Treason Keep

by Jennifer Fallon

  “This may sound like a stupid question,” Lord Brakandaran was saying as Mikel silently filled his cup. “But has anyone thought to offer the Kariens a settlement?”

  “What? You mean offer them peace?” the Hythrun Warlord gasped with mock horror. “Bite your tongue, man!”

  “Perhaps not so stupid,” Sister Mahina mused. “They must have realised by now that even if they win, it will be an expensive victory. Perhaps they would consider a peaceful settlement.”

  Tarja shook his head. “I doubt it, but I suppose it’s worth a try.”

  “At the very least, it might delay them for a while,” Jenga agreed. “That would take us well into winter before the first attack. Those big warhorses, weighted down with armour, will be a liability rather than an asset if it snows. Even a decent rainstorm will turn the battlefield into a quagmire.”

  “I’ll be very disappointed if they agree,” Damin said. “And surprised. They’ve too much at stake to withdraw at this point.”

  “You’re right,” Garet Warner said in his soft, dangerous voice, which seemed to startle the Warlord. Damin Wolfblade didn’t seem to like the commandant much. “The banner flying over their command tent is Cratyn’s, not Jasnoff’s. He’s young and he needs to prove himself. Agreeing to a settlement would imply weakness. He won’t back down.”

  “And what of the Fardohnyans?” Mahina asked. “Perhaps they might persuade him?”

  Garet shook his head. “Again, I doubt it. They were sent to Karien as the Princess’ Guard, and the first thing Adrina did was bring them to the border to aid her husband. They obviously share a common purpose.”

  “Adrina?” Damin Wolfblade asked in surprise. “I thought he married Cassandra?”

  “He married Adrina,” Brak confirmed. “She left Talabar with Cratyn several months ago. Her progress up the Ironbrook was something of an event, I hear.”

  “Gods!” Damin muttered. He looked concerned.

  “Is that a problem?” Lord Jenga asked.

  “It could be,” Brak answered. “Adrina is Hablet’s eldest legitimate child. Adrina’s son could claim the Fardohnyan throne.”

  “Who cares?” Mahina asked. “Our problem is here and now, not whether or not there is a Karien heir to Fardohnya.”

  “Our problem could be Adrina herself,” Damin warned them. “If she’s half as bad as her reputation suggests, then she’s the one to look out for, not Cratyn.” The Warlord glanced at his captain who nodded in agreement.

  “Do you know her?” Tarja asked Damin curiously.

  “No, thank the gods! She was in Greenharbour a couple of years ago for my uncle’s birthday.” Suddenly he grinned. “Despite my uncle’s wishes, and a number of dangerously close calls, I managed to avoid an encounter with Her Serene Highness.”

  “How bad can the woman be?”

  “Bad,” Damin assured him. “She’s got the body of a goddess and the heart of a hyena. Hablet offered a dowry beyond the dreams of avarice—and he still couldn’t marry her off. Adrina married to the Karien Crown Prince is not a happy prospect. I wonder how poor Cratyn is coping.”

  “He can’t be doing too badly,” Garet said. “She’s followed him to the front with her troops. Maybe she’s found her soul mate.”

  “If she has, then I’m packing up and going home now,” the Warlord announced, although Mikel didn’t think he was serious.

  “I’d like to meet the woman that makes you turn tail and run, Damin,” Tarja chuckled.

  “Does it really matter?” Mahina asked, obviously annoyed by the banter between Tarja and the Warlord. “We were discussing the advisability of sending an emissary to the Kariens, I believe?”

  “Assuming we do, who would we send?” Jenga asked. “I’m in no mood to give them a hostage, should they not honour our flag of truce.” Mikel was quite offended at the idea that his prince would do any such thing. How dare they impugn Cratyn’s honour!

  “What about the boy?” Lord Brakandaran suggested. All eyes turned to Mikel curiously. He quivered under their unrelenting gaze.

  “Are you crazy?” Tarja said.

