Foul Tide's Turning (47 page)

‘And I was rather hoping for a few boring years.’

‘The Skarol dynasty has ruled the empire for millennia,’ said Paetro. ‘It’d be a brave man who bets against them reigning for a few years more. Princess Helrena has promised my sick daughter the attentions of an imperial surgeon when she becomes empress. One of the high ones reserved for the celestial caste.’ He turned to his legionary and ordered the force’s weapons concealed inside the cart and then the wagon was pulled behind two others waiting by the patrol ship.

Duncan was glad for his friend. Paetro’s daughter Hesia had betrayed their house to secure a similar promise from Circae. It was fitting that surviving these troubles would bring the old soldier and his family some measure of happiness. ‘They’ll be able to treat your daughter, I know it. If a regular battlefield surgeon can snatch me back when I was so close to death …’

‘I don’t doubt their sorcery. I’ll do my best to bring your sister back alive, as well as the young highness.’

‘You do that,’ said Duncan. ‘I’ll watch Helrena in your absence. Don’t take any risks in Midsburg.’

‘You mean beyond walking into an enemy stronghold disguised as a peddler with nothing but a few crates of antique guns as my passport?’

‘I mean like trying to hunt down Jacob Carnehan and settle your score with the pastor.’

‘I understand my mission well enough. If I’m blessed enough so that dog’s guarding the young highness, Carnehan’s a dead man. But I know there’s trouble enough on the table without me seeking out an extra helping.’ Paetro pointed to Willow standing by the fast patrol ship. ‘And keep your voice down, man. Your sister still believes they’re enjoying the king’s hospitality. It wouldn’t do to disabuse her of such notions now. And I still say you’re a fool to trust her. She betrayed us in the slave revolt. She betrayed
me
.’

Duncan reached out and patted the man’s arm. Paetro’s daughter had died thanks to Willow’s foolishness, but Hesia had sold the house out and would have been executed if she had stayed in Vandis. Yes, Hesia had been murdered. But it was Jacob Carnehan who’d pulled the trigger. Duncan and the old soldier headed for the patrol vessel. Its rear cargo ramp was lowered, carts and horses ready to be led into the back, their soldiers dressed as traders from Gidor, wearing long green cloaks with hoods that made them look like foresters. Paetro went to supervise a legionary working on removing a large mounted gun from behind the cabin door. Willow was looking very alone among the burly men, and her gaze was cold and unfriendly when she saw her brother.

Duncan met her misery with a grin. ‘Why so sad, Willow? You’ll be fêted as a heroine of the royalist cause when you return.’

‘This was your idea, wasn’t it, not Father’s … How could you?’

This is more like it. Plain speaking, not biting your tongue back on the hill in that restaurant. No false courtesies or sullen silences. My old sister’s back just in time to help me
. ‘I might ask you the same question. I arranged for your freedom from the sky mines and you repaid me by joining the slave revolt. Do you have any idea how badly it could have gone for me in the imperium because of that?’

‘You’d chosen your side, and you look to have survived well enough.’

‘Says the southern duchess from the comfort of her husband’s mansion.’

‘You think I care for
that
? I’m not helping you rescue Lady Cassandra for me. I’m doing this for Carter. That witch Holten made it clear enough what the king will do to Carter and his father in the royal dungeons if I don’t cooperate.’

‘I’m sure Carter’ll thank you for it when the civil war’s over, he always was a grateful soul. Maybe he’ll leave you a thank-you note after he’s broken into your rooms and stolen your jewels.’

‘You don’t know anything about my life, or his!’

‘I’ve read enough about who Father Carnehan really was, just like you. A filthy murderer and brother to Black Barnaby. That explains a lot about Carter, doesn’t it? Bad blood follows bad.’

Willow snorted. ‘You dare call his line bad and talk of murder? Between the usurper’s war and the empire’s revenge, you’re going to leave a mountain of corpses in Weyland and our nation the imperium’s dark reflection. Every worker a vassal and a handful of nobles living as high as slave masters.’

‘Easy platitudes when spoken from the comfort of a southern lord’s table, groaning heavy from food while half the nation’s going hungry on war rationing. Spare me your judgements and your hypocrisy. You and your rebel friends abducted Lady Cassandra,’ said Duncan. ‘And now you’re going to see my charge returned safely. If you fail, I reckon you’ll be dining around a different table, the kind stamped out of Vandian steel in a sky mine …’

‘I’m your sister!’

