Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga)

by Gail Z. Martin

  “The die is cast,” Merrill said, taking a sip from his goblet of brandy. “In this, Tarrant has common cause with us. Our spies have reported messengers between Vellanaj and Meroven for some time now, even before Meroven attempted to seize land across our border. Tarrant realizes that if Meroven and Vellanaj succeed in their attack on Donderath, they will surely fall next.”

  “Yet the king of Tarrant wed the daughter of Jeroq of Vellanaj. Is that not an alliance with the enemy?” Lord Radenou demanded.

  “And by all accounts, Jeroq was well rid of the harridan,” Garnoc replied. His voice was gravelly with age, and his hair required no powder to be white as snow. Yet his blue eyes snapped with fire, and from the set of his jaw, Connor had no difficulty imagining his master as a firebrand in his younger days. He was still, even in his seventh decade, the most outspoken of the nobles, and the one to whom Merrill most often turned for private counsel. “One need not have spies to hear the report of how ill matched Zhon of Tarrant is to Jeroq’s daughter. Any courtier who has traveled among Tarrant’s nobility can verify that.”

  Radenou shrugged. “An arranged marriage is not for the happiness of the man and wife, but a business deal between the husband and the bride’s father,” he countered. Radenou had the silky manner of a courtier, and the instincts of an assassin. Connor had been privy more than once to his master’s opinions of the recalcitrant lord.

  “Such marriages are hardly unknown in Donderath, or do you forget that Queen Loana is the youngest of Edgar of Meroven’s daughters?” Merrill countered. Connor thought he looked much older than he had just a few months earlier. “I’m afraid such brides are mere hostages, and if they commit their affection to their husbands, they are then torn between loyalties.”

  I’m betting the king knows a thing or two about that personally, Connor thought. The marriage between Merrill and Loana of Meroven had been brokered through all of the proper channels, yet it was widely rumored to have been a love match as well. Whether the bride and groom had discovered their affection before or after the vows, Connor did not know, but there was a warmth between them even in their public appearances that he did not believe was mere pretense.

  “With Tarrant’s help, can we push back both Meroven and Vellanaj?” Garnoc leaned forward, catching Merrill’s eye with a question Connor was sure his master had timed to help the king out of an embarrassing thread of conversation. A flicker of gratitude flashed in Merrill’s eyes as he nodded.

  “I believe so. Vellanaj is not a particularly strong ally, though its navy is sizable. Already, there are reports that they have moved to blockade us.”

  “And the Cross-Sea powers? Will they take sides in this?” Corrender’s gaze fell to the map of the world powers that stretched across the table. The Sarnian Ocean stretched a vast distance between the Continent and the Peninsula, its nearest neighbor. “Nearest” was a relative term, Connor knew, since the sea voyage took several months, even with good weather.

  Merrill shook his head. “No, thank the gods. They have officially declared their neutrality. This is not their fight, and they want nothing of it.” A weary, cynical smile touched the king’s lips. “Or rather, they desire to trade with both sides, and to have no hard feelings with whoever is proven to be the winner.”

  Tiredly, Merrill stood. “Gentlemen. I will take tonight’s comments under consideration. When I receive messengers from the front, we will reconvene. Until then, we are adjourned.”

  The others remained seated until the king left the chamber.

  “Mark my words, this war will not come to a good end,” Radenou muttered as he pushed back his chair.

  Corrender rounded on him. “Is that your prediction—or your hope?”

  Radenou shrugged. “Merely my observation. It cannot be good for business or personal accounts when the four major powers on the Continent align against one another. The minor powers will scurry like rats dodging among the horses’ hooves, playing both sides for fools. And when we have all beggared ourselves for want of a few acres of ground, we may find the world more changed than we would like.”

  “Much as it pains me to agree with Radenou, I think in this case, he may be right.” They turned to look at Lord Onseler, who had remained silent throughout most of the night’s discussion. Onseler was one of the Council’s younger members, though he was well into his fifth decade. Like the others, he had served his time in battle for King Merrill or the king’s father. Now the vast connections of his shipping business made him the perfect spymaster for the king. Lord Onseler had never lost the bearing of a career military officer, and his eyes were cold and cunning.

