Heir to the Raven (The Pierced Veil, #1)

by J. Wesley Bush

  “I’m going to be away a long while, Clapper,” he whispered through the bars. “Try to stay with us until I can get back here again.” He left kisses on the rough hide and then straightened up. “Time to face my father, though in truth I’d rather tangle with Clapperclaw.” He gave Mert a nervous smile and painfully made his way to the library.

  Upon reaching it, he found his father conferring with his bannermen around a familiar oblong table. His brother, Ardashir, sprawled in a gilded chair, mug in hand, while father’s hearthguard, Sir Reyhan Oakes, stood to the side. Lord Wicke was already there, as was Sir Chegatay Lockton, castellan of Nineacre.

  All except Selwyn and Wicke wore the darenga, a woven, knee-length wrap in which the extra fabric criss-crossed the chest and tucked into a belt. It was as old-fashioned as his father’s ideas. A cheetah was curled up near Father’s feet, snoring raspily. Mother had written that he was training one to assist with hunts.

  A timeworn map covered the table. Selwyn remembered well; it was made of heavy linen and painted with all the features of the March. History had marked it over the years, with portions of a forest painted over here or there and villages erased or added to the frontier beyond the Sanguine Cliffs. Pewter figures stood in for the larger garrisons.

  “Wicke, I’m sending a bird to Lord Hewland ordering half his men to your keep. We don’t yet know what Leax is about, but this river blockade has me nervous.”

  “Father,” Selwyn murmured, not wanting to interrupt.

  “Ah, the young hunter has returned.” Garzei Harlowe brushed a hand over the map. “Come to take a last look at your home? A knight of the Order is coming with the king and plans to spirit you away to Bulwark Isle after your dubbing.”

  Selwyn reddened as all faces in the room turned upon him. “You sound unhappy, Father,” he said, limping to the table. “I mean no disrespect by joining the Order. It will bring honor to the family.”

  His brother snorted a laugh, echoed faithfully by Sir Reyhan. “The Order has piss for honor, and the Knights-Scholastic are the most useless of the lot,” Ardashir said. “Everyone knows they spend more time buggering each other in those cloisters than they do reading.”

  There was a time when Ardashir frightened Selwyn, but that was before his time as a squire, and certainly before he faced the aksu-kal. “Why not discuss this in the practice yard, brother?” With his hobbled leg, Selwyn was sure to get a beating, but would mete out some pain as well.

  “Enough.” Father ended it with a word. “Your brother is crude, but that doesn’t make him wrong. Now sit down, boy. It’s obvious your leg troubles you.” He continued once Selwyn had complied. “My son, your motives bring honor to the family, but the Order you seek to join is dead.”

  “Alas, your father is correct,” Castellan Chegatay said, folding his massive, calloused hands on the table. He had begun as a serjeant, but valor earned him a knighthood during the Herring War. He was still a brute but flowered his speech in compensation. “I know little of history, ‘tis true, but you were born centuries too late. The Order you hope to serve died not on the battlefield but rotted from within.”

  The fresco behind Lord Wicke caught Selwyn’s eye, as it had countless times before. Knights of the Order of the Hidden Throne, armor gleaming and pennants flying, collided with the van of Emperor Orrick’s host. He knew the story well. It was the Order that broke Orrick that day and saved the Covenant lands. Their glory might have faded, but Selwyn knew it could be restored, along with so much else. “Even if what you say is true,” he said quietly, “I will try to redeem it.”

  Father’s smile was a bitter one. “The Order no longer protects Covenant lands. It guards its own caravans and fleet, which are as likely to traverse the Empire as not. And Ardashir is correct about the futility of the Knights-Scholastic, though we pray not about their predilections.”

  “This coming from a man who wants to return us to Jandaria’s barbaric past. I half think you’d prefer us worshiping Tengra-Nu!” Selwyn instantly wished he could claw back the words. The room fell silent, apart from Reyhan’s quiet whistle.

  “At least you have the courage to speak your thoughts, Selwyn, no matter how juvenile they might be.”

  “I don’t understand, Father. Why does my joining anger you so much?”