‘And you’re going to help your brother,’ said Duncan. ‘Just like a
real
family. After that, you can go back to your carriages and your operas and restaurants in Arcadia and all the rest of your high living.’

‘I don’t want any of it.’

Willow sounded so desperate and genuine that Duncan almost believed her. ‘Really? You seem to have an uncanny knack of backing the winning side, Willow. Unlike the rest of the yokels in Weyland, you’ve actually seen what Vandian warships and their legions’ weapons can do. With the imperium supporting King Marcus, the civil war is only going to end one way. We both know that.’

‘The way the slave revolt ended?’

‘A couple of hundred miners who murdered their supervisors and slipped the yoke? You were lucky. Finding a ship damaged by the stratovolcano’s eruption and using it to escape home.’

Willow sneered at him. ‘Is that what they told you? You really don’t know anything.’

‘I know you’ll be returning with Lady Cassandra,’ snarled Duncan. ‘I know that much. The north will surrender soon enough. And for once, you’ll be standing by my side. You
and
the young southern gentleman in your belly.’

‘I thought that you were a fool for chasing Adella. But compared to that imperial bitch you’re bedding now, Adella is almost up there with the saints. I hope Princess Helrena is worth it.’

‘You’re not fit to talk of her! Now get on board,’ snapped Duncan. Part of his anger came from his guilt at betraying the princess in Leyla’s arms. But then, Helrena had spurned him first. What was he expected to do? Moon after her while she took Gyal for a husband and seized the throne? ‘And make right what you’ve done wrong.’

‘If only I could.’ Willow boarded the patrol ship. Duncan was almost tempted to tell Willow how well he had satisfied the new mistress of Hawkland Park, just to needle her. Duncan knew Willow loathed ‘that Holten woman’ for deposing her as the queen bee of Hawkland Park. But how Duncan had sealed his alliance wasn’t for Willow’s ears. There was too great a chance Willow would find a way to use it against him, given her intense jealousy of her brother. ‘It was wrong for Father Carnehan to take the princess’s daughter as a hostage. I begged him not to at the time. He said we needed her to stay the imperium’s vengeance, and look how true those words have proven. But Cassandra’s imprisonment is one wrong, like a leaf in a storm, compared to the empire’s sins. Our king’s little more than the emperor’s puppet now, and Weyland is going to end up just another vassal province.’

‘Our family is a loyalist house, Sister. Father got that much right, at least. But you keep bleating the pretender’s traitorous propaganda,’ said Duncan. ‘The rebels should believe you, right up until the moment you betray them. Just as you did me.’

‘Please, for the love of the saints, I’m your sister—’

‘You keep saying that. Yet, Cassandra has proven more of a sister than you ever were. Help Paetro find the poor girl and bring her back. She has no part in this fight. You free her, and I’ll forgive you. You can go back to your southern estate and write pious histories about the wrongs of the civil war while your lucky servants carry you trays of chilled wine in summer and mulled wine in winter.’

‘Go to hell,’ spat Willow. ‘You’ve escaped the slaves’ perdition and made your own while out far-called. A self-made man at last, master of your own destiny just as you always wanted.’

Duncan watched the final loading in disgust.
How dare she judge me
? Soon enough the patrol ship was riding a rippling curtain of fire into the dark night sky, heading for an altitude far above the skyguard’s aircraft and even the great free merchant carriers, a shooting star looking to land in the north. Willow might have cast herself as a southern lady by marriage, but you didn’t have to scratch deep to find that old jealous sibling, still resentful of Duncan’s success, trying to sabotage him at every step. At least Benner Landor’s naked self-interest was rarely dressed up with such cant and false piety. Their father acted for the family and made no disguise of the fact. Willow had tried to ruin him in the imperium; of that much Duncan was certain. But he had outwitted her.
The House of Landor is behind me at last and I’ve shackled her to my cause. If she fails me this time, she’ll suffer far more than I will. Yes, I can count on my family’s greed to bend them to my will.

And perhaps, when Helrena’s daughter was returned safely, the princess would be made to understand the true value of Duncan’s place in her household.
She won’t be blinded by the lure and novelty of the diamond throne for long.
After Helrena saw how dutifully the new emperor was fulfilling his obligation to fill the imperium with high-born heirs through the imperial harem, no doubt encouraged by scheming Circae, Helrena would remember Duncan Landor more kindly than she did now. If the rumours were true, and Circae had used some trick of science to slip her son into the cuckoo’s nest, then perhaps it was a trick that Duncan could repeat with Helrena? Wouldn’t that be a thing?
To father the next ruler of the imperium with the woman I love
. It would be the ultimate revenge to take on Gyal, for stealing the woman who should have been Duncan’s.

