Blood in the Water (4 page)

The pamphleteer had other concerns. “Dagaran said you wanted to see me. What’s the latest news from Tathrin?”

“The army is making steady progress through the forest towards Carluse. They’ve been encountering runaways and vagabonds all through the woods,” Aremil explained. “Do you have anyone to send to explain what Evord’s army intends? The last thing the captain-general needs is skirmishing delaying his advance.”

“Tell Dagaran to give me a handful of fast horses and my men will spread the word all the way to Carluse.” Reniack narrowed his eyes. “Can I throw Failla’s treachery in the duke’s face just yet?”

“No!” Though Aremil didn’t know why he was shocked. Reniack never attempted to hide his lack of scruple.

“It might knock Duke Garnot off balance, if everyone knew his whore ran off and faked her own death rather than rub bellies with him any longer.” The pamphleteer chuckled. “If his militiamen are gossiping around their campfires, they’re not sleeping or making ready to fight.”

“No.” Aremil tried to think of some argument to dissuade him. That it would distress Tathrin wouldn’t weigh a pennyworth with Reniack. Nor would the pamphleteer much care that Failla was desperate to stay hidden, fearing Duke Garnot’s reprisals when he found out she had long since betrayed his secrets to Carluse’s guildmasters’ plots.

Reniack shrugged. “That’s an arrow we can keep in our quiver for another day. When does Tathrin think they’ll join battle?”

“Evord expects to force Duke Garnot into a fight tomorrow.”

Reniack nodded, eyes distant. “How soon can we realistically have news of the outcome?” He answered his own question. “If we say we had it by courier bird, someone will ask who gave us doves hatched in Losand. How far is it to Carluse? Forty-five leagues? The battle will be closer than that. A man on a fast horse could do it in a day and a half—”

“Only if he didn’t mind the horse dropping dead,” Aremil objected.

Reniack waved away that concern. “I’ll have something ready for the first day of Aft-Autumn. A little shock to wake up the townsfolk after they’ve slept off their last festival drunk.”

“But we don’t know what will happen.” Aremil coughed on his indignation.

“We’ll win, or we’ll do well enough to claim we’ve won. We have to.” Reniack nodded at Aremil’s crutches, leaning against the side of the desk. “Otherwise we’d all better take to our heels, as best we can.”

“I imagine I’ll find a seat in a coach,” Aremil said curtly.

Reniack wasn’t listening, the jerk of the brass arrow on the timepiece catching his eye. “I’ll get some of my lads on the road before I head for the shrine. I may even breathe a prayer to Drianon,” he added mockingly. “I’ll call back tomorrow evening and you can tell me all Tathrin’s news.”

“Very well.” Aremil nodded as the Parnilesse man departed with a cursory wave.

With his broad shoulders and sturdy build, Reniack didn’t look as if he’d suffered a day’s illness in his life. Was that why he disliked him, because he made no allowance for Aremil’s infirmities, the lifelong curse of his near-fatal birth?

But Aremil could hardly complain. He wanted people to see him as more than some cripple with twisted legs, weak eyes and hesitant speech. That was why he had put himself through the torment of the journey here from Vanam. That was why he was so determined to master the secrets of Artifice. If he couldn’t take up a sword like Tathrin, he’d serve the cause of peace in Lescar some other way.

Was he more afraid that Reniack would discover his true birth? As long as the pamphleteer thought Aremil was merely the crippled son of some minor noble, sent to Vanam to live in seclusion, all he had to endure were barbed reminders that humble men’s labours paid for his idleness. What would Reniack say if he knew Aremil was in fact the eldest son of Duke Secaris of Draximal? Would he suffer the full force of the man’s contempt for all those born to rank and privilege? Or would Reniack condemn Duke Secaris for discarding his own child once it was clear Aremil would never walk unaided, never ride a horse or command an army?

What might Branca learn about his unknown family as her journey took her through Draximal? About the mother and father he couldn’t even remember. About Lord Cassat, the acknowledged heir who was so widely praised as handsome and accomplished. Did he even know he had once had a brother?

