The Slave droned on, but eventually he got to the practical aspects. Some of it Hurst had heard already at the Ring, and Jonnor seemed unsurprised by it too, but he saw the others concentrating hard to take it all in.
“The key point is this,” the Slave said for at least the tenth time, for there seemed to be many key points, “if anyone should be struck by a blue arrow and fall, do not go near, in fact keep well away, to avoid inhaling the miasma. The Gods cannot make a decision if more than one person falls, so stay well back.” His eyes glittered as he spoke. “A Slave should be the first person to attend the faller, since we are not so much affected by the miasma. Only when the Slave indicates it is safe should you go near the one who has fallen. But do not be concerned if anyone other than the target is struck and falls, for the Gods will be merciful in such a case.”
There were a number of Hundred Leaders at the Karninghold just then, and they came in united formality to Hurst, saluting with practised synchrony.
“We wanted you to know, Most High Commander,” their spokesman said, “that while we are not privy to the circumstances which caused you to take this step, we fully support you in this, as in everything, no matter what the outcome.”
“Thank you all for your understanding,” Hurst said, bowing. “I trust that you will also offer your support to Most High Commander Jonnor, should he choose to request the blue arrows.”
There was just the slightest hesitation before he replied. “Of course.”
~~~
Hurst had always known that Trimon would be the shooter, for he was by far the most skilled archer of the four of them. They only had three days before they all left for the lines again, leaving Jonnor at the Karninghold, and getting a clear shot would be difficult with everyone so jittery, but Trimon was keen to try.
“I can spit him any time you like, so let’s get this over with. He’s at the training grounds every afternoon, what do you say?”
Now that the moment had arrived, Hurst found himself reluctant to begin. “There’s no rush,” he said. “We have three years, after all. We can afford to let things settle down a bit. Besides, we only have three shots at this, we don’t want to waste any.”
“I think Trimon’s right, for once,” Gantor said. “Jonnor will undoubtedly send for his own blue arrows, but we have a chance to get in first and settle the matter once and for all. If Trimon can get a clean shot, I think he should seize the chance.”
As it happened, an opportunity came the next day during the regular afternoon training. One moment the ground was just the usual sea of men clashing swords or practising at the targets or running round the perimeter, the air abuzz with grunts and curses and shouted orders. The next moment an arrow whistled from an upper window full into Jonnor’s chest and he fell like a toppled tree. Silence rippled out from the spot where he lay, everyone turning to look, shocked. Then, forgetting the Slave’s instructions, two of his Companions raced across to him.
Gantor pushed through the mesmerised crowd, shouting in alarm, and Hurst followed in his wake. When they reached Jonnor’s still form, Cole and Torman were gabbling excitedly.
“He’s alive! It’s all right!” they shrieked, then they saw Hurst and their faces closed in.
“Was something unclear about the Slave’s orders?” yelled Gantor. “You were supposed to stay away!”
They looked a little sheepish. One of the Healing Slaves appeared then and confirmed that Jonnor was alive, for the moment.
“Now we must wait,” he said solemnly. “The Gods have not taken him – yet, but until he wakes up, the matter is in their hands.”
“But he’s alive!” yelled Torman.
“Blue arrows do not kill,” said the Slave. “Only the Gods may do that. In all the confusion, they may not yet have noticed him. When they do, they will decide.”
More Slaves appeared, and the Karninghold Slave conferred in whispers with the Healing Slave. He knelt down beside Jonnor and examined him. Then they all stood in a circle, waiting, and eventually Jonnor began to come round. Torman and Cole smirked at Hurst in triumph. Hurst had used one of his arrows, and he had failed to kill Jonnor.
The Karninghold Slave glowered at Cole and Torman.
“You have been lucky this time,” he said severely to them. “You could have been affected by the miasma, it is very dangerous to be so close.”
“What does it matter?” said Cole fiercely. “If he dies, we die too. What difference does it make?”
