by Karen Miller
Throughout the slowly greening Marches, where spring was blooming late out of a cold winter, tensions had wound intolerably tight. Clemen and Harcia’s men-at-arms warily circled each other like growling, raised-hackle dogs in a farmyard, each waiting for the other to bite first. But Humbert had given orders for their men to avoid trouble with Harcia on pain of death, and so far the tenuous peace was holding.
In an attempt to escape the pressure of that tension, and the merciless flogging of his own bleak thoughts, Roric spent hours in Humbert’s manor barracks tilt yard, readying himself for the bloodshed to come. He didn’t spar with Humbert, who–after finding an obscure resting place in the manor grounds for Vidar’s disagreeable corpse and seeing it buried–spent his time riding the Marches, seeking to instill confidence in the superstitious, rumour-plagued folk who called this cousined pocket of Clemen home.
Once Roric would have regretted it, not sparring with his foster-lord. But now the lack of time they spent together was a relief. For all they shared a common goal and a roof, he and Humbert remained largely estranged. Every silence between them continued to echo the past; Lindara standing behind them wherever they were. That was exhausting too.
Instead he crossed swords with Egann, the only other man who knew him for who he was, or with any man-at-arms he could pull to his purpose. He also spent time in the armoury, piecing together mail and boiled leather to suit him. His own martial equipment had been sent for but there was no surety it would reach the Marches before Balfre’s return.
The thought of that had him sweating. If only he knew when Aimery’s son would arrive, how many men-at-arms he commanded, he’d have some idea of their chances. But every attempt to discover Balfre’s plans had failed, leaving good men dead and grossly mutilated.
“It’s a race,” Humbert said, as they shared their ninth supper in the manor house’s candelit dining room. “And like it or not, boy, that bastard Balfre has a leap start on us.”
“Even so…” Roric stabbed the point of his knife into a slice of roasted carrot. “We have more swords coming, Humbert. Clemen’s lords have answered the call.”
“I won’t count it answered till I can count how many swords I have to stick into Aimery’s cockshite son. And neither should you, Roric. It takes time to ready men for battle and travel them so they don’t arrive half-dead with exhaustion.”
“I’m not counting unhatched chickens. I’m just trying to—” He put down the speared carrot, uneaten. “You’re the one who warns against dour brooding.”
“And against gilding the truth.”
The ungilded truth was killing his appetite.” Humbert…” Frowning, he tapped fingertips to the stem of his goblet. “D’you think there’s any chance we’re reading Balfre awry?”
“Awry?” Humbert choked on a mouthful of partridge pie. “Roric—”
“Because right now, all we have are suspicions. Balfre’s made no outright declaration of war.”
Humbert dropped his spoon to his plate and sat back in his chair, glaring. “Does a wolf warn the sheep before it starts the slaughter?”
His own pie, though tasty, had turned to cold suet in his belly. The wine he’d drunk rose to burn the back of his throat. “No.”
“No.” Humbert banged a fist to the table. “So let’s hear no more of that shite, boy.”
Boy. He’d never thought to miss hearing that. “I’d have you know I did read your letters, Humbert. And I raised your concerns with the council. But Aistan–and Ercole, while he lived–made good arguments against spending borrowed coin to prepare for a war that might never happen.”
Humbert scowled. “That they hoped would never happen. And you listened because it was your hope too. There always was a part of you that dreamed of a peace with Harcia. Just as you dreamed you could make Cassinia’s regents bend to your will, and that marriage with Baldwin’s daughter would see Clemen made rich. A maggoty notion if ever there was one. Look how a pizzling hint of the marriage had the regents breaking Clemen’s back across their bent knees! It was the start of the duchy’s rot and we’ve never recovered since!”
“You think our cause is hopeless?”
“Did I say that?” Humbert slapped the table. “Clemen isn’t run aground yet. Let us break Balfre’s back over our knees, and then we’ll see to steering the duchy into safe waters.”
He tried to smile. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s not. But it’s not beyond us, either.” Pushing his plate aside, Humbert stood. “It’s late. Get some sleep. Tomorrow you’ll start riding the Marches with me. If there’s to be fighting in our future you need to know the ground you’re skirmishing over and it’s been a lot of years since last you were here.”
