by Karen Miller
He couldn’t break. Mustn’t break. “I know. I’ll see you soon.”
The journey from bailey to Aimery’s chamber was the longest of his life.
The first sight of his father choked him to silence. The bold, vigorous man of his childhood was entirely vanished. Even the older man he’d become lately–diminished, yes, but still vital–that man was gone too. Aimery had become a frail, pathetic creature, propped up in bed with pillows and tucked beneath bearskin. A half-dozen burning candles lent dishonest warmth to his face. Wrinkled skin draped over jutting bone. Once-keen eyes peered, yellow and rheumy. Thick hair thinned to gossamer strands was plastered to his crusted scalp.
“Grefin!” Aimery said, his voice a raven’s croak. “You’ve come.” His clawed fingers jabbed at the chamber’s attendants. “Get out. Get out. I’d be alone with my son.”
“My lord.” Somehow he managed to cross from the doorway to the bedside without falling to the floor. Paid no attention to the servants sent scuttling from the room. “’Tis good to see you.”
Aimery held him close. He smelled of disease and creeping death. Then his wasted arms fell away. “Let me look at you, while I can.”
There was a chair, but Grefin sat on the bed beside his father. Fought against tears as Aimery’s clouded gaze roamed his face.
“You’ve grown thin, fighting northmen. How many more of their ships have you taken?”
“Two score, or thereabouts,” he said, forcing a smile. Knowing the tally would give Aimery pleasure. “Stored safely inland with the rest, against the day Harcia dares to sail again. Your Grace—”
“Good, good.” Then Aimery frowned. “And you? What wounds have you, since last we met?”
“None worth mentioning. Your Grace, why—”
“Liar.” Aimery poked him. “Did you think your wife forgot how to wield a quill?”
Ah, Mazelina. “No, your Grace. Why have you not sent for Balfre?”
Aimery gestured at the silver pitcher set on a table against the wall. “Wine. And don’t stint.”
He was a husband, a father, and Steward of the Green Isle but he obeyed Aimery as neatly as though he were still a child. The pitcher held Lombardi sunwine, its spicy scent rich and familiar. He half-filled a silver goblet and returned to the bed. Eased his father’s cold, twisted fingers around its stem. But even so simple a task as raising it to his lips was now beyond Harcia’s duke. Eyes burning, Grefin helped him drain it, to prevent the crueller shame of spilled wine. And then he pretended he’d not done that, just as long ago Aimery had pretended not to see that his small son, taking his first jousting pass in the tilt yard, had wept for being knocked out of his saddle and onto his arse. Setting the emptied goblet aside, he held his father’s hand and waited for him to speak. The chamber was hushed, its only sound the crackle of flames in the hearth. Iron braziers, filled with smouldering peat, added to the warmth.
And yet… and yet… the hand in his was icy cold.
Stirring, Aimery cleared his throat. “We’ve had strife in Kirby Bedwin. Poxy mudder knights, looking for mischief. Men Balfre trained in the Marches then sent home again so he could train more.” He grimaced. “Insolent young cockerels. They bare their arses to my ban on havey-cavey jousting and rough melee.”
“You don’t punish them?”
“I tell your cousin Joben to punish them. He swears to me he will, he has, and then last week in Kirby Bedwin two bands of mudder knights clashed in the street. Wine and strumpets. Four dead. A score bloodied. Honest guildmen with their shops set afire.”
Aimery was gasping, trembling. Gently, Grefin pushed him back to his pillows. “Please, Your Grace. Don’t distress yourself.”
“I’ve told your brother to curb his appetite for men-at-arms,” said Aimery, fretful fingers plucking at the bearskin. “Use the ones he’s got till they die of old age–or the colic. He bares his arse at me on that, no better than a mudder knight. Sends Joben or Paithan to chew my ear on the matter. They visit him often then come back from the Marches to tell me how Balfre’s in the right, Clemen’s a menace, I must give him more farmers to make into men-at-arms.”
“Send your troublesome mudder knights to me, my lord. Let them bare their arses at those northern raiders.”
He’d meant for Aimery to be amused, but his father only frowned. Rubbed a thumb across his signet ring. Picked at a scab on his bony wrist.
“Your Grace…” He straightened a fold in the bearskin, smoothed its ruffled dark brown pelt. “You should send for Balfre. It isn’t right he’s not here.”
