by Karen Miller
“Are you fit to ride, my lord?”
With an effort, Vidar straightened. “Why?”
“Are you fit? Yes or no?”
“I can ride. Where are we going?”
“What do you care? Do you want my help or not?”
Vidar’s breath caught. “Yes.”
“And you’ll have it. But in return, you’ll do as you’re told. Whatever I ask, you’ll answer. Whatever I want, you’ll give. Agreed?”
Vidar’s lamplit, ruined face told the story of his last and hardest struggle. So did his battered body and the way he gasped for air. Watching him, Balfre smiled. An easy treachery was no treachery he could trust. But a man in pain? That was useful. Men in pain were easily wooed… and won.
“Vidar?” he said kindly. “Let me help you.”
With another unsteady inward breath, Vidar opened his one good eye. Then all the fight went out of him. His sigh was a shout of surrender.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Balfre smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Roric rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers. Rain washed the stained-glass window of his privy audience chamber. He tried not to notice it. Tried not to see fields full of rotting grain. Before him stood Aistan and the lord’s youngest daughter, Kennise. Vidar’s widow. She clutched her father’s hand as though she were still a child, looking to him for every answer. He felt the old guilt prick him. What she was, Harald had made her. And because he’d been young and elsewhere, he’d done nothing to stop his cousin. Now she was suffering again, the innocent victim of another man’s crime. Just when he thought he couldn’t hate Vidar any more…
“I’m sorry, my lady,” he said gently. “I’m afraid it’s not good news.”
Aistan stiffened. “Vidar is dead, Your Grace? You’re sure of it?”
He was. Humbert’s men-at-arms had discovered the body in a creek. After several days in the water it had been somewhat the worse for wear, but his clothing was recognised, and a well-known family ring, and enough had remained of him that Humbert could vouch some scars.
’Tis Vidar, he’d written. He guessed the truth and ran rather than face you. I swear, Your Grace, I never thought him such a coward. I know you wanted him punished. So did I. But at least the cockshite’s dead.
Scant comfort. He’d wanted to look Vidar in the eye and tell him, without mercy, how Lindara had died.
“Your Grace?”
He looked up. “Quite sure, Aistan. His remains are on the road back to Eaglerock even now.”
“I don’t understand,” said Aistan, puzzled, as his daughter softly wept. “Why did Vidar run when Humbert brought him such happy news?” Then he flushed. “Your Grace, forgive me, I did not—”
“Peace, my lord. I know what you meant. And Humbert’s news was surely welcome, in part.”
“In part it was, Your Grace,” Kennise whispered. “For though my dear husband and I were pleased to serve you in the Marches, it was a sorrow to be kept so long from Eaglerock and my father.”
“And a greater sorrow yet that the cause for their return was your loss, Roric,” Aistan said, his face folding into grief. “No wonder Humbert begged you to let him escape bitter memories in the Marches. It was generous of you to give him what he asked for. I know how much he means to you, and how he’ll be missed.”
“As to that…” Roric looked at them steadily, showing them what they expected to see. “I think Humbert wasn’t the only one to be tormented by grief. Vidar and my wife cared for each other like brother and sister. Humbert suspects Vidar’s wits were disordered by her loss.”
“A tragedy compounded,” Aistan murmured. “So much misery.” Lifting his daughter’s hand, he kissed it. “Your Grace…” He settled his shoulders. “It’s no secret we’ve had our differences. But even so, I have never lost faith in you. Never once doubted that you are Berold’s heir. And you should know that everything I do… anything I have ever done… was only done with this duchy’s best interests at heart.”
Staring at him, Roric sat back in his chair. And what was that? A confession? Was Aistan admitting his part in Cassinia’s vendetta against Clemen, and Berardine, and innocent Catrain? He thought the man was. After years of deceitful silence, and with so much harm done, he should be angry. But he was too weary, all his anger spent on Humbert. Besides. What good would raging at Aistan do him now? Not even a witch could change the past.
It was curious though, that Aistan chose now to confess, however circumspectly. Had grief for his duke, and his daughter, and for Humbert, driven him to it? Or had guilt finally taken its toll? Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. Aistan was useful, so he’d use him. With Humbert in the Marches he had need of someone to stand with him against the likes of Ercole–who could no longer be dismissed or derided, thanks to his ties with Master Blane.
