“Well, well, the sheriff’s own daughter.” Bernold grinned. “The woman who would be a knight,” he sneered, turning his sword toward her. “Come on, then, Sir Renda of Brannagh! Man to man, peer to peer.”
But Renda stayed, sword leveled, even in her anger, too steady and war-seasoned to be drawn into a foolish attack by pride. “You are no knight, sirrah.”
“Oh,” he said with mock surprise, slashing his sword elegantly through the air, “oh, but I am.” He bowed grandly. “Sir Bernold of Avondale, Knight of Wirthing, at your service.”
“Nonsense.” Renda sneered. “We found the two knights you killed, thief. Stripped and left to rot beside the river.”
“Nay, madam, they were the thieves.” He laughed, slashing with the sword again and angling toward her to keep himself facing both women at once. “They attacked us, but we prevailed and killed them both. Wirthing does not trifle with thieves like the House of Brannagh,” he said, casting a look of contempt toward Gikka.
“Then Wirthing could stand to come up in the world,” quipped Gikka. “Better he should break his bread with the lowest of the low than with the likes of you.”
Anger flared in his eyes. “We did strip them, ‘tis true. After all, if everyone thinks that scoundrels dressed as Wirthing knights took the child, well,” he laughed wickedly, “who would blame real Wirthing knights?”
“A knight does not sell children, and certainly not to their deaths, Avondale.” Renda stepped between the two tables into a more open area, kicking aside several chairs as she went. “My niece was sacrificed like a goat to some wicked god, and her blood stains your hands. Were you a knight before, you are none now!”
The grin faded, and Bernold’s sword lowered slightly, but he raised it again in defiance. “We were hired to steal a virgin and bring her to the clearing.” He breathed deeply. “What became of her then is none of my affair.”
Renda’s gaze faltered for a moment and met Gikka’s. A virgin. The thought that even more evil had been done to Pegrine than what they had seen welled rage in Renda’s eyes.
Suddenly, Bernold took a step toward Renda and slashed at her, but she sidestepped and brought her sword down at his shoulder, cutting through his doublet with the poisoned side of the blade but not breaking his skin. But in moving aside, she had left the way to the door open.
Sir Bernold glanced toward the door, then back at Renda. They all he had but one chance for escape, the coward’s chance, and he took it. He slashed crudely toward Renda to drive her back, then bolted for the door, leapt atop his horse and viciously kicked the beast into a full gallop toward the west and into the city of Farras.
Renda and Gikka made their ways to their own horses and mounted, riding after him with all speed. Alandro was exhausted, as was Zinion, but the two horses pounded after the escaping knight with all their strength, ducking around merchant’s shops and flying over the cobblestone paths after him. The Wirthing horse was not their equal, but he was rested and they were not. They would be hard pressed to catch him.
The morning light was still gray, though the sun was peeking over the horizon now, and the streets were mercifully empty. Renda watched him turn left twice and smiled. Instead of staying to the main street, which would have taken him right through the city and into the wild forests to the northwest where he might have had the best chance of escape, he had gone instead into the densest part of the city and the most difficult to navigate. His impulsive turns and doubling back made it clear to her that he had no idea where he was or where he might go.
On the other hand, she and Gikka knew this area well. Kadak’s army had found the infamous Farras slums baffling and impossible to infiltrate during the war, and they had abandoned the effort early on. For that reason she had made of it her own base of operations for the liberation of Farras and most of the western campaigns. She signaled to Gikka.
Gikka whistled to her, and at once the Bremondine and her horse turned aside and disappeared into a thin alleyway that ran behind the sleepy marketplace and into the Maze behind it, a clot of tents, hovels, taverns and brothels with no easily discernible path through them. If Sir Bernold did not know his way already, he would certainly trap himself in any of a hundred constantly shifting culs-de-sacs.
Renda closed the distance between herself and the Wirthing knight. By now Alandro was close enough to bite the braided tail of the Wirthing stallion if he so chose, and soon enough, she would be able to engage the knight with her sword.
