Thinking of Maldiver’s older brother brought a memory to her. A story she’d heard once from Treivin. It had been during her betrothal, and Treivin had told it to her on a sunny day in Kastanus, sitting on the verandah of his father’s estate in Elderest with apple blossoms everywhere on the wind like summer snow. He had been handsome, tall and somewhat reckless, she remembered, like her Shelderim, who resembled him. They had been sitting alone, just the two of them, and she did not remember where Maldiver was. For a long time he had sat, as if reluctant to speak, and then he had looked her squarely in the eye. “Maldiver had a dog once.” He began. “A fine little pup, some kind of mix got off of father’s hunting bitch, and he was always playing with it. He must have been nine or ten at the time. One Marketday Maldiver came back from town with an expensive pair of tooled leather boots, and the dog had at them, ripping out the stitching and tearing great holes in the things. When father found out he wanted to put the dog out of the house, but Maldiver wouldn’t have it. He insisted the animal stay with him in his room.”
Treivin had looked at her intensely for a moment, then he spoke in a voice that was heavy and serious. “Elsorina, he strangled that pup. We found it in his bed the next day, and its neck was broken. Maldiver claimed he didn’t know what happened, but that when he awoke the dog was like that.”
“Why are you telling me this?” She’d asked, the lighthearted mood of the day ruined.
Treivin shrugged and tried to be nonchalant. “Just thought you should know, Elsorina. He loved that puppy, or he said he did. He says he loves you.”
It had been a warning, she realized, although at the time she had thought Treivin was just being rude and carrying tales, and that perhaps he was interested in her. She had been more offended than anything, which comes of being fifteen with a head full of dreams. Two years after that Treivin was dead, drowned in the river with Maldiver the only witness. Maldiver had wept at the funeral, blaming himself for not being a strong enough swimmer to save his brother. He had said he loved Treivin, too.
In his sleep Maldiver stirred, and Elsorina pressed herself into the sheets, willing herself to disappear.
Denjar Leetham woke with the sun, or what there was of it in the endless gloom that was winter over Mortentia City. He blinked twice, then thought of redemption.
The matter of Levin Askelyne still rankled. In twenty years of service to Maldiver D’Cadmouth he had never failed to make a kill, for it was a big part of his business. Maldiver had offered to make him a captain in his royal army, but Denjar knew that commanding soldiers in battle was no part of his skill. His skills were quite specific, and his value came from doing what he was best at, nothing else.
Today was a case in point. Maldiver’s hold on the kingdom of Mortentia was weaker than it should have been, largely due to the circumstances under which he had taken the throne. Denjar knew better than most what had been involved, and both he and Maldiver had known it was risky, but the opportunity presented by Falante’s love of all things military and the presence of Maldiver’s army in Mortentia had been too good to pass up. Such a confluence of events was unlikely to occur again for many years, and for a man like Maldiver, the gain was worth the risk.
That said, certain things would continue to unravel if allowed to run their natural course, and both Maldiver and Denjar had determined that they could not. The unfortunate death of the Duke of Dunwater had been an opportunity, for the man had two sons of age to replace him. The older son, Thyram, was a stubborn and independent man with a strong will, and could in time prove a rival to Maldiver. The second son was Beatil, who had fostered at Elderest and was properly trained to both tractability as well as court. Maldiver had sent a letter to the lesser lords of Dunwater in favor of Beatil, but they had defied him and confirmed Thyram to the position of duke. The imbeciles at Sixteen Saint’s Cathedral east of Meming had rushed to confirm the appointment, also in defiance of Maldiver’s wishes. That presented a test of the will of the new king. It was a problem.
Elsorina, Queen of Mortentia, presented problems of her own. Since the death of Falante D’Cadmouth she had been noticeably distant from her husband, and Denjar was aware that she more than suspected the king’s hand in the death of Falante. Thus far she had held her tongue, but a careless word from her in the wrong ear could lead to sedition. That was a problem.
