Wintermoon

by Mercedes Lackey

  She stood up, and felt her hands trembling. She did not bother to try to hide her agitation; it would serve her purpose. “I am an obedient daughter, my lord, but the King’s will supercedes my will and yours! Anything less is treason!”

  “Nothing supercedes my will in this keep!” Ferson roared, rising to his feet, although Massid placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Forget that, my girl, and you will learn the truth of it to your sorrow—”

  “Sorrow!” She uttered a brittle laugh. “If that is all you can threaten me with—I have rights, my lord, and not even you can take those from me, and I say I will not agree to this treasonous marriage!”

  By now every eye was on the dais. There would be no keeping this secret from even the lowest scullery boy, and by the looks on the nearest faces, Ferson’s words were not going down well. One did not threaten the Keep Lady; she embodied the Luck of the Keep. When she was contented, the storms were few, and the storm harvest rich. Moira could tell that people were beginning to think about the too-early and too-frequent storms of this winter.

  They were also thinking that Ferson was talking about marrying the Luck of the Keep to an enemy, and that when the King got wind of it, there would be hell to pay. Her father was oblivious to the sideways glances, the unease in the hall. He was too consumed with rage, his face nearly purple.

  “I tell you,” she continued passionately, in the words Kedric had chosen for her to speak, “I would rather wed your fool than allow this Massid, this foreigner, to touch the smallest finger of my hand!”

  For one moment she was afraid she had overreached herself—that she had gone just a little too far, that her father, who was so much more practiced in deception than she, would see through her.

  But her father seized the bait like a ravenous shark. His head came up, and his eyes flashed with rage. “Oh you would, would you?” He turned to the rest of the room and thrust his fist in the air. “You have heard it! You are all my witnesses! She will not take my choice of husband, but wishes to marry the fool!”

  He turned back toward her and seized her hand. Expecting this, she did not resist him as he dragged her to where Kedric sat on a stool at the back of the dais. With a wrench, he flung her at Kedric’s feet. Kedric moved with amazing swiftness, somehow managing to put his lute aside and catch her before she fell.

  “Take the ungrateful wretch, Fool!” her father bellowed. “She would rather be wed to you! Well, I declare it, here and now, and before witnesses!”

  In an ugly parody of the peasant fisherfolk’s wedding rite, he pulled off his own belt and bound their right hands together, then poured the remains of his wine on the floor in front of them, following that with the entire contents of the saltcellar. “Wed and bound I declare you! Wed and bound you two are, by fruit of the land and the fruit of the sea, and the power of the lord of the keep!”

  Even though this was exactly what she had wanted, Moira felt her knees start to buckle, and with surprising strength, Kedric held her up.

  “And know that if you dare to touch her carnally, Fool,” Ferson growled under his breath, “I’ll have your stones for fish bait.”

  “I understand, my lord,” Kedric murmured back.

  “Now take her away from my sight, and keep her out of it until she’s ready to obey!” Ferson shouted. “Take her and teach her, curse you both!”

  Kedric stopped only long enough to pull Ferson’s belt from their joined hands, and scoop up his lute. Then with one hand cupped under her elbow, he hurried her off the dais and across the now-silent Great Hall. Moira felt the eyes of every person there on the two of them—and with a prickling of her skin, she looked back over her shoulder to see that Massid’s eyes, black and cold, bored across the expanse of the hall with that same terrible, inhuman anger she had glimpsed once before.

  She was glad to have Kedric’s hand at her arm, and gladder still to slip into the shadowed hallway, where Massid could no longer see her.

  “You’ll have to keep out of his sight for now,” Kedric murmured, as they hurried down the hall to the Keep Lady’s rooms. A cold draft chased them down the hall, blowing out lamps in their wake. “I’ll have food brought to you.”

  He opened the door to her rooms, and they stumbled inside, as the last of the lamps blew out in the hall behind them.

