Knights Magi (Book 4)

by Terry Mancour

  “We had snuck away from Sir Hagun’s party, my maid and I, and gone back to Maramor to hold it in his absence. Foolish, perhaps, but . . . well, the manor was filled with the village folk. For a week things were . . . fine. A little chaotic, with the yard filled with villeins camping out, hiding from the goblins, but nothing bad. Folk went out to the village or the fields by day and came home to the safety of Maramor at night.

  “Then one night someone knocked on the gate and begged permission to come in. The steward let them in, curse him. I swear it was Alwer the Hayward. An hour later the gate was attacked. That . . . thing tore it right apart, and then there were goblins everywhere. My maid rushed me to the hiding place Sir Hagun had prepared and pushed me inside just as the goblins were coming up the stairs. I can still hear her screaming,” she said, her face locked in horror and regret, as tears fell down it. “And if it hadn’t been for Alwer . . .”

  “But what did Alwer do?” asked Rondal, his arms crossed. “What exactly did he do that was treacherous?”

  “He . . . he must have sabotaged the gate!” Arsella insisted. “Gotten word to his damnable confederates that . . . that . . .”

  “That there were people barricaded inside?” finished Rondal. “I doubt they needed his help for that. He didn’t even let them in, if there was a troll breaking down the gate,” he said, accusingly.

  “But he was there!” she insisted, tearfully. “He came in, then they attacked, and everyone got led away in chains! Everyone they didn’t kill on the spot! He sabotaged the gate, he must have, he betrayed the guards, he . . . he . . .”

  “If he had sabotaged the gate, milady,” Rondal said, quietly, “then the goblins would not have had recourse to a troll. But your gates were decidedly removed by a troll. Yet you still insist on Alwer’s treachery . . .”

  “I do!” she pleaded. “You must kill him!”

  “Thank you, milady,” Rondal said, bowing. “Sir Tyndal, did you hear all of that?”

  “Every word,” Tyndal said, as he mounted the narrow stairs, a magelight floating ahead of him. “The Long Ears spell. And . . . so did Goodman Alwer,” he continued, as the hayward followed behind him.

  “So what do you have to say to the accusations of your treachery made by Lady Arsella, Alwer of Maramor?”

  The peasant looked troubled as he stared at Rondal, then Tyndal, and then at the girl.

  “Well, milords, as far as treachery goes, I will swear on Trygg’s holy womb that I have never betrayed anyone, ever, as I am an honest man. Not even if my own life was at risk.” He sounded indignant and angry, but still cautious. “And as far as Lady Arsella is concerned, I know not what she says, if she still breathes at all. For that girl is not Lady Arsella.”

  Rondal and Tyndal stared at him, mouths agape. When they both looked back at the weeping woman, she had her face buried in her hands, sobbing.

  “What do you mean, Goodman?” asked Tyndal, slowly. Rondal was afraid to breathe.

  “I mean that girl is not Lady Arsella. Lady Arsella is younger, has truly blonde hair, and is more shapely about the face. Favors her mother, she does. This woman here is Maid Belsi. She’s Lady Arsella’s lady’s maid. Or at least she was.”

  “What?” Rondal and Tyndal asked, in shocked unison.

  “Do you want to tell the tale, lass, or should I?” Alwer asked, accusingly. When she didn’t answer, he shrugged and continued. “Tale was that old Sir Hagun’s older brother, Sir Hagbel, sired a bastard on a common village maiden in his youth, then got himself killed at tournament. Sir Hagun took the child in when she were old enough to foster, as a kindness and in honor of his brother. He had his own daughter, Arsella, just a year younger so it was a good fit.

  “’Tis true enough the girls slipped back to Maramor, and it’s true as well that the attack happened. Even that I came late to the gate. But I had tarried in the village to avoid a patrol, not collaborate with them. When they attacked it had nothing to do with me, that I swear. The girls ran into the manor when the attack came. We fought – by Duin’s sack, we fought, milords. Killed a few of them, too, but there wasn’t no getting around that troll. Then the evil men came and tied us up. All twenty-odd of us. Including Lady Arsella.”

  “So she was taken captive with you,” repeated Tyndal. “She didn’t escape into some hiding place.”

