The Path to Power

by Karen Miller

  A terrible question, with but one answer. Humbert was right. No matter what he suspected, he had no proof. “Fine, my lord. You win. I’ll speak no more of Liam.”

  “Good,” said Humbert, sounding equally shattered.

  “Was there anything else?”

  Humbert tugged at his beard. “Yes, but it can wait. The Marcher lords are here.”

  “I know. I saw them arrive.”

  “They’re likely on their way up now.” Humbert cleared his throat. “Roric—”

  Needing a moment, Roric pushed past him to the dais and took his place on the Falcon Throne. The cherrywood was cool beneath his hands as he grasped its carved arms. Never before had he sat it. As he accustomed himself to the feeling, he released a slow breath and considered the man who meant so much to him.

  “I’ve disappointed you.”

  “Worried me,” said Humbert, the hectic colour fading from his face.

  “And angered.”

  “True,” Humbert agreed. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry if I was harsh, boy. You’ve a good heart.”

  “But?”

  “But sometimes I fear the goodness in you will over-rule the iron.”

  Deliberately, Roric relaxed his tight fingers. “And a duke should be iron first and foremost, with goodness trickled into the miserly nooks and crannies that remain?”

  Humbert nodded. “He should, Roric. And you know it.”

  That thin blade, still rib-lodged, twisted. “Alas, Humbert. I do.”

  Humbert made to answer, then turned his head at a heavy rapping on the chamber doors. “Enter!” he bellowed, then stepped back until he stood beside the dais. The doors opened, revealing one of the castle’s stewards. Nathyn.

  “Your Grace,” he said, bowing. “I give you the Marcher lords, come to Eaglerock at your behest.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Marcher lords.

  Roric felt his heart thud. His first test, then. One he couldn’t afford to fail. Not with Humbert’s fiery words still heating the chamber’s air.

  “My lords,” he said coolly. “You’re welcome to court, and have leave to approach.”

  Travel-stained and stubbled, their spurs muddied, their surcoats splashed, the Marcher lords came forward to bend their knees in respect.

  “Be upright,” he said, gesturing. “And receive my thanks, that you’d set aside all natural inclinations towards sport and come before me unbloodied.”

  A swift exchange of glowering glances told him that if these lords were unbloodied, it had been a close-run thing.

  Bayard of Harcia lifted his chin. “Lord Roric—”

  “Your Grace,” said Humbert, the watchdog.

  Bayard’s insolent gaze shifted. “Oh? It’s my understanding the lord Roric isn’t yet acclaimed Clemen’s duke.”

  “A formality, soon to be dealt with,” said Humbert. “Have a care, Bayard.”

  “Your Grace,” said Lord Egbert, a swift glance blunting Bayard’s dagger glare. “Clearly we are clouded in confusion. Indeed, Duke Aimery confided his surprise that you’d send for us before first consulting with him.”

  “I’ve no need to consult with Harcia on matters touching this duchy, or the treaties that bind your duke and me to the peace and protection of the Marches,” Roric retorted. “Indeed, those treaties oblige me to be vigilant and impress upon the Marcher lords of Clemen and Harcia my dedication to their strictures. Besides, your duke was informed I wished to see his castellans. If that weren’t so, would you be here? Lord Wido—”

  Wido, who’d proven himself skirmishing in the Marches, inclined his head. “Your Grace?”

  “My late cousin Harald placed some great measure of trust in you. To my knowledge it was not misplaced. Should I now think elsewise, with Harald buried and myself duke in his place?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “And you, Lord Jacott. My cousin once told me you sometimes o’erstep your authority. He laughed, and called you doughty. But I wasn’t amused.”

  A muscle leapt along Jacott’s tensed jaw. “Your Grace.”

  “Egbert!” he snapped. “Why are you smirking? Do you think I’ll wink at Harcian horseplay? Have you told Aimery that the bastard Roric isn’t to be feared?”

  Startled, Egbert of Harcia gaped. “Your Grace—”

  With a silencing look at Humbert, he leapt up from the throne, off the dais, and confronted the Marcher lords.

