Zurenne had always known that Halferan took his duties seriously. She would never have guessed that he had been driven to such extremes.
The Archmage nodded. ‘Your husband and others since, most recently the deputation to Hadrumal that included Lord Licanin, when he told us of Minelas’s treachery.’
Zurenne guessed that explained the lady wizard’s arrival, so curious about what Minelas had done and said. She wondered what else had gone on at that meeting. Which other barons had been present? Was there any point in asking Lord Licanin? He would only tell her what he judged she needed to know and that would be very little.
Zurenne clasped her hands in her lap. As she looked down, she saw her white knuckles betray her anxiety. ‘Do you have any news of Master Minelas?’
Planir nodded. ‘You may rest easy, my lady. He is dead.’
‘Dead?’
Before Zurenne could exclaim, the guardsman Corrain took a long stride from his place by the end of the table.
‘How did he die? When? Are you certain? Tell me!’
To Zurenne’s surprise, Jilseth stepped forward, her voice ringing through the empty hall. ‘He died hard and painfully, caught in the very act of misusing his magic.’
‘Where’s his body?’ the guardsman raged.
Planir gave no sign that he’d heard, still addressing Zurenne. ‘Minelas left here intent on yet more grievous treachery in his search for wealth and gratification. He was pursued in accordance with my oath as Archmage. He paid in blood and agony for his crimes in this life and you may trust that Poldrion’s demons torment him now.’
‘Where is his body?’ Corrain was advancing, his face twisted with anger. He halted, his expression slackening with fear.
Zurenne saw Jilseth’s raised hand stop him in his tracks. A chill of unease sent a shiver down the noblewoman’s back. She raised her chin, squaring her shoulders.
‘When did Master Minelas die?’
Planir’s slate-grey gaze didn’t waver. ‘Last year, towards the end of Aft-Autumn. My lady—’
‘Last year?’ Zurenne was too astonished to continue. Overwhelming relief swept through her. After so many seasons of misery, oppressed by constant dread, she need never fear the villain’s footfall on the stairs again. Then sheer fury overcame her, shattering every lifelong habit of caution and propelling her to her feet.
‘Last year? Yet all this time I have been left friendless and helpless? I have been subject to abuse and humiliation from ruffians and traitors to my husband’s memory! I have been beset by direst fears and doubts, for myself and for my innocent children! And all this while you knew that my tormentor was dead? Did you never think to tell me?’
‘We had no notion what he had done here,’ Planir offered sincere regret. ‘If I had known—’
‘If you knew?’ Zurenne swept his apology aside with the goblet. It flew off the table, toppling through the air before smashing into shards on the floor. ‘Yet you didn’t.’ She teetered between contempt and disbelief. ‘So much for your oath as Archmage.’
Planir didn’t respond, simply sitting and looking calmly at her.
‘Where is his body?’ Zurenne repeated the guardsman’s question, gesturing at Corrain as she did so. ‘I have learned not to believe that a man is dead unless I see his pyre. How can you be so certain that Master Minelas is dead? Your very presence here proves how easily wizards can slip from place to place.’
As she spoke, her voice trembled. How desperately she wanted the Archmage to convince her that the monster could never return. Yet how could she believe any mage, when she had been duped so thoroughly, twice over now? Incensed, Zurenne silently accused the lady wizard with a fulminating glare.
Once again Jilseth startled them all with the vehemence of her answer. ‘I saw him gutted like the swine you know him to be. A dagger ripped him open from navel to neck.’
Planir nodded, his lack of emotion doing did little to blunt the shock of this story. ‘We saw his body wrapped in a sailcloth shroud and weighted with stones. He was dumped in the deepest waters of a lake in the dead of night.’
‘You were there?’ Corrain demanded.
Jilseth nodded. ‘I was there when he died.’
Which wasn’t precisely answering the guardsman’s question. Zurenne considered how skilfully Jilseth had already deceived her. She knew at once when Neeny was trying to conceal some mischief, if the little girl persisted in avoiding a direct answer. These wizards were just as deceitful. Zurenne felt that chill down her spine again.
