Leng hung his head. “On nothing, Lord, for I am the servant and you are the Master.”
The amulet glowed, bathing the Master in an eerie radiance. For a moment, his eyes seemed to burn and the shreds of flesh shrink upon his skull. “Speak on,” he whispered.
Leng had grown pale, and it seemed with effort that he moved his tongue. “They have checked the weakest of our moves, Lord, a fantastic feat for them. Truly, this silver sword is troublesome. So why not use the fravashi upon Sir Gavin and remove the sword? And while the fravashi strikes, make the final bold move, Lord.”
The Master bent his ravaged head to peer into the city. He soon shook his head. “No. You are wrong on two counts. It is the woman, the Seer, who is the true danger. The fravashi must be used upon her. The knight and his sword are mere tools. I must first remove Hosar’s champion. As to this bold stroke that you urge of me. I think not. It makes me uneasy.”
“But the gains, Lord.”
“Yes. Capturing Lobos Port gives us great gains. But the risk! I must think on this a little longer.”
Leng waited, before he said, “Should I release the fravashi, Lord?”
“Yes, release it. Send it at Swan.”
Leng dipped his head.
“Go now,” said the Master. “Carry this whipping as chastisement. It will be but a foretaste of what will happen to you if you fail me again.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“First, be sure to wash the blood from your back. Otherwise, you will drive the fravashi mad. Wait. Your wounds will do that in any case. Take the giant. Have him hold the fravashi as you give him his commands. Then hurry back. We have one more matter to discuss.”
“As you will it, Lord,” said Leng, gathering his tattered robes around him and beckoning Cuthred to follow.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The council debate proved bitter.
They met in the packed main hall of Castle Wyvis. The fire roared while servants threw open window-shutters to admit the sunlight. Knights and thegns sat on benches at the long oaken tables. They tore off hunks of break and cheese and quaffed it down with watery wine. Lady Pavia hadn’t wanted any drunken quarrels and had ordered the steward to mix four parts water to one part wine. Hounds roamed underfoot and two cats swished their tails from upon the rafters above.
The fighters from Banfrey mingled with those from Castle Wyvis and other nearby fiefs and baronies. Carrier pigeons had been tossed into the air and fast riders sent out to bear grim tidings. Midland barons had already begun to arrive, while some had sent heralds or pigeons with a return message. Alas, a herald had come last night from Banfrey. It’s what had started the heated debate.
Unsurprisingly, Sir Ullrick said that he had no choice. As he spoke, he pounded the oaken table with his fist, saying that King Egbert ruled South Erin. Therefore, because his High Priest and Lord Chancellor had summoned them back to Banfrey, they had to leave at once.
“What about the High Priest’s other order?” asked Lady Pavia.
Sir Ullrick the Bear shifted in his high-backed chair. The lordliest nobles sat on such instead of the benches.
“The High Priest demands that we disband our host,” said Lady Pavia. “Do you agree with that, Sir Ullrick? Should we leave ourselves defenseless?”
Swan rose. She wore a blue dirndl-skirted dress. It was the kind peasant girls wore and it contrasted with everyone else’s finery and also added to the feeling that here indeed was one pure in spirit. Swan reminded them once again—as she had been for days—of the swamp’s emptiness and of what they had discovered at Castle Forador. Clearly, the darkspawn had marched north in strength. But by shattering the foul altar to Old Father Night, the enchantment that had held the swamp in dark thrall had been destroyed. When Lady Pavia asked if she saw that through visions, Swan admitted she didn’t. It was educated guesswork.
“Has your power deserted you then?” asked Lady Pavia.
Angry murmurs arose from the crusaders: the knights who had sworn on the Banner of Tulun to follow the Seer anywhere. Although they were few in numbers, they made up for it in zeal. They wore newly fashioned surcoats dyed blue and with a yellow flame symbol sewn onto the fronts and backs.