“Aistan,” he said, gravely, “I’ll treasure those words. My lady—” He slipped from his chair and moved to embrace Kennise. “There is no sharper grief than the grief we feel for a lost love.”
Her thin arms tightened around him. “No, Your Grace. But at least I have my children. I wish–I’m so sorry—”
“So am I.” Releasing her, he stepped back. “Don’t fear the future, Kennise. Coldspring remains yours. And when the time comes, I’ll help you find your daughters good husbands.”
“Your Grace.” She curtsied, a pale, plain woman who’d never stood a chance against Humbert’s brilliant daughter. “You are a good man.”
“Thank you, Roric,” Aistan murmured. “I’d take her home now.”
“Of course. See to your daughter, my lord.”
Alone again, Roric returned to his chair. Dropped his head to his hands and closed his eyes, crushingly tired. Harald dead. Liam dead. Lindara dead, and their babe. Vidar dead. Humbert banished to a living death. And Catrain, imprisoned in Ardenn like Berardine before her, she might as well be in her coffin. So what did that leave him?
Clemen.
It would have to be enough.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Molly and Iddo were fighting again.
“Ye be a right fulsome feggit, Iddo! Feed them boys less, ye say? Willem and Benedikt be sixteen summers old, man! They b’aint babbies. D’ye want them dropping skin-and-bone dead on me, is that what ye want?”
The sound of a thump, as a fist struck wood. “Ye b’aint never been a woman as wants to look the truth of them boys in the face,” Iddo shouted back at Molly. “Be there work enough in the Whistle for me and Benedikt and that Willem? Coin enough for food to fill our bellies? Ye know there b’aint. Times be grim and growing grimmer. Ye got to ’prentice Willem out, Moll. ’Tis the only way we’ll last.”
Sitting with Benedikt on the attic stairs, nursing a night candle and shamelessly listening to the muffled brawl in the kitchen, Liam felt his lip curl. There was Iddo, trying to get rid of him again. Ever since that whipping in the cellar, seared in his memory and never to be forgot, hardly a day passed that the Pig Whistle’s barkeep failed to find reason to cuff him, complain about him, niggle Molly to shove him into some ditch. But even if she wanted to, on account of knowing he was the true duke of Clemen, and being afeared of that, which she was, she never would turn him out.
He wished she ignored Iddo for his sake, but it was Benedikt she kept him for. His brother was clutching his ankle, spluttering over Iddo’s demand. He banged his knee against Benedikt’s shoulder, to say I know! and Clap tongue!
Molly stopped clanging her cast-iron pots. “Ye’ll ’prentice Willem over my dead body, Iddo! The Marches will come good agin and till they do, we’ll manage. Now why don’t ye leave me to m’kitchen and see about chaining the dog out and putting the public room to rights and making sure all them doors and windows be locked and shuttered for the night.”
More iron banging, and the angry thud-thud of heavy booted feet on the floor. Liam nudged Benedikt, and with a rolling of eyes they walked tip-toe up the stairs and into the att
ic room they’d shared for years.
“That feggit Iddo,” said Benedikt, dropping onto his pallet bed. “Ma should ’prentice him out.”
Liam latched the door, then used the night candle to light the tallow taper stuck in the wall beside Benedikt. “Moll never would. He warms her bed too toasty.”
“Feggit!” Benedikt muttered, squirming. “Don’t ye make me think on that.”
Grinning, he lit his own taper. “Bounce bounce bounce.”
“Clap tongue, ye bogshite!”
“Any road,” he said, relenting, then set the night candle in its iron holder, pinched it out, and collapsed with a grateful sigh onto his own bed. “Feggit or not, Iddo’s right to wrangle. Coin’s scarce and so be easy pickings. It be weeks since we snared a rabbit in the home wood.”
“Or slingshotted a wild duck,” Benedikt muttered. “I know.”
