In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  Lyram lifted a hand in greeting as if passing, then turned aside and dropped into an easy squat next to the man.

  The mercenary eyed him but didn’t stop his cleaning work.

  “‘S bitch of a job, ain’t she,” Lyram said.

  The mercenary nodded, saying nothing. The crossbow looked in need of a good oiling sometime past now.

  “‘Tween you an’ me, I leave it longer ‘an I should.”

  A tiny smile flickered around the edges of the mercenary’s lips. “Aye. As long as I can.”

  “Do ya think it makes the cleaning harder? I wonder, mebbe, if I did it more often, t’wouldn’t take as long.”

  The mercenary shrugged. “A question for the gods. Trouble at the gate?”

  “Nah, nah. Just some activity at the castle that needs reporting. I best be on my way.” Lyram rose to his feet with a nod to the mercenary, and received one in turn.

  Satisfied the man considered him one of the guards from down the way, he headed deeper into the camp, thankful for the lax security. Sloppy. Surely Sayella was canny enough to set up passwords? Well, perhaps she was. Even the best discipline slipped as a siege progressed.

  Within the palisade, mercenaries sprawled out in loose encampments, a far cry from the regimented order of the camp of the king’s army. Some of the wakeful men seemed to pick up their bedrolls and shift their sleeping spots as they willed. A few still wore mismatched pieces of armour, from as little as a gambeson and tabard such as he wore to as much as cuir bouilli odds and ends. No iron plate, so far as he saw. A platinum-haired Dayhlish woman in a mail hauberk watched him pass at one fire.

  Here within the camp’s borders, the chance anyone might detect his intrusion was minimal. No one could possibly know every man in the camp by sight. In the royal army, an officer might question an enlisted man who wandered too freely—especially at this late hour—and demand to know his commanding officer, but here half the camp was awake, drinking and dicing. Men shifted frequently between fires in search of better companions, another game, or more wine. None of the mercenaries he saw resembled his idea of a commanding officer.

  Wagons lined this edge of the camp, near picket lines of horses. They were on the opposite edge of the camp to the castle, of course, where any attacking force would need to fight their way through the entire company of Gallowglaighs to reach them. Where would he find the command centre? Sayella, at least, must have a tent.

  Not wanting to draw too much scrutiny, Lyram stopped and pulled off his boot, shaking it as though dislodging a stone. He studied the camp through his eyelashes as he shoved his hand into his boot and groped around. Guards were posted along the outside edge of the wagons, but none on the camp-side of the carts. He was free to surveil the army unobserved. Not that there was much for him to see. The darkness, the rain, and the fires ruined any detail.

  A mercenary approached down the line of wagons. Lyram pulled the boot back on and wandered away into the central camp. Anyone going deeper into the camp would draw less attention than someone sneaking out. He pushed wet hair out of his eyes. A plaid would be handy about now, or a cloak like some of the Gallowglaighs used for pillows.

  As expected, a cluster of pavilions sat off-centre in the camp, as far from the castle as it could get and still be within the main camp, and backing on to the marsh. One belonged to Sayella, no doubt, but who else? Bradlin, perhaps?

  The memory flashed through his mind again, the man’s face framed between the bare branches of winter trees, a snowy landscape behind him. Where had he seen Bradlin? And why had the man been there? He turned towards the pavilion, drawn on by the inexplicable memory.

  He clung to the shadows, hugging the sides of the tents as he tried to appraise their occupants. A soft murmur of voices came from somewhere ahead, drawing him on, but the soft patter of rain on canvas drowned out the words.

  The first tent was dark and empty, the opening unguarded. He ducked around the corner of the adjoining tent and almost collided with a sentry. Fortunately the man had his back turned as he spoke with someone out of sight within the tent. Lyram retreated just far enough he had to crane his neck to see into the tent.

  The guard took a step back, and a man pushed out of the tent into the rainy darkness. Straightening, the man let the tent flap fall.

  Bradlin. Lyram caught his breath and ducked down out of reflex.