  “And if you want to avoid accident, I think that you had better stay out of sight of Massid,” she retorted, feeling her spirits return as she closed the door of her rooms behind him hurriedly.

  “I know. I felt his eyes burning into my back, and it was not just with rage,” Kedric replied, catching hold of both her arms. “My lady—Moira—those words your father said—I did not plan for a marriage—”

  She laughed weakly. “We plotted better than we knew. We are well and truly wedded, my dear Fool, not merely betrothed as was the intention. It is no sham. That is a legal and binding ceremony by the traditions of the fishing folk hereabouts. It will take the King himself to undo the knot. Although I do not think my father intends you to enjoy your wedded state. I think he means for you to berate me, torment me with your sharp tongue, and humiliate me until I would take even Massid to get away from you.”

  “I believe you.” He put his back to the door and looked at her soberly. “My lady, I fear I may have overstepped myself with my own so-called cleverness. If Massid is indeed the magician here, as you think—”

  “Then he is still at dinner, trying to undo the damage my father has done, and very much occupied with repairing the situation,” she replied. “Which means that you are free to speak to your master. I very much doubt that my servant will return here before morning, so we will not be disturbed.”

  His somber gaze brightened. “So I am. And perhaps he will have some better news.”

  Fishing in the bag hanging from his belt, he brought out a piece of chalk from one of the cliffs, and bent to mark out a diagram on her hearth. It seemed to consist of six interlocking triangles, and when he had finished it, the thing seemed to pull at her eyes in a way that made her feel very uneasy. She didn’t have to look at it for long, however. No sooner had he finished it than he slapped his right hand, palm down, into the middle of it, obscuring the center.

  The chalked lines suddenly flared with light. She looked away for a moment, and when she looked back, she had to stifle a little scream of alarm.

  There was a disembodied head made entirely of fire suspended above the flames of her hearth. It was the head of a balding man with a thick fringe of hair at about ear level encircling his pate, and a pointed chin. The eyes looked like holes in the flames of the face.

  “Master!” Kedric began.

  “Be still!” the head said, “I haven’t much time! Have you learned Massid’s purpose there?”

  “Not the chief purpose, though Ferson attempted to push through a marriage to his daughter tonight—” Kedric said. “But I have learned that someone here is performing magic to create a false beacon during storms that will decoy ships onto the rocks!”

  The head interrupted him. “The beacon! Have you countered the magic that is changing the beacon? Have you even discovered what it is?”

  Kedric shook his head, and the head in the fireplace swore.

  “Listen! The King has been forced by a crisis to sail this very day for Linessa with most of the fleet. His convoy must pass by Highclere to reach it. You must make certain no one there learns of this! If the beacon is wrong—”

  “Master! You must warn him!”

  “Impossible. No birds could reach him from the shore, and there are no magicians with him that can speak at a distance—it is combative magics he needs, and those are the magicians he took. Kedric, at all costs, you must see to it that no one learns that the fleet has sailed, and if a storm comes up, you must counter the false beacon at all costs!” The head turned, as if looking elsewhere. “I must go! Heed me! Counter that magic!”

  The head vanished. The fireplace held nothing more than glowing coals with a furtive fla
me hovering above them. Kedric sagged.

  “You won’t want to hear this,” Moira said hesitantly, “but it isn’t a question of ‘if’ a storm is coming. One is on the way. It will be here by Midwinter Moon, and there will be a high tide at the same time.”

  Kedric groaned. “I suppose there’s no chance you could be wrong? If the King sailed today he’ll be just off this shore by Midwinter Moon.”

  She shook her head, and her hair fell out of its pinning, the long braid tumbling down her back. She didn’t trouble to pin it back up. “It’s partly the moon magic and partly sea knowledge, and no, I won’t be wrong.” She stopped then, and stared at the dark glass of the window for a moment. “Why would the King sail now? What kind of crisis could put him and the fleet on the water in such haste?”

