by T. O. Munro
However, Hengus was not so sure that the guards at Lavisevre would be so easily swayed to sympathy. His family had had the contract to supply mead to the palace for centuries, he would not want to throw that lucrative trade away by offending the Prince’s people with an unwelcome visitor.
“What did you say was the nature of your business at the palace, miss?” He made another effort to probe her silence while they were still a hundred yards or so from the guards by the suppliers’ entrance to the palace compound.
“I didn’t say.”
The curt answer, as chill as the winter air, punctured his courteous consideration. “Now then, miss.” His tone was suddenly all stern and business like, as his father’s had been when talking to recalcitrant suppliers.
She turned and smiled before he could finish the sentence. It was a broad beam of apology that shone from her pockmarked face. “I’m so sorry, Mr Hengus, that was rude of me.”
“Now, now miss,” he hastened to assure her. “No need to apologise at all. Everything is just fine.” And it was. There had been a question he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t remember what it was and that surely meant it wouldn’t have been anything important.
They chatted after that, inconsequential courtesies, which filled the space between them. Asked afterwards, Hengus would not have recalled a single fact they had exchanged, but he was confident they were become the best of friends. It was the most obvious thing in the world that he should tell the guards she was his new assistant, and so save any unnecessary awkwardness at the entrance to the kitchen courtyard. The ease with which the sentries accepted this minor dissembling was further endorsement of its trivial nature.
As a half dozen burly kitchen labourers came out to help with the heavy casks, the woman slipped lightly to the ground and gazed around at the bustle of business. Few of the servants spared her a second glance, there was always too much work to be done and too little time to spare in the service of Prince Rugan. One younger lad, quite new in post judging by the freshness of his pressed uniform came late, pursued by a quartermaster’s curse. The boy sauntered past Hengus’s passenger, running an appraising eye up and down her slim cloaked form and the fine fingered hand that gripped her staff. As he passed he turned to give her a lascivious grin. Hengus watched the abrupt change in his expression as he saw the pitted skin of the woman’s face. The shock was a more effective call to work than the quartermaster’s threats and the boy hurried on with a bowed head and a newly industrious attitude.
If the woman was offended by his childish gracelessness, she did not show it. She turned back to Hengus with a nod, “I’ll be on my way then, Master Hengus. There are friends I must see.”
“Of course,” he agreed at this most reasonable proposal.
“Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome, Miss… Miss.” He was sure she must have told him her name but somehow he could not place it. The whole event of their first meeting was a fog in his brain.
“Mistress Elise, Master Hengus, at your service.” She dipped her skirts in a small curtsy and then strode off confidently towards the kitchen entrance.
***
Kimbolt wanted to help, he really wanted to help, but they had been over this so many times. This ploughing through the field of his treachery, in hope of turning over some new insight into the enemy. It was becoming an increasingly fruitless as well as a painful experience.
“This dragon then,” Niarmit was asking. “It is the same one that has scared the armies of Nordsalve into hiding behind their borders?”
“I assume so,” Kimbolt said wearily. “I only ever saw the one dragon on the one occasion, when Sturmcairn fell.”
“Thom told us it serves for a day in every month, your Majesty. He said that Maelgrum had to wait for its appearance before beginning the assault on Morwencairn.” Quintala reminded the Queen. “It seems the Dark Lord endures some constraints in the deployment of this formidable ally. We must be grateful for that.”
“It was seen over Nordsalve nearly five weeks ago now. It is overdue for a return.”
“Or it has already done him his due service for this month, but the news of it has yet to reach our ears,” the Seneschal pointed out.
Silence fell amongst the four of them, each lost in contemplation of some as yet unheralded disaster. Perhaps, Kimbolt thought, Nordsalve was already reduced to a smoking ruin. He had seen the great wyrm settle in the inner bailey of Sturmcairn. A huge scaled beast that no childish picture book or myth from the days of the Monar Empire could have done justice to. The only thing that had made Maelgrum more fearsome than the dragon was that the Dark Lord had dared to turn his back on the great reptile. A being who did not fear a dragon, was truly a creature to be feared above all others.
