The Wolf At War

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The Wolf At War Page 27

by Terry Cloutier


  “Must I?” Daughter Gernet said, the ghost of a smile upon her lips. “The last I knew, Lord Hadrack, your nobility does not give you precedence over matters of the House.”

  “And how is putting yourself and everyone accompanying you in danger a House matter, Daughter?” I asked.

  Daughter Gernet turned away then, not answering. “Hando,” she said to a thickly built House Agent. “You and Therin will see to the horses and wagons.”

  “Yes, Daughter,” the House Agent said with a bow.

  “Now then,” Daughter Gernet said to me, taking my arm. “You must take me to that charming wife of yours, Hadrack. We had such delightful conversations when we were in Gandertown together.” I sighed, knowing whatever the Daughter’s reasoning for being here was, she had no plans on revealing it to me just yet.

  A great feast was prepared for our visitors, and we dined in Corwick Hall, inviting many of the lords camped to the west to join in the festivities. The elaborate feast might be the last one for many of us, I reflected sourly as I watched two of those lords dancing with Hesther and Hamber. The girls were unquestionably ugly, but I noted their dancing had improved considerably under Shana’s tutelage. Daughter Gernet was placed in the position of honor in the center of the long table on the dais, with her fellow Daughters sitting on the ends. I sat to one side of Daughter Gernet and Shana the other. Malo sat beside me, saying little as he tore into his food like a man who hadn’t eaten in a week. I would have found it remarkable had I not known the House Agent as well as I did. Malo’s appetite was legendary, and he could eat twice as much as the average man. My wife and Daughter Gernet ate little, hunched together like thieves in the night as they talked endlessly. I found their laughter and carefree attitude hugely annoying.

  “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself much,” Malo said around a leg of lamb. He pulled the last of the meat from the thin bone with his teeth and threw the leg aside, wiping his hands on his trousers as he studied me.

  “Why did you come here, Malo?” I asked, unable to keep the distrust I felt for him from my voice. “Whenever you show up, trouble soon follows.”

  Malo laughed as he speared a bloody slice of roast beef with his knife. “You are a suspicious fellow, my old friend.”

  “For good reason,” I growled.

  Malo paused with dripping meat halfway to his lips. “What if I told you we came here to support you?”

  “Then I would say that you were lying,” I responded as I toyed with my wine goblet.

  “Well,” Malo said around a mouthful of meat, “then you would be wrong.” He pointed his knife at Daughter Gernet. “She brought you three hundred House Agents to help fight the Piths, you stubborn ass.”

  I stared at Malo in astonishment. “You’re joking?”

  Malo shook his head. “No, I’m not. They have already joined your camp. Daughter Gernet spoke with the king before he went north and promised him she would help in any way that she could. This is her way of helping, so you might consider yanking your foot out of your mouth long enough to thank her, Hadrack.”

  I sat back in surprise. Three hundred House Agents was no small thing, and they would be invaluable to me when we faced Einhard. I felt my animosity toward Malo starting to cool. “So, that’s the only reason?” I asked, more out of habit than suspicion now.

  “The only one that I’m at liberty to tell you,” Malo said with a wry smile.

  I cursed under my breath as the House Agent began forcing more food into his mouth, our conversation apparently over. Musicians played lutes, violins, and flutes on the landing above me that led to the spare rooms, while a servant girl stood at the bottom of the stairs and sang a haunting song about the fall of the Flin dynasty. I glanced at my wife, who remained deep in conversation with Daughter Gernet. I decided I needed to be alone for a while, so I stood unnoticed and quietly made my way from the hall and stepped outside.

  I stood in the inner bailey as music and merriment filtered out from the keep, staring up at the White Tower that rose above me like a boney finger in the moonlight. I had kept Grindin in that tower, expecting at some point to kill the little bastard, but circumstances had let him escape my justice, at least for now.

  “It’s usually considered rude for the host to leave the party first, Lord Hadrack.”

  I turned as Daughter Gernet walked slowly down the ramp toward me. “I have to piss,” I grunted, hoping she would take that as a hint and go back inside.