  “Because your place is here!” His voice turned steely. “I grow no younger and your surviving brother will need you. The Belgorshans are restive; Vyr harass our western border; and this new Emperor is wooing the Covenant lands with soft words.”

  “Your Grace,” Wicke said gently, putting aside his drink. “It could be argued that Emperor Dorian’s overtures are precisely why young Selwyn is needed among the Order. They are our chief defense against the Imperial arguments.”

  “Then let it be someone else!”

  Selwyn was used to his father’s explosive anger and kept from cringing at the shouted words. He wouldn’t buckle to him this time.

  Father rose abruptly to his feet. “Lands and title await you after your dubbing, Selwyn, as will a brother of the Order. Choose him or me, but there will be no second chances.” He strode from the room, the others following. Wicke gave Selwyn an encouraging smile on his way out. In a moment, only Ardashir and Reyhan remained.

  “You’ve hurt him,” Ardashir said, waving idly for Sir Reyhan to sit. “The old man is just too proud to say it.”

  “He’s always favored you,” Selwyn answered. “I’ll be forgotten within a fortnight.”

  “Not true, little brother. Father knows I’m a wastrel, like our poor Uncle Rupert, but tradition won’t allow him to replace me.” Selwyn was mute with surprise. It was perhaps the first time Ardashir had ever spoken to him seriously. “You were supposed to help maintain the family honor. Without you, I’ve only got Reyhan to keep me in line. Some protection, neh?”

  Trumpets sounded a flourish that rattled the glazed windows of the solar. “Must be the bloody king.” Reyhan stood scratched himself. “You lot will be wanted in the courtyard.”

  CHAPTER 8

  M irko Bowback was a patient man. Everyone said so. Steady as a plow horse, they would say, or calm as a frozen lake. He knew no other way to be. Seasons came and went. Children were born and died. Nobles took their share and more. Even God gave and then took it away. Maybe this truth came to him early because of his back, which curved like an overladen fruit tree. He could no more straighten it than stop the sun from going around the world. What could not be changed must be endured.

  Nevertheless, the scrap of land he worked was testing his patience. Each year, the headman parceled out strips for the families and each year his seemed to grow smaller and rockier. What did it matter if he had no wife or children to feed? He still had a stomach of his own to fill, and Lord Rotamir kept raising the taxes.

  Squatting on uneven legs, he wrapped fingers under yet another rock belched up by last winter’s frost. His hands were horny with callouses, yet a day of clearing rocks had left them raw and bloody. “Just one more and then we’ll rest,” he said for perhaps the hundredth time that day. The rock came free and he hefted it to a shoulder, turning to make the long, painful trek to the rock pile.

  “Bowback – riders approach!” his neighbor shouted from the next field. “Headman calls us to the square!”

  He reluctantly let the stone fall to the ground and brushed muddy hands on the wool of his trousers. Taking up his ax, a necessity in the wolf-ravaged land, he trudged back to the village, a cluster of round wooden huts in the middle of a trackless forest. His strip was far afield and bowed legs carried him slowly.

  By the time Mirko arrived, the other slaves had already knelt in the mud, foreheads flat to the earth. He was late. Lord Rotamir and two serjeants looked down on him from horseback. One of them had peasant features – Mirko remembered he was the crueler of the two.

  Lord Rotamir commanded something in a bored tone and the peasant serjeant dismounted and stomped through the crowd, boots kicking up mud. Mirko sighed, lo
wering his eyes and allowing the soldier to drag him forward. A knee jammed into the back of his leg and forced him to the ground. Soon his mouth was pressed to the earth, the rich black soil worming its way between his lips. He did not spit.

  The serjeant interpreted for the lord once more. “When Lord Rotamir visits your feculent privy of a village, your feet will hasten to him, or you will have no feet.” The lord must have given some signal then, for the serjeant reared back his boot and drove it into Mirko’s ribs. He curled up and rolled to his side, struggling to draw breath.

  “It weren’t his fault, my Lord. He’s a cripple,” Mirko heard Uncle Luka quaveringly protest.

