Ghost in the Yew

by Blake Hausladen

  “His name is Gernilqwa Furstundish, a lieutenant in the armies of Enhedu.”

  We cast our eyes up and down the street. There was still no sign of the guard but that would change very soon.

  “Explain quickly,” Haton said as his companions moved in behind him.

  “I am alsman to Prince Barok, who you likely know was named the Arilas of Enhedu. We are in the city to give away samples of the apples we hope to sell here this autumn. I had just walked out of your place after leaving some for you when these men attacked us. Barok’s enemies are likely responsible for them.”

  One of Haton’s companions rolled over one of the dead men. “I knew some of these men. They are levy-militia from the wharfs.”

  Haton surveyed the carnage and then pointed at two of his unscathed fellows. “Switch tunicas with them,” he ordered. “Young man, I owe you my life. Give me your spear. I killed these men.”

  Gern either understood our peril or was too dazed to refuse. He let go of the spear and took off his tunica. I took mine off as well. Haton stabbed the spear into the pair who were still moving. I had not imagined him capable.

  “Barok is just a tavern tale here,” Haton informed as I put on a blood-free tunica. “What you have done, my friend, is walk into the middle of a war. My association and several of the lesser guilds are trying to break the monopolies controlled by the Council of Lords. They have been squeezing us for years. They attacked you because of your crop. You do not just ride into Bessradi and sell anything these days. This incident is just what we needed. I owe you more than you know.”

  “Is that your wagon?” he asked. I nodded, and he hurried us toward it. “Get in and get out of the city. You were never at the Creedal.”

  “You will have to tell Darmia and Evela that,” I said as Gern and I jumped aboard.

  He nodded and said to his companions, “These militiamen were sent to assassinate me. We killed them.”

  They looked happy to hear it and wet their knives in the widening puddles of blood.

  “Where can you be found?”

  “Urnedi Manor … in Enhedu.”

  “I will see what I can do to find a market for your crops—probably somewhere outside of Bessradi. Look for a letter from me.”

  “I wish you better days, old friend.”

  “To you as well,” he said with a wave and set the butt-end of the spear on the road.

  Up the street, the crowd had jammed itself into the next intersection, and we were forced to stop. A thick column of Hemari appeared, and the crowd jostled wildly to make way.

  Gern was chalk-white and trembling. I took the reins away and wrapped one arm around him. He leaned into me as the soldiers made their way past.

  I remembered the first time I had been in battle—the first time I’d killed a man. Since then, I had heard and said many words at such times, some stern, others friendly and disarming. Other times, all there was to do was drink it away. I owed Gern my life. I could find no words for it. I just held him.

  The soldiers pressed through the frantic crowd and ran past us without a glance. Gern wept long enough to drip two tears before taking the reins back from me. Eventually, the crowd thinned enough that we could continue.

  I gave him directions, and we crept slowly out of the city and back toward Alsonvale. “We will be home soon enough,” I reassured him when the river and statues were behind us. He nodded but increased our pace.

  He and I stayed quiet until I saw the hedgerows of an estate that reminded me of the place where I had helped Dia escape and the tale I crafted for her. Remembering it brought Darmia to my mind and a smile to my face.

  “Do you love Fana?” I asked before I could get ahold of my damned fool tongue. You stupid ass, the Chaukai have plans for the girl.

  But the grip of darkness let go of the lad all at once and he said with a nervous smile, “No. Yes. I think I do. Dia told me I should want someone else, though.”

  “When did she tell you that?”

  “During the winter, while we were fishing.”

  “She went with you that day? Why?”

  “I brought her—wanted her to tell me how to win Fana’s love. She told me that I should want a noblewoman from Bessradi. What do you think, Leger?”

  I tried to think how to argue the same. Edonia needed Fana to replace Dia. But it was not in me to rip out Gern’s heart—not that day. I fell back on someone else’s words. “Have you told Fana how you feel?”

