The Horse Lord (The Book of Years Series 1)

by Peter Morwood

  “Why not?”

  “Distance. At best you’d raise a storm over Erdhaven, at worst the magic would be overextended. When it snapped back here it would flatten this tower. All you can do is form a plague-sending, and that’s too slow for this game.”

  “Game?” Duergar’s voice went shrill with outrage. “So this is a game?”

  “Of course it is, and a most stimulating one. You Imperials treat everything too seriously. What will Talvalin do now, eh?”

  “I have no idea.” Duergar said, turning sulky again.

  “After going to a sea-port, after risking his neck to earn money, you still have no idea? Not even speculation about plans to take a ship somewhere? I suggest, Duergar Vathach, you make yourself useful and find out. Now I, I intend to play my turn, and I intend to watch it happen.”

  “At sea? After mocking me for forgetting about distance?”

  “At sea,” repeated Kalarr. “But not with a spell. With this.” He dipped one hand into his belt-pouch and threw an object at Duergar that fluttered round his head on silent wings. When the Drusalan got a close look he gasped in disgust because it was, literally, a flying eye: an eyeball the size of an apple, bloodshot across the white with tendrils of muscle driving mothlike wings. The thing circled him like a repellent insect, then dived back into Kalarr’s pouch like a swallow entering its nest. “I’ll send it to Erdhaven at first light tomorrow.”

  “Why not now, tonight?”

  Kalarr smiled, with a rare flash of real amusement. “I have my reasons,” he said. “And after dark, they usually involve owls.”

  *

  King Rynert’s presence in Erdhaven was a well-guarded secret, and nothing to do with enjoying the Spring Festival. Besides Dewan’s spies within the town, two full regiments of Guards were encamped outside it after a training march.

  Just in case.

  Any ruler with sense kept a close eye on kailinin gathered for the first time after winter, and not just because of private quarrels. For months there had been little to burn off their energy and too much time to brood on real or imagined slights, or even how they might rule Alba to their own advantage. All owed allegiance to the man enthroned in Cerdor, but it was the last and sometimes the least aspect of their Eskorrethen oath. First loyalty went to the clan-lords who gave them land, food on their tables, clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads. If those clan-lords grew ambitious, their kailinin would support that ambition.

  The king was equally concerned by this talk of Kalarr cu Ruruc. Sophisticated and cynical though he was, Rynert had never adopted the disbelief so fashionable among his lords. A wasting disease in childhood had left his body too frail for a warrior, so instead he strengthened his mind. He read, studied with tutors, absorbed knowledge wherever he could find it, learning both military and political strategy, and became a king who needed no strong arm to rule well. Rynert was all too aware of the power brought by sorcery. It soiled the soul like black pitch, and made cu Ruruc’s intentions more frightening than they were already.

  Despite its luxury and a king under its roof , this town house in Erdhaven was just the home of a wealthy merchant who granted it to important visitors in hope of future favour. The servants and the guards were male, with few women at all and only one of high-clan rank: Dewan ar Korentin’s Alban wife. She had left Vreijaur when he did, and it surprised Aldric to find a lady of quality near somewhere with even the slightest risk of unrest. She was a wife like Haranil’s, the mother Aldric had never known, who would walk side by side with their husbands down a firedrake’s throat and help them kick the beast to death from inside.

  The Spring Festival at Erdhaven was a famous entertainment, attracting merchants and traders from Cerenau, Prytenon and all over Southern Alba, while trustworthy kailinin showed off their horsemanship and skill to admiring eyes. While those eyes looked elsewhere, a ship with cargo needing Rynert’s personal seal could sail unnoticed. As one was about to do.

  “When does it leave port?” asked Rynert.

  “A day, Lord King,” said Dewan. “Two at most.”

  “Good. Your countryman Captain Skawmour is as reliable as always.”

  Aldric had been paying little attention to the exchanges between king and Guard-Captain, full of people he had never heard of and business not his concern. But this latest name sent a flicker across Dewan ar Korentin’s face, as small and quick as the shadow of a bird’s wing. Uncertainty? Unease? Aldric didn’t know. He did know he would never have seen it if he hadn’t been looking in the right direction at the right time, and that Rynert hadn’t seen it at all.

