Irons in the Fire (Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution)

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Branca

  Eshelwen Manor, in the Lescari Dukedom of Sharlac,

  31st of For-Autumn

  "Reniack has unearthed spies in Parnilesse who are reporting back to Triolle."

  Aremil's voice echoed from the stone walls of the same vaulted hall that Branca had found the first time she looked into his mind.

  Was this a childhood memory of some banqueting hall in his father's castle? What did it mean that he still chose to meet her here? Didn't he realise he could remake any place in his imagination? Though she noticed there were windows now, tall lancets patterned with coloured glass in a style that Tormalin's nobles had scorned for half a generation. What had prompted that?

  Didn't he wonder why he always saw her in whatever bedchamber or withdrawing room she was truly in instead of some imagined sanctuary? Had he even perceived the veils that Branca wrapped so carefully around her innermost self? Though of course, he always saw his friend Tathrin where he really was. Perhaps it hadn't yet occurred to him that those adept in Artifice could control such things when those without such skills could not. Not so long ago, she could easily have seen the answer to that question. Now, that wouldn't be so easy.

  Branca concentrated on the matter in hand. "Do we know if this man Karn sent any more spies sniffing around Carluse before he was killed, besides the ones he sent chasing those mercenaries?"

  With that portion of her intellect still here in Sharlac well aware that she was sitting in the morning parlour in this comfortable manor house, Branca listened for Lady Derenna's approach. The older woman sought news from Vanam and from their fellow plotters at least three times a day.

  "Kerith says there's no sign of anyone showing undue interest in them, though Failla jumps at every shadow."

  "If she's discovered, Duke Garnot won't be overly interested in Nath or Kerith."

  In her mind's eye, Branca saw Aremil sitting in his chair, his twisted body awkward, tremors shaking his left hand. Behind him, indistinct in the gloom, she saw a second reflection, pacing back and forth on strong, straight legs. Did he realise how he betrayed his frustration with his crippled condition? How could she warn him without revealing such humiliating knowledge?

  Was she the only one who saw this shadowy double image? Neither Kerith nor Jettin had mentioned it. Surely Kerith would have found it a curiosity worth discussing in his search for undiscovered aspects of Artifice? While Jettin would simply have thought it too good a joke not to share.

  She addressed herself to Aremil in his chair, the strongest reflection of how he saw himself. "You're sure all these threads trace back to Triolle?"

  "We're certain. Every spy we've identified has been passing word back to Master Hamare. Charoleia is doing all she can to unravel his webs, to find everyone who might threaten us."

  Both Aremils stopped still, looking intently at her.

  "Are you certain Lord Narese is to be trusted? That none of your letters are being intercepted?"

  "I am, and all our letters are wholly discreet. Unless Derenna is face to face with someone, she only writes as if they are discussing natural philosophy, alchemy and the like. They're all scholars of one sort or another, so she appears to be keeping them informed about experiments with rare earths and metals planned in Vanam. Warning them against adding anything to such a volatile mix."

  "Tell her to warn them everything's coming to the boil."

  A rich chuckle ran around the fan vaulting. Branca wondered if Aremil's real laugh would sound like that, or would it be distorted like his speech? It would be so strange to hear the hesitation, the hollowness in his words, when she returned to Vanam. She'd become so used to the ready fluency that aetheric enchantment granted him.

  His amusement was fleeting.

  "You must be careful. We cannot afford to lose you."

  The force of Aremil's emotion momentarily showed Branca the image of her that he held in his own mind.

  She was never more than an anonymous maid in Kerith's opinion, vague enough to be any one of a hundred women. Jettin did her the courtesy of remembering her features clearly, but when his attention wandered, he was inclined to picture her in her shift. Not that he'd ever seen her thus and Branca knew better than to mistake this for desire. It was merely the first thought Jettin had about any woman, and in her case, his imagination did not flatter her.

  Aremil did not flatter her. The face she saw through his mind's eye was the one she saw in any looking glass. She was no taller, no prettier, no more slender as she sat before him on a chair much like his own.