Aremil shifted in his uncomfortable chair. The cushions he relied on had slipped and there was no one to ease his cramps with warm flannel and relaxing tinctures. Was that why he was so out of sorts? Because he was in such pain? Lyrlen, his nurse since birth, would have known how to soothe his discomforts but she was all the way back in Vanam. He shouldn’t have been so ready to rebuke her when she’d warned what tribulations he was bringing on himself.

Reniack said his life had been sheltered. Aremil could hardly deny it. The only Lescari commoner he knew was Tathrin and that friendship was mere chance. They’d never have met if the poorer man hadn’t needed to work as a wealthier scholar’s servant, to earn his bed and board as he pursued his own studies.

But was he biased as well as uninformed because his knowledge of human nature had been culled from books and plays, as Reniack had once accused? Aremil honestly didn’t believe so. With no one to see his drawn face twisting grotesquely, Aremil allowed himself a scowl. He had plenty of reasons to be wary of Reniack that had nothing to do with his personal dislike.

Similarly, he didn’t mistrust Failla just because she’d spent the past few years as Duke Garnot’s mistress. As Tathrin had said, she’d risked her neck to pass the duke’s secrets to her uncle, the Carluse priest. He distrusted her because she’d so thoroughly deceived them all.

She’d borne Duke Garnot’s bastard daughter and no one had known that, not even the duke. Desperate to escape and reclaim the girl from the cousin who was rearing her, Failla had told no one when the Duke of Triolle’s spy had coerced her into giving up ciphered letters detailing the guildsmen’s plots and even hinting at the Vanam conspiracy. There was no telling what damage that might have done, and might still do.

Well, Failla was in Abray with Master Gruit now. With Kerith, who’d used his own Artifice to read her thoughts and uncover her treachery. She could do no more harm and her knowledge of the Carluse guildsmen’s plots might still serve their rebellion. They couldn’t afford to discard her. If Duke Garnot’s men ever caught her, torture would spill out all she knew.

He would continue to trust his instincts, Aremil decided. After all, if he was inclined to blind prejudice, he would never have trusted Branca. She didn’t have Failla’s beauty to recommend her, and she’d made no attempt to win him with charm. Aremil had had to challenge her scorn for Lescar’s endless quarrels. Albeit of Lescari blood, she was Vanam born and bred, in the humblest of circumstances. She’d seen no reason to involve herself in futile strife so far away. Until he had convinced her with scholarly argument, appealing to the intellect that had raised her from a life of toil in Vanam’s lower town to studying in the upper town’s halls and libraries, even if she had to scrub their floors to pay her way.

Aremil sighed heavily. Failla was in Abray and Branca was on her way to Toremal. Reniack was running loose doing who knew what and Lady Derenna had gone off on some errand of her own, without even telling them when to expect her return. At least he knew where Nath the mapmaker and Welgren the apothecary were. Both were following the army, confident that their different skills would soon prove useful.

All he could do was sit and fret, time hanging heavy on his feeble hands. Could the threads of their plotting possibly hold together long enough for Captain-General Evord to defeat all the dukes on the field of battle?

Chapter Three

Tathrin

The Road from Losand to Carluse Town,

Autumn Equinox Festival, Third Day, Morning

Who was in the vanguard today? Tathrin took a moment to remember. Juxon’s Raiders. A stern-faced company of men and women with the mongrel accent of those born in the mercenary camps. Lescar’s wars had rumbled on for so long, some of the winter encampments in Marlier were decades old. The port of Carif, over on the Parnilesse coast, called itself a free city and enough mercenary companies called it home that Duke Orlin ruled there in name only.

Who would be waiting for news, far away in the Carifate or in some holding on the banks of the Rel? Who would receive some smudged letter, some sad bundle of trinkets, letting them know their loved one lay buried where they had fallen in Carluse’s woods?

Tathrin strained his ears. Outraged shouts and the clash of swords drifted through the trees. All around the mercenary companies stood, expectant, waiting for their order to move. Only the banners wavered as standard-bearers shifted their feet. Up on his horse, Captain-General Evord waited calmly for news.