Swan ignored Lady Pavia’s question. Instead, her gaze swept around the room, to those seated at the long oaken tables and to those standing against the walls. “The darkspawn marched north. Why then haven’t we heard cries of help from those in the North? I believe because the darkspawn have surprised them and gained wicked victories. Perhaps they even besiege the Duke’s lords and ladies in their castles. Our brothers and sisters of North Erin face the darkspawn alone, and if they have lost battles, we know that the spirit of Zon Mezzamalech will take the captives and make yet more darkspawn. Shall we wait until all North Erin swarms with darkspawn? Shall we bicker and fight among ourselves and let the terrible foe marshal his strength and slaughter our natural allies? I say no!”
“No!” shouted several crusaders.
Swan put her palms on the table, leaning forward, letting her gaze once more sweep those both seated and standing. “Here then is what we must do: head north through the swamp route, for it is the quickest way, and ride to help our fellow man. Remember, united we stand and divided we fall.”
“No, no, milady” said Ullrick.
Swan took her seat, her eyebrows raised.
“Let me assure you that the High Priest disguises his threats very thinly indeed,” said Ullrick. “If I and my men don’t return to Banfrey” —he glanced sharply at Sir Josserand— “he will think that we’ve joined the rebellion.”
“We are not rebels!” cried Lady Pavia.
“Tell that to the High Priest,” said Ullrick. He quaffed his goblet of watery wine, staring at it, soon blowing through his mustache and looking around the table. “He will believe that I’ve joined you. Then he will stir the King with lies and raise the King’s Army. They will march against us to do battle. Perhaps as bad, before that and in my absence, I’ll be stripped of my ancestral lands and castles and be named an outlaw.”
The others looked dismayed, although perhaps more for the thought of the King’s Army marching against them than for the Bear’s troubles.
“This news should bring smiles not frowns,” said Swan. “Oh, this is good news indeed.”
Sir Ullrick looked stricken, while Lady Pavia asked, “Good?”
“Yes,” said Swan. “By the time the King’s Army arrives, the darkspawn will have marched south. If our timing is exact then we shall ride to the King, do homage and together in unity crush the enemy.”
Several people grew pale.
Sir Ullrick shook his head. “That is a dangerous and vain idea, milady.”
“We wish for no war against Banfrey,” added Lady Pavia.
“I must leave for the city at once,” said Ullrick. “I beg your forgiveness, but I have no choice in the matter.”
Swan laid a hand on Ullrick’s thick wrist. “I ask you to do this, sir. Wait a week while I ride north. When I return you can take several sacks of darkspawn heads with you to hurl at the High Priest’s feet and thereby show him and the King the falseness of these charges.”
“You can’t go north,” said Lady Pavia. “It’s madness to even speak of reentering the swamp. The bats and evil serpents and strangely altered beasts that harried your flanks on your death ride out of the swamp will once more lie in wait.”
“No, milady, you’re wrong,” said Swan. “The evil of Forador Castle has been purged. The altar to Old Father Night was shattered, the wicked enchantment broken. The beasts have already slunk away. This I know as fact.”
Ullrick plucked at his beard as others digested the news. Soon the Bear turned on a silent Gavin. “What do you say, sir? What is the knight-errant’s opinion?”
“I follow Swan,” Gavin said. “But since you lack the courage to do likewise, sir, I suggest that you scurry back to your master like a good cur and lick his hand so he may yet pet you.”
Ull
rick slammed his knuckles against the table.
“Please, Sir Gavin,” said Swan, “do not slur the honor of this noble knight. He must follow his conscience, as we all must do.”
“Do you call me a coward, sir?” asked Ullrick.
“A base coward,” Gavin said.
Ullrick reached for his scabbard, making to draw his sword. But all of them had agreed to enter the council chamber unarmed.
Gavin grinned. “I once disproved your charge of cowardice against me on the jousting field. How will you disprove my charge against you now?”
Ullrick’s thick lips curled. “I’ll ride wherever you dare, sir!”
“Very good,” Gavin said. “We leave for North Erin in the morning.”
***
“You shouldn’t maneuver him through his pride,” Swan later chided Gavin. They stood by a well in the courtyard, with cups of cold water. A white dove was perched on Swan’s shoulder, cooing softly.
“If I hadn’t spoken up,” Gavin said, “Ullrick would have left. He would have taken some of our best fighters with him.”