  But in Aremil's imagination, she wore silken gowns, expertly sewn to show her as shapely rather than dumpy. Her hair was long, as if it had grown uncut since girlhood rather than being regularly cropped to fit tidily under a linen cap. As if she were one of those pampered noblewomen with the leisure to have a maid brush such vanity with a hundred nightly strokes.

  She looked down at her hands. At least they were less red and chapped than they had been. Travelling as Lady Derenna's maid involved precious little scrubbing and washing and the herbalist Welgren carried at least as many cosmetics and ladies' lotions as he did palliatives and tinctures. Her most arduous task was biting her tongue to curb opinions out of keeping with her supposedly servile status.

  "Branca? Are you there?"

  Aremil tensed in his chair, looking this way and that.

  "I am."

  The coloured patterns of light on the flagstoned floor brightened, as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud outside this hall of Aremil's imagining.

  "Forgive me; I'm distracted. Lady Derenna is constantly on tenterhooks lest Duke Moncan discover something that implicates her husband in disloyalty."

  The coloured patterns darkened and Branca caught an echo of Aremil's smouldering resentment that his own father had so easily discarded his living son.

  "Isn't His Grace still shut up in his castle with his grief for his dead son?"

  "Supposedly." Branca frowned. "But Welgren keeps coming across patients who suspect Jackal Moncan is planning something. That's something Lady Derenna wants Charoleia to look into."

  "Charoleia has already traced the rumour back to Carluse. It goes no further and she suspects it's just Duke Garnot's malice. So she's been putting her own gloss on such tales, to keep Triolle's spies looking at Jackal Moncan rather than in our direction. That'll be prompting whatever speculation Welgren is hearing."

  "Good," Branca said, relieved.

  The distant Aremil began pacing.

  "If Lady Derenna is so concerned with discretion, is she spreading word of our purpose widely enough? Evord's army is marching down from the north now. They'll be crossing into Sharlac any day. We must be certain that the local lords won't raise their vassals to fight them."

  "She's made sure of every noble she says we can trust," Branca assured him. "We must have visited every second manor house throughout the dukedom." She hesitated. "You will tell us, when the fighting starts? Where it's happening?"

  She was sorely apprehensive, even though she'd only heard her parents' nightmarish tales of bloodshed. Those were bad enough. Lady Derenna's dread was incalculably greater. She and her family had suffered the loss of loved ones, the ruin of their properties and the anguish of failing in their duty to care for their vassals. Branca reminded herself of this whenever the noblewoman's aristocratic arrogance became too abrasive. Aremil wasn't the only one struggling with petty emotions, she acknowledged ruefully.

  "You'll know every step Evord's men take, I promise. Charoleia's insisting I come with her and Gruit to Abray, to be certain we hear all the news that we need to send on to you, Kerith and Nath as soon as possible. We set out on one of Gruit's river barges tomorrow."

  Was it her imagination or was the distant shadow of Aremil now armed with a sword and armoured like some knight from a tapestried joust? She blinked and the image vanished as if it had never existed.

  "What are you going to do now?"
>
  Branca could feel Aremil's reluctance to break off their conversation. Equally she could see that other half of him walking towards a door in the far wall. That hadn't been there before.

  "I should be packing. We're travelling again later today. Lady Derenna has letters to deal with before we leave and Welgren is spending his morning treating whatever interesting ailments he can find among Lord Narese's household." Branca allowed herself to enter the image Aremil held and rose from the chair in the echoing hall. "If either of them learns anything important, I'll tell you this evening."

  Yielding to a frivolous impulse, she curtsied. The magenta brocade of the unreal gown whispered across the flagstones.

  As the seated Aremil inclined his head, the shadowy figure behind him turned at the door to face her and swept a handsome bow. "Until later."

  Branca drew a deep breath. The unreality of the vast stone hall faded and her whole attention returned to the padded stool in Lord Narese's curio room. She looked at her dim reflection in the glass-fronted cabinet housing carefully catalogued specimens of pressed leaves and flowers.

