Brotherhood of the Wolf

by David Farland

  At last she sent Sir Donnor into the keep proper to find Myrrima, while she waited in the courtyard with her Days.

  Several wains were parked in the courtyard, and Iome watched a few guards leading the blind to one wain, carrying those who had given grace or brawn to another. They were a sad-looking lot, these people who had offered to become cripples in service to their king.

  A moment later Sir Donnor exited the keep and assured Iome that Myrrima had attended to her mother and sisters, and even now was packing in her own room.

  Iome bade Sir Donnor go to the stables and prepare their mounts, then went to inform Myrrima that they would leave together, heading south with her husband. Iome wasn’t surprised to find Myrrima with her pups yapping at her feet, and a longbow with a quiver full of deadly looking arrows and a wrist guard on her bed. But she was surprised to find Myrrima trying on a rather shabby, heavily quilted old vest that looked fit to be worn only while scrubbing floors.

  “Do you think it smashes my breasts down enough?” Myrrima asked.

  Iome stared at Myrrima in frank surprise and said, “If you want smashed breasts, rocks might work better.”

  Myrrima made a sour face. “I’m serious.”

  “All right, smashed enough for what?”

  “So that they don’t get in the way when I shoot!”

  Iome had never fired a bow, though she knew ladies who had, and she recognized Myrrima’s predicament.

  “I’ve got a leather riding vest in my wardrobe that might work better. I’ll get it for you,” Iome offered.

  Then she told Myrrima that they would both be riding south. Myrrima seemed both astonished and genuinely gladdened by the prospect of following the men to war.

  An hour later, Myrrima and Iome had a good breakfast with Iome’s Days and Sir Donnor, but by ten in the morning Binnesman had still not come back to his room, so they sent to the stables for their horses and prepared to ride out, leaving little undone. Iome’s puppies were left in the King’s kitchen, until she felt sure that she would depart.

  In all the confusion, Iome still had not talked to Jureem. When she reached the city gate, she found him shouting at people who loafed outside the castle.

  Iome had imagined that by now everyone would have fled the grounds outside Castle Sylvarresta, but it was not so. As she looked through the city gates, she realized that the roads to the south and to the west, the roads heading into the Dunnwood, were jammed with carts and oxen and peasants, many of whom had given up on the notion of travel and were just milling about. Of the pavilions near the castle, a full quarter of them still stood, and many of their occupants seemed not to be interested in going anywhere at all.

  Jureem had his hands full. Though he was a fine servant—perhaps the most capable servant she’d ever met—he could not do the impossible.

  And the situation before him was clearly impossible. A full five thousand petty lords and knights and even some peasants with nothing more than longbows to use as weapons had besieged the gates of the castle and demanded entrance. The city guard—about forty men—barred their way.

  “What’s going on?” Iome demanded.

  “Your Highness,” Jureem explained, “these men have decided that they want to guard the castle walls.”

  “But…” Iome could think of nothing to say for a moment. “But Gaborn told everyone to flee.”

  “I know!” Jureem said. “But they choose not to listen.”

  It astonished her that a vassal would disobey the command of his king. She looked to Sir Donnor, as if for an answer. But the blond lad merely glared at the troublemakers. She gazed out over the throng. “Is this true?” she asked. “Are none of you Chosen? Did you not hear the commands?”

  At that, hundreds of men looked away in shame. Though they might stand up to Jureem, a mere servant, they would not do so to Iome.

  Baffled, she said. “Do you even know what a Darkling Glory is? Can you guess its powers?”

  One man, a petty lord she recognized as Sir Barrows, stepped up. “We’ve heard of Glories and Bright Ones—we all have,” he said. “And if the old tales be true, they can die in battle, same as a man. So we was thinking we could stand fast on the battlements with the siege engines—the ballistas and catapults and steel bows, and kill it before it even lands.”

  “Are you daft?” Iome shouted, astonished by the man. “I know you are all courageous, but are you also daft? Did you not hear your lord’s command? He told you to flee!”

