by J. V. Jones
Snow two hands deep covered their path. It shifted with crafty precision with every bluster of air. As a result, the way was treacherous. The foreguard had already lost one horse to lameness. The unfortunate creature had misstepped by only an arm's length, but it was enough for it to find itself in a deep gully masquerading as a benign stretch of snow. They had slaughtered the gelding where it fell.
They were now only a week away from Bren. Yesterday they had crossed the River Emm. There was not a man in the party who hadn't sighed in relief upon traversing the mighty river. Not only was it a great danger in itself, but more importantly, it marked the end of Halcus territory. The company had thought themselves lucky to have successfully traveled through the lands of the enemy for ten days yet remain undetected and unchallenged. Baralis knew differently.
The idea of using his contacts with the Halcus to sabotage the party and slaughter Maybor had been tempting. There was nothing Baralis wanted more than the death of the vain and swaggering lord. It was just too risky, though. A raid on their party could easily get out of hand. He, himself, might be endangered. No, it was better not to chance his own safety. There were other less hazardous ways to rid himself of Maybor.
The lord of the Eastlands had to be eliminated: it was a fact beyond questioning. Baralis would not tolerate any interference with his plans in Bren. The betrothal negotiations would take subtlety and cunning-two qualities that Maybor was sadly lacking in. More than that, the man was a threat: not just a physical threat-though Baralis did not doubt that his own assassination was never far from the great lord's thoughts but also a threat to the whole betrothal. Maybor had wanted his daughter to marry Prince Kylock. His failure to secure such a union had embittered him against the new choice for bride.
Baralis scanned the column of men, searching. Near the front, astride a magnificent stallion, he spied the object of his thoughts. Extravagantly robed in scarlet and silver was the lord himself. Even the way Maybor sat his horse told of his over-bloated sense of self-importance. Baralis' lip curled into well-worn lines of contempt at the very sight of him.
He simply could not allow Maybor to reach Bren alive. As king's envoy, the man was actually superior to him! The queen had pulled a dirty trick with that particular appointment. He, king's chancellor, the very person who was instrumental in bringing about the match between Prince Kylock and Catherine, should have had preeminence in Bren. Instead the queen had appointed him prince's envoy, and in doing so had made him subservient to Maybor.
He could not and would not endure such an indignity. The duke of Bren and his fair daughter were his concern. Maybor had no business bringing his pot to this fire. Baralis was aware of the politics of both appointments, but the queen would find all her cleverness unrewarded when news of Maybor's demise reached the kingdoms.
There was no doubt about it. Today, this chill and frosty noon, with the north wind blowing like a siren from the abyss, Maybor would meet his death.
Melli knew better than to open the shuttered window. There was a gale coming, and the scant stretch of wood was the only thing between them and its ravages. As it was she wasn't sure the latch would hold. Still, she suspected it might-she had always been lucky that way. The famous Maybor luck had served her family well through the centuries. Or more accurately, it had served the Maybor men well, as they seemed to drain all the luck from their women.
Not her, though. She was the first female of her family to be endowed with that most capricious of gifts.
Melli put her eye to the knot hole and peered out onto the northern plains of Halcus. Almost dazzled by the brilliance of the snow, it took her a moment before she could discern any details of the land. The wind had picked up since she'd last looked and was carrying the snow in its thrall. There was little to be seen: white land against white sky. The snowy expanse was probably grazing pasture in the spring, but for now it was laid out defenseless for winter to take its toll.
The bite of the cold grew too much for her eyes and Melli withdrew her gaze inward. With a scrap of dirty oilcloth she plugged the knot hole. Turning, she caught Jack looking at her, and for some reason her face flushed. Almost against her will, her hand smoothed her hair. It was foolish, she thought, that after being away from the court and its customs for so long she still had the instincts of a court beauty. The women of Castle Harvell had so many rules to live by: rules of conduct, rules of dress, rules of form. Now that Melli had distanced herself from the great court, she realized all the rules could be summed up in one: a woman must at all times strive to please a man.