But the Wirthing knight glanced back at her with a sneer and kicked his mount even harder, driving the poor beast to gasp and wheeze, but managing to pull ahead of her.
Renda frowned. He had glanced back at her over his right shoulder. He would most likely turn suddenly to the left again, as he had shown inclination to do, and away from the Maze unless she could scare him off toward the right. She heeled Alandro hard to the left and drew her sword.
At the sound of her blade being unsheathed, Sir Bernold looked back at her again, this time seeing that she was at his left, and he veered sharply to the right, sparking his stirrup against the wall of the corner mercer’s shop as he passed into the Maze.
A grim smile passed over Renda’s features as she turned to follow him. In spite of the circumstances, in spite of the fact that she was fighting another knight instead of the demons in the war, it felt good to be fighting again. Not sparring, not mindlessly moving through her daily exercises, but actually fighting. By the gods, it felt good.
Sure you’d not take it all back.
A chill of danger touched her spine as she entered the alley, and she drew Alandro to a stop. Even with the sun rising, the Maze was dark. The only light that fell was feeble firelight coming from the hovels lining the path, and ahead she could see no sign of Gikka nor of the knight. Then, from a shadowy alcove just ahead, she heard the faintest huff and the shift of a pained hoof. Strategies raced through her mind, but slowly, far too slowly. Before she could prepare herself, Sir Bernold’s horse lunged at her. The knight charged her from the darkness, sword drawn.
She parried his blow away but his sheer power and size overwhelmed her, and she felt herself losing her balance. Instead of fighting it, she let herself fall from Alandro’s back, tumbling over her shoulder to land on her feet with her sword toward Sir Bernold. Her horse still stood between herself and the Wirthing knight. She circled around him and drew her second sword, taking the split second of luxury to scan the alley for Gikka.
She heard a splintering crack and a horse’s scream of agony. Alandro kicked again and his hooves connected squarely with the other horse’s chest. The Wirthing mount reared back in pain and bucked furiously, throwing Sir Bernold to the ground. It nearly trampled him in its rage and raced away streaming blood from its muzzle and chest. Renda doubted the horse would live without attention to his wounds.
Sir Bernold rose to his feet with menace in his eyes and stalked toward Alandro. “I would kill this ill-mannered beast, Brannagh,” he seethed, “but I shall have need of a mount after I kill you.”
“I doubt he would give you his back,” she answered with a smile and gave an elegant flourish with her swords. But the gesture was not idle and, with a quick neigh, Alandro turned and galloped away, down the alley toward Zinion and Gikka. She judged the sound of his hooves to have stopped only twenty yards away. Good, Gikka was near. Just like during the war.
“Shall we, sirrah?”
“Indeed,” he growled, circling toward her with his sword drawn. In the gray darkness she could see the white lining of the shirt peeking out from the slashes in his doublet and occasionally the whites of his eyes, but the rest of him she could see only when he moved. Twice, he nearly struck her before she saw the attack, and twice she managed to get her blade up barely in time. She felt a trace of panic rising in her heart. How had she gotten so slow? She quelled it, focusing as she had been taught on calm, on fighting the enemy, not her fear. Almost at once, her breathing slowed.
“You disappoi
nt me, Brannagh,” he laughed. “Praise your B’radik that I am drunk, or I should have dispatched you by now.”
“I think not.” Her accustomed skill was coming back to her. Control regained, she sliced at him with elegance, anticipated his parries and sidestepped them with renewed attacks. She watched his blade rise to block her strike and, to her delight, she was fast enough to take advantage of the opening he created for her. Her left blade bit into the flesh of his thigh. He flinched at the pain, but then he laughed. The blade had not bitten deeply enough to do harm. Had the sword been her right, he would already be writhing in agony from the poison. She brought her other sword up to push aside his next obvious attack from above, then slashed at him once more with her left blade.
He stepped in to bring his blade across her waist, but she was no longer there, and he overextended himself clumsily. In only a moment, he found himself held helpless against her with her sword edge locked against his throat.
