The Gates of Tagmeth (Chronicles of the Kencyrath Book 8)

by P. C. Hodgell

  “Come, little lady,” one of them murmured in a voice thick with a Southron accent. “We will take you to your prince.”

  And hands reached down.

  So Lyra had been right, thought Jame as she allowed her kidnappers to hustle her down the steps, bundled up in her cloak, and out of the Caineron compound. Something bad was happening tonight. Still, the situation baffled her. Did the Karkinorans think that they could escape the Riverland with their captive, fifty miles past three keeps? For that matter, how did they even mean to get out of the Women’s Halls?

  They hurried her down the northern arm of the gallery that lined the forecourt, under the shadow of the old keep. Ahead was the gate that gave access to the inner ward, but where were its guards?

  The bulk of the Women’s Halls lay to the south, housing the Edirr, Danior, Ardeth, Randir, Jaran and Coman. Some commotion was going on there, shrill voices raised in alarm or protest. No doubt the gate-wards had gone to investigate.

  The gate swung open. A dozen figures waited with saddled horses at the head of the ramp leading down to the subterranean stable. Close by was the northern gate, which gave access through the thickness of the wall to the ravaged apple orchard.

  Jame had gone as far as she intended to go with her would-be abductors. She drew a deep breath and unleashed the rathorn battle-cry of her house, a shattering scream that sank to a bone-rattling roar. The men holding her flinched. She slipped out of their grasp, reversing a wrist lock on one of them. When she twisted it, he flipped over its fulcrum of pain. The other scrabbled to regain his hold. She stomped on his toes—a less effective move than if she had been shod—then drove her elbow into his stomach and met his chin with her fist as it jerked down.

  Warning shouts sounded as dark figures ran down the gallery and across the forecourt, the guards returning to their posts. Outside the gate, horses shrilled and reared. On both sides of the wall, Kencyr scythed through the intruders, leaving them on the ground still or groaning.

  Jame had retreated down the arcade. She had wrenched her barely healed shoulder, and it hurt. For once, let someone else have all the fun.

  A parcel of matriarchs arrived in a flurry of skirts, following their house-guards. Jame imagined that the windows above must be full of curious eyes, not that the girls there could see through the gallery’s tin roof. Some of the brawl had spilled out into the forecourt, though, no doubt to their delight.

  Karidia arrived, scolding. Jame noted that she was fully dressed, unlike her colleagues in their flowing nightgowns. Ribbons, apparently, were reserved for the very young, and tight underskirts for daytime wear.

  The crowd of ladies on the arcade parted and the Ardeth Matriarch Adiraina passed through it, supported by the Danior Matriarch Dianthe. Adiraina walked carefully, running her free hand along the gallery rail. Her sleeping mask was embroidered with shut eyelids. Pearls like tears hung in a fringe from long, silken lashes. She turned her blind face toward the battleground, where only Kencyr now stood.

  “What is the meaning of this disgrace?”

  Karidia stepped forward, blustering. “It’s only that Prince Uthecon’s emissaries have come to fetch his bride. This unpleasantness would not have been necessary if Lord Caineron had been more reasonable.”

  “Caldane did not approve of his daughter’s proposed contract, did he?”

  “Humph. We of the Women’s World should have the say in such matters.”

  “But we do not, not since the Fall. Was this Kallystine’s idea?”

  Karidia huffed. “I’m sure that dear Kallystine acted in the best interests of her house.”

  “No doubt,” said Dianthe dryly, “in exchange for a magnificent bribe.”

  “So they gave her gifts, as is only proper.”

  Jame became aware of a growing, silent crowd just outside the gate. There was Brier’s tall frame and Marc’s, which overtopped both her and everyone else. Torisen stood between them, looking as slight as a boy by comparison.

  “This is all very well,” he said, with a touch of amusement, “but what does it have to do with kidnapping my sister?”

  Incredulous eyes turned to Jame, who removed Lyra’s mask and stepped forward.

  Karidia raised pudgy fists as if to flourish them in her face. “You . . . you . . . wretched creature! What right have you to meddle with the affairs of true ladies? Leave our halls at once! In fact, kindly leave this fortress!”