The Diminios rebellion was a problem. The Knight Regent who governed that realm had not addressed the fact that several of his towns were in open rebellion against their rightful king. He had neither backed the rebels nor condemned them, and the town of Silver Run and the great ranching estates that lay about it had become an unofficial haven for rebels. Without word from Knight Regent D’Ellishelle, it would be unseemly for the king to march into Silver Run absent some provocation from the rebels. Additionally, the Silver Run rebels were gaining sympathy among the freemen and peasants of western Mortentia. That was a problem.
Today was the day for the solving of problems, or rather, it was the culmination of a sustained effort on Denjar’s part to solve them. Getting in with the rebels had been all too easy. Twenty two days earlier Denjar had allowed himself to be captured in Silver Run. He knew that his face was known, and he knew that people connected him to Maldiver, for they were occasionally seen together, but he doubted that anyone really knew what it was he did for the king. Getting captured had simply been a matter of riding into Silver Run and walking from tavern to tavern until he was recognized.
The town had been strange to him, for although the cattle were still being gathered and sold, even in winter, which was unusual, the king’s tax men had been expelled from the city along with the garrison. There had been nothing about the people to mark them as rebels, other than the fact that they were all armed. The few rag-tag patrols of drovers on cattle ponies had not stopped him or asked him his business, and it was a full day before he was recognized.
On the second day a sharp eyed old merchant looked at him twice and said, “I know this fella. He’s a king’s man!” The lazy and haphazard appearance of the town had disappeared in an instant, and Denjar within minutes had been surrounded by determined-looking men wielding every kind of weapon from rusty short swords to pole-axes. He was a blademaster, and had he been determined to do so, he suspected that he could have easily enough evaded them, but getting caught had been a part of his plan.
Upon his capture, the Diminios rebels had seemed to be at a loss as to what to do with him. They had bundled him up and taken him to a local ranch, and left him tied up under guard in a large barn heated by two dozen milk cows. He had marked the place in his mind. On the third day an impromptu court had convened, presided over by a grubby farmer with an Arker accent with an unkempt beard and piercing pale blue eyes.
“I be Bajar O’Arker.” The man had declared, sitting on an upturned bucket. “These fine folks say ye be of the king’s court, come a spying.” Bajar had picked up a pruning hook meaningfully. “We’ll have the truth out of ye, soon enough.”
Not wanting to lose any digits, Denjar had willingly confessed to being a spy, sent by the queen to assess the rebellion in Silver Run. It had been a calculated confession, for Denjar well knew that although Maldiver was almost universally mistrusted, Elsorina was a Weymore, and well-liked among the common people. Rebels are emotional creatures, Denjar decided, and he had several weary hours of them lecturing him on the king’s lies and their unwillingness to put up with any more of them. Denjar had grudgingly conceded the king’s dishonesty, but he was a queen’s man, and what was he to do but follow orders?
“Ah, but your queen, he treats her cruel, don’t he?” Bajar had demanded. “And ye forced to set by and permit her dishonor?”
“It’s politics.” Denjar had answered. “There’s naught to do but accept one’s station and get on with one’s life. If I could get her out from under his thumb I would, but that’s not my place and there’s no way.”
“Ah, but what if there were?” Bajar answered, and that had
been the beginning of it. Bajar was looking for an inside man to help with freeing not only the queen, but the whole kingdom. By nightfall Denjar had half way talked himself into assuming the role of a counter-spy when his soldiers came, as planned, to free him from the rebels.
“Open in the name of the king!” They had demanded, and Bajar and his three lackeys had drawn their pitiful short swords and prepared to die. Denjar had then put into effect what he thought was the best part of his plan.
“Cut me loose and give me my sword.” He had demanded of Bajar, but the man looked at him as if he were mad.
“Come on, man. There are at least six of them, and trained armsmen all. What have you got to lose?” After a moment’s hesitation the farmer had complied, freeing Denjar’s arms and handing him his long sword. “Now dowse the lights!” Denjar had ordered, and the farmer and his companions had blown out the three lamps illuminating the dairy barn. When the door finally burst open, Denjar had stood alone in the darkness, crouching and listening to the royal detachment as they entered, vaguely silhouetted against the dim moonlight beyond the door.
