The ground pits of apricots, berries of the nightshade plant, leaves of the same, dragonwort, blackrose root. The words rang sure in her mind. She could close her eyes and see the glyphs written out on the scroll. One problem solved, but she would still have to use any and all possible means to convince the justiciar he could trust her in the stillroom.
—
A stranger sat in the lord’s seat. Although Torch had never seen this man’s face, he could hazard a guess as to the identity. Magnus’s man. The king’s justiciar.
In a hall teeming with Stronghold warleaders and cavaliers, all closer to Belwin Thorne’s age—as was the Usurper himself, for that matter—the justiciar was younger than Torch expected. Perhaps the Ironfist valued him for the strength in his arms. Massive shoulders and biceps portended an easy swing of the headman’s axe. At least the end would be swift.
But not an arrow. Torch clung to that thin thread of hope, along with the thought that the justiciar could have ordered his death long since. If they were meeting in the hall—and before others—that indicated something else entirely. Could Magnus really be so magnanimous as to grant Torch a hearing? Or was this the justiciar’s doing?
A pair of guards clad in mail overlain with the king’s livery led Torch before the seat. The chains at his ankles clinked with every step.
“To what do I owe this honor?” Torch glanced about him. Other men stood along the wall behind the lord’s seat—his seat, damn it. The symbols adorning their shields betrayed their identities—the other lords of the Eastern Strongholds, all accounted for except Belwin Thorne.
Naturally. Magnus’s men must be holding him as well, though not in the dungeon. But if they were keeping him captive, that meant he hadn’t broken his oath to Torch. A small enough victory tallied against this disaster.
“You might prefer to guard your tongue,” the justiciar replied, “especially when I am here to determine your fate.”
“You’re to determine my fate? Does the king know you’ve placed yourself in such a position?”
A murmur passed through the assembled men. Lord Tarr and Lord Brinmar put their heads together. Yes, for a man in shackles, Torch was showing a great deal of swagger. Yet he could hope his display might win over some of the audience. If Magnus was going to grant him this stage to voice his claims aloud, he would milk the opportunity for everything he could. At the very least, he could sow a few seeds of doubt among Magnus’s allies. After all, if the king at Highspring Moor held any semblance of power, it was by the grace of lords such as those who stood along the walls.
The justiciar allowed himself a grim smile. Damn, but that wasn’t a good sign. “Magnus has given me that authority, yes.”
“Might I at least be granted the courtesy to learn whom I am addressing?”
“Since I am mandated to learn your true name, I shall give you mine.” He rose from his seat and folded himself into a mocking bow. “Starke Hammerfell, King’s Justiciar.” And from all appearances, he would style himself the latest lord of Blackbriar. “And you are?”
It was Torch’s turn to smile. He let his lips spread into a slow grin, one a less patient man would doubtless wish to scrub off with his fists. “I thought surely you knew me by reputation. I am called Torch by a great many in these lands.”
“But that is not the name you were born with.”
“Come, you’ve had ample time to hear of my wedding, held in this very hall, as it happens. Not two days ago.” At least Torch thought only two days had passed. In the permanent shadows of the dungeons, the slow tick of time took on a different aspect.
“We will come to that.”
“So you must know who my wife declared me to be. Where is my wife, by the way? It would ease my heart to learn she is being treated with honor and respect.” He voiced his concern casually enough, but the thought of Calista being turned over to these men made his fists clench with the desire to rip at his shackles, yank a sword from the nearest scabbard, and lay into the company. Thank the Three, he’d married her so that these men could not claim Calista had whored herself out to a bastard and treat her accordingly.
“Calista Thorne is under my protection. I daresay she’s come to no harm—at least, not at my hands.”
“Who has harmed her?” Torch roared. His chains clinked as his arms twitched ineffectually against his shackles. “I’ll see his heart on the tip of my sword for touching her.”
Laughter echoed through the hall at his empty threat. Damn it all, his bluster had swept away any last hope he’d maintained for taking control of this meeting.
