by Widowmaker
3. - Serpent
For the sixth summer in succession Dunrath-hold echoed to the sound of building. Saws rasped their way through wood and stone, hammers thudded against timber or clinked on masons’ chisels, pulleys squealed, and always in the background was the rumble of the ponderous fifty-man treadmills that powered the largest cranes.
Though Bayrd had found the place a ruin, it had been destroyed not so much by enemies in war, but by the local people working peacefully for many years. Abandoned and defenceless, the villagers and lords alike had mined the fortress for its well-cut ashlar stone, and for the wrought-iron clamps that held the largest blocks in place.
That mining had been so enthusiastic, according to Youenn Kloatr the old headman of Redmer, that the donjon, the great central citadel, had alone provided material for two whole villages and part of their lord Benart’s manor-house. After they were done, little remained even of the outer walls, except for their cores of mortared rubble. Anything else that could be taken away, had been.
But there was nothing their burrowing, or even a real siege-mine, could do to the foundations. Those were solid rock, the very bones of the mountains, and their survival left the bones of the fortress in better condition than all the centuries of time and neglect seemed possible.
And now the phoenix fortress was rising again, from a bed of its own ashes. Fresh blocks had been squared and shaped, fresh mortar mixed, fresh iron clamps forged to hold those stones too massive even for mortar.
It was Bayrd’s eventual intention that the walls and the towers of his fortress be coated with a white or coloured plaster, as was done in Drosul, to offset the brutal starkness of raw grey rock; but the events of the past few days had made the strength of the fortifications suddenly far more important than their appearance.
Within ten minutes of his riding through the gates, any work not concerned with strengthening Dunrath had ceased. The gardens lay half-planted; most of the newly-arrived trees that were to be the fortress orchard remained not merely in their wooden tubs, but still in the carts that had brought them here; and any man, woman or well-grown child without something definite to do was helping the masons and their principal architect.
Bayrd watched the flurry of industry for a few minutes before turning towards the stables. There was no risk of it slackening once the workers were no longer under his eye. He had told them what had happened – more or less – and what the likely consequences might be. Whether it was counter-raid, feud, or maybe even a clan-war, with Talvalin and its allies ranged against five other Houses and their supporters, being on the proper side of tall towers and thick walls had become very appealing to everyone labouring to strengthen them…
Eskra sat quietly and listened to everything her husband and his Bannerman had to say. She did not, either then or at any other time, pass judgment on what had been done. But then, that was one of the reasons why Bayrd had married her in the first place.
She sat quietly and digested all the information, all the involved opinions, all the doubts and wondering; then she accepted a refill of her cup of wine and sat quietly again, mulling matters over in a mind that all of them knew was as crooked as a corkscrew. Like a corkscrew, it had to be crooked if it was going to do its job properly. A straight, unswerving line gave access neither to wine nor to useful conclusions. This time the wine was bitter indeed, vinegar to the last drop.
“You were right,” she said at last. “It wasn’t Gerin’s plot.”
“Then who…?”
“I told you, years ago. The boy told you as well. He talked about a Red Serpent. I only mentioned the red snake that deserved to die. They’re both the same. Same badge, same man. Kalarr cu Ruruc.”
Bayrd’s eyebrows went up. “Cu Ruruc?” he echoed. “He’s been in the hottest of the Nine Hells for…” Eskra gave him a coolly sceptical look, and the vehemence of his words faltered to silence.
“Whose authority makes you so certain of that?” she said.
“I…” Bayrd began, then grinned an annoyed, rueful grin. “People,” he said. “The They of ‘They say’. But all right. You win. Nothing I could ever confirm. So change that to a question, loved, and tell me this. Which Hell of the Nine did he appear from?”
“It’s a better question than you think,” said Eskra, and felt her mouth crook in a sour little smile. “I’d like to have the answer myself.”
“Never mind which Hell,” said Marc ar’Dru. “Who is he?”