“You must leave such matters to the Gods,” the Slave said.
Hurst was more shaken by this than he had expected. He thought he was prepared for any outcome; he had planned for it, after all. Even though the shooting had been by Trimon’s hand, not his own, it was his actions, his decisions which had brought this about.
Yet he had been with Jonnor for ten years, they were brothers under the law and skirmish-brothers too, and seeing him laid out on the ground unconscious was surprisingly upsetting. No amount of preparation was sufficient for the reality. One of them would die, that was the truth of the matter. It was a sobering moment.
Gantor was more concerned with Jonnor’s Companions.
“We have a problem,” he said. “Trimon can pop arrows into Jonnor as accurately as you like, but it’s no use if those three kishorn are going to gather round him every time. And Cole’s right, they have nothing to lose by it. What do they care if they get knocked out by the miasma too? It doesn’t even matter much if they die. But it does matter if they interfere with the outcome for Jonnor.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” said Trimon. “It was difficult enough today to get a clear shot at him, but they’re going to hang around him even more, now. Whatever he’s doing, they’ll be right there.”
“We’ll think of something,” Gantor said.
~~~
Hurst was away at the lines for more than a week, but he returned to the same situation. Jonnor had asked for his own blue arrows, but had not yet received a reply.
“So we still have an opportunity to get in before he can,” said Walst, “although how we are to get him alone I can’t imagine.”
“I have an idea about that, actually,” Gantor said. “Jonnor goes off for meat in the high tower every evening, and Cole, Torman and Zanikor eat in the family hall and then go through to the guards’ quarters, and Jonnor often meets them there. They don’t wait for him, though…”
“Ah!” said Trimon. “So he crosses the courtyard on his own. Of course!”
“Yes. Is there enough light for a clear sighting, do you think?”
“Oh, sure, there are plenty of lamps. It might even still be light at this time of year. I’ll scout it out.”
And only two days later, Jonnor dropped like a stone at the foot of the steps leading away from the family hall. There was no one else around at the time, for all the servants and guards not on duty were settled somewhere for the evening, so Trimon himself had to go and find one of the Slaves, a task which proved rather difficult. It took him more than an hour, by which time Jonnor was beginning to come round.
“Another arrow wasted!” Gantor fumed. “We will have to be very careful with the last one.”
“Maybe the Gods don’t want to take Jonnor,” Hurst said with a shrug. “Maybe they want me instead.”
“Pfft! Stuff that!” said Gantor. “The Gods aren’t that stupid.”
~~~
Hurst had thought a great deal about the blue arrows themselves, and also about the way forward after Jonnor was dead. He had not thought at all about the awkwardness inherent in a marriage where the two husbands were openly trying to kill each other, but had not yet succeeded. Despite the situation, he and Jonnor and Mia still had to endure family communion, had to manage the Karning together, had to struggle through the stillness and eat meat together, had to sleep each night just feet apart in rooms without so much as a door for privacy. It was a strain on all of them.
Jonnor spoke not a single word to Hurst, addressing him t
hrough Mia where communication was essential. Mia had stopped crying whenever she saw either of them, although she was white-faced and red-eyed. She was unfailingly polite, but her manner was distant.
Hurst bitterly regretted the loss of her easy-going friendship which had brought him so much comfort over the years. Every time he saw her sitting, head drooped, he felt the pain of grief like a spear through his heart. He wondered if it would better for all of them if he were to die instead of Jonnor, and began to consider taking the poison when Jonnor’s arrows arrived.
After a morning spent unproductively discussing some village problems, which none of them wished to leave the Karninghold to deal with, Jonnor stomped out, but Mia, to his surprise, lingered.
“May I talk to you?” she said hesitantly.
“Of course! Won’t you sit?”