  “I ... no. Should I?”

  “I would. You never know what’s in a woman’s mind. Trust me. I waited two years longer than I should have.”

  “Dia?”

  “What? No. Darmia.”

  “Sorry, Leger. The girl from the tavern? I thought—”

  “Wrongly.”

  “My apologies. Know that I am glad for you and happy we are not both after our lord’s ladies. It would be a sad day if we were both lost to dueling him.”

  I could not suppress a chuckle. “Son, if you have been seriously contemplating dueling Barok for Fana, there is no doubt that you love her very dearly.”

  “You think so?”

  I let the conversation end with a vigorous nod and a slap on his shoulder.

  The weight of ending a life did not take hold of the lad again before we reached Alsonvale, and the business of moving the herds kept us too busy and too tired to think of much else.

  By the time we set eyes upon Enhedu, we were exhausted.

  52

  Arilas Barok Yentif

  “And her husband?” I asked tersely as Sahin finished telling the tale of Lady Emery. He had interrupted my rapier practice atop the keep to do it. I did not know why I even tried anymore. My time was not my own.

  “There was little love between Merit and Emery,” he responded. “I do not know if he misses her. All the same, he has been taking comfort in the company of his neighbors. He is holding up well.”

  “Good. We need him working. Has anyone questioned your version of events?”

  “No.”

  I tried to be angry but was only relieved. It explained my dreams and my shortened temper. The ghosts were still incensed but just as much pleased. They had tasted one of Bayen’s faithful.

  “Very well, Sahin. I will not second-guess the decision you made. Let us be clear, though. This is not to happen again. We have enemies enough. The Sten is not one we can contend with. The next time Bayen’s name is spoken in Enhedu, I want to be the very next person to know about it.”

  “Understood,” Sahin replied, saluted, and departed quickly.

  I walked a course around the battlement, trying to shed the image of my kin tearing the woman apart. I slashed the air with my sword. It was the fate Sahin had delivered me to that fateful morning. I did not like the memory.

  “My lord?” Urs called, making his way up the stairs.

  My annoyance flared, but he had hold of the report I’d asked him for. I sheathed my sword and read through his summary of our efforts in Ojesti and the as-of-yet unnamed village by the quarry. It did not surprise me. We were behind schedule. I carefully rolled the sheets and clutched them behind my back. My head ached. I started pacing again.

  “Pleasant view,” the reeve said as he pursued me around to the north corner of the keep.

  “Yes,” I nodded absently, but slowly looked up. He was right of course.

  The army of trees that had once besieged me was in retreat. The fallen wall of the keep was free of them, and their withdrawal had revealed a practice field, a wide town, a boisterous timber camp, fat fields, and the end of the slate-gray road that ran through Ojesti on its way to the coast and the harbor I would one day build. The village’s thick-framed homes were not visible at that distance, but the gap in the trees atop the ridge marked the spot.

  My carpenters and their men had become masters at putting up the stout structures—homes the men of Enhedu has been building for generations upon Enhedu’s hills where a cellar could be dug without worry of flood
ing. After my eighty-man team had dug the deep cellars that would take in the crops of apples, they managed most days to raise two homes above them. My heavy wagons were scarcely able to deliver the wood from my timber camp fast enough. The carpenters had also finished two of the three wide grain barns and had fenced the overgrown meadow that followed the west bank of the river south of the bridge—space aplenty for the small team of packhorses Gern would bring back.

  But the work had been slowing, and the pace would not pick up again until my alsman returned with the nails, tools, and everything else it demanded. I shook my head and strode back along the wall.

  “He better get back soon,” I told Urs as I looked back through his report of the construction and the long list of farmers who would be arriving in two short days to pay their rents and borrow wheat seed.

  “Don’t get to worrying yet,” he said to me. “He is only one day late. Now stop pacing. You are already late for your meeting.”

