Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  Anyara wished this woman would leave her alone. She found more than enough that was hateful about her situation here in Vaymouth without being subjected to the babbling of the self-regarding butterflies who thronged the Moon Palace. She had heard of Tara Jerain, of course, even before she was brought here: the beautiful, cunning wife of the hated, still more cunning, Shadowhand. And Tara was indeed beautiful: eyes that even in this wintry light glittered like jewels, skin that bore a lustrous sheen of health. Her poise and confidence made Anyara feel like a child all over again.

  "Those who think they know about such things tell me we'll have snow here in a few days," Tara mused absently. "Some years we have none at all, you know. I enjoy snow, myself. It makes everything look better than it really is, like fine furs and gems."

  Again, that warm smile. Anyara could think of no good reason why the Chancellor's wife should suddenly have decided to make this pretence at friendship. She had paid her no attention before now. No one in the Moon Palace had.

  On the day of her arrival, Anyara--aching, tired and feeling entirely bedraggled--had endured a brief and rather strange audience with Gryvan oc Haig himself and his wife Abeh. They seemed more than a little bemused--in Abeh's case, offended--by her presence, as if she were an unexpected and unwanted guest they did not know what to do with. All of which served to irritate Anyara almost beyond concealment. She comforted herself by imagining that Aewult nan Haig might in due course learn precisely what the High Thane thought of sons who sent unsought hostages to their fathers.

  Since that initial, clumsy welcome, Anyara had found herself all but ignored. She had fine chambers on the favoured south flank of the palace. She was given gifts of gowns and necklaces. Maidservants were assigned to her service. But almost no one spoke to her. She was given no reason or excuse to leave those fine chambers, and if she did so of her own accord, she found herself oppressively shadowed by those same, watchful maids, who would herd her back to her rooms as if she were a wayward, simple-minded sheep in need of penning. She had asked, once, to borrow horses so that she and Coinach could ride out towards the sea. She had not expected the request to be granted, and it was not.

  "Your shieldman has been much remarked upon."

  Anyara glanced round. Coinach was standing a short distance away, by the gates that gave out onto these tidy gardens. He was rigidly straight-backed, staring ahead, steadfastly ignoring all the ladies and the servants and the children. It made Anyara smile, though she dipped her head to hide the expression from Tara Jerain. Coinach's determination to retain his dignity even in these disquieting circumstances had a touch of youthful pride and dogged loyalty about it that she found very pleasing.

  "He's a striking man," Tara observed. "And it's so unusual for us here to see a woman with so... martial an attendant."

  "Things are a little different in the north these days," Anyara said rather more sharply than she intended. She did not know whether it was Coinach or herself she was defending. "Very different. Perhaps if all of you --"

  Tara cut her short with a flourish of her smooth, ringed fingers.

  "That's not what I wanted to discuss with you, in any case. Really, it's a little too cold to spend more time than is necessary out here, don't you think? I have a proposition for you. I thought you might find it more comfortable, more... well, more comfortable, if we found you different quarters." Tara leaned in once more and whispered, "Things can be so formal and tedious here, don't you find?"

  "What have you got in mind?" Anyara asked cautiously.

  "My own home, of course. We have a great many rooms that might find favour in your eyes, and I think you'll find it a good deal quieter. Much more calming."

  Anyara thought for a moment or two, and then looked sideways at Tara.

  "Is this Gryvan's idea?" she asked. "He doesn't know what to do with me, so tidies me away into your care. Am I so much of an embarrassment to him?"

  Tara rolled her eyes in amused frustration. It was such a natural, relaxed gesture that Anyara found herself warming to the woman. She had to remind herself that this was the Shadowhand's wife, and by that measure unlikely to be a reliable friend.

  "Really," Tara said, "is everyone of your Blood so blunt? It's refreshing, but there is no need to make quite such a close alliance with suspicion. Look --" confiding, companionable "--there's been some misunderstanding between your brother and Aewult. Or between Aewult and Taim Narran. I don't know; I don't follow these things closely. But it will all be cleared up before long, I'm sure, particularly now that Mordyn is coming back to us."