“You don’t know?” said Bayrd, grinning, and Eskra hid a more honest chuckle when he got a sharp look that indicated Marc wouldn’t have asked the question otherwise. “He would be one of those potential, er, beneficiaries of misfortune. The ones that you suggested. Not Albans. He’s High Lord Gelert’s son. Kalarr Spellwreaker. Cu Ruruc, in the old style. A wizard.”
“Both wizard and sorcerer,” corrected Eskra. “He was born with the Talent. The rest…” She shrugged elaborately and took a sip of her wine. “He taught himself the rest. A grounding in the Art Magic before he was ten years old. And the little viper would be twenty now.”
“Not so little, then,” said Marc, as he and Bayrd exchanged the significant glances she had expected. The right age to be part of an intolerant little clique of bigots, prejudiced against everyone older, everyone different…everyone else. Except that he was different too. The next question was an obvious one.
“A sorcerer and the son of a Prytenek lord would hardly have endeared himself to someone like Dyrek ar’Kelayr,” said Bayrd. “I told you what he said about us.”
“Unless you know your friend is an enemy, why treat him so?” said Eskra simply. “Marc has been your Bannerman for—?”
“Almost seven years.”
“And he never heard the name before. I warned you about Kalarr a long time ago. He was never mentioned since?”
“I’ve had better things to talk about.”
“Just so.”
“Anyway, he vanished. Disappeared. Gelert, his family, his entire household and retinue. Gone. Just –” Bayrd snapped his fingers in the air, “– like that.”
“Because people said so. Your so-knowledgeable They said so. Yes. And now he’s back.”
“Lady, what makes you so certain?”
Eskra favoured Marc with a small smile and a salute of fingertips to heart and mouth. “Marc-an ar’Dru,” she said. “You’re a good man. An Alban kailin-eir. And far too courteous to state the obvious reason. That I’m a wizard too. But you’d be right. We of the Art, we…know about each other. And I listen to more than rumour.”
“For how long?” Bayrd wasn’t smiling. His mind’s eye could still see boys young enough to have been the sons he never had, staring at him, despising him, killing themselves and each other because they hated him and everything he stood for. The muscles of his forearms still held the jolting memory of a blade cleaving flesh, his eyes the sight of heads tumbling to the ground, his ears the spattering of blood and the final bubbling sigh from the gullet of each stump. And at last there was a name, a target, somewhere he could channel all that backed-up rage. “When did you know?”
“Two days. Maybe three. It was just after you rode out with the hot trod. I recognized him.”
“How?”
Eskra’s eyes narrowed at the sudden harshness in Bayrd’s voice, and she winced inwardly. She’d known Bayrd
Talvalin for six years now, as lover, as husband, and most important of all, as a friend – because no matter what the songmakers might believe, the three were not always facets of the one. And what she had learned in that time was that when he used the word honour, he meant more than just the ritualized Codes that were being set down as an approximate basis for how a kailin should conduct his life. It was more than just the pride that came with his rank and his power, more than being a gentleman.
For all his skill with a sword, for all his ferocity on the battlefield, Bayrd Talvalin was a gentleman in the oldest sense of the word, a gentle man, giving respect and expecting it i
n return, who behaved as best he could in a way that seemed right and decent to him, down inside where it mattered to no-one else. What he had done – what Kalarr had forced his hands to do – would stain his hands and his honour for a long time to come.
And when she chose her words, she knew that it would seem once more as though she had heard his very thoughts. She always insisted that it wasn’t a part of any Art she studied, but there had been times when Bayrd was none too sure.
Eskra spoke the truth; but the tenor of those thoughts had come through clearly to anyone with the wit to see his eyes and listen to his voice. Anyone who could hear how many times he, familiar enough with the terrible glistening mess that was the result of killing close up with a blade, had spoken of trying to wash the blood of children from his hands.
