by Widowmaker
It was one of his familiar tricks of speech, to address the table in general but nobody in particular. If there was no immediate answer, he would continue his monologue until something sparked a response, and in the meanwhile…well, the man was evidently fond of the sound of his own voice.
Glass and metal clinked as several flagons of wine circulated among the men seated around the large table. Some of them still picked sporadically at the wreckage of the meal; others just picked their teeth.
“A younger son may not inherit,” said one of them, in the tone of one stating the obvious. “You know it; we all know it. We’ve,” a wave around the table, “always known it. The law, the tradition—”
“Is an old law and an old tradition, from an old country. This,” Kurek’s wave of the hand was a far more expansive gesture, one that took in all of the fortress of Erdanor, and by implication the domain surrounding it and the lands beyond it, all the way from here to the sea, “this is new. We need new traditions, new laws, and new customs for this new Land. We have them,” he added quickly before anyone else could correct him, “but… Not all of them are good.”
The wine was good, thought Marc ar’Dru. And the fire was good, and the food had been more than good. He had eaten better in Erdanor on this ordinary night than on several guesting-feasts he could remember in Dunrath. He felt full, and comfortable, and more than a little drowsy. Kurek ar’Kelayr and his gaggle of immediate cronies were off again on one of their never-ending spirals of discussion about how Alba and all of the rest of the world could be put right, if only they were given the opportunity to do it. Marc stifled a yawn. He had heard it all before, since he came here. A dozen times. A score of times.
And yet it wasn’t boring him. No-one was expected to contribute an opinion, Kurek was capable enough of filling the air with words all by himself, but on the few occasions when Marc had felt moved to speak, his words had earned the sort of courteous attention that had made him ashamed of their stumbling delivery. They had not sounded like Kurek.
Now his words stayed in the memory, sensible, reasoned, a compliment to the wit and wisdom of those privileged to hear them. Those words were curiously lacking in some respects: he had only twice spoken of his father, his brother, of the Bannerman Reth ar’Gyart and the presumed rebels who had killed him. After that the entire subject had been dropped, as if it was no importance.
In a way, Marc knew he was right. The dead were dead and gone; better by far to live with the living. And there were more people living in Hold ar’Kelayr right now than he had seen in all the weeks since his arrival. During the day, and the constant round of military exercises, the babble of voices was a constant confusion. They all spoke Alban, more or less, but some of them spoke with foreign accents, Yuvannek and Droselan, that spoke of mercenaries who had crossed the sea with an eye to war for profit. That was only to be expected: pay and plunder attracted hired soldiers like rotten fruit drew wasps.
Marc had grinned crookedly to himself at that. It had certainly attracted the Alban horsemen down from the high steppes, all those years ago. And now look at them. One-time mercenaries buying mercenaries in their turn. Which land would these men conquer when their time came? he mused. What would they call it? And where would the mercenaries come from when they went hiring swords and men to use them. It was a circle – an eccentric one, to be sure, that didn’t spin true – but it was the sort of thing that Eskra ar’Talvlyn used to delight in. He wondered incuriously what she was doing now. Trying to shore up her husband’s slipping reputation, probably. A wizard and a murderer… They made a fine pair.
But there were other accents that made Marc think much harder about Kurek ar’Kelayr’s influence: provincial dialects that suggested he was somehow gaining support from some very unlikely parts of Alba. It sometimes seemed to Marc that only he was aware of how incongruous that was. Kurek was a kailin-eir and high-clan lord who openly despised the Elthan and Prytenek people, calling them enemies and far worse. Yet there were some of those same people in his service.
Though not at the table: this meal was for high-clan Albans only, and Marc guessed that he was here more by association than in his own right. No matter; it hadn’t affected the taste of the food. But he had raised that matter of privilege and position only five minutes before, no more than mildly interested in a reply.
“If they want to die on our behalf,” someone had said callously in response to his question, “then why worry?”