  “No,” Alwer agreed, slowly. “And that first night they had us, she said that her maid Belsi got to the hiding place first. That she had locked her out from inside. That she had screamed and cried for her to open it and let her in, but she did not.” His voice was filled with condemnation.

  “So what happened to Lady Arsella?” asked Rondal in a hushed voice.

  “I know not, milord. After that first night, we were separated out, men from women. So the . . . the evil men could have some sport before they took us north. I heard them. We all heard them. They screamed all night long, poor girls, but we were tied and could do naught. We were marched out at dawn the next day, but the women were still in camp. We got rescued that day but none of the womenfolk were ever seen again.”

  Belsi broke down in sobs anew at this news. Tyndal thanked the peasant man. “Go on down and have a cup or two . . . but do not speak of this to anyone, yet, Alwer. For now, she is still ‘Lady Arsella,’ is that clear?”

  “Aye, milord,” the peasant said, his eyes hard against the girl. “For now.”

  When he had gone, and Tyndal had shut the door behind him, Rondal took a seat on a stool near the window. “So . . . do you deny anything that Alwer said?”

  She would not look up or speak to them. Rondal repeated the question, but she still would not speak.

  Tyndal finally boomed, “Belsi of Maramor, you now stand accused of bearing false witness in a capital crime in a time of war. Will you not speak in your own defense?”

  The commanding tone brought the girl upright almost against her will . . . but soon she was kneeling in front of them both, her hands clasped, tears streaming down her face.

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “Do you deny the truth of what Alwer said?” repeated Rondal. He waited again for her to speak, and was about to accuse her again when she finally found words.

  “Do you have any idea what it was like, growing up here?” she spat, angrily, instead. “Do you have any idea what it was like knowing that but for a few words said in temple all of that . . . all of Maramor should have been mine? I was the older brother’s daughter!” she bellowed. “I was the older daughter!”

  “It all makes sense now,” Rondal said, almost to himself. “The way you knew your way around a kitchen better than most noble girls. How your clothes – her clothes – never quite fit. How you rarely referred to Sir Hagun as ‘father,’ he was always ‘Sir Hagun’.”

  “Why waste good coin on finery for a bastard servant girl?” she asked angrily. “They put her in silks while I was in cotton rags! When she wanted to slip away and come back to Maramor, she was trying to come back for more clothes, the stupid snot! Oh, I was the loyal little maid, doing everything she asked, everything she demanded, knowing all the time it should have been me giving the orders. You have no idea, you damned knights, knowing what it’s like to grow up a bastard and a commoner!”

  “Actually,” Rondal said, quietly, “Tyndal and I are both. We didn’t let it spoil our aspirations.”

  “What did you hope to gain from this deception, anyway?” asked Tyndal.

  “My birthright,” she said, hotly. “My legacy. But mostly my life. That day when they came, I was the faster one. I was the one who thought about the refuge first. I was the faster one up the stairs. She was always a little dim, a little slow, Arsella was. But bossy. But I got there first, and there was only room for one. Why should I yield my security and doom us both? Damn right I shut her out. I saw her, I heard her. Then I closed it and hid, and I’d do it again!”

  “All of which might be forgiven. But then you misrepresented yourself,” Tyndal continued, relentlessly. “You told
yourself off as a noblewoman to our company, claiming by deceit what was not yours by birth.”

  “I was fearful of the soldiers invading my home,” she said, indignantly. “Would your men have been as deferent to a servant girl as they were Lady Arsella of Maramor?” she accused.

  Rondal pursed his lips in thought as he considered what she said. Yes, he had to admit, her pretense to social status had, indeed, ensured her security at the outpost. There was no telling what would have happened if Belsi had revealed herself as a common serving girl, even around disciplined men.

  But what kind of man did she think Rondal was? He would not have allowed them to molest her. He had picked them on good recommendations from their commanders, and none had a reputation for such sport. While he understood her fear in a chaotic situation, he and his men had given no sign that they meant her ill. They treated her with the courtesy and respect any man who knew Ishi’s laws would. “Why did you persist, then, when it was clear that my men and I were well-behaved?”

