Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (17 page)

'That won't happen,' Sorgrad assured him.

'Why don't we ask him?' The woman smiled spitefully.

The sound of horses filled the courtyard. Tathrin stiffened as the idleness in the drinking den evaporated. Men and women were already on their feet. Some moved to look into the courtyard or made ready to leave through the outward-facing doors. Knives and short swords appeared on all sides; not yet menacing but laid ready on tables and benches.

Since there was nothing else he could do, Tathrin sat and contemplated his tankard of ale. Sorgrad drank his white brandy while Gren produced a pouch of rune bones and threw a few casual trios on the table.

A door darkened as two figures entered. Every eye in the place fixed on the newcomers.

'Good day.' Reniack greeted the entire room before pausing momentarily as his gaze reached Sorgrad. 'Master Maspin.'

'An unexpected pleasure.' Sorgrad's tone gave the lie to his words.

'Master Jettin.' Gren's words were less of a welcome than some unspecified, ominous threat.

Tathrin glared at the young Vanamese adept. How dare he turn the very Artifice they had relied on against them?

Jettin must have been watching their journey and betraying every move to Reniack, otherwise the rabble-rouser could never have got there so fast.

Unless . . . A new fear chilled Tathrin. Had the Vanamese youth been trespassing on his thoughts, without him even being aware of it?

All Tathrin could do now was hope Aremil sought him out quickly enough to see the straits they were in. Ideally, before Sorgrad was forced to use his magic to save their necks. Though he had no idea what his distant friend could possibly do to help.

Chapter Eleven

Aremil

Satheron Manor, near Wellan,

in the Dukedom of Sharlac,

29th of For-Winter

'Have you--' Failla broke off as she entered the parlour. 'Why didn't you ring?'

Aremil tried to draw a breath to answer but couldn't stop coughing. He was powerless to resist when she leaned him forwards to rub his back as though he were a fractious child. He couldn't decide which was more infuriating.

At last the spasm subsided. The handkerchief he had used to stifle the wracking cough felt ominously damp. Forcing himself to look, he found the linen was wet with spittle not blood. He managed a cautious sigh of relief.

'You have a fever.' Failla tested his forehead with a cool hand. 'Go back to bed.'

'My cough gets worse if I lie down.' Aremil forced the words out, his throat still raw.

'But your cramps are soothed.' Failla eased him back against his cushions. 'Those set you coughing.'

'I'll take more poppy tincture,' Aremil retorted through clenched teeth.

'Which kills your appetite.' She wasn't yielding. 'You scarcely eat as it is.'

'I'm hardly out ploughing fields.' Aremil curbed his irritation. He didn't think he could stand another bout of coughing.

'You're as stubborn as a Gidestan mule.' Plucking the sodden linen from his hand, Failla produced a dry kerchief from the folds of her periwinkle dress. 'I'll fetch a tisane. Perhaps the steam will ease your chest.'

'Thank you.' Aremil tried to sound grateful.

'You're welcome.' With something perilously like a snort, Failla left.

Aremil sat motionless, concentrating on breathing as steadily as he could. He knew he had a fever but he couldn't afford to be nursed in bed.

To begin with, Lord Rousharn would use such frailty against him, luring more adherents to his proposal for a landowners' convocation. Whereas Lord Cullough was writing to Sharlac nobles near and far. Disliking Duchess Aphanie's high-handed manner, he was inviting any and all suggestions for establishing a lasting peace for Lescar. Each day brought more replies for him to discuss with Aremil.

Then there was Branca's news from Solland. Every day saw more sworn men drafted by the Tormalin princes who held lands along the River Asilor. Emperor Tadriol had returned to Toremal. Was he in the capital making ready to call all Tormalin's legions to arms?

How long would mustering that force take? Would Charoleia know? Reaching for his slate, Aremil stifled another infuriating cough and made a note. He must ask Branca.

