Treason Keep

by Jennifer Fallon

  “I can’t see a thing!” he complained. It was so dark inside the little cavern he could only make out Dace from his glittering eyes.

  “Look, it’s over…”

  “Sshhh!” Mikel froze as the sound of footsteps reached him. He turned slightly, so he could see outside.

  It was Princess Adrina. He bit back a cry of surprise as a man joined her on the tower. The Hythrun Warlord’s profile was sharp against the setting sun.

  “I trust you have a reason for this perilous expedition?” the princess demanded as she turned to stare out over the plain.

  “I thought you might enjoy the view, your Highness.”

  Damin Wolfblade really should learn to speak to the princess with more respect.

  “It’s lovely. Can we go now?”

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “I see nothing, and I’m freezing. Is this really necessary?”

  “You see nothing,” Damin repeated thoughtfully. “Interesting, don’t you think?”

  “You find nothing interesting? Well, that’s hardly surprising for a man of your limited intellect.”

  Mikel grinned in the darkness of his hidey-hole. That’s telling him!

  “Adrina, a few leagues from here, your husband’s army sits and waits. They do nothing. They don’t attack. They don’t train. They don’t even run away. They just sit there, waiting for something. I want to know what they’re waiting for.”

  Adrina turned north, her expression puzzled. Rather than the biting retort Mikel was expecting, she shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Were they planning something, before you left? Something that would account for their willingness to hold an army of that size immobile for so long?”

  “I’d tell you if I knew. Their war council did little more than argue, and you’ve already seen their idea of battle. The Dukes of Karien are not renowned for their tactical genius. When you have countless troops to throw into battle it isn’t really necessary.”

  Mikel wasn’t sure he believed what he was hearing. They sounded so…friendly.

  “Could one of the Dukes have advised him to wait?”

  “Lord Roache may have,” Adrina shrugged.

  “What did the Duke of Setenton advise?”

  “Lord Terbolt? He’s not there. He sent his brother Ciril in his place.”

  The warlord frowned. “Terbolt isn’t there? He’s Jasnoff’s most trusted commander. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Cratyn didn’t seem surprised by his absence, though. Perhaps Jasnoff had other plans for him.”

  “What other plans?” Damin asked, the concern in his voice obvious even to Mikel.

  “I was permitted to join their war council rather begrudgingly, my Lord. They weren’t in the habit of discussing anything of import while I was present.”

  Damin laughed softly. “Not an unwise precaution, in light of recent events.”

  Adrina turned on the Warlord. “That remark was uncalled for, my Lord.”

  Damin sighed. “That’s right, I forgot. You aren’t committing treason, you just want to be free.”

  “Free! Get this damned collar off my neck, then I might remember what the word means!”

  As Damin moved closer to her, Mikel wanted to leap to the defence of his princess, but Dace held him back.

  “No!” the thief whispered.

  Burning with frustration and not at all certain why he remained hidden, Mikel turned back to watch, thinking the Warlord was much too close to the princess to be proper.

  Damin was fingering the golden collar Adrina wore with surprisingly gentle fingers. It reflected the setting sun, making the wolf’s ruby eyes glitter malignantly. Adrina’s rigid posture betrayed more than she imagined.

  “What would you give to be free, Adrina?” he asked softly.

  “Unhand me, sir!”

  Damin dropped his hand. “I can see why your marriage was never consummated, your Highness.”

  Mikel swallowed a horrified gasp. He knew what “consummated” meant.

  Adrina laughed. She sounded genuinely amused. “You don’t like me much, do you? Is that why you take so much pleasure from tormenting me?”

  “Ah, now there’s the tragedy, your Highness. If you weren’t such a treacherous, conniving little bitch, I’d probably be quite taken with you.”

  Adrina turned away from him, to study the red streaked clouds. The sun was almost completely set. “You presume to know an awful lot about me, considering the short time of our acquaintance, Damin Wolfblade. How much is your own opinion, and how much is hearsay, I wonder?”

