by Julia Knight
Aran turned away, his face a bitter mix of fear, anger and disbelief. Ilfayne turned on his heel and left.
Valguard paused for one last barbed remark before he joined the wizard. “He was planning to do it again. You missed the sworn testimony of how Nerinna spent the night in Hunter’s room.” Valguard left, discussing with Ilfayne their plans to rid the city of any and all of Hunter’s supporters, Regin’s worshippers who were tainted by the subtle hand of Mithotyn.
Aran sat before the fire, his head in his hands. Nerinna had a sudden rush of pity for him, of shame for going to Hunter the way she had, and went to kneel in front of him.
He looked up, his face tear-streaked and desolate. “You and Hunter? He broke his word? If that’s true, then all Valguard says of my mother might be true too.”
“No, no he didn’t. Valguard told me that Hunter wanted my kingdom for his own, wanted rule of all the Three Kingdoms. That he wanted your throne too. Valguard said…he said many things, told me that Oku said they were true. That he needed proof for the Court. And if I would go to Hunter and offer myself and he agreed, that would be his proof.”
“And you did?” Aran looked incredulous, and she couldn’t blame him. It sounded so ridiculous when she said it, but Valguard was so persuasive. And she’d been so eager to try.
Nerinna’s cheeks burned. “Yes, I did. I needed to know whether what Valguard said was true, whether he really was a threat to me and mine. But Hunter wouldn’t. He turned me away. I can’t believe that was used as evidence against him.”
“I can’t believe I’m to watch him hang tomorrow.”
Nerinna laid her hand on his. He was so young, yet not much younger than she was when she came to rule. “Aran, I don’t believe it either. I don’t believe he did any of it.”
“You don’t? I thought you didn’t like Hunter.”
Oh, Kyr’s mercy, if only he knew. But she wouldn’t tell him. What would that achieve? No, she had to play the faithful betrothed. She had to get those men to her borders, not to mention avoid having to marry Arashin. And that meant keeping Aran sweet. Still, her next words were true enough, as far as they went. “I don’t know if like is the right word. But I see the kind of man he is, and I don’t believe he’s capable of any of this.”
“Neither do I, but what can I do against the Court?”
“You’re king here, surely there’s something you can do?”
He gave her an odd look and laughed. “Yes, I’m king. I’ve never felt like it though. Hunter was always there to advise me, tell me what I should do. Stand up to Valguard for me. I don’t think I could do that on my own.”
“If you don’t then he’s dead.”
“I know but the Court rules even me. A king’s overturned their decision only twice before, and that was when new evidence came to light. If even the gods tell us Hunter’s guilty, then what hope do I have?”
Gods damn it boy, have some backbone! “If you don’t try then he has no hope at all. If he’s innocent there’ll be some evidence of it somewhere. You have to try.”
He smiled at her, a sweet little-boy smile, and reached for her hand. “Yes, yes I will. Thank you. I think you’re going to make me a fine queen.” He planted a soft kiss on the back of her hand and whereas once she would have shuddered at his touch, would have inwardly sneered at him, now she just felt maternal. Poor little boy, lost and alone. Well, he had to grow up now.
He stood and walked to the window, looked down on the city spread below like a map. “You’d best stay here. You can use my bedroom, I’ll not be sleeping tonight. I’ll send for your maids. There’s already trouble, and it’ll only get worse before it gets better. If it reaches the citadel, well, here’s the best protected place in the city. I’m sorry that you had to get involved in all this. It’s all so…so bizarre. I promise you, there’ll be nothing like it again. Your life in Ganheim will be peaceful.”
He turned and smiled at her, the strained, tired but determined smile of a boy who has just realised that he must grow up and be a man. I could marry him and not be unhappy. He would be a fine man in time, would treat her well and adore her. But that was no longer enough for her. She didn’t want any fine man to marry her, lie in her bed and love her. She wanted Hunter and anyone else would be second best.
Aran left and Nerinna was on her own, to look down at a beautiful city lit by the sunset and ravaged by lies and flames.