  “Of course we heard, Your Highness,” Sir Barrows replied, “but surely that command was meant mainly for women and the little ones. We’re all strong men here!”

  At that, the men all shook their spears and axes and raised their shields and shouted in a great cry that echoed from the hills.

  Iome stared in utter amazement. They had heard the word of the Earth King and had decided to keep their own counsel. She turned to the captain of the King’s Guard and commanded, “Place two hundred archers on the wall. Shoot any of these men who comes within bow range.”

  “Milady!” Sir Barrows said in a hurt tone.

  “I’m not your lady,” Iome turned on him and shouted viciously. “If you will not follow my lord’s word, then you are not his servant, and you are doomed to die, all of you! I may applaud your valor, but I will curse your foolishness, and I will punish it, if I must!”

  “Your Highness!” Sir Barrows said, dropping to his knees, as if awaiting her order. After a moment, the others fell in line and followed his example, though some were slower to bend the knee than others.

  She turned on Jureem. “Why are people milling about on the roads?” she asked. “Can’t they get away from the city?”

  “The slower travelers get in their way,” Jureem said. “Many of the carts are heavily laden, and some have broken axles or lost wheels, so everyone must move around them.”

  Iome turned to the troops that knelt before the castle gate. “Sir Barrows, send a thousand men up each road and have them clear the carts of those who are stranded. Put them to work fixing wheels and axles. As for those folk who have chosen to remain afield, go find out why they are here. If they have valid reasons to stay, I want to know. If they don’t have good reasons to stay, tell them that you have orders to kill anyone found within five miles of the castle within the hour.”

  “Your Highness,” Sir Barrows cried in astonishment. “Do you really want us to kill them?”

  Iome felt bewildered by his stupidity. But then she remembered that Gaborn had said earlier in the week that he thought it wrong to ever curse a man for being a fool, for fools could not help themselves and were forever at the mercy of the cunning. “You shan’t need to kill them,” she warned. “The Darkling Glory will do it for you.”

  Sir Barrows opened his mouth in sudden comprehension. “It will be done, Your Highness.” He turned and began shouting orders.

  Jureem bowed his pudgy figure to her, the decorative hem of his golden silk robes sweeping the dust. “Thank you, Your Highness. I was not able to reason with them, and I dared not disturb you.”

  “Next time, dare,” she said.

  “There are other matters,” Jureem said.

  “Such as?”

  “Hundreds of people are too ill to run. Some are too old, too infirm; some are mothers who have given birth in the past few hours, or warriors who were injured in yesterday’s games. They have asked permission to take cover in the castle. I’ve had them carried to the inns until we can decide what to do.”

  “Can we load them on wagons?” Iome asked.

  “I’ve had physics talk to those who can speak at all. Anyone who could be loaded on a wagon has already gone. Some physics have offered to stay and tend the ill.”

  Iome licked her lips, grimaced in despair. Of course they could not be moved. Such people could not move five miles—or a more appropriate fifty—in a day. “Let them stay,” she said. “Some will have to stay hidden.”

  She wondered if she should order the physics
away, for she feared to lose such highly skilled men and women, but she also dared not deny the sick and the dying whatever succor she could give.

  As she considered what to do, Binnesman came strolling through the crowd of warriors from someplace outside of the city. A sack on his back was overstuffed with goldenbay leaves.

  Though it was still morning, already Binnesman looked spent. “Let them stay, Your Highness,” he shouted, “but not in the uppermost rooms of the inns. Go instead to the deepest cellars, well belowground. I shall come put runes on the doors to help conceal them, and I’ll leave some herbs that might offer protection.”

  Iome felt more relieved to see Binnesman than reasoning could account for. As Binnesman approached, she understood why. Often in the past, she’d felt the earth power that pooled within him, a slightly disturbing power that spoke of birth and growth and that filled her with creative longings. But this morning he must have been casting strong protective spells, for she felt as a harried rider might when fleeing enemies and suddenly has found himself safely within a castle’s walls.

