‘Halt there! Your name and your business!’
Alais rode forward, as they had agreed. ‘The Lady Alais Kermorvan of Morvan,’ she said coolly. ‘And this is the Mastersmith Kunrad of Nordeney, our guest and friend.’
There was an even greater stir among the sentries, and the captain’s brow darkened. ‘Kunrad, you say? I’ve heard that name lately! By the Wing of the Raven, Northerner, you’ve a damned cool nerve riding straight up to our gate—’
Kunrad kept his calm. ‘I do so at the behest of the Lady Alais,’ he said stiffly. ‘And the Prince Kermorvan her father, whom we bear in the litter there—’
‘The Prince – Watch ’em, lads!’ The captain stamped forward, peered into the litter. ‘That’s the pri – the lord himself!’ He smote his brow angrily. ‘What in Hella’s name’s in train here? Here’s a day since we had his lordship the Marchwarden come tearing through, howling for the Syndics and saying some Nordeney corsair of your name had attacked the Castle of the Winds, and Lord Kermorvan was slain, and his daughter carried off! And now you bring them here to us, alive!’
‘Barely!’ said Alais with a glassy command that shone though her travel-stained appearance. And if he should die because we’re kept waiting at the gate, who will be the one to pay, captain?’
The captain’s face twitched. ‘Lady, believe me – but it seems there’s more to be said!’
‘Indeed there is,’ replied Alais calmly, looking down her nose. ‘And we have come to say it to the Syndics, as soon as we may. Why exclude us, save to shut out the sound of many voices where only one is now heard?’
‘Maybe, my lady, maybe! But the Marchwarden ordered that we arrest—’
‘Arrest?’ Alais’s face remained cold as marble. ‘I see. And what authority did he give? He has none within the City, for many good reasons. Have the Syndics confirmed those orders?’
‘Well, no, my lady. They couldn’t. Not enough of ’em in the City these hot days, y’see. Off on their estates. So it took a day to convene the Syndicacy, and it’s only just in session about now—’
Kunrad slapped hand to palm. The captain jumped, and Kunrad was suddenly conscious that a hundred sharp points were aimed at him. ‘My pardon, captain! But that being so, why should you have to decide anything your good self? Surely there could be no objection to giving us an escort direct to the Syndicacy? Let them pronounce upon us!’
The captain squinted at him, then nodded jerkily. ‘That I may do, nor – er, Mastersmith. No tricks, mind!’
Alais flayed him with her eyes. ‘You will note that these are not outlaws at our back, but my father’s men, some from the City here. Our Northern friends I vouch for, and you will use them with proper respect. Neatly done!’ she added in an undertone, as the captain scurried off to summon his men. ‘Lords and prisoners are both escorted, so he need not decide which we are.’
‘I had only to trail a way of avoiding the responsibility before him, and he snapped at the lure. I guessed even soldiers would be less self-reliant in such a place as this.’
‘Shrewd thinking,’ she said, looking at him askance. ‘Would a young Mastersmith of Athalby have seen so keenly, I wonder?’
Within minutes armed men were forming a double file on either side, and the barriers were swung back. The soldier in charge gave the order to march, and Alais did not gainsay him. But as they entered the wide street beyond the gate, and could no longer be forced back, she gave a sharp order of her own, and the man behind her unfurled the black Kermorvan pennant from his lance, with its design of Raven stealing the Sun for mankind. Clearly they were not prisoners; and as people in the street saw it, they came pressing forward excitedly between the tall stone buildings, or hanging out of the high windows and iron-rallied balconies. There were even some cheers. The soldiers winced nervously, for the Syndics hated the old royal emblems, but they did not dare try to pull it down – the more so as the cheers were growing for the Raven pennant, and sympathetic muttering as they saw Kermorvan lolling in his sling. Their escort led them around the corner of the spacious Seaking’s Square, circling a fountain wrought of writhing naked forms, and were entering the steep Ravensgate leading up to the Citadel, when a tall man at the rear of the crowd, white-bearded and stooped with age, struck staff to ground and called out in a great voice that belied his years, ‘Ravens, awake! Morvan morlanhal!’