What news would Kerith have from Carluse? Now they knew which nobles had made such haste to Caladhria, the scholar and Master Ernout were heartened to discover most guildmasters regarded such flight as cowardice rather than prudence. Most merchants had little interest in seeing their erstwhile overlords return from exile. Which was all very well, but if Tathrin's errand in the Carifate succeeded, Lescar's towns still needed to pay taxes and levies to reward their new defenders. How readily would the common folk accept a renewal of their obligations with Reniack's defiance still echoing in their ears?

Aremil glanced at the timepiece above the mantelshelf. It was a silver willow tree with a brass leaf sliding down the scale marked on its trunk. A calendar was incorporated into its leafy crown, with numbered slips of ivory and enamelled moons changed daily by whichever servant had charge of the household almanac.

Aremil smiled, recalling Tathrin's oft-voiced frustration with the vagaries of the lengths of the seasons, as decreed differently by each committee of priests and scholars in the cities where the various calendars were printed, with a day added here or subtracted there to match some pairing in the dance of the moons.

Perhaps they should institute a Lescari Almanac, with the turn from each season to the next decided by strict arithmetical division of the year. That would satisfy Tathrin's mathematical mind.

Aremil sighed, nearly provoking his cough. They only had eighteen days until the Winter Solstice when quarterly rents were paid. When the assizes should be held, to administer justice in Raeponin's name. When the priests of Poldrion led the solemn rites to honour all who had died in the preceding year. People would throng to the shrines, seeking to placate malign fate before the hungry days of Aft-Winter. Those gatherings could turn into riots if they didn't have some new rule of law to offer Lescar.

Aremil scrawled a further note. Could they get their hands on some share of the quarterly rents? Saedrin save them, they needed money for their own expenses. Lord Cullough would never be so crass as to expect his guests to pay for their lodging, but Aremil was very well aware that those tradesmen supplying Carluse Castle would expect Kerith to settle their bills. Whatever her other resources, Charoleia must be incurring considerable debts in their service. Then there were these hoped-for mercenaries from the Carifate. Whatever Tathrin promised by way of future recompense, they still needed to be sheltered, fed and equipped, along with the Lescari town militias.

But he couldn't reach Tathrin, Kerith or Branca today. Not tormented by this accursed scratching in his throat and the heat of fever behind his eyes. Such ailments would prompt a wizard to lose control of his magic, perilous for all around and merely one reason why the mageborn were so readily shipped off to Hadrumal. On the other side of the coin entirely, it was impossible to work Artifice without absolute concentration. Aremil had learned to rise above his usual bodily discomforts to focus his enchantments but that was proving impossible with this current malady.

The parlour door opened. Failla entered with a steaming tisane glass in its silver holder on a small tray.

Aremil was surprised to see her hands shaking as she set it on the table by his chair. 'What's the matter?'

'You have visitors. Lord Cullough--' She glanced over her shoulder, apprehensive.

'Master Aremil.' The nobleman appeared in the doorway, his placid expression troubled.

'Let me pass.' Though the man following him was entreating rather than demanding.

The voice reminded Aremil of his much-missed nurse, Lyrlen, who never lost her Draximal accent even after twenty years and more in Vanam.

Aremil sat silently as Lord Cullough ushered a man and a woman into the parlour.

'His Grace, Duke Secaris of Draximal.' The Sharlac noble bowed low. 'Her Grace, Duchess Nisina.'

Failla sank in a dutiful curtsey before retreating behind Aremil's chair. Neither newcomer gave her a second glance. They were both staring at Aremil.

All he could do was stare back. These were his parents, not that he recognised them. He didn't even remember them. He certainly didn't know what to say.

Duke Secaris wasn't overly tall, nor strikingly robust. Aremil had always attributed his own slender frame to the wasting effects of his infirmities. With a shock, he saw he owed a good deal of his physique to his father, just as he had inherited his straight brown hair. But the dark eyes he saw each day in the mirror gazed from his mother's face.

Aremil couldn't stand to meet Duchess Nisina's gaze, so full of anguish. He looked away, ashamed.

