The observation area was the flat top of a hill that stood a quarter mile from where the forces of Pherielle and of Derby were arrayed. The pavilions and tents of the spectators were erected in a matter of minutes, and Tyvian found himself sitting on a folding chair beside Sir Banber and Dame Margess, plus an array of their servants and Dame Margess’s champion, Sir Denoux Collierre. They had a viewing glass—a simple crystal set with a modest enchantment designed to magnify distant objects—that was passed back and forth as the group remarked upon the look of certain men-at-arms and speculated as to the maneuvers each side might employ to secure victory.
“Mardan has more light and medium cavalry,” Sir Banber said, popping a cherry in his mouth and spitting the pit. He had been dropping Pherielle’s familiar name consistently since they sat down, and Tyvian imagined it was because Banber expected Pherielle to win and wanted to appear close to him. “I expect he’ll flank Derby’s infantry blocks and send the whole column into disarray.”
“Pardon me, milord.” Collierre nodded his deference to Banber even while squinting through the viewing glass. He had a face that did squinting well, Tyvian thought—it complemented his unusually long nose. “I do not mean to disagree, but it appears as though Derby has employed several blocks of mercenary pikemen. A charge of cavalry against that would be very costly and likely unsuccessful.”
Banber grunted. “Galaspiner riffraff. A rank of Eretherian knights in armor will scatter them, pikes or no. Didn’t Perwynnon do as much at Calassa?”
“Those were Dellorans, milord, not Galaspiners,” Tyvian said. “And Perwynnon had the advantage of surprise, not to mention the fact that Finn Cadogan—a mercenary and a Galaspiner, mind you—had secured that surprise by his raid the night before.”
Banber and Collierre glared at Tyvian for a moment, and Tyvian let them do the mental arithmetic about his surname on their own. Collierre got there first. “Are you a relation to Lyrelle Reldamar, the archmage present at Calassa?”
“The Earless Lyrelle Reldamar is my mother, sir. I’ve been hearing stories about Perwynnon and Cadogan and the rest of them since I was a child.”
The mention of his mother’s rank was sufficient to change the posture of Tyvian’s noble companions almost immediately. He found it rather amusing that while they weren’t impressed with his mother’s status as one of the world’s most powerful sorcerers, the fact that she held the title “Earless” was sufficient to make them sit up straighter.
The Dame Margess spoke up next. She was a woman of perhaps his mother’s age, maybe a bit older, but she clearly couldn’t afford the cherille necessary to keep her hair from graying and her hands from looking brittle. Her eyes, though, were sharp and as dexterous as they probably had been in her youth. “How would your lady mother deal with this battle, then, Master Reldamar?”
Tyvian weighed his options and decided to answer truthfully. “My mother has always found battles to be tedious affairs, milady. She would prefer to pepper her enemy’s camp with so many spies that her victory would be assured without the need to loose an arrow.”
Sir Banber snorted. “Typical womanly behavior. Give me a good horse and a lance in my hand any day over spies.”
Tyvian shrugged. “I believe Banric Sahand shares a similar opinion, milord.”
Banber’s beetle-black eyebrows lowered, but the knight let the slight pass. Tyvian guessed the fellow wasn’t entirely sure whether he had just been insulted or not. “Well, Sahand was quite the general, you have to admit.”
“Why’re you talking like Sahand ain’t around?” Artus asked, his voice a little too loud. As Tyvian’s manservant, he’d been standing behind Tyvian’s left shoulder the whole time. Everybody stopped what they were doing to stare at him.
Tyvian gave Artus a private glare. “Artus, would you mind seeing how well our porters are catching up?”
“Porters?”
“You know—the porters we have following us carrying a number of our things?” Tyvian clenched his teeth and opened his eyes as widely as possible. If the damn fool boy had bothered learning all the nonverbal cues he’d been trying to teach him all these months, gaffes like this could have been completely avoided by now. It was enough to make Tyvian scream, but rather than do so verbally, he did it with his eyes.
Understanding, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, dawned over Artus’s face. “Ohhhh . . . right. Porters. Okay—I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t rush.” Tyvian smiled as his eyes kept screaming.