  "Your husband?" Anyara said in surprise. She knew the Shadowhand had been injured and then gone missing in the chaos consuming the Kilkry Blood. It had been one of the charges--or suspicions at least--laid against her, against Orisian, by Aewult nan Haig when he took her hostage.

  "Oh, yes," Tara said with such undisguised, apparently uncontrived delight that Anyara once again felt that questionable twinge of affection for her. "Have you not heard? My husband is on his way south even now. He will be here very soon. And really, there's no need for you to be shut up in this marble tomb in the meantime. That is what I think, anyway, and the High Thane agrees."

  Anyara nodded thoughtfully. She did not dare to hope that all of this would really be so easily tidied away, but there was no denying that she hated the Moon Palace. If Gryvan oc Haig wanted her out of the way, for whatever reason, she was not inclined to resist.

  The two girls she had been watching earlier had turned back to their maids. One of them was poking a stick through the golden bars of her birdcage, trying to make the prisoner within sing.

  "All right," Anyara said. "I'd be grateful for your hospitality."

  "Do you find our new accommodation more to your taste?" Anyara asked Coinach.

  The shieldman shrugged and wrinkled his nose.

  "Each palace seems much like another to me. What colour it is makes little odds." He stood uncomfortably in the doorway of Anyara's new quarters in the Palace of Red Stone. His stiffness and formality amused her, for no obvious reason.

  "It's porphyry," she said. "The red."

  "Is it?"

  "Oh, don't try so hard to sound interested." Anyara lifted the finely carved lid of a massive chest at the foot of the bed and peered in. Sheets and blankets: linen, wool, silk. Better, if she was any judge, than what she had slept amidst in the High Thane's palace.

  "Sorry, my lady."

  "And don't start calling me that again," Anyara said in mock irritation. She sniffed the bowl of water at the bedside. It had a strong scent. Roses, perhaps. "There're more than enough ladies in this city already."

  Coinach made a non-committal noise that came surprisingly close to a grunt.

  "Perhaps now that we're little a less closely watched, we can start some training again," Anyara mused.

  Since leaving Kolkyre, there had been almost no opportunities for Anyara to refine her still rudimentary skills with a blade. The constant supervision had made it all but impossible. If she was honest, she feared drawing ridicule down upon herself and--even more so--upon Coinach if they were observed.

  "Perhaps," Coinach acknowledged without notable enthusiasm.

  The shieldman moved aside to allow a maidservant to enter, bearing fresh pillows for Anyara's bed. She was a short but graceful girl, much the same age as Anyara, with strikingly red hair. She gave a neat bobbing curtsy, and there was even a flicker of a smile on her face.

  "What's your name?" Anyara asked, wondering how far the warmer welcome she was receiving here would go.

  "Eleth, my lady."

  "I'm Anyara."

  "Oh yes. I know, my lady."

  "And this is Coinach."

  The maid blinked and cast a fleeting smile over her shoulder towards the warrior. Then, much to Anyara's surprise, she gave a little giggle. Coinach frowned, as darkly as if he had just heard someone impugning his honour.

  Eleth energetically plumped the pillows and arrayed them upon the be
d.

  "The lady asked if you would join her," she said as she worked. "There are sweetmeats and warm wine prepared in the Tapestry Room."

  Anyara and Coinach followed their guide through the Palace of Red Stone. It felt entirely unlike Gryvan oc Haig's gargantuan Moon Palace. Whatever splendour the Moon Palace bought through crude size and ostentation, the Chancellor's abode matched through elegance. From its meticulously painted ceilings to its cool marble passageways, every element of its fabric spoke in refined and tasteful tones. There was a sweet, faint aroma on the air that Anyara could not quite place, though it reminded her of spice.

  The Tapestry Room lived up to its name. Long tapestries covered three of its walls. In the fourth were set latticed windows, the light that fell from them diffused by shimmering, almost transparent curtains. Tara Jerain was already seated at a table bearing trays of tiny cakes and biscuits, and a jug of wine as darkly red as any Anyara had ever seen.