  Bradlin’s attention remained locked on the guard, his face in profile, exactly like in the memory.

  It all rushed back—Bradlin’s profile framed between branches, snow falling—but this time, as Lyram crouched on the ground, more memory returned: the cold of snow around booted feet, the chill wetness against his hands as he braced against the ground, the crisp smell of new fallen snow, spoilt with the tang of blood.

  Blood. Red against the white. Black against the white. Hair.

  At his feet, Zaheva.

  Her dead eyes staring up into the falling snow.

  Lyram staggered away, as dazed as if the recalled memory had been a blow to the head. Something caught at his feet, tripping him, and he nearly fell over the guy ropes and into the heavy canvas of the first tent. He righted himself and emerged from between the tents, back out into the main camp.

  Bradlin, a man who always left court for the winter, was coincidentally in a snowy wilderness outside the capital at the time of Zaheva’s murder?

  Coincidences that big didn’t happen. A hollowness ached in his chest. His hands shook, and he curled his fists closed, trying to steady them.

  He negotiated the campfires haphazardly, hardly aware of where his feet took him or in what direction. A pounding filled his ears. Mercenaries at fires stared at him as he passed, and he stared back, barely seeing them, as though he perceived everything through a fogged window. An uneasy, twitchy sensation filled him, like something important forgotten, or an itch in need of scratching.

  Something struck his shoulder, spinning him around.

  “Watch where you’re going.” A voice rumbled from behind him.

  Lyram pivoted in that direction, his pulse thundering in his ears, and slugged a black-bearded face hard on the nose. The world narrowed down to this one moment, this one place. The mercenary fell to the ground, ruby blood spilling down his face.

  In an instant, a dozen nearby mercenaries climbed to their feet.

  “Come on, you bastards, who wants to be first?” Lyram screamed at them, turning in a circle to keep them at bay and fumbling his knife from its scabbard.

  “No bare steel in camp, mate.” One lean mercenary raised his hands in a reasonable gesture of placation. “You know the rules. Don’t make me report you to Holbrook.”

  Lyram spun in his direction, still waving his knife.

  “Let me at him!” The Gallowglaigh he’d struck bellowed, struggling to his feet and wiping streaming blood from his face with the back of his sleeve.

  Lyram flew at him, and the mercenary, barely on his feet, recoiled and fumbled at his belt for a blade, but Lyram barrelled into him, knocking him to the ground again. The mercenary tried to scramble to his feet, and Lyram struck him behind the ear with the hilt of the knife. The man went back down and stayed down.

  Spinning in a wild circle, Lyram eyed each of the watching mercenaries. The buzz of anticipation shifted to edginess, and most of the men stepped back a little. No one drew a weapon, but a few hovered, their hands near hilts.

  “Who wants to be next?” Rage filled the scream, undirected and looking for a target, any target, to spend itself on.

  “Drunk,” the reasonable mercenary said. “Or smokesick. Let him pass. He’ll be Sayella’s problem if he ain’t dead before sunrise.”

  Lyram stumbled out of the opening circle of mercenaries, turning to keep an eye on them as he backed out of the light of their campfire. None followed.

  He broke into a run, covering the short patch of darkness between fires quickly. The next patch of light was bigger, cast by several campfires together. He passed sleeping mercen
aries, and a few wakeful souls who watched him go with curious eyes.

  Ahura, what kind of idiot am I? He dropped back to a walk. Bad enough he’d gotten into a fight; running would only draw more attention. His breath still came in ragged heaves, and he tried to slow it, but the whirl of thoughts and images still streamed through his head, fuelling a stew of emotions.

  Bradlin was Traeburhn’s stooge, and the one man the duke trusted implicitly to clean up after him—or, more often, to clean up after Drault. Traeburhn was astute enough to indulge himself in his vices from time to time with none the wiser, but Drault was reckless, impulsive, and thoughtless, and the public perception of both bore witness. Traeburhn’s reputation was impeccable, while the hatred of most of the kingdom still didn’t curb Drault’s excesses.