  “Do you now,” Daughter Gernet said in amusement as she paused beside me. “Then, by all means, please go ahead. Don’t let my presence stop you. It’s nothing I haven’t seen many times before, after all.”

  “It can wait,” I muttered, unable to keep the irritation from my voice.

  Daughter Gernet chuckled softly to herself as we stood together, saying nothing. Finally, I turned to her in exasperation. “What is it you want from me, Daughter?”

  “What makes you believe I want something from you?”

  “Because everything you do has a purpose to it,” I replied. “Malo already told me about the House Agents, in case that’s why you came out here to talk to me.”

  “Ah,” Daughter Gernet nodded. “I thought he might have. And are you not pleased?”

  “Of course I am,” I said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  “So, if you are aware of the reason I came to Corwick, then why accuse me of having an ulterior motive?”

  “Because, Daughter,” I said. “Malo is more than capable of bringing those men to me on his own. You didn’t need to make the journey, yet here you are anyway. Which can only mean there is another reason for your presence here.”

  Daughter Gernet sighed, surprising me by running her hand gently through my hair. “You are so much like your father, Hadrack. Strong-willed, honest, and honorable almost to a fault.” She let her hand fall away. “I miss him terribly, you know.”

  “Yet, in all the years we have known each other,” I said bitterly. “You still refuse to tell me how you knew my father.”

  Daughter Gernet hesitated as she clutched at the Blazing Sun pendant hanging around her neck. “It was necessary, Hadrack. I have not kept this information from you out of spite. Please believe me.”

  “If that’s true,” I said. “Then tell me right now. Why continue to keep it a secret?”

  The priestess sighed again, wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s getting colder at night now, don’t you think?” she said. I snorted in frustration and looked away, determined not to respond. “Do you know the history of the White Tower, Hadrack?” Daughter Gernet finally asked to break the silence.

  I shrugged, angry now. “Why would I care to?”

  Daughter Gernet seemed not to have heard me. “Brimal Corwick built it originally,” she explained as she looked up at the tower. “No one seems to know why, exactly. He was said to be a contemplative man, obsessed with book-learning and reflection, so perhaps he built it as a type of sanctuary. We probably will never know for certain.”

  “That’s fascinating,” I said sarcastically.

  “After Brimal Corwick’s death,” Daughter Gernet continued, unfazed by my sarcasm. “The White Tower sat empty for years, though I had heard that his son used it from time to time as a sort of brothel.” She glanced at me. “He was a wicked man, that one,” she said primly. “Some even claimed that he had a little Pith blood in him, which would explain a lot, I suppose. The White Tower was used for many things over the generations that followed. Once even as a Holy House, until the reign of Kerlt Corwick, who stored imported oats from Parnuthia in it for his prized horses.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Kerlt was quite the whore-jumper himself as well, you know, though at least he had the decency to take his pleasures outside of the castle most nights.”

  I sighed and stared up at the star-filled sky, barely listening. Just what I needed, a lesson in history on the Corwick family.

  “But Kerlt’s humping days came to an a
brupt close one night when he got caught with his pants down,” Daughter Gernet continued. She winked at me. “Quite literally, as the husband of the fishwife he was rutting with caught them in his bed. Kerlt tried to talk his way out of it, of course, since he was unarmed and rather indisposed at the time. But sleeping with another man’s wife can have consequences, even for a lord, and for Kerlt, that consequence turned out to be a sharp blade between the ribs. Kerlt’s son, Coltin, became the Lord of Corwick after that.” The light wind around us suddenly gusted, lifting the hem of the priestess’s robes playfully as she steadied herself against me with her hand. “You remember Coltin Corwick, I imagine, don’t you Hadrack?”

  I nodded. Coltin had been the first Lord Corwick that I had known as a child, before the Border War and Pernissy.

  “I imagine he must have been an old man when you knew him,” Daughter Gernet said wistfully. She chuckled, remembering. “But he wasn’t always old. In his youth, he was a dashing, handsome man who could make any girl swoon just by looking at her.” The priestess shook her head fondly. “Myself included, I must confess, though he was approaching middle-age by the time I was old enough to appreciate his charms.”

