Dawn of Swords (34 page)

It is all my fault
.

He tossed the quill across the room, crumpled the parchment, and cried. He only had one more day left before he had to head back to Veldaren and reclaim his position as Lord Commander. More than anything, he wished someone could heal his troubled mind before then.

Perhaps Karak will visit again in the night,
he thought.
Perhaps he will tell me what to do.

It was the lie he told himself every night, the way he calmed himself enough for sleep. Rising from his chair, nearly knocking it over in his tipsiness, he proceeded to the cot in the corner of the room and collapsed on it. He didn’t bother to extinguish the candles or close the flue to the hearth. Eyelids half-open, he stared at the flickering light until it sent him off to another drunken and restless sleep.

He was awakened by a foreign scent and something soft touching his face. The shocking revulsion he felt snapped his eyes open with a start. He lashed out with his fist, striking nothing but air.

“Please be calm, Lord Commander,” a voice spoke from the darkness. “I mean you no harm, but we must speak.”

Vulfram recognized the voice, but distantly. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, the blood pounding in his head a reminder of how much he had drunk. The throbbing across the front of his face was almost
as bad. He groaned and leaned over, searching for his waterskin on the ground and not finding it.

“You wish for some water, sir?” the familiar voice asked.

A figure stepped forward in the darkness, and for the first time Vulfram understood that it
was
dark.

“How long have I been sleeping?” he asked, snatching the proffered jug from the stranger and taking a long pull from it.

“I don’t know, sir. I just arrived.”

“Has the worship bell rung?”

“Um, no sir. That isn’t until tomorrow evening.”

“Good,” he said. He scanned the darkened room, lit only by the still glowing embers within the hearth, but he couldn’t find his sword. Instead, he reached beneath his mattress and wrapped his fingers around the handle of his spare dagger.

“Sir, I assure you there is no need for that. I mean you no harm.”

A flame was struck in the darkness, momentarily blinding him. Vulfram covered his eyes with his arm, almost cutting himself with his dagger in the process. Silently he cursed his carelessness. His sight adjusted to the new light, that of a lantern. When he lowered his arm, he recognized his visitor as Weston, one of the Renson’s elderly family servants. The old man tilted his head and gave Vulfram a queer look.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“I am. Why do you ask?”

A curved, slender finger pointed at him. “You have blood all over your mouth and beard, sir.”

Vulfram wiped at the area and sure enough, there was blood there, mostly dried. The ache in his nose…he must have struck it somehow while collapsing onto his cot. He took the jug Weston had given him and splashed water over his face, which served to fully rouse him, and then wiped his face with yesterday’s tunic. He felt a cold breeze and looked over to see that the outside door to the study, which opened onto the rear court of Mori Manor, had been left ajar. Rising from the cot, he paced to the door, closed it, and
headed back to his desk. The candle there had dribbled wax all over his meager supply of parchment. Sighing, he began peeling the bits of dried wax off, dropping them into an empty cup.

“Weston,” he said while he performed his mindless duties, “I’m tired and irritated. Tell me why you snuck into my quarters in the middle of the night. Come to avenge your master’s death, perhaps?”

The last part had been said in jest, but the old servant seemed to take it seriously. “Absolutely not, sir. To me, the Lord Commander’s decree is as good as Karak’s. I would never do such a thing.”

“So why are you here?”

“My new master sent me, sir.”

“Bracken?”

“Yes.”

“Then out with it,” Vulfram said. “What does he want?”

“He wishes to speak with you immediately.”

Vulfram chuckled. “Two weeks go by, but
now
is when he wants to see me immediately? I supposed he needed time to work up the nerve. I take it
he
will be the one who takes revenge for Broward’s death, eh? Better him than a crooked-backed old servant.”

Weston didn’t laugh; he simply stared at him with a dire expression.

“I apologize,” said Vulfram, feeling like an ass. “Please, Weston, what does Master Renson want with me?”

“I do not know, sir. He has been searching the house for days, and this very evening he emerged from the library in hysterics. He told me to find you immediately or he would cut off my head.” Weston licked his dry lips. “I hope
you
do not wish me beheaded, sir.”

Vulfram shook his head. That a man who had served his friend so faithfully for decades might doubt him filled him with shame.

“Of course not, Weston. I do not punish the innocent, only the guilty. Please, let me put on clothes that do not smell like a brewery. Wait in the front courtyard. I will join you in a few moments.”

“Yes, sir,” Weston said with a bow and left the room.

Twenty minutes later, under the faint light of a half moon, Vulfram followed Weston down the winding dirt path that led from Mori Manor to the quaint manse that the Renson family called home. The home was solidly built, two stories high, with a garret protruding from the top like a dunce cap. Vulfram remembered the days of his childhood when he and Broward would play in that garret, fooling around with wooden swords in the vast open space. Humanity had only been around for a tad more than thirty years at that time, and the garret had been virtually empty of belongings and knickknacks. He was sure it had filled up now, with four subsequent generations of memories added to the place.

They approached the front entrance to find Bracken standing there. His body was shaking, his eyes frantic. Instinctively, Vulfram reached for Darkfall, which he had strapped to his back. The new housemaster did not seem to notice.

“Good, you brought him,” Bracken said, his voice cracking. He didn’t look at Vulfram, instead shouting, “Follow me!” and storming back into the manse.

Weston stepped aside so that Vulfram could enter the abode, then turned and began to walk away.

“Where are you going?” asked Vulfram.

“I cannot enter,” the old man said. “My master gave strict orders in that regard. All servants have been sent to stay with other households. Even the master’s other children have been sent away. You two will be alone. That is what he wanted.”