“That’s not the issue. It’s the manner in which you use people. We are crusaders, not mere soldiers. We must follow the ways of Hosar.”
“The princely fools who went crusading in Muscovy thought likewise. ‘We follow Hosar,’ they said. ‘How can we lose?’ In the cold pine forests, they lost everything. Thus, I learned that only keen generalship and stout fighting will see us through. Your courage is beyond question, milady. You are indeed the star of courage. Your radiance gives others hope. You gave me hope, and I watch repeatedly as you infuse hardheaded swordsmen with true faith. That, I deem a miracle. Otherwise, I must admit that I and everyone else around you are dupes and fools.”
“You are no fool.”
Gavin grimaced. “I rode back into the swamp. I watched Sir Hunneric transform into a monster before me. I swung my sword against a stone altar. I’d say I was a fool.”
“Your sword shattered the enchantment.”
Unease stirred in Gavin’s eyes. “You are gifted, milady. None can gainsay it. But this idea of letting Ullrick and his stout fighters leave…” Gavin shook his head. “It makes me wonder if you have the generalship to claim ultimate victory.”
“Do you?” she shot back, startling the dove. It circled and landed at her feet, walking around Swan as it cooed.
“What do you mean?” asked Gavin.
Sawn smiled, stretching the scar on her cheek. “I mean that you have been promoted, sir. You are no longer my champion, but my Captain General, military leader of the crusaders. I shall supply you with the stout hearts, as you say. You in turn must supply me with generalship.”
Gavin scratched under his beard. “The others won’t like that.” He wasn’t sure he liked it himself.
She smiled serenely, and the dove no longer cooed as it eyed Gavin.
He scowled. “How many ride with us tomorrow?”
“A little over a hundred,” she said.
“What of Lady Pavia?”
“She implores her noble neighbors to ignore the High Priest’s warning, to ignore the Anno Charta and to field their warriors and retainers and join us. So far, only Baron Bain, their closest neighbor, has agreed to ride with us.”
“Bain is the knight with the famous morningstar?”
“Him,” said Swan. “When we return, I suspect more like Baron Bain will have rallied to us. Perhaps as good, many of the town mayors have promised to sway their burghers to join us. Then we will field a real army to defend the Midlands.”
“A mob, more likely,” muttered Gavin. “That’s what town militiamen really are, along with most of these castle louts. The High Priest’s mercenaries are the only really dangerous men in Erin.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if you’ve given me true faith or beguiled me with your sweet ways. I fear that in the end we’ll all die a fool’s death in this far-western island. Our trick will be to die cleanly.”
“I don’t understand.”
His grimace turned even sourer. “Better a quick death by the sword than captured and turned into a darkspawn like Sir Hunneric.”
***
When morning came, Gavin clopped his palfrey to five wagons hitched with mules. Drivers hunched upon the buckboards as the castle’s front-gate chains rattled and the portcullis inched higher.
“What are those for?” asked Gavin.
“For any wounded we find in the North,” said Swan.
Gavin shook his head, explaining that wagon wheels became too easily mired in mud, especially swamp mud. Mules by themselves were better.
“Without the wagons we won’t be able to carry away as many wounded,” said Swan.
“If we have more mules we could.”
Swan must have seen the wisdom of that. So she gave in to her Captain General. Departure was thus delayed a day in order to round up more mules from the outlaying villages.
***
That night, Hugo stirred uneasily. He slept in the common room of the Tower de Duc. Over a hundred years ago and under the direction of a foreign stonemason from France, and from the province of Duc, the tower had been chiseled out of the very mountain. Crusaders lying on reed mats snored all around Hugo, while in a corner a hound whined in its sleep. In the fireplace, dying embers gave a soft red glow to the huge room. When the last coal died, the windowless room would be as dark as a tax-gatherer’s heart.
Hugo lay on a pallet of straw, a heavy quilt pulled over him. With his tongue, he kept testing his teeth and sucking air over them, wincing each time. He had tender teeth and never ate honey or sweetmeats. As a boy, honey-in-the-comb had been his favorite treat. It still was. He just never ate it. Tonight his teeth ached and kept him awake even when he knew that tomorrow would be a hard day. He shifted and tried breathing through his nose. His left nostril whistled. He loathed that, and knew that he would never fall asleep listening to it.