  “Point of law,” said the Jaran Matriarch Trishien. She had come up quietly and stood at the edge of the throng, stray flickers of light reflecting in the lens sown into her mask. Jame wondered if she wore them night as well as day, the better to read in bed when the urge took her.

  “We are the Highlord’s guests,” Trishien said. “He can order us to leave but not we him or, I think, his sister and lordan. I have reminded you of this before,” she added, sounding somewhat apologetic.

  Meanwhile the Karkinorans were slowly recovering themselves, except for several who had to be lifted from the ground and supported.

  “This is a most unseemly treatment of guests,” said the leader, glaring at Torisen.

  “Honorable guests do not attempt to steal from their host.”

  “Nonetheless, our prince will hear of this.”

  “I daresay he shall. Soon. By sunset of the day now dawning, I request that you quit the Riverland.”

  “What, travel fifty miles in a day?”

  “Ride fast.”

  They left the forecourt, some stumbling, others carried. Their horses had been caught and quieted. Mounted, the leader scowled down at Torisen.

  “You may yet regret this, my lord. The time will come, soon, when you seek employment for your mercenaries in our court.”

  “Be that as it may, goodbye.”

  They rode out.

  The ladies departed with sidelong looks at Karidia, whose face in the growing light was dark red and pop-eyed with ill-swallowed chagrin.

  “See me before you go,” Trishien murmured as she passed Jame.

  Go where?

  The crowd outside the gate also dispersed, except for Torisen.

  “Such a long night,” he said to Jame. “Still, we need to talk.”

  V

  UP IN THE TOWER STUDY, Burr had kindled a fire against the morning chill. Jame curled up in a chair beside it and began absentmindedly to pluck off her ribbons.

  Torisen stood by the window looking out as he had on that first night, but with only a hint of that fearful flare of power around him. On the whole, he seemed to be more self-possessed than she had yet seen him, but also bone tired.

  “One thing,” he said wryly over his shoulder, “life is always interesting when you are around. Where, pray tell, is that prize nitwit, Lyra?”

  “In my quarters, I assume.” One by one, she flattened each ribbon and rolled it into a compact ball. “She really doesn’t want to go back to Karkinaroth.”

  “Now she won’t have to, unless Caldane changes his mind. I rather think, though, that he has other plans for her. She’s something of a prize, you know, and a useful bargaining chip. Kallystine overreached herself. Do you know why?”

  Jame shrugged. The cloak had slipped off her shoulders and she was glad of the fire’s warmth.

  “Kallystine is ambitious and vengeful, but not very bright,” she said. “However, with Cattila ill, there will be an imbalance of power at Restormir. I think Lord Caineron both respects and fears his great-grandmother. Without her to check his behavior, however slightly, he might do anything.”

  “I hope not,” said Torisen, with a shudder, “given his past behavior. Hard times are coming. That Karkinoran was right. With King Krothen cutting back on the Southern Host, less money will funnel back to the Riverland.”

  Jame looked up, startled. “I thought Kroaky meant to keep his Kencyr forces intact, whatever happened.”

  “So he said. Repeatedly. However, Kothifir’s glory days are over and we will all suffer for it.”

  Jame
thought about her journey across the Southern Wastes, back in time, to the lost city of Languidine and of its destruction in one terrible night, due to the awakening of the Kencyr temple around which part of its royal palace was built. It had all been part of Kencyr history unfolding, in an unguessed-at way. Perhaps it was appropriate that the Kencyrath of the present should also reap that bitter fruit. However, life in the Riverland had never been easy. The fields, pastures, and orchards of the river valley simply didn’t provide enough food or raw materials for the nine major houses located there. Mercenaries’ pay allowed their lords to buy needed supplies in the Central Lands.

  Quill had mentioned that the Seven Kings had started to squabble again. In the past, before Ganth’s fall in the White Hills, Kencyr mercenaries had done much of their fighting for them. Not since. Now Prince Uthecon of Karkinor wanted a renewed contract with the Caineron that might extend to military support. She saw where Tori’s fear lay. Would he or any lord be forced to hire out fighters to support their Riverland keeps? And if they did, might these Kencyr be forced to meet each other on the battlefield, as had happened in the White Hills?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, hardly knowing for what.

