He glared questioningly at Torcaill. The warrior studied his bowl, stirring the porridge within it carefully.
Taim Narran was less reticent. “A living one, at least,” he murmured.
Orisian looked at the older warrior, an angry retort boiling up towards his lips. But the momentary fury passed. He breathed deeply.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He pressed finger and thumb to his temple, willing the throbbing in his skull to subside. “I just think… I think we lack the strength to make any difference in whatever struggles are to come between Haig and the Black Road. And we-you most of all, Taim-could hardly expect a warm welcome from Aewult, in any case.”
“It’s true Haig has no need of our few swords,” Taim acknowledged. “Gryvan must wake to the danger now. Once he rouses himself and his people from sloth, the Black Road’s ascendancy will be at an end, Aeglyss or no Aeglyss. But we-you-still need to survive long enough to see that day. I’d not choose Ive to make a stand, if that’s…”
Erval, the leader of Ive’s Guard, came hurrying down between the lines of tables. He stumbled over a sword someone had rested against a bench, but rushed on regardless. He was red-faced, plainly agitated. Heads turned to follow his progress. He came to a rather disorderly halt behind Orisian and dipped into a hasty bow.
“There are messengers come in search of you, sire. I’ve got them waiting in the courtyard.”
“Who sent them?” Orisian asked.
The Guard Captain looked apologetic. “Aewult nan Haig, sire. They claim his authority, and through him that of his father, for the message they bear.”
“Let them freeze the rest of the day in the yard, then,” Torcaill muttered.
“I think they may have left their patience behind when they set out on their journey,” said Erval.
Orisian sighed and swung a leg out over the bench.
“There’s no point in delaying,” he said as he rose.
“It might be best,” Erval agreed, relief plain in his voice. “There’s a fierce mood in the town, and word’s already spreading that there’re Haig men here. You know how that will taste to people. The sooner they’ve said their piece and gone, the better.”
Torcaill and Taim were getting to their feet to follow Orisian.
“Not you, Taim,” he said.
The warrior frowned.
Orisian smiled at him. “You’re an escaped prisoner, aren’t you? A fugitive from Aewult’s version of justice?”
Taim sank heavily back onto the bench.
“I don’t want any trouble if I can avoid it,” said Orisian. “No more than we’ve already got, anyway.”
“Take a few of the other men, at least,” Taim said. “Let them think you’ve got some swords at your back. And remember they have your sister.”
“That’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
Torcaill quickly assembled a little escort party, and Erval led them all out of the hall. The place was silent as they left.
The wide courtyard was dusted with snow. Most of it had been swept up by the overnight wind, and packed into corners and crevices. There was no wind now, but it was bitterly cold. As Orisian and the others emerged onto the cobblestones, the nearest of the messengers was clapping his gloved hands together to warm them.
The Haig Bloodheir had sent ten men. Six of them were warriors, standing back and watching over the party’s horses. The other four were less martially attired, clad in fur capes, wearing gauntlets of what looked like velvet rather than leather. The one who stepped forward to greet Orisian had a gold clasp holding his cloak around his neck.
The man bowed more deeply and respectfully than Orisian might have expected from one of Aewult’s household. Any appearance of respect was quickly dispelled once that formal gesture had been completed, however.
“This man,” the messenger said with a jab of his chin in Erval’s direction, “seems to think our business is best conducted out here in the cold. Perhaps you could prevail upon him to change his mind, Thane?”
And in that one instant Orisian was vividly transported back to Kolkyre, to the entirely uncomfortable company of Aewult and Gryvan’s Chancellor Mordyn Jerain. Evidently disdain and casual self-importance were traits shared by all ranks within the Haig Blood. Back in Kolkyre, he had been somewhat cowed by it. Now, his mood merely soured, and his headache asserted itself.
“I imagine the Captain anticipated your desire to be back on the road south as quickly as possible,” he said. “You seem to know my name, so perhaps you could allow me the same privilege.”
The messenger stood a good head taller than Orisian, but the reprimand narrowed his shoulders slightly, put the faintest hint of submission into his posture.
