by Karen Miller
Mazelina managed a smile. There were a dozen reasons, but she didn’t have the heart to utter even one. Poor Ullia. Always wishing to be like her brothers. A sword was out of the question, but there seemed little harm in Siddly Copse. Besides. A few hours’ berry-picking might prove a welcome distraction.
So they collected their rush-baskets and went to Siddly Copse, to pick hornberries and plan the Winterheight Feast the Green Isle’s Steward held every year for his great barons. Ullia had heard from a travelling acrobat about a troupe of jongler dwarves in the Exarch’s palace. The acrobat told her that sometimes the jongler dwarves travelled to other courts and palaces and great lords’ castles, where they jongled on tables and danced with their clever dogs and wouldn’t that be wonderful at the Winterheight Feast? Wouldn’t that make Papa the best Steward the Green Isle ever had?
“Isn’t he already?” said Mazelina, pretending to frown.
“Oh, yes,” said Ullia, so matter-of-fact. “But Mama, I heard whisper that some of the eastern barons complain of him. I don’t think they’d complain if there were jongling dwarves.”
Mazelina ate a hornberry so she wouldn’t laugh out loud.
With their baskets full and the copse’s rooks loudly cawing disapproval, they wandered hand-in-hand back to Steward’s Keep.
“Look!” said Ullia, delighted, and pointed. “Papa’s home from Lamphill Moor.” A little gasp. “Oh, Mama. He’s hurt his arm!”
Grefin stood waiting in the Keep’s forecourt, alone. A bandage showed bulky beneath his loose brown wool tunic, and his right arm had been tightly bound across his chest. Beneath an ugly rainbow of bruises, his stubbled face was pale. He saw them and half-raised his left hand in greeting. Then he let it fall again. His eyes were wide and dark.
“Ullia,” Mazelina said, hearing her voice oddly calm, “give me your basket then go down to the tilt yard. Tell Kerric he’s wanted.”
“Yes, Mama, but can’t I first—”
“Ullia. Go.”
Not even brash Ullia challenged that tone of voice. “Yes, Mama,” she whispered, and gave over her basket, and ran.
Like a woman in a waking dream, she slowly crossed the gravelled forecourt. Halted before her husband, put down the baskets, then folded her hands.
“Jorin?”
“It wasn’t the moor,” he said unsteadily. “It was raiders. They struck Potterstown. Mazelina, I had to defend the village. I’m Steward of the Green Isle.”
Yes. He was. And she was the Steward’s lady. And Jorin was his heir.
Grefin’s eyes filled with tears. He was so pale. He looked ill. Like a man soaked to drowning in death.
“He didn’t suffer.”
“I hope not,” she said, and felt a shiver, harbinger of a greater storm. “Take me to him.”
She followed her husband into the castle, into the austerely grand Great Hall where the Steward held his Winterheight Feast. Poor Ullia. There’d be no jongling dwarves this year. Jorin lay still and peaceful on a trestle covered in black velvet. His long, limber body, wrapped tight in shrouding bands, lay beneath more black velvet. His bloodless face was uncovered, his closed eyes sunken, his lips pale blue. Scented candles burned around him, sweetening the dead air.
Walking like an old man, Grefin shifted around the trestle until he was standing on its other side. He smoothed his shaking hand over Jorin’s neat, dark hair. His knuckles were scraped and bruised and he hissed a little, as though even that much movement pained him.
For a long time Mazelina looked at her murdered child. She’d seen death before, many times. She didn’t think he might be sleeping, wonder if any moment he’d open his sunken eyes, spring up sudden from the trestle, laughing. Just a tease, Mama! Tell me I fooled you! No. She’d seen death.
Her first-born son was dead.
“Do you remember,” Grefin whispered, “when he was three–no, just turned four. He slipped into Tamwell’s stables and somehow climbed onto my warhorse. By rights the beast should’ve killed him, but—”
“But instead, it fell asleep,” she whispered back. “And you were so proud of his horseman’s prowess you wouldn’t let me whip him.”
“Papa! Mama! Why did Ullia make me—”
Mazelina turned to see her living son, Kerric, scuffed and sweaty from the tilt yard, halt sudden and stare open-mouthed at the burdened trestle. Ullia dodged around him. Saw the trestle. Let out a cry.