Truth was, they’d killed and eaten pretty much everything they were allowed to lay their hands on within a half league of the inn. That was the lawful limit of their hunting. Hardly a beast or bird was left. And though deer a-plenty crossed their path in the home wood the law said they weren’t allowed to lift a finger agin them. Deer belonged to the Marcher lords. No mercy on a feggit fool caught with a haunch of venison. Even Lord Humbert, proven not a cruel man, though folk were well frighted by him at first, even he hanged a deer-thief. Regular Marcher folk were forbidden to take boar, as well… though that weren’t so much a temptation. A man would need to be worse than a fool to face a boar without a lordly boar spear and a pack of snarling dogs.
Frowning, Liam scratched at the ugly burn scar on his cheek. The pain of it was a distant memory, but the bubbled skin still itched him now and then. His belly grumbled too. Supper’s pease pottage hardly stuck to his ribs. How could it when Molly scarce waved a lump of bacon over it? He was hungry for rabbit stew or mowled duck or scrap’o’mutton or anything that weren’t feggity boiled eggs or pease pottage with no bacon.
“Willem…”
He looked across the shadowy room at Benedikt. Saw the candle-lit gleam in his brother’s eye and knew what he was thinking. He always knew what Benedikt was thinking.
“Bell Wood!” they said, together.
“After morning chores,” Benedikt added. “We can say we be after rabbit in the home wood.”
“Iddo, he’ll kick about it.”
“Let him. It be Ma as makes the rules.”
And wasn’t that the truth. Molly was queen of the Pig Whistle, everyone in the Marches knew that. If she said him and Benedikt could go hunting then that’s what they’d do. And she would say it, ’cause he wasn’t the only one sick to death of boiled eggs.
Folding his arms behind his head, he thought about Bell Wood. They’d have to run hard as Count Balfre’s greyhounds to reach it, more than a league to the east. But Bell Wood was their best hope of finding lawful game. Since the black-lung burned through it last winter, putting thirteen families in the ground, folk shied away from the woodland like farm horses side-stepping round a flyblown corpse.
“And it b’aint like proper trespass,” said Benedikt. “With no folk living there these days.”
Which was Benedikt knowing what he was thinking. Half the time they didn’t need feggity words at all.
Liam yawned. “Still. We’ll want to look lively. Bell Wood runs close to Harcian land and you can’t turn a corner without falling over one of Balfre’s men-at-arms.”
“Feggits,” said Benedikt, snuffing the candle closest to him. “Blow out yer taper, Willem. It be burning low, and ye do know Iddo measures ’em with his feggit thumb.”
Another yawn, wide enough to split his scarred, broke-nosed face in two. Lurching upright he pinched out his candle. Wriggled and rolled until he was out of his hose and roughspun smock and under his blanket. Waited for the sounds of Benedikt’s wriggling and rolling to stop, then curled onto his side.
“Story time,” he whispered, because the truth had to be whispered, and only in the dark. That’s what he’d promised Ellyn. He couldn’t see her face any more but he remembered how she hugged him tight and kissed his cheek all wet and blurty to make him laugh, and how every night she told him who he really was. Story time was how he loved her. “Folk call me—”
“Willem. D’ye reckon I could tell it this time?”
Startled, he blinked. “Why?”
“Well…” The sound of Benedikt wriggling under his blankets. “I been thinking. I know ’tis yer story. But when ye told me who ye truly be, ye made it my story too.”
He’d never thought on it like that, but Benedikt was right. “Tell it, then. But if ye tell it wrong I’ll thump ye.”
Benedikt snuffled, laughing. “Ye can try.” Another wriggling sound, then a little sigh. “Folk call ye Willem,” he whispered, his voice solemn now. Serious. “But it b’aint yer true name. Yer true name be Liam, and ye be the rightful duke of Clemen. My name be Benedikt. I be yer brother. ’Tis my oath to keep yer secret and see ye on the Falcon Throne.”
Oh. Tear-pricked, Liam stared at the low attic ceiling.
“Willem? Be that all right?” Benedikt whispered, sounding anxious.
“Iss,” he said, after a moment. “It be fine.”
Another sigh, relieved. “Yer da was Duke Harald. The bastard Roric killed him. One day, when the time be right, ye’ll take yer revenge.”
“And ye’ll help me, iss? Ye’ll help me kill Roric?”
“Course I will.”
More prickling tears. “Go on. Tell the rest of it.”
