We were ready to hold off bandits, but the king's army was another thing entirely. Maybe if we had a real gatehouse and portcullis on the curtain wall we could have withstood for long enough. Instead we had nothing but an outer wall with a stout wooden door barred against intruders—the keep had no door at all.
"No need to go to him, he's come for you," said Stala, confirming my thoughts.
The pulse of fear beat heavily in my throat. I didn't have much time. "Tisala—go to my room now and stay there. It'll be death for everyone if the king's men find you here. I'll make certain they don't search the keep, but I'm not sure I can keep them out of here altogether."
Blessed woman turned on her heel and made quick time up the stairs without argument. I waited until she was out of hearing and turned to the others.
"Stala, you keep the Guard from fighting, do you understand? They, and you, must stay here to protect Hurog. Keep Tisala safe as long as you can. As long as the troops say nothing about her—we don't, either. I don't think the king will try and force the issue—it would leave him with too much to explain."
Grim-faced, Stala nodded.
"Tosten, stay out of sight, too. As soon as we are gone, ride for Uncle Duraugh. Make certain he knows that Beckram is in trouble. I would have expected to hear from him sooner than this—maybe something happened to our message."
"You're going with them?"
"Yes, I have to. Don't worry, I'll get out of it. Oreg, can you find your way to Estian and to me in secret?"
Of us all, only Oreg didn't look worried. "Of course."
The sound of hoof on tile made us all jump. But it was only the guardsman's horse. He hadn't taken time to secure her and she'd wandered through the open doors and come to see what the fuss was about.
I ignored the man's embarrassed apology and set my foot in the stirrup. His stirrups were too short. From the mare's back I said, "Luck to you all," and rode out of the great hall without a backward glance, afraid that I'd lose my nerve if I didn't go.
I dismounted at the gates and tried to send the armsmen there to their quarters, but I made the mistake of letting them know just what I thought the king's troops wanted. They were reluctant to leave me alone.
"Begging your pardon, my lord," said Soren, dropping to his knees on the cold ground. "But you took my family and me in when we would have starved to death last winter. I'll not leave you alone with an unfriendly troop of men."
There was a murmur of agreement; the man who'd stayed on the wall called out as the king's troop approached. They were making good time, I thought, if they followed so close on the heels of my lookout.
"If I'm here alone," I explained, "they'll see no need for violence. But they've come looking for a fight—and they'll find reason for it if they can."
"If you are given an order, you will obey it," said my aunt's voice coldly. "Ward, you know better than to explain your orders." She looked at Soren and the defiant men, and sighed pointedly. "And if you have to explain your orders, make certain you do so clearly. Gentlemen, Oreg will accompany the Hurogmeten at a distance and retrieve him if it looks as though the king intends to harm him. In this way Ward is safe and Hurog won't suffer under an attack we cannot win. So go now before you endanger him further."
Her clear voice carried to the tops of the wall and the man who was there scrambled down the ladder and started for the guards' quarters without a word. His action inspired the rest, and Soren jumped to his feet and retreated with them, leaving me standing with my aunt.
"What'd you do, tell them you were going to let the king's men take you in order to save everyone here?" she said dryly after they'd gone.
I flushed and she shook her head. Then she leaned forward and pulled my ears until I bent down and she could kiss me. Without another word, she followed the path the men had taken and I was alone in the darkening bailey.
I walked to the gates, but before I could touch the bar to open them, something hit them with a reverberating crack and they bounced and flexed against the bar. The king's men were using a battering ram before parlaying with the guards that should have been on the walls. It made me even more sure what they were here for: They didn't parlay, because no man would give himself up to be taken to the Asylum unless he was truly crazy. For a second a humorless grin twisted my lips.
They hit the gates again. I wondered a minute where they'd found a timber to use as a ram, then remembered the rubbish pile just outside the wall. There might have been a broken timber or two large enough put to use.