***
Hilde scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve and stood up. What in the gods’ names was wrong with her? It wasn’t as though they never argued. They had stand-up, sit-down screamers that always turned into passionate making-up sessions, and she’d never cried like this. She’d never cried like this in her life. Maybe it was the sick feeling that washed through and drained her, the dizzy spells that kept catching her by surprise or the burning in her stomach that had been building steadily for the past few days.
More likely that this time she knew she was right, and if she couldn’t do something, make Ilfayne see some bloody sense, then her poor, dear Hunter would die. And Ilfayne would never admit that he cared. Not even to himself. But what could she do, locked up in her rooms like a recalcitrant child?
With a frustrated sigh, she resisted the urge to take her anger out on the furniture with her mace and looked around. She couldn’t leave through the door. Securely locked, strengthened with magic, and the door itself was as thick and solid as she’d ever seen. It would take her a week to batter her way through it.
She stalked over to the window and glared down. The setting sun coloured all the white stone a rich, ruby red, marred by orange flickers from the fires and the shouts of people in the streets. Another fire bloomed into being, close to the citadel. No normal fire. Ilfayne, she was sure of it, burning out those Oku said were tainted by Mithotyn.
These rooms weren’t designed to hold people in, but they might as well have been. She leant further out of the window. A buttress to her right, smooth stone to the left and below her, except where the wall was broken by other windows. No way to climb that stone. No footholds or handy gargoyles. The window below her would be her best bet, but it was eight or more feet away. No way she could stretch that far without help.
She looked around the room, trying to find anything that might help. Sheets and blankets covered the bed, heavy curtains hung at the window, but she’d never been entirely confident about tying a knot that wouldn’t unravel. Now wouldn’t be a good time for that. She must be able to find something, something she wasn’t seeing. She sat on the bed and stared blindly at the wall as she tried to think.
Then her brain realised what she was looking at. A tapestry covered one wall, a vast depiction of some ancient duke on a battlefield. The black wolf’s head on his red breastplate seemed to glow among the other colours as though it called to her. She looked closer. Not just any duke. Regin. Thank you Regin. Just make sure it takes my weight. Please?
The tapestry was fixed firmly to the wall but she managed to get the end furthest from the window free and gradually pulled the rest of it away, leaving one end fixed to the stone. If she threw it out the window there should be enough. And it should hold her light weight. She hoped. She gave an experimental yank and the tapestry held.
Hilde slid the fabric over the sill. It dangled down just past the other window. Never one for heights, her head spun at the thought of the drop into the dark below her, the distance to the black basalt flagstones. Nothing else for it. No other way.
She sat on the sill and edged her legs over the drop, holding on to the tapestry for grim death. She inched her way down, the muscles in her fingers screaming all the way, and one foot touched the sill. The cloth under her hands ripped, and she grabbed for a handhold on the window frame. Her fingers slipped on the smooth stone but she threw her weight into the room just as the tapestry gave way entirely. The silken fabric rushed past her and the long seconds it took before it thudded to a stop made her stomach twist. But she was safe. And free.
As luck would have it the room was unoccupied and unlocked. Her hands shook, her whole body, and not just because she’d narrowly avoided a long drop and a messy death. She was dicing with death that came in nastier ways than that. First things first. She had to get to Hunter, had to find out if he truly was innocent or whether she’d just risked everything she had for nothing.
Hilde found it surprisingly easy to move through the citadel. The riots that raged across the city had not come here. Yet. The Disciples stood aside to let her pass wherever she tried to go. Remembered her from the Court, she supposed, and afraid to stop her for fear of Ilfayne. Until she got to the prison.
Disciples were everywhere, and she knew they hated her worse even than everyone else. Hated that they had to do what she said, that she was more of a Servant than Valguard. So they made her time a waste as far as they could, dragged every check out, and loathed her at her back when she managed to pass them. Kyr’s Ward was aimed at her almost every step. Standard fare for her, and she smiled at their small-mindedness. It was that or cry.
