Sunstone

by Freya Robertson

  However, sure enough, just as she had suspected, on this side of the Wall on both sides of the Flumen river, the place seethed with Wulfian soldiers, and from the armour they wore, the way they had stationed scouts at the perimeter, and the air of excitement about the place, she knew they were waiting for her.

  She swore violently, and the horse gave a whinny as if in disapproval. She leaned her forehead on the saddle. So near and yet so far!

  She raised her head and peered through the hedgerow to the far side of the Wall. Although Heartwood’s Temple had been destroyed after the invasion, the large defensive walls remained standing, and she could just see the battlements of the amber stone walls, glowing almost red in the last remnants of the setting sun. She had spent a good proportion of her early years patrolling those walls, and a nostalgic longing filled her, so strong it almost made her weep.

  Her fist tightened in the horse’s mane as she remembered the visions Cinereo had shown her of her children in trouble. She had not come so far to fall at the last hurdle. She was not some feeble court lady who needed rescuing, or a simpering maid ready to shed tears when the going got rough. She had been the Dux of Heartwood’s Exercitus. Men and women alike had looked to her to lead them into battle, to show a good example.

  She would not fail now.

  The sun set slowly, darkness laying its cloak over the land. Procella waited until the soldiers had lit their torches and the night watch had begun in the Wulfian tradition – two-thirds sleeping with one-third to stay on duty.

  While she waited, she pondered on whether to remove her chainmail. No doubt she would have to fight at some point as she tried to pass through the fort, and the chainmail would give her necessary protection. Equally, it slowed her movements, made noise, and could reflect light when she needed to remain in shadow. In the end, she chose to remove it, placing the bits and pieces of buckled plate in the horse’s saddlebags, and laying the mail shirt across the saddle. When she’d done, she wore dark brown breeches and a brown leather jerkin over a short-sleeved green tunic. She scooped some mud from a nearby puddle and rubbed it on her face to hide her pale skin, and did the same to her forearms before drawing her brown cloak close around her and raising the hood.

  Finally, she led the horse to a small tributary from the Flumen and reluctantly let it loose, hoping someone would find him the next day and be glad for a free new mount and the money they would raise from selling the armour.

  Then she crept back to the hedge.

  The fort had grown quiet, the majority of soldiers sleeping either in hastily erected tents or snoring out in the open. Leaving her sword sheathed, she drew her dagger, feeling less nervous with a blade in her hand, and crept as close to the fort as she could until the hedge ran out by the bridge over the Flumen.

  They only had one guard stationed on the bridge. He looked half-asleep, and she waited for him to stretch and yawn, then move to one side to relieve himself against a tree before she slipped across the bridge, careful to walk by the edge so the boards didn’t squeak. So easy! But somehow she didn’t think the rest of her journey would be so simple.

  From there, she began to make her way to the fort using trees, tents, carts and whatever else she could find as cover. When she had been in the Exercitus, before she became Dux, Valens had placed her with a spy for a week, and he had taken her on several missions to show her ways of hiding herself in plain sight, including making their way into both castles and military camps without being noticed. She employed those techniques now, moving silently from point to point, resisting the urge to attack anyone she came across as that could lead to them making a noise and alerting others around them, and being patient when her progress was halted by a patrol, waiting and growing stiff and cold until the guards moved on rather than being hasty and risk being seen.

  In this manner she made it all the way to twenty feet from the fort before two guards appeared around a tent out of the darkness, surprising her.

  Speed will keep you alive. She could hear the spy’s words almost as if he stood beside her, whispering in her ear. As the two guards stared at her, confused by her appearance and presumably not even sure if she were a man or woman from her clothing, she moved forward. Before he even saw the dagger in her hand, she cut the first guard’s throat and he fell to the ground, fingers clutching uselessly at his neck before collapsing face down.