  Not much would keep Bradlin from retiring to his estate for the winter, which meant Traeburhn either expected to need him or recalled him. To clean up Zaheva’s murder? Except Lyram had found her first.

  He didn’t know how long he’d crouched over the body, numb with shock, until shouts roused him from his stupor and he looked up to find Everard and Galdron and his guards surrounding him. It was then he’d glimpsed Bradlin, not between bare branches as the beguiling memory told him, but between furred shoulders as his men closed around him. Then he’d been crying into Everard’s plaid, and Galdron had poured whisky down his throat to warm him after so long in the snow, and the long trek of the funeral cortege began back to the capital.

  He hesitated inside the edge of the camp. What was the best way to leave without notice? The same sentry still sat in the shelter of the tree, reassembling his crossbow. Lyram raised a hand and nodded, then struck out in the direction of the guard post with a deliberate walk.

  As soon as the darkness swallowed him, he broke into a run, skirting wide of the guards at the old gate and, once well past them, cutting back in to the wall. If pursuit came, he didn’t want to be standing around waiting for it.

  The grapple remained where he’d stashed it. He wasted no time swinging it up the old crumbling wall, tugging once to test the hold, and beginning the climb.

  Drault. Nothing else explained Bradlin’s presence in that place, at that time. Drault raped and murdered his wife. And if Zaheva scratched Traeburhn, he was involved too. He knew, the bastard chancellor knew.

  Without warning, Lyram reached the top of the wall and barely caught himself before he tumbled over. Teetering on the edge, he stared down the long drop into the darkness. With so much injustice in the world, sometimes struggling against it seemed as useful as attempting to douse a fire by spitting in it. Shaking himself back to awareness, he set the grapple and lowered himself down the wall.

  At the bottom, he shook the grapple free. Or tried. The metal clinked softly somewhere at the top of the wall, but no matter how he flicked and shook the rope, the hook refused to come free. Sweat covered his face and left him hot and flushed in the cool of the night. If anyone remarked upon the altercation in camp, if anyone spoke to the sentry who saw him leave..., if anyone came looking, here he stood like a fool waiting to be found.

  Abandoning the grapple, he struck out for the castle. The hook would indicate someone came this way, but better to leave a sign he’d been there than be found himself.

  As he waded through the waist-high grass, the black mood deepened its grip on him. Drault was his prince, the heir to the throne, and his liege lord. The dreadful anger uncoiling inside him, like a venomous serpent ready to strike, demanded Drault’s blood. His promise to Zaheva, already dead and cold, bound him to avenge her. But his oaths, his loyalty to his king, demanded his restraint.

  He broke into a slow jog, the castle wall looming ahead.

  He hadn’t thought about re-entering the castle—hadn’t planned to do so. Even with the grapple it would be difficult, and the tool was gone. The bleak thoughts consuming him left him unable to turn his mind to the problem.

  No wonder Drault smiled the way he did when Lyram departed.

  He curled and uncurled his fists. He’d sworn vengeance on those who hurt Zaheva, sworn in his own blood. The scar of his vow lay hidden beneath the sleeve of his shirt, and he touched it with trembling fingers.

  I also swore my oaths to the crown in my own blood. Bleakness tinged the thought. Any move against Drault would be treason. Even killing Traeburhn would be murder, unless he the duke agreed to a duel, which he wouldn’t. In all Lyram’s life, Traeburhn had duelled with only two men—and killed them both. The courts offered no hope of restitution, not even with an eye witness, if he had one. Traeburhn was rich enough to buy justice—not from Ahura’s priestesses, but from witnesses and other officials. And Drault still had his blackmail to hold over Lyram’s head if he sought to pursue justice legally.

  The only resolution was treason. That realisation threatened to tear him apart.

  Shouts drifted over the moat from the castle, and the light of torches danced a frenzy on the battlements.

  He tilted his head to look up at the castle walls, the rain stinging his eyes. The heavy thunk of the gate bolts unlocking echoed across the water.

  Drault killed Zaheva.