  “For your sake, my lord, I hope you weren’t so foolish. Or you, Bayard.” Prowling before them, remembering Guimar, and Berold, Roric slapped his once-wounded thigh. “For there are scars on my body to prove that boast a lie–as well you know, for I was scarred in Clemen’s service when Harcia forgot its honour and threatened the Marches’ peace. Never doubt I’ll risk more scars, and worse, should Harcia forget its honour again!”

  “And what of Clemen’s forgotten honour?” Bayard demanded. “Do you say we’ve never been provoked?”

  He let the silence lengthen, then shook his head. “No. I say plainly, to your faces, that in dealing with your duchy Harald did forget himself from time to time. Tell Aimery I won’t.”

  “And we’re to trust your word on that?” said Egbert. “Not knowing you?”

  “My lords.” His smile made Egbert blink. “Doubt my honour and you’ll know me soon enough.”

  “Your Grace,” the Harcian Marcher lords muttered.

  “And tell Aimery this, too, when he asks what was said here today,” he added, “tell him Clemen is no lone lamb, wanting a shepherd. Our business is ours, and none of his, and there’s no unrest here that should give him cause to hope.”

  “Your Grace.”

  With the Harcian lords cowed, at least for the moment, he halted before Wido and Jacott. “As for you, my lords, don’t think my sword will unsheathe for Harcia alone. I wink at no man who flouts Marcher law or seeks to plump his purse at my expense–or Harcia’s. Your manors and your men-at-arms are held from me, and it is to me you’ll answer for any mischief.”

  “Your Grace,” Wido and Jacott murmured, as one.

  He smiled again, no less fierce. “Then, my lords, you may withdraw. My steward will escort you to some food and comfort, after which you’ll return to the Marches with all haste. And when you get there, be sure to spread the word. Clemen is well-defended. Peace will reign. Not war.”

  “Ha,” said Humbert, once the chamber had emptied. “That’ll give Aimery something to chew on.”

  “So, my lord. Was I iron enough for you?”

  In Humbert’s eyes, a glimmer of praise. “It was a fair beginning.”

  Typical Humbert, never satisfied. “Then go and inform the council I’ll meet with them tomorrow, at nine bells. It’s time the date was set for my formal acclamation.”

  Humbert bowed. “Your Grace.”

  Frowning as his foster-lord made for the doors, Roric felt memory tug. “Wait, Humbert. Didn’t you say you had more news?”

  “I did,” said Humbert, swinging about. “Vidar and the Marcher lords knocked it out of mind.”

  “Well?”

  “Berardine of Ardenn. Did you invite her to Clemen, Roric, then let slip telling me?”

  What nonsense was this? “Of course not. Why would I—”

  “Because she galleyed into the harbour at first light,” said Humbert, fingering his beard. “As far as I can make out, not a soul among our own people knows she’s here. And for the life of me I can’t imagine why she’s come.”

  Eaglerock township late at night was a place patchworked with silence and feverish goings-on. The bakers and the tanners and the seamstresses and the blacksmiths and the butchers, all the men and women who plied their honest daylight trades, at this creeping-towards-midnight hour, slept above or behind their premises and dreamed of purses filled with coin. In the township’s grand houses Clemen’s lords and ladies also slept, or else sported themselves behind their closed doors. But though eleven bells had rung, the torchlit waterfront taverns were still lively.
The brothels, too, and the cockpits. Braziers burned on each street corner, little islands of heat in the night’s chilly ocean.

  Heat and light could also be found in the township’s merchant district, where rows of warehouses and the plain dwellings of foreign trading factors huddled close to the waterfront, a fastidious stone’s throw from the taverns and brothels. But it was no haven of ale-soaked levity, where carousing sailors and dock-men gambled and buxom wenches flaunted their breasts, promising more for a copper nib or two, and cutpurses taught the unwary a sharp lesson. No, the merchant district was sober and hardworking, where as many different tongues as there were trading nations could be heard, the speakers’ voices raised in the pursuit of plump profits.

  Though the harbour was closed from nightfall to dawn, Eaglerock’s docks and wharves remained torchlit so the men who made their fortunes and risked their lives buying and selling goods in this busy part of the world could unload the wares from their late-arrived galleys, or fill their emptied ships with such treasures as Clemen had to offer: tinwork, and lavish leatherwork for fine lords and ladies and their horses. Jars of honey, dried fruits, smoked meats, a few looked-for medicinal herbs. Glazed earthenware, exquisite silversmithing and jewellery, delicate woodwork, and the finest illustrated manuscripts, for Clemen’s artisans were renowned. Barrels of ale and cider, as good as any foreign wine. Horses, too, were shipped to Cassinia and beyond. The best of them were bred in Harcia, but Clemen rode not far behind.

