Hunger beyond bearing prompted Corrain to take up his spoon and eat. The meat was tender, the broth rich with herbs and if the bread was a day stale, it soaked up the glistening liquid. None of it filled the hollow beneath his breastbone.
‘Corrain, lad?’ Fitrel tried again.
‘I don’t know anything,’ he said dully.
Kusint cleared his throat. ‘Hosh—’
‘We’ve no word for Hosh’s old mother.’ As Corrain shoved the empty bowl away, the chain dangling from his manacle clinked against the pottery.
He glared at Kusint. There was no mercy in telling an old woman that her son was doubtless dead of a flogging. The fool boy must be shark shit by now. After Corrain had abandoned him, telling himself it was for Halferan’s sake, for the oath they had both sworn.
Now it was all for nothing. Corrain’s gorge rose and he feared he was about to spew that stew and bread back up again. He swallowed hard.
Whatever Fitrel saw in Corrain’s face prompted him to turn to Kusint. ‘Where are you headed, friend?’
‘No idea.’ Kusint shrugged.
‘Will Lady Zurenne give us an audience?’ Corrain rose to his feet. He couldn’t face the prospect of an evening here by the stove fending off Fitrel’s questions. Besides, he had some burning questions of his own.
‘Now? It’s late,’ Fitrel said dubiously.
‘Never mind.’ Corrain was heading for the door undeterred.
‘You put me in mind of the Dalasorian horsemen in Lescar.’ Kusint stood up. ‘Do you know what they always say?’
Corrain halted, half turned. ‘No.’
Kusint grinned. ‘When in doubt, gallop.’
Despite everything, Corrain’s heart lightened a little. ‘You’re still with me?’
Kusint shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ Fitrel was caught between bafflement and outrage. ‘Because you’re filthy dirty, the pair of you, and barely dressed. You haven’t even got boots to your feet and you expect admittance to my lady?’
Corrain was already out of the door.
Fitrel followed, hastily snatching his cloak from a peg on the wall. ‘I’d better vouch for you at the manor. Arigo’s got the duty and he’s as blind as a mole these days.’
‘Arigo?’ Corrain was startled. ‘He was pensioned off two years since.’
‘Three years, him and me both,’ Fitrel retorted. ‘But we’re the best my lady can call on to hold off the likes of Lord Karpis!’
As it turned out, Arigo was asleep by the guard hall fire. A youth who looked vaguely familiar opened the wooden slide to see who knocked on the gate.
‘Open up, Reven,’ Fitrel said briskly. ‘Captain Corrain’s back to whip you into shape.’
The boy stood gaping before scrambling to open up. ‘Captain Corrain?’ he called out as they hurried through the gate and across the cobbles. ‘My Uncle Treche, do you know what befell him?’
Of course. The lad had the look of the man. Corrain almost turned but Kusint laid a warning hand on his arm.
‘Answer him now and there’ll be ten more tugging your sleeve. You must see your lady first.’
Corrain could already hear disbelieving voices repeating his name as the guard hall’s opening door threw candle light across the compound. As the steward’s door opened, a curtain rattled on its rings, hastily pulled back from the parlour window.
The door at the top of the great hall steps opened. ‘What’s amiss?’ A woman called out. Not Lady Zurenne or anyone else whose voice Corrain recognised.
‘Madam Mage.’ Fitrel ducked his head in a nervous bow.
‘You’re this lady wizard they speak of?’ Corrain couldn’t see her clearly; a shadow against the lamplight inside the hall.
‘I am.’ The torch in the bracket beside the door flared scarlet.
Corrain wasn’t impressed, either by the magic or what the firelight revealed. The magewoman looked like a dressmaker’s maid. Then again, Minelas had seemed unremarkable. More than one trooper had thought him a milksop, before he’d called down lightning to kill Halferan’s men between one blink of an eye and the next.
Corrain squared his shoulders. ‘I wish to see Lady Zurenne.’
‘I will see if she has finished dining.’ The wizard woman stepped back. ‘Come in and wait.’
Kusint glanced at him. What now? Corrain realised he’d never shared the details of Minelas’s magic with the Forest youth. Come to that, he hadn’t the slightest notion what Kusint knew of wizardry.