THIRTEEN

MISSION IN THE NORTH

Carter walked through the city on his way to the airfield, the skyguard station a long stroll beyond Midsburg’s northern gate, winding his way below three-storey brick and timber buildings on either side of a wide boulevard crowded by carts and wagons and travellers on horseback, all mixed with soldiers from the dozens of tent camps set up in rings around the city. Anna Kurtain strolled by his side, Prince Owen’s bodyguard and confidante filling out a long grey overcoat with two series of copper buttons, a worn leather belt with a pistol on one hip and a sheathed sabre on the other. People were flooding in from all over, and not just politicians from the rebel prefectures. Traders and merchants and locals who wanted to witness history being made. There was an almost carnival air to the proceedings quite at odds with the desperate fighting raging along the Spotswood River to hold back the southern armies. There was to be a vote later on in the reformed assembly, demanding the usurper’s head for crimes against the people. Could a sitting monarch, even an usurper like Marcus, really be found guilty of treason as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy? If he could, it would prove a powerful rallying call to the rebellious north.
The world is turning, and what’s my part in it to be? Ferreting out Kerge and Sheplar and bringing that imperial brat back to Midsburg. I never asked to be a soldier, but even that’s honest duty compared to playing jailor to a sullen little hostage
. As unasked for as his service as a soldier had been, Carter still didn’t like abandoning his company. There was a bond between those who served and fought together, and he was breaking it. Its severing left a bad taste in his mouth.

‘How long do I have to return the girl?’ asked Carter.

‘Try to be back within a week,’ said Anna Kurtain.

‘That soon?’

‘That soon, Northhaven. Our spies report that the Vandians have started leaving Arcadia’s bawdy houses and taverns untouched. When a soldier forgoes drinking and whoring, he normally has other things on his mind, such as sobering up to be somewhere else more important.’

‘We whipped the Vandians in the sky mines,’ said Carter. ‘And we were just slaves.’

‘We beat a handful of hastily scrambled soldiers while they were being rained on by magma and rock,’ said Anna. ‘What we face now is a full imperial squadron, warships packed with trained fighting men and helos and armoured vehicles. The imperium’s sent their best. Veterans. We’re barely holding Bad Marcus’s boys back in Humont and Bolesland as it is, and now we’ve got the armies of the Hicks and Dulany linking up in the east to pound us in Chicola. Even if we burn every bridge across the Spotswood, they’ll ford the river and flank us through Deersota. It’s what I would do.’

Carter halted among the crowd with Anna. A caravan of wagons was being waved through by the gate’s harassed sentries. He caught sight of Thomas Purdell riding in behind the caravan. The guild courier slipped through the gate and stopped his horse in front of Carter and Anna.

‘You come to see me off?’ asked Carter. ‘Or are you kindly offering to take my place?’

‘Oh, this one’s all yours, Brother,’ said Tom. ‘I was waiting at the airfield for you, but you’re late, so I rode back to make sure you hadn’t forgotten the prince’s orders.’

‘I’ve got Anna to march me to my duty.’

Tom moved his horse in from the cobbled road to make way for the caravan. Merchants in green Gidorian cloaks rode the carts, the wagon’s flat-beds covered by bundles of spindly single-shot rifles tied together like fire-wood … and almost as useful as a stout branch in beating back the southern armies. Traders hunched over the riding step, flicking their reins, burly men and what might be a woman seated next to them, her face enveloped by an emerald hood. The Gidorians would find a market for their wares readily enough with the thousands of fresh green recruits being drilled outside the city, Carter didn’t doubt.
Cheap rifles for cheap lives, and how many will be spent in the next few weeks
?

‘Lend me your horse, Mister Purdell, I’ll get there faster.’

The guild courier seemed distracted, staring at the caravan going past.

‘Tom?’

The guild courier turned his attention back to them. ‘I’m in the wrong trade. I should be selling cheap arms to the prince for inflated prices, rather than running coded messages between the guilds. I thought you were a cavalry man now, Carter, you must have a stable full of horses.’

‘They’re all needed for the north’s real business. My company leaves in a few days,’ said Carter, sadly.
And damn me for a coward for not leaving with them.
‘They’re under orders to slow down the Army of the Boles and buy me extra time to return with the hostage.’