That was true. Sighing, Roric shoved back from the table. “As ever, my lord, I am guided by your wisdom. I’ll see you at sunrise.”
Two days he spent, from dawn to dark, riding the Marches with Humbert. Remembering his younger days, and how he’d skirmished here with Vidar and Humbert’s heir, Ailred, who’d died so long ago it was hard to recall his face. Odd, how Humbert never talked of him, or his dead brother Collyn. But then Humbert never was a man given to sentiment. Perhaps he thought that seeing his sons buried was the same as them never being born at all. Or else easier. And if that was so, who could blame him?
Egann rode with them some of the time, impressive with his knowledge of terrain and tactics. Aistan had protested the lack of another lord in Clemen’s Marches, but Humbert had fought hard for his man and clearly was right about him. When it came to drawn swords against Harcia, Egann was a fighter to have close at hand.
As he rode Clemen’s Marcher lands, threading through copse and wood, splashing across creeks and around the boggy edges of marshland, feeling a faint ache in the thigh-wound Harcia had given him years before, Roric noticed how few Marcher folk they encountered hour to hour. Like canny wild creatures sensing the approach of foul weather, they kept to their cottages and holdings and hid themselves in woodland shadows. It only increased his sense of impending doom.
“The greatest pity is losing the Pig Whistle,” Humbert said, as they ambled their way back to the manor house at twilight on the second day. “Did it not burn down, with all the comings and goings through its front door we’d know more of what goes on in Harcia.” He hawked and spat past his horse’s shoulder. “That cockshite Balfre knew what he was doing.”
“Can’t prove he burned it, though, Your Grace,” Egann added, just as sour. “A master of the sly whisper and hidden dagger, is Balfre.”
And this was the man they expected him to defeat with a handful of men-at-arms and a dispirited duchy. Roric felt his fingers clench. If he’d not felt dour before…
But there was better news waiting for them in the manor house study. Scarwid’s heir, Rufier, had arrived, along with two other northern lords.
“Your Grace,” Rufier said, bowing. “My father tenders regrets for his absence. His recent infirmity keeps him from the saddle. But I have answered your call in his stead, and hold some one hundred men quartered just over the Marches border.”
Roric felt a little of his twisting tension ease. “That’s heartening to hear. Your family has ever served Clemen with honour.”
“Lord Aistan is on his way with near twice that strength of sword.”
“To arrive when?”
Rufier shook his head. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I can’t say for sure. Two or three days, perhaps?”
“Serril and I between us hold near ninety more men-at-arms, Your Grace,” Welden of Stony Bridge said, standing with his neighbour. “Add our swords to Rufier’s, and to those wielded by Lord Humbert’s Marcher men-at-arms, and we’ll pose a threat not to be discounted.”
He forced a smile. “True.”
“I’m grieved the number’s not greater,” Welden said, frowning. “But alas—” He spread his calloused hands wide. “Here in the north we lost many good men to plague and black-lung, and some to slavery too. Finding m
en to train in their places has been tricky.”
“And as you know, Your Grace,” Serril said, his round, bearded face pleated anxious, “we keep your peace in northern Clemen, and have done for years. There’s been no need for barracks tumbled full of men.” A sharp glance at Humbert. “Or there hasn’t been. So we thought.”
“Cast no dark looks at Humbert,” Roric said, as his foster-lord jutted his beard. “No duke was better served by his Marcher lord than I am by Humbert. Balfre’s made sure to keep his daggered intentions well secret.”
The three northern lords murmured apologetic understanding. But watching them closely, he caught an undercurrent of doubt. So, was Humbert proven right yet again? Had Balfre’s lies about a treacherous bargain struck with Clemen’s duke spread beyond the Marches?
“My lords,” he said, resting his hand on the hilt of his dagger, sheathed at his hip. “With Eaglerock so far away, and your daily business keeping you for the most part in the north, we do not know each other well. To you and others like you, I’m a signet ring pressed into wax. A crudely etched face stamped into a coin. So let me share this much of myself. Whatever rumours you might have heard of clandestine dealings with Harcia, know them to be rank falsehood. I stand before you prepared to die in Clemen’s defence.”
