“Is this how you treat your hostages, paladin? You’re still an Oyrwyn running dog. I knew it.”
Allystaire sighed, and shook his head, ignoring the fact that Idgen Marte had stepped to his side and shifted her stance, preparing to shove her away. Expecting me to lead with my fists?
“Landen,” he said quietly, “I had nothing to do with how you are being treated. I have been unconscious for more than a week, and only awoke last eve. I assumed that Lord Garth of Highgate would know better than this. Tell me everything about how they have treated you.”
That took some of the wind out of Landen, who blinked several times, before gathering herself again and answering sourly. “They give us naught but stale bread, gristle, and blocks of ice. They give us a brazier at night, one, and almost enough fuel to keep it warm till dawn. For better than a score of men.”
“A wonder none of you have frozen to death. It ends today,” Allystaire said. “You have my word. Either Garth will remedy things or I will take you inside the village.”
As Allystaire spoke, the tent flap was thrown aside by Garth himself, wearing bear fur over his green-enameled scale armor. Allystaire turned on him and let some heat into his voice.
“My Lord of Highgate, please explain your treatment of my hostages.”
Garth took in the tent, his mouth wrinkling at the scent that pervaded the air. His eyes widened in shock. “I left the details to Sir—”
“The details? What command did you give him, precisely?”
“That the prisoners were to be treated appropriately…” Garth trailed off as Allystaire simply stared hard at him.
“Fix it,” Allystaire said. “Immediately.”
It was Garth’s turn to harden his face and draw himself up. “Do you wish to reclaim the Lordship of Coldbourne, which would entitle you to give orders in this camp?”
“Do not be ridiculous, Garth,” Allystaire snorted. “These people are my responsibility, and I will not have them treated this way.”
There was a tense moment as Garth stared Allystaire down; the latter seemed more calm about it, until the taller, fairer man turned away with a grunt, threw open the tent, and called, “BANNERMAN!” in a passable imitation of the same whip-crack tone Allystaire had used moments earlier.
Garth stepped out and beyond the tent, they could hear him delivering a rapid series of orders to fetch blankets, bread, hot drink, fuel and something to burn it in. The stamp of feet was unmistakable.
Allystaire listened carefully, nodding along faintly, till he turned to Landen, satisfied for the moment. “Have your men untreated wounds? Any cold-death in the hands or feet?”
Landen shook her head. “Your folk saw to our wounds before the Oyrwyn men arrived. The dwarf boiled something to clean them out and others sewed, under her guidance,” she said, nodding to Idgen Marte.
“Does any man feel ill? Feverish?” Allystaire looked among the crowd for any signs. One man, who looked a few years older and grayer than Allystaire, with scars crossing his balding head, stepped forward and held out one hand.
“Seemed foolish t’complain t’you, m’lord,” he said. “No sense addin’ to the misery.” He pulled back his sleeve and held out his hand. Three of the fingers had the unmistakable purple and black blisters everyone living in the Baronies knew and dreaded.
Allystaire frowned and took the man’s hand carefully. “This has taken days, man. It must have been agony.”
The old soldier only shrugged.
Allystaire laid his left hand directly over the man’s dying fingers and let his eyes close. His senses gradually came to incorporate the other man, the frozen and dying tissue in his hand. And along with it, the many other small and large hurts he’d taken in a soldier’s life. Uneven shoulders. Scars on his scalp from a helm that had been beaten into it. A knee that ached from morning till night, and sometimes woke him up.
He felt all of it, knew all of it, shared many of the same ailments. They were both intimate with pain, with ignoring it and shoving it aside when need be.
That common bond, the shared experience, allowed Allystaire to more easily draw from the Goddess’s Gift to heal him. The blisters began to dissolve; the man gasped in pain as blood flowed normally in his fingers again, and shuddered as life returned to the waxy skin.
Everyone in the tent gasped with him.
