Crusader s-4

by Robert J. Crane

“Oh?” Cyrus’s eyes caught on the rug before the hearth, where a flame was already lit and the logs were piled high inside. The rug was just as he recalled it, a fluffy mass of fur. He recalled the softness of it to the touch, the feeling of what he had been experiencing when last he had been here.

  “Yes,” she said, jarring his gaze up to her. “You got one of the most impressive suites, according to one of the stewards I spoke with last time.”

  “Is that so?” Cyrus muttered. “Apparently I’m still just as honored a guest as I was last time. I assumed this time it’d be the stables for certain.”

  “For the hero of Harrow’s Crossing?” Aisling said demurely, sliding behind a curtain in front of the window, then stepping out of the other side, smiling. “Surely a welcome of the sort you deserve is in order.”

  “Surely,” Cyrus said weakly. “I suppose we’ll have to dress more formally for the dinner.”

  “That does seem to be the norm,” she said. “Though your armor wouldn’t be out of the norm at all for you …”

  “I suppose not,” he said, and his feet carried him to the bedroom door, where he nudged it open to reveal the familiar space; lush carpets, fine furniture. It was still shadowed in darkness, and he was reminded of the first night he had spent here, with Cattrine-before I knew who she was. Back when I thought I knew who she was.

  “Fond memories?” Aisling’s voice came from behind his shoulder this time, and he started when he realized she was close behind him.

  He began to answer but faltered. “Some, I suppose. Some not.” He looked around the room. “Do you find it … uncomfortable … knowing that when last I was here I-”

  “No,” she said, and pushed past him gently to enter the bedroom. Her belt came off, daggers and all, and she left it on the vanity on the other side of the bed, the clink of metal scabbards on the wood as loud in this room as any shout he might have been able to recall from when last he was here. She grabbed a brush off the smooth wooden surface and ran it through her tangles of white, putting it all into lines, easy curves coming off her forehead. She put down the brush after a minute and then unstrapped her leather armor and undressed before a full-length mirror. “You may have been here with her last time, but you’re not here with her now, and I trust you’re grounded enough in reality to tell the difference.” She delicately made her way across the floor. “I care less about the fact that she once held you; I care more about the fact that I hold you now.” She kissed him, long and deep, luxuriant, smooth, and he was reminded for a flash of the soft fur of the rug against his naked skin, of the caress of his fingers against scarred flesh in the bed.

  She took him by the hand, and led him there to lie down. “Besides, whatever memories you have of what happened before are a welcome challenge.” She swayed over, pushed him onto his back and then climbed astride him. “I have no doubt of which you’ll remember more strongly when you leave this time, after all.”

  Chapter 73

  When the steward arrived to collect them only an hour or so later, it was after Cyrus had had a bath drawn and luxuriated in it for a while. He wore his armor-as though I could have escaped it, he thought, as they marched along the corridor. The others were with him, all dressed in their battle garb, though with slight adjustments.

  “I don’t suppose any of you could find it in yourselves to wear the more elaborate dress clothing they left for us?” Cyrus asked, sotto voce, as they came around a corner and two servants jumped back against the wall, flattening themselves against it so the Sanctuary procession could pass.

  “I wore the scarf they left with my ensemble,” J’anda said, his fingers tracing down a purple silk piece of finery that Cyrus had to concede went well with his robes. “Is this not dressy enough for you?”

  “The hospitality of my father’s dining room called for a certain sort of fashion,” Longwell said in a muted tone, his armor clinking. “I dressed appropriately.”

  “Perhaps you should have worn a scarf as well,” J’anda said.

  They were led into the room off the foyer, the long space looking the same as last time, with its plaster walls hiding the stone that Cyrus knew was back there. The fires were burning and there were fewer chairs around the table this time; there were however, Cyrus noted, just as many servants hovering around the table.

  After being seated, Cyrus waited, his nose already flooded with the smells of the kitchen, a symphony of delights to the olfactory sense. The King’s seat to his right remained empty when the servants came through with the first course, a soup that was thinner yet more satisfactory than the last he had been served in this very room. It was heavy on the broth, and when he sniffed it, the spices reminded him of Arkaria.

