by Karen Miller
“None for yourself?” he said, as she returned with a generous serving of rabbit and a goblet brimming with red wine. “You’re no scullion, Izusa. You can eat in my presence.”
“I ate while you were sleeping. Come, Balfre. Fall to. You’re a man in need of strength.”
He ate and drank, ravenous. When he was finished she took the emptied bowl and goblet out to the tub by the front door, for later washing. As she slipped back into the chamber, he looked up. In the candle-light his face was vulnerable, in a way she’d never seen.
“You’re right, Izusa. It’s not just the fucking I come for. There’s a restfulness here I can’t find anywhere else.”
“Good, my lord. Every great man deserves some peace.”
“I think…” He half-smiled. “Did you call me Balfre, before?”
“An impertinence. Forgive me.”
“No. I like the sound of my name on your lips. I’d hear it again, Izusa. Whenever we’re alone.”
She smiled. “Balfre.”
“Come,” he said, patting the blanket. “You’ve fed my belly, woman, but my cock is hungry too.”
Though he tore the shift from her body, still in his own way he was gentle. She encouraged that, whispering pleasure and praise. So long as she must fuck him, she’d have a say in how it was done.
Sated and drowsy after, he let her hold him. “I think you must be some kind of witch. I fuck you like a faery king. Enchantment lies between your thighs.”
She raked her fingernails lightly over his buttocks. So many men were flabby, but Balfre was pleasingly taut. “I’m no witch as the exarchites would have it. But if you’d know the truth, Balfre… I’m not without power.” She slapped him when he snorted, lascivious. “Not all power comes from fucking. I know much of the world beyond these narrow Marches. I’ve breathed the scorching air of Agribia. Watched the Great Eclipse atop the highest mountain in Zeidica. I know the twisting alleys of Lepetto and the wide, tree-lined streets of half-forgotten Pruges. I’ve seen men drown in the Sea of Sorrows and wept to the ringing of Carillon’s bells. I can help you, if you’ll let me.”
For a long time Balfre said nothing. She waited. There was no need to push him. At last he eased free, rose on his hands above her. His eyes were dangerous. Trapped beneath him, she met his stare calmly. To show fear would be a grave mistake. She knew him inside and out.
“Who are you, Izusa?”
She pressed her hand lightly against his chest, over his heart. “I’m a storm-tossed leaf, Balfre. I’m a woman come to rest. The first time I saw you, at the Pig Whistle, after that bloody skirmish with Clemen? I knew then my purpose was to see you achieve your desire.”
Taking his full weight onto one arm, Balfre captured her left breast in his hand. Smiled to feel her thudding heart, even as she felt his. “And what do I desire, Izusa?”
“A crown, my lord Balfre,” she said, covering his grasping hand with her own. “A kingdom long since lost, that should be yours, and will be.”
His smile faded. “How do you know that?”
“Does it matter? I know. And I see you crowned a king. All you need do is trust.”
His breathing was ragged, his body rampant. “In you?”
“Yes, Balfre.” She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips. Lifted her own hips, shamelessly begging. “In me.”
He was desperate to believe her, but his thorny nature pricked too hard. Eyes cold, he almost snarled. “You know I’ll kill you if you’re lying.”
Capturing his gaze, she poured all her power into her stare. Melted his suspicion. Bound him, heart and soul. “I’m not. Now fuck me before I die of desire.”
He plunged into her, groaning. The honey potion she’d fed him was potent. He’d want to fuck for hours yet. But she was sick of it, so she rode him hard to a swift spilling. And when she brought him more wine, laced with a strong soporific, urged him to drink deeply. He drained the goblet in a single swallow. Moments later, even as he tried to fondle her, his eyelids began to close.
“Sleep, my lord,” she murmured, “and fret no more on your father, or Roric, or your loyal brother Grefin. When the time is right I’ll help you rid the world of Aimery. I’ll see you to your ducal crown, and after that a throne.”
He smiled at her, drowsy. “Then you are a witch, Izusa.”