“I am Gorred Mant dar Haig, sire. Emissary of Aewult nan Haig. These men are — ”
He gestured towards his companions, but Orisian cut him off. It was indeed cold out here beneath the cloudless winter sky. For that and other reasons, brevity appealed greatly to him.
“You came seeking me, did you?” he asked.
“Indeed, sire.” Gorred had recovered a little of his composure now. He stood straight once more and Orisian suspected that beneath that voluminous cloak his chest swelled. “Rumours reached Kilvale mere days ago that you were here in Ive. There was great relief, of course. People have been concerned for your safety since you left Kolkyre.”
“You may report that I am in good health, then.”
“Indeed.” Gorred extended an arm, flapping his hand. One of the other Haig men stepped forward, hurriedly dragging out two scroll cases from some hidden pocket or bag and passing them over.
“I bear two messages, sire,” Gorred said, proffering the two tubes to Orisian.
“Just tell me,” Orisian said.
“I do need to hand them over, sire.” That welcome trace of discomfiture was back in the emissary’s voice. “I will not be deemed to have discharged my duty if I don’t put them in your hand.”
Orisian took the cases from him, and passed them at once to Torcaill, who casually tucked them under his belt.
“Tell me,” Orisian said again.
There was an abrupt flurry of noise from beyond the open gate. Loud but indistinct voices were battling one another in the street beyond. Gorred glanced over his shoulder in irritation. Several of Erval’s Guards were clustered in the gateway, in animated discussion, gesticulating towards something out in the street. Gorred turned back to Orisian.
“These are delicate matters, sire. Perhaps best discussed in a more private setting.”
“The sooner we are done, the sooner you can be on your way back to Kilvale. You’ll know better than I that the roads grow more dangerous with every passing day. Every hour, even.”
Gorred looked distinctly unhappy but did not press the point any further.
“Very well. First an assurance as to the well-being of your sister, who is protected from all harm within the walls of Vaymouth itself, under the attentive care of — ”
“Move on,” barked Orisian. It was a struggle-one in which he was not entirely successful-to keep the anger that welled up within him out of his voice. The mere mention of Anyara, especially in the mouth of one whose master had made her a virtual captive, or hostage, was enough to shake his precariously maintained balance.
Gorred blinked. “Ah. Well, the substance of the first message is an invitation to join with the Bloodheir at Kilvale. It is his hope that you and he could then discuss the possibility of your attendance upon the High Thane in Vaymouth. You would thus be able to satisfy yourself as to your sister’s…”
Another surge of agitated cries disturbed the messenger’s flow. Gorred grunted in irritation. Everyone looked towards the gate, for the voices drifting in from the street unmistakably now carried an undercurrent of violence and anger.
“Forgive me,” Erval murmured in Orisian’s ear. “I should see what’s happening.”
Orisian nodded, and the Captain of the Guard went trotting over to join his
men at the gate.
“What’s your second message?” Orisian asked, before Gorred could resume.
“It was hoped you might be able to accompany us on our return to Kilvale, sire. The Bloodheir was very hopeful of that.”
“I am needed here for a little while yet,” Orisian said. “I will have to follow after you when I can. If I can. What’s the second message?”
Gorred’s eyes flicked momentarily away from Orisian, scanning Torcaill and the other warriors behind him. There was clear unease in the glance.
“It is understood that you have Taim Narran here with you. Is that true?”
Orisian put a hand to his brow, fending off the aching beat in his skull. His hands were so chilled that he barely felt the touch of skin to skin. He envied Gorred his fine gloves. But he made no reply to the messenger’s question.
“I was instructed to ask after Taim Narran’s presence, you see,” Gorred persisted, “because certain charges were raised against him during the period of your absence. The Bloodheir requires — ”
“Requires?” echoed Orisian. “Taim Narran is my man, not Aewult’s.”
