Warlord

by Jennifer Fallon

  “The Assassins’ Guild?” Wrayan asked, wondering what Marla had done to incur their wrath.

  Cadella glared at him suspiciously.

  “It’s all right, Cadella,” Kalan assured the slave. “Wrayan is a trusted friend.”

  The slave seemed unconvinced. “I’m sure you think so, my lady, and I know it’s not really my place to say so, but perhaps this isn’t the right time to be bringing your gentlemen friends home to meet your mother.”

  Kalan glanced at Wrayan, amused by the slave’s assumption he was her boyfriend. “Actually, Cadella, Wrayan is also my mother’s friend.”

  “In fact, Mistress Cadella, we’ve met before,” he added, deciding to put an end to any foolish speculation about where he fitted into the general scheme of things.

  “I don’t remember you,” she said, squinting at him shortsightedly.

  “It was just after Kalan’s father, Lord Hawksword, died,” he reminded her. “I was here with Princess Marla.”

  She stared at him, clearly unconvinced. “You’d have been a mere boy then,” she declared, obviously judging his age at no more than thirty, which (by her calculation) would have made him only ten or twelve when Kalan’s father died. “I don’t recall seeing you before. Were you here for Lord Hawksword’s funeral?”

  No, he wanted to answer, I was here to introduce your mistress to the head of the Assassins’ Guild and to put a mind shield on you and every other member of the household. But on reflection, perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. Nor did he have the heart to tell her that her estimate of his age was off by a good fifteen years.

  “There were so many people coming and going, you probably don’t remember,” he agreed. “But rest assured, I am a loyal friend of the family.”

  “Tell me what’s going on with the Assassins’ Guild,” Kalan demanded of the slave. “Has someone taken a contract out on my mother?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” the housekeeper assured her. “But she seems to be doing an awful lot of business with them lately, if you take my meaning.”

  “Actually, Cadella, just exactly what is your meaning?”

  The slave spun around at the sound of her mistress’s voice. Marla was standing in the doorway, her expression grim. She was dressed in widow’s white, which made her seem almost ethereal.

  “Your highness!” the slave gasped guiltily.

  “Mother!” Kalan flew across the lawn and into her mother’s embrace.

  “Might be a good time to make a strategic exit,” Wrayan suggested in a low voice to the slave. Cadella fled before she was forced to offer any excuse for being caught gossiping about the princess’s business.

  Marla let the slave go without comment, hugging Kalan tightly until she realised who else was standing by the graves. “Wrayan?”

  “Your highness,” he replied with a bow. “It’s good to see you well.”

  “What, in the name of all the Primal Gods, are you doing in Greenharbour?”

  “It’s a long story, Mother,” Kalan said. “And a painful one. Can we clean up first? We’ve been on the road for weeks.” She glanced over her shoulder at Elezaar’s small grave. “And you’ve your own tales to tell, too, I suspect.”

  Marla nodded. “We’ll meet for dinner.” Impulsively, she hugged Kalan again and added, “You’ve no idea how good it is to see you, darling. Both of you, in fact.”

  “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Kalan asked, eyeing her mother warily.

  “We’ll talk at dinner, Kalan. In the meantime, go soak in a nice warm bath for a while. I’m sure you’ll feel better for it.”

  Kalan kissed her mother’s cheek and walked inside, leaving Marla standing at the door, staring thoughtfully at Wrayan.

  “Should I not have come?” he asked, curious about her silence.

  “No, you couldn’t have picked a better time, actually.” The princess smiled thinly. “Do you remember once offering to kill Alija for me?”

  “The offer still stands, your highness.”

  “Then I’m very glad you’re here, Wrayan.”

  He nodded in understanding. “You’ve finally tired of Alija?”

  “I’ve finally tired of Alija,” she agreed.

  “I can tell you one thing that might help bring her down.”