  Odau Genner made his way into the room with another man, taking their seats without fanfare or announcement. Count Ewen Ranson made his way across from Cyrus and seated himself without any assistance from the servants, who fawned and fussed over him. He spread his own napkin in his lap as Cyrus watched the older warrior brush them off.

  “It is of course a pleasure to see you again, Count Ranson,” Cyrus said, halting his spoon halfway to his mouth.

  Ranson looked up at him, hesitant at first, looking to the empty chair to Cyrus’s right as if for approval. “And you as well, Lord Davidon of Perdamun, Warden of the Southern Plains.” He gave Cyrus a half-hearted smile as he said the full title. “I trust all goes in the north as we have heard?”

  Cyrus looked back down to the soup. “I suspect so. Have you heard that these enemies will be the end of your entire land?”

  Ranson’s face shifted not at all, but his eyes fell to his own bowl. “That would be the gist of what I have heard, yes.”

  “Yet your army remains idle here,” Cyrus said then took a sip from his spoon. It was hot but not too hot, and the scent of the tomato that flavored it was perfect, no hint of acidity to be found.

  “My army remains as my King commands,” Ranson said stiffly, and then lapsed into a silence with the rest of the table.

  It was not until the main course of duck was brought out that the King finally made his appearance, looking even more drawn than when Cyrus had last seen him. Cyrus noted for the first time that Samwen Longwell was seated considerably down the table from him, where before he had been seated at the right hand of his father. Cyrus wondered at his place directly left of the King, and Ranson across from him. Aisling was to his left, but she seemed to be keeping quiet, and he could not hear even the faintest slurp as she daintily attacked her soup. He began to make comment to her about this then decided the better of it, finding no tactful way to tell her that she could suck more quietly than any woman he’d ever known.

  The duck was soft, slightly greasy but succulent, as Cyrus chewed the meat. The King had entered to little enough fanfare, but he had said nothing since seating himself. He was far from jovial normally, and now he seemed even more downtrodden and quieter than ever he had been before. His paunch was still obvious, but the rest of his body was skeletal, shriveled, as though all the life had gone out all of him but his belly. His skin was badly settled on his bones and he carried an ill humor about him.

  “King Longwell,” Cyrus said, halfway through his duck breast, “might I speak with you about the situation in the north, sir?”

  “Speak all you would care to,” the King said, “and I can even guarantee that I will listen-until such time as I want to hear no more.”

  Cyrus chose his words carefully. “Surely you know, as wise and informed as you are, that we have come from the battlefield up north where Syloreas and Actaluere have faced this new threat to Luukessia. You have heard that our armies were beaten back by this enemy, nearly broken, and survive only through sheer force of will.” Cyrus leaned heavily on the table with his elbow, trying to get the King to give him his attention. The King was plucking at the duck breast with his fingers, tearing strips of meat from it. “These beasts are coming south, even now, and will surely reach the gates of Vernadamn by this time next year,
at the latest.”

  “What of it?” King Longwell said, looking up as he took a bite of duck. Flecks of half-chewed food fell upon the table, landing just short of where Cyrus’s gauntlet rested. “Let them come, I say. Let them chew up the Tiernans, those whores, and the Ungers, those brutish fools. Let them eat Syloreas and Actaluere whole.” Utter distaste dripped from his words. “I welcome them. Let them come, this … scourge. Let it scour the land, cleanse it, and when it is done, we will march forth from Vernadam and destroy them, unifying all of Luukkesia under the banners of Galbadien. He cracked an odd, loathing smile. “Don’t you see? These things, they are the vessel of our ancestors, a sacred cleansing for a land torn asunder. This is our destiny. This is that which will deliver us from the fools that have run us aground with their dishonor and lies. Let them come. Galbadien has stood for ten thousand years. We shall rule the land of Luukessia for the next ten thousand.”

  There was a quiet that settled over the dining room, one that lasted for almost a minute unbroken, until J’anda spoke. “Oh.”