His first thrust caught the captain beneath the chin, before the man even knew Denjar was there. The captain had been carrying a torch, and it fell into the snow and hissed briefly before it went out. Then he had retreated into the deeper darkness of the great barn while the guardsmen stumbled after him. This was Denjar’s business, the business he was best at, and his sword sought them out one by one, finding vital killing points, even as their eyes adjusted to the dimness. While Denjar slew, one of the soldiers managed to get flint into a torch, and it was by the light of this torch that Denjar killed him, the last one, driving his sword through the man’s throat even as he recognized his commander in confusion.
Six dead bodies lay on the floor of the barn and the rebels came and relit the lamps. “By Lio!” Bajar had said. “You’ve kilt them all.”
Denjar had frowned grimly and sheathed his sword. “Aye. I guess you’ve made me into a rebel whether I wanted to be or not.”
It had been a spectacular introduction, and Denjar soon found himself being taken around Silver Run and more significantly out to the estates of the major families nearby, who had joined in the rebellion. The real strength of Diminios, such as it was, lay in these families and on their sprawling ranches, each of which was several thousand hides in area. Each family had at least a score of drovers, and many had over a hundred. The drovers were marvelous horsemen, and if not trained armsmen, were at least strong and determined, and good with ropes and whips and bows. Without proper leadership they would never be a proper army, but in the wide open spaces of Diminios they would be a formidable rebellion.
It had been Denjar’s task to determine who the ringleaders of this rebellion were, and in the ranching families he found them, but Bajar O’Arker had come up with the idea of poisoning the king, and numerous possibilities had opened in Denjar’s mind. A week ago he had returned to Mortentia City to assist in the rebel plot, after telling Maldiver everything. The plot would now serve the king’s purposes.
Maldiver opened his eyes first, like he always did upon waking, then he blinked and listened closely to the sounds around him. He could hear Elsorina breathing, and he could tell that she was awake, although she was feigning sleep. He took a deep breath and then rose all at once from the bed, erupting from it really, then he stood and looked at Elsorina, who was staring back at him. “Dress in your emerald gown, darling.” He ordered. “We have supper in Elderest, and the wool won’t crease too badly from the carriage. Remember to wear the silver necklace with the diamonds.”
“Good morning.” She replied with a patient sigh. “Shall I call for the hostler?”
“It had better already be done.” He answered tightly. “I should think the white and silver netting for your hair, the one with the opals. Also wear the leather boots with the heels, not your slippers. We want to remind them that we are travelling to see them, not the other way around.”
“Yes dear.” Her tone bordered on insolence, but today he would tolerate it, he decided. She was intelligent and could be willful, Elsorina, but she was obedient when pressed. Pressing her now would lead to balkiness later, so he estimated that it would be better to let her have her little moment. He stepped into his closet to get dressed, lighting a small candle.
Maldiver D’Cadmouth, King of Mortentia, the most powerful man in all of the known lands, stared back at him coldly from his mirror. Elsorina needed handmaids to get dressed, but Maldiver would suffer no one to see him unclothed other than his wife. Even as a youth he had refused to go swimming with the other boys, except for that one time. That one time when Treivin learned that his younger brother was a much better swimmer than anyone had thought, and not the least bit afraid of the water. He smiled grimly at the memory. He’d liked Treivin well enough, but he’d been in the way.
He chose an ermine overcoat and set it aside, putting a white satin blouse over his muscular shoulders and tucking it into red leather pants first. He preferred black, truth be told, but it was in his nature to disguise his preferences and his desires, even when it served no purpose to do so. He left the high crown on its stand by the door, for this was a social call and not court, and there was little point wearing the thing once he’d won it. The having of it was the important thing, not the wearing of it.