“Ye had a nursemaid. Her name were Ellyn. The night Roric the bastard came for ye, she saved yer life…”
His eyes drifted closed, lulled by Benedikt’s soft voice. It was different when someone else told his story. When he all he had to do was listen, he could somehow see it happening in his mind. When someone else told his story, somehow… it was more true. Listening, smiling, he sank into sleep.
Molly and Iddo were still prickly with each other over breakfast next morning. Liam pulled a face at Benedikt and they kept their heads down eating their eggs. After that it was scrubbing the tables and benches in the public room, and hauling out the empty ale barrels, and changing shitty straw for fresh in the henhouse. When their chores were done they asked if they could go coney-hunting in the home wood. Iddo said no. Molly straight away said yes. Sullen, Iddo gave way.
Grinning at each other, they escaped outside. Snatched up their snares, their slingshots, their hooks-and-lines and their canvas bags and their small knives and pretended to saunter off to the home wood.
As soon as they were out of sight they started running, and didn’t stop till they reached the mysterious and bountiful Bell Wood, where the game was fat and plentiful and waiting to be caught.
But it wasn’t till they were splashing knee-deep across sun-dappled Wiggim’s Creek, running higgledy-piggledy through Bell Wood’s green, mossy heart, that Liam heard the fighting.
“Listen!” he hissed, snatching at Benedikt’s arm.
Burdened with rabbit and duck, ’cause it was his turn to carry their spoils, his brother slithered to a tippy-tilt halt on the creek bed’s slippery pebbles.
“What? I don’t hear–oh.”
Still as mice in the stables, they strained their ears. Heard shouts and cursing. Clashing swords. Screams of pain.
“Trouble,” Benedikt whispered. “Willem, let’s go—”
“No. I want to see.”
The bank was steep on this side of the creek, and peppery with stinging nettles. Heedless of the danger he plunged out of the lazy water and scrambled up the damp bank, biting his lip against the nettle pain, bruising his knees and elbows in his haste. Benedikt, cursing, scrambled behind him. At the top of the bank they flung themselves down shoulder to shoulder on their bellies, panting. Swiped sweat out of their eyes and stared.
Some dozen or so men-at-arms fought each other among the spindly trees a long stone’s throw from the creek, bloodied swords and daggers f
lashing in the fingery light. The men wore leather jacks over their tunics, arrow-full quivers on their backs and spurs on their booted heels. No sign of their horses, though. The battle must’ve started somewhere else.
Benedikt made a little sound in his throat. “They do look in a killing mood. What d’ye s’pose—”
“Hush!” Liam said fiercely, jabbing an elbow into his brother’s ribs. “Y’feggit.”
Benedikt cursed again, then snapped his teeth shut.
His brother was right, though. Humbert and Balfre’s men looked set to slaughter each other to the last breath. They were gasping hard, grunting and groaning as they set about each other with their swords. One man leapt backwards to avoid a swinging blade. His foot slipped on a patch of moss and he thudded to one knee. The man fighting him slashed his blade down, taking his fallen enemy’s sword arm at the elbow. Blood spurted. The man shrieked. Another blow near severed his head. But then his killer was run through from behind and he died–and then that man died before he could wrench his sword free. Another man fell backwards on a scream, his belly opened left to right through his boiled leather jack as though he were a roast goose being carved. The fresh woodland air was rank with blood-stink now, bloody as a shambles, loud with shouts and bubbling moans, the wet, cracking sound of blades slicing flesh and bone, and the musical steel ringing of sword upon sword. Another arm was lopped off. A hand at the wrist. One man’s face was cleaved in two, teeth and split tongue tumbling as he toppled like a tree.
Then there was silence, ’cause there was no one left to die.
Benedikt was shaking. Not crying, really, only tears and snot running down his face. “Willem.”
His face was wet too, and he wanted to heave up his eggs. Only he was Liam, duke of Clemen, and dukes were braver than that. So he lay on his churning belly beside Benedikt and bit his lip until the urge passed.
“All the blood,” Benedikt said at last, hiccuping. “And that man’s teeth, Willem. Did y’see his teeth fly, when–when—”
He pulled a face. “I saw.”