She perched awkwardly on the edge of a chair. Hurst sat too, far enough away not to crowd her, and waited. She twisted her hands together, and he thought he had never seen her looking so wretched. He ached to take her in his arms, reassure her, comfort her, but he knew it was impossible. Nothing he could say would help.
Twice she started to speak, and then subsided, staring downwards.
“Mia? What is it?” he said gently. “You can say whatever you wish to me, you know.”
“I only… it’s just that… I wanted to know why,” she blurted. “I’d like to understand.”
“Of course,” he said at once, but inside he quailed. How could he tell her the truth? I can’t bear the thought of never sleeping with you again? I basked in your sunshine for a little while, and the world is all darkness without you… I love you, I want you, I need you… Would she understand it, even if he could say it?
“Was it because of—?” She waved one hand near her face where a tiny scar was the last remaining sign of Jonnor’s rage.
“No, no, not that. It was before that.”
“Oh. Because you said you weren’t going to… So I thought it might have been… that something must have happened. Did something happen? Between you and Jonnor?”
“In a way. You remember after we came back from the quiet, you and I?”
“Yes. Jonnor asked you to teach me some things.”
“That’s right. To teach you. Well, I assumed that meant I could share you, and I knew – well, you’d said once – that you wouldn’t mind that.”
“No, I wouldn’t mind.” She frowned, puzzled.
“But then when I asked about it, he wouldn’t. And… and…” He stopped. How could he explain?
“That was the reason? It was because of me?”
“Sort of. In a way. Well, no, not exactly. More because of Jonnor, his attitude to you. It just…”
He got up and began pacing the room, and she jumped up too, backing away a little.
He forced himself to be calm, and to sit again.
“I couldn’t bear it, Mia, and that’s the truth. For ten years, I waited, I hoped. Even after Tella died, it was all right. Jonnor and I had a deal, I would take charge of the lines and he would have you. I could cope with that, I didn’t know what I was missing. But then he asked me – asked me! – to sleep with you, he let me have you for a little while and then he took you away again! It was more than I could bear. So I asked for the arrows.”
“So this is why you hate him.”
“Hate him? I don’t hate him! He’s put me in an intolerable position, and it has to be resolved, that’s all. I couldn’t go on that way, not after… not after holding you in my arms, not loving you as I do.”
There, he had said it. Her face was chalk-white, her eyes wide with shock. How could she not know? It was astonishing.
She was still standing, and now she moved restlessly to the window and looked down into the training grounds. Then with a little sigh she turned to face him, rigid, arms carefully folded.
“If it’s me you want,” she said, flushing slightly, “we can still do that. Like we did when Jonnor was at the lines. Would that be enough for you?”
She spoke evenly, but he wondered if she hated the thought now, if she were forcing herself to make the offer.
“No, because we could never tell Jonnor. We know how he reacts to that, don’t we?”
“He wouldn’t do that again!” she said fiercely.
“Perhaps, who knows? There is always that risk, we would never be comfortable about it. And keeping it secret would be worse, for he would find out eventually, and… No, it would never work.”
“Perhaps if I talked to him…?”
But even as she spoke, he saw the realisation in her face. Jonnor would never agree.
“I’ve asked, I’ve tried to make him see…” Hurst stopped.
Jonnor enjoyed his power; that was the truth of it. As lead husband, he had the final word, and even though the law was on their side, in reality any arrangement could only be reached by mutual agreement. Hurst could see that Mia understood the problem.
“Besides, it’s too late now,” he went on. “I don’t think there’s any way we could reach an acceptable arrangement. I’m sorry, Mia, truly I am, I would not have had things turn out this way for the world, but he left me no choice.”
“There is always a choice.” Her voice was so low he could barely hear her.
“I felt there was no choice. And this way… in the end, when the dust settles, it will be better, you’ll see. We’ll get a new pair, bring us up to four again. I have a younger brother…”
She lifted her head sharply to stare at him. “Oh, you’ve got it all planned out, have you?”
