“Rathelon’s ours to bring to trial in Béarn.”
Garn nodded in understanding, still positive he was overlooking something. “Isn’t that good news?”
Baran slid his leg from beneath his buttocks and sat in the chair properly. Continuously, he refolded and unfolded the parchment. “Knowing the king of Béarn, how do you think he’ll sentence his cousin?”
“Knowing Sterrane . . .” Garn repeated as he considered. “. . . surely he’d. . . .” When the answer did not come at once, his brow furrowed, and he dropped the thread of his sentence.
“I’ve seen traitors and war criminals paraded before the king’s justice for twelve years now. No matter the crime, I’ve yet to see Sterrane sentence one to death.”
Garn finished the thought. “And you think that’s the sentence Rathelon should get?”
Baran stiffened suddenly, as if he feared he had chosen his confidant wrongly. “Don’t you?”
“Hell, I told you that the first time. You’re the one who didn’t want to second-guess the king.”
“Right.” Apparently reminded of the coronation, Baran emitted a short, tight-lipped laugh that seemed more like a grunt.
A horrible idea came to Garn. “You don’t think Sterrane would banish Rathelon again? Do you? Wouldn’t that just start this whole mess over again?”
“Imprisonment, more likely.” Baran sighed, saying nothing more.
Garn still did not understand why the captain of Béarn had confided in him. He waited, certain that, given time, Baran would reveal his motives.
Baran returned the note to his pocket. For some time, he fidgeted in silence. His obvious pain made Garn cringe in sympathy, but he did not yet have enough information to make the captain’s lot easier.
At length, Baran broke the silence with a question so soft Garn all but missed it. “I do have to take this note to the king. Don’t I?” His gaze jumped guiltily to Garn.
Now Garn paused, fighting the ignorance that made a coherent answer impossible. Surely, Baran was not suggesting leaving Rathelon in Erythane’s custody. Stories about social custom gave him no reason to picture Erythane’s dungeon as any nastier or more secure than Béarn’s own. “I don’t know,” he said carefully. “What are the other options?”
Baran seemed to be talking to himself, rocking in time to the pattern of his speech. “If only we could have met in combat. Wartime law would have given us the right to kill him.” Suddenly, Baran’s fist crashed to the desktop. “Why? Why, in Dakoi’s deepest pit, did they have to catch him alive?” He pounded the desk again. “Rathelon practically built this prison. If anyone could escape it, he could; and more people will die in the name of the king’s mercy.”
Baran bent his fingers into claws, clapping his head between his hands. “I love my king, Garn. I can’t think of any man in the world I’d rather serve. I especially admire his justice. No matter how cautiously the law is worded, if a kingdom institutes death as punishment, some innocent will eventually die. But, damn it, Garn, Rathelon deserves to die. For the good of the king and his people, the traitor has to die.” He looked up, running his fingers across his face, then dropping his hands to his sides. “What happens when one of my guards tries to feed Rathelon, and Morhane’s bastard kills him? That’s an innocent life lost, too. That alone is enough to justify the execution, even without the added danger of having Rathelon loose in Béarn. Once we haul him here, we negate his banishment, and he becomes free to terrorize or kill the king, his children, and my men.”
Garn retreated from Baran’s tirade. “You don’t have to justify Rathelon’s death to me. Given the chance, I’d do it with my own hands.” His lips bent into an evil smile. “I believe some guard captain said the same thing in a drunken stupor at a king’s coronation.”
Baran managed an awkward grin.
“What if you and I went to collect Rathelon and he tried to escape? If he happened to die in the process of regaining control. . . ?” Garn let the possibility hang, excited by the prospect of facing off with Rathelon at last. It had seemed predestined since his first encounter with the sneering Béarnide.
Baran shuffled his feet on the stone floor. “It would have to be a legitimate attempt. And we’d have to avoid harming him if at all possible.” He sighed. “The worst part of the whole thing is, if someone else tried to hurt him while he was in our custody, we’d have to protect him.”
Garn clung to his original scenario. “What if he attacked you? Or someone you brought with you?”
“We’d have the right to defend ourselves. Whatever it took.”