  That is it, she realized. This morning she felt safe in his presence. “You look over-worn. Can I do anything to help you?”

  “Yes,” Binnesman said. “I would be less worried for you, Your Highness, if you would flee the city like everyone else.”

  But Iome glanced out over the fields. “Not everyone has left, and I can’t go until I’ve done everything possible to ensure that my people are safe.”

  Binnesman harrumphed. “That sounds like something your husband would say.” But his tone carried no hint of disapproval. He studied her and Myrrima a moment. “There is something you could do, though I hesitate to ask.”

  “Anything,” Iome said.

  “Do you have a fine opal you would be willing to give me?” Binnesman asked. His tone suggested that she would never see it again.

  “My mother had a necklace and some earrings.”

  “With the proper enchantment, they can be powerful wards against creatures of darkness,” Binnesman said.

  “Then you shall have them, if I can pry them loose from their mounts.”

  “Leave them,” Binnesman said. “The larger and brighter the stone, the better the protection, and opal easily breaks.”

  “I’ll get them,” she said. She had forgotten to move them to the treasury, she now realized. Her mother’s jewelry chest was still hidden behind her desk in her room.

  “You’ll find me at the inns,” Binnesman said. “Time is short.”

  Iome and Myrrima rode back up to the King’s Keep, and ascended to the topmost room. Sir Donnor and Iome’s Days did not dare enter Iome’s bedroom, and remained in the alcove outside.

  The jewelry chest held Iome’s mother’s formal crown, a simple but elegant affair of silver with diamonds. Besides the crown, there were dozens and dozens of pairs of earrings, brooches, bracelets, anklets, and necklaces.

  Iome found the necklace she recalled. It was made of silver inlaid with twenty matched white opals. A large, brilliant stone mounted on a silver pendant made up its centerpiece.

  Iome’s mother had said that Iome’s father had purchased the stones when he’d traveled to Indhopal to ask for her hand in marriage.

  Iome wondered at that. Her father had ridden halfway across the world to find his mother. It seemed a romantic journey, to travel so far, though Gaborn had done no less for her.

  Yet somehow the romantic ardor of Iome’s marriage to Gaborn felt diluted by the fact that their fathers had been best friends, and had both long desired the union. Marrying Gaborn felt a little like marrying the boy next door, even though she hadn’t met him until ten days ago.

  As she looked through her mother’s chest of jewels, Iome found other opals. The large chest had served the queens of House Sylvarresta for generations, and it held items that her mother had never worn. She discovered a brooch of fire opals set like eyes in a trio of fish made of tarnished copper. Also an old teardrop pendant had an opal that shone in hues of vivid green.

  She took these, since they had the largest stones, then handed them to Myrrima, since she was the one with the vest pockets. “Let us hope these will do.”

  She put her mother’s jewels back into the chest, then scooted it under her bed.

  When she finished, she looked out the oriel window, across the castle.

  The streets of the city lay empty, silent. For the first time in her life, she did not see the smoke of even one single cooking fire rising from a chimney in town. In the distance, she saw tents folding out on the fields. Now that the knights were threatening to kill her people, they were fleeing, racing away.

  Suddenly the scene below seemed familiar.

  “I dreamt this,” Iome said.

  “You dreamt what?” Myrrima asked.

  “I dreamt of this, last week when Gaborn and I were riding south to Longmot, or I dreamt something very near. I dreamt that Raj Ahten was coming to destroy us, and everyone in the castle turned to thistledown and floated up and away on the wind, up beyond his grasp.”

  The people scattering in all directions reminded her of thistledown blown before a fierce wind. “Only in my dream, Gaborn and I were the last to leave. We all floated away. But… in my dream, I knew that we were never coming back. Never coming here again.” That thought frightened her. The thought that she might never return to the castle she’d grown up in.

  Legend said that the Earth spoke to men in signs and dreams, and those who listened best rightly became lords and kings. The blood of such kings flowed through Iome’s veins.

