Grief welled up in her. She feared that Binnesman was gone forever, that nothing that they did could help. After all was said and done, he'd be lying here in a pretty grave.
Gaborn glanced up at the dark shaft above. He placed a hand on Averan's shoulder, as if to offer comfort. “We'd best be on our way,” he said warily.
Iome knelt beside the grave for a moment and pressed her hand into the fresh soil, leaving her imprint, as was sometimes done at peasants’ funerals. She brushed back a tear and picked up Binnesman's pack.
The green woman kept pacing the shore of the lake, seeking a route to the reavers. There was a scrape on her face, where the Consort of Shadows had bashed her into the stone wall. Other than that, Averan could see no sign of damage.
It was frightening to see the wylde's inhumanity laid bare. It was more than the green woman's indestructible nature that bothered Averan. Her total lack of concern for her fallen master was chilling. Averan kept hoping to find some sign of human sentiment in the wylde, but the green woman could offer no affection, no compassion, no grief, no love.
She paced the shore, howled in frustration at not being able to reach the reavers.
“Spring,” Averan called to the wylde, using her private name. “We're leaving.”
The green woman ignored her.
Gaborn eyed the creature, worry etched into the lines of his face. “Foul Deliverer, Fair Destroyer,” Gaborn called. “Hear me: we go to hunt the great enemies of Earth. You would best serve your master by coming with us.”
If the wylde heard at all, Averan could not tell.
Averan smelled reavers up in the shaft, whispering, wondering what to do. Dozens hid there. She suspected that the wylde could smell them, too.
“Let's go,” Gaborn said, grabbing Averan's hand. Iome was already forging ahead, down the old river channel. Gaborn pulled Averan, their footsteps echoing behind them.
For a long time as they raced down the cavern, Averan could hear the keening cries of the wylde.
7
TIES THAT BIND
The transfer of endowments is more of an art than a science. Every facilitator has heard of those sublime cases where the transfer of endowments seems miraculous—where, for example, the strength of a lord is greatly enhanced after the application of a forcible, yet his Dedicated strength seems hardly diminished—or rarer yet, those cases where effects seem to linger even after the Dedicate passes away. By learning the art of making a perfect match, it is our hope that such wondrous cases will, in the future, become the norm.
—from The Art of the Perfect Match, by Ansa Per and Dylan Fendemere, master facilitators
A few hours past dawn, Myrrima and Borenson reached Batenne, an ancient city whose tall houses were built in the old Ferecian style, with well-cut stones that fit seamlessly together. The roofs were made of copper plates from nearby mines, green with age, overlapping like fish scales. Old manors in the hills soared above expansive gardens where marble statues of nubile maidens, all swinging exotic long swords, could be glimpsed among the golden-leafed willows.
They bypassed the city and rode to the Castle of Abelaire Montesfromme, the Marquis de Ferecia. The castle, with its stately towers, sat on the highest hill above the city. The outer walls had been limed over the summer, and they gleamed so brightly that when the morning sun struck them it pained the eyes. It almost seemed as if the castle were a bit of bright cloud fashioned into walls. The guards at the gate wore polished silver armor, enameled with the red graak of Ferecia upon their chests. Their helms sported visors with slits so small that the warriors within seemed eyeless. They bore long spears of blackened iron, with decorative silver tips.
Myrrima tried not to look at her own clothes, still wet from her dip in the pool and muddied and stained from the road. She gazed about in wonder.
“Close your mouth,” Borenson warned softly, “you'll not be catching any flies around here.”
“It's so beautiful,” Myrrima said. “I've never imagined such a place.” Indeed, as they rode into the courtyard, the cobbled stones were so perfectly level that they might have been laid that very morning. A mosaic showed the red graak upon a white background. Along the margins of the road, the lawn was perfectly clipped. Gardens of jasmine trailing down from window boxes in the castle's archery slots joined with mallow and rose on the lawns to lend the air a natural perfume. Hummingbirds swooped and darted among the bruised shadows of the towers, sparkling like gems when they caught the sunlight.