  Wrapped close in a leather cloak reaching past his knees, a waxed woollen hood covering his head and shadowing his face, Roric picked his way unchallenged along narrow, winding Hook Alley. Before stealing clandestine from his ducal apartments, he’d told his chamber-man he had business abroad so the alarm wouldn’t be raised if his bed was found empty. Aside from Theo, though, no one–not even Humbert–had an inkling of this jaunt.

  What he’d share of it, in the end, would be decided by what he learned when he confronted Berardine of Ardenn.

  One of Humbert’s useful men, who by fortunate chance knew the duchess by sight, had noticed her unheralded arrival in the harbour then followed her to the home of Master Tihomir, Ardenn’s trading factor in Clemen. It was clever of Berardine to stay with him. Ardenn’s duchess amid the rough-and-tumble of the waterfront? It was unthinkable. So no one would think it, and she could pursue her business without the scrutiny of Eaglerock’s many lords, its council and Clemen’s unacclaimed duke.

  At last reaching Harbour Street, making his way with care down the steeply sloping thoroughfare towards the richest of the merchant warehouses where Ardenn stored its bounty, Roric frowned. Whatever Berardine’s business was, no matter how innocent, should Harcia get wind of it, or even her presence, unfriendly questions would be asked. If the sun shone too bright for too long, Harcia blamed its parched pastures on Clemen. And it had always resented Clemen’s friendship and profitable trading with Ardenn. Given this provocation, what mischief might Aimery stir should it come out that Berardine had travelled to Clemen in stealth?

  He didn’t know, and had no desire to find out.

  A lively breeze gusting up from the nearby harbour brought with it snatches of music playing in the taverns, whispers of laughter and teasing touches of spices carried from distant, mysterious lands. Roric took a deep breath, savouring the exotic hints. He’d always wanted to travel. As Clemen’s duke he could find reason to sail abroad, visit all the duchies of Cassinia. Even venture so far as the famed City State of Lepetto in the Danetto Peninsula. Dreaming of it, a distraction from his worries over Berardine, he took another deep breath… and stopped.

  He smelled smoke.

  And then, as he breathed in again to make sure he’d not imagined it, he heard the waterfront alarm bell start to clang and saw an orange-red flicker of flames in the near distance. One of the merchant warehouses had caught fire.

  Cursing, he loosened the tight lacings on his leather cloak, and ran.

  Shouting. Screaming. A crush of shifting, staggering bodies. Mayhem and madness. Cold night turned to hot day, with leaping flames and billowing heat.

  “Help here, help here!”

  “Aza g’ai rethuni, tibeno rethuni!”

  “Rouse the harbour master! Rouse the town serjeant!”

  “Milafasso! Tuk-tuk-tuk!”

  “Water, I need water!”

  “Out the way, y’crook-back lump!”

  Panting, coughing, Roric slipped and tripped to a halt. Nearly crashed to the stone-paved ground as a grim-faced Zeidican sailor burdened with a sloshing bucket in each hand barrelled into him and kept going towards the heart of the nearest burning warehouse. Six in all fronted this stretch of the harbour–and by the coats of arms nailed high and proud to their doors, four of the six belonged to Ardenn. Poor Berardine, to receive such a welcome. One of her warehouses was well alight, one smouldered ominously, with two others belonging to Ardenn’s sister duchy Voldare in immediate danger.

  Breathing hard, Roric stared around him. Had Berardine braved the night and the danger to witness Ardenn’s losses? He couldn’t tell. Chaos ruled.

  Boots thudding on the dockside, cries of despair, of encouragement, howls of fury, shrieks of fear. The loud clanging of bells, the slap and splash of buckets being plunged into the harbour and hauled out again. A frantic sizzle and hiss as water met fire. Nightmare shadows. Choking smoke. The throat-closing, lung-bursting stench of charred wool, burning oil, melting metal, blazing wood.

  The nursery at Heartsong. Liam’s burned cradle. Liam’s burned body. The silent, ringing echoes of Argante’s fatal grief.