Rufier, who looked older than his twenty years, flushed beneath his reddish, barbered beard. “Your Grace, I pay no heed to rumour. I grew to manhood hearing my father speak of you with naught but love. You have his undying loyalty, and mine.”
“And ours,” Welden said swiftly, his hand touching Serril’s shoulder. They were both older than Rufier by roughly ten years, seasoned men who, like most lords in Clemen, had only ever played at war. “Your Grace, I’d ask you not to mistake our natural dread in your presence for a lack of respect–or any misgivings.”
“His Grace is glad to hear it,” Humbert growled, unimpressed. “My lords, you’re welcome to a bed for the night. But come the morning you’ll need to ride back over the border and fetch your men here.” He turned. “Egann–play the host, man. See these good lords settled.”
Roric kept his temper in check until he and his foster-lord stood alone in the study. “Humbert! What—”
“Pardon, Your Grace, pardon,” Humbert said, lifting both hands. “But whatever wrangling we must do I’d rather those chumbles weren’t witness to it.”
“And what makes you think we must—”
Humbert’s beard was jutting again, his eyebrows raised high. “Well, you were about to send them back to their men and order them to hold fast across the border till Balfre drew first blood, yes?”
“And if I was?”
“You’d be mistaken.”
“The mistake, my lord, would be in provoking Harcia with a flood of Clemen swords. Fright the Harcian Marches with these lords’ men and we give Balfre an excuse to blame the ensuing bloodshed on us!”
“Roric! When will you grasp it? Aimery’s cockshite son has his excuse! He’s made it up out of whole cloth and stitched it into a doublet he wears even now. And you know as well as I do that without those lords and their men is no hope we can break Balfre here in the Marches.” He tugged at his beard. “I can only cross fingers that Aistan and his swords arrive in time.”
Because if they didn’t, Clemen would be lost with scarcely a blow being struck. The thought of that burned.
“It can’t end like this, Humbert. Not after all we’ve fought for. All we’ve lost.”
“It’ll end as it ends, boy. All we can do is defend Clemen with what we have.”
A terrible sorrow welled. “Our poor duchy. What it’s suffered. I should have been a better duke.”
“Cockshite and codswallop!” Humbert growled. “Take pizzling thoughts like that into battle with you, Roric, and you’ll be dead before your sword’s out of its scabbard. Go and soak your head a while. Drown that maggoty doubt. We’ve supper to eat, and strategies to talk over with Scarwid’s boy and the other two, and the last thing they need is a duke lost to moping.”
Roric rubbed his tired eyes. And there was Humbert in a nutshell. A handful of days only, they’d been back in each other’s company. And yet he was ordering his duke about, foster-lord to squire, as though nothing had changed. As though there’d been no Lindara. No Vidar. No dead, deformed babe. As though Harald yet lived, and Liam, and Argante, and all he was, or could ever hope to be, was the bastard cousin of Clemen’s hated duke.
A powerful man, Humbert. Not always admirable. A man who’d used his power to help and to hurt. Loving him was hard. And it was harder still to forgive him–or to know if forgiveness had been earned, or was even deserved.
But then… couldn’t he say the same of himself? Humbert wasn’t the only one to make mistakes.
“Roric,” Humbert said, his voice gentled, “stop fretting. You’ve done all you can.”
“You know I haven’t. I could’ve disregarded Aistan and Ercole’s advice. The months I’ve spent with the travelling courts, in disputations, inventing new laws, new taxes, strangling unrest, seeking remedies for our empty coffers–if I’d spent that time preparing Clemen for war—”
“You’d have convinced Aimery that Clemen was a danger to Harcia. Had him thinking we meant to declare war against him–with Balfre urging him on.”
“So you’re saying there was never any hope for peace?”
Humbert smoothed his disordered beard. “If I’ve learned nothing else in these Marches, it’s that Balfre’s a belligerent fuck eager to wage war on Clemen. And there’s not one shiting thing you or I or any man alive or dead could’ve done to prevent him from getting his way. Which means yes, Roric. Peace was always a pipe dream.”