  I liked the reeve—mostly. He was a competent bookkeeper and clever enough when he chose to be. He was not his daughter, though. If anyone but Dia had said Fana was needed elsewhere, I would have said no. Urs smelled of cabbage. He could also be quite a nag.

  I strode away, hoping he would go bother someone else. He began saying more words about the meeting when a call rang out, “Wagon on the carriageway. Packhorses.”

  I nearly leapt out of my skin.

  “See, I told you so.” Urs smiled and rushed after me to the east corner of the battlement.

  Upon the carriageway behind Leger’s wagon was the line of pack animals I was expecting, but as I looked down its course, their number was not to be believed.

  “Oh my,” Urs said. “You better get down there.”

  I joined the crowd upon the carriageway steps, and a great cheer went up when Leger’s wagon rolled into view.

  “How is this?” was all I could manage to say to him at the sight of the sack-laden ponies and the strangers who drove them.

  My alsman set his tired eyes on me. He looked old. “Is the practice field clear?” he rasped.

  “It is,” I said, worried by the scratch of his voice. He yelled hoarse instructions to the strangers and got his wagon rolling around the keep. I jumped aboard.

  “Kuren’s timbermen,” he choked, “they wouldn’t let us use the stream that runs through their camp. The animals have not been watered in three days. We have to get the pack ponies unloaded and to the river now. Are any of the grain barns ready?”

  “Two. Why didn’t you toss them off the cliffs? Those are my lands they work.”

  “Riders took word of us to Almidi when we crossed into Trace. Kuren sent men ahead of us to the camp. When we got there, they were waiting for us—had us outnumbered. They were trying to provoke a fight. It smelled like Kuren was hoping for a new way to lay a sanction on you. We are lucky Fell ponies don’t spook easy, or we would never have made it out of there.”

  “Villagers all along the coast have been complaining about the timbermen,” I commented but had other concerns. “How many animals did you bring?”

  “A jam up on the road cost us twenty sheep and a string of ten ponies over a cliff, but all told there is still 180 sheep, 200 cattle, and 4,800 of the finest ponies in all of Zoviya. 4,000 of them bear loads of seed—mostly winter wheat. The balance carry ploughs and the rest of the supplies. My petition was also successful—your stipend has been doubled to 800. You can expect 400 weights this autumn.”

  I gaped at him as he pulled the wagon to a halt at the corner of the practice field, climbed down achingly, and began yelling for men from the town to help. His monumental accomplishments made my idea of a wagon full of wheat seem juvenile. I stopped caring how he had gotten it done and leapt down to add my voice to his. The town rallied to our calls, and the endless line of ponies were staged on the practice field, unloaded in the town or in the barns by the river, and taken with the cattle and sheep around to the fenced meadow at the river’s edge. When Sahin and the greencoats from camp joined the effort, we made short work of the rest.

  The seed filled both barns almost up to their rafters—more than 15,000 bags of it. The crop of winter wheat Enhedu would plant in the coming days and harvest next summer would be utterly monstrous, and the harvest of rye, barley, and oats would be enough for Enhedu to establish a healthy crop rotation. I started the conversation a few times, worried with each that my book learning on the subject would be unwelcome, but found instead that the methods of crop rotation were well-settled facts. The lad who had thought to add the other crops’ seeds to the list of what they brought back was almost as much a hero as Leger.

  Leger gave all the credit to the ponies, and the man who trained them. The breed did not seem anything particularly special to me, but I was roundly corrected by Dia, who marveled at their great size.

  There was not much time for slapping of backs, though. It had been a long trip, and they looked ready to lie down and die. But each of them refused to rest until every animal was watered. It was well into the evening before it was done, and the welcome shouts of the Dame’s girls that hot food was waiting had us all trudging back along the stone road.

  While we walked, Leger detailed Gern’s idea for how we could pay for it all. I would have taken my seal away from him that very instant if I had not been listening to Enhedu’s plans for the seed every day since he had left. With strong horses and ploughs to get the work done, the wide swaths of Enhedu grasslands would be transformed.