“And who would command at Listcairn now?”
The Queen’s question dragged Kimbolt back from his gloomy contemplation. The Captain shrugged. “It will be between Odestus and Galen.”
“The Governor or his apprentice,” Kaylan snorted. “Each as evil as the other.”
“Odestus is more cunning, Galen more cruel,” Kimbolt said.
“Sir Ambrose has sent word that they have seen fires and open skirmishes between the orcs on the plain outside Listcairn,” Niarmit observed. “Maybe there is some power struggle yet to be resolved amongst our foes.”
“Thank the Goddess the abomination moulders in the ground, it was fear of that monster that kept them all in line,” the thief growled.
“Her name was Dema,” Kimbolt said stiffly.
“Ah, Captain” Kaylan gave him a look of contempt. “Is your loyalty to the crown fully restored, or does some part of you still weep for your lost snake lady.”
Kimbolt bit back the angry words. Dema had been a monster, but not to him, not always. There had been in her a magnificence a grandeur of vision and of purpose that this scrawny thief could not imagine. True the things she had done were in a dark and evil service, but how she had done them! Those had been achievements of dazzling lustre. And try as he might, to put her evil and his service to her from his mind, there were nights he still thought of her and wept.
“Dema’s judgement was always sound,” he said with slow deliberation. “She trusted Odestus and valued his skills and he will have the measure of Galen.” Kimbolt winced at a further thought. “Provided that it is, he can overcome whatever grief he may feel at her falling.”
“Grief,” Kaylan sniffed. “Grief for a monster, impossible. Oh but then I forget, you were her bed slave. Perhaps you still grieve for her yourself Captain. Blind to the way you let her abandon Hepdida to the orc.”
Kimbolt felt the heat of rage as his shame found a legitimate outlet. “For that crime I have paid many times in ways you cannot comprehend, Kaylan. And as to abandoning Hepdida, I might ask in whose care she was when this sickness afflicted her. Where were you Kaylan? Where were you when Hepdida was taken ill?”
The thief was on his feet in an instant, Kimbolt a fraction of a second behind him. Both men hungry for a brawl in which they might excise their own guilt with bloodied fists on each other’s bodies.
“Kimbolt, no!” Niarmit rose between them.
Quintala with equal swiftness caught the thief around the shoulders pinioning his upper arms against his chest and hissing in his ear, “be still Kaylan, or I will cast a spell to make you so.”
They froze thus, the men torn between instinct and obedience, the Queen and the Seneschal determined to enforce their will. In the moment’s silence that followed they all heard a commotion outside the chamber door.
“Let me past,” a woman’s voice insisted.
“How did you get here?” a male voice demanded. “How did you get past the guards?”
“Let go of me, I must see the Lady Niarmit. Let go.”
At a nod from the Queen, Quintala loosed her grip on the thief and stepped softly across to the door. Kimbolt and Kaylan turned to watch as the half-elf pulled open the door, their argument for the
moment forgotten.
It was the thin manservant Fenwell in uncharacteristically talkative mode. He held the woman by the wrist. She brandished a gnarled wooden staff, more a rough hewn branch than an elegant walking stick. Her robes were a drab mix of browns and greens, her head cowled in a loose hood. At the opening of the door she turned to look into the room, drawing a gasp of astonishment from its occupants.
Her eyes were bright and her olive skin unsagged by age. However, her face was pocked and spotted with tiny dark scar pits which swirled and swept across her cheeks and chin and brow, in a crazy spiralling pattern as though a drunken tattooist had attacked her while she slept.
“Lady Niarmit!” The manservant and his prisoner announced in unison.
“I found this woman skulking outside your room,” Fenwell began.
“I must speak with you. It is a matter of great urgency,” the woman spoke over him.
“She has no business here, the guards should not have let her pass,” Fenwell insisted.
“I have come to help, to help your friend. The girl who is sick.”