Hammerfell suppressed a smile. “She would not say. Who might she be protecting, I wonder?”
At least Calista was still capable of speech, but his insides turned as cold as the winter winds shrieking about the Pinnacle. If Hammerfell saw fit to blame Calista’s injuries on Torch, that boded ill for his sister. Pray the Three Kestrel got to her in time. “I would see her for myself.”
“I can allow that.” Hammerfell turned to a guard. “Call for Calista Thorne.”
Once again he’d referred to her as Thorne. Clearly, they were not going to recognize the marriage. And if Hammerfell had placed her under his protection, he must consider her still loyal to Magnus.
Hammerfell dismissed the guard with a wave of his hand before reaching behind him. “While we wait, you can tell me how you acquired this.” He produced a familiar-looking black scabbard. The runes tooled into the leather seemed to glow in the dim light of the hall. “Quite a noble weapon for someone of your origins.”
Death to the unworthy. Torch repeated the motto in his mind. “How kind of you to notice. But then, aren’t my origins the crux of the matter?”
“More than one retainer of this keep has told me the name you claim for your own.”
Torch let his gaze drift to the others along the walls. They were the ones he needed to convince. They must believe he was truly Josse. “And why should you question their honesty when they’ve no reason to show me loyalty by lying? But if you insist, I can produce yet another witness. One who has every reason to resent me, since he is down in the dungeon on my command.”
Hammerfell ran one beefy hand idly along the scabbard, his fingers bouncing over the runes. “I need no more witnesses to your claim. What I require is proof of the claim itself.”
Torch pointed his chin at the blade. “There are those who would see that sword as ample proof.” His mother’s words to him on that long-ago night echoed through his brain. He who draws it lives or dies by the king’s will. Once Torch had reached an age to understand, he interpreted them to mean the wrong man would bring about his own death simply by drawing the weapon. “Go on. Draw the weapon, if you dare.”
Hammerfell, damn him three times over, did not rise to the bait. Single-minded in his quest for the truth, he was. Or at least he was single-minded in his quest for a palatable story he could feed the Usurper. “I asked where you got this.”
“From my own mother’s hand. She girded it on me herself when I was of an age to draw blade. But what you really want to know is how she came by it.” He paused for effect. He must command the attention of every last one of the Stronghold Lords. “She took it from the armory at Highspring Moor the night she secreted me from the palace.”
“That is impossible.”
Torch simply raised a brow and waited for Hammerfell to explain himself.
“Magnus Vandal holds the king’s true sword, taken from the young pretender the night he reclaimed his rightful position. This is no more the true weapon than you can be the true son of the pretender.”
“Tell that to my mother and see what she thinks of your prattle,” Torch snapped. “Better yet, draw the blade and prove me a liar. If you believe me an imposter, you have naught to lose, have you?” Nothing but his life, the moment he loosed the weapon and its true fire sprung to life to strike the man down like a bolt of lightning.
Torch held his adversary’s gaze in an unblinking stare while the s
ilence deepened. A slow, steady beat resounded in his ears to the rhythm of his final pronouncement: naught to lose, naught to lose, naught to lose. Was it his heartbeat or those of the other occupants of this hall? Perhaps they were all pounding as one, waiting on Hammerfell’s next move.
The king’s justiciar wrapped his fingers about the hilt, his palm covering the eagle’s head on the pommel.
He who draws it lives or dies by the king’s will. Thus Torch bent his will, and his entire being strained into a single thought. Prove his unworthiness and prove my identity.
The blade shuddered in its scabbard as Hammerfell loosened it. Not worthy. A metallic knell tolled along its length. Not worthy. Unsmiling, he drew it forth until he held the weapon raised in his hand. Not worthy.
But the steel merely glimmered faintly in the low light, a reflection of the torchlight from the wall sconces. No blinding thunderbolt summoned from the heavens struck the hall. Nothing.
The hollow echo of the blade’s ringing filled the emptiness in Torch’s head. Nothing. Nothing had happened.