The cups had bent around the bar until only a crowbar could have released it. Not having one handy, I moved out of the way and waited for them to open it from their side.
When the doors fell, the king's men swarmed over and I was glad I had decided not to fight. There must have been two hundred men. Flattering, I thought sourly.
With no one to offer them a fight, they stopped, casting alert gazes at the arrow slits in the third floor of the keep and the guard towers along the walls. I was standing next to the doors behind the men and they didn't notice me at first
The Blue Guard would never have made such a mistake—but these men weren't trained by my aunt. A harsh blow of a battle horn from beyond the walls stopped them, but they looked only in front, missing me entirely. If I hadn't been so frightened by what I intended to do, I would have grinned. Standing head and sometimes shoulders above most people, I didn't get overlooked very often.
Their ranks parted reluctantly and three men on horseback rode between them: troop commanders. The man nearest me was one of the king's pet sorcerers riding a big piebald mare with blue eyes. Vanity on his part, I thought. He preferred not to share his real name and was known as Jade Eyes. I'd never met him, but I'd heard him described. His face was extraordinarily beautiful, but it was his eyes that clinched it. They were a pale green rarer for humans than his horse's blue eyes were for a horse. The color stood out more in the context of the deep wine-red of his hair.
Beckram had told me that Jade Eyes was one of the king's lovers, though that wasn't the reason for his rank of king's sorcerer. I could feel his power washing over me as he searched my home for something. Whatever it was, he did not find it. Not even the most powerful sorcerer in the Five Kingdoms could invade Hurog with magic, not as long as Oreg was here. I doubt Jade Eyes even knew he'd been stopped.
Most days, Oreg was just Oreg, and I took the power he had for granted. Only once in a great while, like when he fooled the king's best sorcerer, did the knowledge of how good Oreg was awe me.
I turned my attention to the second of the two men. I did not know him, but, by the markings on his armor, he was one of the king's generals.
The third man was Garranon. There was no mistaking the slender build and curly brown hair, even though he rode on the far side of the other two men. His presence surprised me.
For well over a decade he'd been the king's favorite, until he chose to try to save his native Oranstone rather than cater to the king's whims. I understood he was still a power in court, but Jade Eyes had mostly replaced him in the king's bed.
I liked Garranon, which was odd, since he'd been the one to bring the original writ that robbed me of my home. But he'd had reason enough for it then. I did not like it that he'd come a second time.
When they'd ridden to the front of their army, the sorcerer and the general stopped—but Garranon rode his horse a few paces forward.
"Wardwick of Hurog," he called. His voice echoed against the stone of the keep; it would have carried easily over the clash of swords on a battlefield.
"Welcome, Lord Garranon," I said, trying to sound relaxed and a bit amused. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I really scared two or three of the men closest to me. I was unarmed, but they moved back to give me room anyway.
Garranon turned his horse and rode it back to where I stood and handed me a much folded sheet of vellum. His face was carefully expressionless, but his eyes told me he wasn't here willingly.
In a voice th
at carried clearly to anyone in the bailey who cared to listen, he said, "The king has discovered that his will was not done concerning this, his writ. He desires you, your brother, Tosten, Lord Duraugh, and his son Beckram to come before him and discuss this matter."
"I see," I said, handing the writ back to him. I wondered what I would have thought about that little speech if I hadn't talked to Tisala first, knowing that the king was still angry with my cousin. Would I have thought King Jakoven had chosen to hold a real, legal hearing? Perhaps—but probably not. I wasn't as stupid as I sometimes looked.
"None of the others you have named are here now." I wouldn't hand them my brother if I could help it. "I am always my king's humble servant and am willing to join him in Estian. Would you come in to eat your evening meal?" Tosten had enough sense to stay out of the way as I'd requested.
Garranon glanced at the general—I was going to have to find out who that was, as he was apparently in charge of this mess.
The general shook his head. "Our king desires your presence as soon as possible. We leave now."
I raised my eyebrows. "It will take me a moment to pack and gather my retinue."