With a curt wave of her hand, Niarmit silenced the manservant. “Who are you? What do you know of Hepdida?”
The woman shook off the manservant’s hand and gave a low curtsey. “My name is Elise, I am a herbalist from Oostport. I heard your friend was sick. I know I can help her.”
“From Oostport?” Quintala was incredulous. “You came all this way from Oostport? In the depth of winter?”
“I can help.” Elise had eyes only for Niarmit, bright and imploring. “Please let me see what I can do.”
“She has no business here,” Fenwell spluttered. “She does not even sound like an Oosterner.”
“And you don’t exactly sound like a Nordener, Master Fenwell,” Kaylan growled sotto voce.
“She says she can help Hepdida,” Niarmit trumped the manservant’s protests. “Come Mistress Elise, it is this way. Master Fenwell, thank you for your concern, I think we have this dangerous herbalist under control now.”
“She should not have got this far,” the manservant wailed. The herbalist waited patiently as the Seneschal pulled urgently on Niarmit’s arm to murmur some words of caution.
“Will the Princess not be sleeping?” Quintala said. “Perhaps Mistress Elise should wait to work her charms until Hepdida awakes.” The Seneschal dropped her voice further so that Kimbolt had to strain to hear it, as she hissed. “There is some substance, your Majesty, in Fenwell’s concern. An hour or so to make some enquiries might ease my mind and will do the Princess no great harm.”
“Then you and Kaylan make those enquiries. I’ll not delay a second if there is hope of any succour for Hepdida. Kimbolt and I can keep the Princess safe enough, if the woman has any ill intent.”
“I assure you I have nothing but the young woman’s health in mind,” Elise interrupted. “And I am as eager as Lady Niarmit that my work should begin immediately.”
Quintala dragged Kaylan and Fenwell away, the thief unhappy with his role, glaring unfinished business at Kimbolt. The Captain turned his back and strode after Niarmit and Elise. He had to hurry to catch up with them, drawing level just as Niarmit waved the guards aside at the doorway to Rugan’s private chambers. Kimbolt expected to see them make some protest at the Queen’s new found companion. The herbalist had bowed her head and clutched her staff in a far from open stance, but the two pikemen let her pass like a familiar guest. The looks of suspicion they saved for Kimbolt himself.
Beyond the double doors servants scattered before the three of them as they hastened to Hepdida’s sick room. Niarmit tried the door but found it locked. Kimbolt saw her frown and try two more times in some surprise. “Who is with the Princess,” Niarmit demanded of a passing chambermaid.
“The Bishop Sorenson was, Lady Niarmit. But his man called him away.”
“She’s alone? Why did he lock the door?”
The servant frowned. “I didn’t know he had, My Lady. He did say she was sleeping, no need to be disturbed he said.”
Niarmit looked the door up and down and gave the handle another speculative twist and a push to no effect. “He left her alone?”
“His man, Fenwell, did say it was urgent, a messenger had arrived from Lady Isobel he said. I can get you the key my Lady.”
“Just give me your broach,” the Queen commanded.
In some puzzlement the maid handed over the clasp with Rugan’s coat of arms which held her cloak about her neck. Kimbolt watched as Niarmit twisted the pin at the back of the item into a strange bent shape. She saw his frown of confusion and grinned. “There are skills, Captain Kimbolt, which you do not learn at court.”
He hadn’t seen Niarmit smile before and found himself smiling back at her simple pleasure in surprising him. She worked the pin in the lock for a moment, there was a click and the door swung open. Her grin broadened. “You may have your issues with Kaylan, Captain Kimbolt, but there is much you could learn from him. I know I have.”
In the distraction of that brief exchange, Elise stepped into the room ahead of them and gave a shrill cry of alarm. The Queen’s smile was wiped as swiftly as if it had never been and she shot inside with Kimbolt at her shoulder.
***
It was an ordinary knife. Not a hunting knife, not a throwing blade, just an ordinary knife for slicing meat on a plate. But it was not on the plate. The tray of food and drink sat on the chest by Hepdida’s bed, next to the bowl of water they used to wet her lips and sponge her brow.