But what else could they do? He went up the steps. Kusint followed. The magewoman was walking back down the length of the hall. She had been reading, alone at the high table up on the dais. Reading and writing. Paper and ink lay beside the open books.
‘Please, be seated. I will see if her ladyship is willing to see you.’ She sounded like a maidservant. Though a maidservant couldn’t have sent the outer door behind them slamming back into its frame untouched by human hand. Corrain shivered.
‘So this is the pride of Halferan.’ Kusint had paused to look around the hall. ‘Truly handsome, my friend.’
‘It looks better in the daylight.’ Corrain’s courage returned as he contemplated the lofty ceiling. The banners hung veiled in night’s shadows but he knew them by heart; the standards of each Baron Halferan since time out of mind, blending the pewter and damson insignia with the emblems of those baronies whose daughters they had married.
‘Captain Corrain?’ Up on the dais, the door to the baronial tower opened. ‘No, not captain. You were disgraced even before you were lost.’
Lady Zurenne walked forward. Hearing her disdain and distrust Corrain wished fervently for clean clothes, polished boots and a shave.
He dropped humbly to one knee. ‘I was disgraced, my lady, through my own grievous fault. I am ever grateful to your husband, my lord, that he didn’t dismiss me entirely.’
‘Yet you are here and he is dead. How can that be?’
Corrain was shocked to see the difference in Halferan’s lady. She had always been slightly built, short enough to tuck her head under her husband’s chin, within the protective circle of his arm. Yet the curve of her hip and bosom had always promised every womanly virtue, her face as soft as a flower. Now her dark eyes were huge above cheekbones sharp against the dark luxuriance of her hair. A green gown made to her former measure hung in unaccustomed slackness at her hips.
He stifled his anguish. ‘My life had the meagre value of a slave’s, my lady, and that’s the only reason I was saved. But your husband’s death was of infinite worth to Master Minelas.’
‘Indeed.’ A crystal tear beaded Lady Zurenne’s lashes. ‘Very well, Guard Corrain, swear your loyalty to Halferan and you may return to your duties.’ She regarded his dishevelment with distaste. ‘Once you are bathed and clothed. You and your companion.’ She contemplated Kusint with ill-concealed confusion.
‘My lady.’ Corrain clenched his fists behind his back. ‘I must ask you. How does this lady wizard come to be here?’
‘Madam Jilseth is searching for that thief Master Minelas.’ Zurenne cocked her head, eyes bright as a bird. ‘Why do you ask?’
Corrain wanted to ask what the noblewoman suspected. There was more here than met the eye, along with secrets on all sides. Corrain’s anger was steadily burning through the unexpected torment of finding no target here for his revenge.
Listening to Fitrel’s tale of what had gone on since Lord Halferan’s death, Corrain had realised something. However ripe the obscenities the old man had heaped on Minelas’s name, he’d never so much as hinted that the traitor was a wizard.
Corrain remembered that only Baron Halferan and his most trusted troopers had known the truth. Conspiring to suborn renegade sorcery, to outwit the Archmage himself; that was hardly something a Caladhrian noble wanted bandied around the taprooms. Baron Halferan wouldn’t have burdened his wife with such knowledge.
‘Is that to expiate Hadrumal’s guilt?’ Corrain had made his decision
. If Minelas was no longer here to render up his life for his crimes, then someone else was going to pay.
As Zurenne stared at him, uncomprehending, the lady wizard stepped forward ‘What—’
Corrain spoke quickly, before her sorcery could silence him. ‘Master Minelas was a mage, my lady. My lord Halferan promised him gold in return for his spells against the corsairs, after the Archmage of Hadrumal refused us any such aid. Your husband, my lord, he begged the Archmage time and again for help.’ He spared a scowl for the lady wizard.
‘Then Minelas betrayed us to the corsairs. They’d offered him more gold than Halferan could and he was more than willing to sell his wizardry. His magic killed men and beasts alike in that fight in the marshes.’ Now Corrain was shouting, his voice raw with hatred. ‘He wouldn’t face my lord in a fair fight. The coward had one of those corsair scum stab him in the back!’