Finally she got as far as the cells, and for a while it seemed she would get no farther than the door that led to them. An especially zealous Disciple refused her entry until her temper could take it no more. She was in no mood for this. She slid her hood down and stared at him. His defiant nonchalance faded into mortified fear as he stared at her eyes, but still he barred the way. “N-no visitors,” he stammered. “Valguard’s orders.”
That was the last straw. She grabbed him by the breastplate and yanked him forward until his face was inches from hers. “I give Valguard his orders now.” A lie, but a small one. “Let me in, or I’ll stare some more. You know what they say about us kyrbodans. Suck your soul right out.” Ilfayne had shown her that at times fear worked better than niceties. She didn’t much like doing it, but sometimes it was the only way.
For a moment she thought he would still bar her way but then he pulled his eyes away from hers, looked at the floor like a child caught doing something he shouldn’t and moved away from the door. “Certainly, madam. Ca-can I ask you to leave your weapons here?”
She smiled and graciously handed them over. “Of course. Wouldn’t do for the prisoner to try anything now, would it?”
He placed them on a small table and wiped his hand on his leg, as though being kyrbodan was something he could catch. Still without looking at her face, he opened the last door between her and the cells and followed her in. The stench was indescribable, as though something had died and been left to rot in the sun.
“Last one on the right,” he murmured, and barely even flinched when she asked him to unlock the barred door. He locked it behind her with an apology, and with a last warning and an injunction to shout if she should need him, he scurried away.
The tiny, windowless cell was dark, dank and airless. Her breath caught in her throat. The only light came through the grille in the door, but she could make out Hunter slumped on a pile of rotting straw in the corner. He hadn’t even looked up when the door opened, and what she felt from him—what she felt was nothing. An open pit inside him, with no emotion to fill it.
She blinked away the image that came to her—of him standing in the dawn light, staring sadly upwards with a noose snug around his neck. A Seeing, as she’d known she would. But this one wouldn’t come true. Not if she had a say in the matter.
He sat there, his arms limp on his knees, his head hanging down, dressed in nothing but a torn linen shirt and breeches. She moved softly towards him, half expecting him to burst out in anger, to leap up and rail against this injustice, but he made no move. She crouched beside him and laid a hand on his arm. It trembled slightly under her fingers.
She squeezed his arm and slid her hand down to his. “Hunter?”
He took a sharp, hitching breath and raised his head. His eyes were red-rimmed but dry and utterly blank. There were no words she could say, nothing that came to mind that could help him. She held tighter to his hand, pulled it up to rest against her cheek and let her tears fall.
She had to ask him, though she knew it wasn’t true. “Hunter, did you do all Valguard said?”
His good shoulder twitched, he pulled his hand away and dropped his eyes again but said nothing.
“Hunter, I don’t believe it, any of it, but I need to hear you say it. There’s compelling evidence against you. Did you do it?” Please say no, please.
His breath came in harsh gasps and something flickered in him, a black despair, a fatal resignation that filled Hilde with fear. Dear gods, don’t let Oku be right. He scrubbed at his face with his hand and ground the heel of it into his eyes.
“I wanted to. Kyr’s mercy, I wanted to, all of it. I wanted Valguard away from here, disgraced maybe, though dead would be better. I wanted Regin revered. And I wanted her. She came and offered herself to me, did you know that? And I wanted to, by the gods I’ve never wanted anything so much. But I sent her away. She’s to marry Aran, and he’s besotted with her.”
“Couldn’t you have—”
“What for?” His words came out in a snarl that she would never have expected from him. “All she wants is to control the men she meets, to gain something from them. It’s a game for her, to make all men want her. What could she want with a cripple almost twice her age?”
Hilde grabbed his chin and turned his face towards her. “Same thing I wanted from a man several thousand years older than me, who only has one hand.”
He shook his head at her. “She’s not like you, Hilde. She only wants what she can get, and I’ve nothing to offer.” The muscles in his shoulders tensed and twisted and he hissed in pain.