  “Oh?” King Longwell said, looking up from his duck breast, another strip of meat clutched in his greasy fingers. “That is what you bring me? ‘Oh?’ Such a measured reaction, such a clever deduction, really.”

  “I think it was probably just shock,” Cyrus said, “considering I just heard the most wholly unbelievable idiocy I have ever heard breathed, and it came out of the mouth of a King.”

  There was quiet again, and J’anda’s voice was heard once more. “Oh. My.”

  King Longwell’s putrid loathing turned toward Cyrus. “You come into my hall and insult me. You have done nothing but insult me since the day you arrived-”

  “And save your Kingdom from your own incompetence,” Cyrus said, interrupting the King, who did not stop speaking. “Don’t forget that.”

  “-the day you arrived with your arrogance,” King Longwell said, his speech now heated, “and bringing with you these westerners, these- these- magicians,” he imparted a sort of vitriol to the word that made it sound like the lowest form of insult, “and in the company of the great whore of Actaluere-”

  Cyrus stood at that, his chair falling over behind him, the sound of wood cracking and splintering upon landing on the marble floor. He kept his hand well clear of his sword but glared down at the King. “Just because you’re a King, it doesn’t give you license to speak that way of her.”

  Aron Longwell looked up at Cyrus with a malignant glee buried under sheerest loathing. “Doesn’t it? Didn’t you as much as say so yourself to her? Did you not cast her back to her husband’s loving embrace? Did she not fill your ears with lies and poisons even as she lured you to her bed and kept you entranced with her feminine wiles? Is she not the whollest example of a harlot run amok, doing the bidding of her husband and brother, stirring chaos, whoring herself to a man with power, drawing him in while she worked her way into your confidence-”

  “I consider myself a patient man-” Cyrus said.

  “Though none of the rest of us would,” J’anda breathed quietly-but not so quietly that most of the table didn’t hear him, even over the crosstalk.

  “Amen,” Aisling said.

  “-but you are rapidly straining any patience I might have,” Cyrus said.

  “As though I give any sort of a damn,” King Longwell said, and slid his seat back with great effort. He stood to look Cyrus in the eye. “You were a man ensnared not months ago, and now you come to my court, to my house, and think to speak to me of all you know? You are a fool and you think to tell me how to run a Kingdom. You think to tell me what threatens me, when you could not see a threat with your own eyes as it dangled tantalizingly in front of you. You know nothing, Cyrus Davidon. Nothing,” the King repeated. “Nothing of our land, nothing of our ways, nothing of us. You think we are easily defeated by some creatures that come from the north.” He waved a hand at Cyrus. “Go back to your land, fool. Take the Tiernan harlot with you, if you wish to be further deceived. This is Luukessia, where reign the men supreme, the architects of our own fate, keepers of our own lands and counsel. I’ll be damned if some western fool that falls for the first thing dangled in front of his crotch will tell me there’s a threat to my Kingdom when nothing is of worry to me-”

  “You are the fool, Father,” Samwen Longwell said, standing abruptly. His chair did not fall, Cyrus noted, though the dragoon stood with force of his own. “You spend all your time crafting insults and none of your time trying to use your wits. Your Kingdom-our Kingdom,” he said, and drew a vengeful glare from his father, “was mere days from falling when the army of Sanctuary came to our aid. You could not even save your own land without help, but now you insult the man who led his army here to save us.”

  “I am the King!” Aron Longwell’s shout echoed over the dining hall, quelling all other noise save for a servant dropping a ladle. “I am made to rule this land, guide our people, to restore us to the rightful stewardship of Luukessia. You are nothing but an ungrateful whelp who should count himself fortunate to have been begat from his lowborn mother!” With the last of his shout carrying through the room, Aron Longwell’s face deteriorated, his mask of rage boiling off into one of uncertainty, his gaze falling, his eyes looking away. “She never should have left. Never. Ungrateful …”

  “She didn’t leave, Father,” Samwen Longwell said from his place down the quiet table. “She died.” Aron Longwell recoiled slightly at his son’s words. “She died, Father. She didn’t leave, she was taken by death. Do you recall? Do you remember her wasting away?” He slid free of his place at the table, started a slow advance on his father. “Do you remember her bony, frail hands, at the end? How light she became as she turned to skin and bone?” Longwell’s face was flushed, and he took each step slowly, each one driving metal against marble, and they echoed as if to underscore the cadence of his words. “Do you recall? She didn’t leave us, Father, not willingly. She was taken. Taken by death, ripped away, torn from our caring hands by the beast.”