He stared into the ruddy darkness. Swan slept several floors above him. She was alone in an upstairs cubicle. He imagined that she knelt by her cot praying to Hosar. Maybe white light from heaven highlighted her. She was so pure, so good. He had never known anyone like her. He had been bitter for so long, had always been knocked around before Gavin saved him from those Muscovite hunchbacks. He shivered at the memory. That had been a terrible time. Afterward, he had admired and watched Gavin take the noble fools at their own game. It had been a pleasure to see. But now it was different. Swan was truly good. She truly followed Hosar. She made him see that his old ways were grubby. It made him ashamed, and he still couldn’t believe that he was the Standard Bearer. He was the one who held the Banner of Tulun. He wasn’t pure. He was an old, crooked man with a shriveled heart. But he would try to do what was right. He had given oath to Hosar.
Ah! His tooth, he breathed through his mouth again.
He shifted on the straw, and blinked, his senses alert as he came wide awake. Something moved in the darkness. It moved on stealthy feet. He couldn’t see it. He felt it. Then he saw a form tiptoeing past sleeping men. The hound whined in its sleep again, but it didn’t awaken. None of the dogs stirred. Hugo went rigid with fear. Had a darkspawn slipped into the tower? He couldn’t move because of his terror.
His eyes opened wider. Swan! The darkspawn must want Swan.
He tried to move, but his fears were like shackles.
The dark form headed for the spiral stairs that led up to Swan’s cubicle.
Ah! His tooth, it ached. He rubbed his jaw, and that movement broke the paralysis.
Hugo scrambled out of the cot, reaching under it and picking up his crossbow. He hurried for the stairs, winding the cord and slipping a bolt into the groove. He couldn’t fathom how a darkspawn had gotten this deep into Wyvis Keep. Then it occurred to him that Gavin had said the High Priest wouldn’t let this hosting go so easily. A man like the High Priest had more than one way to solve a problem. The hair on Hugo’s arms rose. The thing was barely ahead of him. He heard the shuffle of shoe leathe
r. On silent feet honed in grim Muscovy, Hugo followed.
He reached the head of the spiral stone stairs as something scratched at Swan’s bolted door.
Seconds stretched until candlelight flickered under the door jam. “Who’s there?” Swan asked from the other side.
“A message from Gavin, milady,” replied a gravelly voice.
“Gavin?” asked Swan, clattering back the bolt. She opened the door as her candle flickered.
Hugo raised his crossbow and saw the bald assassin in the same instant. The assassin moved as lithe as a cat, ripping out a dagger. Before Swan had time to scream, a ka-chunk sounded. The assassin pitched forward, slamming into Swan, knocking the candle from her grasp.
“Milady!” shouted Hugo.
Somehow, the candle remained lit and Swan squirmed out from under the dead man’s body. On the floor, the dagger glistened with what had to be poison. Hugo’s crossbow bolt stuck out of the assassin’s back.
“Don’t touch it,” hissed Hugo, as Swan reached for the dagger.
She blinked at him, her features pale.
Hugo knelt, and he put one of his rough’s hands on her cheek. “I’m going to get Gavin. He’ll know what to do. You must bolt the door and not open it until you hear my voice again. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and there was fear in her eyes.
It made Hugo ache. He took her hands and helped her stand. “You’re safe, milady. Old Hugo won’t let anything hurt you.”
She picked up the candle and regarded the dead man. Something shifted upon her face. “Hurry,” she said. “Bring me Sir Gavin.”
Gavin came, and he told them what they must do.
Hugo wasn’t sure he liked the cunning of Gavin’s plan. They did Hosar’s work.
Later, Ullrick raised a lantern over the dead man. He shook his head, saying, “No. I don’t know.”
“Is he the High Priest’s man?” asked Swan.
The Bear flushed. “I just told you I don’t know. What happened here? Why is this man dead?”
Hugo told him.
Ullrick scowled as he spat curses, saying what a despicable deed assassination was.
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