  “Would you have extended me the treatment that you did if I hadn’t?” she demanded tearfully. “Would you have looked upon me as a peer, not as a hindrance? Would you have taken me seriously as common old Belsi, and not the noble Arsella?”

  “Now we shall never know,” Tyndal said, unprompted. His eyes were flashing angrily. “Because of your lies, Maid Belsi, you have inherited the legacy of their consequences. Pretending to be a noble, pretending to own Maramor, pretending to a name not your own. All are punishable offenses, in Castal, under civil law

  “All that,” he said, waving it away with a hand, “could be overlooked, under the circumstances. But,” he continued, his voice as sharp as a mageblade, “when you tried to murder a good man, an innocent man, by bearing false witness . . . that, Maid Belsi, is too much for an honorable man to ignore!”

  “I . . . I had no choice!” she insisted, her voice a pitiful wail. “If he told you what really happened that night, if he told you who I really was . . . I would have lost my only chance at Maramor!”

  “Maramor is lost,” Rondal said, his voice aching as he spoke. “I told you that when I arrived. Maramor is an abandoned estate behind enemy lines in a war zone. It has temporary utility as a military outpost, but until this land is recovered, it is lost. What would you have done had my men moved on the day after we arrived?”

  “Begged to go with you,” she admitted. “But as the gods delivered to me a chance, I took it. Would you have done otherwise in my place?”

  “Yes,” both boys said in unison.

  Tyndal continued. “We have done . . . less-than-honorable deeds in our lives, Maid Belsi,” he said, his contempt for her deeds obvious. “But we have never tried to murder in defense of our dishonor. You tried not merely to murder Alwer, but tried to do so by proxy, implicating other men in your crime. Through a sworn soldier of the King. Under the banner of war.” Each fact was spoken like an indictment. “According to the Laws of Duin, such actions are tantamount to looting and treason. Capital offenses subject to battlefield justice. What say you in defense of your actions?”

  Her eyes grew wide, and her face turned white. Her tears did not cease, but she stopped making noise. For some reason Rondal found that even harder to bear.

  “I beg you, Sir Tyndal, be merciful,” she said, finally, breaking the awful silence. “I knew not what I was doing! I was merely trying to survive!” She looked around desperately, seeking some means of escape. Rondal could see it in her eyes – like a trapped animal, watching frantically as its doom closed in.

  Suddenly her eyes alighted on him . . . and to his shock so did her ire.

  “If you seek a traitor, look to Sir Rondal, my lord! Regardless of his guilt or innocence, when I told him of the danger Alwer presented to you, he was reluctant to inform you. Reluctant enough that he sent out no messenger – I checked! Every day I checked! He had hopes that Alwer would be the assassin that would put an end to you! Can you not see how jealous he is of you?” she asked, as if it was the most apparent thing in the world.

  “Now why would Sir Rondal wish ill of me?” demanded Tyndal, scornfully.

  “Is it not obvious?” she snorted. “He has ambition of taking your position once you are dead! And, no doubt, my affections! Trust me, my lord, I have heard him say as much, though he speaks subtly. Once you were gone he—”

  “Would have twice as much work to do,” laughed Tyndal, derisively.

  Despite how distraught he felt over Arsella’s – Belsi’s – deception, the thought of being solely responsible for all that Master Min had in store for them was, indeed, terrifying. At least with Tyndal around, he did not have to bear it alone. On that basis alone he would have fought through a legion of goblins to rescue Tyndal right then, despite whatever ill-feelings might still stand between them.

  He looked at Belsi with a new light. Anyone who might mistake his feelings toward Tyndal for hate, hate enough to arrange his murder, truly did not understand him.

  “I assure you, my lord, he did nothing to alert you to the potential of danger—”

  “Which turned out not to be dangerous,” Tyndal pointed out.

  “Nor did he look forward to your arrival as a good comrade should,” she continued, ignoring his jibes. “He all but cursed the news!”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Tyndal said, “I’m quite the asshole, most of the time.” It amazed Rondal to hear him say it, although he wasn’t surprised at how perversely proud of the fact he seemed to be. “Sir Rondal and I have always had a rivalry,” he continued, thoughtfully. “But in fact he did send word to me by arcane methods . . . about all of his concerns,” he said, turning to her accusingly. “After he managed to save my life – curious behavior for a backstabbing traitor, don’t you think? – we discussed them in detail.”