  The other guard stepped back as she approached and exclaimed out loud in shock, although he didn’t shout a warning as he should have done. Backing away, he knocked her arm as she brought the dagger up to grant him the same fate as his friend, and he drew his own blade. Desperate to ensure he didn’t make any more noise, she advanced quickly, swapping her dagger to her left hand and drawing her sword, then stabbed the dagger swiftly towards his chest. As she’d hoped, he reacted to it and knocked her hand away again, and at the same time she brought up her right hand and bashed the hilt of the sword into his face. His arms came up, and she thrust the dagger in the gap to the right of his breastplate and into his heart.

  He fell back, gasping, and she pushed him onto the ground and used her weight to lean on the blade, covering his mouth so he couldn’t call out, making sure he was dead before she got back to her feet. She was sweating, her heart pounding, but she didn’t have time to recover. His exclamation had been heard, and voices sounded from inside the tent.

  She backed away into the shadows and circled the tent, heading for the Wall as the two soldiers inside came out, shouting. Men moved from the fort towards the source of the noise, and she flattened herself to the Wall and moved quickly towards the building, keeping in the shadows.

  A bell rang. More soldiers poured from the fort. She waited in the corner where the Wall met the square building, heart pounding, as men fanned out, meeting others who had spoken to those who’d heard the exclamation of the man she’d killed. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer. At the moment all was confusion and they weren’t even sure there was an intruder; as soon as they thought she might be on the site they would close the fort and she’d never get through.

  Heart in her mouth, she moved out of the shadows and walked around the corner.

  Clearly, they never expected her to just walk right up to them. Men bumped into her, ran past her, but she kept her head down and moved through them into the fort.

  The Wall itself was eight feet thick and fifteen feet high, but the fort jutted out either side and was big enough to house a dozen soldiers on two floors, with a command room beneath and a gate that could be lowered to block the passage of travellers should the need arise. The gate had not been lowered for years, but still she was glad to pass under the rusty portcullis, knowing at that point she was on Laxonian ground. Although a Wulfian herself, she had lived the vast majority of her life in Laxony. She was glad to have an insight into Wulfian life as it had helped on many occasions, but she had no desire to remain there until she died.

  She glanced up at the portcullis as she passed under it. And in doing so, she bumped straight into the back of a Wulfian lord, solid as a tree trunk, about as wide as he was tall.

  He swore in Wulfian, turned to see who it was, and for a moment Procella stared right into his face, shocked into silence. It was Grimbeald, the Lord of the Highlands, who had been instrumental in the defeat of the Darkwater Lords over twenty years before. He had returned to his home in Calemar and married the Heartwood knight Tenara who he had fallen in love with on his journey to open the portal at the Tumulus, and since then Procella had only seen him twice, both times up in the Highlands when she’d done a tour of Wulfengar with the Peacemaker to encourage peaceful relations between the two nations.

  Grimbeald stared at her. His black hair and wild beard were threaded with grey, but his eyes were sharp as ever. She gave a small shake of her head, worried that he would speak to her and announce her presence. His expression flickered with exasperation then, as if he were angry that she’d thought he would do that to her. Turning, he walked south through t
he fort, and Procella walked close behind him in his wake, the other soldiers there barely giving her a glance as she was obviously with him.

  They weren’t challenged until they went to pass under the portcullis on the Laxonian side. A hand shot out and tightened around her arm, and someone shouted. Her heart raced in alarm. A Wulfian soldier tugged at her hood, which fell back and exposed her braided hair, and more shouts ensued.

  Grimbeald caught her hand and tugged her beneath the portcullis, but the other soldier’s hand was still tight on her arm and she couldn’t move. Soldiers poured into the fort, surrounding them.

  Equally, behind Grimbeald she saw both men and women approaching the kerfuffle from tents pitched on the Laxonian side. Some of these Wulfians bore Grimbeald’s badge on their tabards; others were clearly Laxonians. One raised his hand to call others over to them, and she saw the distinctive oak-leaf tattoo on his wrist, which meant he had once been a Militis, a Heartwood holy knight. Relief flooded her.