  Coinach waited by the door, distancing himself slightly from the pair of serving girls who also stood there. Tara glanced at the shieldman as Anyara settled into a chair.

  "Does he go everywhere with you, then?" she asked, without a trace of criticism or mockery.

  "Not everywhere," Anyara replied, slightly defensive. "But most places."

  "And why not?" Tara offered a platter laden with intricate, absurd little confections. "I am sure his presence must be of great comfort. In all manner of ways."

  Anyara wondered briefly if anything unseemly had been implied, but Tara was, as ever, smiling warmly. Whatever she said, it was always dressed in the livery of friendly, innocent banter.

  "I hope your bedchamber is satisfactory," Tara said.

  Anyara nodded as the flavours of almond and apple suffused her mouth. Such wonderful delicacies were unknown in her homeland. Tara gestured to one of the servants, who came nimbly forward and poured wine into a pair of goblets.

  "You must tell me at once if there's anything you require," the Chancellor's wife went on. "We will do whatever we can to make your stay here comfortable. Perhaps even pleasurable, I hope."

  "I would not want to cause you any inconvenience," Anyara said. She tasted the wine. Its rich warmth eased down her throat.

  Tara gave a little laugh. "Believe me, you need not concern yourself over such things. You cannot imagine how tedious it becomes to see only the same people, day after day after day. You are a most refreshing change, I can assure you."

  "Perhaps one thing, then," Anyara said, making a studied effort to sound casual and light-hearted. "I hoped, when I was at the Moon Palace, that it might be possible to borrow some horses, and ride out to the sea. The opportunity never arose."

  "Of course." Tara looked delighted by the suggestion. It was impossible to read the woman, Anyara thought. Or at least it was impossible to detect whatever calculation might lurk within her. Even Anyara's stubborn mistrust might be eroded by such meticulously crafted good humour.

  "Yes," Tara breezed on. "We may have to wait a day or three for the weather to don a clement face, but it would be good to get out of the city for a little while. I'll go with you, if you will have me. I've a very fine bay horse that would be just right for you, I'm sure. Although there's a grey, too, and he's a wonderfully gentle creature..."

  Tara chattered on, outlining the merits of various possible mounts. Anyara's attention drifted as the soothing wine, Tara's graceful voice, the soft light spilling in through the curtains, all conspired to lull her into comfortable distraction. She allowed herself briefly to wonder what it must be like to live this easy life, so abundant in its comforts. She mentally shook herself, hardening her lazy thoughts. Slaughter was still being done, far from these marble halls. Orisian and Taim Narran and countless others were still adrift in that storm. Her people were drowning in blood.

  She set down the cup of wine and pushed it carefully away from her. She was suddenly ashamed to be sitting here, in such company, amidst such grace, while others fought and died on fields that felt immeasurably distant.

  II

  When a clear morning at last arrived, and the horses were combed and saddled, it was a grand group that rode out from Vaymouth's southern Gold Gate. As well as Anyara and Coinach, Tara came with a pair of her maids, Eleth, three palace guards, the master of the stables and one of his boys. It was hardly the liberating solitude Anyara had half-hoped she and Coinach might be permitted, but it was movement, and change, and a brief escape from the encircling city walls, so she was determined to savour it.

  They rode down the north bank of the River Vay, following a broad cobbled road through vast fields of stubble. Wagons and mule trains were brushed aside by the two guards who rode ahead, forced to the very edge of the road to make way for the riding party. Farmworkers and travellers and traders stood in the rough verge, watching with irritation or fascination or resentment, according to their disposition, as Tara Jerain and her retinue trotted splendidly past. Anyara paid little attention to all of this. She breathed deeply, and lifted her face to the breeze coming in from the west. The air had the sea on it, and that felt more like home than anything had in many days.

  The fields were wide and flat, the sky ever-changing as rank after rank of long, twisted clouds processed overhead, the low sun winking in and out of sight behind them. They rode past a huge sprawl of jetties and quays and warehouses and inns. The tide was out, so beyond this mass of habitation and industry lay a prodigious expanse of dark mudflats, over which flocks of birds swept back and forth in coordinated precision.