Even now, after experiencing things that a court beauty could only guess at, Melli found herself falling into the old habits of femininity, most particularly the habit of wanting to look nice for a man.
She smiled at her own folly. Jack, catching the mood of her smile, grinned in response. His keen and' handsome face, made all the more appealing by his winter color, caused Melli to feel unaccountably happy. Suddenly she was laughing: bright and high and merry as a tinker. Then Jack joined in. They stood at opposite ends of the small but that had once been a chicken coop and laughed with each other.
She didn't know why Jack laughed, didn't even know why she herself laughed, she only knew it felt good to do so. And for so long now there had been so little that felt good.
The weather had been against them from the start. Once they crossed into Halcus territory it had become even worse. They had no knowledge of the land and had quickly lost their bearings. That, together with the necessity of changing their course whenever they spotted another human being, had caused them to lose their way. Melli had read tales in her childhood of people taking long journeys guided only by the sun and the stars, but the reality was much different. What the tales failed to tell was that in winter both the sun and the stars didn't put in an appearance for weeks on end. In the daytime the sky was pale and filled with cloud, in the nighttime the sky was dark and filled with cloud.
The result was that they had little idea of where they lay in relation to Bren and Annis. The only thing they knew for sure was that they were still somewhere in Halcus. The fact that they were still in the lands of the enemy had been proven only two days back.
The weather had been getting progressively worse, and Melli had noticed that Jack was still having problems with his injured shoulder. Oh, he tried to hide it, men always did things like that, both in tales and reality. He had developed the habit of always slinging his pack over his left shoulder, thereby keeping the strain from his right. Knee-deep in snow they walked, the wind robbing them of what little warmth their clothes could muster. Eventually they came upon a derelict farmhouse. The farmer had long since left, and for good reason: the place had been burnt to the timbers, leaving only a snow-covered ruin.
A storm was threatening. Dark clouds gathered on the horizon and the wind wolfed at their heels. Weary and bonecold, their spirits soared when behind a clump of bushes they discovered the chicken coop. Located some distance from the farmhouse, the coop had stayed clear of any inflammatory sparks.
Melli knew there would be trouble when the door failed to give and the strain of a latch could clearly be heard within. No door latched itself. Someone else had taken refuge in the coop. Jack's eyes met hers. She could tell he was sizing up just how much she needed shelter. Without cover, the coming storm might be their last. She shook her head slightly: better to walk away. The latched door meant people, and people meant danger. Jack looked at her a second longer, registering her warning, and then turned his gaze to the horizon. The storm lay poised to strike like a predator.
With a sudden, violent gesture, he kicked down the door. The latch gave way. The door collapsed backward, its top hinge failing. In the coop were two men, knives drawn.
The first thing Melli felt was Jack's arm slamming into her chest, pushing her back out of harm's way. She looked up from the snow in time to marvel at how quickly he drew his blade. A pig farmer's blade. Melli could detect the sharp, loamy smell of ale. The two m
en had been drinking. They moved apart warily, seeking to flank Jack. Jack stepped back from the threshold. Even to Melli's untutored eye it seemed like a smart move. When the men attacked now, they would be forced to come through the doorway one at a time.
The first man came forward. Knife before him, he slashed wildly at the air. Jack fell upon him. It was the only way to describe it. Melli felt she was seeing him for the first time: he was wild with fury. What he lacked in skill, he made up for in rage. It seemed to Melli that Jack was fighting much more than the man beneath him. In the struggle--which the stranger was destined to lose-Jack was fighting against fate and circumstance and even perhaps himself. Every vicious blow was a strike against something less substantial, yet more threatening than his opponent.
The second man moved forward. Melli screamed a warning. "Jack! Look out! He's behind you." He swung around and the man, probably scared at what he saw in Jack's face, fled. He ran awkwardly through the thick snow, leaving deep pits where his feet had stepped.