Myrrima saw anger on her husband's face. “What's wrong?” she asked under her breath, lest the guards hear her.
“This—” Borenson said, nodding toward the castle. “The people of Carris bleed and die on the castle walls less than three hundred miles from here, while the marquis and his dandy knights cower in splendor. I have half a mind to toss the fine flower boxes from the tower windows, and hurl the marquis out after them.”
Myrrima didn't know what to say. The marquis was a powerful man from one of the oldest and wealthiest families in all of Rofehavan, while Borenson was only a Knight Equitable. For days now she had been afraid that she would lose him. She could feel him slipping away. His growing resentment toward Gaborn, the marquis, and indeed all lords was certainly part of the problem.
By the time that they reached the marquis's Keep, Borenson was in a black mood. His jaw was set, and the blood flowed hot in his face. A servant showed them into a stately antechamber where fine paintings of the marquis and his ancestors hung in gilt frames. Enormous candelabras graced the mantel above the fireplace.
“Wait here,” the servant begged.
Borenson paced like an angry dog, and looked as if he would go follow the servant at any minute, tracking down the marquis. Yet they had not waited two minutes when a young man raced in, face flushed and eyes shining with eagerness.
“Sir Borenson, is it true?” the lad begged. “Is the Earth King battling reavers at Carris?”
Borenson looked that lad over. “Do I know you?”
“I'm Bernaud—”
“The marquis's son?” Borenson asked in disbelief.
“At your service,” Bernaud said with a half bow.
A wicked twinkle sparked in Borenson's eye. “Aye, your king is battling reavers,” Borenson said, “as you will be—soon.”
At that moment, a servant entered through the same open door. “The marquis begs you to join him for breakfast in the Great Room.”
Borenson and Myrrima followed the servant, with Bernaud trailing, into the marquis's Great Hall. An enormous table, somefiftyfeet long, occupied the length of the room. The table was set with enough pastries, fruit, and boar's ham to feed a dozen men, but the marquis sat there all alone, as if brooding over which dainty to taste.
Above the table, the shields of the marquis's ancestors adorned the walls. Each shield, plated with gold foil, was a monument to the great families from which the marquis had descended. Myrrima knew little of such lore, yet even she recognized some of the devices: here was the crouching lion of Merigast the Defiant, who stood fast against the sorcerers of the toth at Woglen's Tower when all hope of rescue had failed. And there were the double eagles of King Hoevenor of Delf, who drove the arr from the Alcair Mountains. Each shield was elegant, and many had been forged by the finest craftsmen of their era. Yet most impressive of all was a small round shield above the head of the table, a crude thing that almost looked as if a child might have fashioned it on his own. On it was painted a red graak, wings spread as it soared above two worlds. Myrrima did not doubt that it was the shield of Ferrece Geboren himself, son of the Earth King Erden Geboren. In his own day he had been called The Ferocious, for he was fearless in battle. According to legend, at the age of thirteen he had instigated the journey to the nether-world with the Wizard Sendavian and Daylan of the Black Hammer. There Ferrece implored the Bright Ones to fight in mankind's behalf. In all the lore of knights, no man was more universally admired than Ferrece Geboren.
It was a sad
reminder that Ferecia had once been a proud land. An even sadder reminder of its ruin was the marquis himself, who sat just beneath the shield in a silk housecoat, looking down his nose at Myrrima and Borenson. He held a white perfumed kerchief up to his face, and by his sour expression seemed appalled that two people as squalid as Myrrima and her husband should appear in his appointments.
“Oh dear,” the marquis said, “Sir Borenson, it is so good to see you! You look… well.”
“And you,” Borenson said with a strain, the veins bulging in his neck. “Although, last time we met, you had four or five endowments of glamour to your credit. You look to be… a much more withered specimen of humanity without them.” The marquis's face paled at the insult. Borenson affected a cough into his hand, and then clapped the marquis on the shoulder in a manner that was common with men in arms. The marquis looked down at the offensive hand, eyes popping.
Borenson seemed as if he were ready for murder, and the marquis looked as if he might faint.
“I, I, I trust that all is well with… our king,” the marquis stammered.
