Winterbirth (9 page)

The mercenary held out his hands and started to speak. Before he could do so, Kale seized his arms and pushed him from the tent. The High Thane sighed and sank a little deeper into his chair as his bodyguard returned. He sent the footman away with a flick of his wrist.

Gryvan beckoned Kale closer and the warrior stepped forwards, inclining his head a touch that he might hear the Thane's soft-spoken words.

'Our friend from Dornach is unfortunate to find himself in a more tightly woven web than he knew. In other times his would have been a welcome offer, but Dargannan is not the only Blood with lessons to learn. I am not done with Kilkry and Lannis. I will see their strength spent and broken on these slopes yet.'

'That strength is all but gone, my lord,' said Kale. 'They sent two thousand men apiece to campaign with you. Less than half that number could now take the field.'

'Still, that is more than I will send back to them. They may conceal them better than Igryn, but their instincts are still those of rebels.'

The Thane pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes.

'Ah, Kale,' he said, 'my bones are too old for plotting in the depth of the night. I long to be back in Vaymouth. It's been too long this time.'

'Your bones are not so old,' said his bodyguard unsmilingly, 'and to be always plotting is the fate of the Thane of all the Bloods. Igryn is almost finished. He cannot hide forever. We could be back in Vaymouth in a month, I think.'

Gryvan yawned, putting his hand to Kale's shoulder for a moment.

'No doubt,' he said. 'Well, I'll not sleep again now I've been woken. Slumber's an unreliable companion as the years go by: irresistible when you're in its embrace, then irrecoverable when you're parted from it for a while. Send for our loyal northern captains, and have someone bring me clothes more fitting to receive them in.'

Kale gave a shallow bow as he backed away, then turned and passed out into the night.

Taim Narran dar Lannis-Haig, captain of Castle Anduran, was ushered into the council tent by Kale.

The two exchanged a loveless glance. Close behind him came Roaric nan Kilkry-Haig, the younger son of Lheanor, Thane of the Kilkry Blood. Gryvan awaited them on his wooden throne, now wearing a fine ceremonial cape and with his sheathed sword across his knees. On either side of him stood Shield guards, resplendent in formal dress as they stared ahead.

'A cold night to be making plans,' said Gryvan, 'but war makes harsh demands upon us all.'

Taim said nothing. Roaric shifted uncomfortably at his side.

'Too cold for pleasantries, I see. So,' continued the High Thane, 'when light returns, we attempt the walls again. Your companies shall lead the assault.'

Taim lowered his eyes, his teeth clenched and his knuckles showing white as he gripped the hilt of his sword. The faintest of winces crossed his face as he heard Roaric draw breath at his side. Taim knew only too well how loosely Lheanor's son held his temper when it stirred within him. The younger man let anger colour his voice as he spoke.

'My father gave me two thousand of our finest men to bring in answer to your summons to war,' Roaric said, 'and hundreds of them have surrendered their lives in your cause. More than half a thousand dead from plagues and fevers or on the battlefield, the same again unable to rise from their sleeping mats. In every battle, and now in every attempt upon the walls of this petty castle, it is Kilkry and Lannis that must be to the fore. Am I to leave every one of my men dead in these hills? When will the other Bloods lead the charge?'

'The hunger for glory of our northern brothers is not what it once was, I see,' said the High Thane in a level voice.

Roaric started to reply. Gryvan cut him off. 'You should choose your words with more care when addressing your High Thane. It is a long time since yours was first amongst the Bloods. Your father took an oath to me, as did Croesan, the master of our friend Taim here. You stand now under that oath. You are young, and for the sake of your father I will overlook it, but you speak poorly when you call this my cause. It is in the cause of all the Bloods and all the Thanes that one who forgets his duties, as Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig has done, must be brought to heel. There can be no order if such as he go unrestrained.

You do not desire chaos, I assume?'

There was a flush of colour in Roaric's cheeks and his eyes showed a wildness for an instant before he mastered himself. 'We have not the engines to break An Caman,' he said tightly.