The first man was dead: a pig-knife to the gut. Jack stood up. He would not look at her. He'd stumbled into the but and she'd followed, carefully skirting the body and the blood.
Neither had mentioned it since. Melli's thoughts were another matter. Jack was growing more withdrawn. He was as considerate as ever, yet there was something within him that could quickly turn and show an edge. The Halcus soldier had seen the sharpness of it. In a way, Melli was grateful the man had been killed by a knife; the alternative was worse. Jack had a greater potential for destruction within him than an armory of blades.
Melli was secretly intrigued by the thought of sorcery. Oh, she'd been taught as a child that it was evil, and that it was only practiced by those close with the devil. Her father flatly refused to believe in it, saying it was a thing out of legend like dragons and fairies, but she'd heard tales here and there. Tales that told of how at one time, sorcery was common in the Known Lands, and that people who used it were neither good nor bad. Surely Jack was proof of this?
If anything, since she'd witnessed his power the day they'd escaped from the mercenaries, she found herself more attracted to him. Before he had been almost a boy: unsure of himself and awkward, with long legs and long hair. The power he'd drawn seemed to fill him out, like fluid poured into a waterskin. His presence was more compelling, his body more his own. He was maturing fast, and sorcery, with all its accompanying hearsay and heresy, endowed him with an aura that Melli found hard to resist.
Jack had his weaknesses, though. Melli worried in case the bitterness she had glimpsed in his attack upon the Halcus soldier might settle and form part of the man.
Suddenly Melli didn't feel like laughing anymore. She resisted the urge to unplug the knot hole and check the horizon one more time. They had paid dearly for this chicken coop, and there might yet be an even higher price to pay.
As if reading her thoughts, Jack spoke to comfort her. "Don't worry. No one will come," he said. "The soldier can't have gone far, and even if he made it to a village, no one is about to go chasing the enemy in this weather."
It was her fault. If she hadn't spoken up in warning, the man would never have known where they came from. Yet she had, and the sound of the lilting accent of the Four Kingdoms had been clearly heard. If she had only kept silent, the man might have mistaken them for his own. He would, of course, have been no less pleased about having his shelter and his companion taken from him. But such incidents were all too common in both countries, and it might have gone overlooked. Until she spoke.
Now the man who had escaped across the snowy field knew they were from the kingdoms. If he were to make it to a village, he could bring whatever forces were at hand down upon them with just two words: "The enemy."
The Halcus hated the Four Kingdoms with the deep hate that only comes with closeness. Neighbors they had been for centuries, but everyone knows it's one's neighbors one despises the most. The war had raged bitterly for five years now; the same war over the same river that had been fought countless times before. More blood than water flowed along the River Nestor's bitterly disputed banks. The kingdoms had the advantage at the moment: a fact that served to make the Halcus hate them all the more.
"He might not have recognized your accent. You only said a few words." Jack took three strides across the coop and was beside her.
Melli shook her head gently and offered her hand. He took it and they stood side by side, and listened to the sound of the advancing storm. They were trapped here; fleeing under these conditions would surely bring a more certain death than staying put and hoping no one would come. As long as the storm raged, they would be safe. Only fools and the love-sick dared to venture out in a blizzard.
Her hand rested in his. There was no pressure in his touch, but part of her wished that there was. Inexplicably, her thoughts turned toward the king's chancellor, Lord Baralis.
And then, as she realized the common thread between the past and the present, she withdrew her hand from Jack's. It was the touch; a touch remembered-many weeks back now -a touch that thrilled and repulsed in one. The memory of Baralis' hand upon her spine. Curious how the mind weaves its associations, sometimes weaving with unlooked-for irony. Two men, both with more than muscle to lend them strength.
Melli wondered if she had offended Jack by withdrawing her hand. She couldn't tell. He was so difficult to read, and the time they'd spent together had only made him more so. She couldn't begin to guess what he thought of her. That he cared for her safety was the only thing she knew for certain. The force with which he had pushed her away from the two men was proof of that.
