“Tell him that, too, Marla. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
Marla sniffed back her tears and studied Lady Jeryma curiously. “Did he send you here to reassure me?”
“Gods, no!” Jeryma chuckled. “He’d die if he thought his mother was in here with his future bride discussing the best way to bed him.”
“I suppose it is a little bizarre.”
Jeryma smiled and squeezed her hand comfortingly. “But necessary, I think. Don’t be frightened, Marla. Be proud. We women of Hythria so rarely get to do anything that makes a difference. Don’t let your chance go to waste.”
“You make it sound so . . . noble.”
“It is noble, Marla,” Jeryma assured her, rising to her feet. “Now dry your eyes and let’s go out there. As my third husband was fond of saying, just grin and bear it, girl, it’ll be over before you know it.”
Marla’s wedding to Laran Krakenshield took place little more than an hour later, on a rainy afternoon in Warrinhaven in the hall of Lord Murvyn Rahan, the Baron of Charelle.
Marla was required to say nothing during the ceremony. In Hythrun marriages only the groom’s opinion counted. All she had to do was stand there looking decorative, while Kagan Palenovar made Laran swear he would take care of his wife and any children or property she might bring to the marriage—a joke, Marla thought, when one considered she had been sold off like a brood mare.
Marla had no idea what she had been traded for—how much money, property, how many favours. Whatever it had cost, Laran Krakenshield didn’t seem to mind and her brother, Lernen, appeared more than happy with the arrangement. She didn’t know what negotiations had gone on between the High Arrion and her brother on the way to Warrinhaven, but the High Prince had arrived at the estate quite taken with the notion of Marla becoming Laran’s wife, the deal with Hablet all but forgotten.
The High Prince looked on cheerfully during the ceremony, smiling at her encouragingly as Kagan spoke. Lernen had been well and truly bought by the Warlord of Krakandar and his cohorts, which meant he must have been offered considerably more than Hablet had offered for her hand. The High Prince must have been given some fairly substantial assurances that he wouldn’t suffer for reneging on the deal with Fardohnya, too. Laran might even have offered to bear the cost of the defence of the border passes—and the gods alone knew what else—to secure the High Prince’s agreement.
Laran had also gained another concession from Marla’s brother she hadn’t thought possible. It was something no High Prince had done in a thousand years. Lernen Wolfblade had agreed to overrule any decree from the Convocation of Warlords revoking Glenadal’s will and to grant Laran Krakenshield the stewardship of Sunrise Province.
With that promise, Laran became more than just a pretender, more than just a Warlord.
He became the most powerful man in Hythria.
With a short round of applause from the men and women gathered in Murvyn Rahan’s hall, Kagan Palenovar finished speaking. And, with nothing more than that, Marla Wolfblade became Laran Krakenshield’s wife.
Part III
OF FAMILY, FRIENDS
AND TREACHERY
chapter 41
T
he news that the High Prince of Hythria had changed his mind regarding the upcoming marriage of his only sister to the King of Fardohnya reached Hablet in Talabar a mere eight days after it happened.
On the upside, Lernen’s apologetic communiqué insisted Hablet keep the delightful court’esa, Welenara, as some small compensation for the inconvenience the King had suffered as a result of the change in Marla’s circumstances. Hablet would have kept Welenara anyway, just on principle, but he’d become quite attached to the young slave and was pleased he’d not be forced to execute her. That would have been his only recourse had Lernen wanted her back. He couldn’t possibly allow her to actually return to Hythria.
What would Lernen want with a female court’esa anyway?
The tidings of Marla’s wedding to Laran Krakenshield were delivered by the Hythrun Ambassador to Talabar, one very apologetic and nervous Lord Rene Sharroan, a cousin of the Warlord of Pentamor, whom Hablet promptly executed in retaliation for the grave insult to his royal person.