  Wrayan was bathed and clean and sharing a wine with the princess while they waited for Kalan to finish her ablutions. It was dark outside. Marla stood by the window, framed by the darkness. In the candlelight and her sleeveless white gown she looked even more delicate than she had when Wrayan had first seen her in the garden earlier today. She was pale, too, and she looked tired. Although Marla was unlikely to admit it, the loss of Ruxton and Elezaar, so close to one another, had obviously hit her hard.

  “You know something I can use?”

  “Tarkyn Lye fathered her children, not Barnardo Eaglespike.”

  Marla shook her head. She seemed unsurprised. “Don’t even think about going there, Wrayan.”

  He was shocked at her quiet acceptance of his news. “What do you mean, don’t even think of it? She’s trying to pass off a couple of slave’s bastards as descendants of the royal family.”

  “Just as I would have sworn by every Primal God I could name that Kalan and Narvell were Laran Krakenshield’s children, had Nash Hawksword refused to claim them.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “You?”

  The princess smiled. “Don’t look so shocked. I’m not above swearing a false oath if it will save my family. Few women are. Just as few women are willing to take the risk of not producing an heir.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what this has to do with the fact Cyrus and Serrin Eaglespike are actually the sons of Tarkyn Lye.”

  “If we were to expose Alija’s deception in this matter,” Marla replied, “every noblewoman in Hythria would be suspect. Do you imagine Alija’s sons are the only children fathered by slaves? The practice is rampant. But it’s never spoken about. And for damn good reason. Expose Alija and you endanger every mother in the country, even those whose children are quite legitimately the sons and daughters of their fathers.”

  “You condone her lies.”

  “I condone the need for them,” Marla corrected. “And much as I’d like to bring Alija down, it won’t be that way. If I make public the news that a woman of Alija’s status bore her court’esa two sons and passed them off as her husband’s heirs, how many other husbands will look at their children and start to wonder if they’ve also been duped? At best, it will cause dissension in countless previously happy homes. At worst, innocent women will die. I won’t go there, Wrayan. Not even for Alija.”

  “I admit, I never thought about it like that.”

  “That’s because you’re a man, Wrayan. You don’t have to worry about losing your children. The law in Hythria favours fathers over mothers.”

  He finished his wine and walked to the small table near the window where Marla was standing, to help himself to a refill. “You always manage to make being a woman in Hythria sound something akin to one of the seven hells.”

  “Try it sometime,” she suggested grimly. “You might be surprised.”

  Wrayan turned to the princess and looked at her curiously. “Are you all right, your highness?”

  “Are you reading my mind, Wrayan?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m not the clever actress I thought I was.” She handed him her glass for a refill. “To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lost. You can’t know what it meant to lose Elezaar.”

  “I think I can guess.”

  She shook her head. “No. Unless I open my mind to you and let you see the wounds for yourself, you will never understand.” Marla’s eyes filled with unwanted tears. “She took him from me, Wrayan. And she forced him to betray me. I think that’s what I hate her for most.” She brushed away the tears impatiently. “Isn’t that odd? She stole Nash from me. She’s tried to kill Damin the gods know how many times. And yet the thing I really d
espise her for is that she made Elezaar fear me.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  Marla turned to face him, her eyes glistening. “I’ve been putting on such a brave face, pretending I don’t know what’s happened to him. Pretending it doesn’t hurt that he’s gone. Pretending I don’t care what he did …” She sniffed and wiped her eyes, squaring her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to blubber like a child. It’s just you’re the only person in Hythria I can’t lie to, Wrayan, so you’re the unfortunate recipient of my maudlin self-pity.”

  “I don’t think you’re being maudlin, your highness. Or self-pitying.”

  The princess shrugged, feigning indifference with little success. “He was just a slave. We highbom aren’t supposed to get emotional about our slaves. It’s unseemly.”

  Because of the mind shield Wrayan couldn’t read her thoughts, but he could easily feel her pain. Her bottom lip trembled as she spoke; it was an effort for her to hold back the grief she’d been working so hard to contain. Without thinking, he held his hand out to her. Marla turned to him and let the tears flow as he took her in his arms and comforted her the same way he’d comforted Kalan after Leila died.