Gryvan gave a half-laugh. 'This is no Highfast, to shatter armies upon its walls. It is fit only to frighten bandits and robbers. You have scaling ladders, and the courage of your men: take an arm's width of the battlements and the army will be a flood following in your wake.' He turned to Taim Narran. 'And does our captain of Lannis-Haig share your fears?'

Taim looked up. His face bore deeper lines and darker shades than did Roaric's. His short hair was fading to grey from the black of its forgotten youth. Nothing about his expression betrayed his thoughts save for his eyes. There was a measured, deep-rooted strength about them as he met the High Thane's gaze.

'Neither I nor any of my men fear to die,' he said, 'though I, and they, would rather have a better reason to greet the Sleeping Dark. They lack the stores within the fort to last another month, and if we waited they would come out of their own accord. Igryn himself is beaten, a fugitive with only the mountains themselves to keep him from capture. You have half a dozen companies out hunting him in the mountains south of here. He will be yours in a day, or a week, and then again this fastness will mean nothing.'

Gryvan oc Haig spoke slowly and clearly.

'Perhaps you speak the truth, Taim Narran. I do not care. Understand me well: it is my will that the walls above be broken and that Lannis and Kilkry lead the way. And here and now, my will rules. Your domain is the precincts of Castle Anduran, and they lie very far from here. My domain runs from the Glas to these very hills. I am Thane of Thanes, lord of your lord. Every one of your men who can walk and hold a sword will stand ready at dawn.'

'I understand you well, my lord,' said Taim, bowing his head. Roaric once again started to speak. Taim touched his arm and turned him away. He liked Roaric despite his youthful failings, and had no wish to see him harm himself still more in the High Thane's eyes. They walked out of the tent, to wake their men and await the day.

Gryvan grunted and glanced at Kale.

'Roaric is a fool,' he said. 'It's as well there's another between him and his father's high seat. Our friend Taim Narran is of better stuff, I think.'

Kale shrugged. 'He knows no loyalty save to Lannis-Haig, lord. Let me set a knifeman on him. It could be done with no finger to point at us afterwards, and his loss would wound Croesan to the quick.'

'Indeed,' laughed Gryvan, 'but you allow your dislike of the man to cloud your judgement. My Shadowhand back in Vaymouth would never forgive such impulsiveness. No, we need not take so hasty a step. Taim will lead his men to slaughter tomorrow, though in his heart he would rather strike my head from my shoulders. We should be thankful that the old traditions bind them still in Lannis and Kilkry.

Because Croesan has bent the knee to me, Taim will in his turn do my bidding. It would strain his precious honour beyond the breaking point to do otherwise.'

The Thane of Thanes rubbed his hands together. 'This cold could crack a mountain pine. Have a brazier brought in here. And bread. I must be strong and hearty if I am to savour what the morning will bring.'

ORISIAN WOKE LATE, from a dream that slipped away before he could grasp it. In those first bleary instants of wakefulness there was a fleeting memory of his brother's face. He sat up in his bed and looked about the room. He had shared it with Fariel when his brother lived. While the sickness had been stalking the passages and chambers of the castle, this was where Fariel had lain: sweating, muttering, drifting in and out of violent sleep. During those awful weeks Orisian had slept instead in Anyara's room, until she too had fallen sick. Then he had gone with Ilain to the chamber-maids' quarters.

For months after his brother was wrapped in a sheet and carried away to The Grave on a black-sailed boat, Orisian had refused to return to this bedchamber. When at last he had found the courage to come back, it had been unexpectedly comforting. He often dreamed of his brother in this bed, and they were almost always fond dreams. His mother Lairis too seemed to have left something of her presence in the room, though Orisian's memories of her had a specificity that those of Fariel never possessed. His image of his mother had turned over the years into a mosaic of details: the smell and feel of her hair upon his face; the warm, strengthening clasp of her hand about his; the sound of her singing. These things infiltrated his dreams, and there were times when he awoke to discover in momentary surprise and confusion that she was not with him. They were lonely times, but soothing in their way, too.

He had just shaken sleep off when Ilain bustled in, bringing water and a cloth. She hardly spoke beyond wishing him a good morning. Her thoughts on the subject of late risers were almost palpable. By the time she left, Orisian was reproaching himself for his laziness.