The depth of Lernen Wolfblade’s treachery was unconscionable. Not only had the High Prince of Hythria reneged on a business deal (a sin more heinous than murder in Fardohnya), he had cost Hablet the one chance he had of legally redressing a forgotten and ancient flaw in the Fardohnyan laws of succession, stating that, in the absence of a male heir to Fardohnya, the eldest living Wolfblade would inherit his throne.
Lecter Turon had uncovered the ancient law while looking for something else entirely—Hablet couldn’t even remember what it was any more—and had immediately brought the law to his King’s attention.
There was a sound historical reason for the provision. When Greater Fardohnya (as the two southern nations had once been known) was divided some twelve hundred years ago, the split was amicable, but in an effort to assure his twin sister, Doranda, that she would always be welcome back in her homeland, King Greneth the Elder of Fardohnya had agreed that if he failed to get a male heir, Doranda’s son by the newly crowned High Prince of Hythria, her husband Jaycon Wolfblade, would be the next in line for the throne. The king produced a son, however, as had every other monarch down the ages since then. The law became a forgotten piece of history and would probably remain so.
But Hablet didn’t like to take chances. He’d killed every one of his father’s court’esa and all his baseborn siblings when he ascended to the throne, even the half-brothers and half-sisters who counted him a friend, just to make certain there were no pretenders left to make trouble once he was king. On hearing of his murderous rampage, his only legitimate sister had confronted him and threatened to expose his heinous crime to the world. Hablet had been forced to have Harryat put to death as well, but he spread the story that she had selflessly killed herself so she couldn’t inadvertently produce a child who might one day challenge her brother’s throne. He even built a very nice shrine to honour her memory in the temple of Jelanna in the city. Silly bitch is enjoying a much higher level of popularity as a martyr than she ever did when she was alive, Hablet reasoned. She ought to be grateful.
Hablet had no doubt he would also produce the requisite son, as his ancestors for twelve hundred years had done. But it would have been nice to close the loophole that meant a Hythrun might one day rule Fardohnya if the worst happened and the incumbent king failed to get a legitimate heir. If Hablet could marry Marla and her son was the next heir to Fardohnya, the child would, at least, be Fardohnyan and it would destroy forever the danger of a Hythrun-born Wolfblade ever ruling from Talabar.
That the Hythrun shared a similar concern that their High Prince be born on Hythrun soil did not bother Hablet in the slightest. His concern for what the Hythrun wanted was on a par with his concern about what happened to those savage bitches running Medalon to the east of Fardohnya or those religious fanatics in Karien to the north. He had only one concern and that was Fardohnya. More specifically, the security of his own rule.
Anything else was, well, irrelevant.
But the first order of the day was vengeance for the insult from the Hythrun High Prince. There was an ancient Fardohnyan tradition called mort’eda, the fine art of seeking revenge, and Hablet intended to set a new standard in finesse and viciousness as he extracted a blood price for the insult of jilting him.
Hablet paced his office impatiently, waiting for Lecter Turon to return with news of what was happening in Hythria. The last report Hablet had received several days ago was one of great turmoil. Laran Krakenshield’s acquisition of a second province, and the alliance he had hammered out with the Warlords of the two provinces that lay between Krakandar and Sunrise, meant he now had more than half the country under his control. Some of the other Warlords were talking loudly about mounting a force against him, but the odds were so overwhelmingly in Laran’s f
avour, Hablet would be surprised if they did more than rattle their swords and curse him loudly before slinking back to their own provinces to lick their wounds.
The High Prince was back in Greenharbour, spending money as if he’d opened a vein and discovered he was bleeding gold. As far as Hablet could tell, Lernen wasn’t ruling the country. He was too busy with his own entertainment to be distracted by anything so crass. Hythria was under the control of the High Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective, Kagan Palenovar, and the people he had surrounding the High Prince. The Convocation of Warlords was relegated to the sidelines (with Laran having so much of Hythria under his control, it was a joke, anyway) and even Barnardo Eaglespike, the figurehead leader of the Patriot Faction and Lernen Wolfblade’s loudest opponent, had slunk back to Dregian Castle like a beaten cur and was keeping a very low profile indeed.