No; not just children. Sons, though he had never used the word. The sons she had never given him and, after the last child, for all her power in the Art Magic she never would. The sons a man needed if his clan was to last more than his own generation. The sons from whom he would choose his heir, who would take the crest-collar from his neck, the ring from his finger.
The sons who in the stillness of fading life would put their hands between his and swear to keep faith, with the Overlord and with memory and with honour.
The hands Bayrd would never feel.
“Hold your hands in a fire and tell me how you know it’s hot,” she said. He winced and glanced at those hands, pink and raw from much scrubbing. Eskra swallowed down the rising catch in her voice before anyone could hear it. “I recognized him because I know him. Remember? Just after your people invaded us.” There was no condemnation in that, just a simple statement of fact. “During an-Dakh Gwaf’n, the winter war, when Gelert was using sorcery to kill from a distance?”
“I remember. He was using up his wizards.”
Eskra nodded. “Forcing them to overreach the limits of their power. That killed them fast enough. And if they were useless he killed them himself. Kalarr and I were the only ones left.”
She grimaced at an unpleasant memory. “Recognizing him is easy. I became familiar enough with the flavour of his mind. He was advanced in more matters than just the Art Magic. And Light of Heaven knows he was gifted in that. Oh yes. Far beyond his years…”
Then she hesitated, and her eyes went distant, looking beyond Bayrd, beyond the walls of the fortress, beyond the years that had gone by. What she had just said gave a possible answer to how Kalarr had gained the support of such people as ar’Kelayr. He was precocious indeed, enough so when she knew him at the age of thirteen that now, fully grown, he might be familiar with that side of the Art that she would never even dare to read about.
There were other spells, not so horrific but dangerous enough in their way. Spells that simply because of their demands on one or another form of strength or stamina, placed a strain on the mind, or the body, or even on the spellmaker’s presence in this world. That was the sort of spell she was guessing at now. Spells that could take the structure of reality and wrench it ninety degrees out of true, so that the world within a mirror could become no more than a careless step away.
However he had managed the trick, she was sure that he would have an Alban name, and an Alban set to his features, and he would speak with an Alban accent. It couldn’t be shape-shifting; that wouldn’t have affected his voice.
But it might be what was called a glamour, a charm to twist the perceptions of those under its influence. They saw, and heard, and thought, not what surrounded them, but only what the wizard casting the spell wanted them to see, for as long as the spell lasted. There was always that problem. When such a spell of deception ended unexpectedly, so frequently did the life of the wizard using it – usually at the hands or blades of those deceived.
Unless Kalarr had an almost suicidal confidence in the extent of his powers, it would have to be a far more impenetrable disguise. And the most likely one would be the body of another man. Some one of Dyrek’s companions might look, and sound, and act the same as he had always done, but the mind controlling the body would not be the same one he was born with. Somewhere, at some time, he might have met a young man of his own age, and died of the encounter.
Whatever had happened, its results were the same. Kalarr cu Ruruc was free to walk among the invaders and make mischief. The how of what he had done might be difficult to find out, but the why was obvious. Certainly it was as much an Alban reason as anyone could understand…
“Revenge,” said Eskra flatly. “And a more satisfying revenge than any mere Elthan or Prytenek could bring down on you.” She uttered the disparagement of her people without emotion; it was no more than fact to most of the Albans. “To provoke a war and see his enemies kill each other would be agreeable indeed. Especially since the reason for the war would be no more than an error.”
“The reasons for most wars are an error of some sort or another,” said Marc.
“So the Books of Years would have you believe.” Bayrd glanced at him and uttered a short, not very amused laugh. “It doesn’t stop them being fought.”
He had read enough of the clan archives in his youth to know that History – the formal title given by Tomorrow to what Today usually calls Problems – was like Eskra’s attempt to explain the difference between his Talent for sorcery and the Art Magic. Some of it was to do with reactions and responses, an action here producing not only an equal and opposite response there, but also possibly an amplified reaction somewhere else.