‘You’ll be back in time for the fun here,’ said Tom. ‘Count on it. I’ll make sure your kite’s running and ready.’ He kicked his horse into action and went galloping through the gate and down the road. A gap had opened in the crowd flowing into Midsburg. Carter and Anna took the chance to slip through the gate.

‘Does Prince Owen still believe the north can win?’

Anna shrugged. ‘Owen’s busy believing for the rest of us, just as he did in the mines.’

‘My father said he’s a better man than the times we find ourselves in.’

‘I hope he’s wrong,’ said Anna, ‘as much as I hope he’s right.’

‘It must rankle,’ said Carter, ‘being blamed for the crimes his uncle committed.’

‘You have no idea,’ said Anna.

‘You should tell Owen how you feel about him,’ said Carter.

‘And how would that go?’ she said, a measure of hostility creeping into her voice.

‘The obvious was sitting under my nose for a long time, too,’ said Carter. ‘It took Willow tweaking me by the nose to waken me to it.’

‘Owen was born a prince,’ said Anna. ‘His family’s murder brought him Weyland’s lawful crown. And me? I’m just a Lakes girl from Heshwick, the daughter of a clockmaker.’

‘Then give him something to live for, beyond hard duty and a harder war.’

‘I’ll keep Owen alive no matter what. Just as I did in the sky mines.’

‘How many thousands of soldiers do we have fighting for the north?’ said Carter. ‘All looking to do the same thing for the assembly and our lawful king. And with all those troops to choose from, Owen still keeps you by his side. You should ask yourself why.’

‘I’m like a trusty dagger,’ said Anna. She tapped the pair of knives hanging from Carter’s belt next to his twinned pistol holster. ‘One you keep around even when you’ve found something more accurate to shoot with.’

‘You’re more than a habit,’ said Carter.

‘Kind of you to say so, Northhaven. But I don’t think so. The only good thing I can say about the sky mines, you got to know the people you survived alongside. That hell surely revealed the character of everyone taken as a slave.’

Carter thought of Willow and Duncan and Kerge and all those who had met their end in the mines, bravely or cowardly, sadly or resigned. So many perished he could barely recall their faces. ‘I’m never returning to Vandia.’

‘I don’t think there’s a single one of us who survived who hasn’t put one last bullet aside, just in case the worst comes to pass,’ said Anna. She glanced sadly back at the city walls. ‘I know who you are, Carter Carnehan. You and your father, both. I don’t need show trials or loyalist propaganda to tell me what kind of people I’m keeping company with. We kept each other alive in Vandia, and we’ll do the same here, whatever direction the winds of war blow.’

Carter nodded. There were bonds far deeper than soldiering.

They came across a wagon travelling from the town’s garrison to the airfield, a sentry relief party in the back, and hitched a lift with them. There weren’t many aircraft on the field as they arrived, and those that were were barely air-worthy. The few kites the rebels had flying for them were desperately engaged in the fighting along the Spotswood, acting as scouts and trying to avoid the superior numbers of the loyalist squadrons. Anna led Carter towards a Culph and Falcke Berrypecker, the very large transport aircraft denied to their party when he’d tried to follow Willow to Arcadia. Standing in front of the heavy aircraft was Beula Fetterman, the rebel skyguard pilot who had escaped with Tom and flown the prisoners out of the south. Tom was there too, his horse tied up, waiting for them to catch up with him. As good as the guild courier’s word, the kite was ready to take off.

Carter eyed the aircraft.
It’s too big for the task
. ‘Isn’t there anything smaller and faster?’

‘Corn fuel we’ve got to waste a-plenty,’ said the female skyguard in frustration. ‘Pilots and planes are rare. Me and
Raven
here are what’s going spare so count yourself lucky.’

Raven? Fat Old Goose would be a better name for this crate.

‘You’ll be in good hands with Miss Fetterman here,’ said Tom. ‘She flew our escape party clear of the south’s hospitality quickly enough.’

‘I requested combat duty,’ said Beula, ‘but they’ve stuck me with transport flights.’

‘This is a vitally important mission,’ said Anna, her ebony cheeks flushing with irritation. ‘You wouldn’t even be on this run if Mister Purdell here hadn’t vouched for your skills.’

‘I’ve just been saying the very same thing,’ said Tom.