Hablet’s first thought had been to invade Hythria to avenge the insult, but he was hampered by geography as much as anything. The majestic Sunrise Mountains boasted only two navigable passes into Hythria and both were located in Sunrise Province. One—the Widowmaker Pass—was in the north of the province at Winternest. The other was on the coast, at Highcastle. That route was no good to him, however; his scouts reported the narrow southern pass was blocked by an avalanche (Hablet suspected quite deliberately)—which left only Winternest, a damn near impregnable fortress protected by, at last count, nearly four thousand men. Hablet could field an army a hundred times that size, but they were not much good to him if he could only feed them into the pass six abreast while the Hythrun defenders picked off the invaders at their leisure.
The door opened and Lecter Turon hurried into the room, his bald head gleaming with sweat in the humid afternoon. He spared his king a perfunctory bow before getting down to business.
“I have found Marla Wolfblade!” the eunuch announced, looking very pleased with himself.
“You’re a bit late, Lecter. Before she was married off to someone else would have been rather more useful to me.”
“No, you misunderstand my meaning, your majesty. I speak not of her value as a wife but her value as a hostage. I believe she’s been hidden away against the possibility of a civil war. The Warlords of the Patriot Faction are not happy about the current situation. And they’re furious the High Prince simply ruled in Laran’s favour without consulting the Convocation.”
“So where have they hidden her?”
“Winternest.”
“Are you certain?”
“I’m making further enquiries, but it looks positive. The garrison at Winternest was reinforced with a great many additional troops around the same time as the wedding. But they’re not Sunrise troops guarding the fortress. Or even Charel Hawksword’s men from Elasapine, which would make sense considering how close Winternest is to the Elasapine border. They are Krakandar troops under the command of Laran Krakenshield’s half-brother, Mahkas Damaran.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“On its own, no,” Lecter agreed. “But coupled with the reports I have of eyewitnesses who have seen her at the castle—”
“She’s been seen?” Hablet asked in surprise.
“There’s definitely a young girl being guarded there. Blonde hair, about fifteen or sixteen, the whole of the southern arm of the castle sealed off and put at her disposal. I don’t see who else it could be. And if Laran fears an attack from another Hythrun Warlord, he can’t get Marla much farther away from danger without actually moving her across the border into Fardohnya.”
“You don’t think he’s afraid of me, then?”
“I think Laran Krakenshield probably believes—quite rightly—that now she has been married to another man, you have no interest in Marla Wolfblade. Your issue is the insult done to you, your majesty. Marla doesn’t really matter one way or the other.”
Hablet shook his head. “I still don’t see how the information helps us, Lecter. Winternest is the most fortified place in Hythria. How would we get her out of there without wasting half our damn army in the process?”
“By doing what we do best, your majesty,” Lecter suggested with an oily smile.
“And what’s that, Lecter?”
“We trade for her.”
“Trade?”
Lecter nodded, looking very smug. “Everything has a price, your majesty, up to and including a Hythrun princess. Give me sufficient funds and I’ll buy your princess for you. Even out of Winternest.”
Hablet smiled. “It would rather get up Lernen’s nose, wouldn’t it?”
“Not to mention Laran Krakenshield’s.”
Hablet scratched at his beard thoughtfully. “He’s very wealthy, isn’t he? We could ransom her back for rather a lot of money, I imagine.”
“Profitable and deliciously ironic, your majesty.”
Hablet thought about it for a moment; imagined the look on that sour little pervert’s face when he discovered Hablet had kidnapped his sister out of Winternest. He nodded at his chamberlain. “I think we should do it.”
Lecter smiled and bowed to his king. “I will make the arrangements immediately, sire.”
“You do that,” Hablet said, thinking the only thing better than a mort’eda blood price was one that consisted of actual money.
chapter 42
A
lija Eaglespike was many things, but above all she was a consummate politician. She knew how to read the fickle winds of political change like others could sense a coming change in the weather.
