The Dog of the North

by Tim Stretton

  Arren refrained from mentioning that the moon was at its smallest phase. Time enough to deal with the matter later.

  2

  Supper was a more convivial occasion than the last time Lord Thaume’s household had eaten together. ‘Welcome, one and all,’ said Thaume to the select group he had chosen to assemble around him for his first night back in Croad. On either side he had seated Lady Jilka and Oricien, who carried himself with greater confidence than six weeks earlier when they had departed for Emmen. Ranged around the table were Sir Langlan, Master Pinch, Master Guiles, Viator Sleech, Master Coppercake and, at the foot of the table, Siedra and Arren.

  ‘I have much to report,’ said Lord Thaume. ‘I have paid homage to King Jehan, as has Oricien, against the day when he rules Croad.’

  ‘What manner of man is Jehan, Father?’ asked Siedra.

  ‘He is in the prime of his life, perhaps thirty-five years of age. He is fair-spoken, pious without over-religiosity, and displays no overt vices. He desires peace with Gammerling, and while we were there he invited King Gundovald and his sons to visit Emmen at their pleasure.’

  Sir Langlan sniffed. ‘A milksop, then?’

  ‘He desires the good of his people. And he displayed no intention to invite either of the kings of Mettingloom to wait upon him. He will do well enough, I think.’

  ‘A good king considers the welfare of his people above glory,’ said Master Pinch. ‘The view is unfashionable, particularly among the gallant, but such a man should command our respect, if not the adulation of balladeers.’

  ‘I told him of our wars in the North,’ said Lord Thaume. ‘The King was much interested in your dimonetto, Pinch – as was young Prince Enguerran. You will find a ready welcome at the court whenever you require it.’

  Pinch assumed an expression half-smile, half-grimace. ‘The honour is one I neither merit nor desire. Thaumaturgy and princes do not mix. Much as I have valued your company, my lord, this world of affairs is not for me. These questions are all distractions from my study of the Unseen Realms.’

  ‘And how were you received at the court, my lord?’ asked Master Guiles.

  Lord Thaume smiled at some private amusement. ‘I was fortunate to arrive half a week before Lord High Viator Raugier, and was able to explain the matter of his expulsion without interruption or misdirection. By the time Raugier arrived His Puissance had formed his opinion, and Lord Raugier’s complaints fell on indifferent ears. The King has required Darrien to remain as a hostage until the question is officially settled, but the matter is a formality. I do not flatter myself if I say that the King formed a positive impression of our party. If I were minded to spend half the year at court, I might exert some influence.’

  Siedra spoke up. ‘Are our prospects enhanced, sir?’

  Lord Thaume stroked his chin. ‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose.’

  ‘Perhaps you will find it less necessary to conciliate Duke Panarre now that our standing is so high in Emmen?’

  ‘Duke Panarre remains my overlord; in addition, his troops are a week away in time of need, unlike the King over the mountains.’

  ‘Surely,’ continued Siedra, ‘you no longer need to pursue the idea of marriage into the Duke’s house with such enthusiasm. Are there no suitable matches at court?’

  Arren noticed that Siedra was not so interested in his own attractions tonight now that the court in Emmen beckoned.

  Lord Thaume said: ‘The idea of a match at court must be pursued. However, Oricien made such a favourable impression that it is he who shall be returning. Since Guigot is no longer available in my marriage plans, it remains expedient that you marry a connection of the Duke’s. Indeed, we may now be able to press for Lord Trevarre: I should like to see my grandson Duke of Lynnoc’

  Siedra’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am no more enthusiastic to marry Lord Trevarre than the unspeakable Dinarre. Do my wishes count for nothing?’

  ‘You have at last appreciated the truth. I naturally hope for every happiness in your marriage, but it would be in the nature of a bonus rather than the purpose of the match. Granted, Lord Trevarre tends to the effeminate at times, but I am assured he can father children. All else is froth.’

  Arren excused himself and slipped out to the privy, although his main aim was to see Eilla. On his way back he saw her in the corridor bringing dishes to Lord Thaume’s table.

  ‘I hope that is not yesterday’s fish,’ he said.