“It’s more than that, and you should have the wit to know it.” That had been Kurek’s voice: unmistakable, smooth and unctuous, bland as cream, but able to cut like a whip when he heard stupid statements being made without authority. “An ally can always earn respect. Even honour. It’s when they expect it as a right and a privilege, just because some slut of a sister has made an advantageous marriage with one of us. But yes,” he had added as an afterthought. “They’ll be in the front rank of any battle.”
“To see them dead?” asked Marc.
“To see them earn the respect they so earnestly desire. Anyone can stand well out of harm’s way and shout encouragement.”
“It takes guts to stand at the front. That, we’ll have to see.”
“Yes indeed.” Kurek’s grin had turned wolfish, a thin, twisted smirk that made him look entirely different to the smiling, affable lord of the fortress who spoke so well and kept such an excellent table. “We’ll have to see their guts. What a very appropriate choice of words.”
Marc had seen it happen several times since their first encounter by the fortress gate. He might be gazing, absorbed by some thought of his own, in Kurek’s direction, and for an instant, especially if the clan-lord was talking to another of the guesting kailinin, he would seem to see someone else. It was a sensation as peculiar as looking into a mirror and not seeing yourself. No. It was more subtle than that. Like looking at yourself in the mirror, and discovering that the reflection hadn’t reversed.
And then Kurek would notice, and return the stare with a smile, or perhaps just the hint of a frown – and the oddness would be gone again, taking any curiosity with it.
Like the few minutes that had just passed. Kurek had slipped just once, that time, like a snake startled into striking. Normally his venom was much more understated, more reasoned, more…
More acceptable, thought Marc, listening to him now.
“…This much advantage at least,” Kurek was saying. “I’m an elder son. I’ve inherited Erdanor, Hold ar’Kelayr, all its lands. Most of you aren’t so fortunate. You have brothers.”
There was a growl of assent from the younger men. Normally they would have sat in silence, or merely nodded their approval, but in the course of the meal they had all drunk enough wine or ale, and drowned enough of their inhibitions, for their responses to become more vocal.
“The Overlord Albanak took possession of this Land in the old way,” said Kurek. “Taken by the sword, held by the sword, defended by the sword. But what are those swords doing now? They’re turning in our hands, turning against us all. And who stands to gain from all of this? Not our fathers, not our elder brothers, certainly not ourselves.”
He paused, to moisten his lips with the merest sip from his cup, and listen to the rumbling groundswell of favourable opinion. “Those who benefit, those who are being shown the most favour, are those who least deserve it. We conquered the people of the Three Provinces; we beat them in fair fight, man to man and sword to sword. And now, in less than a generation – no, far less than that, less even than ten years! – we treat with them as equals! Equals…? Eirin, gentlemen, my friends, these are a conquered people. When in all of history did defeat bring such rights?”
Ivern ar’Diskan muttered something into his winecup that neither Kurek, nor even Marc sitting almost beside him, could hear; but his tone made the meaning plain enough.
“And what are the grounds for such behaviour, for such benevolence towards it? To more speedily bring peace to the Land, they tell us. ‘Pea
ce’ and ‘prosperity’. Here? Now?” Someone laughed harshly, and Kurek allowed himself a brief, bleak smile. “We’re living in a country teetering on the brink of war, and people who should know better still bandy such words about as though the words themselves had weight. If this is the sort of peace that comes of even-handed dealing with the vanquished, then I want no part of it!”
Marc knew the sound of good sense when he heard it, and so did the rest. Some of them cheered aloud, others merely banged their winecup against the table as applause.
“Worse still,” said Kurek, “we’re all of us far too well aware of what else those fathers are doing. And not just fathers; brothers who’ll become lords and fathers in their own time; and high-clan lords who should have more respect for their lines, their clans, and for the purity of their blood. Our blood…”
The applause faltered into an uneasy pause, doubt and wariness holding further reaction in check until they could be certain what might be appropriate.
