by Duncan Lay
He saw Gallagher’s eyes widen in warning and turned to see Dina rein in her horse beside them.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“Vital news,” Fallon said. “We need to go back to the castle to discuss it.”
“What is it?” she demanded.
“It is not for the open street. We would do better to wait until we are back in the castle,” Fallon suggested.
Her face did not change but she began to turn her horse, so Fallon reached out and grabbed the bridle.
“You need to follow us,” he said.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Let go this instant!”
Behind her, the squad of Lunster guards that accompanied her everywhere began to hurry forwards – only to stop when Fallon’s villagers formed a wall in front of them.
“It would be better to come with us,” Fallon said stolidly.
Dina glared down at him. “Do not be a fool, Fallon. We are a good team. Don’t make the mistake of breaking this.”
“I have been foolish many times already. One more won’t make any difference,” he said. “Now smile for the crowd and let’s get going.”
“I will not!” she exclaimed loudly. “I am a Duchess of this realm and I demand that you let go of my horse this instant.”
Instead of answering, Fallon tugged on the horse’s bridle to get it walking. “Let’s get inside the castle. And make sure all her guards come with us,” he ordered.
“Already done,” Brendan promised, signaling to the men he had brought with him.
“Help! Someone help me!” Dina cried out.
The crowd stopped cheering and watched uncertainly.
“Set me free and you will be rewarded!” she shouted. “Remember your oaths you swore by the royal seal!”
“All right, that’s enough!” Fallon growled, dragging her horse along by its bridle.
A few men stepped forwards, a little cautiously, to try and bar the way, only for Brendan and the others to shoulder them aside. But the others merely watched, confused, as Fallon and the others hurried the Duchess inside the castle gate.
“Make sure nobody gets in,” Fallon ordered. “I want all of the Lunster guards disarmed and watched.”
“All the rest have been done already,” Brendan said.
“What about Gannon? Him too?” Fallon asked.
“He’s a Lunster man, isn’t he?”
Fallon nodded agreement. Something was telling him that Gannon was on their side but perhaps that was because the man had been there almost from the start. And, besides, he could hardly trust his own judgment any more. Just a turn of the hourglass ago he’d have sworn Dina was on their side.
“Fallon, have you gone mad? Berry will fall to pieces without me,” Dina said angrily.
He reached out and grabbed her arm, tugging until she was forced to dismount or be pulled from the saddle. “Let’s see how mad I am,” he said. “Let’s get to the bottom of this, once and for all.”
*
Rosaleen was waiting for them in the throne room, along with a line of men tied to chairs. One looked strangely familiar.
Fallon heard Dina’s sudden intake of breath at seeing the men waiting for them. He let go of her arm and she turned away – but Brendan was right behind them and there was nowhere for her to go.
“This way, Duchess,” the big smith said harshly.
Fallon ignored Dina’s protests to look at the seated men. Most of them could not meet his gaze but the one at the end, the familiar-looking one, glared at him defiantly.
“Lieutenant Keverne,” he said slowly. “Hagen’s old deputy. The man who supposedly vanished with the Duke of Lunster in a mysterious attack. Are you going to tell me why you are here and not at the bottom of the sea in the embrace of a selkie – or slaving in some Kotterman field?”
“I will say nothing to you, dog,” Keverne snarled. “I am loyal to the Duchess. I answer to her and nobody else!”
Fallon turned to see Dina shrinking backwards – but Brendan had his big hands on her arms and she was not able to move an inch.
“Sister, can you shed some light on this?” he asked, his voice rising to a shout. “I for one am heartily sick of not knowing what in the bogging hell is going on!”
“Give me your hand. He will not say a word but he does not have to. I can show you what happened,” Rosaleen promised.
Fallon took her hand and she pressed it to the top of Keverne's head.
“No! Stop it!” the man yammered but she closed her eyes and her fingers tightened in Keverne’s hair.
Next moment Fallon gasped. The throne room had melted away and instead he was somewhere else. It felt like some sort of dream. Some aspects were clear as day and over the rest there seemed to be a fog.
Yet things began to make sense now. He saw Keverne meeting with Dina, watched her flirt outrageously with the guard officer. In exchange for promises of being not just her trusted captain but, later, her companion as well, he would do what she wanted. Using gold and a combination of promises and threats, he won over six of the Duke’s guards and organized them to be on the ship. Then, while the sailors slept, they were tied up and thrown overboard. The Duke was surprised in his cabin while he ate dinner. There was almost no bloodshed – except for when the Duke produced a small Kottermani crossbow and loosed a bolt that creased Keverne’s arm before disappearing behind a storage chest.
The Duke was also overpowered and thrown overboard, his feet weighted with chain, while the guards scrubbed away any traces of blood in the cabin.