  Well aware that everyone’s eyes were on him, Onseler took his time rising from his chair. “I do not like the omens I see. Always before, when the four powers have clashed, it has been over token issues: a strip of long-contested and otherwise useless land, a trade concession, or an imagined diplomatic affront.” Onseler shook his head. “Edgar of Meroven is a very different king from his father—and from King Merrill. Edgar is headstrong and vain, and by all accounts, he’s surrounded himself with ambitious men. Vellanaj’s king is weak and easily led. No doubt he basks in Edgar’s supposed glory,” he said with disdain. “I don’t think this war will be as easily ended as the last skirmishes. I fear this war will redraw the map of the Continent—and we may not like the results.”

  Lord Garnoc said nothing until he and Connor were within their private rooms. It was so apparent that he was bursting to speak that Connor barely suppressed a smile, though the subject was no laughing matter.

  “By Torven’s horns!” Garnoc swore, and went on to curse in increasingly creative ways until Connor had poured him a liberal shot of brandy. “Radenou makes me wish I were twenty years younger. I’d like nothing more than to put my sword through that wagging tongue of his!”

  Connor chuckled. “I daresay you’d find the rest of the Council offering to be your second in that duel, m’lord. Your opinion appears to be shared by all.”

  Garnoc settled into a chair by the fire. “All but the king, though I think I know why Merrill puts up with him. It’s better to keep your enemy close enough to watch.”

  “You’re sure Radenou is truly the king’s enemy?”

  Garnoc gave a growl as he settled into the chair and thrust a pillow behind his lower back, giving Connor to know that part of his master’s ill temper had less to do with the Council than it did with his aching muscles. “If you mean, do I think Radenou would take up arms for Meroven, no. But the man delights in being a gadfly, and his contrariness wears on me. His sour disposition affects those in his circle, who go off to poison others with their cynicism.” His brows knitted together in a scowl. “Such cynicism can undermine a king, whether it’s meant as treason or not.”

  Connor hurried to bring Garnoc his dinner from the covered plate a servant brought to the door. With a flourish meant to lighten Garnoc’s mood, Connor set out the dinner on the table, making a show of laying out the rolls, napkin, tureen of soup with its crust of baked cheese and ramekin of fruit compote, with a perfectly roasted game hen plated with radishes and caramelized parsnips. “Dinner is served, m’lord.”

  Garnoc got slowly to his feet, but he waved off assistance. “I don’t need you hovering over me, Bevin!”

  “Yes, m’lord,” Connor said with a deep bow that hid his smile. Garnoc was not always a congenial master, but he was a good and fair man who did not believe in beating either his servants or his horses. Unlike much of the nobility. Garnoc had also raised sons to maturity who willingly spoke well of their father.

  “Show Millicent to the table,” Garnoc said.

  Connor went to the mantle and took down the small oil painting that traveled everywhere with Lord Garnoc. The oval painting showed a dark-haired beauty with tempestuous eyes and a full-lipped smile. Lady Garnoc was rumored to have had a force of personality equal to that of her husband, and the older servants still fondly remembered rows between the two that resulted in broken cr
ockery. Yet their disagreements, however heated, had never gone beyond a few trampled trinkets, and from all recollections seemed to have been as much entertainment for the two as they had been about any subject of meaning.

  Even now, twenty years after Lady Garnoc’s passing and long after she had aged to be a respected matron in the court, the elderly chambermaids still blushed when they whispered about the trysts between Lord and Lady Garnoc. The passion that had bound them together had not cooled for Lord Garnoc after his wife’s death, and he made it clear that he would never want anyone but Millicent.

  Respectfully, Connor placed Millicent’s portrait opposite where Lord Garnoc sat, and withdrew.

  “I did not want to say so in front of the others,” Garnoc said, “because I did not wish to appear to agree with anything Radenou says, but I, too, am worried.” Whether he was speaking to Millicent or to Connor, Connor did not know, but such conversations were common, and Connor accepted them as part of his role as Garnoc’s personal steward. “I have had dark dreams about this war. I don’t think Merrill has considered the impact if Vellanaj’s blockade succeeds, and I have told him as much in private.”