Allystaire dropped the old soldier’s hand, said, “What is your name, man?”
“Harrys, m’lord,” the man answered while flexing his fingers and prodding them with his other hand.
“My name is Allystaire. Not m’lord.”
The man looked up, his expression suddenly halfway between a smile and a sneer. “I know your name.”
“What unit do you serve in, Harrys?”
A pause. “Baron’s Own.”
Allystaire let out a low whistle. “Good horsemen. Did not know they were here.”
“Aye,” Harrys replied, his tone still a bit reserved. He hesitated, then added, “We were. Just not in strength.” Another pause. “Not the first time we’d gone up again’ ya, either.”
Allystaire nodded. “I know.”
“I almost had you once.”
A sudden shock rippled through the tent. Silence followed it. Idgen Marte was suddenly at Allystaire’s side. He looked to her sidelong, saw her hands resting on her belt, not far from the long knives sheathed at either end of it.
Landen cleared her throat. “I think that’s quite enough, Harrys.”
Allystaire held up a hand to Landen, chuckling faintly. “I would like to hear what the man has to say, with your leave.”
Landen shrugged. Allystaire turned back to the old soldier.
“Almost had me, eh?”
“Aye.” Harrys chuckled as well. “The Vineyards.”
“Pretty name for an awful pile of rock, eh?”
Harrys laughed at that, more genuinely. Some of the tension went out of the tent. By now, Coldbourne soldiers had started to pour into the tent carrying thick wool blankets, braziers, stones for a fire pit, baskets of peat bricks. Most of them paused in their tasks as they caught the conversation.
“Too pretty for the work was done there,” Harrys offered.
“Too true,” Allystaire replied. “What happened? When you almost had me?”
The man grinned as he remembered. “Wasn’t Baron’s Own, then—hadn’t the training for the lance and the armor yet. I was an outrider with Cantle’s light horse. Screening the edges of our siegeworks and camp when your lot caught us with our pants down comin’ to Innadan’s aid.” He paused again, seemed to chew his words. “Cantle was an idiot. It wasn’t a job for light horse. Should’ve been scouting so we’d’ve known you were comin’. Still, we put up a fight.”
“I remember,” Allystaire replied. “I was unhorsed.”
“Was your nose broken,” Idgen Marte couldn’t help but mutter, to which he answered, “Probably.”
“True, and nobody wanted t’come Freezin’ near ya, swingin’ that hammer. Ya’d your back to me, though, and I laid on the boot to my mount, ready t’brain ya with my axe. We all knew who ya were already. Not the invincible Lord Coldbourne yet, just the Oyrwyn knight whose shield hit like an anvil, whose lance was the breath of Braech itself. Knights and lords used to boast they’d kill or take you; common men wanted no part of ya. But I saw ya on foot and there was my chance. Out of throwing spears, damn the luck. I was one heartbeat away, and ya still didn’t know I was comin’. Some damned Oyrwyn knight put his shield right in my face at the last moment, near knocked me senseless. One of my troopers grabbed my reins and pulled me clear.”
Allystaire listened carefully, nodding as he remembered the day, the Old Baron Oyrwyn’s decision to come to Innadan’s aid. Delondeur had split his besiegers into two separate camps, smartly. Allystaire had chosen to attack the smaller, given his first
command, to try and draw a response from the larger. It hadn’t, but it had allowed the arriving Oyrwyn host to roll up the smaller camp against the walls of Innadan’s Keep, the Vineyards, and force a Delondeur retreat.
The old soldier’s words brought it all back.
“Well, Harrys, I am glad you did not manage it,” Allystaire said.
Harrys held up his newly healed hand and put on a bent, brown-toothed smile. “Think I am as well.”
Allystaire extended his right hand then, and Harrys took it in a warrior’s shake. The Oyrwyn men, muttering to themselves, suddenly found themselves very busy again.