  But the Wulfians were not going to let her go easily. One pushed forward – a captain judging by the gold buttons on the sleeve of his jerkin – a tall, broad-shouldered man with the distinctive Wulfian bushy beard and wild hair. He placed a large, heavy hand on her shoulder. “This woman is wanted in connection with the death of Hunfrith, Lord of the Plains,” he announced. Procella tried to shake off his hand, but he’d clamped it to her like a vice.

  “She is coming with me,” Grimbeald said, his voice brooking no argument.

  The captain just glared at him. “She killed Hunfrith in front of witnesses in a tavern.”

  Grimbeald glanced at her. She gave a little shrug. Exasperation crossed his features again briefly before he turned back to the captain. “Then you may petition Heartwood to have her extradited. But for now she is in Laxonian territory.”

  They all glanced down. Procella hadn’t realised, but in the commotion they had passed beneath the portcullis, and her feet now stood on Laxonian ground.

  Grimbeald moved towards the captain. For the first time, the captain saw the gold embroidery on his tabard that marked him as a lord, and uncertainty stirred in his eyes.

  “Do you really want to cause a national incident?” Grimbeald spoke softly. “The vast presence you have on the other side of the Wall is already inflammatory to relations between our two countries. Do you really want to be the one responsible for tipping the scales into outright war? Because I will not let this woman go without a fight.”

  The captain hesitated. Procella could understand his predicament. He had been instructed to capture her at all costs, and if they had been standing on the Wulfian side of the Wall things would have been very different. But for him to fight Laxonian soldiers – especially those from Heartwood, a supposedly neutral territory – on Laxonian soil, that would be an outright declaration of war.

  In a battle, Procella had always been able to sense that moment when the scales were tipping towards either success or failure. And so she recognised the moment when the captain made up his mind. She twitched her shoulder and he dropped his hand, and she walked past Grimbeald to the group of waiting Laxonians.

  Grimbeald waited there a moment longer, face to face with the captain, and then without another word he too turned and walked to join her.

  “Do not look back,” he murmured as they moved away from the fort towards the Laxonian camp of tents and horses.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking across to her right and feeling a swell of relief at the familiar sight of Heartwood’s walls about a half a mile to the west.

  “Did you have to kill Hunfrith?” he said, his voice filled with irritation.

  “He was trying to rape me.”

  He stopped walking. She glanced over her shoulder, stopped and turned to face him, seeing his expression. Anger, pure and bright, radiated from him, and his hand rested on the pommel of his sword.

  “You are the Dux,” he said through gritted teeth. “How could he have made such a blatant mistake?”

  She wasn’t sure whether he meant because Hunfrith had underestimated her skill with a sword or because attacking such a prominent figure was political suicide. Ultimately, she didn’t care. Weariness swept over her and suddenly she longed for a good meal and a night’s sleep.

  “I was the Dux,” she said softly. “And anyway, ’tis done. Hunfrith paid for his transgression – I made sure of that.”

  Grimbeald met her gaze. Then he nodded. “I am glad to see you safe, my lady. And I would like to pass on my condolences in person for the death of your husband. He will be sorely missed.” He had sent gifts via his ambassador at the time of Chonrad’s passing, but it was the first time she had seen him since.

  “Thank you.” Her throat tightened. It had been a long journey, she thought.

  Grimbeald touched her arm lightly. “Then come. It is but a brief ride to Heartwood, and I know there are many who will be glad to see you. You are amongst friends now. You can relax.”

  The knot inside her loosened. She had made it. For the first time, hope glimmered inside her like the stars beginning to appear in the dusky sky.

  II

  Catena soaked in the hot bath and watched Demitto lazily as he finally got out and began to dry himself. The water for the baths was directed in from large, hot pools situated just behind the Nox Aves buildings they called the Nest. Catena had never seen natural geysers, and had been both fascinated and slightly alarmed by the way the steam rose sporadically in jets around Heartwood as the pressure built beneath the surface.