  “I make my own judgments. I’ve no need to listen to hearsay.”

  “I beg to differ, my Lord,” she retorted, turning to face him. “You told Captain Tenragan I tried to kill the High Prince. You weren’t there. How could you possibly know what happened, unless you listened to hearsay?”

  “He told you that, did he?”

  “Yes, and it’s a damned lie! I did no such thing! Your uncle is a perverted monster, and if those boys would rather die than let him touch them, I don’t blame them!”

  “So you did give them the knife?”

  “Yes!”

  Damin was silent for a moment. “Why did you take the collars?”

  “I didn’t take them. Lernen gave them to me. I kept them as a remembrance of two children destroyed by a debauched old man. Somebody owed them that much.”

  He took a step back from her. “It’s cold, your Highness, and I know how anxious you are to return indoors. Shall we go?”

  Adrina planted her hands on her hips angrily. “That’s it? No apology? No admission that you were wrong? How dare you, sir!”

  The Warlord shrugged. “For all I know, you’re lying about that, just as you lie about everything else.”

  “I am not lying!”

  Damin closed the gap between them with frightening speed. “Then prove it, Adrina. Tell me the truth! Why did you leave Karien?” Although he was looming over her, Adrina held her ground. Mikel watched helplessly, wanting to kill Damin Wolfblade almost as much as he wanted to stay hidden and watch this strange scene unfold.

  “I’ve told you a thousand times! I left because Cratyn is a miserable, cowardly, little cretin! The day we were married he hit me and called me a Fardohnyan whore and told me all he wanted was a Karien heir to my father’s throne. It went downhill from there.”

  Tears misted Mikel’s eyes to hear such words coming from his princess. She is lying to protect herself, he reasoned anxiously.

  She walked to the other side of the small tower and leaned against the crumbling merlons, turning her back to the Warlord. The darkness was settling rapidly, making her features hard to distinguish.

  “Was it that bad?” Damin asked, in a surprisingly sympathetic voice.

  “Worse than you could possibly imagine. The bastards even killed my dog.”

  She’s making it up, Mikel told himself, over and over. She’s making it up.

  “Does your father know what it was like?”

  “Even if he did, he wouldn’t care. Hablet has his own plans.”

  “To invade Hythria, no doubt.” Adrina looked around sharply, but Damin smiled. “Don’t worry, Adrina. I won’t overtax your ability to admit the truth any further, this night. Your father’s worst fault is his predicability. His plans are easy enough to fathom. It’s the Kariens who have me worried at the moment.”

  “I told you, I don’t know what they have planned.”

  “And oddly enough, I believe you. Come on. The sun has set. If we stay up here much longer they’ll be able to decorate their damned Founder’s Day banquet with a couple of ice statues.”

  He held out his hand to help her down and, to Mikel’s disgust, she accepted it. But she halted at the top of the steps and leaned toward him in a most unladylike manner. “Tarja showed me the graves, Damin. That was a noble thing to do for an enemy.”

  “Careful, your Highness, you might actually get me believing there’s a
heart hidden beneath that rather impressive bosom.”

  She snatched her hand from his angrily. “You are an intolerable bastard! I was trying to be gracious!”

  “Gracious?” he laughed softly. “That wide-eyed look? Those slightly parted lips? That eloquent sigh? What’s next? ‘Oh Damin, won’t you please let me go’? Gods Adrina! I’ve been around court’esa-trained noblewomen all my life. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “You flatter yourself, my Lord,” Adrina said, her voice colder than the rapidly darkening night. “In the unlikely event I ever turn my skills on you, you won’t even know what hit you, until you lay whimpering at my feet, begging for more!”

  “Don’t try playing that game with me, Adrina. You might find the rules a little different this far from Fardohnya.”

  “Rules?” she laughed softly, savagely. “In this game, my Lord, there are no rules.”