  “It’s no crazier than some ideas I’ve heard lately.” He turned back to the others to explain. “His return could be considered a gesture of good faith. The child has been here for months and he will tell the Kariens everything he’s seen. It might give them pause, even if your offer of peace falls on deaf ears.”

  “But he’s a child,” Jenga objected.

  “All the more reason to send him home.”

  All eyes turned at the sound of the imperious voice and Mikel was suddenly forgotten. The Crazy Lady descended the stairs regally, dressed in a long, high-necked white gown. She had icy blue eyes and a haughty expression and surveyed the room as if everyone in it was beneath contempt.

  “You will bow in the presence of the First Sister!” she snapped.

  Instinctively, the stunned Medalonians almost did as she demanded. Lord Wolfblade’s jaw was hanging slackly in astonishment and Tarja wore an expression of such hatred that it made Mikel take a step backwards. Only Lord Brakandaran didn’t seem startled by her appearance.

  “Impressive, Lord Dranymire,” he said.

  Suddenly the Crazy Lady seemed to wobble and her expression changed from contempt to amusement.

  “Spoilsport!” R’shiel accused, stepping out of the shadows on the staircase. She looked at the others who still sat frozen in various poses ranging from amazement to outright shock, and laughed. “You should see your faces!”

  “Humans are far too easy to impress,” the Crazy Lady remarked, in a male voice much deeper than the one she had spoken with a moment ago.

  Mikel was certain he had been swallowed up whole and sucked into some sort of pagan hell. The Crazy Lady wobbled again and Mikel watched in horror as she literally fell apart. Then the room was swarming with little grey creatures like the one that had bitten him by the well. The creatures fell about laughing in high twittering voices, as if they were privy to some marvellous prank. It was more than Mikel could cope with. He screamed in terror as the creatures neared him.

  His scream brought the others out of their torpor. They all began talking at once but Mikel could make no sense of what they were saying. He didn’t try. He could hear someone crying and it took a little while to realise it was he. R’shiel walked toward him, pushing the monsters out of her way impatiently. He shied away from her in fear.

  “I’m sorry, Mikel. I didn’t mean to frighten you. They’re demons, that’s all. They won’t hurt you.” She turned impatiently. “You’re scaring the poor child to death. Be gone!”

  The demons vanished almost instantly, shocking the grown-ups almost as much as Mikel. “The Overlord will protect me. The Overlord will protect me. The Overlord will protect me,” he chanted softly as the tears streamed down his face.

  “Let the boy take the message to the Kariens, Lord Jenga,” she pleaded. “Send him home. He doesn’t belong here.”

  Jenga looked at Brak uncertainly. “You said he would tell his people what he’s seen here. Do you really want him to report what he’s seen here tonight?”

  Brak shrugged. “The Karien priests will know we are here soon enough. It might even give them pause.”

  “Or they won’t believe him,” Garet pointed out. “I certainly don’t believe what I just saw.”

  A meaningful glance passed between the adults before Jenga turned on him. “Boy! Go get your gear packed. You’re leaving first thing in the morning. You will take our offer of peace back to Prince Cratyn, is that clear?”

  Mikel nodded. Tears of joy, as opposed to fright, threatened to unman him. “And…my brother?” he ventured cautiously.

  “He stays,” the Hythrun Warlord announced, before anybody else could answer. “He will be a hostage to your good behaviour. If your prince accepts our offer, we’ll send him home.”

  It would have been too much to hope for any other answer, although he wondered if he’d waited and asked the Lady R’shi
el when she was alone, the result might have been different. But it was too late now.

  Mikel nodded and the Lady R’shiel smiled at him reassuringly. He was going home. The Overlord had finally answered his prayers—some of them, at least. By tomorrow evening, he would be standing before his prince and his priests and he could finally tell them of the evil that resided south of the border in the camp of the Defenders.