"My orders were that there was to be no retinue. We have a spare horse. You will come now and bring Lord Tosten. We were informed that your brother was in residence."
They weren't even going to let me pack. So much for the polite fiction of a «discussion» before the king. I couldn't see what Jakoven was gaining by this, other than the enmity of all of Shavig, but I would find out eventually. Moving against the Hurogmeten was something entirely different than moving against Beckram, the half-Shavig son of Lord Duraugh of Iftahar. It had to be something bigger than simple vengeance—though with Jakoven it was hard to say for sure.
"Ah," I said. "Tosten has a lady friend whom he is visiting. He hasn't been completely forthcoming on where she lives—I believe it is somewhere within a day's ride of here. He's quite enamored of her. You know how young men are." Due to a beating my father had once given me, I speak very slowly. It was making the general restless, so I continued talking. "Still, he usually only spends a couple of weeks at a time with her, so he should be back next week some time. Would you like to wait?"
"No," snapped the man so quickly I heard his teeth click. "The king may send someone else for him if necessary." All polite fictions aside, I was a prisoner and he wasn't going to give me a chance to escape. He also was impatient enough that he wasn't going to search for Tosten. Something in me relaxed knowing my brother and Tisala were safe.
Garranon was still closer to me than the general, and no one but I could see his face. He gave me a wry smile. He knew me well enough to understand what I was doing to the general, but he made no attempt to interfere.
"Well then," I said with impatience, as if it had been the general who was keeping us waiting. "If you are in such a hurry, what are you waiting for? Where is this horse you have for me?"
The horse they brought forward was solid enough to bear my weight, but clearly wasn't going to outrun anything anytime soon. Maybe fifteen years ago it might have picked up a canter.
Garranon clearly expected me to object, but I didn't. I didn't need to escape on the road, because Oreg, as fanatically loyal to me as if the ancient platinum ring I wore still bound him to my service, would find me in Estian.
With a shrug, I checked the cinch, tightened it, and mounted. I rode out of the broken gates without waiting for them. I would have lost the pose of an uncaring, slightly silly lordling if I had looked back—so I didn't. The stupider they thought me, the easier it would be for Oreg to get me out of this mess.
We rode until full dark. We didn't make it to Tyrfannig, which was the nearest town, so they drew up camp in a relatively flat field. I protested mildly when my wrists were tied, but allowed it without active resistance. While the men cursed and stumbled about putting up tents, I sat by the fire and watched.
The soldiers had dismissed me as a threat, so the ropes around my wrists were loose and comfortable. They all knew the reason that the writ had been issued in the first place was that I was stupid. Very stupid. If they'd heard rumors that I'd recovered, the information was more than countered by my size (which had initially alarmed them), my slow speech, and the pretense I kept up that I believed I was going to a genial discussion despite the ties on my wrists. Garranon could have warned them, and I found it most interesting that he didn't.
I put my forehead against my knees and tried to get used to being off Hurog land again. My head ached, my bones ached, and my muscles felt without strength. It would ease in a couple of days, but only being back on Hurog land would make it leave entirely.
When I lay down to sleep, my arm was tied to the general's wrist and that rope was well-tied. He was taking my continued presence very seriously. That was all right—I didn't intend to escape tonight anyway.
As I closed my eyes, I could feel Jade Eyes watching me.
He hadn't yet uttered a word, but his eyes had followed me constantly. The surveillance bothered me, but it was the knowledge that he was a wizard that really gave me pause. Oreg was in a nearby copse of trees not a hundred yards away.
I knew where Oreg was because finding was my best talent. It was the only magic my father hadn't stolen from me the day he tried to beat me to death. I could work magic now, but finding was second nature.
I wish Oreg hadn't stopped so near us. In his dragon form he oozed magic. He covered it well, but I didn't know if he was aware how good Jade Eyes was. Dragons, I had learned, were arrogant creatures.
When I awoke, the first thing I saw was the mage's ice-green gaze.