He wished those words unsaid as Lady Zurenne buried her face in her hands. She swayed and for one heart-stopping moment, Corrain feared she would fall headlong from the dais to the hall floor below.
‘Let me—’ The lady wizard reached out to save her.
‘I knew you lied about something!’ Lady Zurenne sprang away, fending her off. Then she went on the attack, one hand raised to slap Jilseth. At the last, Zurenne’s nerve failed. She hugged her clenched fists to her breast.
‘Time and again, you have lied to me!’ she screamed at the grey-gowned woman. ‘He was a wizard? Invading my home, threatening my daughters? One of your own and you did nothing? Worse than nothing! How could you?’
‘We did not — I have not lied.’ The lady wizard stood her ground, just barely.
‘Truly?’ Zurenne demanded, suddenly icy with contempt. ‘You say you don’t know where he is? Why should I believe you?’
Now she was shaking. Corrain couldn’t tell if that was from wrath or fear.
The lady wizard was gathering up her papers, closing the books lying on the table. ‘Granted, my lady, I have not told the whole truth. I will ask your forgiveness for that. Though I could not. I do the Archmage’s bidding first and foremost.’
‘You won’t get my pardon, now or ever,’ Zurenne snarled. ‘Nor will your Archmage. His name will be spat upon across Caladhria once this tale is known.’
‘You must talk to the Archmage. Let him explain.’ To Corrain’s vengeful satisfaction, she couldn’t look Zurenne in the eye.
‘The Archmage can give us Minelas.’ Corrain stepped forward.
‘To hang for his crimes,’ spat Zurenne.
‘I—’ Whatever the lady wizard might have said was lost as she disappeared in a blinding flash of white light.
Zurenne screamed and screamed again, incoherent with rage and grief. Fitrel charged into the hall, the rest of the ragged guards at his heels. They fanned out, searching the shadows, shouting angrily to each other. Kusint went to explain what had happened to Fitrel and to fat Captain Arigo puffing after the rest of his men.
Corrain stood looking up at the high table. He had seen a candle flicker before the lady wizard had vanished. Her hand had shaken as she’d picked up a parchment. See such a tell-tale in a swordfight and a warrior knew he had the upper hand.
Yes, these wizards would pay.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Halferan, Caladhria
40th of Aft-Spring
‘MY LADY, OH my lady. Please sit down. Please drink some of this.’
It was her new maid, Zurenne realised, beseeching her through the uproar that filled the great hall. Raselle was plucking at her sleeve, offering a goblet of wine in her shaking hand.
Down on the floor of the hall, Master Rauffe and Captain Arigo were standing toe to toe, shouting at each other. Mistress Rauffe was trying to listen at the same time as darting back and forth to rebuke the household’s maids.
The women were largely ignoring the steward’s wife, skirting around the tables and benches to demand explanations of the troopers. Who were these newcomers? What crisis threatened? Were there tidings of corsair raids out on the coast?
Whatever explanations the red-headed youth could offer were only compounding the confusion. Corrain was standing motionless, his face empty of emotion. He might have been deaf and mute for all the heed he took of those clustered around him, demanding answers.
Up the stairs in the baronial quarters, Zurenne could hear Esnina wailing, drowning out her nursemaid’s efforts to soothe her.
‘Mama?’
Zurenne spun around to see Ilysh in the doorway to the stairs. ‘Go back to your room!’
Something in her tone cut through all the commotion like a hot wire through wax. Shocked silence echoed from the dais to the doorway and up to the banner-hung rafters. All eyes turned to Zurenne.
Unable to bear their scrutiny, she took the goblet from Raselle and drank deep. A fit of coughing nearly brought her to her knees. The wine had been fortified with what tasted like half a bottle of white brandy.
As she allowed the maid to help her to a nearby chair, Zurenne dimly realised Master Rauffe and his wife were clearing everyone out of the great hall. So the pair of them had some uses.
‘My lady?’
Blinking away tears prompted by the coughing, Zurenne looked down to see Corrain still standing before the dais. She waited for him to continue but he only gazed helplessly up at her. Then he started forward, his hand going to his hip for a non-existent sword hilt.
