The Uncrowned King

by Rowena Cory Daniells

  'Not at all.' Dunstany spread his hands disarmingly. 'I merely saw that you no longer needed me, what with Cobalt on the mend and the mystics and Utlander to hunt down the last kingson. I simply sought to take my treasures home before the Utland raiders begin their spring ravages on the shipping routes.'

  Palatyne considered this for a moment then conceded. 'We'd be safest travelling in convoy with well-manned ships and sea-hounds to fight off raiders. But you were also out to curry favour with the king, don't deny it.' He thumped his chest with one fist. 'This is my victory, Dunstany. Mine. And I will sail into Port Mero to lay it before the king.'

  Dunstany bowed. 'It was never going to be any other way.'

  Palatyne gave him a considering look.

  Piro dared not move. Dunstany remained, head bent, waiting for a signal.

  'Very well,' Palatyne muttered and the noble scholar straightened up. 'Go ahead to Port Marchand and organise a convoy of ships to carry us home. Hire sea-hounds to protect us. I know they'll charge the earth, but it's worth it. No Utland raiders will get their hands on my treasures. Arrange somewhere for me to stay when we reach Port Marchand, and see that I am treated as befits the future emperor of the Twin Kingdoms.'

  Dunstany bowed. 'As you wish.'

  Palatyne turned to stride out.

  'Overlord?'

  Palatyne waited, radiating impatience.

  'Who will you leave in charge of Rolencia? Cobalt -'

  Palatyne snorted. 'Cannot be trusted. I know. But I will leave the two mystics to watch over him so I rid myself of those two abbey spies. Plus I'll leave a holding force of Merofynian warriors to keep them in line.'

  'I see you have planned ahead.'

  'I always do, Dunstany,' he said with heavy meaning, then marched out.

  Piro and Dunstany did not move until they heard Palatyne's voice on the wharf as he mounted up and rode away, and then the noble scholar sat down abruptly.

  Dunstany met her eyes across the cabin. 'The overlord sees betrayal everywhere, because that is how he rose to power. I suspect the Utlander has been at work here, undermining me. Go, fetch Soterro.'

  She scurried up to the deck where the Ostronite servant was deep in argument with the captain.

  '...master has hired you, not the overlord, so you will obey...' Soterro broke off, seeing Piro. 'Yes, slave?'

  'Lord Dunstany wishes to speak with you. We are to leave immediately on a mission for the overlord.'

  Soterro allowed himself one triumphant glance to the captain and headed below. Piro had to run to keep up with him. At the base of the narrow ladder Soterro leant against the wood, looking slightly queasy. He noticed Piro watching him. 'The last time I saw the overlord in such a temper he had a man hung, drawn and quartered. How did the master divert him?'

  'We are to go ahead, to prepare a convoy of ships for him and his treasure.' Soterro wiped sweat from his top lip with a trembling hand and she felt a tug of unwanted sympathy for the Ostronite servant.

  'Is the Utlander Lord Dunstany's enemy?' Piro whispered. 'I thought they were just rivals.'

  'No. Definitely enemies,' Soterro confirmed. 'This time last year the two Utlanders lured m'lord into a trap and almost killed him. Although we could not prove that it was they who sent the assassins.'

  Piro's stomach knotted with fear for Dunstany and, oddly enough, it wasn't just because he was her protector. She liked him.

  Soterro straightened. 'Don't look so worried. We'll be safe once we get home. Our lord has the king's ear.'

  But the king was old and dying. Piro followed the Ostronite servant back to the cabin thinking her mother had been right. The higher you rose, the more enemies you had.

  Now she was headed back to her mother's home. How she missed Queen Myrella.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fyn slipped through the town, just another refugee unnoticed in the bustle. There were Merofynians everywhere, drinking in the taverns, striding through the marketplace, taking whatever they wanted. In the middle of Rolenton Square, where only last midwinter his father had promised another thirty years of peace, Fyn paused to study the castle. It was invincible, built on the pinnacle with only the steep zig-zag road leading to the great gate. Deep in its cellars lay hoards of grain, wine, preserves and salted meat, plus it had its own water supply.

  It was impregnable. It was... flying Merofynian banners.

  Impossible.