“Then take me with you.”
“What?”
“Take me with you. Don’t tell me it’s not what you want. You and I can retrieve Rathelon.” Garn recalled Rathelon’s final threat at the castle gates, aware that only he and Baran had heard it. “I don’t doubt for a moment that, if I go, Rathelon will give us trouble. And we’ll need to defend against him.”
“Don’t you and your friends have another problem to deal with?”
“Yes,” Garn admitted. “But they’ve got everyone they need, I think. Sterrane offered Colbey as many Béarnian soldiers as he wanted.”
“I also heard Colbey refuse that offer. He said he thought stealth would prove more important than numbers.”
Garn believed Colbey more likely turned down the assistance from concern for shorting Sterrane’s defenses and from pride. “I’m just saying that, if Colbey decides he needs someone strong along, I’m easy enough to replace.”
Baran took a deep breath, but the words he gathered never came. Apparently, he still fought an internal battle.
Believing his plan foolproof as well as brilliant, Garn pressed. “What’s wrong?”
“I just can’t help feeling dishonorable.”
“Why?”
“It’s the king’s decision. I shouldn’t be out there goading a prisoner to pass sentence on himself.”
“Does the note say you have to tell Sterrane?”
“No.”
“Does it say you can’t bring along a man Rathelon hates?”
“Well, no. But I think those things are implied.”
“Look, Baran.” Recalling his first meeting with Mar Lon, Garn drew on the deep-seated religious beliefs that most men held. He knew from experience that even the most logical tended to credit gods with everything unexplained or fortuitous. “It’s out of our hands. It’s fate. Think about it. Rathelon gets captured. Within days, I show up in Béarn. Do you think that’s coincidence? How can you doubt that some higher power arranged for this to happen?” More probably, Rathelon had gotten word that Garn had returned to the area and the Béarnide had come hunting him. Or, perhaps, the knights had grown more vigilant following the death of one of their own.
Baran’s brow furrowed as he considered an argument that seemed indisputable. “All right,” he said at last. “You make arrangements to meet back with your friends afterward, and I’ll take you to Erythane. We leave in the morning.” He rose.
Garn stood also, clamping a hand to Baran’s shoulder. “You’re a good captain, Baran Bardersson.”
Baran thumped Garn’s arm in return. “That, my friend, remains to be seen.”
* * *
That night, Arduwyn paced the master bedroom of the three-room castle quarters he shared with Bel and Sylva. His wife lay, curled like a fetus on the coverlet of their bed, her body shuddering in rhythm to her tears. The silver streaks through the long, brown hair he loved only made her more attractive, reminding him of the years of pleasure they had shared. Her plump curves always seemed stalwart and healthy. Her round face and dark, liquid eyes had become so familiar, they defined love. Her every sob cut him like a knife.
“Bel.” Arduwyn stopped his pacing to sit on the edge of the bed. He smoothed strands of hair from her face, revealing a tanned cheek.
Bel turned her head, regarding Arduwyn through the opening he had created in her curtain of hair. “Please don’t go. Please.”
One hand closed over his wiry arm, clutching with a desperation that tore through Arduwyn’s conscience.
“Bel.” Arduwyn slipped his hands beneath Bel’s arms, pulling her into an embrace. Wrenched by her misery, he held her close. “I’ll only be gone a few days. Don’t make this into more than it is. You know I love you.”
“No!” Bel sobbed into Arduwyn’s chest. “Don’t go! Something bad’s going to happen. I just know it.”
Arduwyn shivered, making a religious gesture to ward away evil with a hand looped beneath her armpit. “Don’t say things like that. Everything will be fine. I’ll stand behind the swordsman if they come to war, and I’m not too proud to run.” He kissed the top of her head, then her brow. “Innocent lives depend on my forest knowledge. Garn, Mitrian, and Colbey have kept me safe in the past. And they’re friends. How can I not do everything in my power to help them?”
“Because!” Bel pulled away. Her voice went cold, raw from crying. “You have obligations here. They’re your friends? What am I, then? Don’t my needs matter?”