‘My lady Halferan.’ A courteous voice spoke behind her.
‘Who are you?’ Ilysh was in the doorway to the stairs.
Zurenne twisted awkwardly in the chair. ‘Who—’
She saw Jilseth had returned with an older man. Older than Halferan would have been, had he lived. Not as old as Lord Licanin. Or was he? Zurenne looked again and saw fine creases at the corners of the man’s grey eyes, his hairline receding though there was barely any silver in his close cropped black hair and beard. Lean-faced, his wiry build was emphasised by his plain black doublet and breeches. He could have been a merchant’s clerk from Trebin or Ferl.
‘Lady Halferan.’ His smile softened the intensity of his expression, before his next words stripped away any such reassurance. ‘I am Planir, Archmage of Hadrumal.’ He bowed to her and then to Ilysh. The girl clapped her hands to her mouth, eyes wide with wonder.
Zurenne gripped the goblet so tightly she feared the glazed ceramic would crack. She fought to set it on the table without spilling the contents, before accusing Jilseth. ‘You said a wizard can only go where he’s been before!’
Why had she said that? Because it was the first thought that came into her head. Zurenne nearly reached for the goblet to hide her confusion in it. But her head was already spinning from the liquor, the shock or both.
The Archmage was answering as if her question were perfectly reasonable. ‘It’s possible in theory, for those with supreme proficiency in their scrying spells as well as confidence in their other abilities, to travel somewhere they have never been. However, over the generations, there have been far too many instances where an apprentice wizard’s self-belief has led to disaster.’
Planir shook his head, rueful. ‘Consequently, translocation through scrying is so thoroughly discouraged that it is effectively forbidden.’
‘But not to the Archmage,’ Corrain challenged.
‘I am also the Stone Master. If my scrying erred—’ Planir gestured as though the hall masonry wasn’t there ‘—if I found myself in the midst of your outer wall for example, my command over stone and earth would allow me to walk through the brickwork into the open air. Most people would be so impressed, they wouldn’t realise I’d made a mistake.’
Zurenne thought she saw a warning buried in Planir’s smile, like the blade concealed within a swordstick.
He shrugged. ‘I had no need to run such a risk. Jilseth’s magic brought me here.’
Once again, the shock or the liquor prompted Zurenne to speak, where she should have kept silent. ‘I wish I could say you are wel
come, but that would be a lie to dishonour Ostrin.’
‘I am pleased to be here nonetheless.’ Planir inclined his head politely, to her and, once again, to Ilysh.
Zurenne caught her daughter’s eye. ‘Go to bed. Now.’
Ilysh hesitated then fled. Zurenne was relieved to hear the door to the upper hallway close on Esnina’s shrieking.
‘My lady, may I sit?’ Planir made no move to take a chair without her permission.
Zurenne didn’t know what to say. She settled for a curt nod. As the wizard sat, she turned to Corrain, still down on the floor of the hall before the dais. ‘You, come up here.’
Like the Archmage, she sat in silence as he made his way up the steps at the far corner. Corrain made no move to sit when he approached the table. Nor did Jilseth, remaining in the spot where her magic had brought her back to Halferan.
Zurenne wondered if she should send word to Lord Licanin. But Lord Licanin couldn’t get a reply to her any faster than a horseman could carry it. Halferan still had no birds to carry messages back to the barony. So Licanin would only learn of this unforeseen visit in the same message that told him of its outcome. And announced Corrain’s return and the revelations he had brought with him.
Zurenne looked at the far end of the dais. Her husband’s chair stood there, vast, ornate with its carved wooden canopy. It was shrouded with an embroidered mourning pall which had grown dull with dust thanks to Starrid’s neglect. One of the first things Mistress Rauffe had done was to set maidservants to work with dusters and beeswax and have them beat the heavy velvet clean.
It was the baron’s formal seat where her husband had sat to hold his courts and to deliver his judgements like his sire and grandsire before him. Tangible embodiment of his hereditary rights over this barony and the lives and deaths of those dwelling within its boundaries.
She turned to the Archmage. ‘This man is one of my husband’s chosen guard. He says that my husband asked for magic’s aid against the corsairs.’
Dangerous Waters Page 16
