Cold Fury: King's Convicts III

by Gail Z. Martin

  One man began to sing along with gusto, making up for with enthusiasm what his tenor lacked in tone. Another voice, a woman’s, joined his, and then more chimed in until a huge, off-key choir made their way toward Bay-town belting out the bawdy lyrics of a bar tune at the top of their lungs.

  Piran’s singing was notoriously bad, but even he sang along. Verran was fairly dancing to the tune he played as others clapped and whistled. One of the female convicts grabbed Dawe’s hand and pulled him into a few dance steps, laughing as they tripped and stumbled. Kestel linked arms with Piran and Blaine and joined in the song. Blaine hummed along, not trusting his voice to hold, feeling completely overwhelmed.

  True to their word, the colonists of Bay-town were waiting for them. Ifrem, the owner of the Crooked House tavern, had told Blaine that the colony did its best to welcome the convicts when new groups were released. At the time, Blaine wondered whether or not it was an idle promise, but now, he realized that Ifrem had downplayed the reality.

  Hundreds of colonists lined the roadway when the former prisoners made the last turn toward the city. The colonists began to cheer and shout. Some waved Donderath flags or homemade pennants and banners. Others clapped as the newly-released convicts came into view. The bell in the city tower began to peal in celebration. The cold night air smelled of wood smoke and roasting meat, and Blaine realized how hungry he was now that the worst was over.

  As Blaine and the others reached the wharfs, the colonists moved toward them. The same warehouse that had welcomed Blaine and Piran and the half-drowned herring fishermen was lit with fires in metal barrels and enough lanterns to illuminate its cavernous interior.

  A short, pudgy middle-aged man stood on a crate in the center, clapping his hands for the crowd to hush. “Attention, everyone! Attention!”

  The group grew quiet, and the man on the crate motioned for the newcomers to gather around him. The established colonists drew back to line the walls of the warehouse. “My name is Adger. I’m on the Merchant Council—and I run the town’s distillery.” A cheer went up from the newly freed convicts at that, and Piran was one of those hooting the loudest.

  Adger motioned for silence. “Congratulations on securing your Tickets of Leave! I speak from experience when I tell you that we all understand.” The colonists along the walls nodded.

  “Arrangements have been made to help all of you find your way here in Bay-town,” Adger continued. “Tonight you’ll sleep here. The colony has a general fund to provide a few necessities like your food and drink tonight and bedding. Tomorrow, we’ll match you to suitable work, get you introduced to the people you need to know to make your transition, and complete the lottery so you can purchase a homestead.”

  Blaine looked around the huge warehouse. He wondered how many of the others felt utterly at a loss, as he did, now that freedom was a reality. All those years, I was so focused on surviving to get my Ticket, Blaine thought. The plans we made seemed like dreams, so far out of reach. Maybe I never quite believed it would happen. And now that it’s real, I’m not entirely sure what to do.

  Adger looked out over the group, with an expression that made Blaine think the distiller had an inkling of how the new colonists were feeling. “Tonight we celebrate, with warm food and plenty of grog. Many of your new neighbors are here tonight. Ask them questions. Get to know them. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other,” he added, and the established colonists chuckled. “Then get a good night’s sleep. You’ve got a new life waiting for you.”

  A group of musicians struck up a merry tune. Blaine was not surprised to see that Verran had joined them. Piran spotted someone he recognized and wended his way through the crowd toward a familiar face. Dawe was already in line for food. Blaine was hungry, but still too wound up from the day’s events to eat. While Kestel chatted with one of the Bay-town women, Blaine drifted back toward the warehouse doorway, and slipped outside, into the azure polar night.

  The sea breeze rustled his chestnut hair. Right after I get a good bath, a shave and a haircut are top of my list, he thought. It took time to adjust to prison. I never realized that being free again would take getting used to.

  The waters of Skalgerston Bay stretched off to the dark horizon. Far across that ocean lay Donderath, with the home and loved ones Blaine would never see again. He drew in a deep breath of cold, fresh air, letting it revive him. His thoughts were awhirl, his feelings confused. Relief. Uncertainty. Happiness—tempered with concern. Lingering anger and fear of the unknown. All those emotions and more swirled in a mix that made him queasy.