“Jorin? No–no–Papa–no!”
Her grief broke, a tempest. The storm swept her to Grefin, into his one-armed embrace. Swept her own arms around their trembling children. Swept them clinging to each other and left them wrecked and abandoned upon an unknown shore.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Summoned back to Tamwell castle with no explanation given, Balfre was deeply unamused to be told by Aimery’s steward that His Grace was captured by another matter and would see his Marcher lord son in due course.
“Another matter?” Balfre glared, longing to slap the smirk off the insolent shite’s face. “What matter, Curteis?”
“My lord, forgive me,” said Curteis, seated at his cluttered desk in the castle steward’s chamber. “I’m not permitted to elaborate.”
“Then elaborate on why and for how long I was called back to court at all! I trust Waymon well enough but the Marches—”
“Count Balfre, you’re to wait upon His Grace’s pleasure. More than that, I cannot say.”
Balfre glowered. “You mean will not.”
“Alas, my lord.” Curteis picked up his pen, hinting. “When all’s said and done, ’tis one and the same.”
This was about those fucking Clemen peasants. He didn’t need Curteis to say it, he could see the condemnation in the steward’s watchful eyes.
Judge me, you shite, would you? Wait till I’m your duke. I’ll give you a lesson in judgement you won’t soon fucking forget.
There was no point arguing further. Leaving his father’s steward to hopefully trip over his own feet and stab himself through the eye with his fucking quill pen, Balfre went in search of Jancis. His wife was in the castle somewhere. She wasn’t Izusa, but fucking her would pass the time. And then he’d go in search of his good friend Paithan and settle down to get drunk.
“Balfre!” Pale and prim, too skinny, her insipid beauty fast fading, Jancis stared as he entered her privy apartments. “When did you–I didn’t know you were—” She smiled, unconvincing. “Welcome home, my lord.”
By the Exarch’s balls, she was nothing compared with Izusa. Dismissing her trio of ladies with a look, he waited for the door to close then dropped into the nearest chair. “Aimery calls me, I come.”
“Do you stay long?”
“No.”
If she was disappointed, she hid it well. “Grefin’s here. Have you seen him?”
Grefin? “No.”
“He arrived late last night, but we’ve not spoken. Whispers have him wounded.”
“Wounded?” Baffled, he tried to make sense of it. “How?”
“I don’t know,” she said, flinching. “I’m sorry.”
He leapt up. “Yes, you fucking well are.”
So much for Jancis. Abandoning his useless wife, he went to find his brother and father. Let Curteis try and stop him. He’d break the steward’s fucking neck.
Instinct and experience sent him first to Aimery’s privy audience chamber. The man-at-arms posted outside the door showed him he was right.
“Count Balfre,” the man said, wisely nervous. “My lord, I can’t—”
“Say can’t to me again and see your tongue ripped from your mouth. Stand aside.”
“Balfre!” his father snapped, as the man-at-arms wisely obeyed. “Would you tally more reasons for my displeasure? Curteis has instructed you—”
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” he said, kicking the chamber door shut. “Jancis told me Grefin was here, and wounded.” Looking past his father, he felt a stab of shock. Dressed head-to-toe in unrelieved black, face sickly, eyes smudg
ed with shadows, his brother looked like a living corpse. “Fuck. Grefin?”
“And I see the Marches have done as little to curb your foul tongue as your temper!” Aimery added. “By all the powers, Balfre, if you’ve hope of any sweetness from me then—”
“Please, Your Grace,” said Grefin, wearily. Instead of standing, as was usual, he sat a stool against the wall, his left shoulder leaning on a faded tapestry. “He’s here now, and he needs to know what’s happened.”
Choked with gall, Balfre watched his father’s pallid, age-spotted face soften and his yellowish eyes fill with tears.
“Very well,” Aimery said, his voice choked, and had to clear his throat. “Balfre. There is grievous news. Grefin’s son–your nephew Jorin–is slaughtered by raiders. They nearly slaughtered your brother. But, thank the spirits, he survived.”