  “It was only a dream,” Myrrima said. “If it were a true sending, then Gaborn would be with you now.”

  “He is with me, I think,” Iome said. “I believe I’m carrying his child.” Iome glanced at Myrrima. She was of common stock, and Iome knew that she would not take omens lightly.

  “Oh, milady,” Myrrima whispered. “Congratulations!” Shyly, she embraced Iome.

  “It will be your turn, soon,” Iome assured Myrrima. “You cannot be near the Earth King without responding to his creative powers.”

  “I hope so,” Myrrima said.

  Now Iome retrieved the jewelry chest from under the bed and withdrew her mother’s crown and the most valuable pieces she could see. Just in case, she told herself. These pieces she wrapped in a pillowcase, thinking it would fit nicely in her saddlebags.

  As she finished, someone—a girl—shouted desperately out in the courtyard before the castle. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone here?”

  Myrrima opened the oriel window. Iome leaned over the sill to look down.

  A girl of twelve, a serving girl by the look of her, wearing a brown frock, saw Iome and cried, “Help! Your Highness, I was hoping to find one of the King’s Guard. Milady Opinsher has locked herself in her apartments and won’t come out!”

  Lady Opinsher was an elderly dame who lived in the city’s oldest and finest neighborhood. Iome knew her well. She knew for a fact that Gaborn had Chosen her when she presented herself at their wedding. Certainly Lady Opinsher had heard the Earth King’s warning.

  “I’ll be there in a moment,” Iome said, wondering at what trouble this portended.

  She and Myrrima hurried down to the bailey, with Sir Donnor and the Days falling in step behind. The girl climbed fearfully onto Myrrima’s steed, and they raced the mounts down through the King’s Gate, into the city, and along the narrow streets toward Dame Opinsher’s manor.

  As they raced, Iome glanced up, caught sight of a child in an open window. It was late in the morning, she realized, and still not everyone had obeyed her husband’s call.

  At Dame Opinsher’s manor, they stopped at the porte cochere, where white columns held up a roof above an enclosed courtyard. At the front door of the manor, two guardsmen in fine enameled plate stood at arms.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Iome asked them. “Shouldn’t you have left by now?”

  “We beg your indulgence,” one guard said, an old fell
ow with clear blue eyes and a silver moustache that drooped over his mouth. “But we are sworn into the service of Lady Opinsher, and she bade us remain at our posts. That’s why we sent the girl.”

  “May we pass?” Sir Donnor asked threateningly, as if unsure what the guardsmen’s orders were. If the woman had gone far into insanity, she might have ordered the guards to kill all comers.

  “Of course,” the elder guard said. He stepped aside.

  Iome dismounted, hurried into the house with the serving girl to lead the way.

  Lady Opinsher’s manor was far newer than the King’s Keep. While the keep had been built two thousand years ago to serve a lord and his knights, the manor here was less than eight hundred years old, and had been built at leisure during a time of prosperity. It was also far more opulent and stately than was the King’s Keep. Iome imagined that it was more like a soaring palace at the Courts of Tide. The entrance had clear windows above it, so that sunlight shone into a great room, making its way down past a silver chandelier to fall onto intricate tile mosaic on the floor. The walls were all paneled with polished wood. Fine lamps rested on tall stands.

  The servant led Iome’s retinue up a great staircase. Iome felt terribly self-conscious. She was wearing boots and riding clothes, and in such a fine manor, she should have been able to hear the rustle of her own skirts as she climbed the stairs.

  When they reached the second floor, the servant led Iome to a huge oaken door, intricately carved with Dame Opinsher’s heraldic emblem.

  Iome tried to open the door, but found it locked, so she pounded with her bare fists and shouted, “Open in the name of the Queen.”

  When that brought no response, Sir Donnor pounded harder.

  Iome heard the whisper of feet against stone, but still the dame did not open her door.

  “Get an axe and we’ll chop down the door,” Iome said loudly to Sir Donnor.

  “Please, Your Highness, don’t,” Dame Opinsher begged from behind her barricade.