“Why?” Vulfram asked, suspicious.

Weston shrugged. “I do not know, Lord Commander.
‘Prying eyes,’
was all the master told me.”

With that the old man limped away down the dirt path. Vulfram patted his sword’s handle for comfort and then walked inside, hoping for the best.

He followed the trail of burning candles, which led him to the library at the far end of the home. Bracken sat behind a table,
frantically scanning line after line of whatever document lay before him. The man looked as if his sanity had fled him, and Vulfram took a quick inventory of the room to see whether any weapons were hidden there. He didn’t notice any save the great axe that Bracken’s grandfather Brutus had used to fell the trees with which he had built this very home.

“It’s funny how things work sometimes,” said Bracken, still not looking up from the table. “Despite the many vile, lawless men of this world, it is men of good heart who often commit the greatest crimes. Orders, orders, always orders!”

“What madness do you speak of?” asked Vulfram, slowly making his way through the library.

Bracken slammed his fist on the table. “It is
not
madness!” he shouted, looking at the Lord Commander for the first time that evening. Vulfram could see the lunacy shining through in his clenched-lipped gaze. “It is
reality!
We are guided by forces greater than us, forces that
manipulate
us, and we will never understand what it is that they seek!”

“Forget manipulators,” said Vulfram. “You don’t understand what
you
are saying.” He put his hand on Darkfall’s hilt. “I think you may have lost your mind.”

Bracken cackled, a sound so mad that the very air seemed to vibrate. He shot up and stormed around the table, making Vulfram brace for conflict. But instead of assailing him, Bracken fell to his knees, gazing up at him with crazy, pleading eyes.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Kill me like you killed my son and father. Kill me because you were instructed to do so. Because that is why you kill, is it not? Because you are
told to?
”

“Bracken, man, stand up.”

“You kill because it is Karak’s will. But why would Karak wish the murder of his own creations? He is a god that walks among us! Any faults we possess,
he
gave to us! Can no one else see that? Any criminal, any blasphemer, he could counsel with a
snap of his holy fingers. So why, I ask you again, would he order us
dead?
”

“Because we are to make our own way in the world.”

“A fool’s errand. Would you set your infant alone in the woods with wolves so he could do the same?”

Vulfram backed away a step. “What are you getting at?”

Bracken stumbled to his feet, moving like a drunk himself. Now that Vulfram got a good look at the man, he could tell that he hadn’t slept for days. Whatever it was that afflicted him, be it grief or anger or doubt, it was degrading his body along with his mind.

He shuddered, for he felt as though the same thing were happening to him.

“I am saying we are all puppets,” said Bracken. “Puppets in a game much larger than any we could ever understand. My father was tricked, as were my son and your daughter. As were
you
.”

Vulfram dropped Darkfall to his side. “These accusations are not to be made lightly, Bracken. Son of my old friend or not, you will not be saved from the executioner’s stone should I find you guilty of blasphemy.”

Bracken cackled again, his insane grin spreading wider.

“Of course not,
Lord Commander
. I think you proved that when you beheaded the people I love most.”

The words sent a knife twisting through Vulfram’s heart. He grimaced and nodded for Bracken to continue. Bracken’s demeanor shifted when he realized that Vulfram would give him an audience. He took a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his fists. When he spoke again, it seemed as though a measure of control had taken hold.

“I was in abject misery, as you might expect, having lost both Kristof and my father on that dreadful afternoon. Penelope was as well, of course, and she left Erznia to rejoin her parents in Brent. She
left me
because I was a shell of a man. And it did not take long, in my loneliness, for my sadness to turn to hate. Hatred for you,
Vulfram. I wanted you dead. I went so far as to prepare Weston to venture out on the Gods’ Road in search of bandits or sellswords who might take what meager coin I have in exchange for your head. It never came to that, of course—Weston would never have done it, and besides, I knew asking any standard thug to cleave your skull was akin to asking him to commit suicide. Instead, I ventured into the garret and sat there for days, shunning food and sleep while I wept. Many of my parents’ things are stored there, and I took to combing through their old chests. For the first time I truly missed Mother. She died six years ago, stabbing herself through the heart. It took Father many moons to become anything close to himself again. Did you know that?”

Vulfram shook his head. All the while a new river of guilt overflowed the levees of his soul. He hadn’t known, and given the duress he’d been under, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask his old friend about Katherine’s whereabouts.

Bracken waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter. But though old wounds heal, they are always tender, always ready to break anew. My father once said to me, ‘It is not her fault. There is always a reason when people act against their nature.’ Mother had been suffering with the Wasting, you see. The pain that mounted each day became too much for her to bear, no matter what medicines or herbs or treatments we gave her. The only recourse she could find in the end, the only way to stop the pain, was to take her own life.

“When I thought of that, I knew,” Bracken continued, pacing around the library with his head down and brow furrowed in deep concentration. “Something was wrong. Father was a man of responsibility, of dignity and honor. He loved his god more than any other. None of us dared contradict him, and we passed those lessons on to our own. And Father
adored
his grandchildren. He strove for nothing but the best for them. He was as much a teacher of morality and decency as I am, perhaps more so.

“Do you see? I am no fool. I can understand my son surrendering to his urges and bedding your sweet Lyana, but what my father did? I couldn’t believe that a man of morality and religious fervor would choose to contradict our god’s decrees in such a heinous way. I thought it a lie, a ploy, a falsehood. I tore through the garret in search of clues that might explain why he was foolish enough to offer crim oil to that frightened pair. By Karak, I didn’t even know what I was looking for.”