Bloodheir

by Brian Ruckley

  “No, it’s not that. It is as good as anything I’ve tasted. I’m tired, Chancellor, that’s all.”

  “Ah. Well, these are trying times. The strongest of men would find it difficult, let alone someone of your youth. Perhaps you should consider excusing yourself from the feast tonight? I am sure Lheanor would understand; all of us would.”

  The concern on Mordyn’s face was flawless. Whatever threat Orisian had seen there moments ago – or imagined he had seen – was utterly gone, replaced by simple sympathy. Sincere or not, it was utterly convincing and Orisian wondered at how easy it might be to be charmed by this man. Yet they said many men had died by his command, that every punishing tithe levied by the Haig Blood sprang from his greed, that he had turned the Ayth-Haig Thane into a helpless drunk, the better to subjugate his Blood.

  “I could not do that, Chancellor,” Orisian said.

  Mordyn smiled and spread his hands. “No? Well, perhaps not. Ah, but we can dream, can we not? To be freed of the responsibilities that weigh down upon us? In my weak moments, I think of little else.” He set his cup of wine down on the table. “Come, Thane. I’m keeping you from your preparations for the feast. Forgive my selfishness.”

  The Chancellor rose. Orisian, trying not to show the relief he felt, did likewise. He left clutching the golden belt buckle, feeling its weight in his hand like the greatest of burdens.

  Lagair Haldyn, the High Thane’s Steward in Kolkyre, was an indolent man. Mordyn Jerain knew this about him, just as he knew that he drank more than a wise man should, that he had a whore who would sometimes visit him when he travelled out of his wife’s sight, that he had once conspired in the death of a grain merchant in Vaymouth. His less than appealing traits and habits were, though, balanced by two compensating qualities that predisposed him to serve the High Thane loyally: ambition and greed.

  “He is only a child, Chancellor,” the Steward was saying in that slovenly voice of his. “Since he turned up here he’s shown no aptitude. It’s as if he cannot believe he is Thane, as if he’s afraid of the very idea.

  He won’t present any problems.”

  “He is young,” agreed Mordyn, “and it’s true that he’s come into this power long before he was ready for it. Still, there’s a bit of fire in him. I stoked it up enough to catch sight of it. Not enough to sustain him in a battle of wills with us, though, I suspect.”

  He drained the last of the wine from his cup. It really was some of the very best wine to be had; quite wasted on Orisian oc Lannis-Haig. The ewer, still half full, stood on its little table. Lagair had been eyeing it greedily ever since he entered the room, but Mordyn had no intention of letting even one drop pass the man’s lips.

  “He will get good advice from Taim Narran if he pays heed,” the Shadowhand said. “We would be wise to see if we can’t prise the two of them apart, one way or another. And then there’s Lheanor: he will look on Orisian with affection, no doubt.”

  Lagair grunted. “Lheanor has his own difficulties. I tell you, that man’s on the edge of losing himself, just as Kennet nan Lannis-Haig did. He’s got himself all twisted up, taking Gerain’s death hard.”

  “Fine. A grief-crippled Lheanor makes for an impotent Kilkry Blood. But Orisian oc Lannis-Haig still merits a close watch. Whether he likes it or not, he’s a potent figurehead for his Blood. All of this can yet end up very well for us, but not if we find ourselves burdened with an over-confident Lannis Blood, led by an ambitious young Thane.”

  “Very well. I still think you worry too much, though.”

  The Shadowhand shot Lagair a pointed glance and was rewarded with a flash of humility and nervousness in the Steward’s face.

  “Fortunately, what you think is of less import than what I choose to worry about,” Mordyn said, articulating the words with precision.

  The Steward smiled half-heartedly in agreement. Mordyn suspected that almost everything he did, even carousing with his whore, he did half-heartedly.

  “If there’s glory to be had here, it’s Haig that must harvest it,” the Chancellor mused.

  That, he thought with a touch of despondency, meant Aewult nan Haig. There were few people he judged less worthy of glory, but the Bloodheir was here and he would have to serve. The Lannis-Haig Blood must be indebted to Haig for its salvation, thus Aewult must work that salvation.

  “I will talk to Aewult,” he continued. “We must ensure that Orisian stays here while we recover his homeland for him. And you, Steward: what is the state of your contacts here? Have you the means to set some rumours running in the backstreets and the markets?”