“Mercy, I pray you, Brannagh.” His voice sounded tight and fearful. “I yield.”
“Tell me who hired you to steal my niece,” asked Renda quietly, tightening her grip at his resistance.
“And then you will release me?”
“No,” she replied coldly. “My blade split the verinara leaf, Bernold. I serve Rjeinar by this act, and you will die by my hand.” Her eyes glowed dark gold in the night. “But speak and clear your conscience ere you die.”
“Rjeinar…” He sagged against her, away from the blade, a motion that was meant to throw her off balance, but instead of struggling to hold him up, she turned away and let him fall at her feet, at once setting the point of her blade in the center of his throat and her foot on his chest. He stared in obvious horror at the thick green resin along the blade where it glinted in the meager light of the alleyway.
“Again, I ask, before I take my revenge upon you and send your soul into the stars, who hired you to take the sheriff’s granddaughter?”
He moved to shake his head, his eyes wide at the pinch of her blade against his skin. “No, no. It was not that we should take the sheriff’s granddaughter. He wanted a virgin, any virgin, and he said nothing about why. But her purity was of the utmost importance to him.”
“And you sold a seven years child into his lecherous grasp?” She pushed the blade against his throat. “Without a care to what evil he had in mind for her?”
“I knew right well what he might want of her. I simply did not care. Nay, one thing more I will make clear, though it provoke you to kill me on the spot. Knowing his purpose, as it seemed to me, it was my own idea that we should take the child from Brannagh.” A sneer crossed his lips again. “I’ve naught but contempt for the House of Brannagh, not since the war.”
“Animal.” She hissed the word, but she held the blade steady.
“If you’ve such contempt for Renda, why’d you not take your revenge on her and leave the little child be?” Gikka asked from the shadows.
“He wanted a virgin.” He shrugged, as if that explained it all, then smiled wickedly. “Besides, taking the child from beneath your very eyes would hurt ever the more and to the end of your days.”
Renda drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, steadying her nerves. “Who bought her from you?”
“You’ll not hear it from these lips.”
Renda’s pressed her blade deeper. “For the last time. Speak.”
“And once I am dead, what then?” He ventured a soft laugh, conscious of the blade against his windpipe. “You’ll still not know her killer’s name. What then of your revenge, Brannagh? What then of your precious dead niece?”
Gikka’s hand touched Renda’s shoulder, and the Bremondine woman whispered to her, something unspeakable.
She wanted to say no, to stay true to B’radik’s doctrines of truth and light as a Knight of Brannagh should, but as she looked at the verinara stain on her blade, she only sighed. “A rite of Cuvien…Is there no other way?”
At the name of the Bremondine goddess of torture, Bernold’s eyes widened.
Gikka shrugged. “He’d die with the name just to vex you, an he speaks true.” She shook her head solemnly. “No, I find with them who say they don’t fear dying and know that’s what is coming, a taste of pain works best,” she said evenly, drawing some sinister looking barbs and hooks from Zinion’s saddlebag. Then she looked down at Sir Bernold’s terrified expression and smiled. “Ain’t that right, lad?”
Four
Castle Brannagh
Alandro’s neighed salute had carried through the stable with an enthusiasm born of sheer will. He had tossed his head twice, and Renda could tell that he was pleased that she had come to gather him for the day’s journey, but before she could make her way to him, his huge head had bowed, and he’d stumbled in the stall where he stood, so deep was his exhaustion. Renda had stopped a moment to stroke his muzzle and speak some soothing words to him, but she had seen the sad realization in his eyes: today Alandro would stay home.
Instead, she had had the grooms saddle and bridle her brother’s sorrel stallion Hero, a powerful creature who since Roquandor’s death had become well used to carrying her father’s weight, and with full armor. It was Hero whom she now tapped up into a gentle gallop over the smoother flats that led toward the southeast. The sun was high already, and she judged that they would reach the temple by midday. She was not inclined to hurry.