  Wrayan let her cry on his shoulder and said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Marla Wolfblade was probably the strongest person Wrayan had ever met, and it pained him to see her suffering, but even with the ability to wield magic there was nothing Wrayan could do to ease her pain except give the princess—quite literally—a shoulder to cry on.

  Marla was still sobbing quietly in his arms when Wrayan glanced up and discovered Kalan standing in the doorway, staring at them with a thunderous expression as if she’d burst into the room and discovered Wrayan and her mother doing something indecent.

  CHAPTER 26

  “I’m not interrupting anything important, I hope?”

  Marla looked up and stepped back out of Wrayan’s embrace, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry, darling. You’ve caught me in a rare moment of weakness. Wrayan was kind enough to loan me a shoulder to cry on.”

  “Well, aren’t we lucky Wrayan’s here?”

  “Luckier than you know,” her mother agreed. “Shall we talk over dinner? Cadella has everything ready in the dining room. We were just waiting for you to finish your bath.”

  “And to think, I was worried I might have arrived too soon for you.”

  The thief looked at her strangely, but Marla didn’t seem to notice her daughter’s sarcasm. They walked through to the dining room, took their places at one end of the long banquet table and talked of inconsequential things as Cadella supervised the slaves serving the first course.

  Kalan sat on her mother’s right, Wrayan on Marla’s left. She watched the two of them intently, so many things suddenly making sense to her now, the memory of her conversation with Wrayan back in the barn of that isolated farmhouse a few days ago aching like an open wound.

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  “Once.”

  “What happened?”

  “She was … is … way out of my reach.”

  Kalan picked up her spoon and stared determinedly at her bowl. Of course she’s way out of his reach, she realised now. He’s a thief pining for a princess. A woman whose station in life was so far above his that it was astonishing he would even consider such a relationship possible.

  And what of you, Mother? Kalan looked up and studied her out of the corner of her eye, wondering if Marla reciprocated Wrayan’s feelings.

  “Did she love you?”

  “I suppose. In her own way.”

  “But not enough to stay with you?”

  “Things are never that simple, Kalan.”

  No, Kalan mused. Things are never that simple. Marla is the High Prince’s sister. When Alija plotted to kill Damin the first time—when Kalan herself was merely a baby—it was Wrayan, she knew, who uncovered the plot and risked the wrath of the Thieves’ Guild to tell her mother of it. It was enough to make them allies, certainly, but Kalan never dreamed it might be enough to bring them even closer.

  “Do you still miss her?”

  “Every day of my life.”

  Kalan had no reason to doubt they’d been friends before her father died. But how long had they been lovers? How long had Wrayan and her mother kept their tawdry little secret … ?

  “Kalan?”

  She looked up in surprise. Her soup bowl was empty and Cadella was clearing away the dishes in preparation for the next course. She didn’t recall swallowing any of it.

  “Sorry, Mother. I must have been daydreaming. Did you say something?”

  “This business with Leila and Starros,” Marla said sadly, obviously taken aback by the news of her niece’s suicide and Starros’s brutal torture. “I can’t believe Mahkas would do such a thing.”

  “Oh, he did it, all right,” she confirmed, her own woes fading at the reminder of her cousin’s fate. “It was the worst thing I ever saw. You can’t imagine how bad it was.”

  “Did nobody try to stop him?”

  “Nobody could.” Kalan shrugged. “With Damin away in Medalon—”

  “What was your brother doing in Medalon?”

  Kalan was surprised her mother would need to ask. “Raiding cattle, of course. What else would he be doing there?”

  “And your uncle approved of this?”

  “I don’t think Damin left him much choice. But there was nothing to worry about. Geri Almodavar and Raek Harlen were with him.”