Aimery’s blueish lips pinched. “Roric of Clemen,” he muttered. “The bastard’s foaming at the mouth. I’ll let you guess why.”
Over the killing of that Clemen lord in the Marches. He’d received Aimery’s letter on it a few days before his summons home. “Surely he foams without cause. You said Balfre places the blame for Ercole’s death on Humbert. That Humbert and Ercole and Clemen’s men-at-arms ransacked some Marcher inn, unprovoked, and Waymon did all he could to prevent the slaughter.”
Aimery rubbed his sunken eyes. “I know what I said.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“Roric claims Balfre was using the innkeep to stir trouble in Clemen, and Waymon provoked the slaughter to keep the truth from coming to light.”
“Then Roric’s lying.”
“What if he’s not?” Aimery whispered. “What if your brother had Ercole killed on purpose? What if he seeks to force Roric’s sword from its scabbard?”
Grefin stared at his father. Aimery stared back.
“No,” he said, and slipped off the bed. “My lord, how can you take Roric’s word over Balfre? He serves you well in the Marches. I’ve heard you say it many times.”
“And how many times did you hear Balfre say that every duke of Clemen sat his arse on a stolen throne?”
This again? Grefin wanted to weep. “Your Grace, those doubts and fears are long since put to bed. ’Tis your illness that wakes them. I beg you, don’t—”
Aimery’s clawed fist thudded against his bony chest. “I was warned, Grefin. Years ago. In Piper’s Wade, I was warned. Beware the long-tailed comet, Aimery. Chaos is coming. A long-tailed comet cannot lie. I see that comet, Grefin. I feel the coming chaos. I—”
“My lord, this is nonsense! You don’t believe in omens!”
“I don’t believe in Balfre! I thought I did. I let you convince me he’d changed. But this business in the Marches–the murder of Clemen’s lord–I tell you, Grefin, your brother can’t be trusted. As soon as I’m dead he’ll provoke a war with Clemen. I want you to be my heir!”
“I can’t, Your Grace. I won’t. I’m your Steward. Nothing more.”
“You’re my son!” Aimery cried, spraying bloodied spittle. “And I am your father! You owe me your life!”
He had to blink to see properly, his tired eyes blurred to blindness with tears. “But not my honour. I swore Balfre an oath. I won’t take from my brother what isn’t yours to give.”
“Then get out,” Aimery said, choking. “I don’t want you, I want Curteis. Fetch me Curteis!”
Grefin dragged a hand down his face. He couldn’t leave. How could he leave? How could he—
“Didn’t you hear me? I said get out!”
He reached for Aimery’s hand. “Your Grace–Father–if you’d only send for Balfre we could—”
On a gasping rattle, his father’s yellowed, bloodshot eyes rolled back in his head. Then he started to shake like a man dying of plague. Grefin bolted for the chamber door. Flung it wide.
“Fetch the leech,” he told the nearest attendant. “Fetch Curteis. Run.”
The attendant gasped, then fled. Grefin slammed the door shut. Stumbled back to the bed where Aimery shuddered, moaned, and with a stifled groan took hold of his father.
Please, my lord. Don’t die.
The woman had been a peddler, crossed into the Marches from Clemen to sell her paltry wares. Whittled spoons. Carved aco
rns. Flimsy buttons made of clay. Sunk deep in a rune-trace, Izusa felt her approach and knew the peddler was what she needed. Just as a rune-trance had shown her that farmer’s pregnant young wife when she needed another baby’s head for Salimbene.
It was no hard thing to find the woman struggling through the rain on the Marches road, offer her a warm, dry bed for the night and a chance to sell some spoons. She’d killed her swiftly. Silently. And now the peddler’s body lay hidden, runed against rotting, as she waited for word from Salimbene that Aimery was dead.
A month and four days after giving Balfre the fatal ink… five days after she’d found and killed the peddler woman… the shrivelled baby’s head in its ash box called her out of sleep.
Izusa. Izusa. Harcia has a new duke.
And so, with a sigh, with a sloughing of grey, dead skin, her life in the Marches was brought to an end.
Balfre came the next day to tell her what she already knew. Giddy and laughing like a little girl. Nothing like a man who’d murdered his father.
“I leave for Cater’s Tamwell tomorrow,” he crowed. “The day after Aimery’s entombed I’ll be acclaimed duke. And soon after that king.”