Riding along the road beside the bright sunlit fields of her father’s lands and past the farmers who worked them, instead of stacks of golden amaranth and wheat she saw the discolored bundles of parchments that still lay waiting on the library table.
Would that it were not so.
Now looking back over the grim adventure of the night, she wondered bleakly, would it be so much to trade, all the famous errantry of her life, to have little Pegrine back, chirping and skipping through the castle halls again?
She and Gikka had returned to the castle just before sunrise for no more than an hour’s sleep and fresh horses after their ride from Farras. Some stubborn, disbelieving part of her had expected to find Pegrine there, dancing with anticipation in the entry hall, waiting to share with her some glorious miracle in the bailey gardens, a spider’s web or a fat squirrel patting away his winter cache. Renda’s sword hung at her side, only freshly wiped clean of Sir Bernold’s blood, and she at last knew the name of Pegrine’s killer. All the same, she had found herself looking for the little girl at the door.
Instead, she was greeted by silence and the unforgiving wretchedness of a home that had seen the death of a child. No one stirred within the walls. The sheriff, Lady Glynnis and most of the servants had spent the night in vigil and had not yet emerged from their chambers. Those few servants who had risen with the sun praised the gods for chores that took them out of doors and into the light and life and sun of the world.
The whole of the castle felt dead, empty of life and love. But as she walked through the ancient corridors of the keep, the air fairly bristled around her with a dull and restless outrage rising from the crypt where her kinsmen’s bones—Roquandor’s bones—whispered for vengeance. Patience, she prayed them. I shall not fail you.
On the way to her chamber she had seen the temple priests making their ways through the entry hall between the crates of Pegrine’s belongings that the maids had brought down. Nara would live, they announced wearily when Renda saw them out, although they had not the strength between them to awaken the nun. That would come with time. They declined Renda’s offer of guest chambers saying they would be expected at the temple, but she suspected they were anxious to leave the house of mourning. One, the elder of the two, saw the angry purple bruise on her wrist where she had caught the hilt of Sir Bernold’s sword and bowed his head in prayer. The two clerics exchanged glances before the second put two drops of healing oil on her wrist and rubbed them into the skin, apologizing for their weariness.
Then they were gone, and Renda stood rubbing her aching wrist, alone and undefend
ed amidst all the gathered treasures of Pegrine’s life.
The maids had spent the early morning hours crating Pegrine’s dolls, her wooden horses and knights, faded puzzles, toy animals, clothes and hair ribbons, everything, to free the child’s soul of attachments and speed her through the stars; the coachman from the orphanage in Farras would come in the afternoon to fetch the crates with many sympathies and grateful kowtows to the household, and then he would carry away the trappings of Pegrine’s life forever and free her soul of attachments.
All the little girl’s frocks and gowns save one had been carefully folded and wrapped so that the splinters of the crates would not ruin them. Renda had asked the maids to set aside Pegrine’s First Rite gown and the matching hair ribbons for the child to wear to the crypt. The gown was glorious and very grown up for being so tiny, purest white with delicate slashing in the sleeves to show the deep blue silk undersleeves and a lovely lace overskirt dotted here and there with tiny deep blue bows. It had been Pegrine’s favorite.
Forever. Renda shook her head sadly and rose from the steps, stretching the stiffness from her legs. Rather than give in to the thousand different hues of pain and sorrow, she turned and moved toward the stairway, flexing out the last aches from the night’s ride.
But as she turned to leave the hall, she saw something through the corner of her eye. In one of the crates of toys, she spied Pegrine’s wooden sword and picked it up. The hilt was worn smooth with hours of happy shadow fighting, and the cross guard was coming loose, but the blade had held up well with only a few nicks and scratches to mar the carving.
It had been Renda’s own, years ago, put into her tiny hand by her father despite Nara’s most strenuous objections, and it had been her favorite toy. Last spring at Pegrine’s birthday feast, Renda had been the one to place the sword in her niece’s hand, this time with Nara’s resigned acceptance if not her blessing. Knighthood, it seemed, was to become a tradition among Brannagh women, scandal be damned.
Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) Page 6
