by T. O. Munro
Xander nodded. “I had guessed as much, else Gregor would still be castellan of Sturmcairn, rather than his son. But tell me, has it been long?”
“He passed five years last spring.” Udecht grimaced and went on. “It was not pretty brother, a long slide into illness and decrepitude, despite the best efforts of the priests, myself included. We could win him some respite during the day, but then overnight he would grow sicker still.”
Xander bowed his head, accepting the ill news with a clucking of his tongue. “To be sure he and I had our disagreements, but I would never have wished him such ill. The loss of dignity must have pained him greatly?” He let a moment pass in memory of his father before striking out with a more hopeful enquiry. “But what of Lord Matteus, how has he fared in his new fiefdom?”
Udecht’s eyes were hooded with despair as his brother struck unerringly on another source of bad tidings. “Oh brother, would I could say it were not so, but events have proven your judgement right. The man was unequal to the task of rulership. The entire province of Undersalve has fallen.”
“Fallen? How and to whom?” Xander’s shock was almost tangible.
“The desert nomads grew stronger, gathered allies, some say orcs though I credit it not, this work was too well organised for their kind. Matteus tried and failed to hold them back. He was slain in battle at a place called Bledrag. His daughter perished also and with her ended his short lived princely line. Undersalve was overrun. Now we count but four human provinces of the Kingdom of the Salved while it is left to the Elves of Hershwood and the Dwarves of the Hadran mountains to guard our kingdom’s new Southern flank.”
“Together with the host of Medyrsalve of course,” Xander challenged his brother’s analysis.
The corners of Udecht’s mouth twitched in discomfort. “Prince Rugan has lived and ruled a very long time, Brother as you know, and he has not survived so long by taking risks with his wealth or his armies.”
Xander scowled. “Half breed bastard. There’s another one should never have been allowed to set his arse on a provincial throne.”
“You know brother, I was always on your part in that argument,” Udecht whispered. “Had Undersalve only been led by you, a direct descendant of the bloodline of Eadran the Vanquisher, then I am sure much evil would have been avoided.”
“I said as much and often enough from the moment that throne fell vacant,” Xander growled.
“I was not part of the final counsels that our father took. It was not even the full council of the nine, or as it was eight princes, that he spoke with. Only Feyril of Hershwood and Gregor our brother were there to persuade him. I cannot imagine what false arguments they must have presented.”
The sacristy fell silent as both brothers relived the debates and anguish of a tumultuous year gone by. Xander was deepest in a reverie he made no move to break. “Was that a part of it?” Udecht asked, trying to draw out the promised reciprocity of Xander’s account of their years apart. “It was barely a year after Matteus was awarded the province that you disappeared?”
Xander shook his head with a shiver that ran down to his shoulders as though throwing off some feared memory. Udecht hurried on. “Haselrig vanished at the same time. Much came out afterwards about what that man had been up to. Missing gold was the least of it. And then there was the dungeon guard that left his post. Were they in league? Did they spirit you away?”
Xander sighed. “Brother I was a fool, a blind angry fool and I have paid dearly for my folly, methinks more dearly even than Eadran himself in his hubris. But I have not been idle these years gone by.“ His fingers were twitching, flicking, with a dexterity that was surprising to Udecht, given the injuries Xander’s hands had suffered.
As the Bishop raised his eyes to meet his brother’s gaze he saw that Xander was smiling, grinning broadly. He raised a finger to point at Udecht’s chest and announced in a steady sonorous voice quite unlike his usual tone, “vos sile Udecht!”
Udecht was stunned. The forbidden tongue of mages coming from his brother’s mouth. At first he even thought it was the surprise that had momentarily paralysed him, but then with horror he realised he had been bewitched. There was no muscle of his body that remained in his voluntary control.
“As I was saying, brother,” Xander went on in a conversational tone before his immobilised brother. “I have not been idle. You are experiencing but one of the many skills and tricks I have acquired. Here let me show you another.”