  Adrina vanished from Mikel’s sight as she descended the stairs, followed closely by Damin. Mikel’s breath came out in a rush and he discovered he was trembling. He wished he could make sense of even half of what he had seen and heard. The princess must be very upset to lie about Prince Cratyn like that. What were they doing to her?

  “Psst!”

  Mikel glanced in the direction of the thief who sat squashed in the dark cavern.

  “What?”

  “You have to steal the eggs!”

  Annoyed, Mikel reached in and snatched the fragile speckled eggs from the nest.

  “There! Satisfied?”

  Dace nodded, grinning broadly. “You have honoured the God of Thieves.”

  “If you say so,” he agreed distractedly. It was a measure of his distress that he didn’t bother to correct the youth. Normally such a statement received a sharp denial of the existence of any other god.

  “Your soul belongs to me now, Mikel,” Dace said, sounding enormously satisfied with himself.

  “My soul belongs to the Overlord,” he replied mechanically.

  “That’s what you think,” the God of Thieves smirked.

  CHAPTER 45

  The Medalonians celebrated Founder’s Day with a degree of abandonment that Adrina considered rather inappropriate for men in the middle of a war. Admittedly, there wasn’t much of a war going on at present, so they might as well take this opportunity to enjoy themselves. Even the Hythrun Raiders joined in as if it were a festival of the gods. They didn’t care much for Founder’s Day, she suspected, but they weren’t going to ignore an excuse for a party. There was precious little else to do. One senseless battle and now Cratyn was sitting on the other side of the border with his vast army doing precisely nothing.

  The hall was filled with people, as Jenga had declared an open house and many of the officers whose wives and lovers were in the followers’ camp had brought their women to the party. Someone had managed to find a quantity of blue linen and had made a hopeful attempt to decorate the crumbling walls, but there had not been enough to go around. The decorations had a forlorn, unfinished look. The only source of heat was the abundant torches and the huge fireplace near the far end, but the heat of so many bodies pressed together seemed to take the chill off the air.

  There were quite a few court’esa present as well, although Adrina thought the term a rather misguided one, when applied to these ill-bred, uneducated whores, whose only feature in common with real court’esa was their willingness to trade sexual favours for coin. A small band of musicians was playing in the corner, enlisted men mostly, whose skill with an instrument had got them invited to the officers’ party. They weren’t bad either, considering their first calling was killing people and musicianship was merely a secondary talent.

  With his hand on her elbow, Damin guided Adrina through the crush towards Lord Jenga, who stood by the stairs that led up to her quarters, talking to Tarja Tenragan.

  Adrina studied him curiously. She had never been able to crack that calm certitude, even when he admitted to killing her brother. And it was not for lack of trying. The captain showed no interest in her—or any other woman present, she noted, slightly mollified. Perhaps Damin was right. Perhaps there was nothing any woman here could offer him that compared with what he already had.

  “I’m so glad you could join us, your Highness,” Lord Jenga said as they approached.

  “I wasn’t aware that I was given a choice in the matter, my Lord. Good evening, Captain.”

  “Your Highness. Damin.”

  “I thought you’d be taking part in the festivities, Captain. I’m sure there are any number of young ladies here who would be delighted to keep you company.”

  Tarja shook his head with a faint smile. “I’m sure there are, your Highness, if I was willing to spend the coin and didn’t mind what diseases I caught. May I get you some wine?”

  “Thank you,” Adrina replied, a little startled by his blunt answer.

  Damin caught her look and leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “You deserved that.”

  She glared at him for a moment then turned to Lord Jenga. “So what is this party in honour of, my Lord?”

  “Founder’s Day, your Highness. It’s the day we celebrate the foundation of the Sisterhood’s rule over Medalon.”

  “And you find that worthy of celebration?”

  “It’s tradition, your Highness,” Jenga replied. “I’m sure you have many such traditions in Fardohnya.”