  He stared at the gates as if they should mean something to him. Shivers racked his body from the damp cold of his clothes pressed against his skin and the relentless night rain.

  Traeburhn helped him—or helped cover it up.

  The gates swung open, spilling light onto the moat, where it danced and refracted in mesmerising patterns. Ripples spread out where raindrops danced on the surface.

  Gods help me, I am not a traitor.

  Shouts rang out, and a mess of people jostled each other inside the barbican. The portable bridge clattered out.

  But I want to be. Oh, I want to be....

  “Sir?”

  Everard’s voice. His aide-de-camp stood halfway out on the bridge, keeping to the left where the underlying supports remained sound, well away from the ruined pier on Lyram’s side of the moat. His aide peered at him with his face cast in shadow by the plaid over his head. “Sir?”

  Lyram stared at him, trying to recollect his thoughts, to find some balance in a world suddenly dumped upside down.

  A new figure strode out on the bridge, robes flaring in the wind of her passing like crow’s wings, or the shadow of death itself. Ellaeva laid a hand on Everard’s arm, drawing him back and leaning close to his ear, then walked on alone.

  “Lyram?” She stepped off the end of the bridge and paused. “I worried when I woke and found you gone.”

  The words broke something inside him, like a dam collapsing beneath a feather’s weight. “She told me... told me she didn’t like the way Drault looked at her. I dismissed it as a feeling. Did I think he couldn’t touch me? Wouldn’t dare to touch her?”

  Ellaeva stepped closer and touched his arm the way a man might touch a spooked horse. “Your wife?”

  Tears streamed down his face as he let her lead him over the bridge. “Ahura help me. I couldn’t save her, and I can’t revenge her either.”

  Lyram huddled before the hearth, wrapped in blankets and nothing else. His wet hair dripped down his back, leaving the blanket damp, but Everard had built the fire up until the room sweltered.

  Only Ellaeva remained in the room, sunk in a thoughtful silence in the chair at his desk. “I guess you won’t be surrendering yourself then.”

  “No.” His voice was dull. After everything he’d recounted, did she have nothing else to offer?

  “Is not this attack against you also treachery? And the attack on your wife? Or unlawful, at least?”

  “The death of my wife was criminal, but not a crime against the crown. I may seek satisfaction and redress in the courts of law, but I may not revenge myself without becoming a criminal, except in a duel—and neither would accept a duel.” He drew the blanket around himself tighter, cold despite the blazing fire. He couldn’t challenge Drault anyway, not without making the prince act on his blackmail threats. But he would not tell Ell
aeva this.

  No solution to the problem had presented itself since his return, and he found himself running around in circles, achieving nothing except wearing a rut into his mind.

  “It seems to me,” she said, her voice soft, “that both obligations may not be met simultaneously. You must break one. That you cannot control. What you can do is choose which. You must decide which is more important to you. Either you keep the law, or your word.”

  He looked at her with tired, sore eyes. “Simple as that? Just decide which oath I will break? So much for honour and loyalty.”

  “It’s the only logical way,” she said simply. “You can’t keep both. Only you can decide which is more important.”

  Lyram grunted. “When you must do the choosing, come back and tell me how it turns out for you.”

  “This is no time for you to wallow in self-pity.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the desk and her voice sharp. “We have mouths to feed—men, women, and children whom you have decided can no longer be saved by your surrender.”

  His head jerked, and he twisted to scowl at her over one shoulder. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Me not to surrender.”

  “What I want is no longer relevant after the fact. You have decided. And now there are more decisions to make. I don’t suppose you learnt anything useful skulking around the enemy camp?”

  Stung, he swivelled on his buttocks to face her, keeping the blanket tight around him. Really, he would prefer to be left alone, but she’d barrelled her way in past Everard’s guard while Lyram sat drying before the fire. His soggy clothes hung from various pieces of furniture around the room, and the clean set of clothes still lay on the bed where Everard had placed them before she arrived.

  Ellaeva faced him without any sign in her expression that she cared about the discomfort she caused him.