  Torisen squared his shoulders. “We have suffered worse, and survived. Now, for today’s business. I have the Randon Council’s recommendations.”

  Jame sat up with a jerk. After a moment, she remembered to breathe. “What of them?”

  He turned back to the table and tapped a long finger on a stack of unrolled scrolls held down at their corners by smooth river rocks.

  “You will be glad to hear, no doubt, that all of your ten-command has passed. Dar, Mint, Niall, and Damson have been promoted to ten-commanders. Erim, Quill, Rue, and what’s-his-name, oh yes, Killy, are now five-commanders. I will make up the rest out of Kendar either stationed here or on their way back from Kothifir, with an assortment thrown in of second-year cadets who otherwise would be going south.”

  “And Brier?”

  “From what I hear, Iron-thorn filled the role of master-ten, second-in-command to you, both at Tentir and Kothifir. That will now be made official. Rue will remain your servant. You may wish to promote her to chamberlain.” His lips quirked. “You may find that one hard to shake off.”

  “And . . . what about me?”

  “A one-hundred commander. There’s a hitch, though. The randon question your competence.” He paused and gulped. “We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”

  How much of the dream did he remember? Enough, apparently, to be embarrassed, as well he should be.

  “We both know that you can’t stay here, not as things are.”

  What things? she wanted to ask, but the words caught in her throat. The floodgates unexpectedly opening, the horses stampeding, the mess-hall table breaking out in hives at her touch . . . Was he right to blame her for everything that had gone wrong? No, dammit. Not this time.

  “You think I’m a danger to our Kendar,” she said, leaning forward. “You want me as far from them as possible. But I’m your lordan, your heir. You can’t send me off into the wilderness, say, as a ranger, or cast me off altogether without admitting to the other lords that you made a mistake.”

  Torisen rubbed his temples. He was apparently getting a headache, and Jame wasn’t entirely sorry.

  “You are the Highlord’s heir,” he said, “therefore more is asked of you than of other lordan. This is what I have decided. You will take your new one-hundred command and reclaim one of the Riverland’s abandoned keeps. There are six of them, three more or less intact. Chantrie is closest, just across the river. Don’t look to me for help. Survive on your own for your third year as a cadet and no one will ever question your skills as a leader again.”

  Jame sat back, momentarily speechless. Life would be hard enough in the major keeps over the coming winter. How could she hope to provide for her people? It would be like her failure tonight to feed her ten-command, only a hundred times worse, quite literally a matter of life or death. Was he setting her up for failure yet again?

  “As you will, my lord,” she said as she rose. Putting the ball of ribbons on his table, leaving her cloak behind, she stalked out of the tower study.

  VI

  THE NEXT NINE DAYS passed in a blur of preparation.

  To staff the base of her new hundred-command, Jame had ten ten-commands, four under the charge of her former team mates Dar, Mint, Niall, and Damson. The fifth was that harsh-voiced Kendar Corvine, once an oath-breaker, now newly returned to the Knorth. The sixth through the ninth were new to her: cheerful Jerr, dour Talbet, as well as a pair of older identical twins except that one was fair and the other dark: Berry and Huckle.

  The tenth commander came as a surprise.

  Stepping out of the west wing barracks into a bright, cloudless morning, Jame glanced across the inner ward at the square tower of the old keep. She had talked to her brother several times over the past few days about setting up her soon-to-be-launched expedition. He had remained courteous and tightly controlled, his face pinched with the headache that now seemed to be his constant companion. She had heard him burst into rants against Rowan and other Kendar, only to pull himself up short and tersely apologize. Their dreams, when they crossed, left her tense and unhappy, although she couldn’t remember on waking what they had been about.

  How could she help him when he shut her out so completely? If only Harn and Grimly were here, they might have broken through to him. Perhaps he talked to his servant Burr, but she doubted it, and cousin Kindrie was still at Mount Alban, not that he and Tori were completely comfortable with each other yet, as how could they be while Tori’s deeply entrenched hatred (or was it fear?) of the Shanir remained?

  Someone was tramping across the newly replanted vegetable garden of the ward toward her.