  “If there is one thing I have learned in all my years,” said Lagair with a self-satisfied smirk, “it is that no Steward worth his title should ever be without the means to stir up a rumour or two.”

  “Very well. Put it about that Orisian escaped the Black Road only because he fled and because he took sanctuary with woodwights and half-humans. And that he is too young and untried to save his Blood. All of those thoughts will already be rattling around somewhere in this rats’ nest of a city. Feed them; encourage them.”

  Lagair nodded compliantly.

  “Foolish of him to bring a na’kyrim here with him,” Mordyn said.

  “They’ve got her hidden away somewhere in the Tower, by all accounts. Lheanor’s done everything he can to keep it quiet, the same way he’s got those Kyrinin locked up out of sight. Word always gets out, though. It’s no way for a new Thane to win favour, that’s certain: consorting with halfbreeds and wights.”

  “I would be curious to see that na’kyrim , though,” the Chancellor said, as much to himself as to the Steward. “I always found it . . . interesting that Kennet nan Lannis-Haig kept a na’kyrim counsellor. Such a thing might be useful, I suppose, if one could overcome the hostility of the common folk.”

  Lagair Haldyn snorted. “Not useful enough, given what befell Kennet.”

  “Well, it does not matter now. Do you know of a man called Ochan, by the way?”

  “Ochan Lyre? The Cook, they call him, but I cannot guess what such as he would have done to merit your attention.”

  “If you cannot guess, better not to try. If there is one thing I have learned in all my years, Steward, which have been rather more demandingly spent than yours, it is that speculation quickly leads the unwary onto unsafe ground.”

  “Of course, Chancellor. Well . . . Ochan the Cook. A smuggler, by reputation, and a thief and a usurer.”

  “He is under someone’s protection, then, if he has the reputation but hasn’t been taken?”

  The Steward shrugged. “He must have some arrangement, I imagine; with the Guard, most likely. Has the poor man incurred your displeasure in some way?”

  “Not personally. But if he does not pay the tithes and taxes that he rightfully should . . . if the Kilkry-Haig Blood is incapable of controlling their own people, they should be encouraged towards a more stringent attitude. Can you make it happen? Can you unpick whatever protection he enjoys?”

  Lagair pursed his lips in thought. It seemed an affected gesture to Mordyn, but he suppressed his impatience.

  “I could,” said the Steward. “Yes, I believe I could. A word in the right ear, you know. It may not be well received, of course. Interference seldom is, in these parts.”

  “Do it anyway. I want him gaoled. Or dead. Why is he called ‘the Cook’?”

  “Oh, a foolish story that he stewed and ate some rival long ago. No right-thinking man would give it any credence. You know how these thieves like to dress themselves in dark rumours.”

  “Yes,” murmured the Shadowhand, thinking of Torquentine in Vaymouth: a shadow at the centre of a far more intricate web of rumour, but far too clever to let his name be widely known. Ochan the Cook would soon regret whatever he had done to draw Torquentine’s attention. Though playing the role of Torquentine’s vengeful messenger irked him, Mordyn was willing to see it through. It would be a profitable exchange of services, so long as Torquentine delivered o
n his promise to kill Gann nan Dargannan-Haig. And the Shadowhand had never been one to put pride above effectiveness.

  “I will go and find the Bloodheir,” Mordyn said, rising to his feet. “I should talk to him before the feast.

  He’ll be in no mood to listen later on, and probably too drink-bruised to do so tomorrow.”

  He turned back after a few paces down the passage, and returned to the doorway. He was not surprised to find the High Thane’s Steward leaning over the jug of wine, sniffing at it.

  “Have one of your servants take that to my chambers, would you?” Mordyn said. “And get them to build up the fire there a bit more. I was cold last night.”

  The Chancellor was deep in thought as he headed for the Tower of Thrones. He was tired, for he had been sleeping badly ever since leaving Vaymouth. The chambers the Steward had provided for him here in Kolkyre were a very poor substitute for the comforts of his Palace of Red Stone. That, combined with the fact that he never slept easily while separated from his wife Tara, meant he suffered too many hours of wakefulness in the night. It did not help that he was, in any case, on edge.