  Eilla, trim in her crisp white livery, shot Arren a look of incredulity. ‘Have you spoken to Siedra yet?’

  ‘Not as such.’

  ‘Then you have nothing to say to me.’ She bustled past into the dining room. Arren returned to his seat with a heavy tread.

  Siedra leaned over and whispered to him. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I have drunk half a flask of wine. Where do you think?’

  ‘I noticed you came in behind that Eilla, and she does not look in a good humour.’

  ‘Neither would you be if you had been running up and down from the kitchen all evening.’

  Siedra narrowed her eyes. ‘I have suggested before that it is unwise for you to associate with the servants. It lowers your cachet.’

  Eilla appeared on her round of the table with a flask of strong red Garganet wine. ‘More wine, Seigneur?’

  ‘No thank you, Eilla.’

  ‘My lady?’

  ‘I think I shall,’ said Siedra, holding out her goblet. As Eilla moved to pour the flask the highly polished silver slipped from her grasp and in an instant disgorged its contents all over Siedra’s honey-silk dress.

  ‘Oh! My lady!’ cried Eilla, with a quarter-glance at Arren. ‘How could I have been so clumsy!’

  Siedra sprang erect. ‘A cloth! Water!’

  Eilla dabbed at Siedra’s dress with a napkin, grinding the wine ever deeper into the fabric. Siedra’s face was the colour of the wine. Eilla would pay a high price for her prank.

  ‘Eilla, enough!’ said Siedra. She took a slow and deliberate look at Arren. ‘Come now, it was an accident. I am sure Mistress Eulalia knows a thousand methods for leaching a wine-stain. Do not fret yourself.’

  Arren looked on in astonishment. The dress was ruined, and everyone knew it. On past experience she would have demanded Eilla whipped and the cost of the dress deducted from her wages.

  Eilla too looked dumbstruck. She bowed tamely. ‘I am very sorry, my lady. I will be more careful in future.’ She walked from the room, her head down.

  ‘You must excuse me, Arren,’ Siedra said. ‘I will need to change my dress.’ She leaned forward so no one else could hear. ‘And when I have changed I will meet you in the Pleasaunce. I will be no longer than thirty minutes.’

  ‘You were surprisingly temperate with Eilla,’ said Arren.

  Siedra shrugged. ‘The girl is slow and clumsy. It is not her fault. Perhaps in due course she will be moved to less demanding duties, but it is wrong to berate her.’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ said Arren carefully.

  ‘I know, you are thinking of when I abused her last. Perhaps you are a good influence on me,’ she said with a surreptitious squeeze of his knee under the table.

  Arren sat and finished his wine thoughtfully. He listened as Oricien told the company about his experiences at court; Arren would not have recognized the diffident young man of a season back. He had hunted with Jehan’s son Prince Enguerran and danced with his daughter Princess Melissena, and gave favourable reports of many of the young ladies of the court: Ladies Misiana, Reute, Isola, Nolmina. He was growing into the next Lord of Croad.

  Arren still had a while before his rendezvous with Siedra. Her restraint when Eilla had spilled the wine had surprised him. Was Siedra perhaps capable of better than he had imagined? She had always been spoiled and indulged at every turn. For whatever reason, she seemed to regard his good opinion as important, and perhaps she was willing to improve her behaviour to secure it. Eilla had not shown to such advantage: the spillage had surely not been a
ccidental. It might be precipitate to break with Siedra when they met in the Pleasaunce. Did he not owe her the chance to prove that her conduct had improved?

  With a sigh he rose from his seat and set out for the Pleasaunce. Why could affairs not be more straightforward?

  His reverie as he walked along the corridor was interrupted by a soft voice. ‘Arren.’

  He turned to see Eilla half-hidden in the shadow of an alcove. The torch flickered and cast a grotesque distorted shadow.

  ‘I thought you were not talking to me.’

  ‘I assume you are going to meet Siedra.’

  ‘You have left me in no doubt that the matter is irrelevant to you.’

  ‘You are angry with me about the wine.’

  ‘It was not a sensible action.’

  Eilla shrugged. ‘I did not plan it. But she gave me such a vile look.’

  ‘You are imagining things. I saw no “look”.’