“Witch enough for your purpose, ser.” She kissed him, lightly. “And that’s all you need to know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Just on sunrise, and Eaglerock was stirring to life. In Baker Street the apprentices coaxed ovens to greater heat or struggled to knead their risen dough well enough to please their masters. Bread already baking scented the air with mouth-watering promise. The town’s other early birds, the piemakers and dairymen, the apple-girls and curdsellers and tallowmen and tanners, they blinked in the cloudy morning light as they went about their tasks. Yawning lightermen extinguished their lanterns, shouldered their poles and wandered home to sleep the day through, scarcely listening to the bellow of cattle penned in the Shambles for slaughter. Hand-pushed scurrel carts creaked in and out of puddles, down narrow, hunchbacked alleys and along the town’s wider streets as its scurrel-men collected the corpses of dogs and cats and vermin that had perished in the night. Human corpses they left untouched for the township’s men-at-arms to carry away. Small boys ran with early, urgent messages, leather-clad feet slapping and splashing as they dashed. The dogs that hadn’t died barked and howled to hear them and challenge the clopping horses who pulled the fish-wagons down to the harbour for the morning catch. On the waterfront the never-sleeping brothels, busy again, spat out sleepy sailors and docksmen who rubbed their eyes and hauled up their breeches to cover naked arses. And the whores who plied their trade in daylight hours opened chamber shutters and muslin chemises and flaunted their tits.
Swathed in a battered leather travelling cloak, and with a canvas cap worthy of Arthgallo hiding his head, Roric walked down to the waterfront with Humbert. Like himself, his foster-lord’s familiar appearance was concealed by cloak and hood. Lacking the men-at-arms that usually surrounded Clemen’s duke, they looked no more important than any other early-rising townsfolk. And those who did stir hardly glanced their way, too intent on their own troubles.
“So,” he said, keeping his voice low, and looked sideways at Humbert. “What do you make of Vidar’s latest report? Is he right? Does Balfre oversee the training of so many Harcian men-at-arms because of these raiders? Or does he have a more sinister purpose?”
Humbert shrugged. “To my way of thinking, Balfre farts with sinister purpose.”
“Doubtless he does, Humbert, but you don’t answer the question.”
“Because I’ve got no answer, Roric. Save to say we should hope Harcia does turn its Green Isle into a graveyard for those raiding cockshite butchers. Better their men-at-arms fight such a battle than ours.”
A good point. The thought of those ruthless northmen slaughtering their way through the Marches and laying waste to Clemen kept him awake at night. Waiting for a stinking manure cart to roll by them on its way to the shite-pits, Roric frowned across rutted Fleece Street and down to the slowly rousing warehouse district.
“It seems Balfre’s brother proves himself a wily knight. If the rumours are true, he’s foiled four raids already and we’ve only reached the last gasp of spring.”
Humbert pulled a face. “The raiders killed his son. I can think of no better spur for vengeance.” A sideways glance. “You think Grefin’s cause for Clemen to worry?”
The manure-cart passed. As they picked their way around smelly puddles and between wheel-ruts, Roric felt a splatter of rain on his face and looked up. The sky was swiftly crowding with more clouds. They’d had a wet spring already. If the summer followed suit there’d be yet another poor harvest. The thought of Clemen’s fields rotting black with ruined crops made him falter.
Not again, by all the powers. Please. Not again.
Too much rain in Clemen. Too little in
Cassinia. And with pirates keeping Danetto’s merchant galleys penned in their harbours, it seemed the world was swiftly running out of grain.
To distract himself from that dire thought, he looked again at Humbert. “I worry what might happen when Aimery breathes his last. Should his belligerent sons grasp the same sword and look southwards, how can Clemen hope to prevail?”
“They won’t,” Humbert said, wiping rainwater out of his eyes. “Balfre’s a stone-hearted, murdering bastard but Grefin’s not that style of man. He keeps his belligerence for the raiders and his sword sheathed elsewise.”
“Speaking of Balfre… for a stone-hearted, murdering bastard he’s been uncommonly well-behaved of late,” he mused, as they turned into Griddle Lane. “Since he killed that family from Dipford the Marches have been still.”
“Because after you threatened reprisals Aimery threatened to name Grefin heir in his place,” Humbert said, grimly amused. “Balfre knows the old nob would make good on his promise, so he minces like a lady’s palfrey and does naught to stir shite.”