But mostly it was about not being careless, otherwise it was all too easy to go through life not knowing what was happening. At least until all the things that had gone unnoticed were already happening far too fast to stop.
In magic, just as in war, that could get you killed.
At least this time, thanks to Eskra, they knew what was happening before the event. Knowing what to do about it was another matter entirely.
“The lady is right,” said Marc ar’Dru. “She’s been right all along. He ought to be dead. And everyone in the Land of Alba would be safer if he was.”
Heads turned. Bayrd and Eskra stared at him, then at each other, and finally back at Marc. This wasn’t the sort of statement that might usually be expected from him. He was good enough with axe or taiken on the battlefield, as Bayrd knew; but he was equally aware, most recently from Marc’s resistance to his execution of the raiders, that killing was not his Bannerman’s first response to a crisis. Besides, who would do the killing?
“I would even be ready,” Marc said carefully, “to do it myself, if the means and method didn’t touch on my honour.”
“That would be the snag,” said Bayrd – and was slightly shocked to find that he wasn’t even questioning the offer. They weren’t talking a duel here, or a feud with an exchange of challenges and a meeting in open combat. Whether the weapon used was dagger, arrow, poison, or some mind-shrivelling spell that Eskra might create, the method would still have to be secret and without any warning. That would make it murder. He dignified it slightly to assassination, and found the flavour of the word no better.
It was still murder.
There would be no way in which Marc’s honour could come unscathed out of such a venture, and thus no way in which his Clan-Lord could honourably have the deed performed, either as the result of a direct command or simply as a favour. And never mind honour: there would be few enough ways for the Bannerman to bring himself away unscathed. Bayrd was still disturbed enough by the offhand way his three prisoners had committed suicide that he was in no frame of mind to ask a friend to run that same risk.
Because if only half of what Eskra was suggesting about Kalarr cu Ruruc was true, then any attempt to go against him openly would indeed be suicide.
“On my Word and on my Honour, it was suicide.”
That, from one clan-lord to another, should have been more than enough. In this instance, as one eyebrow arched in faintly sneering disbelief, it evidently was not. Bayrd Talvalin drew in a deep breath and
let it out slowly, lifted his winecup and set it down gently. Keeping his voice low and steady, and his fist from pounding the table in front of him, took more effort of will than he would have believed he possessed.
The man who sat at the far end had that effect, and it had grown immeasurably since the moment of his arrival.
He and a small party of retainers – enough to be an honour guard, not enough to form a threat – had clattered up to the gates of Dunrath with green leaves around their spears as a sign of peaceful intent. There had been no bawling for vengeance; no demand for reparation in gold or in land; not even a request for explanation and excuse. None of the things that Bayrd was primed to deal with.
Just the annoyed disinterest of a man performing a distasteful task because his supporters expected it of him.
Bayrd had done that after the hot trod, and to be on the receiving end of the same situation caught him off his guard. The Clan-Lord Vanek ar’Kelayr was known to be infamously quarrelsome, and the attitude he presented didn’t correspond to what Bayrd had heard of him. At least, not at first. But as time went by, Bayrd discovered that there were many ways to pick a quarrel, and the blustering ar’Diskan style he knew only too well was crude in the extreme.
Ar’Kelayr preferred to let his opponent do the work. He wore a studied air of cantankerous irritation with everyone and everything, as other men might wear their clothes, and his ability to find fault seemed to come almost as second nature. As a result, even the most patient man was raised to seething, to the point of erupting in violence – and Vanek ar’Kelayr would have witnesses from both sides to prove that he wasn’t to blame.
He was separated from Bayrd Talvalin by many things. Most obvious was the sturdy oak of the table itself, an ocean of polished wood set here and there with bowls of fruit, wine-flagons filled with Jouvaine vintages purchased at no small expense from the Ship-Clans, cups of wood and glass and metal, all the trappings of civilized conversation.