  CHAPTER 24

  They sent him back to the Karien camp mounted on a nondescript dun gelding. Tarja Tenragan and Damin Wolfblade escorted Mikel as far as the earthworks that were constructed along the front. It was the first close look Mikel had got of the Medalonian defences. He tried to remember every detail to tell Prince Cratyn, but it wasn’t easy with Damin on one side of him on a huge golden stallion, and Tarja on the other on a sleek black mare. As if they knew the reason for his swivelling head and wide eyes, they began to point out various features of the defences to each other over the top of his head, describing in rather graphic and gory detail the affect they would have on any attacking Karien force.

  The earthworks gave cover for a vast number of bowmen, Tarja explained cheerfully to the Warlord, which would decimate the vanguard of any Karien attack. Even if the knights were armoured, their horses would founder under the rain of arrows. Each archer carried around fifty arrows, and if they took their time, they could keep up the deadly hail for an hour or more. Being trapped under a dead warhorse while it rained arrows was not a happy prospect, Damin agreed with relish. And, he added, if they were so foolish as to send unarmoured men to lead the attack, it would be a massacre. Mikel tried very hard not to listen to them. They were teasing him, he knew, and his courage was growing stronger the closer he came to the border. The Overlord was with him and he was on his way home. There was nothing they could do to him that would quell his growing excitement.

  “This is as far as we go, boy,” Damin said eventually, reining his horse in as they reached the edge of the field that the Medalonians ominously referred to as the “killing ground”. He looked down at Mikel and grinned. “Just head north, boy. You’ll reach Karien sooner or later.”

  “And carry this,” Tarja added, thrusting a broken spear into his hand, to which had been tied a scrap of white linen.

  “My people won’t harm me!” Mikel said, quite offended by the flag of truce. “I am going home!”

  “You’re going home wearing a Defender’s uniform,” Tarja pointed out. “I’m sure they won’t kill you if they know who you are, but you’re not going to get close enough to tell them, dressed like that. Take it.” He looked across at Damin and added with a grin, “Mind you, they’d never believe a Defender could be so short.”

  Reluctantly, Mikel accepted the flag.

  “You have the message?” Damin asked.

  He nodded glumly and patted the bulge under his jacket where the sealed letter from Lord Jenga was securely tucked, as the two men he hated most in this world talked to him like a small child. They would ask if he’d washed behind his ears next!

  “Then scat!” the Warlord said, slapping the flank of the gelding. The horse surged forward and Mikel nearly lost his seat as he galloped headlong toward the border.

  Not an experienced rider, Mikel clung grimly to the pommel until he remembered to use the reins. The slightest touch and the well-trained cavalry mount slowed his headlong rush to a more manageable pace. With a sigh of relief, Mikel remembered the flag, and propped it up against his thigh as he rode through the waist-high grass of the no-man’s land between the two camps. Although he didn’t know the exact location of the border, he knew that he would soon be in bow range of the Kariens, and he would be hard pressed to deliver his intelligence about the Medalonians with an arrow through his chest.

  It annoyed him intensely that it had been Tarja who pointed that out.

  He was still half a league or more from the camp when the Karien sentries found him. The sight of Lord Laetho’s purple pennant, with its three tall pines worked in red, brought tears of relief to his eyes, which he hastily brushed away as the knights approached. The Overlord was truly with him, he knew now. Not only had he been released, but he had sent his own people to meet him. Mikel was giddy with relief as the tall knight in the lead lifted his faceplate. It was Sir Andony, Laetho’s nephew, newly knighted last summer and enormously proud of the fact. Andony studied him for a moment, waving away the drawn swords of his three companions.

  “Sir Andony!” he cried, urging his horse forward.

  “Mikel?” he asked in astonishment. “We thought you long dead, lad!”

  “They sent me back. I have a message for the prince.”

  Andony frowned. “You seem remarkably well fed for someone kept prisoner these past months, boy. And you wear the uniform of the enemy.”

  Mikel glanced down at his rolled up Defender’s trousers and the too-big, warm red jacket they had given him in the Medalonian camp. “They took my clothes and burned them. You must take me to the prince! I’ve seen so much, Sir! I have to tell him!”

  Andony nodded, not entirely convinced. “Well, we’ll see if Lord Laetho wants you to speak with his Highness. Come!”