The crowd roared out the ancient battle cry, and Kermorvan seemed to hear. His eyes fluttered open a moment, and widened as he realised where he was. Kunrad thought he saw the old man try to raise a hand, and let it fall. He seemed to be breathing deeply; and Kunrad feared it might be the gasps of a fading life.
The Syndicacy at the time met in the Great Hall of the Citadel, ranged between the two tallest towers, which was only later made into a special chamber. At that time its exterior was a single flat wall, without the layered colonnades and painted portico and later symbols of self-importance the Syndics assumed. But across the full height of that wall was ranged a great carving in relief that depicted a city with another citadel at its heart; a city, if Kunrad read the image aright, far greater even than this one. Behind its tallest tower the sun blazed long rays, as if it was a mere banner flying.
He nudged Gille. ‘Know what that is?’ he said quietly. ‘That’s the city of Morvan, Morvan the Lost from which our ancestors all fled. We built that, both our peoples together; and nothing less than the full force of the Ice could destroy it.’
‘There’s long been talk of removing that image,’ said Alais sourly. ‘Or covering it over, on the grounds that it encourages folk to yearn for a vanished past, and not face up to the demands of the present.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ grunted Kunrad. ‘The rag-seller would rather you forgot the feel of silk.’
‘We have that proverb too,’ said Alais. ‘A sign in itself, no doubt …’ She stopped. ‘What’s this around the door? Escort, halt!’
They had been about to do so, anyway; and before her crisp command the soldiers could hardly help themselves. The double file stamped to a halt upon the cobbles, and Alais and the others immediately rode out from between them to confront the ring of sentries stationed about the door.
‘What’s this?’ she demanded of their commander.
‘Your pardon, lady!’ he said politely but firmly. ‘By order of the Syndics, they sit in closed session, and none may enter! Any who attempt it I must arrest!’
‘Be damned to that!’ said Alais, sounding remarkably like her father. ‘Can you not see the banner? Are you so ignorant that the name Kermorvan means nothing to you? My father is a Syndic, and I head his retinue. He has the right to enter any session, and I to bring him therein!’
Kunrad, Olvar and Gille rode up beside her. The sentry commander stared past her at the bloodstained figure in the litter, and at the impressive ranks of soldiery, not realising they were as nonplussed as he was. ‘I – I don’t know! No, you must wait here until the lords—’
‘Enough of this insolence!’ she snapped, and urged her horse forward, pushing him out of the way. He opened his mouth to shout; but Olvar stooped from the saddle and swung a fist. His mailed glove caught the commander in the face, lifted him off the ground and sent him skimming along the cobbles on his back, unconscious. One of his sentries stepped hastily aside to let him pass. None of the others moved. Alais rode through the gap and dismounted. ‘See to our horses!’ she said loftily. ‘We go to announce his lordship’s arrival!’ She snapped her fingers to the others, and they fell in behind her, cloaks flying, as she strode up the steps and into the wide-arched doorway.
Kunrad was about to congratulate her on the arrogance of her bluff, when she turned a flushed face to him and snapped, ‘Keeping a Kermorvan out of their damned council! The idea!’
Hastily he changed his mind. ‘It’s not done, then?’
‘It’s an outrage! Against the ancient laws! Against all custom, unless matters have sunk further than I thought possible! I’ll wager half the Syndics
don’t know about it, too. Some underhanded little scheme hatched by Merthian’s friends!’
They were in a high-ceilinged antechamber here, gloomily lit by wide windows above the stairs that went off to either side, above a shadowy arch. Sentries standing in the gloom snapped to the alert as Alais stamped forward, then froze as they saw the armed men behind her. ‘In the name of the Lord Kermorvan!’ she hissed. They made the best of the situation by presenting arms.
Beyond the heavy wooden doors ahead they could hear voices, one louder than the rest. She seized the iron-ringed latch, and seemed about to thrust the doors apart, when Kunrad’s hand prevented her. ‘Olvar, Gille!’ he said softly. ‘Watch the way here!’ He lifted the latch, careful to make no sound, then opened the door the merest crack. A dazzling flash of light met his eyes.
