Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (11 page)

It was a bizarre journey through the stone corridors of the great fortress of Karlbad.  Periodically courtiers and servants would emerge from side passages and mark the hurrying quartet with no greater challenge than a bow or curtsy, as though there were no mystery at all in the bishop’s precipitous return accompanied by three complete strangers to the land of Nordsalve.

The hallways they passed through grew wider and taller as they approached the castle’s political centre. There they were spotted by a fat man in thick furs before a pair of great oak doors. He hailed the bishop. “Your reverence, I had not heard of your return. We have been expecting your embassy for three weeks now.”  He hurried towards them, heavily ringed hands working over each other. 

Kimbolt appraised him with a glance.  Too young to carry such excess weight, clean shaven jowls wobbling in the half light.  His scalp was bare, or it would have been but for an elaborate conceit.  Overlong hair had been dragged from virtually the nape of his neck and plastered down in imperfect coverage of a pink expanse of crown, but strips of bald pate still gleamed between the lank fronds of mouse brown hair.  

“We are just arrived, Margrave,” Sorenson told him.  “May I present Her Majesty, Queen Niarmit and with her Crown Princess Hepdida and Seneschal Kimbolt.”

The man bowed as low as his ill-balanced body would allow.  “You are most welcome, I am sure.  Though if you could have come when first expected, much evil might have been averted.”

“Your Majesty, this is Chancellor Margrave, my lady’s close advisor.” Sorenson frowned. “He is normally more discrete in his observations.”

“Indeed, your reverence, indeed,” the civil servant wobbled.  “But this is a far from normal time.  Lady Isobel and her retinue have been but a few days restored to the royal residence and all is still pandemonium.”

“Restored?” Niarmit snapped.  “They had been displaced?”

Margrave’s cheeks undulated with his nodding.  “Just so, your Majesty, just so.  But come, Lady Isobel has need of whatever comfort and succour you can offer.”

He led the way through the double doors into the castle’s receiving room. Twin thrones stood at the far end, both empty.  Infront of them paced a short woman, not quite to Niarmit’s shoulder.  Long blond hair was braided in a plait down to the small of her back and she was shaking her head as she spun on her heel and suddenly caught sight of the new arrivals.

“Margrave, Sorenson, what news?  Have you found him?”

“Who, my lady?” The bishop’s voice was gentle, his manner soothing, as he approached the distraught woman hands extended in a slow calming downward beat.

“Yannuck.”  She spat the answer as though it must be obvious to all.  “My boy, Yannuck.  He has taken the boy.  Why did it take you so long to return Sorensen?”

Two figures moved forward from the shadow of the thrones, a contrasting pair.  Both were of lean warrior build but perhaps two decades apart in age.  The younger man wore a thick black beard and a crown of shoulder length hair that must have been the envy of the chancellor.  There was a glint from a thick gold ring in his ear and, despite the lady’s distress, his eyes crinkled in amusement.

The older man was grey and bald, a fact he embraced with no shame or subterfuge.  His grizzled beard was trim, his expression sombre.

Sorenson greeted them both with warm familiarity, the elder man first. “Johanssen, Pietrsen, we seem to have arrived at a time of some unusual disquiet.”

“You have had no word from us?” the grey bearded Johanssen spoke first.  “We sent many heralds.”

“And none came back with replies,” Margrave wailed.

“Why did it take you so long?” Isobel repeated.

“We encountered some unexpected delays, Lady Isobel.” Niarmit’s firm level tone seized the attention of all.  “But we came as quickly as we could.”  She reached out her hand for the Helm, which Hepdida dumbly passed to her.  “Here is the Great Helm of Eadran, my badge of office, my right to rule.  I have come in all haste with Seneschal Kimbolt and Princess Hepdida. Now tell me, who are these people and what trouble has befallen here?”

“I am Johanssen, Constable of the infantry,” the older man took it upon himself to make the introductions.  “This is Pietrsen, new made Master of Horse.”

