Dragon's Winter (32 page)

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“My lord Dragon.” Gorthas sketched a jaunty bow. “My master sends you greetings “ The changeling jerked the chain. “As you see, I have brought the little wolfling with me. Shem, stand!”

The little- boy rose, his vacant face turned toward Gorthas. Beneath his scanty rags, he was trembling with cold.

“He is unhurt: eyes, ears, tongue, arms and legs present and undamaged. He has learned to stand, to sit, and heel, and to keep silence unless given leave to speak. My master believes that speech is a privilege, and that children should be silent in the presence of their elders. Shem, sit.” The child obeyed.

Karadur did not speak, but his eyes were burning. The soldiers slouching at Gorthas’s back shifted uneasily under that formidable gaze.

A watery shaft of light pierced the dense grey clouds. It glinted off mail and fittings and harness buckles, and touched the mage’s hair to shining white. Gorthas’s eyes narrowed. “Is your land so bare of fighting men, that you needs ask your old women to fight for you, my lord Dragon?”

Karadur said, “She is not your business, monster.”

The changeling bristled. “I am Koriuji’s captain; all that moves within my master’s territory is my business. Who are you, old one?” His voice rasped with contempt. “Some senile hedge-witch, traveling with the army to mix simples?” Senmet leaned silently on her staff. Her weathered face was thoughtful, and a little sad.

Gorthas made a dismissive gesture. “I smell magery upon her. But all the mages of Ryoka could not destroy my master. My lord Dragon, my master directs me to say to you: he accepts your offer to fight his champion. He agrees to your terms. If you win, the child is yours, and my wargs and I will find other prey. If my master’s champion wins, your castle, your domain, and your men are my master’s.”
And mine
, said his eyes. “The battle will take place tomorrow, at dawn, in the field in front of the Black Castle. As for weapons”—he paused—”my master will allow you what weapons you have brought with you, no others. Sword, knife, spear. No ax, halberd, mace, or morgenstern.”

“I will need my horse,” Karadur said. “I am a cavalry officer.”

“Very well. My master agrees to that. Shem, stand!” The child stood slowly, too slowly to please his tormentor. Gorthas cuffed him. The boy staggered. A sigh like an indrawn breath went through the ranks of the soldiers. Finle, at the end of the line, silently lifted his bow.

Gorthas said genially, “Children must be disciplined.” He spat in the dirt, and grinned like a skull. “Alas, he is frail. I anticipate little sport from him—later. Would you like him now?”

“You would release him?”

“I would exchange him.”

“For what?”

“For my friend, your traitor, Azil.” Gorthas’s foul voice bubbled with joyful malice. “It would be a fair exchange, my lord. I cannot imagine he is much use to you. Consider, before you refuse. The boy is trained: he can fetch your wine, and clean your boots, warm your bed. The man is broken. You have his body, but his mind and soul are my master’s. You can smell it on him, the lovely stink of darkness. Even his nightmares are not his own.”

A hot wind blew across the frozen ground. Karadur said, “You speak riddles, monster.”

Gorthas put his hands on his hips. “You wish me to be plain?” He raised his voice. “Azil Aumson is Koriuji’s spy, my lord. Whatever he sees, my master sees. Whatever he knows, my master knows. The dreams are the channel; the dreams are the way by which my master knows his mind, and through his, your own. For this purpose he was returned to you. I perceive you doubt me. It is known that the Dragon of Chingura can see a lie in a man’s mind. Do you see it in mine?” His voice rang challenge. Karadur did not reply. “Were he my servant, I would flay him, and hang him living in the noon sun over a slow fire. But since you choose to keep him, I will prepare that delight for my little puppy, my wolfling. Come, Shem!”

He turned crisply. Shem trotted at his heels. His escort split to let him lead, and then closed behind him. The iron gate rose; from within the castle, a horn brayed, a mockery of sound.

Karadur’s face looked as if it had been cut from flint. He said to the mage, “I have heard that such a thing was possible. I did not know it could be done without the dreamer’s knowledge.”

“If it can be done, the Empty One could do it, and would. He delights in betrayal.”