  He sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “I don’t know. It would have to be something very serious. It’s risky enough sailing in this season as it is. But Linessa is the key to the Daenae River. If it was taken, for instance, you could sail your invasion force all the way up the Daenae and into the heart of the kingdom without anyone stopping you.”

  “And Linessa is another sea-keep, like this one. It’s next to impossible to reach during winter storms, so there’s no point trying to bring the army to reinforce it.” She clenched her jaw. “And what are the odds, do you think, that the message that sends the King and his navy in such haste was false? And that in fact, it came from here? I am not the only person who can read the wind and the waves. What’s more, I am not certain but that Massid can summon up storms at his will when the conditions are right.”

  Kedric’s jaw dropped as he stared up at her. “God in heaven. A man sent by Massid! One messenger—no one looks very closely at a messenger. The man wearing Linessa livery gallops in on an exhausted horse, gasps out his message, then throws himself back on a fresh horse to take the King’s reply! No one would think twice about it. They’ve planned this all along!”

  “With one storm, they eliminate the King and his navy.” She nodded. “This marriage my father plans was probably never more than a distraction for the rest of the keep folk. They will keep their tongues on that and pay no attention to my father and the Prince.”

  “There I must differ with you,” Kedric replied, getting slowly to his feet. “There is a deeper game being played here. If Massid is to somehow gain control of the coast, which is, I believe, his plan, he must have some way to appease the lords of the sea-keeps. You, my dear, are that means. He will probably play the besotted groom, believing he can deceive them and you together. They will think they can control him through you. You are meant to think the same until it is too late and the Khaleem’s men are in command of all the keeps and the coastline.”

  She ground her teeth in anger and frustration, but nodded. “So. What do we do? What can we do?”

  “We have a few days yet,” he replied. “I will try to find the key to the magic that controls the false beacon. And you—”

  “I am pent up here like a fish in a trap!” she snarled.

  “No, you are not. You are supposedly isolated here, and yet, anyone who cares to can seek you out here virtually unobserved. I will search for some sort of answer, and you—” he actually smiled thinly “—you will remain here in state, and see if allies come to us. The lord may be the head of the keep, my lady, but I think you will find that you reign over the hands and the heart.”

  And Kedric, she found as soon as the first light of dawn greyed the horizon, was right. Aided by Anatha, by ones and twos the servants and workers began to come to her, or send messages via their friends. It was true enough that Massid and his men had not thus far exercised any of the cruelty or arrogance for which the men of the Khaleemates were noted—but they had not made any friends here, either. She got the sense that if she had given any sign that she welcomed this marriage, the people of the keep would have bitten their lips and kept their tongues still. But since she had very vocally and publicly voiced her objection to it, not to mention pointing out the treasonous aspects—well, it seemed that she had more help here than she would have thought.

  However, that “help” brought disquieting word. Down in the shelter of the boathouse lay the Prince’s ship that had brought him here. No more than a handful of men were here in the keep itself, but the servants told her that a great deal of food went down to the boathouse three times a day—and nothing came back up again. The Prince, it seemed, might not be taking the cooperation of his ally for granted.

  Meanwhile the wind and the waves increased, and by midafternoon, with dark grey clouds scudding across the hard blue sky, she was getting the sense that this might be one of the worst storms the keep had ever weathered. Massid might not need the false beacon to lure the King’s ships onto the rocks. If they didn’t keep well out to sea and risk being lost or delayed, the storm might do all of Massid’s work for him.

  But the wind and the storm might be her allies, too.

  That night, she huddled at the fire with two of the men who worked the docks and one of the carpenters. A set of blocks and a toy boat from the nursery stood duty as Massid’s boat and the boathouse where it was being kept.

  She had spent the better part of an hour being made acquainted with how the boathouse was put together. Now she was going to use that knowledge to take it apart.