“You truly believe that.”
“I do. And I believe that’s enough philosophy for one night.” Humbert crossed to the study door. Opened it, and stood back. “Now, boy, you might not be hungry but I’m ready to chew the hind end off a donkey. So. After you Your Grace.”
Surprising himself, Roric laughed. And then he did as he was told, and led the way out of the study.
Creeping barefoot out of the snoring barracks, leaving Benedikt a huddled lump beneath the blankets, Liam made his stealthy way past the stables and the armoury to the fringe of old elm trees hemming the tilt yard’s far edge. The air was cool, the moonlight meagre. Owls hooted softly from the depths of the nearby woodland. A horse whickered. A fox barked. Familiar night sounds. No need for alarm.
Berold’s ring was hidden in a knothole between two branches halfway up the fourth elm tree from the left. After a childhood of tree-climbing in the Pig Whistle’s home wood, Liam scaled the elm’s trunk without needing to think. Found finger and toeholds by instinct, feeling the rasp of dry bark against his bare soles and palms like a friend’s touch. His reaching fingers found the ring, strung on its strip of leather and wrapped in muslin and burlap, thrust deep into the slowly rotting knothole. Relief had him closing his eyes, just for a moment. It had been a risk, hiding the proof of his birthright in a tree but he’d had no choice. Wearing it in the barracks was impossible and he’d needed to keep it close so that when the time came, he could easily retrieve it.
And that time was upon him. An advance rider had come in from Harcia just before lights out. In a few hours Balfre would be returned to the Marches, with Waymon and more Harcian lords and hundreds of blood-hungry men-at-arms. Humbert and his few men, they’d be swept away like twigs in a flooded creek. And after that it would be Roric’s turn. There was nowhere in Clemen the murdering bastard could hide where he’d not be found and killed. By himself. By Balfre. By some unwitting man-at-arms. In the end it was all the same. One way or another, Duke Harald would be avenged.
Grinning in the darkness, Liam unwrapped his ring, shoved its cloth wrappings back into the knothole, then slipped it over his head on its old bootlace. Tucked under his shirt, it rested against his chest–a promise of the greatness he was destined to achieve.
He climbed down the tree, neat as a cat.
Turned to shadow-slip his way back to the barracks before he was missed–and was struck by a thought that nailed his bare feet to the chilly, damp grass.
Balfre might be duke of Harcia. He might command a thousand men-at-arms, or more. Have the power of life and death over every baron in his duchy, every baker, every whore. And though he believed that in riding to ruin Roric and claim Clemen he served no man but himself–he was wrong.
Everything Balfre does will help put me on the Falcon Throne. So even though he thinks he commands me, it’s really me who commands him. His army is my army. His war is my war. And victory, when it comes, it won’t be his. It’ll be mine.
He slapped his hand over his mouth, to stop himself from laughing. And then he crept back to the barracks, unseen. Slid beneath the blankets on his cot, unnoticed. And fell into a light slumber imagining the look on Benedikt’s face when he told his brother the joke.
Four hours after Balfre’s tumultuous dawn return to the Harcian Marches, so many lords and men-at-arms to batter Humbert and his men that the barracks grounds spilled over and horse-lines were set up in the woods, word came from the serjeants riding the Marches’ open roads that several score of men-at-arms had crossed the Clemen border.
A final, frantic whetstone honing of sword and dagger. Horses saddled and bridled, their shoes hammered tight. Men-at-arms rallied, formed into patrols and assigned to a lord or shouting serjeant. Each man given a bold red linen sash to tie across his body, because the Harcian Marches now overflowed with unfamiliar faces.
Encased in mail and boiled leather, lethally sharpened sword and dagger strapped to his side, and surrounded by countless other dangerous men, Liam sat his horse beside Benedikt, out in front of Balfre’s manor house, and watched Balfre and Waymon confer with a half-dozen other Harcian lords and his Marcher serjeants. Shining in gold-chased silver armour over black mail, Harcia’s new duke looked confident, his gestures emphatic and unhesitating as he gave his orders. Nothing about him suggested he expected anything less than victory or hinted at grief for his dead father.