  It would be so easy to turn Aremil's admiration for her into adoration. She could easily secure a share in the funds that kept him in such comfort. She could even grow her hair longer. Just like one of the bewigged prostitutes who strolled the road where she had her lodgings in Vanam. With a snort, she turned her back on the reflection and went to find Lady Derenna.

  The Sharlac noblewoman was in her bedchamber busily writing letters. She looked up as Branca knocked and entered. "What's the news?"

  "That we must be on our guard for spies from Triolle." Branca sat on the bed uninvited. At least Lady Derenna didn't stand on tiresome ceremony like some of the noble ladies she'd encountered on this trip. Those ladies who weren't eager partners in exploring the alchemy or natural philosophy that fascinated their husbands. "Duke Iruvain's intelligencer is causing Charoleia some concern."

  "Master Hamare?" Lady Derenna blew on the glistening ink to dry it. "I hear he's very astute." She folded the page carefully. "You can burn those." She nodded at a pile of discarded papers on the floor beside the table.

  Branca took them over to the small fire. Did Lady Narese's maids wonder at the quantities of feathery ash they cleared away each day? There wouldn't be much they could make of it. She and Derenna always made sure every page was completely burned before breaking up the blackened shadows with the fire irons just to be sure.

  "Duke Moncan will find precious few vassals answering any call to arms." Lips tightening, Lady Derenna pressed her ring into a drop of sealing wax. Stowing the letters in her writing desk, she closed it up and locked it with a key from the bunch hanging at her waist. "Let's see what Welgren has learned this morning." She snorted. "Besides how easy it is to burn oneself in a kitchen or to get a housemaid pregnant by tumbling her in a hayloft."

  Unfortunately Welgren's patients did tend to confirm Lady Derenna's low opinion of ordinary folk, Branca reflected.

  She followed the noblewoman out of the room, her eyes modestly lowered as befitted a noblewoman's personal maid. That gave her another good look at the frayed carpets along this corridor. The guest-chamber curtains were faded by the sun and the furniture would have been long out of style in Lord Narese's childhood.

  Though everything was polished and dusted daily. Most of her ladyship's share of the base Lescari coinage received in quarterly rents paid the paltry wages of a remarkable number of maids and menservants. The housemaid Branca was sharing a garret with had told her how the raw wool that could be easily sold for Tormalin silver was carded, spun and woven on Narese lands instead, with the cloth distributed to the tenantry at Solstice and Equinox.

  She'd also confided how Lord Narese's son and heir had nothing but contempt for his father's generosity. The whole household dreaded him inheriting. Fortunately, though grey-haired and portly, their lord was still in the prime of life.

  How could they expect any different, when the youth had been schooled by his mother's distant cousins in Tormalin and never taught any loyalty to those who'd become his vassals? And for all their generosity, Lord Narese and his lady always dressed in velvets and expensive lace. This trip had shown Branca plenty to confirm her low opinion of landed nobles; easily as much as argued in their favour.

  Branca followed Lady Derenna down the wide staircase. The manor had once been a single square stone keep that had defended Lord Narese's ancestors from attack. Now that keep was a tower dominating the northern face of a quadrangle built from humbler brick and plaster. All these newer rooms were lit with generous casements rather than narrow slits, the place grown into a family dwelling instead of the fortification it had once been. But a solid outer wall still ringed the residence, defending the stables, storehouses and the well-stocked kitchen garden. Solid gates were barred at dusk and every man of the household took his turn standing sentry, pacing the battlemented walkway that looked out over the streams and fishponds making up a further line of defence.

  Lady Derenna acknowledged a passing maid's curtsey as she went out into the garden in the hollow square's heart. Lord Narese was tending an apple tree espaliered across the warm brickwork.

  "Lady Derenna, have you come across this particular fruit before?" He twisted a ripe apple free and offered it to her.

  Lady Derenna used the small knife on her keychain to cut a slice. "No, my lord," she said after some consideration. "What a wonderful flavour."