  “First, you need to make sure that all the ropes are untied or, at least, loose. If you can saw through the roof ties here, and here,” she said, tapping the crude model with her finger. “And then, at the right moment, fling open the door to the boathouse, so the roof will fly off and the walls will be blown out.”

  Kedric stared at her. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  She shrugged. “Because that is what always happened to my model boathouses in a good breeze. If we can collapse the boathouse and turn the ship loose, Massid’s men won’t be able to get off it before it’s at the mercy of the storm.”

  “Well, let me deal with the roof ties and the ropes,” he said firmly. “We don’t want Massid’s little army to know what we’re up to. I can make potions that will dry-rot both wood and hemp, creating in hours the damage of centuries.”

  She blinked. “You are a dangerous man!” she said in astonishment. “Can you do the same with iron fittings?”

  He nodded. “Child’s play.”

  She turned back to the servants. “In that case, none of you need be on that dock at all once you’ve used Kedric’s alchemical potions. Weaken the roof ties, the hinges and hasp of the door, the ropes and anchor chain of the boat itself, and every crossbeam supporting that dock, or at least as many as you have potion for. We’ll let the wind do our work for us.”

  She watched as the men looked solemnly at her little model, then slowly, gravely smiled, as they realized what was going to happen.

  Because the moment that the doors went—and taking the brunt of the wind as they would, they would be the first of the weakened components to go—the roof would fly off, the walls collapse, and then the whole dock itself would fall apart. Even if Massid’s men realized that something was wrong, they would be too late to escape their boat. Some would certainly be crushed beneath a cascade of heavy lumber, or knocked into the icy ocean. The boat itself, if it was not sunk immediately, would be hit by the storm full force and driven up on the rocks below the keep. No one could survive that.

  Kedric frowned. “I don’t—” he began.

  The dockmen explained it to him. Moira held her tongue. No need for her to say a word at this point. The men were already turning the plan over in their minds until they could take credit for everything but the idea in the first place. And that harmed her not at all.

  They left, after making arrangements to have their several gallons of potions waiting at the kitchen door. Anatha would bring them down as “dirty slop water” and complain how much Moira was making her clean. The metal-rotting ones would go first—they took longer to work. Then the ones that did for wood and hemp.

&nb
sp; “You are a dangerous woman,” Kedric said, his eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard worse, and less cold-blooded plans out of seasoned soldiers.”

  She tightened her jaw. “Is it cold-blooded to want to keep my people from having to fight Massid’s beasts in the halls of their own keep?” she demanded.

  His expression softened a trifle. “Put that way—no.” He sighed. “But you may be the death of me as well before this is over. Buckets of potions and trying to find what magic Massid is doing on that beacon! I will be worn to a shred.”

  “At least there will be something of you left when this is over,” she retorted. But despite her sharp words, she couldn’t help but cast a worried eye over him. He was looking worn and tired, and if he had slept more than an hour or two, she would be surprised. Yet, when she yawned, or blinked to stay awake, it was he who urged her to her bed if there was nothing for her to do—or brewed her some strange herbal concoction to help her stay awake if there was.

  And she resolutely turned her mind away from what Massid would do to both of them if they lost this hidden war. Likely he would not even consider the notion that she could have been the author of at least half of the mischief; none of his kind gave women the credit for having intelligence. But Kedric—she remembered all too clearly the cold ire in Massid’s eyes as they escaped the Great Hall. No, Massid had likely planned something devilishly ingenious, diabolically painful, and excruciatingly prolonged for Kedric. That he would have proved himself a true King’s man would only make Massid the more determined to inflict as much suffering as possible. Compared to that—

  Well, there wouldn’t be much comparison with what Massid planned for her.

  She pulled her mind away from those unpleasant thoughts to find that Kedric was staring at her with a most peculiar expression on his face. She blinked. “What?” she demanded. “Have I got a smudge on my nose?”

  “I was just thinking that—never mind.” He shook his head.