"What is it?" Jade Eyes asked in a voice like honey, "that you do when you dream?"
It was an odd question and I couldn't see what he wanted from my answer.
Without conscious decision, I fell back upon my old habit of sounding stupid when I was defensive. "I sleep when I dream," I said. Had I done something while I slept?
"I could feel your magic beside us in the woods all night long," he said. "It tastes of you as your home tasted of you. But when the sun began to rise this morning and you awoke, the magic went away. Why is that?"
He had it backward, I thought. Oreg and I both tasted of my home, not the other way around. I realized that I'd been worried for naught. No one would believe in a dragon—Jade Eyes found it much easier to conjure up a new power from his imagination than to believe there were dragons at Hurog again. There was desire in his eyes that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the lust for power.
"I can't work magic anymore," I said. People who lusted after power were dangerous; one of them had destroyed Hurog.
"But that doesn't mean that the magic went away," he replied. "Magic doesn't do that. It came to us here and watched over you all night—I could feel it hover. You have given your magic an intelligence of its own. Did it happen when your father beat you?"
"If there is magic here, it is not mine," I said. I knew what must have happened: When Oreg had fallen asleep, he'd forgotten to mask his power. But Jade Eyes had certainly come up with an entertaining explanation.
He ignored me as if I hadn't spoken, rocking back on his heels and humming a bit to himself. When he stood up, he murmured, "I'll have to tell the king about this. How interesting."
Garranon's eyes met mine, worried. I shrugged. It wasn't a good thing to draw Jade Eyes's attention, but there was nothing I could do. Oreg was supposed to meet me in Estian, but he'd followed instead, and I had no way to tell him not to.
Ah, well, I thought, at least Jade Eyes thinks it is just me he is feeling. Nothing that would endanger Hurog.
Jade Eyes didn't speak to me again during the remainder of our journey, but he watched me all day, and when I awoke each morning, he was seated by my side staring at me again. The desire to cross my eyes and stick out my tongue at him grew almost overwhelming. But I was Hurogmeten and I had my dignity.
I was a model prisoner, joining in dicing games
in the evening, and rowdy songs during the day. The general, whose name I finally discovered was Lawin, eventually only tied me at night. I didn't play stupid—as I once had—but I didn't go out of my way to discuss philosophy and battle strategies, either.
Garranon kept to himself, like a man who'd betrayed a friend. I'd have told him not to fret, but it would have looked odd for me to search him out. I knew he'd had little choice. Jakoven liked to watch people writhe. Truth was, I wasn't precisely Garranon's friend; men in his position couldn't afford to have friends. But I liked him, and always had.
On the evening of the third day of the journey, Garranon sat down beside me. He squinted his eyes and looked at two of the men who were putting up a tent with swift efficiency.
"Gods, I'm sorry, Ward," he murmured in a voice that wouldn't carry farther than my ears.
"No need," I said back. "I know whose decision this is."
We sat for a while more in a surprisingly companionable silence.
"He can't decide what to do with me," said Garranon with bitter amusement. Someone else might have thought the comment came out of the blue.
"Jakoven?"
"Jade Eyes is his new favorite."
I nodded my head. "Does it bother you?"
Garranon laughed. "Not if he would let me go. I have a son, did you know?" He continued without waiting for my nod. "He's three and I've seen him twice. When I request leave to go to my estates, Jakoven says he can't do without me."
"Jakoven's still punishing you for joining Haverness to run the Vorsag out of Oranstone?" It wasn't really a question.
He shrugged. "I don't know what he's doing." He buried his head in his knees. "I'm not entirely certain he does, either."
I disagreed. I thought the king knew exactly what he was doing to Garranon, but I didn't say so.
We stayed there in silence until it was time to sleep. I hope I helped him as much as he helped me keep my panic at bay. Oreg was nearby, but I couldn't see any way out of this without putting Hurog at war with the king. Maybe my uncle would do better.
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