“Who told you that? Vidar? He’s never mentioned it to me.”
“Vidar?” Humbert’s lips thinned. “I don’t gossip with Vidar. I know other men in the Marches. They hear things, and pass them along.”
“And you don’t, it seems.”
“Now, Roric…” Humbert stopped. “There’s no need to wrong-foot me on this. The whisper only just reached me. I wasn’t keeping tattle secret. Why would I?”
Halted, he met Humbert’s hurt stare steadily. Over the past trying months they’d worked hard to heal their wounded friendship. Lindara’s growing belly helped. The hope of an heir. The chance for a future with children in it. But Humbert still chafed against the notion that the boy he’d fostered was now a grown man, and his duke. So they continued to tiptoe on eggshells round each other and sometimes it seemed as though that might never change.
“You wouldn’t. I know.” He started walking again, taking Humbert with him. “But I’ll tell you this. Just because Balfre’s thought better of killing Clemen-folk in broad daylight doesn’t mean he’s not killing them in the dark. Vidar wasn’t wrong, Humbert. People have gone missing from Clemen’s border villages.”
“There was plague in those villages. You’ll find those missing folk dead and tossed in a ditch.”
“Some, perhaps, I’ll give you,” he said. “But not all.”
They emerged from Griddle Lane onto sloping Ironmongery Street. Stamping his way downwards, Humbert blew a tremble of raindrops from his nose. “You’re frighting at shadows, Roric. You can’t truly believe Balfre’s murdering Clemen-folk under cover of night and burying the bodies before sunrise!”
Spoken aloud, his fear did sound ridiculous. But he couldn’t shake loose his feeling of dread. “Tell me again who was it called Aimery’s heir a stone-hearted, murdering bastard?”
“And so he is,” Humbert growled. “But I never once called him a fool.”
“Then what’s your explanation?”
“I say that with all this rain the land’s turned swampy along the border. Could be those folk have trickled south for better luck. Or they’re skulking in the Clemen Marches, living rough.”
“Vidar says they’re not. Do you call him a liar?”
Humbert hunched his cloaked shoulders round his ears. “You know the Marches, Roric. Half of it’s woodland. There are plenty of gnarly places where folk can hide. And rabbits and roots and berries so they’ll not starve.”
Which was true. But it didn’t explain the crawling sensation on the back of his neck or the queasy roil of his belly. Though it defied common sense, smacked uncomfortably of soothsaying and omens, he knew in his bones a storm was coming.
And I’m a man chained to a rock in its path, unable to escape.
“Roric?” Alarmed, Humbert seized his arm. “Are you ill? You’ve gone pale as a fish’s belly, boy.”
The burst of rain had eased, but still he had to blink and blink to clear his vision. “No. I’m fine.”
“I’ll send for Arthgallo when this business is done with,” said Humbert. “He can—”
“I said there’s nothing amiss!”
Humbert let go. “Yes, Your Grace.”
They walked the rest of the way in stiff silence.
Despite the early hour, Eaglerock’s waterfront tumbled like an ant hill. Not quite two months since the harbour was declared open again, and everyone who relied on it now rushed to make up their lost time and coin. A jaunty breeze blew in from the open water, its salty freshness mixing with the stink of tar and fish and spilled spices and sweating men. No more taint from the plague ships, which had been anchored well out in the harbour.
An unpopular decision, that, to round up the sick and suffering of Clemen and house them on galleys. The exarchite Ignace had been furious in his opposition. And it was true, many souls had died on those ships. But the decision had kept the pestilence from spreading further through the duchy. Lives were lost, yes. But more had been saved.
Their purpose served, the disease defeated for now, the plague ships had been burned to the waterline and let sink into memory. Instead of fearful cries and moans of suffering, shouts and curses and laughter filled the air with working music. Filled Roric with the faintest hope that hope wasn’t lost for Clemen.
“There,” Humbert said, pointing. “There’s Garith.”