She sat on a stool. “And your brother?”
“Grefin?” A careless shrug. “If he’s loyal he can steward the Green Isle till a northern raider kills him.”
“And if he’s not?”
Balfre frowned. “Have you runed those letters I gave you?”
Letters he’d forged incriminating Grefin in treason against Harcia, that he’d use if his brother couldn’t be turned to his purpose. She’d steeped them in fuddling chants so that anyone who read them would never question their lying truths. Difficult runings that had cost her dear in blood and pain. But she’d not begrudge the suffering because it was for Salimbene.
She pointed. “On the table.”
Grinning, he reached for her. One hand cupped the back of her neck, the other plundered beneath her loose shift, fingers pinching her nipple. She gave herself to him without restraint. Took genuine pleasure in his fucking, which she’d not done for some time. A sweet farewell, though he didn’t know it. When he was done, shuddered empty, he pulled up his hose.
“I’d fuck you the rest of the day, if I could. Alas, I must return to the manor. But don’t weep. I’ll make up for it when you join me in Cater’s Tamwell.”
She pretended surprise. “My lord?”
“Did you think I’d leave you to rot here alone, Izusa? Fuck, no. When things are settled you’ll join me in Harcia.”
“But Balfre–you have a wife.”
His face turned ugly with scornful contempt. “Jancis isn’t the kind of woman any man would make a queen. Besides, we both know I can’t do this without you.” He bit her bottom lip. “Witch.”
He wanted her to be pleased, so she showed him pleasure. “My lord, I’m honoured.”
A mischievous smirk. “You should be.”
“But first things first. What of Vidar?”
“He suspects nothing. Do you have the poison?”
She fetched a glass vial from her bedchamber, filled to the stopper with a pale green liquid. Enough to kill a dozen men, though he had in mind but one. At least for now.
“A few drops in his wine. He’ll not taste it.”
Balfre smiled. “Quick or slow?”
“Quick enough. He’ll be dead before sunrise.”
He slipped the vial inside his doublet. “And then he’ll be a cat among the pigeons. Poor, crippled Vidar. Useful to the end. I’ve already forged his confession. You’ll find it with his body. As for what comes after, you’re sure of your part?”
“I am, my lord. Never fear.”
“Fear, Izusa?” He kissed her again, savage. “What’s that?”
She put the runed letters in a satchel for him, then stood outside her cottage and watched him ride out of her life, towards a future that only Salimbene could see. When he was gone from her sight she went back inside. Very soon now it would be time to leave for Carillon.
“Benedikt!”
Terrified, heedless, Liam threw himself at the Clemen man-at-arms in front of him. His mail-clad shoulder struck a boiled-leather belly and they both went down. He heard something break. Waited for a burst of pain through his body. But it was the Clemen bastard who screamed, the Clemen bastard whose sword dropped to the ground, who rolled grunting as he clutched his snapped forearm.
There wasn’t time to kill him. Liam scrambled to his feet, kicked the bastard in the balls, then barged through the melee to his fallen brother.
Benedikt, ye pizzling shite. Don’t ye dare be dead.
A swinging Clemen sword caught him high across the back. He staggered, lost his balance, crashed to one knee, flailed upright again. Sweat stung his eyes. He could hardly breathe or see. The screams and shouts and clash of battle raged around him. A flash of blade to his right. He turned, his own sword raised, and felt the shock as steel met steel. Teeth bared, snarling, he threw his weight against Clemen’s man. Tilted his enemy’s balance just far enough to hook a booted foot round the bastard’s ankle. The man went down hard. Liam hurdled him and kept going.
Gloved fist into this face. Jabbing sword-hilt into that throat. Grule called him a green-shite, a know-not, a boil on battle’s arse, but he knew that was farting wind. He was a duke, and born to fight.
“Benedikt!”
His brother sprawled face down in the Clemen dirt, unmoving. Abandoned, as brawling men-at-arms brawled somewhere else. Sobbing for air, sobbing, Liam grabbed Benedikt’s shoulder and hauled him over. His brother’s eyes were closed, his face a filthy, bloody mask, his scalp split scarlet along his mud-clotted hairline. He’d lost his boiled leather skull cap. But his chest moved. He was breathing. Liam thumped his brother’s limp arm.
“Benedikt!”
A cough. A strangled groan. Benedikt opened his eyes.