  “Not Skawmour this time, Lord King. He’ll be attending to—” Dewan made a swift substitution, “—other duties this week. This ship is En Sohra. Hervits Barrankal is master.”

  “The Elherran with the impressive beard? Another good man. And you, Aldric-an, will be on board. With your companion, of course. I despise the Drusalans, though in some matters they may be right. Their prohibition of the Art Magic, for one. Until then, the saying is meet a weapon with its match. Your foster-father Gemmel is aiding you, but by your Honour you are oathbound to aid me. Master Barrankal’s cargo isn’t urgent, so he can make a small diversion on your – our – behalf.” Rynert rose to go and the others rose too, but then he paused. “Dewan, pass command of the Guard to your adjutant.”

  “Lord King?”

  “You will accompany these young people.” Rynert’s smile made Aldric think of a razor wrapped in fine velvet. “To ensure Master Gemmel’s fosterling returns here, not somewhere else. My apologies to your wife. Good evening.” The door clicked shut behind him.

  “Ah…” Ar Korentin released a held-in breath through his teeth, “Lyseun won’t like this. And since you’re the cause of it, she won’t like you either.” He shook his head as if dismissing a familiar problem. “How often do you practice taiken?”

  “Two hours daily. One in the morning, one at—”

  “To the exclusion of all else. I’ve got two days to sharpen up your archery, kailin Talvalin, because that exhibition today wasn’t worth a damn in combat. Follow me.”

  Another bloody expert, thought Aldric. Something I can do without.

  Dewan’s unsmiling wife could have done without him. Lyseun ar Korentin was handsome rather than beautiful, with the porcelain-pale complexion and the attitude of a highborn Alban lady. She dismissed Kyrin’s foreign accent and tanned skin with the merest scornful glance, but Aldric got a stare of real dislike.

  This eijo with the cropped hair was just another in the endless series of armoured men who came with various reasons to take her husband from her side and into harm’s way. Lyseun hated every one of them, for she could foresee a day when only the armoured man returned, made insincere noises of regret then left her all alone. She had begged Dewan to stop taking risks and settle down, yet now here he was with more armour at his heels, excuses on his lips and that familiar inability to look her in the face. It made the room’s atmosphere as taut as an overstretched bowstring, and just as prone to snap.

  Aldric and Kyrin were grateful when a servant showed them out.

  *

  Charcoal-filled braziers stood at carefully measured intervals across the peak of Dunrath-hold’s great donjon tower, and Kalarr cu Ruruc linked their positions with chalk lines drawn just as carefully. When he finished he stood back with a grunt of satisfaction and surveyed his handiwork. The chalk-marks writhed with such complexity that in places they seemed to sink into the stone floor or vanish up into the night sky. Incense-laden censers fumed above certain angles, bowls of clear water rested on others.

  He laid a heavy book on a lectern and thumbed through the pages until he found the one marked with a strip of ribbon, then read the spell through once in silence, his lips moving as they worked out words more outlandish than usual. At last Kalarr cleared his throat and pronounced the Summoning aloud.

  The charcoal ignited with small flurries of sparks, and the water began to steam while t
he threads of incense smoke whirled across the floor, spinning together, crossing and recrossing until they wove a great cloudy, spherical mass. Then the braziers roared, consuming all their fuel in a single burst of heat. Duergar felt it at the far side of the tower, and he could hear a sound from within the cloud as if some huge creature was breathing there.

  Amber light to make the stars grow dim spilled through the weaving strands of smoke as Kalarr stepped forward, his shadow stretching long and black behind him. He raised both hands in a gesture of invitation, and when he voiced a soft, ululating call the being in the cloud emerged.

  It hung above the magical symbols on motionless wings, black scimitars like those of a swift but sixty feet from tip to tip, while another thirty feet of whiplash tail writhed with boneless flexibility behind it. The thing’s breath moaned through great vents guarded by sweeping arcs like horns where the wing-roots joined its bulging wedge-shaped body, its head was like a wasp’s, and its two bulbous yellow eyes had lids like the shutters on windows into hell.