  “Of course, my Lord. I apologise if you took offence.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Jenga,” Damin warned. “She’s not in the least bit sorry.” He ignored the look Adrina gave him, and gave her no chance to defend herself. “Her Serene Highness did tell me something though, that she’s conveniently neglected to mention until now. The Duke of Setenton isn’t with Cratyn.”

  Jenga’s weathered brow furrowed. “That would explain their tactical stupidity. Is he out of favour with Jasnoff?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Adrina told him.

  “Why did you wait until now to tell us?”

  “I didn’t realise you would consider it so important, my Lord.”

  “Tell us what?” Tarja asked, returning with a cup of wine for both Damin and Adrina. She took the tankard and swallowed the wine with a gulp. How was she supposed to know Lord Terbolt’s absence was such a big issue?

  “The Duke of Setenton isn’t in the Karien war camp.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “That’s a question I’d like answered,” Damin replied, looking pointedly at Adrina.

  “I told you! I don’t where he is.”

  “You’ve told us a great deal, your Highness, half of which is probably outright lies, and the rest of which is doubtful.”

  “If we were in Fardohnya, sir, you would be put to death for insulting me so.”

  “If we were in Hythria, your Highness, you’d have been flogged for being—”

  “Damin!” Tarja warned.

  Fortunately, the Warlord didn’t finish the threat. Adrina smiled at Tarja gratefully, but it was time to escape the company of such an intolerable man.

  “Do you dance, Captain?”

  “Only when I can’t avoid it,” Tarja replied with a grimace.

  “Consider this one of those times. I feel the need for some entertainment and I find the company in this part of the hall quite dull.”

  Much to her annoyance, Damin laughed aloud at her comment. She thrust her wine cup at Lord Jenga and all but dragged Tarja to the centre of the Hall where a lively jig was in progress. She had no idea of the steps involved, and didn’t particularly care. She took her place in the line and followed the steps of the girl beside her, a young thing of about sixteen with a pretty face that was ruined by a missing tooth she displayed when she smiled. The dance was fairly simple and repetitive so it didn’t take long before she got the hang of it. She glanced across the hall and saw Damin watching her. She quite deliberately turned her head away and smiled winningly at Tarja.

  “You don’t have to keep looking at h
im,” Tarja told her when the dance brought them together for a turn.

  “Looking at whom?” she asked, feigning innocence.

  “You know who I mean. Are you trying to make him jealous?”

  “Don’t be absurd! That would imply I care what he thinks.”

  “And you don’t, of course.”

  “Of course not.”

  They parted then and broke into two lines, men on the right, women on the left. The steps changed and Adrina found herself having to follow the toothless peasant girl for a time. When she looked up, she couldn’t see the Warlord, but she could feel his eyes on her. The dance took her back to her partner and she found herself confronting Tarja’s infuriatingly calm expression.

  Was he really immune to her charms, she wondered? Is R’shiel so enticing that even when she is hundreds of leagues away, he can resist what is right under his nose?

  The lines of dancers moved together. When Tarja took her in his arms for the next part she leaned into him and smiled, meeting his eyes with an open invitation. There weren’t many men who could deny her when she chose to be irresistible. Cratyn and Damin Wolfblade being rather notable exceptions, she recalled sourly.

  Tarja’s reaction was not at all what she expected. His expression grew serious. “Damin wasn’t kidding when he said you were dangerous, was he?”

  “Do you think I’m dangerous?” she teased.

  “I think you’re a spoilt brat, actually,” he replied pleasantly. “I think that’s why you really left your husband. You’re so used to getting your own way that you ran away, rather than be denied.”

  “And what would you know about it?”

  “I’m something of an expert on spoilt brats, your Highness. R’shiel is fairly famous for it in some circles.”

  Adrina’s anger evaporated in the face of such a startling admission. She had never heard Tarja speak of R’shiel before. She was more curious about the demon child than she cared to admit.

  “Is she very beautiful?”

  “Very.”

  “More beautiful than me?”

  Tarja laughed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to say yes, but I’m hardly what you’d call objective. Damin could probably give you a more accurate answer.”