  Garnoc shook his head. “Merrill is worried. He won’t show it, but I’ve known him since he was a lad, and I can tell this war wears on him. Merrill is a man of reason. He weighs his options and their cost before acting. Edgar of Meroven is hot-tempered and vain. Edgar must know his grab for land can’t go without reply, but he’s willing to risk everything, and for what?”

  He glanced at Connor, who hurried to refill his brandy. “What of the king’s mages, m’lord? Do they give counsel?” Connor asked.

  Garnoc sighed. “They speak in riddles, as always. But of late, even those riddles are dark. I was with Merrill the last time his visioner cast the cards. Dark omens of wild seas and fire raining down from a mountain and of an early, killing frost.” He fell silent for a few moments as he finished his meal. “I don’t always hold with the findings of the king’s visioner, so I asked my astrologer, Atriella, to scry the stars for me.”

  “And what was revealed?” Connor was skeptical when it came to the proclamations of most of the soothsayers, smoke-readers, and diviners who hung about every court and noble house like weevils in a granary. Yet Atriella was different. She did not affect the swoons and vapors that so many of the visioners used to announce their readings. When she searched the skies for signs of what would be, she was rarely wrong, despite her lack of showy ritual. Her accuracy had made many enemies among the lesser astrologers, who already held her common birth against her.

  “You know that Charrot’s figure in the night sky remains visible all year long, dipping and rising but always in view.”

  “Yes, m’lord. I’ve seen it when the sky is clear.” Connor had indeed seen the pattern of stars that was named for the two-natured, diune god. He glanced toward a large tapestry on the wall that illustrated a scene from the epic poems that recounted the stories of the gods. One of the tapestries depicted three figures against the constellations of the night sky: Charrot, the Source, and the god’s two consorts, Torven and Esthrane. Beneath them lay land, sea, and the realms of the dead and undead.

  Charrot, the Source, ruled both the realm of gods and the realm of men. On one side of his body, Charrot had the form of a perfect warrior: broad-shouldered, with rippling muscles in his arms and thighs and exceptionally well-endowed manhood. His skin was a dusky yellow, and his chiseled, masculine face was always depicted by the artists as handsome. But Charrot was both male and female, and the figure in the tapestry was turned slightly so that both sides showed. Viewed from the other side, Charrot was a woman of surpassing beauty, with heavy, full breasts and thighs that promised both fertility and fecundity. With skin the color of twilight and hair the shade of a midnight sky, Charrot was the epitome of feminine beauty.

  In the tapestry, the god held out its hands to its two consorts. Torven, the god of illusion, was a blue-skinned man whose beauty equaled that of Charrot himself. Torven and his progeny ruled the air and sea, water and ice, darkness and twilight, metals and gems, and the Sea of Souls.

  Esthrane, the second consort, also equaled Charrot’s feminine sensuality. With yellow-hued skin and a wide-eyed and sorrowfully knowing gaze, Esthrane and the gods of her offspring commanded fertility from the ground and from crops and herds, working their power in birth and fire. And it was Esthrane who kept watch over the Unseen realm, the wandering place of incomplete souls.

  Beneath the feet of the figures in the tapestries were the artist’s imaginings of the hundreds of household gods, patron deities, and place-gods who were revered and worshipped. Temperamental and fickle, these lesser gods figured much more in the lives of ordinary citizens than the sons and daughters of Charrot’s consorts. From spoiled milk to turned ankles, the lesser gods influenced the daily routines of life, and a wise person knew how to beseech them for their favor.

  Garnoc cleared his throat, pulling Connor back from his thoughts. “As I was saying—”

  Connor nodded. “Atriella’s reading of the stars,” he said, embarrassed to be caught daydreaming.

  “Aye. We’re coming on toward winter, and Esthrane’s constellation, Woman in Childbirth, dips below the horizon until summer, when life begins again. Torven’s constellation, the Conjuror, rises for the winter.” Garnoc sipped his brandy and cast a glance at Conner to assure his attention.