  Eilla shook her head. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You have to admit that her behaviour afterwards was all one could wish of a lady.’

  ‘Arren,’ she said in exasperation, her small hand bunching into a fist and hitting the wall. ‘Can you not see what she is about?’

  ‘I saw her the victim of a misconceived and damaging prank, responding with grace and dignity.’

  ‘You are a fool, Arren,’ she said in a thick voice. ‘If you cannot see she was feigning composure, your judgement is at fault.’

  ‘She is not used to governing her temper. Why should she feign now?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ she snapped. ‘To make her appear to advantage and me to disadvantage.’

  You managed that on your own.’

  Arren thought to see a glimmer of a tear in the flickering light of the candle. ‘When you spilled the wine,’ said Arren with a sudden certainty, ‘you were not just aiming to spoil her dress, were you?’

  Eilla set her mouth. ‘What do you mean?’

  You wanted her to abuse you, to strike you, to call for you to be whipped, didn’t you? You wanted to destroy her character in my eyes and earn my sympathy for yourself.’

  Any tears in Eilla’s eyes were gone now. Her voice was flat yet somehow throbbed with emotion. ‘Why do you see through my schemes so easily and yet see no wrong in Siedra? She is far more manipulative than I.’

  ‘Can you not trust the strength of my regard for you, Eilla? You do not need to resort to scheme and plot to recruit my sympathy.’

  Eilla’s face curled into a harsh smile. ‘Do I not? You seem to find great difficulty in breaking with Siedra. You should not blame me for presenting the facts in a way which illustrates her character.’

  ‘It may be that you have done that, Eilla; but not in the way you have imagined. If you will excuse me, I do not wish to keep Siedra waiting.’

  He turned on his heel and strode off towards the Pleasaunce. In the background he could hear Eilla’s sobs which she could no longer contain.

  3

  The sliver of moon was high as Arren stepped into the Pleasaunce. Under the benevolent canopy of the nottar tree stood Siedra, her honey-silk dress replaced by one of deep burgundy. He looked around to make sure that no one else was around: he was all too aware of how easy it was to be overheard in the gardens.

  Siedra showed no such concern and met him with a melting embrace. ‘I thought you were not coming.’

  ‘I could not get away,’ said Arren. ‘Oricien was expanding on his experiences at court.’

  ‘Pah! He has been away for a month and he thinks he is the King’s boon companion. “Prince Enguerran this”, “Princess Melissena that”. He is still a man of Croad.’

  Arren gave her a surprised glance. ‘If he stands well at court we all profit. He expands your prospects as much as his own.’

  ‘Hah! My prospects are expanded from Dinarre to Tre-varre.’

  ‘Siedra, this is fruitless. Besides, you are yet young to marry.’

  ‘I am sixteen, and well developed. I will be married within the year.’

  Arren knew this for the truth, and he declined to insult either of them by denying it.

  ‘Have you no false comfort to offer?’ she said. ‘You bear the matter with indifference.’

  Arren shrugged. ‘It is pointless to fight what cannot be changed.’

  Siedra shook her head ruefully. ‘I do not know if you are as stolid as a stone, or you have Master Pinch’s grand perspective. Perhaps it is all one.’

  ‘I know you are unhappy. It hurts me to see it.’

  ‘Dear Arren – you at least I can rely on. Come, let us forget the future.’ She took his hand and led him deeper into the trees. Arren thought of Eilla: he should not be doing this, and he had already resolved not to. Then he remembered the incident with the wine, and Eilla berating him afterwards. She would have to take care of herself; he could not be responsible for every injustice in the world.

  4

  Arren was woken by the first glimmers of sunlight infiltrating through the leaves. By his side Siedra continued to sleep. He levered himself up onto an elbow. This was insanity: to be caught in this situation by anyone at all would mean the information proceeding instantly to Lord Thaume. Arren’s certain knowledge faltered at that point: Thaume would be enraged, and he was a man who imposed justice in the heat of the moment. Hanging, gelding, exile: it was difficult to imagine the penalty falling outside that range. Siedra’s punishment had already been decreed: marriage to the man of her father’s choice. In a sense, she had no more to lose; indeed, the more wantonly she behaved, the greater her chances of being considered unsuitable for a political marriage. Lady Cerisa’s history lessons had more than once involved wellborn young ladies who had forfeited the respect of their husbands through wantonness. These had been intended as cautionary tales, but in the circumstances Siedra might be taking them as exemplars.