“Was this supposed to prove something?” Hammerfell asked mildly.
Torch locked his knees, half expecting the justiciar to deal him a deathblow then and there. Through the whirl of his thoughts, he sought a reply, but nothing came to him. Damn it all to the lowest of hells. Had his mother been mistaken about the sword’s powers and provenance?
Hammerfell swung the weapon. The blade flashed through the air in a series of arcs. Torch steeled himself against the reflex to duck away. He’d learned to cow those particular impulses as a lad younger than Owl. He would stand strong and prove himself brave to the last. But though Hammerfell never touched him, each whooshing downstroke seemed to strike him like a spear through his gut.
“There’s a lovely balance to this blade. I’ll give you that.” Whoosh. “And a cunning enough trick that makes it appear to flame.” Whoosh. “I suppose if we’ve proven anything, it’s all to the credit of the smith who forged it.” Whoosh. “Such weaponry has not been produced in these lands for an age and more.” Hammerfell sheathed the sword. “I might even believe this blade did come from the palace armories. King Magnus will be delighted to have it back.”
Torch’s back teeth ached with the force of holding his jaw steady. Fury and confusion seethed through him, yet he would not allow the reaction to show. But curse it all, how could he have been so wrong?
“Ask him about his other weapons, lord justiciar,” Tarr spoke up.
Composure. More than ever, Torch needed to maintain it. He could not allow any one of the assembled lords to believe this hearing wasn’t progressing to his liking. “Other weapons? I’ve nothing special to note. Swords, battle-axes, war hammers, maces, crossbows. All the usual choices.”
“Tell me about the crossbow bolts,” Tarr persisted. “What have you been using on them?”
Torch dug deep below the layer of impotent fury to his inner well of sarcasm. “I find the contents of a slops jar produce the desired effect.”
“It cannot be that. In less than a day, over a third of my men have sickened from wounds that should not have felled them.”
Good. And wasn’t that the bitterest of ironies? His enemies were weakening and he was in no spot to take advantage of the situation.
From behind him, a rustle whispered through the hall. Light footsteps, unhampered by the clink of chains, unsettled the rushes on the floor. Calista. At least she’d missed his moment of humiliation.
He turned. The last time he’d seen her in this hall, she’d approached in the splendor of that queenly golden gown. Her eyes fixed on some point behind Hammerfell, she advanced dressed in simple linen, but no less lovely, with her hair floating about her like a dark cloud, long and loose.
In the next instant, he realized why she’d left it unbound. The sight had nearly distracted him from noting the white cloth about her throat. Bandaging. Rage surged through him anew at the reminder that someone had dared lay hands on her.
“Calista.”
She didn’t react. Her gaze didn’t even flicker in his direction. What in the name of all that was holy was going on?
“What has taken so long?” Hammerfell demanded of the guard.
“I had to seek her out, my lord,” came the reply. “I found her in the stillroom.”
“Did you require something of me, my lord?” Calista asked. “If you intend me to help with the wounded, I am needed elsewhere.”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Hammerfell slumped back in the lord’s seat and drummed his fingers against one of the armrests. “The prisoner would claim you as his wife. What say you?”
Calista stood tall and steady. Not even a waver in Torch’s direction. Once more, he bent his entire will to a single thought. Look at me. Acknowledge me. She was his last fraying thread of hope of swaying the Strongholders’ opinions to his cause.
“He cannot be my husband.”
“Liar!” The accusation erupted from deep in Torch’s chest. “You stood before an entire assembly. You stood before the gods and proclaimed me by my true name.” You gave yourself to me so sweetly. Was that a lie, as well?
“Others have attested to this.” Hammerfell’s gaze hardened. “Would you have me believe they are all telling falsehoods?”
Calista lifted her chin, her dark hair swinging about her face. “The marriage was not within the bounds of the king’s law. Not when I named the man falsely.”
“Why would you go through with a wedding to one such as this at all? When you were promised to the king himself?”