The shipmaster stood on the dock beside his pride and joy, the impressive trading cog Watersprite, as his sailors and docksmen laboured up and down the gangplank with small chests and barrels. A winch swung canvas-stitched bales of wool or linen high overhead to be dropped into the galley’s open belly. Large barrels sloshed full of Clemen ale and brandy were stacked beside the bales. Nimble dock-boys darted like minnows, following shouted instructions, cat-calling back and forth and mischievously tripping each other when Garith had his back turned.
Roric threaded his way through the mayhem, Humbert at his heels. “Shipmaster Garith!”
Garith turned, his canvas smock a far cry from the figured brocade doublet he wore when visiting court. His weather-beaten glare shifted to a wary frown of welcome when he recognised his visitors.
“My Lord,” he said, with a polite nod. “Let’s jawbreak our business within.”
If the sailors and dock-men and darting boys realised who’d come to break jaws with their master, not a one of them showed it. Roric and Humbert followed Garith into the tarred wooden dockside hutch that served as his office, and waited as he closed its door then hurriedly pulled out two battered stools.
“Sit, sit, Your Grace, my lord. And I thank you for coming down to the harbour. It be a short tide and I can’t afford to miss the turn.”
Perching on the nearest stool, Roric waved a hand. “It’s no great matter, Garith. I’d not interfere with Clemen’s merchants unless I have to.”
The shipmaster’s eyebrows quirked. “Of course, Your Grace.”
“No need for pulling faces, man,” Humbert growled, seated with his fists braced on his knees. “You well know Eaglerock would be a township of wraiths if His Grace hadn’t put his foot down and closed the harbour when he did.”
“I do, my lord, I do,” said Garith, sighing. “’Twas a lucky escape we had.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it. His Grace’s good judgement saved us. A pity the duke of Rebbai lacked Roric’s good sense. Word is that duchy’s half-charnel house these days.”
Garith sighed again. “Indeed, my lord. ’Tis what I’ve heard too. But if you’ll forgive me, Rebbai’s trouble don’t concern me as much as Clemen’s. Your Grace—”
“Speak freely, Garith,” Roric said, glancing at Humbert. “I’m no child to have his feelings spared.”
“Then I won’t spare you,” said Garith. “Your Grace, I sailed into harbour late yesterday after profitable trading in the Treble Kingdom’s main port. And—”
“You take coin from those scabrous vermin?” Humbert demanded. “Shame on you, Garith!
”
“My lord, I do think there be more shame in starving,” Garith retorted. “And letting the men who sail my ships, and their families, starve. I did warn you there’d be a cruel price to pay for closing the harbour and I pay my share of it by trading with any scabrous vermin as can part with genuine coin.”
“Enough, my lord,” Roric said, when Humbert took a breath to let loose his temper. “We’re not here to debate the merits of trade.” He looked at the shipmaster. “What did you discover in Port Izzica that was so dire I must be summoned here at sunrise to learn of it?”
“Your Grace, you know they buy and sell slaves in the Treble Kingdom?”
A leaping of blood. “I do, Garith, yes.”
“When I went ashore in the port there was a dockside auction. And Your Grace, I saw Clemen folk being sold. Harcians, too.”
“Slavery is a terrible thing, Garith. But we all know sailors risk much when—”
“They weren’t sailors, Your Grace! They were ordinary men and women, as you’d find here in Eaglerock or any township beyond the Marches.”
“That can’t be,” said Humbert, stunned. “I won’t speak for Aimery, but His Grace would never—”
“I don’t say it was His Grace selling our people! Lord Humbert, I’ll thank you not to put sour words in my mouth!”
“Peace,” Roric said sharply. “I’ve no interest in you two brawling like tavern rats. Garith, did you make any attempt to buy these poor wretches yourself?”
“Of course I did, Your Grace. Well. Our folk, at least. But I was too late. I didn’t realise they were our folk till coin had changed hands. I offered to empty my purse but the Osfahr bastard who bought them wouldn’t sell them on to me. I watched them taken away in chains, weeping.”
“But how did they end up in a slave auction at all?” said Humbert. Bewildered now, and grief-struck.
“I asked the auction master that,” said Garith, his eyes haunted. “He said he bought them from pirates and those curs’t northern raiders.”
