre crossbow bolt to put me down.”

  “Here he comes,” said Taim Narran quietly.

  The gates swept open and Aewult’s Palace Shield rode in. They sat tall on massive warhorses, pennant-topped lances held erect. Their breastplates gleamed. Drummers rode with them, unleashing a flurry of beats and then falling silent as the shieldmen flanked the path up from the gate towards the Tower and the waiting crowds. Outside, beyond the encircling wall, there was a mounting tumult of hoofs and voices.

  The Haig Bloodheir entered the gardens at a canter, wrestling to control his mount, the biggest horse that Orisian had ever seen. It tossed its head and strained at the reins as Aewult turned it in a tight circle. A dozen of his Shield fell in behind him and followed him up the path. There was a murmuring amongst the assembled dignitaries, whether of unease or admiration Orisian could not say. He saw one or two people at the front of the throng shuffling backwards, as if alarmed by these great horses and the men who rode them.

  Aewult nan Haig rode to within a few paces of Lheanor and Ilessa. He towered over the old couple, his horse still unsettled. It was almost as if he expected the Thane of the Kilkry-Haig Blood to take hold of the animal’s bridle so that he might dismount. Lheanor gazed silently up at the Bloodheir, his expression placid and empty.

  “See who comes now,” Taim Narran murmured to Orisian.

  Looking back to the gate, Orisian witnessed an altogether more subdued entry. Riding a quiet bay horse, this newcomer had none of Aewult’s crude energy or ostentation. He was poised, handsome and wore not armour but a luxuriant woollen cape decorated in red and gold. Instead of warriors he brought with him a band of well-dressed officials and attendants.

  “Who is it?” Orisian asked, and guessed the answer in the same moment.

  “The Shadowhand,” Roaric said, his voice laden with contempt. “I didn’t know we were to be cursed with his presence as well.”

  Mordyn Jerain, Chancellor to Gryvan oc Haig: Orisian knew of him only by rumour, and all those rumours said that he, more than any other, kept the Haig Blood secure in its mastery of all the others.

  Amongst those who resented Gryvan’s rule, Mordyn Jerain was the man most often blamed for the worst of its excesses.

  Seeing the famous Shadowhand for the first time, Orisian was struck by how unobtrusively he came riding up in Aewult’s wake. There was no sign of arrogance; just a quiet man who looked around with a calm smile. His gaze met Orisian’s and held it. Orisian could not imagine that the mighty Chancellor would know who he was by sight, yet there was a slight widening of that smile, a fractional inclination of the head. Orisian looked down at his feet.

  “He’s marked you already,” Taim whispered. “He guesses who you are, by my presence at your side.”

  The notion that the Shadowhand should take an interest in him left Orisian craving nothing but anonymity and the insignificance that the last few weeks had stolen away from him.

  Slightly too late, grooms had hurried to soothe Aewult’s horse. The Bloodheir dismounted with a flourish. He hauled off his long leather gauntlets and took Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig’s hand in his own.

  “How long do you suppose we have to stay?” Orisian wondered aloud. “Before we can leave without causing offence, I mean.”

  By the time the greetings and hollow pleasantries were done, and the Haig Bloodheir had been ushered into the Tower of Thrones, Orisian had slipped away with Rothe. He left Taim Narran to attend upon Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig. Taim, Orisian knew, could represent the Lannis Blood amongst the great and the powerful more ably than he could himself. Neither Lheanor nor any of his family would be offended; if others felt differently, Orisian was not in the mood to care. At this moment, the mere thought of making the closer acquaintance of either Aewult or his father’s Chancellor was almost horrifying to him. There were places he would much prefer to be.

  One of them was the small house attached to the town garrison’s barracks, just beyond the wall that ringed the Tower of Thrones and its gardens. Orisian approached it with a hurried, almost eager stride, a grumbling Rothe close behind him.

  “They’re not going anywhere,” the shieldman muttered. “Do we have to rush so?”

  “You confess you’re too weary to keep up with me, then?” Orisian asked over his shoulder.

  “No. It’s my arm’s a bit sorry for itself, not my legs.”

  There were Lannis guards posted outside the house. They snapped into alert postures as their young Thane drew near. Taim Narran had set them here at Orisian’s request: two of his best men, survivors of the campaign against Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig and the carnage at An Caman fort.

  “Any problems?” Orisian asked the guards.

  “No, sire,” replied one. “They’ve been quiet as the dead, and no one’s tried to get in.”

  Orisian climbed the stairs quickly. He was aware of his own eagerness, and half of him thought it a touch childish, unworthy of a Thane. The other half of him savoured the pleasure of anticipation: it was something he felt little and seldom these days.

  Ess’yr and Varryn were in the bedchamber at the top of the stairs. To Orisian’s surprise, his sister Anyara was there as well.

  “I heard the serving girls complaining that a
ll the food they brought here was getting turned away,” she explained, her brow bunched into a knot of irritation. She nodded in Varryn’s direction. “He won’t eat.

  It’s like trying to deal with some sulking child.”

  Orisian glanced at the Kyrinin warrior. A sulking child was not the first image that sprang to mind.

  Varryn was seated cross-legged on the floor, where he and his sister, contemptuous of the soft beds, had slept since their confinement here. Even from that lowly position, Varryn’s fierce presence was impressive. His long back was stiffly erect, his uniformly grey eyes staring at Orisian in that confidently passive way only Kyrinin could manage.

  “The food’s not to your liking?” Orisian asked.

  “No,” was all Varryn said.

  His anger had been constant and consistent from the first moment they had all clambered aboard the Tal Dyreen ship that bore them away from Koldihrve. Its causes were many, Orisian suspected, but it had certainly not been blunted by the rigours of the voyage. Both Varryn and Ess’yr had suffered throughout from violent seasickness. Aboard the rocking deck of Edryn Delyne’s vessel, Orisian had felt something new and unexpected towards them: pity. On land they’d seldom appeared anything other than capable –

  often intimidatingly so – but it had soon become clear that Kyrinin did not make good seafarers.

  Turning to Ess’yr now, the sight of her still filled him with a kind of wonder. The pale delicacy of her features, the astonishing grace in her lean limbs, were there as they had always been; what was lacking, or at least diminished, was the utter ease with her surroundings that she had displayed in the forests of the Car Criagar and the Vale of Tears. Here, enclosed in a rather gloomy panelled bedchamber full of bulky furniture and embroidered bedding, she had the look of someone who knew she was out of place. For all that, she remained beautiful in Orisian’s eyes. The blue, swirling tattoo on her face – far less intricate and detailed than the one that Varryn sported, but nevertheless striking – only served to accentuate the elegance of her lips, the clarity of her eyes.