Karadur turned toward Azil. The singer’s face was bloodless. He set his shoulders, as a man might brace himself to receive the force of a powerful wind. The dragon-lord said, his voice curiously gentle, “Captain Lorimir. Azil Aumson is to be disarmed, and kept under light guard until I am free to consider this charge.”

“It shall be done, my lord.” Lorimir gave quiet orders. Olav and Irok guided their horses to bracket Azil’s roan between them. Sliding one hand within his cloak, the singer brought out a small sheathed knife. He extended it, not looking, to Olav.

it?

They cleared a tent for him and furnished it roughly with a stool and a pallet. Lorimir set guards about the tent. Olav brought him food, and wine. He drank the wine. He was not afraid, not really, but the pain in his heart made it hard to eat.

Lorimir came in twice. The second time, he brought a candle.

“Are you comfortable?” the captain asked.

Azil shrugged. He was not particularly comfortable: it was dark in the tent.
Traitor, little traitor. I have your mind in my hand. You will never be free.
The bitter, monotonous words raced through his head like the refrain of a song.

Lorimir said, “Do you need anything? Are you cold?” Azil looked at the candle. “I will leave it for you.”

“Thank you,” Azil said.

As the captain left the tent, he turned not toward his own tent but toward the dragon standard. Lurri stood guard beside it. “Ask Dragon if he’ll see me,” Lorimir said. Lurri ducked his head into the tent, murmured, and then held the flap wide.

Derry, brush in one hand, cloth in the other, was cleaning a helmet. Karadur, on his pallet, held a naked longsword across his knees. He had unpegged the hilt. Firelight gleamed like water along the tempered, polished steel.

“My lord,” Lorimir said. Derry set the helmet aside and brought Lorimir a cup of wine. “Thank you. My lord, may we be private?”

Karadur said, “Derry, go.” Seizing his cloak, the page exited the tent. The dragon-lord fit the sword hilt back on its tang. The heavy cavalry sword was meant to be swung two-handed, but Karadur handled it as though it had the weight of a much slighter weapon. He reached for the rosin ball. “Well?”

Lorimir said, “My lord, Azil Aumson is secure, as you commanded.”

The dragon-lord’s face was in shadow. He tapped the powder ball down one and the other side of the blade. “Did he say anything to you?”

“He thanked me for a candle.”

Karadur picked up the cleaning cloth. His hand moved steadily along the sword-blade. After a while he said pensively, “You are my counselor as well as my captain. You heard the charge. You tell me. Was it treason?”

“Was it true?” the captain asked.

“It was true.”

Lorimir raked fingers through his beard. Finally he said, “I am no scholar, my lord. That is a question for magistrates to argue. I can tell you: every man, woman, and child in your realm knows that Azil Aumson would cut his own heart out with a rusty knife rather than do you hurt.”

“Rogys disobeyed my order, and left his post to follow the war band. I know as well as you that it was love for me, not fear of battle, that moved him. Should I have left him unpunished?”

“It is a different case,” Lorimir said. “Rogys is young, strong, well able to endure a night in the open. Azil is not.”

“I know very well what he is,” Karadur said evenly. He oiled the blade, and, reaching for the black sheath, slid the longsword home.
Feed me,
it said in a lethal whisper. After a moment he said, “I also know what my father would have done, if a man of his had betrayed the secrets of his councils to his enemy.”

“Do you?” said Lorimir. “What?”

“He would have had his soldiers bring that man to the Keep. He would have ordered the bones in the man’s arms and legs and pelvis broken, publicly, and decreed that he be chained by his neck to a stake in the Keep’s courtyard, and left, unsheltered, without food, without water, to suffer and starve and slowly die.”

Lorimir nodded. “It is possible he would have done that.” He moved a candle stub from the stool, and sat. “My lord, I am a soldier. My calling is war, not law or justice. But if you will hear me, I have a story to tell you.”

“A story?” The blue eyes flicked to his face.