  He glanced back as the door opened. Kestel slipped out, drawing her cloak around herself as the wind caught her red hair. “Not hungry?” she asked, coming over to stand next to him.

  Blaine shook his head. “I thought I was,” he admitted. “But my stomach’s off. Too much happening.”

  She smiled. “Don’t wait long. Everyone else looked ravenous.” They stood together in silence for a few minutes.

  “Thank you,” Blaine said quietly. “For what you arranged back at the prison. Prokief really wasn’t going to let us go. I’m not sure what would have happened if your man hadn’t shown up when he did.”

  Kestel nodded. “I had a feeling Prokief would try something. That’s why I warned you, and why I had Corrender word his letter the way he did and send his emissary to deliver it.”

  Blaine smiled. “If you were anyone else, I’d wonder whether you knew what you were getting yourself into, homesteading with the likes of us,” he admitted. “But I think you can handle it.”

  Kestel grinned. “Oh, be sure of that. We’ll make a good team. Complimentary skills. We’ll share the chores. I’ll mind the livestock and tend the kitchen garden. Dawe’s probably already getting set up with one of the local blacksmiths, and Verran’s found his fellow musicians. Mark my words—he’ll be playing for coins at the Crooked House tomorrow night. I’m not worried about you and Piran finding work. After breakfast, we’ll pay for our land and building materials, so we can start on the house and barn.” She let out a long breath. “We’re not just going to survive—we’re going to do just fine.”

  “Aren’t you worried that people will talk?” Blaine asked. “I mean, you’re moving in with four men.”

  Kestel shrugged. “People will talk no matter what I do. That’s the problem with a reputation, and mine breaks the rules in every way possible. They’ll figure out soon enough that I’m not a courtesan anymore. They don’t need to know about the spying. And if they mind their manners, I’ll stay out of the assassin business.” She grinned. “If they think the four of you are very lucky fellows, well, it’s up to you whether you tell them the truth or not.”

  Blaine snorted, expecting that he and the others would be open to quite a bit of ribbing and speculation, and not giving a tinker’s damn. “Maybe it’s a good thing Donderath is so far away,” he said, looking out over the harbor lights. “We’ve got something here we’d never get back home. A chance to start completely over, and see what we can make of things.”

  Kestel nodded. “Time to stop looking back, stop thinking of Donderath as ‘home’. If we’re going to make a go of this, really succeed, we’ve got to leave it all behind. Edgeland is home now, and the people we choose are our families.”

  “That’s going to take some getting used to,” Blaine said. “But I think I like the sound of it.”

  Excerpt from Ice Forged

  Prologue

  “This has to end.” Blaine McFadden looked at his sister Mari huddled in the bed, covers drawn up to her chin. She was sobbing hard enough that it nearly robbed her of breath, and leaning against Aunt Judith, who murmured consolations. Just sixteen, Mari looked small and lost. A vivid bruise marked one cheek. She struggled to hold her nightgown together where it had been ripped down the front.

  “You’re upsetting her more.” Judith cast a reproving glance his way.

  “I’m upsetting her? Father’s the one to blame for this. That drunken sonofabitc
h…” Blaine’s right hand opened and closed, itching for the pommel of his sword.

  “Blaine…” Judith’s voice warned him off.

  “After what he did…you stand up for him?”

  Judith McFadden Ainsworth raised her head to meet his gaze. She was a thin, handsome woman in her middle years; and when she dressed for court, it was still possible to see a glimpse of the beauty she had been in her youth. Tonight, she looked worn. “Of course not.”

  “I’m sick of his rages. Sick of being beaten when he’s on one of his binges…”

  Judith’s lips quirked. “You’ve been too tall for him to beat for years now.”