  Roric shook his head sharply. He had no time for memories now.

  “Here, y’gormless bollock!” a soot-streaked man shouted, thrusting an empty bucket into his hand. “Don’t just stand there!”

  The bucket’s handle had a rope tied to it. Desperate, he kneed-and-elbowed his way to the dock’s edge, tossed the bucket into the churned harbour alongside all the other tossed buckets and hauled it out again full of water, muscles cracking. Kneed-and-elbowed his way back through the heaving crowd towards the fiercely burning buildings. A sudden wind whipped up, whipping sparks and embers with it. For a moment the world stopped and he stared at their savage scarlet and orange beauty as they danced and swirled and flirted with the night, hardly feeling his lungs sear and his eyes water from the heat and smoke. Not caring, not even frightened, only stunned because in the midst of destruction there could still be such splendour…

  “It’s no use!” someone close by bellowed. “We won’t save it! Let’s do what we can for the rest!”

  The bellower was right. The first warehouse to catch alight was swiftly burning itself into a timber skeleton. But the other five in the row, they still might be saved–and the rest of the merchant district with them.

  Gasping in vain for clean air, he fought the warehouse fires like a knight of old battling a flame-breathing dragon. Fought alongside sailors from a half-score of nations, and Clemen dockmen, and Eaglerock taverners, and bare-breasted brothel wenches. Fought unrecognised and unremarked, just another soot-streaked face in the crowd. The heat was so fierce he could feel his exposed skin crisping, even as sweat soaked through linen and velvet. His leather cloak was a torment but he didn’t dare throw it off in case someone recognised him. A stray, rueful thought occurred in the midst of the madness.

  Humbert will skin me alive when he hears about this.

  Above the shouting voices, crashing burned timberwork and roaring flames, a new and different sound. Skin-crawling, horrible: the screams of terrified horses. No man who’d heard it even once in battle could forget it, or mistake it for anything else.

  Dropping his emptied bucket, Roric turned. Heard someone shout, “Harcia’s stables!” A handful of men abandoned the warehouse fires to run uphill and crosswise, heading towards that dreadful animal screaming and another ominous, scarlet-and-orange glow in the night.

  He ran after them.

  The fitful bree
ze swirling sparks and embers into a glorious dance had blown them high overhead, capricious, then dropped them onto the nearby roof of a barn housing Harcian horses meant for sale into Cassinia. Timber, hay and straw fed the swiftly growing flames… and in scant moments live horseflesh would feed them too.

  Roric helped three other men unbar the barn’s heavy doors and haul them wide. Almost deafened by the terrified horses as the animals neighed and kicked and squealed, they stared at each other in the growing glow of flame. Stared into the burning barn, swiftly filling with smoke. Where was the barn-man? Harcia would never leave its valuable horses unguarded, but there was no sign of him. Had he turned coward and fled?

  “You there!” Roric shouted at the others who’d run from the waterfront, who hesitated now in the face of so much danger. “Four of you stand fast to take the horses we bring out. The rest of you find a way to block each end of this street! If the horses escape us we can’t have them bolting free. They’ll break their legs, and the necks of any man in their way.”

  “You be going in there?” demanded one of the men who’d helped haul open the barn doors. Short and brawny, he had the olive-skinned look of southern Cassinia about him.

  Roric glared. “I am. And so are you–and you–and you! Or I swear by Clemen’s falcon you’ll be answering to the duke. Now, with me!”

  He plunged into the madness. Through the smoke and leaping flame saw ten panic-struck animals still trapped in their stalls, wide eyes white-rimmed, flaring nostrils blood red, sleek coats foamed with the sweat of fear.

  “Halters!” he shouted to the men who’d followed him, pointing at the hooks beside each stall’s door. “Let your animal free without one as a last resort only!”

  Because he was Clemen’s duke, and these strangers’ leader, he had to go deepest into the barn. Leaving them to save those horses nearest to safety, he fumbled through the choking, flame-flickered darkness to the last stall on the right, hissing as his fingers blistered on hot timber and metal. The stall’s door was already ajar. As he leapt to pull it open he nearly tripped face-first over the crumpled body at his feet. One swift touch found sticky-wet hair and crushed bone.