Still, what did he think of her? A court lady, daughter of Lord Maybor. A noblewoman standing next to a baker's apprentice.
Sometimes Jack was tormented in his sleep. With eyes closed and face slick with sweat, he would toss restlessly on his bedroll, calling words she seldom caught the meaning of.
Just over two weeks back, within the shelter of an evergreen wood, he'd had his worst night of all.
Melli had awoken, she knew not why. It was one of those rare nights when the wind had ceased and the cold stopped biting. Instinctively she looked over to Jack. She could tell right away he was having a nightmare. His cheeks were hollow and the tendons on his neck were raised and taut. He became agitated, pushing his cloak and blanket from his body. "No!" he murmured. "No."
Melli sat up, deciding she would go over and wake him. Before she could stand, a chilling sound broke the silence of the wood.
"Stop!" cried Jack.
With that cry, the nature of the night and the universe seemed to change. It became more vivid, more intimate, and then more terrible. The torment and the sense of urgency conveyed in that one word made Melli's blood run cold. Jack was silent once more and drifted into a more restful sleep. No such sleep for her that night. The moonlight had withdrawn upon Jack's call and now came the darkness. Melli lay awake through the artificial stillness of the night, afraid that if she fell asleep and then woke in the morning, the world might have changed whilst she slept.
She shuddered and wrapped her cloak closer. Jack was back in his corner, slicing the wet bark from the logs. The but was too small to have a fire, and with the shutters closed there would be no ventilation, but he prepared one anyway. He didn't like to be idle.
Melli unplugged the knot hole for the tenth time that day. She told herself it was to check on the progress of the storm. But the storm was coming from the east, and Melli's gaze was to the west. Almost blinded by the whiteness, Melli searched for movement from the direction where the second man had headed.
Tavalisk lifted the cloth from the cheese and inhaled deeply. Perfect. Amateurs might first check the look of the cheese, seeing if the blue veining was substantial but still delicate. He knew better. It was the smell that told one all one needed to know. Blue cheese should have no mincing, milk-maid odor. No, this most regal of cheeses should smell like a king. Preferably a dead one. Unfortunately not everyone appreciated the sme
ll of delicate decay wrought by the millions of spores that burrowed their way through the virgin cheese.
Yes, mused the archbishop, the smell was everything. Sharp, tantalizing, challenging, never subtle. It should rise to one's nostrils like a whip to the back: unwanted at first, and then, as one grows accustomed to its particular pleasures, welcomed for all the delights it could bestow.
Tavalisk was a surgeon at his table as he cut into the cheese. With his little silver knife he freed himself a sizable wedge. Once its rind was breached the odor from the cheese became even more intense. It was almost dizzying. The archbishop was, at such times, as close to religious ecstasy as he was ever likely to get.
A knock sounded upon the door.
"Enter, Gamil." Tavalisk now found that he could tell which of his various aides were awaiting his pleasure just by the sound of their knocking. Needless to say, Gamil had the most annoying knock of all: timid and impatient in one.
"Good day to Your Eminence," offered Gamil, a little less humbly than usual.
"What news this day, Gamil?" Tavalisk did not deign to turn from his cheese.
"Your Eminence will be most interested in the news I bring. Most interested, indeed."
"Gamil, your job is merely to keep me informed. My job is to decide what is interesting." Tavalisk raised the crumbly cheese to his mouth. The sour taste of the mold met his palette. "Come now, Gamil, out with it. Stop sulking like a maiden with no new dress to wear at the dance."
"Well, Your Eminence, do you remember the knight?"
"What night? Was it moonlit or overcast?" The archbishop was beginning to enjoy himself.
"No, Your Eminence. The knight of Valdis, Tawl."
"Oh, you mean the knight. Why didn't you say so in the first place? Of course I remember the knight. Handsome chap. No liking for the whip, though, if I remember correctly." Tavalisk was contemplating feeding his cat some of the cheese.