Then the Archmage shook his head. ‘I saw his body disposed of through a scrying spell. His death had undone the magic which he customarily used to hide himself and his crimes.’ He looked at her intently. ‘Which is why we had no notion what he was doing here.’
Zurenne judged that much was true. She was far less inclined to believe it was the whole truth. ‘You say you could stand unharmed in the middle of a brick wall. Can a wizard not escape a drowning?’
‘He was already dead,’ Planir reminded her. ‘But we continued to watch, believe me. He did not resurface.’ Now the Archmage smiled, grim as a death’s head. ‘We could recover his corpse if you wish to see it. We know the lake in question. That’s to say, we could recover what the fish haven’t eaten.’
As Zurenne recoiled, Corrain took another furious step forward. ‘You dare to mock my lady?’
Planir turned in his chair, ominously fast. ‘I only seek to reassure her that Minelas is truly dead. That this business is finished. If she does not believe me, Hadrumal’s necromancy will wring the truth from Minelas’s bones.’
‘No, this business is not finished.’ Looking at her husband’s empty chair, Zurenne was inspired to challenge the Archmage’s assertion with unexpected resolve. ‘Not until we have agreed on terms.’
‘Terms?’ Planir leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘You intrigue me, my lady.’
Was that amusement in his tone? Was he trying to intimidate her? To embarrass her into silence? Did he think she should leave such matters to Lord Licanin?
Zurenne couldn’t tell. All she knew, with unanticipated certainty, was she was utterly sick of deferring to men who presumed authority over her.
‘My terms, Master Archmage. Your magic can find the Halferans lost along with Corrain into the Archipelago.’ She folded her hands in her lap. ‘Aye and rescue every last man, since it was one of your own who condemned honest men to slavery. That is only justice.’
‘Or do you want Hadrumal’s reputation shredded from Peorle to Relshaz,’ Corrain snarled. ‘I’ll see this tale of your renegade mage’s frauds and murders repeated in every tavern and market place along the highroads and byways’
Zurenne silenced him with a frown before addressing Planir once again. ‘You had also better make sure that no corsair sets foot in Caladhria. That no black ship appears on our horizon this summer or any other. This is my price for my silence over Hadrumal’s part in my husband’s death, for the terrors and humiliations heaped on my innocent daughters.’
That was what her husband had sought. What better way to honour his memory? If it wouldn’t make his loss any less grievous, perhaps his death wouldn’t have been entirely in vain.
‘Or Hadrumal will be disgraced,’ Corrain hissed, ‘from the Great Forest to the Tormalin Emperor’s court!’
Zurenne wished he would shut up. Would he obey her if she rebuked him? No. Better not to risk showing either weakness or dissent to these mages of Hadrumal. She folded her hands tight in her lap and gazed steadily at Planir.
The Archmage smiled. ‘No.’
‘No?’
Corrain’s fury matched Zurenne’s disbelief like two sides of the same coin.
‘My lady,’ Planir said coolly. ‘I explained to your lamented husband. I explained to Lord Licanin and his fellow barons. The defence of Caladhria is a Caladhrian affair and none of Hadrumal’s concern. Wizards do not involve themselves in warfare.’
‘One wizard did.’ Zurenne rall
ied. ‘And betrayed my husband to his death!’
Planir shook his head, more in pity than denial. ‘Lord Halferan’s own actions betrayed him—’
‘Not so!’ Corrain stepped forward again, one fist clenching.
He was far too close for Zurenne’s peace of mind. He also reeked of sweat and salt and worse.
‘Take care, trooper.’ Planir stopped him with a look more menacing than any gesture. ‘By all means, spread the tale of Minelas’s treachery. Once it’s understood that those corsairs needed magical aid to win their victory over this barony’s finest men, I have every hope that the coastal barons will rally as I have urged them to do for so long. Caladhrian strength of arms should be a match for these raiders if you stand together.’
He paused, his gaze holding Corrain.
‘But do you really want to betray your dead lord’s memory? You talk of Hadrumal’s disgrace, but what of Halferan’s? You cannot tell this tale without letting all and sundry know that your lord tried to suborn sorcery with silver and gold. How many people will reckon he merely reaped the trouble that he had sown?’