“Nevertheless,” Gorred said. “Nevertheless.” There was a dogged, somewhat glum determination about his manner now. As if he had at last resigned himself to abandoning any pretence at courteous discourse; as if he accepted the futility of clothing hard words in fine silks. “No command was issued to release him; rather, you might say, Taim Narran chose to bestow freedom upon himself. And he fled from battle.”
Torcaill and the other Lannis warriors stirred at that. Orisian bit back his own instinctive contempt for Gorred’s accusations.
Erval was returning hurriedly from the gate. Behind him, Orisian could see a solid knot of Guardsmen now barring the entrance to the courtyard. There were other figures moving beyond them, rushing up and down the street. Something dark, which at first Orisian thought must be a bird, darted over the heads of the Guards. The object arced down and broke apart on the yard’s cobbles, a clod of muddy earth.
“Trouble,” Erval hissed into Orisian’s ear. “There’s a crowd gathering. They know who’s in here. Haig’s little better liked than Gyre these days.”
Gorred was watching them, frowning. Orisian turned his head enough to hide his lips from the emissary.
“Can you quieten it all down, if we keep them out of sight?”
“Not sure, sire,” Erval whispered. “There’s more folk arriving every moment, and I’ve not seen a bloodier mood on them in years. Not ever. Could easily go bad, this. My men… it could be difficult if I ask them to fight their own people in defence of Haig.”
Orisian looked back to Gorred. The messenger raised questioning eyebrows. Orisian came to a decision.
“We’re done,” he said, as clearly and firmly as he could. “For your own safety, emissary, you must leave at once. Erval here will have his men escort you out of Ive, and see you a way down the road.”
“Sire? We have not finished our discussions, surely? If I am to return to the Bloodheir with nothing more than this, I must of necessity make an honest report of how I was received and treated.”
“Report as you like,” snapped Orisian. “Dead men make no reports, and that’s what you’ll likely be if you tarry here.”
Gorred smirked, as if Orisian’s words were preposterous. “Messengers are protected, sire. They are not to be harmed, on pain of death. Everyone knows as much.”
Orisian pointed at the gate. “Does that not sound to you like ignorance, then? Do you really think such laws are what govern hearts today? I’m trying to protect you.”
Gorred looked from Orisian to the gateway. Some of the Guards were dragging a man into the compound and beating him with their clubs. Another of them was on his knees, pressing his hand to a bloody scalp wound. Aewult nan Haig’s messenger pondered for the space of a few heartbeats, and the fight leached out of him.
“Very well,” he said curtly. At a single, sharp gesture his companions and escorts began to mount their horses. He glanced almost dismissively at Orisian. “You have the messages, Thane. The Bloodheir will anticipate an early reply, to both of them. Or better yet, your presence, and that of Taim Narran.”
The ten horses clattered over the cobblestones towards the gate. Erval ran ahead of them, shouting at his Guards to clear a path for the Haig party. Orisian and his men followed more slowly in their wake. It all felt unpleasantly like disaster to Orisian. A chasm was opening up between the Haig Blood and those of Lannis and Kilkry, yawning ever wider with each defeat and humiliation visited upon them by the Black Road.
The Guardsmen pushed out into the street, and Orisian saw for the first time just how large and frenzied a crowd of townsfolk had assembled. There were scores of them, of every age and kind. They choked the street. They fell back before the determined advance of Erval’s men, but it was only the crowd reshaping itself, yielding in one place to thicken in another. Not a retreat. More figures came rushing from side streets and houses, like bees plunging in to join a furious swarm.
The Haig riders ventured out onto the muddy roadway. Their horses were skittish, catching the feral mood of the throng. People were falling, crushed between the lines of Guardsmen and the mass of townsfolk surging up, howling abuse at Gorred and the others. On every face Orisian saw visceral hatred, an instinctive yearning for bloodshed.
“Gods,” he heard Erval muttering at his side, “it’s bad.”
A stick came tumbling end over end through the air, blurring past Gorred’s shoulder. The envoy ducked and scowled. His horse tossed its head. Slowly, edgily, the beleaguered company moved down the street.