After Artus had left, Banber cleared his throat. “A Northron boy, correct?”
Tyvian nodded. “I believe he’s from Benethor, sir.”
Banber nodded and grunted as though that explained things.
The sound of drums beating an advance was carried to them on the breeze. One could see the organized ranks of white-and-green Pherielle’s peasant levies marching at a slow clip toward the massed blue-and-yellow ranks of Derby. Tyvian could just barely make out the glitter of arrows in flight raining down on the advancing Pherielle forces; he saw some men fall, and those that had shields raised them.
Banber, peering through the viewing glass, nodded his approval. “Pherielle is looking to test the resolve of the Derby line. Good, good—nice and straightforward. If the mercenaries hold, they’ll be caught up fighting with the ranks and won’t be able to stop the flanking maneuver.”
Tyvian nodded, squinting against the sunlight to watch the little shapes of men in ranks marching on each other. He judged it would be another minute or two before the battle was joined and, from the weak showing made by Derby’s peasant archers, that battle would be ugly for both sides. His ring began to tingle a bit; it shared Artus’s objection to sitting back and watching peasants kill each other over their lords’ pride. He pointedly ignored it and held up a silver chalice to one of the various servants standing about. “Wine, if you please.”
“There goes the cavalry!” Banber hooted, passing the viewing glass to Collierre. “A flanking maneuver, just as I said!”
After inspecting the battle, Collierre handed the viewing glass to Tyvian, who held it before his eyes and let the images coalesce in the crystal rather than trying to squint through it like some Kalsaari spyglass. He could see the advance blocks of Pherielle’s peasant levies now charging full-bore at the massed Galaspiner pikes. At that moment, Pherielle’s reserve line of mail-clad men-at-arms on horseback was thundering off to the left flank and beginning to wheel so that they would smash into the Galaspiner formations from the side as the mercenaries were fighting off the levies to the front. Tyvian tsked. “Pherielle’s lost it—sprung the trap too soon.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but that’s poppycock,” Banber countered, chuckling. “Even Collierre here agrees with me now—look at how well Mardan’s cavalry are wheeling! They’ll hit those pike blocks all at once, and nary an arrow feathered in them!”
Collierre nodded. “It looks bad for Derby, I must say.”
“Have you watched many battles, Master Reldamar?” Dame Margess asked, accepting the viewing glass from him with a grateful nod.
“Not especially,” Tyvian said, shrugging.
“Yet you still think Pherielle will lose?” Collierre squinted at Tyvian, who wondered if Collierre’s eyes actually didn’t open all the way.
Tyvian grinned at him. “Care to make it interesting?”
“Do I detect a wager?” Banber tore into a roast chicken leg and popped a few grapes in after it.
Tyvian sipped his wine and narrowly avoided making a face; gods, the swill was as sweet as mead. Why was it so damned hard to find a decent wine? That bottle he’d shared with Cam at Draketower would likely be the last decent bottle he’d have until he reached Saldor. He missed the taste of decent wine every day. Every damned day.
“Well?” Banber asked, rubbing the chicken grease off his
hands and onto the doublet of one of his valets.
Tyvian pushed the memory of good wine out of his mind. “I say Derby and his mercenaries hold the line and win the day, and you say Pherielle routs the sellswords and drives the earl from the field. Shall we say a hundred marks to whomever is correct?”
“Done.” Banber nodded.
Collierre paused, squinting at his mistress. Dame Margess smiled and nodded. “Oh, go on, Denoux. I agree with you—I think poor old Derby is going to have the worst of it.”
Tyvian grinned. “Settled, then.”
They sat back to watch, with Artus getting back a few minutes later. The peasant levies pressing the Galaspin mercenary front not only failed to break through the line, but broke themselves on the merciless yard-long tips of the sellsword pikes. This part of the battle was going in that direction even before the cavalry made their charge. There was a complex trumpet call from the mercenary lines, and the block reformed into a pike square that deployed its weapons to both flank and front at the same time. The result was the cavalry not so much riding the Galaspiners down as crashing into them and making an awful mess. In short order, the screams of horses and men could be faintly heard over Sir Banber’s chewing.