“It is a story I have never told to anyone else, my lord, nor ever would.” Lorimir kept his voice at a measured pace. “For six months during the years she was your father’s wife, your mother Hana and I were lovers.”

There was a long silence. Karadur brought the sheathed longsword across his knees. “Go on,” the dragon-lord said.

“I will tell you how it was. We traveled from Nakase, from her father’s hall. She was sixteen, and lonely. I was twenty-four, and leader of the escort. It was my first command. Nain Diamori had charged me to bring his daughter safely to Ippa, and I would gladly have died in her service—for honor, and because I thought she was beautiful. We rode together, over the long miles, and she confided in me: she told me how frightened she was, of the journey, and of her husband-to-be. She even feared the mountains.
There is not enough green in this place,
she said.
Will they let me have a garden, Loren?

“We came to Atani Castle, and she married the Black Dragon. You know what he was. He was Dragon, and he had a dragon’s temper. He was never cruel to Hana, but there was only a little tenderness in him, and he did not dispense it freely. So Hana turned to me, and I, idiot that I was, gave her what she needed: tenderness. It was difficult for us to meet; she was surrounded by women, and I had guard duties. But we managed, somehow. I suppose it was a kind of madness. It was summer. We met in the old buttery by the abandoned well, and we told each other each time we met that this would be the last time. We knew if Kojiro Atani ever learned that his wife was cuckolding him with one of his guards, the best either of us could hope for would be a quick death.”

His throat was dry. He found the wine, weak as it was, and filled his cup. “That first winter, Durach Muire, the swordmaster, fell ill. Dragon named me as his lieutenant. I barely saw her then: my duties doubled. In late spring a band of Isojai came over the western canyons, over the ancient Wall, and attacked western Issho. Rako Talvela asked Pohja Leminin, Kalni Leminin’s father, for aid, and the old man called on us to fight.

“I was wounded in that campaign. It was a sword-stick in the shoulder, no great hurt, but I caught a fever, and ended up flat on my back. Old Durach was still sick. Jon Ivarson of Chingura took my command, and I fretted, fighting weakness, until Lirith—you remember Lirith—threatened to tie me to the bed. Your mother came and sat with me. She had cool hands, and her clothes smelled of lavender.

“When at last I was well enough to walk, she walked with me, in the kitchen garden, and into the fields, and to the old stone well. And whatever those stones saw, they told no one.

“Finally my shoulder healed, and I went back to my duties.

“Then Hana discovered that she was pregnant. She feared—it was just possible—she feared the child was mine. She begged me to leave. But I could not leave her to face that fear alone. And I knew that if the child, once born, was recognized as mine, there was no place in Ryoka to which I could escape. The Dragon of Chingura would find me. So I did not leave.

“And you and your brother were born, and Hana died.

“I thought then, in my grief,
I can go home. Nothing holds me here.
But I had sworn an oath to your father. So I stayed. I did my work. And after a while I met a girl. She lived in Chingura; her name was Miranda. I did not marry her, but we suited each other well enough without that...”

Karadur said, “I remember her. She died of lung-fever, while I was in Mako.”

“Yes. But she was well then, and gentle-hearted, and her smile reminded me of Hana’s, and so I stayed.

“In January, on a cold morning, the year you were four, your father summoned me to his chamber. I polished my boots and weapons, and went to him. He told his page to leave, and invited me to sit, and himself poured wine. He told me he intended to name me swordmaster in Durach’s stead, for the old man had continued sick, and it was clear that he would not recover enough to resume even the lightest of his duties. He asked me if I would do it.

“I said I would. He asked me if I missed my home. I said I had once, but that I had made Ippa my home, and had no wish to leave it.”

“He said, I know it was hard for you to travel so far, to serve so severe a master. I honor your courage.

“I thought: It was not you I came to serve. But I said, and it was true:
My lord, you have only been generous to me.

“He smiled then, like the shimmer of light on a sword as it springs from the sheath. I felt that smile into my very bones. He had never looked at me that way before. And I realized that he knew that Hana and I had loved each other, and that we had betrayed him. Perhaps he had known all along. Perhaps he had just that moment taken the truth from my mind.