Silenced, Balfre stared at Grefin. So long since they’d seen each other. Out of sight, out of mind. With the Marches singing so sweetly for him, independence and authority and Izusa to fuck, he’d hardly thought of his brother. And when he did, could even think of him fondly. And now this. This. The brutal, naked pain in Grefin’s face hurt him. It was Malcolm’s loss all over again, yet somehow worse.
“Gref, I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Aimery sighed. “’Tis a tragic loss. When the news breaks widely, all of Harcia will weep.”
“He was killed by raiders, you say? I did hear whisper of something, weeks ago, but—” He shook his head. “Raiders from where? Are they pirates?”
“We don’t know,” Grefin said. “I can’t find anyone who’s seen their like. They torched Potterstown. Murdered hundreds. Had others trussed to take for slavery. The things they did to those people…” With a shuddering breath, he banished the memory. “I fear if they’re not stopped at the Green Isle, they’ll over-run Harcia entirely.”
Aimery punched a feeble fist to the arm of his gilded chair. “Then, Grefin, we will stop them. I have, in the past few days, received assurances from every lord of the Green Isle. They swear to shed their blood to the last drop in defence of our sovereignty–and to avenge Jorin’s death.”
Grefin frowned, his face grief-pinched. “My son’s death is but one among too many.”
“I know that,” Aimery snapped. “But it’s his death–your great loss–the barons feel most keenly. Terriel wrote unstinting of how you fought in Potterstown. He calls you fierce and fearless. A Steward without blemish.”
Balfre raised an eyebrow. “High praise.”
“And well-deserved. Grefin—” Aimery leaned forward, urgent. “The Green Isle’s barons love you, and would die for you, which is what Harcia needs. ’Tis what you need, as their Steward. Men bound to you by more than lip-service obligation. Without that depth of loyalty we’ll not defeat these raiding barbarians before they can sink their teeth into this duchy.” He sat back. “Now. To the question of how we’ll defeat them.”
As Grefin and Aimery began debating strategy, Balfre stared at the floor, his thoughts frantically awhirl. While tensions in the Marches had been simmering ever since his arrival, his ambitions meant he’d kept them from coming to the boil. And that meant his men-at-arms weren’t yet properly blooded. When the time came at last for him to claim his kingdom of Harcia, he’d need blooded men to fight for him against Clemen. Letting his men-at-arms sharpen their swords on these raiders would answer that dilemma nicely. Of course he’d lose some in battle. But the rewards he’d reap were well worth any loss.
“—agree with that bullish shite Terriel’s suggestion,” Aimery was saying. “A string of garrisons around the Green Isle coast, each one within easy reach of where these raiders are likely to strike.”
“A sound notion, in theory,” Grefin said, dubious. “But we’ll need so many men. I doubt—”
“You’ll have them. I’ll see our castles here emptied, if I must.”
“And I won’t refuse them.” Grefin shifted his gaze. “Balfre? What do you think?”
“Me?” He frowned, showing nothing but pained concern. “I think, as Aimery’s heir, I should join you in defending our duchy.”
Grefin was too sombre for smiling but his eyes warmed, briefly. “A generous offer. But word of these raiders will trickle into Clemen. You can’t leave the Marches, Balfre. Roric might take your absence as an invitation to test our resolve–and our strength.”
“Then I’ll send you men-at-arms.”
“Which, again, will leave the Marches vulnerable.”
“Roric won’t test me. I have Vidar’s measure–and Clemen’s crippled lord has mine. They both know full well that—”
“Yes, Balfre,” said Aimery, darkly. “And I know too. We’ll shortly discuss your measure, and how far you’ll go in testing Roric!”
“I’m sorry,” Grefin said. “I don’t understand.”
Aimery frowned. “You will.”
Ah. So his summoning was about those fucking villagers. “My point, Grefin,” he said, “is that I have men I can spare to help you fight these raiders. As for our strength in the Marches, send me green men to train and I’ll soon make that good.”
Grefin looked at Aimery. “Your Grace?”
“Winter’s close,” said Aimery, after some thought. “’Tis likely the northern storms will keep these raiders from the Green Isle till next spring. By then you’ll have the garrisons established and men-at-arms enough for their stout defence. As for Balfre’s offer…” He glanced sideways, grudging. “Some of the men he’s trained serve now in this castle. Ambrose gives me good report of them.”