Another blindingly fast curl and twist of fingers and hands ended with Xander sliding his palm down Udecht’s sweating brow as he intoned, “dare mihi faciem tuam et tollat mea, Udecht.”
As the hand blocked his vision, Udecht felt a terrible nauseating sensation of dizziness and disorientation. He blinked and trembled and as his line of sight cleared was sickened still further by the vision before him. It was as though looking in a mirror. The man facing him still wore the silken nightshirt which Udecht had put on him for comfort’s sake, but the face and body was not Xander’s but Udecht’s own, even down to the swelling belly beneath the night shift. The expression of cruel triumph facing the frozen Bishop was, however, entirely Xander’s, albeit painted on his younger brother’s features. “By Eadran’s blood, you should see yourself, brother,” Xander cried through a mouth like Udecht’s. “Do I really look like that? Here, have a look at your hands. Oh no, I was forgetting you can’t move!”
The Bishop’s trapped mind ran like a runaway cart within his frozen body as Xander cheerfully pulled off his robes and arranged the clothing so it matched the appearance their respective bodies now bore. Then he levered Udecht carefully onto the bed, facing the wall. “There brother, rest easy. You see, I mean you no harm, I want you of all people to witness and share my triumph. You wait here. I should be back long before this enchantment wears off and I will have some new friends for you to meet.”
As the transformed Udecht lay hapless and helpless on the bed, tears of shame and fear ran down his cheeks. But the two guards at the door saw and heard only what they expected. that is the Bishop Udecht leaving the sleeping prisoner with an admonition that his brother was quite exhausted and not to be disturbed until morning.
***
The fire in the captains’ wardroom threw fierce shadows across the walls as the flames devoured the stack of logs in the grate, yet still Captain Thackery shivered and held his mug of mulled mead close, in need as much of its warmth as its flavour.
“It’s cold out there, Kim,” he said to his fellow officer. “Colder than I’ve ever known it.”
“I guess it must get into old bones like yours more easily,” Kimbolt teased.
“Beardless pup,” Thackery shot back. “I can remember when you were a raw recruit, wet behind the ears.” He supped on his drink. “You thought you knew it all then as well so some things haven’t changed.”
The younger man raised his own glass in a toast of salute. “The world changes, friend.”
Thackery nodded, “’n not just the weather. Talk with the men is that there’ll soon have to be two exile escort patrols each month.”
Kimbolt frowned at the worrying thought, though it was one he had been considering himself. “How could they?” he chose the role of Devil’s advocate. “I mean the assizes are only held monthly.”
“Them’d have to change as well.” When his colleague arched a sceptical eyebrow, Thackery went on. “C’mon Kim, you know as well as I do we’re processing two even three times as many exiles than we used to when I started and more and more of them are workers of the dark arts.” He spat at the mere contemplation of the forbidden mages. “They’re zealots, not even afraid of exile anymore, like some kind of cult. We fill them to the gizzards with mindnumbing juice, particularly on the day they go out. Now that used to have them crapping themselves, like we made sure of it. No way a wizard with no spells could survive a week out there. There’s some people for whom exile should mean death.”
Kimbolt nodded good naturedly
. His colleague’s vituperative approach to all things magical was Thackery’s most defining characteristic, that and his handlebar moustache, now sadly wilted by the melted frost.
“And still, we take them out and it’s like a walk in the park for them. Oh aye, it’s cold and they grumble, but thing is, they’re not afraid, not like they used to be. For them exile is just not the deterrent it used be, I tell you. Dunno which circle of hell they’re so happy to be headed for, ‘cos sure as dwarves dig dirt they ain’t headed for the bosom of the Goddess. Maybe the point would be better made if we just burnt a few of the bastards in a town square or two.” Thackery raised his palm in mock surrender at Kimbolt’s shocked expression. “Oh, aye I know, no death penalty in the Salved Kingdom.”
He sighed. “You know, it’s laws like that lost us an Empire overseas. Time was an’ near enough all the lands overseas bowed down to us. Nowadays it’s just one flea bitten port and a spit of land around it that we can call our own.”
“I guess you remember the Empire then old man.”