“They’re taking this mad policy still further,” Kurek’s voice had dropped almost to a whisper, but in the silence of the room each word was clear enough. “They’re taking mistresses, taking consorts…Father of Fires, those who can are marrying this conquered people, and making their bastards legitimate and equal to those born of a pure Alban line.”
He put his hands flat on the table and stared down at them. “And again, they call it equality. Equality? When a fallen enemy is given precedence over those rightfully entitled, equality looks like this.” Kurek laid his right hand on the table, then slammed the left on top of it, covering it, holding it down. He looked at the hot, resentful eyes around the table to make sure that his message was quite clear. His gaze moved from one face to the next, and each man knew that the words were really directed at him alone, taking him into his leader’s confidence, appealing to his intelligence.
“It’s no more or less than a usurpation of the rights of blood, bought and paid for with blood. Usurpation just as certain as though they had drawn blade and taken back all that we claimed and conquered. If they had recovered with the sword what we took with the sword, then we could call them honourable, open, worthy adversaries. They have not. Because they fear us! So instead they deprive us of what should rightfully come down to us and to our children, not by courage, but by cunning. They steal it, like thieves from the shadows.”
Kurek shrugged. “We are the true sons of our fathers, born of Alban mothers. But because most are younger sons, we are forbidden to inherit land or rank or style or title. All because an old law from an old land, made and observed and enforced by old men, tells us that we can’t! So this new Land might as well be handed back to the Elthans and the Pryteneks and all the others right now,” – there was a mutter of angry criticism at the mere proposal, but Kurek just smiled – “since in a few generations it’s going to be back with them anyway. And it will be as if the pure Alban clans, the bold ones who took this land with the strong arm, had never existed.”
A hot outrage had been building up inside Marc ar’Dru as Kurek spoke, and now it sat like lead in his chest so that he felt almost breathless with the weight of it. He was willing to allow that some of what the Clan-Lord ar’Kelayr had said was nothing but common sense; but too much of the rest was beginning like an insult aimed explicitly at Bayrd ar’Talvlyn and his wife. Marc had his own views about Bayrd, and about what he had and had not done – he wouldn’t have been sitting here otherwise – but there had to be a limit somewhere. For the sake of honour, he couldn’t sit still any longer. Something had to be said.
In the instant that he moved, Kurek’s head snapped around. Marc found himself at the focus of an extraordinary blue-eyed stare, cold as ice, hot as fire, burning into his mind as if knowing not merely what he was about to say, but the very thoughts which had prompted the words. Kurek ar’Kelayr was still smiling, but the smile had thinned and chilled until it was no more than a slight stretching of his lips.
“You were about to speak?” he said, soft as the warning hiss of a snake in the grass.
Marc blinked, swallowed, and knew exactly what he had intended to say. For just a moment, the clauses had been a little confused, the phrasing a little slipshod; if nothing else, one’s powers of rhetoric were exercised by the discourses carried on in Erdanor. That spasm of outrage had teetered for a few seconds on the edge of outright and undignified anger, enough to make his speech sound foolish, but though it still burned behind his breastbone, he had it under control.
“Bayrd ar’Talvlyn,” he said, “has gone one better than that. He’s married an Elthanek woman—”
“That much I already know,” said Kurek, with the air of immediate disinterest from a man half-hoping to hear something new, but cheated of the revelation by common gossip.
“She’s a wizard.”
“I already know that, too.” Kurek began to turn away, a gesture so dismissive as to be downright rude. Marc didn’t see it that way, only the justified annoyance of an intelligent man whose time was being wasted.
“They won’t have any more children than their two daughters,” he added, desperate for some sign of appreciation. “So Dunrath’s physician told me.”
Kurek ar’Kelayr paused, glanced back at him, raised his eyebrows, and started to smile again. “Well, now, this is rather more interes—”
“And Bayrd has the sorcerer’s Talent.”