  Not the least of his concerns was his reliance on Aewult nan Haig. So far, the Bloodheir was irritating and offending various people without precipitating an irrecoverable breach. That could easily change.

  Every new day provided abundant opportunities for him to say or do something profoundly unhelpful.

  The sooner Aewult and his army were moved on, the better. The question thereafter would be whether he could manage the swift defeat of the Black Road.

  All the signs, thankfully, were that the Black Road’s forces in the Glas valley were too few to offer any serious resistance. Now that he was here in Kolkyre, where it began to be possible to sift fact from rumour, Mordyn was satisfied that Lannis-Haig had been undone by misfortune and by the cunning, rather than the numbers, of their enemies. The complicity of the White Owl Kyrinin, the ravages of the Heart Fever five years ago, a tendency to complacency in Croesan and his family: these were all it had taken to allow the Horin-Gyre Blood, alone, to bring Anduran down. They would be of little use against Aewult nan Haig’s army.

  The Shadowhand winced as flurries of sleety snow began to swirl around him. He had never much liked Kolkyre but at this time of year, when bitter winds came off the sea and every day seemed given over to fog or rain or sleet, it was particularly unpleasant. He folded his arms to protect his hands from the cold, and longed for the day when he would be on the road south once more. In Vaymouth now, Tara would be bathing, breathing the sweet clove-scented air she so loved; or perhaps hosting some gathering of the ladies of Gryvan’s court, exquisitely garbed. Too far away, Mordyn thought, and too long to wait for our reunion. If Aewult did not win his victory quickly – insufferable as such a victory would no doubt make him – it would be a considerable time before the Chancellor forgave him.

  IV

  The hall of the Tower of Thrones was small but grand. It had room for no more than thirty or forty people, but on the night of the feast to welcome Aewult nan Haig, whatever the guests lacked in numbers was more than made up for by their grandeur. Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig and his wife Ilessa sat at the high table. On their right hand was Aewult, then Orisian and Anyara. On the left sat Mordyn Jerain and the High Thane’s Steward, Lagair. There should have been one other there. The rumour, already flying through the Tower’s corridors, was that Roaric nan Kilkry-Haig had refused to share a table, or even a room, with the Haig Blood. Orisian, required to spend the evening at Aewult’s elbow, almost wished he could have done likewise.

  The long table that ran away down the length of the hall was filled with Lheanor’s officials, the captains of the Haig army and the wealthiest merchants and Craftsmen of Kolkyre. It was not an admixture likely to produce high good humour, and so it proved. A kind of leaden, forced jollity arose, but it lacked conviction. The resentment and mistrust between the Haig and Kilkry Bloods were too deep-rooted to be wholly set aside for even a single night.

  Musicians came and paraded up and down the hall. Falconers displayed Lheanor’s finest hunting hawks.

  A trickster made coins disappear. None of it did much to ease the evening’s latent tension. At length a storyteller was ushered in. As he bowed to Lheanor a hush fell across the room.

  “In the Storm Years,” the storyteller began, “not long after the Kingship fell, a man called Rase oc Rainur – tall and red and strong-handed – had a hall at Drinan, which was then but a village. In the summer, the people grazed their cattle far out through the forest. Now, there was a girl called Fianna, daughter of Evinn, who often stood watch over her father’s cattle, taking only his two black dogs with her.”

  Aewult nan Haig leaned too close to Orisian, his breath heavy with wine and grease.

  “I think I’ve heard this before,” the Bloodheir said.

  “It’s a common tale here,” Orisian replied. “It’s called ‘The Maid and the Woodwight’.”

  “A miserable one, isn’t it? Doesn’t everybody die?”

  “Not quite everyone.”

  The storyteller pressed on, but he had clearly failed to catch the Bloodheir’s attention. As a scattering of discussions resumed around the hall, Aewult turned his attention to Anyara.

  “You’ve a very fair face, my lady.” He flicked a wide grin at Orisian. “Has your sister given her affections to anyone, Thane?”

  “My affections are my own,” Anyara said, “and I don’t give them away. I’m sure your own lady would say the same thing.” She glanced pointedly at the beautiful young woman who sat amongst the Haig captains at the long table.