But they were rushing because the tide was turning, and they missed the little bolt, hidden behind the chest. The sails were raised and the tiller locked in place and the ship aimed at the cliffs near Baltimore, where tide and wind would cause it to crash and founder, while Keverne and his gang of traitors made their escape in a fishing boat. Except they had spent too long in the Duke’s cabin searching for the missing bolt and trying to clean up the blood and instead of taking the Duke’s ship into a watery death at the cliffs, the rushing current took it two miles to the west, to Baltimore. A furious Duchess had sent Keverne and his men to wait out the resultant storm in the Duke’s summer retreat down the coast. There they had made contact with a Kottermani ship and helped guide the Kottermanis in their attacks on the Lunster coast, with messages carried down from Lunster by another man, a man Fallon recognized but did not know. Worse, Fallon saw Keverne travel back to Lunster in the dead of night and lure Hagen out with false promises of answers to the mystery that had engulfed Lunster. There Hagen was killed, his body dragged away and dumped at sea as Keverne returned to the Duke’s beachside cottage.
Then the visions lifted as Rosaleen removed her hands.
“This is the other man,” she said, guiding Fallon down the line to the man from Keverne’s thoughts, a vicious-looking scarred man who was tied up even tighter than the others. “His name is Mika and he is a leading light among the scum of Lunster. He tried to kill us and, as you saw, killed Hagen.”
“What do you want to know?” Mika asked fearfully. “I don’t want the Sister to rip my thoughts out of my head and leave me a bogging fool. I did what I did for gold, not love.”
“Then talk. And it had better be the truth,” Fallon growled.
“How can you believe a man like that? He would lie to save his own skin!” Dina cried.
“Duchess, not another word, or I will see you gagged. You will get your chance to talk soon enough. For now I want to hear what this man has to say,” Fallon snapped.
Dina opened her mouth again but Gallagher silently produced a filthy rag and gestured with it towards her face and she shut it swiftly, pressing her lips together.
So Mika explained how a servant from Castle Lunster had brought him information and gold and he, in turn, had ridden down to the Duke’s summer home where it could be passed on to the Kottermanis. He had also set men to watch Hagen’s house, in case anyone came calling.
“I didn’t ask w
hy; I was paid well,” he said.
Fallon wanted to drag him out and hang him high for what he had done to Hagen, to Lunster and to Baltimore. He controlled his anger and turned back to the Duchess.
“Time for you to talk now,” he said. “Why?”
“Let go of me!” she demanded, struggling against Brendan’s powerful grip and Fallon nodded to his friend.
She stepped away, rubbing at her arms and glaring at them. “How can you believe anything these traitors and liars say?” she asked coldly.
“So what is the truth then? And don’t tell me that they are making this up, because I saw the memories and it all fits now.”
Dina’s shoulders sagged a little and she wiped her eyes with her hand. “I was tricked into it by King Aidan, forced to do his bidding,” she said in a small voice.
“What? How?” Fallon demanded.
“You know what he is like,” she said fiercely. “He did it to you as well. He says one thing and makes it seem as if you are helping yourself, then, once the deed it done, he has you. He told Kinnard what was happening with the Kottermanis and how the only way to stop them was to become what they feared. The Kottermanis are obsessed with Aroaril, even though their priests gain no power from him. Aidan had seen the power of the Fearpriests before, when he was a boy. He was a man possessed. He thought it was the key to saving Gaelland. He wanted Kinnard to help him but the Duke refused, said he was going to take it to the next council and have the nobles remove Aidan if he did not change his mind. So Aidan came to me and promised me the world. He was going to have Kinnard killed, one way or the other. I could either join my husband in death or I could save my county and my future. He promised that if I got rid of Kinnard then he would protect Lunster from the coming Kottermani attacks and then, after the danger was past, make me his Queen.”
“No!” Keverne cried in horror from his seat.
Fallon took two quick steps across to the traitor and backhanded him brutally across the face, rocking the tied man on his chair. “Another word and I will cut out your tongue,” he said. “We don’t need you to talk to read your mind.”
He turned back to see Dina wiping away tears.
“I made a terrible mistake. I thought I could save my people,” she said. “What else could I do?”
“You could stand by your husband, the Duke, and stop the King’s evil!” Fallon cried. “How could you think otherwise?”
“Because we would have both been dead! You have to make sacrifices sometimes and I knew that Kinnard would die for his people.”
“And you would rise at the same time,” Fallon said sardonically.
She dashed away her tears. “How can you judge me? You were also lured by the King’s promises. He made you kill Prince Cavan, for Aroaril’s sake! You killed the Crown Prince and landed us all in this mess!”
“That was different!” Fallon shouted.
“It was the same,” she screamed at him. “You told me yourself. He promised you anything you wanted, as long as you did one thing for him. And then it all changed. Just like with me.”
“No, because you knew you were allying yourself with Zorva,” Fallon said.
“You were going to lead his army! You were going to be the General of Zorva’s armies! You cannot stand there and judge me, when you made all the same mistakes!”
“You are wrong!” Fallon howled. “I refused all of that! I never betrayed my people! You sat with us and sympathized with Cavan in my own home and all the time, you knew what was happening!”
Dina crossed her arms. “Once Kinnard was dead, he could force me to do whatever he wanted. I had to help the Kottermanis or he would arrest me and do it anyway. And, all the time, I was trying to work against him. I helped Prince Cavan and then I helped you. I helped feed this city and keep it from falling into chaos after Aidan’s death.”