The clank and rumble as Kurek’s winecup fell from his fingers and rolled across the surface of the table was loud enough, even over the murmur of conversation, to turn heads all over the room. He looked down at it, and at the spreading pool of wine which a servant hurried to mop up, and he didn’t seem in the least annoyed by the mess. Rather the reverse. He was grinning broadly when he returned his attention to Marc ar’Dru, so broadly that Marc could do nothing else but match the grin even though he wasn’t quite aware of why he had earned such approval.
“You,” said Kurek softly, “have just sung as well for your supper as I’ve ever heard.” Marc still didn’t know exactly what the Clan-Lord ar’Kelayr meant, but he was filled with a warm glow of pleasure at having done…Well, whatever it was, he had done it right.
The least commendation from Kurek ar’Kelayr had that effect. It always sounded far more sincere, and thus more gratifying, than far more solid rewards and higher praise from anyone else. Though Kurek was a high-clan lord, thought Marc with satisfaction, he always treated even the least of his retainers – and indeed people like himself, who were no more than guests in hall – not just as his equals, but as his friends.
But there was little friendliness in the peremptory way he appropriated Ivern ar’Diskan’s chair so that he could sit beside Marc. The short, sharp command of “Ar’Diskan, move yourself!” sounded more like a master addressing his servant than the genial voice which he had been using until now.
Ivern was plainly not accustomed to such treatment. He had long been the most important of ar’Kelayr’s friends and supporters, not so much because of any abilities he might have demonstrated as because of who he was. The second son of a high-clan lord, and not just any lord, but Gerin ar’Diskan, ruler of the strongest domain in the whole of the Province of Elthan. But Marc had something new, something that was suddenly much more influential than family: he had information about an enemy.
Ivern hesitated, his face darkening with anger as he glared first at Marc and then at Kurek. But then his expression changed, the high colour drained to a pallor almost of fright and he got up more quickly than might have been expected. Marc, still basking in the warmth of approval, was unconcerned both by the anger and the fear. He merely wondered idly what had been said or done in the past to provoke such a reaction; then put the thought aside as Kurek ar’Kelayr sat down beside him, all brisk business.
Kurek’s voice had lowered almost to intimacy, so that even in this crowded room, their conversation was almost completely private. Marc was surprised, pleased, even flattered by the attention, and even more so by the aff
able manner in which it was conducted.
Since he had come to Hold ar’Kelayr at Erdanor, there had been several other occasions when he had been questioned, much more closely than this amiable interrogation over a flagon of wine. That hadn’t surprised him, even when one of the questioners had been young ar’Diskan. Bayrd ar’Talvlyn had made few friends in the north, and there was no love lost between Lord Gerin’s sons and anyone to do with him. No matter how much a lord’s retainer might profess to have dropped that allegiance, one could never be too careful.
On all of those other times, if the questions slanted towards sorcery or the Art Magic, and its employment by clan ar’Talvlyn, Marc had managed to evade the issue. He couldn’t remember exactly how he had sidestepped giving any answers, or even why he would need to do so. Except, maybe, for the disgrace any decent kailin would feel when admitting familiarity with such a subject, while talking to one man whose father had been cheated by sorcery and living in the fortress of another whose father had been killed by it.
But now it was as if that barrier of shame had been removed, or at least not set in place by whatever had prompted it before. Kurek showed no animosity as Marc told him how he had learned of Bayrd ar’Talvlyn’s ability with the Talent; indeed, he seemed more than pleased, especially when Marc elaborated.
“It’s not so much ability as inability,” he said. “He can’t control it, at least, not well. The woman Eskra seems to be the only one who can—”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, I’ve never seen him do anything as if he really meant to. It always seems to be more hope than intention, if you understand me.”
“I do indeed. But was it always so? Even with that notorious business when he cut off his own hand?”
“I believe so, yes. He told me that he hoped Eskra might be able to heal him, if he couldn’t do it himself.”
“But he went ahead and cut?”
“Gerin-arluth ar’Diskan did the cutting—”