And she knew when she was beaten. The marriage of Marla Wolfblade to Laran Krakenshield was a done deal by the time she arrived in Warrinhaven with Barnardo and Marla’s unwanted court’esa in tow. Consequently, her first move was to forcibly bury her anger and congratulate Laran and Marla on their marriage as if she truly meant it. Marla had no reason to suspect Alija’s warm congratulations weren’t genuine. Laran, on the other hand, was highly suspicious but could do nothing, in public at least, but accept her best wishes in the spirit they seemed to be intended.
It had been an awkward time for everyone and Alija planned to leave Warrinhaven as fast as they could politely get away, pleading a pressing engagement with the Earl of Glint in Dregian Province in a few days time which meant they couldn’t stay longer than a day or two.
It might not have been so bad, had she not had to suffer the smug satisfaction of Kagan Palenovar. The old sorcerer, anxious to gloat over his stunning coup, caught up with her in the corridor outside Lord Murvyn’s main hall after she had delivered her apologetic news about their hasty departure.
“So you’re leaving us, my lady?” Kagan called after her as she headed back towards the guest quarters in the southern wing of the small palace. It was late afternoon and the sunlight streamed through the narrow west-facing windows lining the hall, striping it with lines of shadow and sparkling dust motes that danced in the still air.
“What a shame,” he added with vast insincerity.
Alija composed her features into a neutral expression before turning to face him. She knew Kagan was baiting her. Her only consolation was the continuing and unexplained disappearance of Wrayan Lightfinger. There was no sign of the apprentice in Warrinhaven and although she could tell the High Arrion was burning with the need to interrogate her about what had happened in the Temple of the Gods, he could say nothing without admitting his own involvement in the deliberate tampering with her court’esa.
“There’s not much point in remaining here,” Alija shrugged. “And I imagine you’ll not be here much longer yourself, my lord. You have your own problems to deal with, don’t you?” The absence of his apprentice loomed like an invisible wall between them that neither could acknowledge without admitting their own guilt in the affair.
But Kagan was too sharp to even hint that he knew anything about her confrontation with Wrayan. “One of the joys of being High Arrion, I’m afraid. One is always confronted with problems. I imagine being the chief agitator in the faction determined to unseat the High P
rince has its own, quite similar responsibilities.”
Alija smiled, but inwardly she was seething. Admittedly, Kagan had good cause to feel smug. He knew as well as Alija did that Marla’s marriage to a Hythrun of Laran’s faultless breeding had stopped the Patriot Faction’s campaign to put Barnardo on the throne in its tracks. With a chance that Lernen’s sister would produce a male child of the Wolfblade line who might one day replace him, the High Prince’s foibles would seem a lot easier to tolerate. Lernen’s perversions, which a month ago were the cause of endless outrage among his peers, were already being talked about (only days after the wedding) as harmless diversions that hurt nobody—slaves not being counted as real people. Suddenly Lernen was seen as a powerless fool who nobody minded enough to do anything about.
“You won’t get away with this, old man,” she warned. “The Convocation of Warlords will be furious. Lernen has overridden them in the matter of Glenadal’s will and arbitrarily dismissed their wishes on this issue.”
“Perhaps,” Kagan agreed, unconcerned. “But he’s also withdrawn his earlier plan to marry his only sister to the Fardohnyan King, which rather makes his decision to grant Laran Krakenshield lordship over Sunrise Province and his sister’s hand the lesser of two evils, don’t you agree?”
“Marrying his sister to a Hythrun doesn’t alter what Lernen is.”
“And who but you cares, Alija?” the old man shrugged. “Lernen has given your Patriot Warlords precisely what you were agitating for—a Hythrun heir, albeit one yet to be conceived. The whole basis of your push for the High Prince’s crown was the fact that your husband is Hythrun, has two healthy Hythrun sons and is descended from the royal line, even though his great-grandmother was the last member of his family who carried the name of Wolfblade. None of that matters now. We will have our Wolfblade heir, born and raised a Hythrun. You and your husband—just like your faction—are irrelevant now.”
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