“Don’t talk rot, last mainland province of the Salved fell four hundred years before either of us was born. Mind you I have served in Salicia.”
“Is that where you got the fleas then.”
Thackery ignored the gibe, musing on his past glories. “’s different out East, everything. More gods, more elves, people doing magic like it was natural. Goddess protect us, I say.”
“I’d like to see it myself, do a tour of duty over the sea one day.”
“Set you up nicely that would, ambitious fellow like you. Who knows you might even come back with a wife.”
Kimbolt smiled. “I’m like you Thackery, married to the army.”
The older man snorted. “Then mebbe you’d better tell that to yon servant girl who is always sniffing around.”
“Who,” Kimbolt was startled. “You mean Hepdida?”
Thackery rolled his eyes. “By the Goddess, he even knows her name!”
“There’s nothing …. It’s… no…. of course,” Kimbolt stuttered through the start to a host of denials, all too aware of Thackery’s disbelieving indifference. “Look she’s only fifteen.”
“Send her a birthday greeting did you?”
“Of course not, not like you mean.”
Thackery levered himself upright and waved Kimbolt’s protestations into silence. “It’s been a strange day, one lost prince discovered and another never lost prince so put out by the event that we’re all on double guard duty. So me, I’m going to turn in while I can. My advice to you though, whatever happens with the wench, promise her nothing.”
Kimbolt flailed for a suitable retort but had found none by the time Thackery disappeared into his sleeping chamber. The younger man was left ruing the turn of events. He had thought Hepdida’s interest in him to be just a minor adolescent crush which he considered he was managing quite well; it turned out to be both more widely known and deeply misconstrued than he had ever imagined.
***
Niarmit calculated that the swimmer in the pool was well on the way to sinking. Only the agitated thrashing of his arms gave enough propulsion to balance the pull of gravity dragging him down and between each vigorous paddle of his arms his face disappeared beneath the surface. In his panic he seemed to be mistiming his intakes of breath and the moments when his face was above water, so that a fair amount of water was already being swallowed.
She lay flat on the stone and threw him one end of her belt. Somehow his flailing arm caught it and, with her pull keeping his head above the surface, they managed to negotiate a passage to a lower lip of the pool, where he hung panting for a moment, half in half out of the water.
She stood back from him, the belt in one hand, the sword still in the other levelled at the half drowned man before her.
“Aren’t you going to help me out,” he asked once his coughing fit had subsided. “You know, for old times’ sake.”
“You shouldn’t go swimming in a leather shirt and boots.” She told him, still keeping a clear distance and a watchful eye between them.
Reluctantly he hauled himself unaided out of the pool, crawling across the rocky edge as first waist, then knees then feet came clear of the clinging water. Drenched and drained he rolled onto his back still spluttering. “I wasn’t planning on going swimming, you threw me in remember.”
“You shouldn’t go creeping up on a lady when she’s bathing.”
He looked across at her and pushed himself into a sitting position.
“It’s not as if I haven’t seen it all before,” he grinned.
“Doesn’t give you the right to see it all again, Davyn. Turn around.”
“OK.” he agreed huffily. “I’ll turn my back on the mad woman with the sword who just nearly drowned me by throwing me without warning into a fifteen foot deep pool. A pool at the bottom of which, incidentally, lies the sword I borrowed from my father. I hope someone’s going to get it for me.”
She waited until he had turned then stepped back and lowered her sword with a soft jangle to the stone. Then she pulled on her breeches first, watching him carefully as he obediently made no move to left or right. Next she picked up her shirt and pulled it over her head. She made a bit of a fist of getting it on, letting her head get caught in one of the armholes until she heard him move, squelching hastily across the rocks. She gauged the moment, leaning back and pulling her head through the hole just as she heard the clink of the sword lifted from the ground.
Her sudden movement caught him off guard and the blade whistled harmlessly through the space she had been. As he drew back again for another blow she stepped quickly to the other side forcing him to change his aim to follow her. But he didn’t. He stood there blade pointed at her chest in an apparent reversal of their previous positions. She stood taut, alert waiting for his next move, more curious than afraid. But he made no move.