  “An isghun,” Duergar gasped, horrified. Kalarr nodded, and spoke to the creature in a rapid monotone of inhuman syllables. “An isghun,” the Drusalan repeated. “You’re insane! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “I do. Because I know the Masterword to control these things.”

  Without that Word of Mastery no man in his right mind would have gone anywhere near the isghun, and Duergar had no intention of approaching it even now. He shrank back against the cold stones as the creature drifted lower, the air thrumming with the otherworldly cadences of its speech as it made reply to Kalarr. Then, its body still suspended on those outstretched wings, the baleful eyes closed to phosphorescent slits and winked out.

  “If this is still your idea of a game,” said Duergar with an apprehensive glance towards the vast, hovering bulk, “then you’ll not face me across a board. You play far too rough.”

  “You think an isghun is rough?” Kalarr sneered. “If the brat had stayed landbound, I’d have shown you what rough play really looks like. I’d have summoned up a shri.”

  “A shri?” Duergar’s face turned the colour of meal and his voice trembled. “You dare to even think… You are mad!”

  Kalarr smiled a slow, cruel smile. “Perhaps I am, Drusalan. But it was you who called me from the shadows, so what does that make you?”

  *

  Kyrin watched Aldric’s first archery lesson under ar Korentin’s tuition for only a few minutes before walking away with the echoes of a parade-ground bellow in her wake. She saw him again late the same evening, sour-humoured, sore-fingered and very poor company, especially when Dewan’s voice cut across the dinner-table chatter.

  “You’re getting better, Aldric-an,” the Vreijek said. “Another full day of shooting and you’ll be…” He hesitated as if choosing the right Alban words. “Almost quite good.” Aldric laughed dutifully, but Kyrin could see his heart wasn’t in it.

  The next night Aldric wasn’t even at table and Kyrin retired early, though when she reached her bedroom the windows were shuttered, the lamps were lit and the thick down quilt had been turned back. If this was how high-clan Albans lived, she approved. Kicking off her boots, she dropped them with a muffled double thud onto the thick rug and poked at the scuffed doeskin with her foot.

  “Hardly ladylike,” she muttered, and lifted the estoc from its harness across her back. The blade rattled in its scabbard as she turned the weapon over in her hands. “And as for you…” She laid it across a chair for a few seconds, then picked it up and placed it on the sword rack as Aldric would have done. If even Lyseun ar Korentin’s guest-room had one on the wall, perhaps carrying a sword might not be as unladylike as she thought.

  When she returned to the bedroom after a long, leisurely bath, she looked thoughtfully at the wardrobes set into the bedroom walls. Five Kyrins stared back at her from under five fringes of tousled pale-blonde hair and wiggled their bare toes in five rugs. She had already looked inside those mirrored doors, but the garments within were so fine and delicate she hadn’t dared to touch them.

  That was then. This was now.

  Kyrin slid one wardrobe open and examined rack upon rack of peacock fabrics. Silk, satin and velvet rustled as she ran her fingers through them and pulled one garment free, sending a guilty glance toward the bedroom door as she did so. Then she shrugged. Dewan’s wife was already out of sorts with her uninvited guests, and her humour would hardly get much worse if she found one of them trying on her clothes.

  Unless the one doing it was Aldric.

  Kyrin chuckled at the notion as she tugged off her damp bathing-robe and draped herself in the silken overmantle, white as new snow yet shot through with a rainbow lustre. She luxuriated in the sensuous weight of the material against her skin, twisting and turning before the mirrors in a graceful dance to make its colours shimmer, no longer caring what Lyseun ar Korentin might think.

  “You look happy.”

  Kyrin froze for an instant then spun around, shocked by the unexpected voice and the clicking latch that punctuated it. How long Aldric had been there she didn’t know, but she hadn’t heard the door open so the sound of shutting was deliberate. She recovered fast enough to nod acceptance of his compliment. “I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to wear clothes like this.”