Arduwyn reached for Bel again, but she evaded him. Cut to the heart, he let his hands fall to the coverlet. “Of course your needs matter. More than anything. But Sterrane’s here. And a whole host of courtiers and servants. You can spare me for a few days.”
“I can spare you for a few days. I can’t spare you forever.” Bel moved further, arms crossed over her ample bosom. “Garn’s not your friend. I remember a day when he all but killed you for no reason.”
Arduwyn cringed, recalling the time that Garn had gone into a wild, uncontrollable rage at the mention of Rache’s name, pounding him nearly to oblivion before Sterrane intervened.
Bel continued, “You rescued Mitrian once already. You owe her nothing. And I don’t want you under the command of the Deathseeker. He seemed as crazy as they say he is the first time I met him. Now that I’ve seen him again, I’m sure he’s cruel and violent as well.”
Arduwyn said nothing, knowing that most of Bel’s impression stemmed from rumor, though it held some truth. He pulled at his hands, searching for the words he needed. Years behind a merchant’s table, selling wares to reluctant patrons, had made him a convincing speaker. Yet the strength of his love for Bel, even after so many years, still flustered him. His heart hammered into him the need to make her happy; but, this time, his devotion felt torn. His loyalty to his friends meant too much to abandon, even for Bel’s comfort, but he could not find the argument to make her understand.
“You promised me, Arduwyn. You said you’d never go away again.”
“Yes, I said that.” Arduwyn spoke, barely above a whisper. He placed a hand on Bel’s, tracing the loose skin around her fingers. “And I meant it. But I need you to free me from that vow.” He met her tear-blurred gaze, trying to keep his expression as desperately earnest as her own. “Whatever you think of Colbey, the Northmen’s three hostages are blameless. How can I just leave them?”
“They’re strangers,” Bel said, her assessment as cold as anything Arduwyn could remember ever having heard from Colbey.
“That doesn’t matter. What if the Northmen had Sylva? What if the only people who could save her refused because they didn’t know her?”
Bel looked away. “That’s not the same thing.”
But it was. Arduwyn knew that either Bel realized that and chose to argue anyway or else she refused to see the comparison. In either case, his insistence in that vein would accomplish nothing. “Bel, innocent lives are at stake, including that of an unborn baby. My friends need me. My vow to you means everything, but so do my vows to my friends and to the Westlands. I’m going. And this discussion is over.”
It was the first time Arduwyn could remember feeling strongly enough about anything to override Bel’s protests; but, in his mind, he had no choice.
Bel whirled to face Arduwyn, rage darkening her eyes. “How long will you be gone?”
Arduwyn guessed. “Six, maybe seven days.”
“If you don’t return by the twelfth day of the month of bright stars . . .” Bel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “. . . I’ll kill myself.”
“What!” Bel’s words staggered Arduwyn, and he quickly did the math. She had given him exactly seven days. He caught both of her wrists. “No! Don’t talk insane, and don’t torture me. I love you. I’ll be home as quickly as I can. Isn’t my word enough?”
“Apparently not.” Bel glared, not a hint of triumph or amusement sliding through the seriousness of her expression, no hint of bluff. “Your promise to stay meant little enough to you.”
“Bel,” Arduwyn started. “That’s not—”
Bel shook free of his hold. “See that you’re home by the twelfth.”
“Things unforeseen could delay us.” Arduwyn felt the contents of his stomach clutch and roll. Surely, Bel would not carry out such a threat. Or would she? It was a chance he dared not take. “You can’t do this. You wouldn’t. . . .”
“Do you love me?” Bel asked. “And your daughter?”
Finally, Arduwyn had found a question he could answer without need for thought or wars of conscience. “More than anything. You know that.”
“Then see to it you return in time.”
* * *
The forest wonders of the Wolf Point Woods had gladdened Arduwyn since his childhood: crisp air, the crackle and flash of passing animals, leaves orange, red, and ocher splashed on a background of greenery. Daily, his father had shown him the sights and laws of nature, instilling a love and desire that he had pursued long after his father’s death. The woodlands beckoned, promising a life without responsibility or judgment, a world where the strongest and cleverest survived, without the need for the emotional games only people could invent or play.