  Yet... Rolenhold's gates stood open and he could see carts making their way up to the castle. Somehow his father's castle had been taken. Despair sliced through his composure. The world as he knew it was no more - Rolenhold had fallen and Halcyon Abbey was destroyed. The old seer had been right.

  What else might she have revealed, if he had only listened?

  There was no point agonising over might-have-beens.

  Numb, Fyn wended his way through the busy square, heading for the gate that led to the castle. Round objects on the gate's spikes made his step falter. Thirty years ago his father had made an example of the Servants of Palos - traitors who would have put King Rolen's illegitimate older brother on the throne - by leaving their heads to rot on this gate. He could only see the back of the heads from here but something told him he did not want to see their faces. Still he went on.

  Merofynians stood guard at Rolenton's gate. They did not bother to stop him, for the road was thick with merchants bringing in supplies.

  On the far side of the gate Fyn went ten paces then turned to stare up at the faces of the spiked heads. It had been cold and he could still recognise Captain Temor along with several men from his father's honour guard. Fyn knew them all.

  He almost lost his balance, but recovered and forced himself to think.

  His father would have entrusted Temor to hold the gate, so the attack must have been too swift to evacuate the city properly. Temor and his men would have been unable to hold the gate against the odds but they would have given the castle guard time to close Rolenhold's gates. Once closed, there was no way an attacker could breach the walls. Fyn turned to study the castle, which had appeared to be intact, and collided with a horse.

  'Here watch it, fisherman,' a carter complained.

  'Sorry.' Fyn stroked the horse's muzzle and turned to the carter, who had dismounted to adjust the traces. The cart was laden high with wine barrels. 'How did Rolenhold fall? I would have sworn it was impossible.'

  The carter glanced swiftly to the heads above the gate, then to the Merofynian gate guards. When he spoke his voice was low and tight. 'All I know is this, King Rolen died when he rode out to speak with the overlord under a flag of truce. His body was burned along with the queen and kingsdaughter. They say all but one of the kingsons are dead.'

  Piro, dead? Fyn staggered.

  'Here.' The carter caught his arm.

  Fyn had to bend double to catch his breath.

  'Did you have family in the castle, lad?'

  Fyn nodded.

  'They may still be there. Some have been enslaved, but the majority are getting on with their jobs.'

  Fyn glanced at him, shocked.

  'A man's got to eat, got to feed his family.'

  Prosaic but true.

  The carter watched him, a sympathetic gleam in his deep-set eyes. He looked prosperous but not overly so. Fyn could tell he was a decent man, trying to provide for his family.

  Fyn's head reeled. Piro and his mother dead? What was the point of going on?

  'Here, I'll give you a ride. You can lend me a hand unloading,' the carter said, as he caught the rail and swung himself up into the seat, lifting the reins.

  Fyn stared up at him.

  'Come on, lad. Don't give up.'

  There was no point. He should head off to the Dividing Mountains and join Byren. He had to hope his brother had recovered and made it to the safety of the high country.

  'I don't see how the castle could have fallen!' Fyn muttered.

  'As to that, I can't say. But I do know there's a bag of gold offered
for news of the missing kingson's whereabouts. If he's got any brains he'll be high on the Divide by now. I don't know why they want him dead when they're keeping the cousin alive.'

  'Cobalt's alive?'

  The carter nodded. 'He was injured when they took the castle. Lost an arm. They say the queen attacked him but I can't imagine it. She was ever so kind. At any rate, the overlord's Power-workers saved his life. He's being held prisoner now. Are you coming, lad? I've got a job to do.'

  'Yes. I'm coming.' Fyn climbed up next to him.

  The carter flicked the reins and clucked to the horses, who took up the slack, bending forwards against the traces to pull the heavy load.

  Fyn focused on the castle, where his cousin lay injured and captive. He'd only met Illien of Cobalt once. That was back at midwinter, when the older man returned to Rolencia after a thirteen-year absence and Fyn returned to the castle with Halcyon's monks for the Proving ceremony. But they were kin and Fyn felt it was his duty to help Cobalt.

  He had failed to save Piro and warn his father. The least he could do was rescue Cobalt and take him to Byren. Together they could plan how to retake the kingdom.