He turned his attention back to Zurenne, grey eyes flinty.
‘What will your daughters think of that tale? What will it do for their marriage prospects? You don’t think that barons and their ladies alike will look askance at daughters of a man so headstrong, so convinced that he alone was right, that he defied Caladhria’s parliament and the Archmage alike? How many husbands and mothers by marriage would welcome such wilfulness at their fireside? Blood will out, isn’t that what they will say?’
Now he smiled without a trace of warmth.
‘You say Hadrumal will be disgraced from the Great Forest to the Tormalin court. Believe me. I have the personal goodwill of Emperor Tadriol and the respect of the great and the good in every city and fiefdom. I am the Archmage of Hadrumal and these people will believe what I choose to tell them of this whole affair. Do you imagine anyone will discount my words in favour of some swordsman with a grievance from a minor barony on Caladhria’s coast?’
‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ Corrain countered, defiant, even though he’d taken a wary step back.
All at once, Zurenne felt exhausted. She looked at her dead husband’s vast chair. What manner of fool had she been, to think that she could presume to take his place? What a brave and noble fool he had been, to imagine wizards would share any of Caladhria’s concerns or sympathise with their pains.
Zurenne had seen for herself how utterly heartless these mages were. If they weren’t outright villains like Minelas, they were sly deceivers like Jilseth. The Archmage felt no guilt for everything that she had suffered. All he was prepared to promise was her daughters’ ruination, if not as brutally as Minelas had done. Whatever else she might contemplate, Zurenne could not risk that.
‘Get out,’ she said quietly.
‘Forgive me—’
Before Planir could say anything further, Zurenne rose to her feet and walked towards the door to the stairs. ‘Go away. Just go away.’
‘As you wish.’ The Archmage’s words were cut short as white light flared.
Zurenne couldn’t help looking over her shoulder. She could only see Corrain. Left alone on the dais, he was looking from side to side.
He stared at her, oddly bereft. ‘Where’s Kusint?’
Zurenne couldn’t find the words to tell him she neither knew nor cared. She just wanted to see her daughters. At least they were safe now. She could hold fast to that.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Halferan, Caladhria
41st of Aft-Spring
CORRAIN HADN’T SLEPT, not to speak of. He’d wandered dazed out of the great hall after Zurenne’s challenge to the Archmage had been so comprehensively rebuffed.
His first thought had been to find Kusint. That had been easy enough. The red-headed lad was by the laundry door, joking with the gaggle of maidservants offering to help him soap his back. Or anything else that might relish a gentle touch after whatever he’d had to endure as a galley slave.
Corrain couldn’t face that gathering. He’d headed for the guard hall, for the broad room that served the men as dining hall, gambling den, workshop for making and mending their gear, even their practise floor through the rainy halves of winter. Only to be unceremoniously rejected.
He stank like a dead squirrel, according to the chorus of protest. Corrain didn’t argue. He went out again, not to the laundry, but round to the well behind the storehouses. Stripping beneath the indifferent shelter of its pantiled roof supported on four brick pillars, he hauled up bucket after bucket of water and poured them over his head. He didn’t care how cold they were. He couldn’t care about anything now.
He only stopped when his arms were too tired to continue. Then he’d seen Fitrel waiting in the darkness, beyond the reach of the splashing water. Without a word, the old man set down a bundle of clean clothing. Corrain found soft, darned linen, buff breeches and a woollen tunic. A guard’s uniform, along with socks and boots.
Where had Fitrel found boots to fit him? After pulling on the clothes, heedless of how damp he was, Corrain had picked one boot up. Turning it in his hands, he recognised the stitching around the buckle. This was his own boot. ‘How—?’
He didn’t know how long he wept, silently huddled by the well house. When the storm wracking him finally passed, he managed to put the boots on with shaking hands. Rather, he did once he’d discovered the knife tucked inside the other one, sheathed on a stretched leather belt. He knew that for Fitrel’s own and was nearly unmanned again. He only headed back towards the guard hall when he was sure he had himself in hand.