  “I wonder if there might be a point to all of this soon?” I said. My story about a full bladder earlier had been designed to rid myself of the priestess, but it was now becoming uncomfortably true.

  “My point, dear boy,” Daughter Gernet said. “Is that it was here, in this very castle ruled by Coltin Corwick, that I first laid eyes on your father.”

  I could feel my eyebrows rising in surprise. “My father lived here?”

  “He did,” Daughter Gernet confirmed. “For a time, anyway.” Her lips twitched in amusement. “Should I continue, or have you had enough lessons for one night?”

  “No,” I said eagerly, my pulse racing. “Please, go on.”

  “Coltin, like many of the Corwick men before him, had an eye for the ladies,” Daughter Gernet said. She sniffed. “It’s not all that surprising, I suppose. Most men do.” She eyed me up and down with sudden disapproval. “If your sex is not busily hacking the limbs from one another, or passed out drunk, then you are off humping the leg of the first pretty girl you see like a mindless dog.”

  I grinned despite myself at the look on the priestess’s face. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” I said.

  Daughter Gernet’s features softened somewhat. “Perhaps it is, my dear. Not all men are like that, I suppose. Take you, for instance. Sometimes, with the guidance of a good woman like your Lady Shana, even wild beasts can be tamed to a degree.”

  “You were speaking about Lord Corwick and my father,” I said, refusing to get drawn into a debate about the virtues of men and women.

  “Yes, I was,” Daughter Gernet said, focusing back on the White Tower. “As I said, Coltin liked his women, though he seemed to be mainly interested in peasant girls. He took great delight in wooing them into his bed. I can’t imagine why. Anyway, Coltin was eventually married to a witch of a woman named Esmira. She gave Coltin a son, Jesip, but she was so torn up inside after the birth that she couldn’t have any more children.” I nodded. I remembered Jesip vaguely. He had died with his father in the Border War. “Then, one day, Coltin met Luna and everything changed for him. His wandering eye became fixated, as was his heart, on one woman, and one woman alone.”

  “Who was she?” I asked, although I already suspected what the answer would be.

  “Luna was your father’s mother,” Daughter Gernet said as she watched me closely.

  “Did she and Lord Corwick marry?” I asked, my voice strained and shaking as I realized the implications of what I was hearing.

  “They did not,” the priestess said soberly. “Esmira came from an influential and well-connected family to the north, and with her union to Coltin Corwick, it gave the Flin king control over territories that he had long coveted. When Coltin went to the king for an annulment of his marriage so he could marry Luna legally, he was refused. The king advised Coltin to keep Luna as a mistress until he tired of her, and then find himself another girl with which he could amuse himself.”

  “But he never did get tired of Luna,” I said softly.

  “No,” Daughter Gernet replied with a regretful shake of her head. She glanced upward. “Coltin brought Luna to the castle to live in the White Tower. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Esmira to see it every day, knowing who dwelled inside and why. After a time, a son was born to Luna, who Coltin adored even more than his firstborn son, Jesip.”

  “My father,” I whispered.

  “Yes,” Daughter Gernet agreed. She put her hand on my arm. “You were right, Hadrack. I did have another reason for coming here. King Tyden told me of your doubts and that you feel you do not belong in the company of lords. But I am here to tell you that you do. You are the last of the Corwicks, Hadrack. And you are as much a lord, if not more, than any of those fools dancing inside.”

  “But why didn’t you just tell me all this before?” I demanded, still reeling from the knowledge that I was a descendant of Castis Corwick. “What harm would it have done?”

  “Because I made a vow once too, Hadrack, much as you did. I swore the truth of who Alwin was would never pass my lips.”

  “But why?” I asked in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “Because Esmira was a mean, vindictive woman, Hadrack. Just think what it must have been like as her husband displayed his unfaithfulness and disdain for her every day. Coltin rarely gave Jesip attention, either, favoring young Alwin in all things over his firstborn son. That was a mistake that Lord Corwick should not have made, and eventually, Esmira’s hatred and jealousy got the best of her.”