  “If you think this man is your friend, Sir Tyndal,” she said, her eyes dark and desperate, “then you mistake yourself.”

  “Friend?” Tyndal asked, as if the word was strange in his mouth. “We are fellow apprentices. Comrades at arms. We grew up in the same village, near-enough. And we’re both knights magi, whatever that may come to mean. But I do not doubt he was not eager for my arrival, the same way I do not doubt for a moment that the idea of putting me in harm’s way unnecessarily never crossed his mind. Ishi’s tits, I do enough of that on my own!

  “But most of all you are mistaken, Maid Belsi, because Sir Rondal has no ambition to take my position. Why would he? He is my commanding officer.”

  Belsi gasped, her head turning to stare at Rondal. “You . . . are the commander?”

  “I am,” Rondal admitted, looking at her coolly. “In charge of the entire mission. Including the man you would have me put a dagger in.”

  She looked from one of them to the other, her mouth open in shock and surprise. “My lords . . .” she said, but nothing else was forthcoming as she struggled to reassess her position. “I admit my mistake,” she said, finally, her eyes tearful and downcast. “I abjure my falsehoods, and I . . . I appeal to your chivalry and your grace.”

  That last pleas seemed to make Tyndal even angrier.

  “My chivalry? You invoke that honor after you sought to use that institution as a weapon to protect your stolen position? How are you then entitled to its protection? Nay, chivalry flows from grace, and you have not earned that grace, in my eyes. You are false, Maiden,” he said, condemningly.

  “I am not!” she insisted. “I’m not! Please! If you bear me any love at all—”

  “And now she speaks of love,” he sneered harshly. “Your love is as inconstant as the sands, Maid Belsi! First you made eyes at brave Sir Rondal,” he said, scornfully. “Your admiration for him was clear to all – until I arrived. Then his heart was a phantom to you. Thinking I was his commander, you flashed your skirts at me instead to further your ambitions. Love? What cause have we to love you, madame? You who have conspired against us?”

  “I have not, I have not! I just wanted . . . wanted . . .”

/>   “Will we not have the truth?” Rondal growled.

  “I have told you the truth!” she pleaded.

  “I don’t think you have,” Tyndal said, conversationally, as he knelt in front of her. “And a knight mage must always seek the truth. So let us ensure that the truth is, indeed, spoken this night, before anything permanent is decided. I would not have your pretty neck stretched for a lie,” he said, darkly.

  “And how do you propose to do that?” Rondal asked, crossly.

  He felt miserable. He did like Belsi. He could understand her fear and her trepidations. But her aspirations to what did not belong to her disturbed him, and her willingness to use others so callously offended him. He remembered the few days they had enjoyed together, before Tyndal had arrived, when he felt as her protector. She had seemed so vulnerable, then.

  She seemed vulnerable now, but not in a delicate way. She was wretched, sobbing as she struggled for some response that might save her. It disgusted Rondal that someone he had respected had fallen so far from his estimation. As much as part of him still wanted to spare her any further humiliation, he knew his duty.

  “Blue magic,” Tyndal reminded him. “Ilsar’s Truthtelling. I know it well. A very potent version.”

  “Doesn’t that risk leaving her an idiot?” he asked. He wasn’t certain – he’d heard of such misfirings of spells before. It happened, with Blue Magic, from what he understand.

  “I’m not certain we’d know the difference, after this,” he smirked. “Let’s cast this and see what the little . . . maiden really thinks.”

  The threat was delivered calmly, but as soon as Belsi heard it her eyes opened even wider. “No! No, milords, I have spoken the truth to you I swear—!”

  “Then we shouldn’t hear any surprises then, should we?” asked Rondal, his nostrils flaring. “Go ahead, Sir Tyndal. On my authority.” He was angry, and he knew a commander shouldn’t make decisions based on his emotions. He was trying to be fair. How could this be unfair? “Let’s hear the truth. Then we’ll decide what shall be done with you.”