The knife was in her hand.
She was kneeling on the bed. All four ropes that had tethered her lay slack upon the bed. Their cut ends hung from hempen bracelets around her wrists and ankles.
The knife was in her hand.
She gripped the handle with knuckle whitening force. The blade was turned inwards, its point resting just below her ribcage, slightly to the left and tilted to point upwards.
The three of them could never cross the room in time. Before they’d taken one step the girl could have driven the knife home in a wound that no Grace of the Goddess would heal.
“Don’t Hepdida!” Niarmit heard herself say.
“I’m sorry,” the girl began. The streak of white in her hair was broader now, another pustule blistering by her cheek. She looked thin and ill and jaundiced yellow and she was crying, sobbing as she held the knife against her night shift. “I’m sorry.”
“No!” Niarmit cried. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare be sorry. Hepdida, this is not going to be how we say goodbye.”
“I have to,” The girl was shaking her head.
Niarmit sensed Kimbolt trying to edge sideways past her, but Hepdida saw him move and jabbed at herself with the blade. He stopped then, a little circle of red staining the nightdress where she had pricked her skin.
“Don’t you see,” Hepdida went on.
“No I fucking don’t. This is not our way, this is not the way of the Goddess.”
“I’m holding you back. Your people need you.”
“Fuck the people. If I can’t save you I’m not saving any of them.”
“You’re needed elsewhere, and you’re staying here watching me slowly die. It’s wrong, Niarmit, all wrong. I’m tied to a bed to keep you all safe, half the time I’m a raving maniac and I can see what I have become. To be demented and aware, do you know how horrible that is? I don’t want to do it anymore. I should have died months ago when Sturmcairn fell. Maybe this is how the Goddess punishes those who cheat death.”
Niarmit hissed some visceral rebuttal of the blasphemy. “No,” she said. “Put the knife down Hepdida. I won’t let you.”
Hepdida shook her head scattering tears on the bedclothes. “You can’t stop me Niarmit. I’m dying and you can’t stop that either. Let me make my own choices.”
“You’re not dying child!” Elise spoke a voice of soothing calm. She stepped forward, past Niarmit and Kimbolt, two, three strides across the room. Hepdida watched her, mouth open, in surprise.
“This disease won’t kill you.”
The knife was loose in Hepdida’s hand. Elise was close enough to reach for it. She stretched out and seized the Princess’s other hand in a firm grip.
“How do you know that?” Hepdida asked suspicion mingled with hope.
“Because it didn’t kill me,” Elise replied, throwing back her hood. “It was a close run thing,” she admitted, shaking free a tumble of pure white hair. “But it didn’t kill me and it is not going to kill you.”
The knife fell from Hepdida’s hand onto the bedclothes. Niarmit raced to embrace her, but Elise had already gathered the girl in her arms and was rocking her gently back and forth.
***
“Seneschal!”
Quintala walked on through the cloisters, pretending she had not heard the unctuous hail.
“I say, Seneschal Quintala.” This time the call was accompanied by hurrying footsteps across the flagstones.
With weary resignation the half-elf turned to face her pursuer. Bishop Sorenson’s brow wore a deep frown, but his lips stretched out a wide smile. He bobbed before the half-elf with anxious gratitude, too pleased at her acknowledgement to say why he had stopped her.
“Yes, your reverence?” Quintala prompted.
“I just wanted to ask, the mistress Hepdida, how is she?”
“She is well, better than she has been.”
“Oh good, that is very good, oh yes, Goddess be praised.”
“I think we have our herbalist friend to thank more so than the Goddess. Following her ministrations the Princess is sleeping more easily and her moments of lucid wakefulness grow longer and more frequent.”
“I see the hand of the Goddess in all things, Seneschal,” Sorenson hurried to annex the credit to his deity. “People, even the Mistress Elise, are but the vessels through which she performs her wonders.”