  “Damin’s father had a whole squad of Raiders with him when he was killed raiding cattle in Medalon, too,” Marla pointed out, unimpressed, as Cadella wheeled in a small trolley with the next course. “It didn’t do him any good.”

  “Damin is fine, Mother,” Kalan assured her impatiently.

  “Although in hindsight,” Wrayan added, “it might have been better if he’d stayed home. Maybe then, Mahkas wouldn’t have found them …”

  Marla shook her head sorrowfully, as the slaves began to lay out the main course. It was ham, boiled with figs and bay leaves, rubbed with honey, baked to golden-brown perfection in a pastry crust. Even in the midst of a plague, Marla managed to set an impressive table. The effort was lost on Kalan, however. She was too concerned with the deception that had apparently been going on under her very nose her whole life to care how inventive Marla’s kitchen slaves were.

  “I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised Leila and Starros were lovers,” Marla told Wrayan, “but I’m still in shock over what you tell me about Mahkas’s reaction to it.”

  “He crucifies innocent farmsteaders in Medalon whenever they dare resist him,” Kalan reminded her, feeling argumentative. “Why are you acting so surprised that he’s proved himself capable of being just as cruel to a member of his own family?”

  Marla looked a little bewildered by Kalan’s question. “I’m not acting surprised, Kalan. I am surprised. Your uncle doted on Leila. His daughter meant the world to him.”

  “The world he feared losing if you didn’t allow her to marry Damin,” Wrayan pointed out. “Finding her in bed with Starros was akin to slapping him in the face with a reality he didn’t want to contemplate. And he didn’t take kindly to it.”

  Marla shook her head in disbelief. “But Damin must have said something to him to dissuade him from that belief, surely? He wrote me asking permission to set Mahkas straight on the issue of their betrothal—or the lack of it—weeks ago. I sent a letter as soon as I could, stating in no uncertain terms that while I loved her like a daughter, I did not consider Leila a suitable consort for Damin.”

  With the main course served, Cadella tactfully shooed the slaves out of the room, leaving them alone.

  “Your letter arrived the day after Leila killed herself,” Kalan said, as she heard the door close. “Brilliant timing, Mother.”

  “Kalan!” Wrayan exclaimed in surprise.

  Marla was just as shocked at her daughter’s sarcasm. “You think this was my fault, somehow?”

&n
bsp; “You could have put Leila out of her misery when we were children, Mother,” she accused. “But you’re too fond of playing politics.”

  The princess shook her head in denial. “If I thought my silence might cost Leila her life someday, or harm Starros in any way, I would have shouted it from the rooftops, Kalan. You must know that.”

  Kalan shrugged, picking up her fork and turning it over and over in her hand. “I don’t know what to believe any more.” Wrayan was studying her with concern. Feeling his eyes on her, she glared at him. “What?”

  “What’s the matter with you, Kalan?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re spoiling for a fight.”

  “What would you know?”

  “Kalan!” Marla scolded, shocked by her daughter’s belligerent tone. “Wrayan’s right. What is wrong with you this evening? You sound like you’re looking for somebody to argue with you.”

  “Maybe I’m just sick of all the pretence.”

  “What pretence would that be?”

  “Why don’t you tell me, Mother?” she suggested, rising to her feet. Kalan tossed her fork down and shoved her plate aside. “You’re the one with all the secrets.”

  With that pain-filled declaration, Kalan pushed her chair back and stormed out of the dining room, unable to bear the sight of the two of them sitting there so cosily together, leaving them staring after her in surprise.

  “Kalan!”

  Ignoring the call, Kalan tucked her knees under her chin, and stared out into the darkness. The windows were open and she could smell the sharp salt air of the harbour, the fresh breeze blowing away the rank smell of the city. The door shook as Wrayan impatiently tried the lock and then a moment later it opened.

  She turned to look at him as he stepped into the room. “Your talent is supposed to be for reading minds, not opening doors.”

  He held up a small key. “I’m pretty good at getting what I want out of people, even without resorting to magic.”