by Karen Miller
“Never!” Humbert protested, as the crowd in the forecourt started to jostle and shout. “Vidar said that, Izusa?”
“His dying words. On my life. And he wrote it down.”
Stunned, he looked at the the confession she’d thrust at him. Dimly heard the crowd shouting. Felt himself elbowed and pushed and kicked. Looked up to meet Egann’s horrified stare. Then somebody took hold of his arm and turned him. Norbert of the Clemen Marches, who ran pigs in Fallow Copse.
“Is it true, my lord? Are we sold to Harcia?”
The young man’s frightened demand was like the first gust of wind heralding a storm. Within heartbeats a gale of questions raged around him. Hands clutched. Fingers pinched. Some of them belonged to Clemen men-at-arms, their duty and training wiped away by panic.
“No, ’tis not true!” he said, loudly. “’Tis a misunderstanding! Nothing more!”
But they didn’t want to listen. Most all of them knew Izusa and trusted her word. And they’d seen Vidar, not a memory of mouldering bones but a man newly dead. Egann stepped in to help him, and the few men-at-arms who hadn’t lost their wits, but it took time and threats of violence before the crowd dispersed.
Not till then did Humbert realise Izusa had fled.
“Find her,” he told a man-at-arms. “And bring her to me. But gently, mind. The woman’s overturned. Egann—”
“My lord,” Egann murmured. Dishevelled and sweating but still the rock he’d always been.
“I’m taking Vidar’s body back to the manor,” he said, his voice low. “You ride for Eaglerock. Find Roric. Tell him Aimery’s dead and I have news bearing on it he must hear from me alone. Tell him he’s to ride back with you without delay, and press on him he can tell no one where he’s going, or why, nor in any way reveal himself as Clemen’s duke. Yes?”
Egann nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
“Then go. Ride as hard and as fast as you can. For once I don’t care how many horses you kill.”
Cater’s Tamwell was a township in mourning.
Riding through its grieving streets on a black destrier, dressed in black huntsman’s leathers, unadorned save for his signet ring and a blood-ruby in his ear, Balfre acknowledged the townsfolk’s half-hearted cries of welcome with a sober nod of his head, the restrained wave of one hand. His escort of men-at-arms, led by Waymon, trotted behind him, hooves drumming the high street’s hard-beaten earth. Clouds gathered overhead like a spreading bruise. There’d be rain before nightfall. A weeping sky for Harcia’s dead duke.
Tamwell castle brooded melancholy over the slow-flowing river.
In Harcian tradition a black flag flew above the battlements. Black sacking was draped between the arrow loops in the curtain wall. Exultation hidden, Balfre cantered across the stone causeway and into Tamwell’s bailey. The castle guard’s men-at-arms, many of them familiar to him from the Marches, had gathered to greet him. Joben was there. Paithan, and Lowis. Not privy to his intentions like trusted, complicit Waymon, but trustworthy enough. Unlike his nephew, Kerric, warlike for all his youth, tall and a wicked scar puckering his chin. Behind them a score of barons and lesser nobles come to see Aimery locked at last in his tomb. He knew every lord in the bailey save two–a whipcord-lean man somewhat younger than Harcia’s dead duke and another man, younger still, missing half his right arm. He’d not met them before. And of course that doddering old fuck Curteis was there, bloodless with grief.
“Curteis!” He slid from his saddle. “Where’s Grefin?”
The steward bowed. “My lord, he—”
“Your Grace.”
Slowly, Curteis straightened. His face was a blank mask but his eyes were lively with derision. “Your Grace. Lord Grefin sits with your father. The lady Jancis and your daughter, and the lady Mazelina and her daughter, await you inside.”
Ah. Family.
“See my escort housed and fed,” he said. “Then tell the ladies I beg their indulgence. I’d speak with my Steward first. Where does Aimery lie?”
The faintest colour touched Curteis’s sunken, sallow cheeks. “In the game larder, Your Grace.”
He nearly burst out laughing. Aimery hung with his butchered venison? Fuck. How apt. “Make sure Grefin and I are not disturbed.” He gestured. “Waymon?”
Waymon, who’d caught up with him and his escort after seeing to the final business with Vidar, dismounted his horse. “Your Grace?”
“You know what I want. Explain it to Curteis.”