“Willem? What—” A gasp. “Willem!”
But he’d heard the thud of running feet, was already turning. He blocked the Clemen bastard’s down-swinging sword slash, slid blade along blade, smiled to hear the steel sing. Blocked three more swift strokes, gasping as the blows slammed through every bone in his body. There was blood in his mouth. He’d bitten his tongue. He spat red, tried another ankle-hook, failed, slipped in the mud, rolled clear of a swordswing, staggered up, muscles screaming, defended himself, defended again, again, fuck, this Clemen shite knew what he was doing, attacked, slipped again, saw a chance as his enemy slipped, stamped his booted foot on the man’s outflung wrist, grinding hand and blade into the mud. Their eyes met. They stared, desperate.
Then startled as a hollow, metallic booming sounded over their heads.
Liam turned. It was Humbert, that murdering, treacherous bear of a man, standing on the farmhouse steps with a gong and hammer in his hands. Behind him huddled the farmer and his wife and the thieving pizzle who’d started this. Clemen’s Marcher lord struck the gong again, harder. The last few fighting men-at-arms fell back, confused and panting.
Humbert threw down the gong and hammer and stamped down the steps. “What is this shite? Who provoked the skirmish?”
Stepping a prudent distance from the Clemen man-at-arms he’d put on the ground, Liam watched as his serjeant, bloody and limping, faced Humbert.
“’Tis Marcher law, and well-known, that we might pursue a poacher to any lair, Harcian or Clemen.” Grule pointed to the huddled family. “While riding on our lawful business we came upon this Clemen farmer’s son taking Harcian game in Harcian woodland. He must answer to Count Balfre.”
“Lord Humbert, he’s lying!” Clemen’s serjeant shouted, shouldering forward. “They do—”
“Clap tongue,” Humbert ordered. “You’re cockshites to a man. Spill blood over venison? You’d see Clemen and Harcia tearing throats for a deer?” He scorched them all with his fearsome glare. “You make me fucking tired.”
Clemen’s serjeant gaped. “My lord? It be a clear case of Harcian
trespass! And I do have men—”
“Clap tongue, I said! Are you deaf?”
Mute, Clemen’s serjeant shook his head.
“Good,” said Humbert, glowering. Then he reached within his lace-fronted brown doublet and pulled out a small purse. Shifted his glare to Grule, tossed the purse at the serjeant’s feet. “For the deer. If Balfre wants more, tell him to come fetch it himself. Now you and your men ride home to the Harcian Marches, serjeant, before I lose my temper.”
And that was that.
As Clemen and Harcia drew apart to take stock and fetch their scattered horses, Liam helped unsteady Benedikt to stand. “Ye be in one piece? B’aint no holes poked in you?”
“My head aches,” Benedikt said, gingerly swiping clotted mud from his cheeks. “But I b’aint skewered.”
The fighting over, he was suddenly aware of his own bruises, a split in his scarred cheek, a shattering exhaustion. This was their fourth skirmish with Clemen’s men-at-arms since Ercole was killed at the Pig Whistle. Harcia’s men-at-arms were under strict orders from Aimery not to spill blood, but with Clemen’s men-at-arms ready to take offence at a fart, excuse every kind of Clemen lawbreaking on account of dead Ercole, any fool could see blood was going to be spilled. But not much of his this time, or Benedikt’s. Their luck was holding.
He grinned. “Nor me.”
“Willem—”
He looked up from shoving his sword back in its scabbard. “What?”
Benedikt was staring across the trampled grass to where Humbert spoke some last stern words to the farmer’s son. “He ought to be on his knees t’ye. Humbert. Bowing and scraping. Begging forgiveness. Calling ye ‘Your Grace.’ D’ye never wish ye could just march on up to the pizzle and—”
All the time. He had dreams of seeing Humbert humbled, and worse, for betraying Harald. But he took care not to talk on them. Not while he lived in Balfre’s barracks.
“Clap tongue, Benedikt!” he muttered. “D’ye want someone to hear?”
They rode back to Balfre’s manor with Grule and the other men. From the look on his face the serjeant was wondering what Aimery’s heir would have to say about clashing swords with Clemen. Nothing pleasant, most like. Balfre weren’t a pleasant man. But when they reached the barracks, they found riotous uproar. Grule slid from his saddle and snatched a running man by his jack.