  At twenty years old and a few inches over six feet tall, Blaine stood a hand’s breadth taller than Lord McFadden. While he had his mother’s dark chestnut hair, his blue eyes were a match in color and determination to his father’s. Blaine had always been secretly pleased that while he resembled his father enough to avoid questions of paternity, in build and features, he took after his mother’s side of the family. Where his father was short and round, Blaine was tall and rangy. Ian McFadden’s features had the smashed look of a brawler; Blaine’s were more regular, and if not quite handsome, better than passable. He was honest enough to know that though he might not be the first man in a room to catch a lady’s eye, he was pleasant enough in face and manner to attract the attention of at least one female by the end of the evening. The work he did around the manor and its lands had filled out his chest and arms. He was no longer the small, thin boy his father caned for the slightest infraction.

  “He killed our mother when she got between him and me. He took his temper out on my hide until I was tall enough to fight back. He started beating Carr when I got too big to thrash. I had to put his horse down after he’d beaten it and broken its legs. Now this…it has to stop!”

  “Blaine, please.” Judith turned, and Blaine could see tears in her eyes. “Anything you do will only make it worse. I know my brother’s tempers better than anyone.” Absently, she stroked Mari’s hair.

  “By the gods…did he…” But the shamed look on Judith’s face as she turned away answered Blaine’s question.

  “I’ll kill that son of a bitch,” Blaine muttered, turning away and sprinting down the hall.

  “Blaine, don’t. Blaine—”

  He took the stairs at a run. Above the fireplace in the parlor hung two broadswords, weapons that had once belonged to his grandfather. Blaine snatched down the lowest broadsword. Its grip felt heavy and familiar in his hand.

  “Master Blaine…” Edward followed him into the room. The elderly man was alarmed as his gaze fell from Blaine’s face to the weapon in his hand. Edward had been Glenreith’s seneschal for longer than Blaine had been alive. Edward: the expert manager, the budget master and the family’s secret keeper.

  “Where is he?”

  “Who, m’lord?”

  Blaine caught Edward by the arm and Edward shrank back from his gaze. “My whore-spawned father, that’s who. Where is he?”

  “Master Blaine, I beg you…”

  “Where is he?”

  “He headed for the gardens. He had his pipe with him.”

  Blaine headed for the manor’s front entrance at a dead run. Judith was half-way down the stairs. “Blaine, think about this. Blaine—”

  He flung open the door so hard that it crashed against the wall. Blaine ran down the manor’s sweeping stone steps. A full moon lit the sloping lawn well enough for Blaine to make out the figure of a man in the distance, strolling down the carriage lane. The smell of his father’s pipe smoke wafted back to him, as hated as the odor of camphor that always clung to Lord McFadden’s clothing.

  The older man turned at the sound of Blaine’s running footsteps. “You bastard! You bloody bastard!” Blaine shouted.

  Lord Ian McFadden’s eyes narrowed as he saw the sword in Blaine’s hand. Dropping his pipe, the man grabbed a rake that leaned against the stone fence edging the carriageway. He held its thick oak handle across his body like a staff. Lord McFadden might be well into his fifth decade, but in his youth he had been an officer in the king’s army, where he had earned King Merrill’s notice and his gratitude. “Go back inside boy. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  Blaine did not slow down or lower his sword. “Why? Why Mari? There’s no shortage of court whores. Why Mari?”

  Lord McFadden’s face reddened. “Because I can. Now drop that sword if you know what’s good for you.”

  Blaine‘s blood thundered in his ears. In the distance, he could hear Judith screaming his name.

  “I guess this cur needs to be taught a lesson.” Lord McFadden swung at Blaine with enough force to have shattered his skull if Blaine had not ducked the heavy rake. McFadden gave a roar and swung again, but Blaine lurched forward, taking the blow on his shoulder to get inside McFadden’s guard. The broadsword sank hilt deep into the man’s chest, slicing through his waistcoat.

  Lord McFadden’s body shuddered, and he dropped the rake. He met Blaine’s gaze, his eyes, wide with surprise. “Didn’t think you had it in you,” he gasped.

  Behind him, Blaine could hear footsteps pounding on the cobblestones; he heard panicked shouts and Judith’s scream. Nothing mattered to him, nothing at all except for the ashen face of his father. Blood soaked Lord McFadden’s clothing and gobbets of it splashed Blaine’s hand and shirt. He gasped for breath, his mouth working like a hooked fish out of water. Blaine let him slide from the sword, watched numbly as his father fell backwards onto the carriageway in a spreading pool of blood.