  Andony wheeled his big horse around and fell in beside Mikel. One of the other knights took station on his left and the other two fell in behind. Mikel rode into the Karien camp, not in triumph as he had dreamt, but a barely disguised prisoner.

  “They offer peace,” Prince Cratyn announced, throwing the parchment Mikel had delivered onto the long table in the command tent. Smoking torches threw tall shadows on the canvas walls, which made Mikel’s eyes water. The braziers did little to warm the big tent.

  “They offer nothing!” Lord Laetho corrected, pointing at the document with scorn. “They ask us to pack up and go home! They offer no compensation! They do not even apologise for murdering Lord Pieter!”

  Mikel couldn’t read, but even if he had been able, he had not been given an opportunity to examine the contents of the sealed document he had delivered. He wondered at Lord Laetho’s interpretation of the offer. Sister Mahina had been quite hopeful that a peaceful solution might be reached.

  “I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Lord Roache corrected. “But you’re right, in that it is somewhat arrogant in its tone. The Medalonians appear to think they might prevail.”

  The full war council had convened upon hearing of the letter from the Defenders, even though it was the middle of the night. Mikel had spent the day being questioned by Lord Laetho and now stood just inside the flap of the command tent, chewing his bottom lip nervously. In his dreams, when he faced the war council, he had not been nervous, or cold, or afraid. Mikel glanced around, rubbing his eyes and trying not to yawn. The movement caught the eye of the tall Fardohnyan captain who stood opposite him on the other side of the tent, near the Princess Adrina. The man winked at him solemnly. The small gesture gave Mikel a much needed morale boost.

  Princess Adrina had obviously dressed in a hurry. Her long dark hair was tied back with a plain blue ribbon and she wore a simple dress of fine grey wool, covered with a warm fur cloak. Mikel watched her, thinking that she was just as pretty as the Lady R’shiel, which was only proper, since she was married to Prince Cratyn. But she did not look at Cratyn the same way Lady R’shiel looked at Tarja. There was no warmth in her eyes at all, except when she addressed the fair-haired Fardohnyan captain. And Prince Cratyn’s gaze didn’t linger on Adrina, the way Tarja’s lingered on R’shiel.

  No, he decided, his prince and princess knew how to behave in public. Nobody would ever come upon them kissing where anybody could see them. The princess was far too well bred to lean back suggestively against her husband, while she talked of war to her council, or dress in skin-tight leathers, or ride astride like a man. It was comforting to be back among people who acted with decorum and restraint.

  “It is a sign of their weakness,” Earl Drendyn announced, leaning back in his chair. “They have seen the force we have gathered and are afraid!”

/>   “Even the lowest creature can fight savagely when it’s frightened,” Duke Wherland reminded them. His eye-patch looked decidedly ominous in the sputtering light. “I learnt that in the navy.”

  “It may be a ruse,” Duke Palen agreed, scratching at his greying beard thoughtfully. “A delaying tactic, perhaps?” He turned in his seat, his gaze falling on Mikel, who gulped nervously. “What say you, boy? Laetho tells me you were there when they decided to make this offer.”

  Mikel swallowed again, his mouth suddenly dry.

  “The boy knows nothing useful,” Duke Ervin scoffed, pulling on the ends of his waxed moustaches. “I don’t know why you bothered to bring him here.”

  “My Lords,” the princess intruded cautiously, her eyes lowered demurely. She was such a perfect lady. “Children, like women, are frequently overlooked in a war camp. You may find he knows more than the Medalonians realise.”

  Prince Cratyn looked up sharply as the Princess spoke, but it was Lord Ciril who answered her. “Her Highness shows remarkable insight for a woman. Come forward, boy!”

  Mikel stepped forward hastily, although his throat was so dry it felt as if somebody had sandpapered it. “My…My Lord?”

  “You were there when they composed this message?” Duke Roache asked.

  Mikel shook his head. “No, my Lord. But I heard them discussing it.”

  “Well? What did they say, boy?” Duke Ervin demanded impatiently.