  “I like seeing you in them.” Aldric’s well-scrubbed face and faint scent of soap showed he’d also come from a bath, and he no longer wore his usual black combat leathers. Now he was dressed in a white linen shirt, blue breeches worked with silver along the seams and house-boots of soft grey leather. Even with the inevitable tsepan at his belt, that change of clothing and appearance made him look far less self-assured than usual. He also sounded it.

  “I’d like… That is, I, uh… What I came to tell you was…was that my ship is sailing tomorrow. Rynert-arluth says, he asked me to say, that he’ll put another vessel at your disposal. If you want to go home.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “No! No, that is, I mean, it’s your choice now. You don’t have to stay with me. Unless you want to.”

  “What do you want?” She saw him blink rapidly and swallow a couple of times, glancing around the room to avoid her steady gaze. “Well, Alban? Tell me.” She was older by three or four years and had travelled more, seen more, knew more. While he… Oh, he was intelligent enough, but his knowledge of the world was limited by more than the exile he refused to talk about. The restrictions of rank and birth played their part. So did where he came from.

  People from the province of Elthan had a reputation spread onto ships and overseas by gossips in every tavern port. They were sturdy, reliable folk, the Elthaneks, good to have at your side in troubled times. They were also close-mouthed, quick-tempered and old-fashioned in habits and outlook. Being ‘very Northern’ didn’t make for a good match for any sophisticated Southern son or daughter, at least not without sound political or profitable reason. Otherwise the other sophisticated Southerners would laugh, and that would be…unfortunate.

  Aldric drew in a deep breath and Kyrin realised how nervous he was. Her half-formed smile vanished in case he thought it made fun of him, and became a solemn expression more in keeping with the moment.

  “I… I want you to stay.” he said at last, blushing at the admission. “Not just here in Alba, but with me.”

  “Finally.” Kyrin ran one finger gently down his face, eyebrow to cheekbone to jaw, tracing the line of the scar. “My, how pink and warm you are. I’ve watched you since we first met, Alban, and I’ve waited for you to say something, do something, anything, besides just look at me. It’s as if you’ve never met a woman before.” A flicker of expression made her think otherwise. There was at least one woman in his past, and the memory was unwelcome. “No, as if you were a child and I was some sweetmeat on a high shelf out of reach. You looked so much you didn’t notice me looking back. You aren’t unpleasing, Aldric Talvalin. Not as handsome as Seorth, nor as big and strong as Seor
th, but Seorth isn’t here, and may never be here. So what shall we do, now we’re done with looking?”

  His blush deepened until even his ears seemed to glow.

  “Do you think I’m being forward?” For an instant he nodded before he stopped himself, and she had to hide another smile. “Let me remind you of something. I’m a woman in Alba, I’m not a woman of Alba, and your laws and customs aren’t mine. The way you act towards your ladies – has anyone ever asked if they want to be treated like spun glass all the time? – has nothing to do with me. I’m sure more than one clan-lord does exactly what his wife tells him, then wraps her words in his own to make himself feel better.”

  She walked to the wall, lifted the estoc from its rack, drew a handspan of blade from the scabbard and drove it home again with a percussive snap. “Trading across the sea is a risky business, and many Valhollan women become heads of house because their men don’t come back. After my mother lost her father that way she went voyaging three times. The third time, she commanded her own ship and led two others captained by men, who followed without question or complaint because she’d proved she knew what she was doing.”

  “And what was she doing, Kyrin? Trading? Or raiding?”

  “I never asked. She’s my mother, and the mother of my brothers and sisters, and my father’s wife of many years. What she did at my age is none of my concern. What I do is none of hers. But…”

  “But?”

  “She told me one thing. If ever I found a thing worth having, I should do my best to get it in case the chance never came round again. You’re worth having, Aldric-eir. We’ve looked at each other, and we’ve thought about each other, and we’re of one mind about each other. Am I right?”

  This time Aldric did nod. He was still nodding when she kissed him gently on the mouth.

  “Kyrin, I—” he said, then stopped and returned the kiss with clumsy eagerness. Her lips parted for an intimate touch of tongue on tongue, a delightful exploration promising much, much more.