He decided that he looked good, and he put a slender golden filigree on his head to signify his rank. His shoulders were broad, but not overly so. His belly was tight and his legs were fit and strong. His teeth were clean and straight and his face solemn, if longish, and he did not understand why so many found him intimidating. He knew that he was, however, and he took full advantage of it. Unlike other men his age, he still had a full head of hair, and most of it was still dark, despite the fact that he did not color it. Yes, he nodded at himself. He made a fine king.
Downstairs was a light breakfast with a mopey-looking Berla looking on in a kind of desperate sadness. She ate her portion first, of course, for even as a Duke he’d used a taster. He did not imagine that his rivals would refuse to stoop to poison any more than he would. Thinking of his rivals made him frown, and he did not understand why both Elsorina and Berla turned pale when he did so. He had punished neither of them recently.
His spies had brought him news, and almost all of it bad. Admiral Gyfard Ismarins was lost at sea, along with the majority of his fleet, having been caught in a disastrous storm in the North Sea. Aelfric D’root remained at large with an army, having somehow managed to rid himself of the godsknights that were Maldiver’s only check on the man, and the king’s eye who was to deliver the warrant for his arrest had failed to return. Diminios was in rebellion, as were whatever portions of Northcraven remained out of Aulig hands, although reports from the other side of the Whitewood were sketchy at best and inconsistent at worst. Many of his couriers he suspected were faithless or merely told him what they believed he wanted to hear. Eleinel and Falante’s brat were alive, according to rumor, hiding out somewhere in Arker. The Baron of Arker’s written replies to Maldiver’s inquiries had been oblique and reluctant, and the man had never directly said whether he knew Eleinel’s whereabouts or not. To top things off, he had but two king’s eyes left in the eyrie, all others having flown away or been killed. No, things were not well in the Kingdom of Mortentia.
And he had rivals, this he knew. That Aelfric D’root, for one. Others may not remember the Black Duke’s curse, but Maldiver was no fool. Nor was he a stranger to vengeance. Eleinel, his cousin by marriage through the dead king, was apparently seeking to make alliances in the name of her son. In Diminios the people were rising against him, although he would soon put that to rights, and the Knight Regent was refusing to answer his missives. Doubtless the man would claim not to have received them, should the wind turn in the king’s favor and this rebellion be put down. Orr Duchy had a strong duke who, aside from being the king’s jailer, had little to do with happenings outside of his own strongholds, an
d Dunwater …
Dunwater was the usual mess that Dunwater always was. In Dunwater the duke and his family ruled with an iron fist, demanding obeisance from all of their subjects, and demanding regular displays of respect and loyalty from their king. The Dunwater men would serve, and serve brutally and well, but they demanded their due first. Brenwater and Pulflover would fall the way Dunwater and Elderest did, but to think of the Duke of Dunwater –whoever he was- as anything but a rival would be folly. Everywhere Maldiver looked he found rivals and rebels and stubborn thick necked fools unwilling to do their duty by their king.
He looked down at his plate and found that he’d lost his appetite.
The high wheeled carriage rattled and bumped over the slushy road beneath a gray and depressing sky. Elsorina clutched her furs tightly to her breast, for she was hardly ever warm these days, despite the small stove that was doing its noble best to heat the enclosed space. She sat on a fur blanket that sat upon a cushion that was laid over a thin mattress, but still every rock and rut and uneven space in the road jarred her to her fragile core. She felt increasingly fragile these days, the stress of maintaining the face of a queen seemed to have hollowed her out, until she was nothing but a rickety frame of bones holding together an increasingly frail flesh.
Three plump serving maids shared her carriage, and she did not know which one was her husband’s spy, but she knew that everything she said or did would be reported to him. Was it sweet-faced Neria, with her curly dark hair and her rosebud lips? Perhaps it was young Heriana the redhead with her stunning blue eyes and freckled cheeks. Or was stern-faced and serious Querla the one with whom her husband shared bed times and secrets? She closed her eyes and sighed. Probably he was sleeping with all three of them and getting breathless reports of her doings from each, then comparing notes.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 120