  For the first time in a week, though, her muscles felt free of tension, and the scholars had allowed her access to their herb garden, which meant the water smelled of jasmine and lavender, familiar smells to help her relax.

  Demitto – naked as the day he was born – finished drying and lifted his arms above his head, stretching the muscles in his back. Catena admired his physique: his toned arms, his taut stomach, his strong legs. Bathing was a ritual both sexes shared and was thus not a place she usually associated with sexual urges, but the relationship they had begun over the past few days meant she could not completely stop herself thinking of him in that way when he stood all brown and muscular before her.

  He didn’t look over at her now, however, and she kept her thoughts to herself as he began to dress, a slight frown marring his brow. She had no illusions about their relationship. She had proved a moment of distraction for him, a few nights of fun to ease the stress of the moment, and she had no objections to that. When he had first pulled her into his arms that night after rescuing the Prince, she had neither fought him off nor demanded a declaration of intent when he kissed her. She had known what he wanted, and had desired the same. And so now she could hardly complain if he ignored her as if it had never happened.

  To her surprise, though, once he had finished pulling on his breeches and linen tunic, he came over to her tub and smiled, his hands on his hips. “Come, fair lady,” he said, holding out a hand. “You have been in there so long you will turn into a prune.”

  “I intend never to get out,” she stated, sinking in even further. “I did not think I would ever get clean again.”

  He laughed and flicked his fingers, beckoning her. “Come on. We have to deliver the Prince in the proper fashion today. We must not keep the King waiting.”

  “Of course not,” she grumbled, but she rose and accepted the towel he held out for her.

  “As to your attire,” he said, calling over a young squire to help him start buckling on his armour, “Manifred has provided you with a few items you might wish to don for the procession.”

  She opened her mouth to say she didn’t need any handouts thank you very much and she certainly didn’t want to garb herself in some frivolous lady’s gown, but the words refused to come as a female squire brought across a selection of the items Demitto had been referring to. Catena fingered the linen tunic embroidered with silver thread, and the finely woven thin woollen breeches. It was the expensive ceremonial clothing a re
spected female knight would wear, not the kind of thing a lady would wear to court. She caught her breath as Demitto’s eyes twinkled, and she realised how well he had grown to know her in such a small space of time.

  “Maybe I could borrow one or two things,” she said, and he nodded, pleased.

  In the end she dressed entirely in the new items, thinking if she was going to wear one piece, she might as well wear the whole lot. So she finished with the fine breeches, a dark green long-sleeved tunic with embroidered cuffs, and topped it with the white linen short-sleeved tunic bearing the beautiful silver embroidery.

  “I will not need armour?” she queried, feeling light and a little uneasy without her chain mail.

  Demitto shook his head. “This is but ceremonial,” he explained as the squire buckled on the highly decorative breastplate he had arranged to be sent back from Lornberg. “And besides, I think you will be glad to be free of mail today.”

  It was true; it was already exceptionally warm. She walked to the doorway and looked up at the mountain, observing the spiral of smoke that curled up into the sky. A scatter of rocks rolled down the side at the same time that a nearby geyser erupted in a high spray, startling her. Although Harlton had a sub-tropical climate, it did not experience this kind of seismic activity, and for a moment unease boiled in her stomach in the same way that the thick mud boiled around the hot pools behind the buildings.

  But she had too much on her mind to dwell on it for long. As she turned back to the room, Tahir came in, and she smiled to see him rested and dressed ready for his ceremonial procession into the city.

  The Nox Aves had managed to find some beautiful clothes fit for a prince. He wore a knee-length sky-blue tunic embroidered with silver and gold thread and tiny silver discs, which glittered in the sunlight. His dark blue undertunic and breeches provided an attractive contrast. The simple silver circlet on his brow announced his status as a prince representing one of the Laxonian lands. The shining oak-leaf pendant set with gems pronounced him the Selected for that year’s Veriditas.