They looked so old. Why had he not expected that? Dukes often married late, and decades ago, when battles had ravaged central Lescar, noble heirs like Secaris, Garnot and Gerone had been too busy leading men into battle to procreate. Acquiring wives and begetting children were the preoccupations of peace, when such hopes for the future weren't so vulnerable as hostages.

Then Aremil looked a second time and saw that while Secaris and Nisina were grey-haired, the smooth skin of youth lost, the deepest lines in their faces were of grief, not age. Both wore mourning, in silk the hue of a raven's wing.

Duke Secaris looked at Aremil's crutches beside his chair before glancing at Lord Cullough, uncertain. 'I thought you said he--'

No, I'm not the imbecile you believed me to be, when you sent me away with Lyrlen, to relieve your embarrassment by conveniently dying.

Aremil swallowed the challenge that leaped to his tongue. But at least neither of them looked at him with the disgust that Lord Rousharn was so unable or unwilling to conceal.

He cleared his throat as best he could. He'd be bitten by Poldrion's demons before he'd stumble over his very first words in this conversation.

'Forgive me.' Failla swiftly reached for the tisane glass and removed the pierced silver ball containing the steeping herbs. She laid it on the tray.

'Do you hate us so much?' Duchess Nisina's voice broke on a sob as she twisted a black lace handkerchief. 'Did you have to kill him?'

'Cassat was only doing his duty.' Duke Secaris stared unseeing out of the window.

'I don't hate you,' Aremil protested. 'I never hated Lord Cassat.'

Truly, he was shocked to realise, he felt nothing at all for them. While he was sorry for their evident grief, from simple common humanity, he found that it didn't affect him nearly so much as the thought of Serafia's loss, and he'd never even known her lost love, little Kip's father.

He didn't hate the duke and duchess's lost son. Indeed, he'd mourned the loss of whatever relationship he might have had with his unknown brother, were they ever to meet. Now he realised that regret was equally foolish. There was simply no connection between him and these people.

Duchess Nisina wasn't listening. 'Is that why you plotted this horrible revenge? Because we gave him what should have been yours?' Her handkerchief tore, twisted beyond endurance.

'We have always provided for you. Didn't you know?' Duke Secaris asked desperately.

'I know.' Aremil's mouth was as dry as ashes. He glanced longingly at the tisane but it would spill if he tried to lift it.

Failla made a move but he glared at her, forbidding. He'd be cursed if he'd let her raise it to his lips, a helpless invalid.

'We could never have raised you as our heir. Parnilesse and Carluse would have allied against us before you even reached manhood.' Now the Duke was pacing back and forth across the coldly sunlit window. 'I did write to you, before Cassat marched on Tyrle and since, though you've never answered.' Secaris hastily checked himself. 'Perhaps my letters haven't reached you through all this upheaval.'

He was doing his utmost to be fair. That cut Aremil more deeply still. The lie he wanted to tell scalded his throat. 'No. That's to say--'

'Master Aremil has so many calls on his time,' Failla answered swiftly.

'No.' Aremil cut her off. She wasn't going to lie for him. 'Forgive me. I received your letters but I haven't found myself able to read them.'

'I don't understand.' Bemusement shaded the sorrow in Secaris's gaze as he halted. 'What has all this been for?'

'For a Lescar where mothers don't weep for dead sons.' Aremil spoke before he could help himself. 'Where the weak and vulnerable are cherished and protected.'

'We gave you the best life we could!' Swift anger roughened Secaris's reply.

'Believe me, I bear no grudges.' At least the helpless jerk of Aremil's head emphasised his words. 'I know I have been much more fortunate than most in my situation.'

'We won't name Matrim as Draximal's heir.' Duchess Nisina was still wrapped in her fear and grief. 'Don't send your soldiers to kill him. Show his sisters mercy. If they quit any claim on Draximal, let them marry into Tormalin and swear not to pursue their children. They're good girls, truly, and Matrim never hoped to rule.' She stumbled over her pleas, terrified tears pouring down her cheeks.