The guard’s barrack hall was empty. Everyone had gone up the open stairs to the dormitory above. Corrain wasn’t ready to assert his own right to an empty bed space. What if there wasn’t any such space to be had? That didn’t bear thinking about.
Looking through the diamond paned window, he contemplated the single lamp burning by the gatehouse. No, he couldn’t face finding out who had that solitary duty. That would mean questions.
So he had spent the night sitting beside the cooling woodstove in the barrack hall. No need to waste good fuel keeping it alight through the night, not at this season. He guessed he must have dozed, since the night sky didn’t usually shift from black to the first blush of dawn inside the blink of an eye.
As the light strengthened, he found a pouch of rune bones discarded on a table and cast idle trios for a while, sword hand against his off hand.
Roll the heaven bone first, to see if it landed with the Sun showing, to give the strongest runes the upper hand. Of all the runes, only the three heavenly symbols were the same whichever way up they landed, without any upright or reversed aspect. No, with Sun on the bottom face unseen, the Greater and Lesser Moons joined forces to remind any players that strength alone never promised success. So the Pine Tree outweighed the Plain and the Calm outlasted the Storm. The Forest need not yield to Water.
Corrain played on simply to occupy his mind. He didn’t want to think about anything else, only of the familiar symbols wrought from neatly incised lines. The Sea, last of the four domains, alongside Mountain, Forest and Plain. Drum, Horn and Chime to make music alongside the Harp. Reed and Broom, token of more womanly concerns, complementing the masculine virtues epitomised by the Oak and Pine. Then a bone landed to show him the rune for the Air.
Four lines so easily struck by a chisel or carved with a knife, to make up a lightning strike. Symbol for the element. Token of the wizard who had ruined his life.
Corrain sat staring at the rune bone, unable to look away, until a maidservant came bustling in to rake out the stove’s cold ashes. The rattling roused him with a shock like another bucket of water. Realising he was thirsty, he went out into the compound and headed for the well.
‘It’s Corrain, isn’t it?’ A thickset man was already busy lighting the smithy’s hearth. ‘I’m Sirstin. Do you want rid of that?’ He gestured towards the broken manac
le on Corrain’s wrist. ‘Let me get some long-handled pincers and I’ll have you free in no time.’
Corrain didn’t recognise the smith. He wondered what had happened to Pask. Twisting the manacle around his wrist, he contemplated the man’s kindly-meant offer. He looked up with a forced smile. It was as much as he could muster. ‘Thanks but no. I think I have another purpose for this.’
‘As you like.’ Sirstin shrugged and returned to the business of firing up his forge.
Corrain hauled up the well bucket and dipped water with the cup chained to the handle. Yes, he decided. He had another purpose for that manacle.
The household was beginning to stir. He nodded as lackeys and maids called out their greetings but didn’t slow as he loped across the cobbles towards the manor’s shrine. He didn’t want anyone engaging him in conversation. He had a task in hand.
The manor shrine door was closed but unlocked as was customary. Men had nailed their pennies to the outside in token of their oaths. Whole pennies, Corrain noted, some even silver. None of the usual cut-pieces that everyone ended up with in their purse, when hard bargaining drove merchants to cut pennies into halves and quarters, which prudent goodwives hoarded against the day when they had nothing else left to buy bread.
The inner face was soft with countless scraps of ribbon and lace, even humble calico, the women’s oaths no less sincere. Corrain closed the door behind him. He had something far less reverent in mind.
The shrine was dimly lit by a single lamp. It stood before a funeral urn of costly green crackle glaze. It could only be Lord Halferan’s. Corrain nodded an acknowledgement before turning to Talagrin’s statue.
‘I won’t thank you for seeing me home safe. Not till I see Hosh at his mother’s fireside and that’s not likely to happen. But what about seeing this land and its folk safe from those cursed corsairs? No, I don’t ask you for that boon. But you can witness my oath to make sure of it without any god’s assistance and without any poxed Archmage!’
He brandished his fist at the god, the shackle’s chain rattling. ‘When I’m done, you can have this iron and I’ll tell everyone who cares to hear that you’ve done nothing to earn it. No more than you did anything to save my lord from being murdered. We’ll see who reveres you then!’
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