  He nodded, satisfied. "We just have to breed some hardiness into it, so it survives our winters in an open orchard."

  Branca had learned some curious things on this trip. She'd known animals could be bred for vigour but it had never occurred to her that the same could be done with plants.

  "Lord Coelle had some interesting results when he grafted tender plants onto more robust rootstocks. You should write to him." Lady Derenna smiled. "Now, if you will excuse me, I must speak with Master Welgren."

  Lord Narese nodded. "Tell him to call on me this afternoon, if you please. I want to discuss his ideas on the healing properties of rosemary."

  "He'll be at your disposal," promised Lady Derenna.

  What gave Lady Derenna the right to answer for Welgren? Branca followed the noblewoman out of the garden and around the house towards the stable yard. It didn't matter that the herbalist would be just as keen as Lord Narese to debate how plants could be used in healing. What gave any noble the right to assume everyone else was at their beck and call?

  "Good, he's nearly done." The noblewoman surveyed the few humbly dressed men and women still waiting outside the storeroom that had been given over to Welgren. She knocked on the door and went in. "A moment of your time, if you please."

  "A moment's silence, if you please, so I can listen."

  Branca looked through the door to see that Welgren was leaning over in front of a shirtless man sitting on a stool. Beside them, the table was laden with his pestle and mortar, leather pouches and twists of parchment, and an array of bottles. The herbalist was holding one end of a thin metal rod to the man's naked chest, the other end carefully inserted into his own ear.

  "If you could take a deep breath and try to hold it, please."

  A dirty swathe of bandage stained with pus and blood lay on the cobbled floor. As Welgren moved away, Branca saw the patient's face. His eyes were sunken, his complexion unhealthily yellowed. If he was in good health, he'd be handsome enough, with thick fair hair and strong features.

  "That's Karn!" Trembling with the shock of recognition, she darted in through the open door and slammed it closed behind her.

  "What?"

  As Lady Derenna turned towards Branca, the man snatched the copper rod from Welgren and lashed out at the herbalist. Welgren recoiled, but not fast enough to save himself from a stinging blow across his upraised hands.

  "What--?" Lady Derenna's question was cut short as the man Branca knew to be Karn seized her. Stepping behind her, he slid the copper rod across her throat. Holding i
t at both ends, he pulled it back hard. Lady Derenna arched against him, her chin forced upwards. She clutched at the rod, trying to drag it away, but he was too strong.

  Sunlight filtered in through the dusty panes of the high barred windows. Branca heard muffled sounds from the yard as everyone went about their normal business outside.

  "Get away from the door." Karn's shadowed eyes were murderous.

  "Whoever you are, that wound needs treating." Welgren tucked his hands under his armpits, wincing with pain.

  "It hasn't killed me yet." Karn's gaze didn't waver. "You, bitch, away from the door."

  "There are three of us and one of you." Branca tried desperately to think of some aetheric enchantment to use.

  "Two when I snap her neck." Karn drew back harder on the sounding bar and Lady Derenna choked. "And his hands are already broken."

  "I believe they are." Welgren sat down heavily on the stool.

  "Move away from the door or I'll kill her, and then him. Then I'll ram this rod into your eye and out through the back of your head," Karn promised Branca.

  She didn't need Artifice to know that was no empty threat. Her feet felt mortared to the floor, though. She couldn't move if she wanted to.

  Lady Derenna snatched at the chain hanging from her belt and stabbed her little knife into Karn's thigh. Taken by surprise, his hold on the sounding bar loosened sufficiently for her to drive an elbow into his ribs.

  His scream of pain was out of all proportion to the strength of the blow. Doubled up, he reeled away. Branca saw a festering wound in his back oozing fresh red blood. In the next breath he recovered though, sending the copper rod slicing audibly through the air to strike Lady Derenna's head. She fell like a sheep stunned for slaughter.

  Welgren sprang up from his stool. Wounded or not, Karn was ready. But Welgren wasn't trying to seize him. Instead, he threw a glittering shower of liquid all over the Triolle man's face and naked chest.