“Oh, the kingdom is in a shambles, as I'm sure you know,” Borenson said. “So, Gaborn sent me to give you an urgent message. As you also know, he is battling reavers south of Carris.”
“Is he?” the marquis affected ignorance.
“He is,” Borenson affirmed, “And he wonders where his old friend, the Marquis de Ferecia is hiding.”
“He does?” the marquis asked.
“You did receive the call to battle?”
“Indeed,” the marquis pleaded, “and I prepared to ride at once, but then Raj Ahten destroyed the Blue Tower and my men were left with less than two dozen endowments between them. Surely, one cannot be expected to fight without endowments!”
“One can,” Borenson said dangerously, “and one must. At Carris men, women, and children charged into the reavers’ ranks without regard for their own lives. They fought with the strength of desperation because they had no choice.”
“A nasty business, that,” the marquis said, appalled.
“And now,” Borenson said, “it's your turn.” Beads of sweat began to break on the marquis's brow. He held the perfumed kerchief closer to his face. “You are to equip your soldiers and ride toward Carris at once, giving battle to any foe that presents itself, be it man or reaver.”
“Oh dear,” the marquis moaned.
“Father, may I go?” Bernaud cut in.
“I think no—” the marquis began.
“A fine idea,” Borenson urged. “You'll want to present your son to the Earth King, both as a show of family solidarity and to receive his blessing. Any other choice would leave you… exposed.” He studied the marquis's neck as if pondering where the headsman might make a cut.
The marquis was in torment, but his son said, “Father, now is our chance! We can show the world that Ferrece is still one of the great houses. I'll apprise the guard!”
The lad ran from the room, leaving Borenson to hover above the marquis.
Myrrima found her heart pounding. Borenson and the marquis had no love for one another, but Borenson was playing a dangerous game. Gaborn had not ordered the marquis to battle, had not made any threats veiled or otherwise. Yet Borenson threatened the man with the king's vengeance.
Borenson smiled dangerously. “A fine lad, your son.” Now he got down to the real business at hand. “Have you a facilitator handy? I'm riding for Inkarra and need three endowments of stamina.”
“I—I've a facilitator,” the marquis stammered, “and suitable Dedicates may be found, but I'm afraid that I haven't any forcibles.”
“I brought my own,” Borenson said. “Indeed, I have a dozen extra which I should like to present to your son.”
Outside the castle, Bernaud shouted to the captain of the guard, warning him to prepare some mounts.
The marquis gave Borenson a calculating look, and suddenly the terror in his eyes seemed to diminish. His face went hard.
“You see it, too, don't you?” the marquis asked. “My son is more a man now than I could ever hope to be. He looks much as his grandfather did, when he was young. In him the House of Ferrece might hope to return to grandeur.”
Borenson merely nodded. He would not feign any affection for the marquis.
The old man smiled sourly. “So, the king orders us into battle. Let the fire take the old trees, and make way for the new.” He sighed, then peered up at Borenson. “You're gloating. You'll be pleased to see me dead.”
“I—” Borenson began to say.
“Don't deny it, Sir Borenson. I have known you for what, a dozen years? You've always been so secure in your own prowess in battle. No matter that I had wealth that you could never match, or a title above your own, every time you've entered my presence, you've given me those insufferable looks. I know what you think of me. My ancestors were kings of renown. But over the centuries bits of our kingdom have been bartered away by one lord, or frivoled away by the next, or stolen from a third who was too weak to keep what he rightfully owned, until the last of us… is me. When you were but thirteen years old you looked at me with disdain, knowing what I was: a minnow freakishly spawned from a line of leviathan.”
“You beg me to speak freely,” Borenson nearly growled, “and through your own self-deprecation, you almost relieve me of the necessity.” He leaned on the table, so that his face was inches from the marquis's, and he stared him in the eyes, unblinking. “Yes, I'll be glad to see you dead. I have no stomach for men who live in luxury and whine about their fates. When I was a lad of thirteen, you looked down your nose at me because I was poor and you were rich, because my father was a murderer and yours was a lord. But I knew even then that I was a better man than you could ever hope to be. The truth is that you, sir, are a milksop, so weak in the legs that you could never father a child of your own. You say that Bernaud favors his grandsire, but I suspect that if we look among your guardsmen, we'll find one that favors him more. Fie on you! If you were any kind of a man, you'd do your best to kill me right now for speaking thus, whether you had endowments or no.”