“The pain—it hasn’t always been this bad has it? Valguard, Oku, they were making it worse. Said it was to make you use the magic, force your hand.”
He laughed, bitter and cold. “No, not always this bad, or I’d never have lasted half so long. And it doesn’t surprise me that Valguard was behind it, or make any difference to it. Have you any duria with you?”
“What in the gods’ names do you want that for?”
“Same thing Ilfayne uses it for. Pain. What else?” He was breathing hard now and when she touched his arm the muscles were clenched like rocks, but his hands shook violently. “Please?”
“How long have you been taking it? How often?” She looked closer at his face. He was pale and sweating and his eyes looked odd. Duria was a powerful drug used like that. Addictive. Even Ilfayne only used it when he absolutely had to. And Valguard’s intervention had Hunter hooked on it.
“Long time. Every night. Can’t sleep without it.”
“Well, you’re going without tonight. Don’t you know what it does to you?”
His muscles seemed to loosen a little and he lay back, panting and spent. “It doesn’t matter, Hilde. It hasn’t mattered for a long time.”
His hopelessness seeped into her, dragged at her heart. “Don’t you bloody dare give up! You’re getting out of here. I’m not letting Valguard hang you.”
“No, I’m not, and yes, he will. It’s all right. I’m tired. I’ve given near on twenty years to Ganheim, and it’s enough. I can’t do it any more. I can’t do any of it.”
“But—”
“No buts, Hilde.” He took her hand in his and gave her the saddest, sweetest smile she’d ever seen. “It’s all right. Truly.”
The feel of his heart was a tortured blank in hers. Worse than any anger, any grief. That she would have expected from him, and she wished she could feel any trace of them. His heart was the nothingness of no hope, of not even wanting any hope.
“No, it’s not bloody well all right. I’m not going to let it happen.”
Plan of Action
It broke Hilde’s heart to leave Hunter there like that, alone, in pain and hopeless, but if she was going to help him she couldn’t do it from there. And at least she’d her answer. Hunter was innocent. She felt in her heart that he had spoken the truth. So why had Oku proclaimed him guilty? Some trick of Mithotyn’s, it
must be; only a god could fool a god. How to help Hunter though? Valguard and even Ilfayne wouldn’t, unless she had something more solid to show them than “I just know”.
Aran. Maybe he would, could help. From the look and feel of him at Hunter’s trial, he didn’t believe it any more than she did. Hilde stalked down the pale corridors towards Aran’s chambers.
What Valguard’s men were doing in the square was murder, pure and simple. He’d stirred up the populace, drip-fed them half truths and flat-out lies and then left them to fester until now, now when he’d told them that their beloved regent was a traitor, a murderer, a mage and a gods defiler. And when they took to the streets in their anger and bewilderment, Valguard had his men cut down all those who opposed him. It was clear to her now. Very clear.
Valguard wanted the kingship, wanted the Third Kingdom under his sway, wanted all worship of Regin obliterated so his power would be stronger, so he could rule unopposed. She stopped, suddenly enough that a servant almost walked into her from behind before he made a swift detour. Valguard. Mithotyn had tainted him. That must be it. Had Valguard persuaded Oku, or was Oku tainted too?
Her mace was firm in her hand and no one, not servants, guards or Disciples stopped her in her path. Every one of them made the sign of Kyr’s Ward at her, but she glared at them and they ducked their heads away from her soulsucking eyes and let her pass.
She started up the broad flight of stairs that wound around the edges of the main hall towards the quarters reserved for the highest-ranking nobles. And, bizarrely to her mind, her and Ilfayne. She restrained herself from going to find him and making him see sense. Making him bloody do something. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t go against Oku any more than he already had. She already regretted the words she had spat at him, if not the sentiment. This was too important to her. If he wouldn’t help, was afraid to go against Oku again, then she couldn’t blame him. But she couldn’t let him stop her doing something.