“You need more men,” Orisian said to Erval. The Captain of the Guard looked bewildered, almost lost, in the face of the savagery that had taken hold of his town and his people.
“Send for more men!” Orisian shouted at him, and this shook Erval from his daze. One of the nearest Guardsmen was dispatched to find reinforcements.
It was too late. The townsfolk of Ive were possessed by a terrible fury, one that would brook no restraint and had purged them of any doubt or sense. Events rushed, like avalanching snow, towards their conclusion, as if that very conclusion had reached back and dragged everything irresistibly into its hungry maw.
One of the Guardsmen facing the multitude was knocked down. The space around Gorred and the others was abruptly constricted. Someone flailed at one of the Haig messengers with a hoe. A flurry of missiles came tumbling in: sticks, earth, stones, even a clattering pot. A Haig warrior was struck and reeled in his saddle, almost falling. His horse lurched sideways. Its mass ruptured the protective ring of Guardsmen. Townsfolk boiled into the gaps.
“Stop them!” Orisian shouted at Erval. The Captain was shaking his head, not in denial but impotence. He took two leaden paces out into the street and shouted angry commands. His voice was drowned in the flood of rage-bloated cries and howls.
The mob thickened around the horses. Here and there, like helpless flotsam on a surging sea, Guardsmen struggled against the crowd, but they were too few, and the ire of the townsfolk was far too fierce to be dampened by half-hearted blows from clubs or staves. The horses were rearing, their riders now slashing about them with swords and spears. Stones and chunks of wood were raining down on them.
A couple of men had climbed onto the roof of one of the houses and were stripping its tiles; the slate squares sliced through the air, spinning straight and true. Even as Orisian watched, one hammered into the forehead of Gorred’s horse. The animal screamed and staggered. As it stumbled, eager hands reached up from the crowd and grabbed its mane, clawed at the rider’s legs, tore at the saddle. Man and horse went crashing down and were instantly swallowed up.
Orisian started forward, but Torcaill held him back.
“If they kill them, Aewult will blame us!” Orisian cried. “Lannis, Kilkry, all of us.”
“I know,” Torcaill said, “but we can’t stop it now. Look at them. It’s not safe to even try.”
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Horrified, Orisian turned back to the street in time to see one of the Haig men leaning low to jab his spear into a youth’s belly, and then in his turn being hooked out of his saddle and dragged down. The riderless horse went charging off through the mob, battering a path clear, trampling bodies as it went.
Torcaill was pulling Orisian back from the gateway. A stunned Erval retreated alongside them. Someone was screaming amidst the chaos. It was a raw, unrestrained sound. Another horse, its saddle empty, came pounding back into the courtyard, wild-eyed and bleeding from cuts to its neck. It ran in great circles, shaking.
It did not take long, once that peak of violence had been reached. The awful sounds surged and merged and then gradually fell away. Men spilled out from the barracks in some numbers, too late: Guards, and warriors, and Orisian’s own men, with Taim Narran at their head. Careful, cautious, they advanced out into the street, and found there only the dead and the injured and the debris. And shocked and shivering townsfolk, left feeble by the ebbing of their fury, staring at their bloody handiwork, murmuring in unsteady voices, trying to drag the wounded away to shelter or aid.
Orisian and Torcaill and Taim walked numbly among the bodies. The corpses of the Haig party were easy enough to find. Fur cloaks were bloodied and soiled and trampled, velvet gloves torn.
Torcaill prodded Gorred’s body with the toe of his boot. The messenger’s head rolled to one side. His face was broken in, the cheekbone and orbit of his eye shattered. The one eye that remained intact stared up at Orisian. He felt the cold, accusatory weight of that dead gaze, and turned away.
“The day’s hardly begun, and already it’s decided to be a bad one,” Taim said. “Our troubles breed faster than mice.”
Torcaill stood looking up and down the street, his gaze drifting over the dead and the dazed. “I count eight Haig dead. Two short. They must have broken out. This’ll foster no friendship for us if word reaches Aewult,” he said.
“Soon we’ll have nothing but enemies left,” murmured Orisian.
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