Waymon smiled. “Your Grace.”
“Curteis? Assume anything Waymon asks of you is a command from me.”
Curteis bowed again. “Your Grace.”
Servants curtsied and bowed as he made his way down to the game larder below Tamwell’s kitchens. Gesturing at the man-at-arms at the door to remove himself a short distance, he slipped inside.
The chill, slate-lined chamber had been emptied of game and made colder still with blocks of lake ice cut the previous winter. Dozens of beeswax candles burned, gilding the frosty air. In its centre, beneath rows of empty meat hooks, Aimery’s corpse was laid upon a broad trestle draped with crimson velvet. He looked like a wax doll floating on a lake of blood.
Grefin slumped on a backless stool beside their dead father. Dressed for mourning, in black velvet, no crude martial leathers, no sword or dagger, he was shivering. Pale as Curteis. He didn’t look up.
“He wants to be buried at the Croft. Not here at Tamwell.”
Balfre closed the larder door behind him. “He told you that?”
“He told Curteis.”
“But… you were here with him. At the end.”
It was a guess. A sudden suspicion. But the smallest tremor in his brother’s clasped hands confirmed it.
“I was sent for.”
“And I wasn’t.” There was no second stool for him to sit on, so he wandered to the crimson-covered trestle and perched on one corner. “Why? Was Aimery so far gone he couldn’t remember where to find me?”
Wincing, Grefin lifted his head. Then he frowned. “Get off that.”
He waited, just long enough, then slid free of the makeshift bier. Took a moment to savour Aimery, so still in his cloth-of-gold tunic, gnarled fingers neatly curled around the hilt of Benevolence, his favourite sword. The naked blade lay unmoving along his sunken chest and belly, steadily reflecting the beeswax candles’ thin, honey-scented flames. No hint in that dead face of final suffering. Did he die swiftly, poisoned by Izusa’s deadly ink? Easily? A quiet slipping out of life? Or was his end violent and agonised, a raging of despair?
He wanted to know. But if he asked, would grieving Grefin tell him?
“I spied two unfamiliar lords in the bailey when I rode in,” he said, smoothing a small wrinkle in Aimery’s golden sleeve. “With but three arms between them. A trifle careless, don’t you think?”
The faintest of sighs. “Terriel and his son. Alard lost that arm to a raider in Mosswich, last spring.”
So. The greatest baron of the Green Isle and his heir had reached Tamwell before he did. “Do I have this right, Grefin? You sent for them before sending to me that Aimery was dead?”
Grefin was staring at the floor again. “The Green Isle deserves a voice here. It deserves its own witness.”
“And what do I deserve? I’m your brother. I’m your duke. If you look to be my Steward you’d best show better loyalty than that.”
“Loyalty?” Slowly, Grefin lifted his bleak gaze. “An odd word coming from you, Balfre. Was it loyalty that prompted you to stir shite in the Marches until blood was spilled and a lord died? To spread lies about Clemen so that in his final, painful days our father was plagued with Roric’s threats and fury?”
He smiled, even as his muscles tensed and his fingers itched to unsheathe the dagger on his hip. “And there I was thinking Aimery’s last thoughts would be of love and family and forgiveness. But it seems he couldn’t help himself. A vengeful, dishonest man to the end.”
The stool crashed onto its side
as Grefin leapt up. “You’re saying Aimery lied? And Roric, and Lord Humbert? Everyone lies except you. Is that your claim?”
“I claim Harcia. As for the rest…” He shrugged. “What does it matter? Men die every day. Even lords. Even dukes.”
Grefin stared, as though they’d never met before this moment. “Have you wept for him, Balfre? Have you squeezed out even one tear?”
“Do I need to? From the look of you, Grefin, you’ve wept enough for both of us.”
“Be careful.” Grefin’s eyes were glittering. “Or you’ll have me thinking you’re glad he’s dead.”
He pressed a palm to his heart. “I’m glad his suffering is ended. Does that make me as poor a son as he was a father?”
“He was a great father! And an even greater duke! He ruled this duchy with justice and mercy and he forgave you, Balfre, when—”
“When what? When I lived and Malcolm died? Are you fucking blind, Grefin? Aimery never forgave me for that!”