“What choice did I have with a sword all but at my throat?” She raised a hand to press her fingers to the bandaging about her neck. “Whatever vows I swore may be set aside, as they were given under duress.”
Every last word from her viper’s lips was a knife that flayed yet another bit of skin from Torch’s body. Hammerfell slicing him open from shoulder to groin with his own sword couldn’t be more painful. At least this farce of a hearing—this farce of a life—would be over.
How could she? How could she stand before the hall and deny him? And she was supposed to be his destiny.
Hammerfell rose. “The man who stands here before me, the brigand known as Torch, I declare him a baseborn pretender and an outlaw.”
This was it. Torch had nothing left to lose. Calista’s betrayal had obliterated whatever reason he’d had to guard his tongue. “Pretender? Outlaw? Lesser men than you have called me worse.”
“For the taking of Blackbriar Keep and the defilement of the king’s intended bride,” Hammerfell continued, “you shall be taken to Highspring Moor to await Magnus’s pleasure.”
“Oh, I can just imagine the sort of tender mercy he’d show me.”
Hammerfell raised a brow. “Indeed? And you claimed the kingship. Tell me, in his place, what manner of death would you choose for yourself?”
“If I told you, would you respect my wishes?”
“You are a renegade and deserve no respect. All I know is Magnus wants you alive, although perhaps I should send a foretaste of the gift I would present him. Your sword hand should do nicely.”
Calista screamed.
Hammerfell ignored her. At a snap of his fingers, two guards grappled Torch. He forced his body to go loose, his entire being a dead weight. Still they dragged him before the lord’s seat. His stomach filled with lead. His sword hand. Killing him outright would be kinder.
Calista turned her head away.
One of the guards yanked Torch’s right hand forward. Hammerfell already had Torch’s sword unsheathed. Flames glittered along its edges as he raised the blade.
Clang!
The sword-stroke vibrated through Torch’s entire being. A white-hot light obliterated all else.
Chapter 22
From somewhere far off, Torch heard a clatter. The sound echoed through his mind for a score of heartbeats. Little by little, his vision cleared to the rhythm of the throbbing in his wrist.
Gods, it
ached like an entire tribe of Avestari had galloped over it on their chargers.
Ached, but not the bright, hot pain of a clean slice.
He shook his head. His hand came into focus, cuffed by the iron shackle. He flexed his fingers to be certain. Yes, still attached to his body.
Impossible.
He snapped his gaze to Hammerfell. The justiciar’s entire arm twitched, useless, at his side. His face betrayed stunned shock before he masked the expression.
Torch’s sword lay in the rushes at Hammerfell’s feet, tendrils of smoke uncurling from the blade. As Torch watched, they disintegrated into the air.
“Take the prisoner below,” Hammerfell spat. “Give him a day to consider the concept of mercy while he still can.”
One of the guards shoved Torch, and he stumbled. His knees broke through the rushes to hit the cold flagstones beneath. A flowing length of cream-colored linen appeared in his field of vision. Calista, and here he was, sprawled at her feet like a supplicant.
Look at me.
A glance showed him naught but averted eyes. Rough hands hauled him to his feet and pushed him toward the corridor. Toward the dimly lit stone steps that led downward. Toward the overcrowded cell where Hawk was waiting, along with the rest of what remained of the Brotherhood.
“What did they want of you?” Hawk demanded the moment the door slammed shut.
“They wanted to discredit me before all the lords of the Strongholds.” Moreover, the justiciar had succeeded, thanks to his wife’s betrayal. Not even Torch’s sword had cooperated.
Or had it, when the moment counted? Torch curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist. He could no longer be certain.
Had the shackle about his wrist turned Hammerfell’s stroke aside or had some other force been at work? Something had blinded Torch in the instant of the blow. A spark raised by the striking of metal on metal, or the fabled lightning of his blade, loosed at last?
Death to the unworthy, but Hammerfell still lived, and he still possessed the sword. Who was to say his next strike wouldn’t land true?
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