  Orisian was not certain of her name – Ishbel, he thought – but it was already common knowledge in Kolkyre that she shared a bed with the Bloodheir. It was said that he had smuggled her all the way from Vaymouth in one of the supply wagons. Apparently Aewult’s mother, Abeh oc Haig, had forbidden the liaison, as she disapproved of the woman’s background or breeding. Whatever the truth of it, Orisian suspected it was not wise ground for Anyara to start digging in.

  To his relief, Aewult appeared to be amused rather than annoyed.

  “A pretty face but a pointed tongue, I see,” the Bloodheir said through a mouthful of mutton. “You’ll have to blunt that a bit if you want to marry her off, you know.”

  “I don’t mean to marry her off,” Orisian said quickly. He pressed forward against the table, hoping to put a barrier between Aewult and his sister. “How long do you expect to remain here in Kolkyre?”

  “Keen to see us off to battle?” Aewult asked, with a smirk. “You don’t need to worry. We’ll be on our way soon enough. We’ll get your lands back for you, Thane, and sit you on your throne in Anduran.

  Believe me, I’ll not spend a day more than I must up here. It’s too cold and too wet.”

  “It’ll get colder yet,” Orisian said. “Our winters aren’t really made for fighting.”

  “Ha! A bit of weather won’t hinder us. I’ve an army here big enough to cut a path all the way to Kan Dredar if we needed to.” The Bloodheir waved a bone from which he had picked all the meat, as if that somehow proved his point. “It’ll be a massacre. You’ll see. It’s only Horin-Gyre that’s come south, from the sound of it. Stupid, but then they’re all a bit mad on the cold side of the Stone Vale, aren’t they?”

  “It was Inkallim and White Owls that attacked Kolglas at Winterbirth, not Horin-Gyre,” Orisian muttered. There was a patronising, dismissive strand in Aewult’s demeanour that annoyed him. Apart from anything else, it belittled the price that Croesan, Kennet and all the others had already paid for Horin-Gyre ambition.

  The Bloodheir snorted, flourishing his empty goblet to attract the attention of a serving girl.

  “There’s not enough ravens or woodwights in all the world to trouble ten thousand determined men.

  Have you ever ridden to battle, Thane? Too young, I suppose. Have you even killed a man yet?”

  Orisian could not help but look aw
ay. He remembered driving his knife into the chest of a fallen Tarbain warrior; remembered a torrent of blood that only grew in his memory. And the emptiness that came after that act, leaving unsated whatever hunger for revenge had preceded it.

  Anyara was tearing at a slab of bread, concentrating with a fierce intensity that made Orisian glad he was seated between her and the Bloodheir.

  Aewult drew his own conclusions from Orisian’s silence.

  “No, eh? Well, don’t worry. You can rest here while we cleanse the Glas valley for you. You’re the last of your Blood, Thane. There’s no one to come after you. Can’t risk anything unfortunate happening to you, can we? Haig warriors will do the dying that’s needed to open the path back to your throne.”

  Orisian gazed at the storyteller, who was still manfully persisting in his efforts to make himself heard above the soft drone of conversation. Those last phrases had sounded glib, almost rehearsed, in Aewult’s mouth, as if he was repeating a thought crafted by someone else. Orisian wondered whether Mordyn Jerain held even the Bloodheir’s reins.

  “There’s been no shortage of dying already,” he said.

  “Maybe, but it’s not gained you much, has it?” grunted Aewult. There was a blush in his cheeks, whether born of drink or heat or anger Orisian could not tell. But the Bloodheir’s speech was losing its shape a little; his eyes were gleaming. He regarded Orisian with what seemed to be naked contempt.

  “Those who’ve died did so fighting,” Orisian snapped.

  “Fighting and losing.” Aewult’s lips were stained red with wine. “Make no mistake, it’ll take the strength of Haig to win you back your seat, Thane.”

  “At least you remember that my brother is Thane,” Anyara hissed from beyond Orisian. “The way you talk, I’d thought you had forgotten. Bloodheir.”

  For once, Orisian hardly cared if Anyara wanted to pick a fight. His own jaw was tightening in anger, and a kind of furious shame burned in him: so little did Haig think of his Blood, and of him as its Thane, that he was treated as nothing more than a child. He was uncertain whether Aewult deliberately meant to goad him into some mistake or whether the Bloodheir simply did not care.