Turning away, Grefin raked shaking fingers through his untidy hair. “Not Malcolm again. Malcolm died years ago. His death has nothing to do with this.”
“And by this you mean my legitimate grievances against Aimery? Fine. We’ll leave Malcolm out of it. Let’s talk instead of the plan you and Aimery hatched behind my back, to broker a puling peace with the bastard Roric of Clemen. So that when I became duke I’d be no more than our dead father’s puppet!”
Grefin turned round. His eyes were stunned. “What?”
“What?” he mimicked, vicious, then laughed. “Fuck, Grefin. If you could see your face.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Now who’s telling lies?”
Silence, but for the sound of two men breathing. Then Grefin bit his lip. “How long have you known?”
“From the beginning.”
“How did you find out?”
“What does it matter?” he countered. “Your little scheme fell apart soon enough. As I’d have told you it would, if you’d bothered to ask. You can only trust Clemen to be treacherous, Grefin. In a changing world, that’s the one thing that stays the same.”
Grefin was staring, guilt and grief and uncertainty in his eyes. “I never wanted to go behind your back. I fought Aimery on that, as hard as I could.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “As hard as you fought against being made the Green Isle’s Steward? That hard?”
Grefin’s lips tightened. “So this is how we mourn our father? We rake over the past, looking for ways to sour the future?”
“Forget the future, Grefin! The present’s so sour it would fell a charging boar. You’ve been sour to me since I set foot in this fucking tomb.”
“I’m not sour!” Grefin protested. “I’m heartbroken. Not only because Aimery’s dead, but because you don’t seem to care! Fuck, Balfre. Please, tell me you care.”
He threw his arms wide. “Fine. I care. Now what?”
Another silence. Grefin pressed his hands to his face. Let them fall. “Before. You said: I claim Harcia. Is that all you claim?”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning is that all you claim?”
“Ah.” And another suspicion was confirmed. “So now we know why Aimery sent for you and not me when he realised he was dying. Tell me, Grefin. What did he want to say that he didn’t want me to hear? Something about disinheriting his lawful heir, perhaps?”
Grefin looked at their dead father. Seemed almost ready to weep some more. “He was afraid. And now I’m afraid.”
“Any man loyal to me has no need to fear.”
“Oh, Balfre…”
He watched his brother turn away, again. Watched him reach a hand out blindly to the game larder’s cold wall and lean against it, as though he lacked the will or strength to stand alone. As though he stood on the brink of a precipice and didn’t know whether to jump… or fall.
And so he’d come to it. The question he had to ask, dreaded to ask, because–stripped of all disappointment, resentment and complicated memory–this man was his brother. There was love, as well as rage.
“Are you loyal to me, Grefin?”
No answer. Balfre took a step closer. Almost reached out to lay a hand on his brother’s resolutely turned back. All their lives, even while Malcolm lived, Aimery had stood between them. Now the miserable old fuck was dead and still he stood between them.
“Grefin,” he said, hearing himself close to pleading. Hating it, hating his weakness, but desperate to deny their father a final triumph, the complete severing of their frayed brotherly bond. “When Aimery asked you to be his Steward, though by rights the Green Isle was mine, you say you argued. But in the end you surrendered. When he asked you to conspire with him and Roric against me–against our duchy–again, you say you argued. But in the end, you surrendered. The last—”
“Balfre, you can’t—”
“I haven’t finished. The last time we saw each other you’d just lost Jorin defending the Green Isle from raiders and I’d saved the Harcian Marches, and Harcia itself, from a Clemen plague. Aimery chose to see you as a hero and me as the villain. It was ever thus. He threatened to disavow me and make you his heir instead.”
“I remember,” Grefin muttered. “But—”
“You swore to me you refused him,” he continued, implacable. “Do you remember that? Do you remember promising you’d never usurp me, no matter what Aimery said?”
“Yes.”
“But when you saw him on his deathbed, Grefin… did you surrender?”
On a growl of frustration, Grefin swung round. Crossed the cold floor towards him, his grief-thinned face darkening with sudden rage.
“No!” he shouted, with a hard shove. “Fuck. You’re so eager to condemn me you forget I never swore not to be the Steward. And I never swore not to seek a lasting peace with Clemen. But I did swear I wouldn’t usurp you and I fucking well kept my word!”