The day passed quickly. In the morning, he went with Anyara over the causeway into town. They wandered about the market, jostling their way through the amiable crowd. They came across Jienna, the daughter of the merchant who owned fully a quarter of the stall plots. She was the same age as Orisian, and pretty. She and Anyara gossiped gaily, more or less ignoring Orisian. When he did steal into a gap in their conversation to compliment her on her dress, she laughed. Thankfully, it was a friendly, grateful laugh.

Afterwards, Anyara poked him in the back and teased him. He reddened and cursed her without conviction. She soon tired of the game and they turned back to idle talk: how many guests would come to the feast in the castle, who would be the Winter King at the celebration, which of the market traders was doing the most business.

They found a stall selling little honey-coated cakes, a delicacy their father had always loved. When they had been children he would often return from visits to Drinan or Glasbridge with packets of them hidden away in his baggage. It had been a regular game for Orisian, Anyara and Fariel to dig through Kennet's belongings in search of the sticky treasures which he, until the very moment of discovery, would deny the existence of. The passage of time had shuffled roles and relationships. Now, Orisian and Anyara bought a small box of the cakes to take back to their father.

Later, Orisian went looking for Inurian. He searched the castle without success. Eventually he was directed out through the tiny postern gate at the rear of the stables. A passageway burrowed through the castle walls and gave out, through a heavy steel-banded door, on to the rocks of the isle's seaward flank.

There was a crude jetty, and alongside it a little sailboat: Inurian's, which he must have left there after his most recent crossing to the far shore of the estuary. It was a simple, fast boat, sturdy enough for short trips when the weather was kind. It would not survive in such an exposed berth if caught by high wind or wave, though, and Orisian guessed that it must soon be moved to the town's quayside. He always enjoyed those rare occasions when Inurian took him out on the water, skimming along so close to the surface that an outstretched hand could plough a sparkling furrow through the waves. The short journey from castle to harbour might be a last chance to have a trip in the boat before the winter took hold.

With his back to the great bulk of the castle, not a sign of human life or habitation disturbed Orisian's view north across the Glas estuary to the heights beyond. There was almost no wind and the great bay was as near to stillness as it could come. He stood for a moment watching the distant white shapes of seabirds chasing one another low across the water. The Car Anagais, a rugged ridge of bare mountain tops skirted by dark forests, dominated the northern shore. The summits succeeded one another in a jagged line stretching off in either direction. To the north, he knew, they ran all the way up towards Glasbridge where they merged into the greater ramparts of the Car Criagar, and far to the south they marched down to the blasted headland of Dol Harigaig, where the ridge collapsed into the sea in a welter of broken, jumbled rock. Far beyond Orisian's sight, a bleak island lay there, lashed by the ocean. It skulked off the point of Dol Harigaig, as if the last of the mountains had slid intact into the water and left only its peak above the breakers.

An old story said the isle was the body of a giant, one of the First Race, cast into the sea. It had a more acute meaning for the people of Kolglas now. Dozens of their kinsfolk had found their final, fiery rest there during the Fever, their bodies carried to its huge pyres by boats with black sails. That had been the last journey Orisian's brother and mother had made, bound up in linen winding sheets and crowded in with the other dead upon the deck of a corpse ship. Until that grim year, the island had been called Il

Dromnone, an ancient name. Now, everyone knew it as The Grave.

Orisian slipped and slithered along the rocks at the foot of the wall to where he could see Inurian crouching by the water's edge, poking around amongst the stones with a stick. The hem of the
na'kyrim's
dark robe was trailing in the sea.

Orisian called to him. 'What are you doing?'

'Looking for sea urchins.'

'Why?'

Inurian sat back on a convenient boulder. 'Well, firstly because if you dry them and crush them to a powder they are said to prevent dampness on the chest when taken in broth. I doubt it myself, but who knows? Secondly, because I had a good amount ground up, at which point Idrin chose to knock the bowl over. Most of it disappeared between the floorboards.'

'Ah.'

Inurian tossed the stick into the water disconsolately. 'There are none here, though,' he said.

Orisian sat beside him. They gazed out towards the hills. Inurian at last noticed that his robe was sodden and began to wring it out, muttering under his breath.