“I’ve thought about it, of course. We have to think about the future, Mia.” He was aware he was pleading with her. He so badly wanted her to see the positive side to it.
“I don’t want him to die,” she whispered.
“Well, let’s be optimistic then, maybe it will be me who dies.”
“I don’t want either of you to die!” she said in a spurt of anger, and with that she swirled out of the room.
~~~
The next day Jonnor’s blue arrows arrived, and Hurst received his poison. As he emerged from the Slave’s meeting room, vial in hand, Gantor was waiting.
“I’ll take that,” he said, holding out his hand. “Don’t want you doing anything stupid on impulse. If you decide to do this, you’ll have to convince me you mean it first.”
Tamely Hurst handed it over. “It has to be kept locked away.”
“I have a lockable chest, don’t worry.”
There were two tense days when Jonnor and Hurst were both at the Karninghold. Neither Jonnor nor any of his Companions were expert marksmen, but any of them could have a lucky shot, so Hurst was not at all relaxed about it.
Whenever he was out in the open, he felt horribly exposed. Gantor and Walst went everywhere with him, one either side, all three of them constantly checking where Jonnor and his Companions were, and whether they carried bows. But there was no point in hiding away, for sooner or later the arrows would fly.
The first arrived late on the second day, fired by Jonnor himself, which missed Hurst by a wide margin and instead hit a swordsman in mid-swing on the far side of the training grounds. And only moments later, while everyone was distracted by that, the second was fired from a different direction. It passed close to Gantor’s head, eventually impaling itself harmlessly in a wooden door.
Hurst started to laugh, more from tension than amusement, but although he, Gantor and Walst scanned the crowds thronging the training grounds, the third arrow failed to appear, and Jonnor and his Companions had disappeared.
After that, Hurst was away at the lines for more than a week. He felt reasonably safe there. It was not impossible for Jonnor to turn up and have a shot at him during the skirmish, but it was much harder to get a clear shot in the midst of a melee. Besides, they couldn’t appear at the lines without him knowing about it. So he felt able to relax a little.
But as soon as he arrived back at the Karninghold, the instant he dismounted, he heard
the distinctive whine of an arrow. He didn’t see it, but there was a dull thud as something thwacked into the horse very close to his head. He heard the animal whinny in alarm, then Gantor’s voice: “What the Vortices?”
Then his legs gave way and the world went dark.
17: Temple (Mia)
Mia felt as if she had stepped into an unending nightmare. Just when it seemed the three of them had reached a new understanding, the world had fallen apart. Everything was changing, all the certainties of her life swept away.
The only surety now was that one or other of her husbands would die and she could find no comfort in either outcome. Jonnor had filled her dreams for ten years, and, even though the reality had not quite matched her hopes, she trembled at the prospect of his death. How could she bear it?
Yet the prospect of Hurst’s death was no better. He was her staunchest friend and supporter, always on her side, no matter what, and now she knew the reason – all these years, he had secretly loved her! Saying nothing, doing nothing, never more than a friend and yet the whole time he had harboured a passion for her. Even though it had brought them all to the blue arrows, still she saw the romantic element in it. She looked at him with new eyes.
Until recently, she had never compared her two husbands, never looked beneath the surface of either, but now she understood them both better. The man she had loved for so long had ignored her, mistreated her and hit her, and their new closer relationship could not change that. The one she had taken for granted had respected and loved her. It was sobering to realise how little she had known them.
She spent hours sitting on the window seat in her bedroom, a book lying disregarded on her lap, gazing out at the funeral tower beyond the walls. She couldn’t settle to her everyday chores, so she hid away. There was no trace of Tella here now, her gowns and scarves sent away, her wardrobes and mirrors packed up in the cellars. The last hint of her perfume had faded to nothing. All that was left of her was the exquisite golden dragon and a few pieces of jewelry, hidden in a drawer. And memories. Those would never fade.
The Plains of Kallanash Page 16