  Fyn helped the carter unload, thanked him and set off. He knew the castle intimately. With hundreds of servants and several hundred Merofynians, the many wings and corridors were crowded.

  It was the work of a moment to grab a servant's tabard from the laundry and slip it over his shoulders. He also snatched up a basket of fresh linen. No one would question yet another servant scurrying about. Then he remembered the fisherman's cap. He needed it to cover his tattoos. Or had his hair grown back enough to hide them?

  Hurrying over to the little window he peered at his reflection. Without the cap he looked like a shorn sheep. After four days his hair was still too short to hide the tattoos and the acolyte's plait was a giveaway. It was the work of a moment to remove the plait, which would have been cut off when he became a monk. No time for regrets. He tossed it into the fire that warmed the great copper where the clothes were boiling. His hair burned swiftly, smelling bad.

  He needed some sort of cap. There was only one thing for it - he would have to wear a high-ranking servant's embroidered skull cap. Taking one from the drying rail, he tugged it down into place, its points covering his ears. That would do. Fyn retrieved the basket of fresh bed linen and turned for the door.

  At midwinter, when Cobalt arrived, his cousin had been given a bedchamber in the family's royal wing and Fyn went straight there. Two Merofynian warriors wearing the distinctive twin-headed amfina on their surcoats stood at the doors. It seemed Palatyne trusted only his own men for crucial tasks.

  Fyn simply nodded to them and stepped past. When he couldn't manage the latch one-handed, one of them opened the door for him. He thanked them and walked into the chamber.

  An abbey mystic stood beside the bed, a woman wearing the pristine white robes of Cyena. This winter goddess was most often represented as an elegant swan, but she sometimes walked amongst her people as a beautiful woman, or more dangerously as a siren, who sang sailors to their death.

  There was no sign of a mystic from Mulcibar abbey, which was the equivalent of Rolencia's Halcyon. Unlike Halcyon, who nurtured the land, Mulcibar took the form of a great red bull. He revelled in war, with hot breath that incinerated anything it touched. But it was Mulcibar's dung that was most dangerous. It was said the dung could fly as far as an arrow, spreading flames. Some of his father's honour guard swore they'd witnessed it on the battlefield thirty years ago.

  Fyn's mother had described the rivalry between the two great abbeys of Merofynia so vividly, Fyn had no trouble recognising the Cyena mystics mistress for what she was.

  She glanced his way, revealing a young face, despite her white hair and eerie, pale pink eyes.

  'I come to deliver clean sheets,' he said, his throat so dry he hardly recognised his own voice.

  Dismissing Fyn as unimportant, she continued to study the man on the bed.

  'He hasn't touched his food,' the Cyena mystic said, indicating a tray on a side table. Fyn wondered who she was speaking to.

  'As you see, the healers can do no more for him.' A man stepped out of the shadows on the far side of the bed, into the light streaming from the tall casement window.

  Every nerve in Fyn's body screamed danger. Even if it hadn't been obvious from the man's Utland dress and the fetishes woven into his hair, Fyn would have recognised the Affinity in him. It exuded from his skin like a bad smell.

  Fyn glanced to Cyena's mystic. She didn't radiate as much intensity, though from her stiff stance he could tell she sensed the Utlander's power and found it offensive.

  Shaking knees hidden under the tabard, Fyn came to the end of the bed and placed the basket of fresh linen on the chest there. His cousin lay on the bed, covered in a light sheet. His chest and shoulder were bound, covering the stump where his arm had been. Even now it seeped and Fyn smelt the distinctive scent of rosemary which was used back at the abbey by the Halcyon healers to prevent wounds putrefying.

  'Dunstany and I have done all we can to heal his body,' the Utlander said. 'It is his will that is broken. The best healer cannot restore a man's will to live.'

  'Overlord Palatyne needs him alive and well,' the Cyena mystic said. She spoke in the Utlander's general direction and Fyn realised she was blind to the Seen world. It made him glad he had not been exercising his Affinity when he entered, or she would have sighted him in the Unseen world. 'You know how Palatyne hates it when anything thwarts him.'

  'Then you had better pray Cobalt finds a reason to live,' the Utlander said, 'for Palatyne intends to leave him in your care and he has plans for him.'

  She stiffened. 'I will speak with the overlord.'