  “I …” Aron Longwell looked down at his plate, his fingers shining in the light of the reflected chandelier’s candles. “I … cannot … I … no …”

  “Do you remember, Father?” Samwen cocked his head as he looked at the King. “Do you remember death? Do you remember watching it, the predator, as it stalked her down? I remember sitting in that room, the still air, with the windows shut. I remember it, remember thinking as a boy that it was coming for her, that it would devour her whole and that I would have to watch it.” He was close to his father now, and stopped at arm’s length. “Do you recall? Did you see it, too?”

  “No,” the elder Longwell shook his head, lips shut tight, eyes closed, shaking his head. “No, no, she left, she left us-”

  “She was taken by death month by month, day by day,” Samwen said, and his hand went to his father’s shoulder. Cyrus saw the gauntlet land gently on the King’s green finery, and watched the son stroke the father’s arm in reassurance. “We watched it happen. And now, we will watch again.” The King’s head came up, and Cyrus saw the tears in his eyes, welling there unfallen. “Death comes for Luukessia, Father,” Samwen said, and Cyrus watched the gauntlet tighten on his father’s arm. “It creeps up, and it will eat this whole land bite by bite. You will watch as your northern reaches are taken first. Then,” he waved a gauntlet slowly in front of his father’s face as though trying to hypnotize him, “when you see them at your throat, that is when they will tear the heart from your Kingdom and destroy Vernadam.” He let his hand fall as Aron Longwell watched, spellbound, “and the rest of this land will fall behind it all the way to the shores of the sea.”

  A deep quiet that settled, a dread silence that no one wanted to break, waiting as they were for the King to speak. His face wavered and moved, the wrinkles crinkling at the corners of his eyes, the breaths coming short and shallow from him. A tear dripped down his face first, then another on the other cheek. “My son,” he croaked at last, and his weathered hand came
up to Samwen’s face, ran over it, a finger tracing a line like he was connecting the dots between the younger Longwell’s freckles. “Your face … reminds me of her,” he said, voice cracking. “You … you … remind me of her.” The King’s face hardened, grew spiteful once more, the lines solidifying into loathing. “And you left … just … like … her.” He left a fiery residue with each syllable, hate flowing out of them.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” Samwen Longwell said, and Cyrus saw the emotion in his eyes. He laid a hand on his father’s face, and the old man’s eyes fluttered at his touch, at the metal soft against his skin. “Truly sorry. Sorry I disappointed you. Sorry I left.” Longwell’s eyes crinkled at the edges. “And sorrier still for what you have become.” He glanced away for just a beat, and Cyrus caught a flash of something. “But I will remain the sorriest for what I do now.”

  There was no warning, just a shift in the atmosphere of the hall, as though the candles were all blown by the wind at once. Samwen Longwell, the dragoon of Galbadien, leaned forward and kissed his father on the cheek. The older man flinched as though he’d been struck, though Cyrus saw he plainly hadn’t. There was no movement at all, save for a very subtle one of Samwen’s hand, reaching under the plate of his armor. In a movement quicker than an eyeblink, a dagger emerged and was plunged into the King’s chest. The strength of the dragoon held it true and straight, and there was only a gasp from the King as the blade entered his heart.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” Samwen Longwell said as the King sagged on his feet, and his son held him up, keeping him close, not letting any see what he’d done. “I am so sorry.” The King moaned, but Samwen held him tighter, no one else moving, perhaps some suspecting but not a word of protest voiced. They stood like that for some minutes, the father being held by the son, until the King of Galbadien finally laid the body of Aron Longwell back in his seat.

  Chapter 74