Fallon walked over to face her, fighting to keep a lid on his fury. “You betrayed us. You sold our families into slavery with the Kottermanis,” he hissed.
“I am sorry. I was trapped. I have been trying to make up for it ever since,” she said, her voice throbbing with sincerity. “The Sister there showed you I was speaking the truth when I offered my help.”
Fallon shook his head. “You have always done what is best for you. No more, no less. As far as I am concerned, you are no better than the whores on the street, willing to do anything for money. Only your coin of choice was power.”
Her hand whipped out and he only just dodged the slap, feeling the wind of it across his face.
“How dare you?” she snarled. “You were a wreck after killing Prince Cavan. I saved you from yourself and then from Aidan’s men. Then I held this city together for you. You need me! Without me, the nobles will all turn back to Swane and the Guilds will stab you in the back. We are a good team, don’t break it up now.”
Fallon did not whether to laugh or bellow at her. “You have to pay for your crimes,” he said remorselessly.
“And your crimes? You killed the Crown Prince, killed the King and tortured Prince Kemal. You deserve death for one of those alone. And yet you walk around as if you saved the city.”
Fallon shook his head. “It is pointless arguing with you, because you do not see the world as we do,” he said. “You have lied and betrayed and brought misery to this country. You could have stopped all this before it began.”
“You tell yourself that,” she snapped. “Tell yourself you are better than me. But the truth is you are just like me.”
“What are we going to do with her?” Brendan rumbled. “She was the one who betrayed Baltimore and made our families suffer. You said you would skin the bastard that did that to us.”
Fallon looked at Dina and saw the fear in her eyes. But she drew herself up.
“Kill me and this city will fall into chaos,” she said. “I am the one thing they are holding on to. Without me, you are finished. Think of me what you will. But you are lost without me. You will make the wrong choices and doom this land.”
Fallon tried to shut out those words but they had an uncanny echo of what Aidan said with his dying breath. He tried not to let his discomfort show and pointed at the line of men tied to chairs. “Take these bastards down to the cells. There is no punishment too painful for them.”
“And what of the Duchess?” Brendan asked.
Fallon glared at her.
“Give her a cell to herself. She deserves that much but no more.”
Before she could do more than offer a token protest, Brendan had hustled her away, while her men were untied from the chairs, leaving their hands and feet bound, and dragged off to follow her.
“Don’t listen to her words about Cavan. She cannot compare what happened to you and what she did,” Gallagher said.
“And yet Prince Cavan is dead and life would be much easier if he was still alive,” Fallon said. “And you know what Dina’s treachery means?”
“That we finally have all the answers to the mystery that has plagued us?”
Fallon paused. “Well, yes. But we are also now running the country – or the west.” And he felt the weight of those words come crashing down onto his shoulders. You will never rule this land. Your choices will fail and doom all.
EPISODE 5
CHAPTER 45
“This is an outrage and if this is the way you intend to run the city, you can forget about the support of the Guilds,” the new head of the Bankers Guild declared.
Fallon glowered at him but a sheaf of requests for money had arrived just that morning from the nobles of the neighboring counties. With money he could purchase, through them, food and goods from counties further away. The food situation was better but it seemed there were many other things the city needed for winter, from firewood to wool for clothing, while the animals stabled within the city to be slaughtered and eaten later needed fodder for the next moon or two. He might get enough gold if he raided the Bankers Guildhouse or he might not. And he could not take the risk.
“What
are you talking about?” he asked innocently.
“Duchess Dina. Arrested in the square outside this castle! The Guilds are all happy to deal with her but if she is imprisoned or executed then we shall have to rethink our support,” the Banker said loftily.
“And what if I decided to come calling and look into your affairs, see whether you are secretly worshipping Zorva?” Fallon challenged.
The Banker sat up straighter. “We have all sworn loyalty to Aroaril,” he said. “And if you destroy the Guilds you will throw this city into chaos. No merchant will deal with you and none of the nobles sending food and goods in from the counties will trust you. Duchess Dina was someone we could all deal with. You, on the other hand, are the man who gutted the King in front of a cheering crowd. They are too afraid to work with you.”
Fallon leaned back in his chair, his mind racing. Was this part of Dina’s plans? Had she made the Guilds secret promises in exchange for their support if anything should happen to her? Do we even need the Guilds? Why not just march into every Guildhouse, arrest their leaders and take their money, share it out among the people? It was tempting but they were clever men. They would have planned for this possibility, while he had not. By the time he had men mustered and marching, the Guildsmen would be scattering like rats in torchlight. Unless he got their leaders and their money then he was creating more trouble. He had to get ready for a fight with the Kottermanis and make sure Bridgit got back safely. Fighting his own people in Berry, even if they were Guildsmen, was foolish.
“Well, I am afraid you are mistaken,” he said. “Duchess Dina was not arrested. She is merely resting in her townhouse. We have had a strenuous few days of fast marches and hard camps. Not something she was really used to. She will be available for meetings tomorrow, where she can tell you herself.”
He smiled at the Banker, thinking that he could take a page from Aidan’s schemes.