Balfre blocked his brother’s angry attempt to shove him again. “So Aimery did try to disinherit me!”
“He was raving, Balfre! He was dying! And you’d incited riot and murder in the Marches against his express desire. Or will you stand there and deny it?”
His turn to shove, hard enough to knock Grefin back a step. “I don’t have to justify myself to you. Besides, what I did or didn’t do in the Marches doesn’t matter. What Aimery wanted doesn’t matter. He’s dead. I’m Harcia’s duke. And as duke it is my duty to see our duchy restored.”
“To what? A kingdom? So Aimery wasn’t raving? Despite all your protestations you never did abandon that mad, childish dream of wearing a king’s crown.”
The incredulous contempt in his brother’s voice burned like acid. “Not mad. Not childish. And not a fucking dream.”
“You intend to invade and conquer Clemen.”
“Reclaim,” he retorted. “Clemen land is rightfully ours. It was stolen from us—”
“It wasn’t stolen. It was lost in a family squabble, nearly two hundred years ago. Balfre, you can’t—”
“Two hundred or two thousand, theft is still theft. And it was theft. Freyne stole Clemen from his brother, the rightful king.”
“And if he did?” Grefin threw up his hands. “After so long, how can it possibly matter? And anyway, it’s too late. You can’t rewrite the past!”
“True enough, but I can write the future. Fuck, Grefin. How can you be my brother and not know me? When was I ever another Aimery? Did you truly believe I’d leave this duchy diminished? Harcia was a kingdom and it will be again.”
“Mazelina was right,” Grefin murmured, shaking his head. “She said you’d show me who you really are, and you have.”
“Mazelina.” Resentment stabbed. “I might’ve known your fucking wife would try to poison you against me. She’s no better than Aimery. You made a bad mistake, Grefin, marrying that bitch.”
Grefin stepped close, fingers clenching. “Watch your tongue.” Then he blew out a hard breath. “Balf
re, you can’t believe Roric will surrender his duchy. Or that Clemen’s people will welcome you with open arms. They won’t. They’ll resist with every dagger and pitchfork and cooking pot they can find!”
“Let them. Roric and his people can learn the hard way what it means to defy Harcia.”
“And then what, after you’ve defeated them? You’ll be king of a shambles, Balfre. Is that what you want? To sit a throne of bloody bones?”
“I’ll sit a throne, Grefin. Whether it’s bloody or not will be Roric’s choice.”
“Balfre…” Grefin dragged a hand down his face. “You can’t think Harcia’s barons will risk their lives and their sons’ lives in unprovoked war for no better reason than you want to put a crown on your head!”
“They’ll risk what I tell them to risk because I am their duke!” Then he grinned. “And because I’ll reward them with Clemen plunder and land.”
“So you’d be a pirate king? A king of murder and rape and theft?”
“It’s not theft when you’re taking back what was stolen from you!”
“Fuck,” Grefin whispered. “You really have gone mad.” He blinked, his eyes suddenly brilliant in the candlelight. “I’m sorry, Balfre. Truly. But this must end.”
Balfre felt his own eyes sting. “Don’t do it, Gref. Don’t choose Aimery again.”
“I’m not! I’m choosing you! I’m trying to save you from yourself!”
As his brother pushed past him, heading for the game larder’s door, Balfre seized his arm. “I don’t need saving.”
For a handful of thudding heartbeats they stared at each other. Then the look in Grefin’s eyes shifted from sorrow to savagery. A sharp twist and he was free, a dagger glinting in his grasp. Balfre slapped at the emptied sheath on his hip. Fuck. His brother had disarmed him. Aimery’s velvet-covered trestle was two, perhaps three, wide steps to his left. Not shifting his gaze from Grefin’s tense face he bridged the distance in one sideways leap, struck the trestle, lost his balance, snatched Benevolence from his dead father’s grasp and recovered his footing even as he swung the sword’s point towards his brother. Grefin lunged at him, the stolen dagger slicing low. Hot pain as his own dagger sliced across his thigh. A strangled yelp from Grefin as Benevolence slid along his ribs. Then he was twisting again, out of reach. Balfre swallowed a curse and followed. Sword against dagger? Grefin should be dead. But his brother had survived seasons of raiding, butchering northmen. Now it was clear why.