  “Master Blaine, what have you done?” Selden, the grounds keeper was the first to reach the scene. He gazed in horror at Lord McFadden who lay twitching on the ground, breathing in labored, slow gasps.

  Blaine’s grip tightened on the sword in his hand. “Something someone should have done years ago.”

  A crowd of servants was gathering; Blaine could hear their whispers and the sound of their steps on the cobblestones. “Blaine! Blaine!” He barely recognized Judith’s voice. Raw from screaming, choked with tears, his aunt must have gathered her skirts like a milkmaid to run from the house this quickly. “Let me through!”

  Heaving for breath, Judith pushed past Selden and grabbed Blaine’s left arm to steady herself. “Oh, by the gods Blaine, what will become of us now?”

  Lord McFadden wheezed painfully and went still.

  Shock replaced numbness as the rage drained from Blaine’s body. It’s actually over. He’s finally dead.

  “Blaine, can you hear me?” Judith was shaking his left arm. Her tone had regained control, alarmed but no longer panicked.

  “He swung first,” Blaine replied distantly. “I don’t think he realized, until the end, that I actually meant to do it.”

  “When the king hears—”

  Blaine snapped back to himself and turned toward Judith. “Say nothing about Mari to anyone,” he growled in a voice low enough that only she could hear. “I’ll pay the consequences. But it’s for naught if she’s shamed. I’ve thrown my life away for nothing if she’s dishonored.” He dropped the bloody sword, gripping Judith by the forearm. “Swear to it.”

  Judith’s eyes were wide but Blaine could see she was calm. “I swear.”

  Selden and several of the other servants moved around them, giving Blaine a wary glance as they bent to carry Lord McFarlane’s body back to the manor.

  “The king will find out. He’ll take your title…Oh Blaine, you’ll hang for this.”

  Blaine swallowed hard. A knot of fear tightened in his stomach as he stared at the blood on his hand, and the darkening stain on the cobblestones. Better to die avenged than crouch like a beaten dog. He met Judith’s eyes and a wave of cold resignation washed over him.

  “He won’t hurt Mari or Carr again. Ever. Carr will inherit when he’s old enough. Odds are the king will name you guardian until then. Nothing will change—”

  “Except that you’ll hang for murder,” Judith said miserably.
/>   “Yes,” Blaine replied, folding his aunt against his chest as she sobbed. “Except for that.”

  “You have been charged with murder. Murder of a lord, and murder of your own father.” King Merrill’s voice thundered through the judgment hall. “How do you plead?” A muted buzz of whispered conversation hummed from the packed audience in the galleries. Blaine McFadden knelt where the guards had forced him down, shackled at the wrists and ankles. Unshaven and filthy from more than a week in the king’s dungeon, Blaine’s long brown hair hung loose around his face. He lifted his head to look at the king defiantly.

  “Guilty as charged, Your Majesty. He was a murdering son of a bitch—”

  “Silence!”

  The guard at Blaine’s right shoulder cuffed him hard. Blaine straightened, and lifted his head once more. I’m not sorry and I’ll be damned if I’ll apologize, even to the king. Let’s get this over with. He avoided the curious stares of the courtiers and nobles in the gallery, those for whom death and punishment were nothing more than gossip and entertainment.

  Only two faces caught his eye. Judith sat stiffly, her face unreadable although her eyes glinted angrily. Beside her sat Carensa, daughter of the Earl of Rhystorp. He and Carensa had been betrothed to wed later that spring. Carensa was dressed in mourning clothes; her face was ashen and her eyes were red-rimmed. Blaine could not meet her gaze. Of all that his actions cost him, title, lands, fortune and life, losing Carensa was the only loss that mattered.

  The king turned his attention back to Blaine. “The penalty for common murder is hanging. For killing a noble—not to mention your own father—the penalty is beheading.”

  A gasp went up from the crowd. Carensa swayed in her seat as if she might faint, and Judith reached out to steady her.