“See—I told you. They’ll break,” Banber announced, looking pleased.
Dame Margess was pale. “Sweet Hann, why don’t they ask for quarter?”
Artus pointed at the rear portions of the Derby line, where the archers were mostly standing around chatting with each other and Derby’s smaller force of cavalry was deployed in a line and motionless as trees. “Isn’t that where the earl is? What’s he doing?”
“Getting his money’s worth.” Tyvian felt the ring begin to squeeze him—not the burning pain from some terrible act of his own, but rather the steady pressure of a wrong he was allowing to happen.
As he understood, Artus’s face turned red, then green. “That’s awful.”
Tyvian wiped sweat from his forehead. He had gotten pretty good at tolerating the ring’s lesser jabs, but it was still damned uncomfortable. He kept his voice cool and even. “It’s their job. Derby paid them to hold the line, so they’re holding it. The company purser will charge Derby a silver crown per man wounded and two per man dead. I will bet you anything that there’s an accountant at the earl’s side calculating figures for him at this very moment. Better mercenaries bleed than his own retainers, but as soon as the price gets too high, the horses will be sent in.”
“Unless they break,” Banber added.
The Galaspiner mercenaries didn’t break. After another minute of ugly combat that was difficult to follow even with the viewing glass, the Derby cavalry got the signal to charge. They swept down upon the disorganized horsemen of Pherielle and broke them in a single maneuver, then swept back to clear the field of those peasant levies who had rallied to their banners and were making another advance on the beleaguered pikemen. By the time the Pherielle standard was struck from the field, the whole battle had taken about a half hour.
Tyvian pulled Artus aside as the battle was ending, “Go tell Hool and Brana to meet us outside Derby in about an hour.” Artus nodded and went, though he muttered about it. With that done, there just remained the pleasant business of collecting his winnings.
Tyvian was gracious in victory—it always paid to be gracious when winning a bet. Sir Banber, cheeks red from too much sun, ran a hand through his thinning hair and said he’d be damned. “You’re not a soldier. How did you know they wouldn’t break?”
“While I might not be a soldier, milord, I am a keen judge of human nature. Consider this: you’re a mercenary who works in Eretheria and you’ve been told a group of noble spectators will be watching the battle. Assuming you wish to keep making a living at this and further assuming that you would like to be well paid, what do you do?”
Light dawned on Sir Banber’s sunburned face. “I’d stay! I’d hold! Damn, a performance like that means I can charge any price I please to the next fellow who needs some pikes. Astute, Master Reldamar, I must admit. I’ll send the money along tonight. Where can you be reached?”
Tyvian eyed Dame Margess, who was deep in intense concentration with a man in her livery who looked very much like a financial advisor of some sort. A little ways off to the side, Collierre was busy squinting at his feet as he kicked a few clumps of sod around aimlessly. It was the very picture of a woman worried about her finances and a champion worried about his job. “We’ll be staying in Derby—I’ll give your man Ronger the name of an inn before I leave. I’m afraid I can’t just say where at the moment, given my—”
Banber waved off the explanation. “Of course, of course! Naturally, a man of your station has unusual living arrangements. Quite to be expected—very dashing, in its way. The women must love it, eh?”
Tyvian tried to smile, but all he could think about was the girl, Saley, smiling at him mere minutes before he got her killed. He felt briefly ill.
“Are you perfectly all right?” Banber blinked at him.
Tyvian forced a laugh. “Yes, yes. Too much sun, is all.”
“That reminds me,” Banber went on, grinning broadly, “I have just the thing that might cheer you up.”
“Oh?” Tyvian tried to conjure hopefulness in his eyes, but didn’t quite pull it off. The things that cheered Sir Banber up and the things that were likely to cheer Tyvian up at just that moment weren’t likely to intersect.
“Caravan came up through my territory last week, by way of Saldor. Brought the most interesting gossip.”