  Lord Rotamir proclaimed something and smashed his mace into the bronze boss of his shield, the sound rolling across the square. The serjeant interpreted, “The next slave to speak out of turn loses his tongue.” A long pause followed, as if he were hoping someone might test him. “Now stand. Lord Rotamir wants to look at you all.”

  They stood to their feet and Mirko meekly slipped back into the crowd.

  After a long proclamation from the lord, the peasant serjeant said, “Priest-King Leax of Belgorsk, may God bless his reign, has called a levy. One man in eight shall take up what arms he has and come with us. One woman in twelve shall follow the camp, washing, cooking and providing necessary services.” The serjeant leered at one of the village women. “What he didn’t say, but you all know is true, is that if anyone complains, anyone resists, I’ll kick them to death. And then I’ll do for their family as well.”

  Gesturing with the mace, Lord Rotamir called out the strongest of the men and comeliest of the maidens. Lastly, he simpered and waved the mace mockingly toward Mirko.

  The serjeant laughed. “Welcome to the priest-king’s service, cripple.”

  The column of new recruits marched out an hour later with the sounds of lamentation in their ears. Along with the men and women, Rotamir had impressed mules and oxen into service, and they pulled behind them carts filled with the village’s stock of grain. Winter will be lean for the village this year, Mirko thought. Though I suppose they’ll have to feed the soldiers, if they want us able to fight.

  Mirko lagged at the back, struggling to keep pace with the column. Uncle Luka and Cousin Stepan took pity and stayed beside him. “Where are we marching?” asked Stepan.

  “Wherever they tell us,” Luka answered softly. “And for as long as they tell us.” Of the three, he was the only one to have fought before, serving under Priest-King Felix early in the Atamon Rebellion.

  “But is it a usurper? Or do we march against Jandaria? Could it be another rebellion?”

  Uncle Luka shook his head. “I don’t know, Son. The last peddler said Leax had subdued the hill clans before winter. Perhaps he was wrong?”

  “Be patient,” Mirko said, shifting the ax from one tilted shoulder to the other. “What else can we do?”

  CHAPTER 9

  H elaena rushed into line in the castle courtyard, pulling Larissa along beside her. With ancient knots twisted in her hair and a lifetime of grime under the fingernails, even Edine, a seasoned lady’s maid, had struggled to make the peasant girl presentable. A lesson on courtesy and the curtsy had taken time as well. The rest of the Harlowe family was already in place, waiting for the king. Ardashir gave her an amused look. “You’re late.”

  “Oh, shut it. You didn’t even bother combing your hair.”

  By then, the herald had already established protocol and several council officers had ridden by. King Randolf demanded to ride in on horseback, Helaena realized, despite knowing what an annoyance it is to bring all those horses over by ferry. He’s such a twat.

  Then she saw a tall man in fine armor and a gold-filigreed clamshell helm. A great sword angled across his back and his destrier was a beautiful chestnut stallion.

  A hand tugged Helaena’s sleeve. “Is that the king?” Larissa asked. “He looks like one from the songs!”

  Helaena laughed softly. “No, dear. That’s the king’s hearthguard, Sir Gladwin Ramsey. Though he does look the part.”

  The king himself came next and was much less impressive: frog-faced, stoop-shouldered, and anemic. The queen wasn’t with him. Helaena joyfully spotted the king’s only son, Lyle. The poor lad had inherited his father’s looks, but he was good-hearted and always up for a lark. Last came a handsome man with a beard forked in the manner of Sigga. Unlike the others, his robes were simple russet wool and belted with untanned leather. Larissa gasped beside her.

  “What is it, child?”

  “That man. There’s something frightening about him.”

  Helaena pitched her voice softly. “What do you see?”

  “Can’t say, but he’s different.”

  “I’ve heard the faietouched can often sense one another. That’s Tancred the Magus.”

  In a few moments, the two families faced one another on the courtyard, the rest of the castle looking on. “My liege,” Garzei Harlowe said, inclining his head along with the other men of the household. The ladies curtsied low, striving to keep their dresses and darengai from the muck.

  “Rise, Harlowe,” the king said, taking his forearm and pulling the duke up, though Helaena noticed it strained him. Prince Lyle first took Helaena’s hand and then swept her into an embrace.