This day, as on the last two, Arduwyn brushed past trees, seeing only the necessary, passing the panoramas, the bird choruses, and the game trails with the fleeting, ephemeral notice of a man in a dream. The hunter had scarcely spoken since joining the party. When he did, he used short phrases and only addressed Mitrian. Bel’s threat weighted his soul like an iron wall, barring him from all gladness.
Arduwyn chose to walk, even through the stream, while the others rode. He would not miss a single track or sign, nothing that might cause him to choose even one step wrongly. Three days gone. Arduwyn shook water from his boots and stared into the woodlands east of Erythane. I’ll make it home in time. His gaze fell on Colbey and the white beacon that was his horse. Arduwyn shuddered. Trouble seemed to follow the old Renshai, even when he did not spark it purposely, and Arduwyn could not spare more than a single day at Wolf Point.
Brush crackled at the forest’s edge. Arduwyn tensed, then recognized Korgar emerging from the brush, Shadimar’s wolf at his side. The barbarian plucked at Colbey’s sleeve, obviously agitated. “Anem.” He made a brisk gesture at Arduwyn’s quiver. “Stick spears.”
“Northmen,” Colbey explained. “I think he’s saying they’re archers.”
Arduwyn froze, alarmed. Of them all, only he truly understood the deadliness of even a lone archer in woodlands.
Apparently, Korgar had not finished. He continued to tug at Colbey’s sleeve. “Trees. Up.” Releasing Colbey, he jabbed the end of the spear toward the interlace of branches overhead. “Anem.” He flashed his hands several times to indicate numbers.
Arduwyn guessed that either the barbarian thought the group should hide from the archers in the trees or the archers were waiting in the trees to ambush them.
More accustomed to conversing with Korgar, Colbey apparently chose the latter possibility. In the past, the barbarian had always just informed, never trying to suggest courses of action. The Renshai swore. “I expected something like this. They want all of us dead.”
Arduwyn bit his lip, saying nothing.
“What do we do?” Mitrian asked.
No answer came. For once, not even the great sword master or the Eastern Wizard could offer a solution, to Arduwyn’s surprise. For his own part, he knew precisel
y what to do, though he dreaded the idea. He knelt, dangling his fingers in the wind-cooled waters of the stream he had just crossed. Finding no solace from within or without, he chose to speak his plan aloud.
* * *
Hours later, Arduwyn paced along the stream, his boots crushing the charred remains of the once healthy copse that would now serve as a firebreak. As dark as the destruction around him, his single eye beseeched the fickle wind sprites to continue flowing southward, toward the stream. He dared not call upon the god of hunters, feeling like a traitor. He had lit the fire, his hand shaking. The sudden flare of the flames exploded through his memory repeatedly, each time bringing a deserved pain. He had watched the fire follow the winds, consuming all in its path until it died in the stream. All that remained to haunt his conscience was the barren patch with nothing left to burn, a safety zone from the larger fire that Colbey and Rache were setting.
The acrid reek of smoke drifted to Arduwyn, reminding him of his own role in the slaughter. Soon, smaller fires would become an all-consuming red hell that would leave the Northern archers three choices: to die in the smoke and heat, to run to the burnt copse by the stream where Mitrian and Tannin waited with readied swords, or to hide in the Wolf Point cave, where Valr Kirin surely held his captives. Arduwyn could not imagine the archers choosing any but the last course. He only hoped the denizens of the woodlands would find the stream.
Shadimar watched in silence. At his master’s side, Secodon snuffled the breeze, whining.
Arduwyn knelt, wrapped his arms around the wolf, and buried his face in the furry ruff. He tried to console himself by clinging to the one animal he knew he could save. It’s only a small piece of the forest. That, alone, did not bother Arduwyn. Even nature found ways to destroy masses of ancient trees and matted underbrush to make way for new growth. But Arduwyn knew how swiftly fire could escape control. So he prayed to Weese, the Western god of winds, that his direction would not change; mental apologies twined through Arduwyn’s supplications. The imagined death screams of sylvan spirits and animal orphans weighed as heavily on Arduwyn as Bel’s threat.
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