“Oh, I don’t question their competence,” Grefin said. “There are Marcher men-at-arms at Steward’s Keep. I’ll gladly take all the men Balfre can spare me, so long as it doesn’t endanger us in the Marches.”
Aimery grunted. “Very well. And when you leave you can take men from Tamwell with you. Talk with Ambrose on that.” He thumped the arm of his chair a second time. “Now. Balfre. Let us discuss your recent conduct.”
With a hiss of pain, Grefin stood. “I’ll leave you. Perhaps later, Balfre, we can—”
“No, Grefin,” said Aimery. “You’ll stay. For what I have to say to your brother concerns you as well.”
Fuck. Balfre sighed. “Your Grace, I—”
“Hold your tongue! I am speaking!”
He couldn’t help himself. He flinched. “Your Grace.”
“Roric’s herald even now resides in the East Tower,” Aimery said coldly. “My guest until I send him home with an answer for your actions that will satisfy his grossly offended duke.”
“Roric’s herald is here? Well, I hope you had him leeched for plague before you let him up the stairs.”
Aimery’s brows lowered. “You think this a matter for peurile jest?”
“Your Grace, how am I the villain? Why do you—”
“Because you murdered five of Roric’s people! Three of them children! Or do you deny it?”
“No, but—”
“Balfre? What is he talking about?”
He turned to his brother. “They were dead already, Gref. Clemen’s peasants were rotten with plague.”
“Even so…” Grefin swallowed. “You killed them?”
“I put them out of their misery. And I broke no law doing it! Fuck, I upheld the law.”
Aimery snorted. “Under Marcher law the penalty for trespass is not death.”
“They did more than trespass. They brought pestilence into the Harcian Marches!”
“So you say,” Aimery retorted. “Clemen denies it. Clemen claims you killed its people without just cause. And you have no proof elsewise.”
“I have the proof of my own eyes. I have Waymon and six men-at-arms.”
Another disbelieving snort. “And none of them would lie for you.”
“They don’t have to lie. It’s the truth.”
“You burned the bodies and spoiled the severed heads with pitch, to prevent—”
“To prevent the p
estilence spreading! And if that cowardly shite Roric had done the same when he first had the chance, Clemen wouldn’t now be in a muck sweat and we wouldn’t be paying the price for his failures!”
Aimery pointed a shaking finger. “Do not raise your voice to me!”
“Your Grace.” With an effort, Balfre gentled his tone. He could feel Grefin’s wounded stare. It made him want to kick something. “However distasteful, what I did was necessary. I am this duchy’s Marcher lord. I’ll not beg pardon for keeping Harcia safe.”
The corners of Aimery’s mouth turned down. “If your actions were so noble, why did I learn of them not from you, but from that bastard Roric’s herald?”
“What?”
“I thought you’d changed, Balfre,” Aimery said, his face bleak. “I thought you’d discovered wisdom and self-restraint. But I see I was mistaken. Your hatred of Clemen would not be held in check. Now peace between our duchies is once more precarious. Roric threatens reprisals! He threatens fines and sanctions and restrictions upon our merchants. Harcia cannot afford it! Especially now, with this new threat from these raiders. What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?”
Bewildered, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wait. Your Grace–how can you think I’d not tell you what happened? I despatched a report to you the next day. I don’t know why—”
“And I don’t care to hear your excuses!” Aimery shouted. “I received no report, Balfre. But even if I had, it would make no difference. They were Roric’s people and you should not have killed them! Nothing you say will convince me elsewise. Nothing you say can undo the damage you’ve wrought. Get out of my sight–and take this warning with you. Misstep again and I will disown you. I’ll strip you of all nobility and name Grefin as my heir.”
Balfre swallowed. A cold sweat soaked the soft linen shirt beneath his leather doublet. “Your Grace.”
He blundered from the audience chamber. Stumbled along the corridor until he came to one of the spiral staircases that led up to Tamwell castle’s roof. Climbed the timeworn, tightly winding stone steps until he reached fresh air, and the deserted battlements, and could show the sky his unmasked face.