From high windows the rays of the afternoon sun fell slanted across the cool shadowy dimness of the chamber beyond, creating a blazon of harsh contrasts, hard light and deep dark. Between them, striding back and forth, Merthian passed, as he harangued the dark silhouettes seated in tiered rows beyond him. He was bareheaded, but wore the armour, as Kunrad had guessed he might; and as he passed in and out of the sun, raging in his newly strident voice, a mighty flash punctuated his emphatic gestures, like an embodiment of pure and righteous wrath. The dust motes in the sunbeams swirled this way and that before his arm.
But before Kunrad could catch what he was saying, he paused for breath, and another figure rose among the benches, with long grey locks and a voice grave and cool.
‘My Lord Bryheren, may I address the Marchwarden? I thank you. Sir, this is a grievous tale indeed, and clearly must be looked into. But know you, it now appears that we had some earnest of troubles not eight days since, when messages reached us from the north.’
‘My Lord Carthen, I have heard this also!’ snapped a more belligerent voice, as a small grey-bearded man sprang to his feet across the chamber. ‘Only these despatches came not from your Lordship the Marchwarden, but under the seal of the Lord Ieran Kermorvan, your castellan whom you accuse. And they told just such a tale of treason and outlawry brewing, but placed the blame for it upon yourself! How may you account for those?’
Merthian tossed his head, and gave a quick dry chuckle. ‘All too easily, my Lord Ternyan. Lies and falsehoods, sent to confuse the issue in the event of the failure these traitors feared. As it seems they have done! Was no action taken?’
There was an excited rumble of discussion. Another figure leaned forward from the high dais at the centre, into the clear light. The rumblings ceased. A lean face, of early middle age, no more, but deeply lined, with a ring of short-cut grey-black hair around a high bald crown. Narrow green eyes regarded Merthian evenly.
‘Such is the regard you are held in by many in this chamber, my lord, that we could not credit them, and suspected some drunken tomfoolery, or motives more sinister.’
There was a stir beside him, and Alais caught her breath. Kermorvan saw why; for among the men seated behind the Chief Syndic, two were leaning over to whisper to one another. And though one was young and short, the other tall, with his dark-red hair receding, and both were plump and soft of outline, it was not hard to see the likeness between them, and to Alais. They turned uncertainly to their master, who did not appear to heed them, looking gravely down at the chamber over steepled fingers. ‘This being the summer recess, it did not then seem necessary to bring these messages to the attention of this chamber until they had been investigated. A small force is even now being prepared.’
Merthian blazed. ‘I thank you for that regard, my Lord Bryheren! You know now it was greater treachery than you could imagine! I dare ask only one thing more of you, that I take command of that force as is my right of office, that I may wipe away this slur upon my honour, and free the Castle of the Winds from the barbarian hordes that infest it. My late castellan Kermorvan has already paid the price of his treachery, as I told you, but there remains his daughter with whom he sought to ensnare me, and this Nordeney adventurer who calls himself a smith—’
‘And from whom you stole the very armour you wear!’ said Kunrad, just loudly enough to be heard, as he pushed the door quietly open, and stepped into the chamber. At the edge of the tiers of seated figures he paused, contemplating the staring Merthian, and bowed low to the Lord Bryheren. ‘My Lord Chief Syndic, I am the Northerner Kunrad, Mastersmith of Athalby, the man he names, and was never anything more until he came to my small smithy to steal and burn. What I have become, his treachery has made me, and I am come to throw it in his face!’
‘And I am Alais Kermorvan, Lady of Morvan!’ Behind Bryheren the two men sprang to their feet, but did nothing more. She did not stop as Kunrad had, but went stalking down the shallow stairs to the floor. Kunrad caught her by the arm, and she stopped, face scarlet and breast heaving under her mail. ‘I am she, my Lord Bryheren, whom this creature all but seduced to his ways, whom he misused, imprisoned and sought to destroy. I loved him once, and grieve for him still; for I know the root of his corruption, which touched me also. Yet I hear him here pile evil of his own upon that evil beginning, traducing the name of the lord my father, when I watched this traitor and his corsair henchmen ride him down like any dog! And I know that he must be judged as what he is. I ask that you hear me as you have heard him.’