Tyvian sighed: gossip, of course. To the Eretherian, juicy gossip was the cure for almost every malady. Were Tyvian pierced through the heart with a Forest Child arrow, Sir Banber would probably come in to tell him what kind of underwear the Count of Ayventry wore to bed. The arrow would consequently be expected to remove itself from his chest out of outrage and embarrassment.
“I recall hearing you were once pursued by a Mage Defender by the name of Alafarr, is that not correct?”
The mention of Myreon almost made him jump. He nodded, trying to look neutral. “She was something of a nemesis of mine, yes.”
Banber continued, his enthusiasm building. “It seems that your old nemesis has been convicted of a crime. Very serious, from what I was told.”
Tyvian stiffened. “What? That doesn’t sound like Myr—like Alafarr to me. What crime could it possibly be?”
“Well that’s the interesting part, it seems.” Banber chuckled, his eyes twinkling, “Smuggling! Would you believe it? How’s that for irony—you must have rubbed off on her, old boy. Ha!”
Tyvian blinked. “That doesn’t make any sense at all. What possible reason would she have to smuggle something?”
Banber shrugged, still chuckling. “Oh, just a bit of rumor—seems to have struck you the wrong way, eh?”
“I beg your pardon, sir.” Tyvian wiped the sweat from his brow. “Too much sun, as I said. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
Banber favored Tyvian with the slightest of bows. “And you, sir. Give my regards to your noble mother.”
“I will,” Tyvian lied, and was pleased that the ring had the wisdom not to pinch him for it. If Sir Banber knew what his mother would say to Banber’s greetings, the rest of the man’s hair would fall out.
After Banber headed off, Artus came jogging back from his errand. “Is that it, then? Can we get out of here? These people give me the creeps, no matter how much money they’ve got.” Artus got a good look at Tyvian’s face and froze. “You okay?”
Tyvian shook himself. “Yes, yes. Fine. Hold on.” He pushed Banber’s gossip from his mind and tried to refocus his attention on the Dame Margess. The focus wouldn’t come.
Myreon? Smuggling? It just wasn’t possible. He couldn’t believe it.
“Master Reldamar?” Dame Margess called to him just after she had dismissed her
accountant. Tyvian stepped forward and bowed to her as gracefully as he could manage, which was to say he imagined he bowed more gracefully than any man the dame had met outside of an Eretherian noble court.
The gesture was not lost on her. She blushed ever so slightly. “Master Reldamar, you flatter me. I have come to settle the issue of my champion’s wager.”
Myreon had to have been framed—that was the only possible explanation. But why? By whom?
“Master Reldamar?” Dame Margess cocked her head. “Are you all right?”
Tyvian nodded, trying to shake off the idea of Myreon Alafarr in a penitentiary garden. “My apologies, milady—too much sun for me, it seems.” He cleared his throat. “It occurs to me that I have put you and your champion in an awkward position. As Master Collierre seems a gentleman of utmost quality, it would pain me to put a strain upon your trust in him, no matter how slight. It is for this reason I beg you to void the terms of our wager.”
Dame Margess blinked and put a hand to her chest. “Such a thing is absolutely unnecessary, sir! You have won the wager, and so I shall see it paid, be it one hundred marks or one thousand!”
The response was practically scripted; it was like the peerage were made to rehearse the same speech by the same army of stern Akrallian tutors. “I must insist—I will accept no gold from you, milady. I regret making the wager in the first place; it was the work of my pride and vanity, nothing more, and such base emotions have no place in genteel society.”
Behind him, Tyvian heard Artus mutter, “Gimme a break . . .”
The dame was not so cynical, however. “Well, there must be something I can do to settle this debt. Even if it is not gold I owe you, I feel I owe you my goodwill and thanks for your most honorable behavior, especially for a foreigner. In this regard I must insist—what may I do for you?”
The original plan had been to request access to the dame’s private library—she had the look of a reader, if not a scholar—but Tyvian found that idea flying out of his head in favor of a different one. A new and probably crazy idea. A plan was forming around it, even as he stood there, constructing itself in its full complexity so quickly it was as though it had always been there, waiting to be uncovered.
All That Glitters Page 5