  “Char?” she said in surprise. “When did you get here?”

  He glowered at her. “Last night. I’m reporting to you as ordered . . . ran.”

  “I’m not a randon officer yet, but you should be. What happened?”

  Char had been a third-year Knorth cadet at Kothifir, one of several who had tried to force Jame out of the Southern Host with challenges. He had also been at the Cataracts and, along with the rest of his surviving classmates, had been promoted on the battlefield from second to third-year status. That had probably been a mistake. Having missed most of Tentir, the jumped-ahead cadets were noted both for their arrogance and for a touch of immaturity. Nonetheless, Jame had thought, after the thwarted Karnid invasion, that she had won Char’s grudging acceptance. Now here he was, looking at her askance with loathing in his eyes.

  “The Randon Council decided that I don’t yet know how to follow orders,” he said, “so they ordered me to repeat my third year. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “Of course.” With a lopsided sneer, he turned to go.

  “Char.” Her voice, though quiet, stopped him as if he had run into an invisible wall. “Your new command is gathering in the north barracks. You will have one of my old command, Killy, as your number five—and no, he isn’t my spy.”

  Char shook his head as if to clear it. “Did you hear the results of the vote?” he asked, somewhat hoarsely.

  “What vote . . . oh.”

  She had completely forgotten. Throughout her year at Tentir, all cadets had been tested over and over again, mostly by the randon. At Kothifir, it had been the cadets’ turn to pass judgment on their peers: Who would they most willingly follow into battle?

  “We chose Brier Iron-thorn,” said Char, and walked away, stumbling a bit.

  Jame considered this somewhat blankly. It made sense, of course: Brier was a born leader. And it was good that the Knorth cadets had finally accepted the former Caineron rather than seeing her as a turn-collar.

  But it also felt like a slap in Jame’s face.

  I still have to win their approval, she thought, dismayed, as we
ll as Tori’s and the Randon Council’s. Would these tests never end?

  Her mood lifted, however, at the sight of Marc approaching along the northern edge of the ward. He, at least, knew better than to trample newly planted crops.

  “Have you changed your mind?” she asked as the big Kendar loomed over her, his thinning hair a back-lit halo in the morning sun.

  “No. As I said before, there’s nothing more I can do here for the moment. I’ve filled in the map’s blank space with cullet—not satisfactory, of course, but I hope that it will hold the whole in a lead frame until I have more to work with. So I’ll go with you . . . if you still wish it.”

  Jame smiled up at him. “Of course I do. I’ll need a steward, won’t I?”

  He looked startled. “I’m not a randon, you know. I’ve never been anything but a common soldier.”

  “There’s never been anything common about you.”

  His brow creased with thought as he thumbed his bearded chin. “If I’m going to run your household, I’d better start thinking about provisions. Where are we going, by the way?”

  So far, Jame hadn’t told anyone. Most assumed, as did Tori, that she was removing to Chantrie just across the river, within easy reach of help if needed, never mind that to ask for it would be to admit failure.

  “Tagmeth,” she said.

  Marc blinked. “That will put us north of Restormir, with the Caineron as a neighbor, in a ruin that they tried to reclaim before Caldane’s great-grandfather consolidated the family in the home keep. Why not keep going, up to Kithorn?”

  “That’s Merikit territory now. I’m sorry. Of course you would like to go back to your old home.”

  Marc considered this. “Well, maybe not. There are too many memories.”

  Jame knew that he was thinking about his family slaughtered by the Merikit and wondered how he would feel, being so close to his old enemies again, never mind that the massacre had been the result of a misunderstanding.

  “Tagmeth it is, then,” said Marc, pulling his mind back to the present and future.

  Jame watched him walk off, deep in thought. After losing Kithorn, he had served as a Caineron yondri or threshold-dweller for many years before walking all the way to East Hold in search of a new lord. Turned out there, too, he had reached Tai-tastigon in despair, ready to die, only to stumble across her, an apprentice thief who was also Kencyr, also questing. In himself, he embodied the tragic fate of many Kendar under the rule of fickle lords. This whole project would be worth it if only to give her old friend the first home he had known since his boyhood.