Merthian, mouth working, stumbled forward, and raised one shining arm to strike; but he let it fall, and snorted with contempt. ‘You backstabbing little jade! You corsair’s trull, you whore of a Nordeney ditch! You’ve no right of audience here! I cannot in honour prove your lies upon you, I leave that to the chamber, and the headsman! But as well your father died when he did—’
‘Or what would you say to him then?’
Merthian sagged, and his already pale cheeks turned ashen. Alais made a small ridiculous sound and spun around, biting at the back of her hand. Behind Kunrad the whole chamber rose to its feet in one rush as, supported unevenly by Gille and Olvar, the bloodstained figure of Kermorvan limped to the head of the stairs. He had pulled some of the bandages from his face, and the blood was trickling down from a dozen places; the bruise on his cheek stood out livid with the half-imprint of a horseshoe. His skin was grey, his lip curled swollen around a wide gap in his discoloured teeth; he winced every time he put any weight on his injured hip. But his eyes, no longer yellow, shone in that ruined countenance like a young man’s, fiery and alert; and they were fixed upon Merthian. His voice grated, he spluttered his words, but they rang clear in the silent chamber for all to hear.
‘You said you saw me die, you get of a gutter bitch! But you didn’t hang around to make sure, did you? No, you were too busy running to save your miserable skin, and get your word in first!’ A chattering hubbub raced through the tiers of richly dressed men, and he found voice to rise above it. ‘Doesn’t square with what he told you, does it? I guessed not. Wouldn’t put himself in that light, not when he was lying anyhow!’
There were protesting shouts from the far side of the hall, but Kermorvan simply waved impatiently. ‘Merthian Anlaithann, for no lord or warden I’ll call you any longer, I denounce you to this chamber and to your miserable face as oathbreaker, outlaw and traitor!’
Merthian rounded on the Chief Syndic. ‘Are you going to permit this? Am I expected to stand still and hear this slur upon my honour? Out and to jail with him, or I’ll needs take my own measures!’
‘You will do nothing at all to bring disgrace upon this chamber and your office!’ said Bryheren quietly, over sounds of sympathetic outrage. ‘My Lord Kermorvan, you are not a familiar sight in this chamber, but you have right of audience here, in due form – but neither your daughter nor these’ – he waved his hand vaguely at Kunrad – ‘they do not.’
‘They are my witnesses and my supports, my Lord Bryheren.’
‘Then we shall examine them in due course and proper form. Would you not be better to rest now, until you are recovered?’
‘My lord, I have not let myse
lf be dragged all these long leagues southward for my recovery! I came to see justice done, and to reassure you—’
‘To reassure them?’ screamed Merthian. ‘When my fair castle is left in the hands of Northern bandits?’
‘Your castle?’ sneered Alais.
The Chief Syndic flashed her a black look, but nodded. ‘Your pride is pardonable, my lord, but remember that it is our castle, given into your charge. My Lord Kermorvan, is it indeed in Northern hands?’
Kermorvan gave a gap-toothed leer. ‘It’s in the hands of my old captain of horse Ferlias, whom many of you will remember. Think you could get him to endorse any treasonous shenanigans? The Northerners there are barely three hundred horse who came to help us kick master Merthian’s little arse out from under him. They’re our guests, they’re under Ferlias’s command, and if they ever think any different they’re outnumbered thrice over. The only other Northerners are here by me, and welcome. Anyhow, most of Merthian’s chums were our own homegrown breed of sewer falcon!’
The roar of protest was louder, but again Kermorvan carried over it, snorting and growling like an angry bull. ‘Send north! Send to know what manner of outlaw scum he draggled south with him, then abandoned to die! Send to ask Ferlias how the Castle stands! Send to ask the peasantry what their beloved master’s been up to all these years—’
The Castle of the Winds Page 42