“So this is how you remember me, Davyn,” she rebuked him softly.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he said with a sob.
“Oh, you would have preferred to stab me in the back?”
“Niarmit, don’t make this any harder than it already is,” he cried, the point of the blade wavering in his grip.
“An odd demand for an assassin to make of his victim, I assume that is why you’ve come, to kill me?”
“Strictly speaking, I could take you in alive or dead, but given our new Mayor’s habits I think it would be better if you were dead before you got to him.”
“You were always a considerate lover.”
“Don’t mock me, Niarmit. Do you think I wanted this?”
“There was a time you said you would marry me Davyn. When enough years had passed we would have been rulers of Undersalve and yet now you serve our people’s enemies? What has happened to you?”
“Our people’s enemies.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Who causes the most deaths in Undersalve? Eh, you killed Nordag, very clever I’m sure and I bet you’re so proud of it.”
“He was scum. You should have seen the girl he had tied up….”
“I have seen her!” Davyn interrupted in a rage. “I have seen her. Do you think your intervention saved her? Do you think it saved anyone? She was the first person they went to once they’d found the bastard’s body. She and her family. She gave them a description, eventually. Poor stupid brave girl, that’s how I worked out it was you. That’s when I guessed this would be a good place to find you. But telling all didn’t save her. It didn’t save her family. It didn’t save her village.”
His words stung, stung because she knew them to be true, because she’d seen the evidence of the invader’s retribution lining the roads across the province, or the walls of the towns. She’d laid a few of the poor souls to rest, cut them down to give their broken bodies at least the blessing of the Goddess. But all too well she could picture the scene Davyn was describing.
“Everytime you kill one, they kill a hundred. They’re beasts.”
“And th
at is why I fight them, to defeat them. To save our people from slavery, none of the salved should ever be slaves, so says…”
“So says the Goddess yes,” Davyn interrupted her. “You can’t defeat them though, you can’t save them from slavery. You and your father, you had your chance and you lost. You lost it all at Bledrag field. Now just leave it to the people who’ve lived here all our lives, let us handle it. By the Goddess just let us survive.”
“Handle it?” she aped back at him. “Handle it how? By becoming the Governor’s lackeys? Let me guess. What fat freehold did Nordag give your father? The right to lord it over the others, to be slavemaster to a generation of slaves.”
“My father is no fool, not like yours was. You know they say that’s the only reason why old King Bulveld let him have this province. That in his madness he somehow knew it was past saving. Why else would he trust it to a hack of an old general rather than his own son?”
“That’s not fair,” Niarmit snapped back, her vision blurred by tears even as Davyn’s rising anger gave him strength to strike. He lunged. She saw it late and ducked but not fast enough to evade the blade entirely. It ran through her left sleeve, scoring a deep cut across her upper arm. She twisted quickly after that, stepped away as he tried to follow. At the sight of her blood dripping redly onto the stones where once they had held a lover’s tryst, he hesitated again.
“Niarmit, I’m sorry.”
“For what? The insults or the fact that you have to kill me ?”
“For both, for everything. Nordag’s death has brought more tears than you ever could have imagined,” he grimaced. “More tears shed for the death of a corrupt ogre than ever for poor Prince Matteus.”
“Or his daughter?”
“I have no choice,” he pleaded.
She decided then. “Very well, no more of my people will die cursing my name.” He looked at her in surprise as she dropped her hands to her side, waiting meekly for his blow. She had it all planned. He was a bad fighter. The way he threw his weight on one leg showed whence his attack would come from. She would lean the other way, grab his wrist as his blade flew past and slam it across her knee. A kick to the groin and then the solar plexus would incapacitate him and, as he moaned through the pain she would be standing over him sword in hand. But she would not kill him, she would let him have some blood stained clothing that may convince others he had succeeded in his mission and then she would leave, cross the Hadran mountains and never once return to a land that wanted neither her nor her father’s memory. Yes she had it all planned.