“Landen, see to the needs of your soldiers, eat, get yourself warm, then send a messenger for me—I will ask the Lord of Highgate to put one at your disposal—and we can discuss what is next.”
Landen paused with a bulging wineskin lifted towards her lips, opened her mouth to speak, and then simply nodded. “Aye. And…thank you for seeing to our treatment.”
Allystaire nodded and ducked out of the tent, Idgen Marte behind him.
“What is next,” she muttered for only him to hear.
“I have no idea,” Allystaire admitted.
Idgen Marte looked towards the pavilion at the center of the camp, its pennants listless in the still of the day. “I think I know what’s next for me. If you need help with Landen, seek out Torvul or Mol. I have business.”
“I know how to handle Landen.” He followed her gaze towards the command pavilion, eyes narrowing. “What business?”
“My own,” Idgen Marte said, as she tugged on her own cloak and headed for the center of the Oyrwyn camp.
CHAPTER 4
Asking Questions
Aturn later, Allystaire found himself sitting at a table across from Landen. She was more warmly dressed than before, in an old grey woolen cloak, and a matching muffler tucked around her collar.
She stank, but Allystaire was too used to such to let it bother him. He set two cups on the table along with one of the bottles Audreyn had brought, pulling it open and pouring into both. Landen eyed her wine suspiciously.
Allystaire sat down, laid his hands on the table in front of him, and frowned, an expression that made his face, not fair at the best of times, even more grim. “Landen, I do not flatter myself if I suggest that you have heard talk of me for most of your life. Has it ever been suggested I would poison someone?”
Landen shrugged faintly, and reached for her goblet. “I suppose not.” She had a sip, sighed deeply in appreciation, set the cup back down but kept her hand curled around it. “Your reputation had more to do with the noose.”
“When I felt it necessary to kill outside the bounds of battle, I saw no reason to hide the deed,” Allystaire replied.
“Most of those you hung were under your command, so you had no need to.”
“Most,” Allystaire replied. “Not all.”
“I do not like the turn of this conversation,” Landen admitted. “In short, if you do mean to hang us all, then get on with it.”
“I do not wish to hang any of you,” Allystaire replied. “But I am not ruling it out.”
“You’ve no legal right—”
“Landen,” Allystaire replied, “I am a landless exile in a renegade Temple, and I just killed the ruling Baron of the most powerful western Barony.” He leaned forward across the table, locking his eyes on hers. “Do I look like a man who is interested in his legal rights?”
“You do not,” Landen agreed, but she met Allystaire stare for stare. “Yet at some point you will have to justify your actions here, in the aftermath. Yes, you were attacked and defended yourselves. Anyone can see the moral point, though whether they will agree that rebellion against a Baron is justified—”
“Of what ‘they’ are we speaking?”
“The other Barons,” Landen said. “Surely you understand that Barons Oyrwyn, Telmawr, and Innadan will learn of what took place here and be forced to react.”
“Landen,” Allystaire said, “your father was embroiled in slavery inside his own borders. He profited from the sale of his own people into bondage, then turned some of them over to a sorcerer to be murdered as a tool of divination. This is to say nothing of what he did outside these very walls, having one of his own knights murdered to grant him power to match mine. There are dozens of witnesses that heard his admission to the first charge. I rescued a woman from the table of the sorcerer myself, and she now resides in this village. Scores saw our duel, heard his admission there. If the other Barons come seeking evidence of his crimes, I will have it to give and you know it.”
Landen absorbed Allystaire’s litany in silence, finally lowering her eyes to the table. “I saw the sorcerers in their camp when we attacked. Spoke with them. I am glad they are dead.”
“Not any more than I am,” Allystaire replied. “I found an entire family once, butchered by one of them, to empower his magic. I swore that day I would find him, and end him.”
Landen was silent for another moment, and met Allystaire’s eyes again. “Very impressive. What does it have to do with our talks?”
“I need to know how much you knew, and what you thought of it all,” Allystaire said.