  “It is a pleasure to see you, Lady Helaena,” he said with a grin.

  “Is it lady, now, Prince Lyle? I remember when you just called me dough-face. And if we’re using titles, call me bowmaid.”

  Lyle laughed easily. “I heard you’d taken up the bow, though doubtful for long. Word at court is that your father’s looking for a suitor. Though even with this grand castle, I can’t imagine he has a dowry big enough to sell you off.”

  Helaena punched him in the arm with middling strength, drawing a wince from Lyle and a horrified sound from Larissa.

  “An assault on the royal family is a crime against the Crown itself,” Tancred the Magus chided smoothly as he joined them.

  “Then I’m fortunate the headsman is not among your party,” Helaena bantered. “Besides, Lyle would come to my rescue.”

  The magus peered down at Larissa. “And who is this newcomer? A fosterling? I smell power within her.”

  Helaena placed a hand on the girl’s back to steady her. “Larissa of Far Ingarsby. We discovered her during a Vyr raid.”

  “She has strength.” He creased his lips in a smile. “I shall look forward to speaking with you, young miss.”

  “Yes, m-m’lord.”

  Magus watched the duke and king lead the procession into the castle. He leaned toward the girl confidingly, and Helaena heard him whisper, “I am no lord. As with you, I was born a peasant with shite between my toes.”

  The party filed into the duke’s hearing room. Already, courtiers were pulling down the Harlowe coat of arms and wrapping it in skins. The Royal Arms were hefted in its place as the king sat down on the high seat, which stood on a dais festooned with laurel wreaths and flowers. Father and Mother took their leave expeditiously – it was always awkward when a monarch held court in your own chamber, and besides, they despised the king.

  “His Majesty King Randolf of Jandaria,” the herald called out from his post beside the high seats. “This eminent Court is now convened. The king stands ready to hear petitions.”

  A host of merchants, petty nobles, and peasants had come for an audience, queueing in order of precedence. In the rear, Helaena saw a jester wearing motley sewn in the royal colors of Belgorsk and a coxcomb hood topped with a gold-painted crown.

  “What do we do now?” asked Larissa.

  “We stand and try to look interested.” Helaena took the girl by the shoulders and fixed her posture. “Don’t worry. We are only expected at court the first day. But it’s a fair long day.”

  The knights and nobles requested that their children serve at court or pleaded for a waiver from the year’s taxes due to one misfortune or another. Meanwhile, the merchants all sang a single tune. “Your
Majesty,” said one, his triple chin quivering beneath an oiled beard, “I entreat you to send an embassy to Belgorsk. River trade is the life’s blood of my family, and we are nearly bled white.” A Coasterman repeated the song when his turn came. “Sire, no trade means no duties for the Crown,” he explained nervously. “Can you not induce the priest-king to reopen the river?”

  The king replied to each of the merchants with hopeful words, though it was clear to Helaena that he had no real answers. Two more hours passed as peasants had their children blessed, only sons relieved of military service, or received coins from the royal almoner.

  Finally, only the fool remained. Helaena smiled at the sight of him, for he was an amusing little fellow, runty and round-bellied, but also strong and quick, she noted, as he tumbled and turned his way to the front of the room, somehow managing to keep the makeshift crown on his head. “My dear King Randolf, it is I, Priest-King Leax of Belgorsk! You invoked my name so many times today, I thought I should visit!” He flourished his mock scepter.

  Luckily for the fool, the king seemed amused. “And have you an answer for these good, honest merchants?”

  “I do, I do! But it is a sad tale.” His head drooped abjectly. “A wandering fool whispered to my wife and concubines about the virility of Jandari men.” Suddenly he sprang forward on to both hands, the scepter and crown clattering to the floor. Spreading his legs in the air, he balanced on one hand and cupped himself. “How could my shriveled manhood compete? What hope did my poor inchworm have?” Only the slightest of strain entered his voice. Helaena marveled at his balance. He sprang back to his feet and grinned. “So you can understand my plight! If I don’t bar the river, I’ll be left with naught but peasants and sheep as my consorts!”