  Beside him on the ground she stirred and looked up at him with a smile. ‘After exercise, sleep,’ she said with a glint in her eyes.

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘I am governed by my impulses, not the hourglass.’

  ‘You will not say that if your father stumbles over us at his morning constitutional.’

  She waved a hand in dismissal. ‘He never walks in the Pleasaunce in the morning. Besides, does the risk not set the heart beating?’

  Arren sat up abruptly. ‘Not in any way I wish to encourage.’

  ‘I took you for a passionate gallant. It seems I may have been mistaken,’ she said with a studied curl of the lip.

  ‘This is futile, Siedra. The whole notion of our intimacy is a mistake.’

  She flushed and stood up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have been uneasy from the outset,’ he said. ‘It is rash, foolish, insane: it cannot continue.’

  ‘Can you deny your feelings for me?’ she said, her cheeks flushed.

  ‘There are no feelings,’ said Arren through gritted teeth. ‘I have been flattered and captivated, but I can own no deeper feelings.’

  ‘It is that little bitch! Did you not see how she tried to humiliate me last night? She is desperate to turn you against me.’

  ‘It is nothing to do with Eilla,’ said Arren in as level a tone as he could muster.

  ‘You cannot refute her jealousy of me. She is bitter at the constriction of her prospects, and she cannot bear to see you with anyone else.’

  ‘The description would appear to fit you at least as well as her,’ said Arren.

  She slapped at him, and although the blow was obvious and easy to avoid, Arren let it take him on the cheek.

  ‘Does that make you feel better?’

  ‘You have not heard the last of this, Arren – neither you nor that trollop. You will live to regret the day you spurned Lady Siedra.’

  She spun on her heel and ran from the glade. Arren watched her go with foreboding.

  ‘Arren!’

  In alarm he turned to find the voice. ‘Over here.’

 
; It was Oricien. Had he heard the scene in the glade?

  ‘I have scarcely seen you since our return,’ he said. ‘There is much I would tell you about Emmen. You must return with me.’

  ‘Would your father spare me?’

  ‘The court greatly respects martial prowess. You will soon become a great favourite. That alone will be enough to gain my father’s support. Besides, who knows when your father will return? The King may even choose to keep Darrien with him permanently.’

  ‘When do you return to court?’

  Oricien shrugged. ‘A month, two months. And the ladies, Arren, you would not credit the loveliness! Even the ladies in waiting carry themselves like princesses. We had a tourney and I wore the favour of Lady Isola.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘The daughter of some lord, Sey, I think. A handsome girl, if a touch haughty.’

  ‘Do I sense a match?’

  ‘She is too young for marriage. In truth, I preferred Lady Helisette, but the choice will not be mine. Come, let us take some breakfast.’

  Oricien put his arm around Arren’s shoulder and they walked back towards the castle. Arren wondered again about Oricien’s access of confidence. Perhaps it was down to the absence of Guigot, a disconcerting presence and always a challenge to the legitimacy of Thaume’s rule. Still, the idea of a sojourn in Emmen had much to commend it, not least distance from Siedra.

  ‘Good morning, Master Pinch,’ said Arren as they met the thaumaturge approaching the castle. ‘Would you care to join us for breakfast?’

  ‘I thank you, no, Seigneur Arren. I find it bloats me for the day and distracts the mind from its studies. I had hoped for a word in private with you.’

  Arren raised his eyebrows. ‘I am always happy to oblige you, sir.’

  ‘Good. Perhaps we will repair to my workroom.’

  Oricien continued towards the dining room and Arren followed Pinch up a narrow writhing staircase to his room at the top of the tower. The space was not large and every available inch was crammed with retorts, basins, books, with a small bed wedged into one corner. The thaumaturge clearly did not put a premium on luxury.

  ‘Sit down, if you can find a space, yes, yes, the bed will be perfectly satisfactory.’