  Catching the long points of her sleeves which hung almost to the ground, she swept them over her arms as she turned towards the door, and left the room without so much as a glance at Fyn.

  The moment the door closed, Fyn felt the Utlander's Affinity drop and realised he had been deliberately trying to unsettle the Cyena mystic. The display must have cost him dearly, for now he leant heavily on his staff.

  'Well, get to work. Change the bedding,' the Utlander snapped at Fyn then he too headed for the door.

  'Yes, master,' Fyn muttered, hardly able to believe his luck. He reached for the first bedsheet, but as soon as the door closed he let it drop, running around the side of the bed to peer into Cobalt's face.

  His cousin had turned away from the window. Even so Fyn could see the heavy shadow of beard, which lay on his jaw under skin that looked so pale it was almost waxen.

  Fyn was shocked. He recalled Cobalt as being a handsome man, vain about his looks, with long hair that he wore loose, curled and threaded with semi-precious stones in the Ostronite way. It was to Ostron Isle that he had been banished for thirteen years.

  'Illien?' Fyn whispered. It did not feel quite right calling a man of thirty-four, whom he hardly knew, by his private name. 'Lord Cobalt?'

  Full black eyes hardly registered him. 'Leave me alone, boy. Didn't you hear him? I'm a dead man.'

  'It's me, Fyn. Cousin Cobalt.' Fyn tugged off the cap to reveal the dark fuzz that didn't quite hide his tattoos.

  Cobalt's eyes sprang open as his whole body stiffened. 'Little Fyn from the abbey?'

  Fyn nodded.

  Cobalt frowned, stunned, then amazement animated his features. 'It is you. How did you get in here?'

  Fyn laughed softly, replacing the servant's skull cap. 'I've come to help you escape.'

  'Oh, Fyn.' Cobalt shook his head sadly, then gritted his teeth and carefully manoeuvred himself into a seated position so that his back rested against the headboard. Even that made the sweat of pain and exhaustion break out on his skin. 'Come, let me look at you, lad. You've no idea how good it is to see your face.'

  Fyn waited. While Cobalt stared at him intently he wondered how they would escape with his cousin so weak. 'Your arm...'

  'You heard how this
happened?' Cobalt indicated his stump.

  Fyn nodded. 'I heard a rumour that Mother -'

  'It wasn't Myrella's fault,' Cobalt assured him. 'She was deranged with grief for your father. Palatyne murdered him under a flag of truce. When she saw me with Palatyne she sprang to the wrong conclusion. She thought I'd betrayed Rolenhold. I don't know who opened the postern gate to the Merofynians. I was on the main gate tower telling them we'd never surrender when it happened. Dozens of men saw me there. But Myrella...' Cobalt shuddered. 'The overlord's a cruel man. He ordered me to execute your mother. Of course I couldn't.' He fixed on Fyn. 'She was a brave woman, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. She grabbed my own sword and turned it on me. Nearly killed me.'

  Fyn could imagine his petite mother struggling to swing the great sword. Tears stung his eyes. 'And Piro?' His voice came out strangled.

  Cobalt shook his head, unable to go on.

  A sob shook Fyn's shoulders.

  'I was injured, Fyn. There was nothing I could do. At least she wasn't violated. The overlord sent his men to find her and kill her. She died trying to escape, trying to climb out a window.'

  'That sounds like her. She had no fear of heights.' Fyn turned away, going to the casement window. It was too high for him to see out, but he did catch a glimpse of pale, winter-blue sky far above. Piro was dead, and he felt the terrible burden of guilt because he lived.

  'She couldn't have harmed the overlord. She was only thirteen.' Bitterness choked Fyn, threatening to seal off his throat. 'Why kill her?'

  'There was a prophecy. The overlord's Power-worker, Lord Dunstany, told Palatyne he would be killed by one of King Rolen's kin. So he ordered them all executed. He only let me live because I don't have a legitimate claim to the throne and I'm useful to him.'

  That reminded Fyn of another seer's prophecy. The filthy old woman had been proven right. Halcyon Abbey had fallen, although it had seemed impossible back before midwinter. And Piro had died because of this Lord Dunstany's prophecy.

  He had failed his little sister. He would not fail his cousin.