Would a Lescari duke’s army even recognise him as the enemy army’s commander? Tathrin contemplated the back of the captain-general’s armour. It was no different from that worn by any other mounted mercenary. Polished steel back- and breastplates overlaid his chain mail, with more cunningly hinged metal protecting his shoulders, his flanks and thighs. There was none of the intricate engraving and gold embossing that Tathrin had seen on Lord Ricart’s armour, when the Duke of Carluse’s heir had once ridden past their family’s inn along with his personal guard.

Evord himself was wholly unlike the mercenary captains Tathrin had met. The captain-general was a slightly built man of no more than common height, greying too fast for his middle years. He wore a scholar’s silver ring, the insignia of the University of Col so abraded as to be almost indecipherable. With none of the obscenities that sullied his soldiers’ speech, his accent was as cultured as any noble’s. Not a Lescari noble, though. Captain-General Evord was a Soluran, from that vast kingdom in the uttermost west, beyond Ensaimin, beyond the Great Forest.

Solurans defended their untamed borders against assaults from the brutal tyrants of Mandarkin and incursions by beastmen from the wilderness. Tathrin didn’t really know what beastmen were and he wasn’t eager to find out. What mattered were the decades of experience Captain-General Evord and his Soluran lieutenants had brought, along with new and unexpected allies. Would their very different strategy and tactics prove decisive, throwing Lescar’s dukes into confusion? That’s what Sorgrad and Gren and, indeed, all these tens of mercenary companies were wagering. That’s what all the coin that Master Gruit had raised to pay the fighting men and women was riding on.

Tathrin’s mouth was as dry as a bread oven. Would this first skirmish show which way the runes might roll, now that their vanguard had encountered Duke Garnot of Carluse’s scouts? The sounds of fighting were fading. Was it over already?

“There’s nothing like swordplay to get the blood flowing after a night out in the open.” Smiling contentedly, Gren appeared at his side. Someone else’s blood glistened stickily on his hauberk. “You should have come along, long lad, to work some of the stiffness out of your bones.”

“What happened?” Tathrin saw a runner wearing the Juxon’s Raiders’ badge of a spiked warhammer was already at Evord’s stirrup. The mercenary lieutenants crowded around to hear what he had to say, their surcoats and badges a myriad different colours.

Mercenary captains sent their most favoured subordinates to ride with the captain-general, and it was a privilege fiercely sought. The younger men would see at first hand how a successful commander ordered his battles, learning the reasons for his decisions. Such lessons would prove vital when they commanded a company themselves. Keeping them some distance from the perils of battle could prove more immediately crucial, if their captain was cut down in some mêlée and they had to take up his standard.

“We killed enough of the arse-lickers to give the rest something to think about,” Gren said with callous indifference. “Most of the rest ran off pissing their breeches but we caught a double handful, like the captain-general wanted.”

“So the ones who ran off will tell Duke Garnot where we are.” Tathrin was still nervous about that.

“We want all Carluse’s attention turned this way, don’t we?” Gren chided him.

Tathrin nodded, not replying. He was watching Juxon’s Raiders bring their ten prisoners to the captain-general’s standard. The mercenary companies edged apart to let them through. No one raised a weapon or even a hand but the murmurs of derision grew steadily louder. Then Captain-General Evord urged his horse forwards and silence spread through the forest.

“Good day. Please choose one of your number to speak for you all,” Evord invited.

The older men among the captives exchanged a dubious look.

“You’re not from round here,” a lad younger than Tathrin blurted out. Pale from loss of blood, he clutched a gruesome gash on his forearm.

“Soluran, are you?” a bald man ventured.

“I am,” Evord replied courteously.

“Bringing Mountain Men and Dalasorians down on us?” Another of the older men couldn’t hide his alarm.

The regular rotation of the marching companies had brought the uplanders to the fore today. Every man was as yellow-headed as Gren, as stocky and as short. Their armour was subtly different, worn over high-necked tunics and leather leggings, their boots reinforced with iron bindings. A contingent of grassland horsemen followed Captain-General Evord, four-score, with bicoloured pennants fluttering on their lances. Knots of cream and gold cord were sewn to the collars of their vividly embroidered cloaks, showing that these riders from the distant plains of the north had sworn allegiance to Evord’s cause.