  I said instead, “No more surprises like this for a while, okay, alsman?”

  He laughed but did not have the throat for it.

  The Dame escorted us up for a meal with those in our trust, and we left Leger alone until the food began to put life back into him. Thankfully, he began to recount the trip to us as soon as he sat back from his food. Sahin was visibly twitching in anticipation. We ate and listened. I was very amused to hear that Kuren did not know how to read. I was less interested to hear that the crop of winter wheat would be poor or that a moneychanger was glad to trade gold for silver. Zoviya’s plains were too vast and varied for those in power to be affected by the failure of any one crop, and silver happened to be in fashion amongst the minor nobility. I was more annoyed than anything to think of the silver from my falcon rock being used to make button covers.

  Sahin had difficulty holding still during Leger’s tale of Alsonvale, and I was not sure how I felt about us making a friend of Heneur. My family had history there, and I knew nothing of the lesser family that had come to rule the province. They weren’t even royals. Angering Aderan, though, could not have troubled me less. Arilas Serm was one of Parsatayn’s pets and so no friend of mine. It mattered little, though. Both provinces were much too far away for me to have much to do with them.

  “What of Bessradi?” I interrupted after Sahin began to question Leger about Heneur. They could talk about that later. “Tell me what happened at the Chancellery.”

  Leger hesitated. Gern spoke for him. “He and Chancellor Parsatayn had words.”

  “What? Where?”

  “On the steps,” Gern answered with a grin, but Leger waved him down.

  “It was a chance encounter. We met in a crowd of alsmen as I was on my way in and he out. He had expected the meeting to be brief—expected to hear that you were in prison—so news of your health and my petition for an increase of your stipend unsettled him. He refused, but another alsman reminded him that the minimum was higher for a prince who commands an army.”

  “You made a military declaration?” I sputtered and leapt to my feet. “What number did you give it?”

  Leger seemed disturbingly unconcerned. “Parsatayn may have mistaken my mention of the count of horses for a count of your soldiery.”

  “Bessradi believes I command two brigades of cavalry?”

  “Yes. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  I sat back down. It was good news—great news in fact. Anything that made me look big and my many enemies rethink the
ir plans was fine by me.

  Sahin frowned. “There are not enough able-bodied men in Enhedu for that to be possible.”

  “They will only know that if we tell them,” Leger replied. “Enhedu is an utter mystery to Bessradi, and there are many more like Erom and Merit on the other side of the mountain. I would not be surprised if Erom’s son joins the ranks this season.”

  “Bring more Zoviyans here?” Sahin objected. “I don’t—”

  “Quit your griping,” Thell said. “You and Erom could be brothers, and the only difference between us and them that has mattered so far is the occasional tainted soul that needs pruning.”

  The room looked sheepishly from Thell to Dia, and I was left to wonder what role the pair had played in Lady Emery’s removal.

  Sahin turned the topic. “What else of the Kaaryon?”

  “I think the hard winter did some terrible things,” he replied.

  “I heard the same from Sevat when he visited,” I told him.

  “The carriagemaker came? That is wonderful news. Did he sign?”

  “He did. He and his men will be here in ten days—give or take. He told me about labor shortages. What did you see?”

  “Bailiffs pressing starved beggars into municipal service and a fight in the streets that left a dozen men dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “It was a terrible melee. The guilds and associations have all but gone to war with the Council of Lords. Bendent is squeezing the blood out of them.”

  “That explains the carriagemaker’s willingness to come. The man is getting the very long end of our deal if the capital is in such disarray that the guilds are rebelling.”

  “Perhaps it is just as well. He might never have come otherwise.”

  “Any sign that the church has stepped in?”

  “Not that I saw, but Haton was preparing to take his case before the Sten’s courts.”

  I was about to give opinion on how bad an idea I thought that was when Sahin asked, or rather demanded, “Were any of the boys mixed up in the fight?”