  “What did she do?”

  Daughter Gernet grimaced. “While Coltin was off hunting one day, Esmira had men she’d hired seize Luna and take her into the woods to the east. There they raped the poor girl in every vile way possible, then dismembered her body, each man riding twenty miles on the points of the compass before dumping her remains on the ground.”

  “Mother Above,” I whispered in horror. “What of my father? How did he survive?”

  Daughter Gernet smiled sadly. “That is where I come in, Hadrack. My father was the lord’s bailiff, and when he came to the castle on business, my family would sometimes accompany him. Alwin and I were young children when we first met, and we quickly became friends since we were both of the same age. We were playing together along with my two sisters the day Luna was dragged from the White Tower. Alwin tried to go to her aid, but somehow I knew those men would kill him, so together with my sisters, we managed to hold Alwin down until they had ridden off with Luna.”

  “And then what did you do?” I asked.

  “Then we ran,” Daughter Gernet said. “We ran to our village in the hills and waited for Father to come home.” Daughter Gernet swallowed, her eyes fixated on the ground now, though I could tell she saw nothing but the past. “The men who had taken Luna returned to Corwick Castle later that day,” the priestess said. “They couldn’t find Alwin, so instead, they grabbed the first boy of a similar age and build that they saw and killed him, cutting him up so badly that it was impossible to tell who he was. Esmira didn’t suspect a thing, and though Coltin grieved the loss of the woman and son he loved when he returned, he could not change what had happened.”

  “You mean he did nothing?” I snorted, amazed.

  “Not to Esmira,” the priestess said. “The power her family wielded was enormous, and he could not risk their wrath or the king’s. But the men who had taken Luna all died hideous deaths, as did anyone else who Coltin suspected was involved. My father brought Lord Corwick to our village sometime later, and the look of joy on his face when he saw Alwin is something that I will treasure all of my life.”

  “So, he took Alwin home, then?”

  “No,” Daughter Gernet said. “He feared for the boy’s life, so though I could tell it pained him greatly, he left Alwin with us. He ma
de my entire family swear on The Mother Herself that we would never tell anyone who Alwin really was in case Esmira or her family found out.”

  “But that happened ages ago,” I protested. “Why couldn’t you have just told me all this now that everyone involved is dead?”

  Daughter Gernet held up her pendant. “Because I am a priestess,” she said. “Soon to be the First Daughter, and a vow to The Mother cannot be taken lightly, nor easily broken.”

  “But you were just a child,” I said. “You can’t be held to that vow after so long.”

  “As were you when you made your own vow,” Daughter Gernet said, one eyebrow raised. “Does that mean it is any less relevant now, simply because you are older?”

  “No,” I grumbled, knowing it was a fair point.

  “Besides,” Daughter Gernet said. “Everything worked out in the end without my having to speak of it. I only do so now because of the dire circumstances Ganderland finds itself in at the moment. The kingdom needs you at your best, Lord Hadrack, and having you doubt yourself in any way cannot be tolerated. Even if it means breaking a solemn vow to The Mother that I have carried for most of my life.”

  I had heard something in her words and I looked at her suspiciously. “It was you who suggested King Tyden make me the Lord of Corwick, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” Daughter Gernet confirmed. “You are the rightful lord of this place, Hadrack, so after what you had done for the king, it seemed fitting. It also allowed me to set things right for Alwin while keeping my vow of silence intact.”

  “Does he know?” I asked.

  “Does who know what?”

  “Tyden,” I replied. “Does he know who I really am?”

  The priestess shook her head. “He does not, and my advice is that you never tell him.”

  “Why not?”

  Daughter Gernet sighed. “Because he is a good man, Hadrack, but he is also a Raybold, which means you need to be cautious.” I just stared at her blankly until she continued, “The Raybolds were the powerful family I spoke of who arranged Esmira’s marriage to Coltin Corwick.”

 

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