  On an open stretch of the shore, at the head of a beach of brown sand, was a cluster of trees and about it a short, green sward. Tara brought them to a halt there and dismounted. The maids unpacked bundles of cold meats and preserved fruits. Anyara went to stand with Coinach at the very edge of the grass. She could smell the strandline, the long-familiar but recently forgotten scent of rotting seaweed and brine and wet sand. She was pleased to see on Coinach's face the same sad pleasure as she herself felt. He looked, as he stood there staring out to the immense flat horizon of the sea, more at ease than he had done for a long time. It felt good, that moment of shared sentiment, but it did not last. Tara walked over to them, bearing food.

  "We come hawking along here sometimes," the Chancellor's wife said. "Do you like hunting?"

  "Not particularly," Anyara said, knowing it sounded ill-humoured, but not caring.

  "Ah, well. I can imagine how hard it must be to take much pleasure in that kind of thing at the moment. Believe me, since my husband left to go north, nothing has tasted good to me. It must have been still harder for you, to suffer the losses you have this winter, and now to know nothing of your brother's fate."

  Anyara grimaced. There was nothing she was less eager to discuss than Orisian, or anything that had happened since Winterbirth.

  "I'm sorry," Tara said at once, and she sounded entirely genuine, aghast at her own behaviour. "Please forgive me. It is inexcusable to talk of such things without invitation. This sea air makes me foolish. That, and the promise of my husband's return. In seeking to offer comfort, I stumble about like an ignorant --"

  "It's all right," Anyara said to stanch the apologetic flow. "I'm glad for you. You must have been greatly concerned for the Chancellor's safety." And she found that she meant what she said. For all that Anyara disliked--detested--Mordyn Jerain, this woman's love for her husband was all too apparent. It felt churlish not to acknowledge such feelings.

  Tara nodded. "Oh, indeed. It was a misery, when so many terrible rumours were reaching us. I feel as though I am about to awaken from a bad dream. But what you and your family have suffered--my difficulties bear no comparison, especially now that they approach a happy resolution. Forgive me."

  "Look," said Coinach quietly at Anyara's side.

  Far off along the beach, back towards the harbour and dockyards, figures were running over the sand. They were so distant it was impossible to tell what was happening, and no sound could reach so far across t
he onshore wind, but it looked to be a pursuit of some kind. Something in the way the figures moved--their urgency, their effort--implied violence. They reached the line of breaking waves. Anyara could just make out the white speckling of spray bursting up as the first of them struggled through the shallow water.

  "How odd," Tara Jerain murmured.

  Someone fell, and the figures became indistinct, crowding in together in a dark mass. Sharp, angular movements suggested a flurry of knees and elbows.

  "They're killing him," Coinach said.

  "Surely not," said Tara then, puzzled, doubtful: "Perhaps they caught him thieving."

  "Perhaps you should send your guards to intervene," Anyara suggested. There was something in the silent, savage scene she found unsettling. Even though it was safely distant, it had a simple brutality that felt as though it could all too easily reach across that stretch of sand. It soured the air.

  "No, no," Tara said. She was a little uneasy and distracted now herself. "Best not to interfere. There's been a good deal of trouble recently, you know. I've heard that there has been much more... disturbance than is usual in the rougher parts of the city. As if some foul mood's taken hold of everyone at the same time. No, best to keep away from it. Perhaps we should make ready to return."

  In so far as she thought of it at all, Anyara had assumed that the Shadowhand's return would be marked by pomp, by ceremony or rejoicing, but it came suddenly and unheralded instead. She went, on the morning after their ride to the shore, to break her fast with Tara Jerain, as had quickly become their habit, and the Chancellor was simply there, sitting at the finely laid table. He was thinner than Anyara remembered. His skin had an ashen, bloodless quality.

  Until now, these meals had been far more comfortable--almost pleasurable--occasions than Anyara would have expected. Tara was an easy companion, always ready to smooth the conversation along in gentle fashion. This morning was different, and from the moment of her first step into the room, Anyara sensed the change.