The marquis's jaw hardened, and for a moment Myrrima thought that he would grab the carving knife from the boar's ham and bury it in her husband's neck. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and smiled wickedly. “You've always felt so constrained to prove yourself. The lowborn always do. Even now, as captain of the King's Guard, you feel the need to challenge me.” The marquis had obviously not heard that Borenson had abandoned his station, and Myrrima wondered what the marquis would have done had he known. “But,” the marquis added, “there is no need for me to fight you. You and your shabby wife are the ones going to Inkarra, and we both know that the Night Children will send your heads home in a sack by dawn. As for me, I go to battle the reavers—a foe I judge to be far more worthy and implacable than you.”
For a moment, Myrrima thought her husband would kill the man for his insults, but Borenson laughed, a genuine laugh filled with mirth, and the marquis began to laugh in his turn. Borenson slapped him on the back, as if they were old friends, and indeed for a moment the two were united, if only in their hatred for each other, their scorn for each other, and their desire to unleash their anger upon other foes.
Borenson and Myrrima made their way to the Dedicates’ Keep behind the castle. Like everything else in the marquis's domain, the Dedicates’ Keep was overnice. The walls of the keep, along with its towers, had been limed, so that the building fairly glowed. The courtyard gave rise to stately almond trees. Their leaves had gone brown, and the grass was littered with golden almonds. Squirrels hopped about madly, burying their treasures. A pair of Dedicates played chess in the open courtyard next to a fountain, while a blind Dedicate sat off in the shade with a lute, singing,
“Upon the mead of Endemoor
a woman danced in white.
Her step was so lissome and sure
She stunned the stars that night.
But far more stunned was Fallion,
/>
whose love grew stanch and pure.
Thus doom's dark hand led to Woe Glen
the maid of Endemoor.”
“You hate the marquis?” Myrrima asked as they walked.
“No,” Borenson said. “‘Hate’ is too strong a word. I merely feel such con-tempt for him that I would rejoice at his death. That's not the same as hatred.”
“It's not?”
“No,” Borenson said. “If I hated him, I'd kill him myself.”
“What did he mean,” Myrrima asked, “when he said that the ‘children’ would send our heads home in a sack?”
“Night Children,” Borenson said. “That is what the word Inkarran means. It comes from Inz, ‘Darkness,’ and karrath, ‘offspring.'” He spoke the words with such an accent that Myrrima imagined that he knew the language well. “The Inkarrans will send our heads home in a sack.”
“Why?” Myrrima asked.
Borenson sighed. “How much do you know of the Inkarrans?”
“I knew one back home, Drakenian Tho,” Myrrima said. “Drakenian was a fine singer. But he was quiet, and, I guess, no one knew him well.”
“But you know that our borders are closed?” Borenson asked. “Gaborn's grandfather barred Inkarrans from his realm sixty years ago, and the Storm King retaliated. Few who have entered his realm have ever returned.”
“I've heard as much,” Myrrima said. “But I thought that since we were couriers, we would be granted safe passage. Even countries at war some-times exchange messages.”
“If you think we're safe, you don't know enough about Inkarrans,” Borenson said. “They hate us.”
She understood from his tone that he meant that they didn't just actively dislike her people, the Inkarrans hoped to destroy them. Yet Myrrima had to wonder at such an assessment. She knew that Inkarrans were outlawed in Mystarria, but it wasn't so in every realm among the kingdoms of Rofehavan. King Sylvarresta had tolerated their presence in Heredon, and even did some minor trading with those Inkarrans who followed the spice routes up through Indhopal. So she wondered if Borenson's judgment wasn't clouded in this matter by the local disputes. “And why would you think that they hate us?”
The Lair of Bones Page 11