“Knew of what?”
“The slaving, the sorcerers, all of it.”
“I have been at sea these past two years,” Landen protested, “chasing pirates off Keersvast.”
“All well and good,” Allystaire said, extending a hand. “Now give me your hand and answer my questions.”
Landen kept her gloved hands flat on the table, made no move to take Allystaire’s hand. “And if I refuse?”
“I cannot allow you to,” Allystaire replied. “I would like you to volunteer, though.”
“Volunteer for what?”
“To give me your hand and answer my questions.”
“What will happen?”
Allystaire felt himself struggling not to answer, but the Goddess’s gift cut both ways and the words came whether he willed them to or not. “You will tell me the truth, because the Goddess has made it so. No one can lie to me. Neither,” he added, of his own volition, “may I speak a lie.”
She extended one hand halfway towards Allystaire’s, hesitant, curious. “Truly?”
The paladin nodded faintly and reached for Landen’s wrist.
“Did you know your father profited from slavery?”
“No.”
“Suspect?”
“Not for profit, but there were rumors that some of the convict oarsmen on his warships were not convicts. I never investigated.”
“Why not?”
“I feared the truth.”
“What of the sorcerers?”
“I believed them like any other swords-at-hire.”
“And what of the necromancy they employed? The Battle-Wights?”
Landen swallowed hard. “It seemed…practical, to assault a wall.”
“Would you seek to use them in battle again?”
That question seemed suddenly harder to answer; Allystaire felt Landen straining against it, and tightened his grip.
“Not if I could avoid at. At utmost need, in defense of Londray itself, I might if I had the means. But I would feel myself damned for it.”
“If I were to let you leave Thornhurst, with your men, what would you do?” Allystaire sought Landen’s eyes again, but she turned them to the side, staring hard at the carefully swept stone floor of the Inn.
“Return to Londray and assume my seat.”
“What actions would you take regarding Thornhurst?”
Another pause; Allystaire concentrated, willing the answer from her.
“I do not know,” Landen admitted, a quaver in her voice.
“Do you want revenge for your father’s death?”
“Wouldn’t anyone?”
“And Chaddin?”
“He is a traitor to his Baron, and should answer for that.”
Allystaire sat back, taking in a deep breath and letting go of her hand. Landen stuck both hands beneath the table.
“I dislike your last answers,” Allystaire replied. “Your father wanted killing. Surely you saw as much.”
Landen shrugged, but couldn’t keep a trace of anger from her eyes. “He was still my father. Surely even you understand that.”
“I had a father once, too,” Allystaire said. “And when I was your age, had someone killed him, I would have wanted vengeance. But one of the things my father and the Old Baron Oyrwyn taught me, perhaps the most important thing they taught me, was that a leader must look straight at the things in front of him. Your father had been making himself into a monster for years and became one in truth at the end. The world is a better place without that Lionel Delondeur in it. Look straight at that fact, Landen, and tell me I am wrong.”
“You are not wrong,” Landen admitted. “May a daughter not mourn her father?”
“Mourn the man he was,” Allystaire said. “There was a time I believed that Lionel Delondeur was a good man. A man I wished I did not have to fight. Gerard Oyrwyn shared that belief till the end of his life.”
“My father often said the same of Old Oyrwyn. I wonder why they fought at all, then?”
“Keep asking that same question of all of us, Landen,” Allystaire said, reaching for his wine and throwing back a healthy mouthful. “Why have any of us fought? Do not repeat the history to me. Do not even answer the question, not now. Just keep asking it.”
Landen drained her wine and eyed the bottle questioningly. Allystaire nodded, so she refilled her cup, set the bottle down carefully.
“Have I passed your interrogation? Will I hang?”
“I will not hang you, Landen Delondeur,” Allystaire said slowly. “But I am not yet sure what I will do. What do I tell the people under my guard, if I release you, you become the new Baroness, and return with a larger army in the summer?”
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