  “You know of the planets in their courses?’

  “Yes, m’lord. They move about our sun, like bees in a hive.”

  Garnoc nodded, pleased at Connor’s answer. “You’ve been paying attention.”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  “Atriella says that once every seventy years, the outermost planets, Veo and Iderban, form a perfect line. If they align when Esthrane’s constellation is high, it augurs for prosperity and good harvest. But if they align when Torven’s stars are ascendant, it is a dark omen, full of changes and of things not being what they seem.”

  Connor nodded, though he was unsure that he trusted in the star-seers as much as his lord. “Veo, the Thief. And Iderban, the Assassin,” he mused. Garnoc had told him once that the most remote planets were so named because they were faint to the eye without a spying glass, with shadowy, elusive shapes.

  “Atriella believes that the omen bodes badly for the war, and for Donderath’s part in the fighting.” Lord Garnoc shook his head. “Given the news that we’re privy to, I fear she is right. If Vellanaj is able to maintain its blockade, we’ll be forced to feed our people and provision our army without the benefit of trade from abroad.” He paused for a moment, lost in thought.

  “It’s a bad business, with winter coming. Likely to stir up all kinds of unrest. Hungry people at home make it difficult for a king to focus on the warfront.” He met Connor’s gaze. “It’s likely to create other problems as well if the folks in the ginnels start looking for someone to blame. I believe Lanyon will want to know what we’ve learned.”

  Connor nodded. “When do you want me to take the message?”

  “Go now. It’ll be a few days before the king has more news. This has potential to affect Lanyon and his people. He needs to be warned.”

  “Shall I wait until after you’re finished with your meal?”

  Garnoc smiled. “You can take care of the table when you get back. Millicent and I have some catching up to do.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CONNOR MADE SURE NO ONE SAW HIM LEAVING Lord Garnoc’s rooms. He took the servants’ stairs down to the first floor, pausing only long enough to retrieve his cloak from his own room. Quillarth Castle had dozens of back stairways and at this hour, long after supper, the passageways were quiet.

  Even the stables were empty of groomsmen and hired hands as Connor saddled his horse and led it from its stall. He encountered no one until he reached the gate, when a bored guard asked only if he intended to return that night.

  Connor had not gone far beyond the walls of Quillarth Castle before he tur
ned from the main road. There was a full moon, and it lit the way as he urged his horse along the meandering streets that would lead him out of the city and into the countryside.

  He had been careful to hide his feelings when Garnoc sent him on the errand, but inside, Connor felt his stomach twist. How long until Garnoc realizes I may have betrayed him? Connor wondered. The question was rarely far from his mind. Garnoc had already noticed something was wrong. He had admonished Connor more than once for allowing his attention to stray. But the fact that Garnoc still kept Connor in his service told him that he had not yet been found out.

  I should confess, Connor thought for the hundredth time. Even though I don’t quite know what I’m confessing about. He had been down this line of reasoning before, and it always led him in circles. What do I tell him? That twice I’ve been waylaid on the way back from carrying a message, but that I’ve got no clue about who attacked me? That they left me unconscious in a ditch, and I awoke with no memory of where I’d been for the past few candlemarks?

  Connor shook his head. Who would believe me? I hadn’t been drinking, but that’s what they’ll assume. Nothing was taken. And yet, I’ve lost candlemarks of my life. I don’t know what I did or said. Gods help me! What if I’ve broken confidence, betrayed my master—and the king?

  Another possibility loomed, equally frightening. Or perhaps, Connor thought, I’m going mad. I’ve heard that men can go into a frenzy and remember nothing. Gods! What if I’ve killed someone, done something awful, and don’t remember? Either way, I’ve shamed my master, betrayed my vows, maybe even compromised the king.

  Always the thoughts circled to the same conclusion. Confess my fears, and Garnoc will disown me. No one else will want an unreliable assistant. I’ll starve. Or worse, Merrill will lock me up for treason. I can’t bear that, especially when I don’t even know what I’ve done.