Beula raised her hands in surrender. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll fly you safe to Rodal and back again. The sodbuster and this secret passenger both.’

‘Make sure you do,’ said Tom, sounding uncharacteristically intimidating.

Sodbuster
. That’s all that the people of Havenharl were to the rest of Weyland, simple hick farmers.
Who would have thought the day would come when I wished that’s all we were. Not soldiers. Not rebels. Just farmers
. Carter slapped Tom’s arm. ‘Enjoy the celebrations tonight. Between you and Assemblyman Gimlette, you’ve stoked the assembly into a fighting frenzy.’

‘It won’t be the politicians doing the dying when the southern armies come at us to rip apart that declaration of treason against the king,’ said Tom.

‘Sadly, that’s true enough,’ said Anna. ‘God speed, Northhaven. Prince Owen is counting on you.’

‘He’s counting on both of us,’ said Carter. ‘You remember what I told you, Anna.’

‘Still trying to look out for me?’

Carter shook his head and climbed up the steps into the plane. ‘I gave up trying to do that back in Vandia.’

‘I’m not going to be around to pull you out of your hare-brained scrapes in Rodal,’ said Anna. ‘Nor is Owen for that matter.’

‘I’m a different man, now, haven’t you heard?’

‘It’s the pirate blood I’m worried about.’

Thomas watched Carter Carnehan say farewell to the prince’s bodyguard and climb on board the aircraft.
How much of a problem will the bodyguard prove, I wonder
? Anna Kurtain was a large woman, strong and quick and lithe. But an unexpected thrust of a blade into her lungs would leave her choking on her own blood easily enough. Thomas planned to make it look like the prince had argued with the woman and slain her in an argument, angry lovers squabbling over an uncertain future. That would add an extra frisson of scandal for the news sheets to pick apart when they proclaimed how the cowardly pretender had hung himself upon hearing how close the king’s forces were to poor outnumbered Midsburg. King Marcus was a clever dog. It wouldn’t be seemly for Marcus to execute his own nephew, making the boy a martyr for the rebellious north to use to question Marcus’s claim to the throne. Nobody liked a kin slayer.
So hard to kill a dead man, unless you murdered his reputation first
. Thomas had already arranged for two of his agents in the town’s garrison to be on sentry duty tonight. Both sides had people hidden in the other side’s camp. That was the problem with a civil war; everyone looked the same and you could never tell what was in a person’s heart unless you cut it out slowly.
I’m proof of that
.

Kurtain waved at him and he waved happily back.
I’m planning your death, you stupid bitch
. Yes, a tincture of poison for the prince and his woman first, to paralyse them. Thomas always worked best when he had a silent audience to appreciate his skill.
This is the work I was born for
.

Beula Fetterman checked the wooden fuel barrels as she knelt beside him, speaking low. ‘Where should I land when I have the emperor’s granddaughter on board?’

‘Not this side of the Sharps Mountains,’ whispered Thomas. ‘Midsburg will be a charnel house by the time you return. There’ll be so much blood running here, the wheels of your undercarriage will spin and you’ll crash a second kite. Land west of the Perryfax River by the coast and find a radiomen’s hold to signal the capital with your location. We’ll send a ship up the coast for you. The Vandians need to believe the girl’s a hostage in Midsburg until they’ve done our killing for us. After the imperium’s crushed the rebels, the king will make a great show of handing her over safe to her family.’

‘And how grateful will they be?’

‘Don’t worry, Fetterman, you’ll receive your reward,’ said Thomas.
And so will I
. ‘The Vandians are keen enough. I just saw one of Princess Helrena’s killers slip into the city dressed as a Gidorian merchant. And he’s got Lady Wallingbeck on the step beside him as a guide. I’m willing to bet the whole caravan is actually a Vandian raiding party.’

‘They’re here hunting for Lady Cassandra?’

‘I doubt they’re here to celebrate the traitorous assembly’s vote against King Marcus.’
This could be a problem
. It wouldn’t do for the Vandians to discover that the girl being held in the city was an impostor. The imperium might divert to Rodal instead and deprive Marcus of his allies just when he was counting on them to win the war for him.
I suppose I’ll have to kill them too, now
. It would mean diverting all the southern spies and saboteurs inside the city, but their loss to the loyalist cause would be worth it. He imagined Willow’s pretty eyes bulging as he slipped a cord around her neck and strangled her. A pity Carter Carnehan wouldn’t be around to hear the news of her death. That would be a fine parting gift.