“Master of Horse?” Sorenson puzzled.   “Then Torsden is..”

“A traitor, a vile murderous traitor,” Isobel interrupted.  “He is stripped of all titles and honours.  He should hang.  He will hang”

“We may have trouble finding a gallows high enough, my lady.” Pietrsen murmured.  “My predecessor in this title is an exceptionally tall man.”

“This is no time for cheap humour, Pietrsen,” Johanssen growled at his cavalry counterpart.

“Vaddi is dead,” Isobel exclaimed at Sorenson.  “Poor Vaddi, dead.”

“Who is Vaddi?” Hepdida asked.  “I thought the Prince’s name was Yannuck.”

“Not the prince,” Sorenson told her.  “Vaddi Zoirzi is, or at least was the prince’s tutor, and also Lady Isobel’s personal secretary.”

“Vaddi Zoirzi?” Kimbolt twisted his tongue around the sound.  “That’s not a very traditional Nordsalve name.”

“He was from the Eastern Lands,” Isobel gulped.  “A kinder gentler man there never was.”

“One person, please,” Niarmit held up her hand for quiet.  “Tell this tale from the beginning.  Lady Isobel?”

The Lady of the North opened her mouth to speak but then shook her head and beckoned Johanssen to take up the story.  The constable frowned at the start of his tale.  “We had been expecting you, your Majesty.”

Niarmit waved him on.

“Torsden had been pressing his suit on the Lady Isobel.  He was very critical of the way the boy was being brought up.”

“Ziorzi?”

“Torsden and a number of others felt that Vaddi’s influence was too great, that he was too close to the prince and his mother.  Torsden claimed he would rescue the royal family from this weak livered corruption from the Eastern Lands.”

“There was no harm in Vaddi,” Isobel sniffed.

“When Torsden heard that your Majesty was coming he decided he had to make his move.  He seized Prince Yannuck, from his mother’s side, he and his rabble rousing allies.  Zoirzi was there too, he tried to hide behind the queen.”  There was in Johanssen’s measured tone the merest hint of disapproval of the secretary’s cowardice.

Isobel heard it. “What did you expect?  There were eleven of them, all armed to the teeth, and just him.  Of course he tried to hide, and I tried to protect him.  Those men were brutes.”

“They made you give him up then, though.”

Isobel nodded.  “And they killed him there, right there.  Cold blooded murder.”  She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.  “They stabbed him again and again and again.  In front of me and Yannuck. It took them for ever to kill him.”

“I counted fifty-six wounds on his body,” Margrave helpfully interjected.

“What happened then?” Niarmit prompted after a moment’s gentle silence. 

“They held us prisoner here,” Isobel said dully.  “They kept me separate from my boy.  Until Pietrsen managed to spirit me away.”

The new made Master of Horse gave a modest moue of acknowledgment.

“I shouldn’t have let you.  I shouldn’t have let you take me without Yannuck.”

Pietrsen’s smile of self-congratulation evaporated at Isobel’s sharp reproach.  “It was hard enough getting you out, my lady.  The prince was guarded by Torsden himself.”

“A brave man would have made the attempt,” Johanssen growled.

“And a dead man would have got the Lady Isobel precisely nowhere,” Pietrsen snapped back. “There was only ever one man that bested Torsden in combat and he, may the Goddess gather his soul, died at the Derrach Gorge.”

“Prince Hetwith.” Kimbolt hadn’t realised he had spoken aloud until he felt Isobel’s keen eyes upon him.

“You knew my husband?”

“I…  I had heard of him,” Kimbolt concluded hastily.  It seemed better than admitting he had stood on some part of her husband’s remains in the bloody aftermath of the medusa’s first and most remarkable victory.

“Everybody knew Hetwith, everyone loved Hetwith,” Sorenson said.

“So Pietrsen got you out, but not the boy,” Niarmit nudged the story tellers along.

“He brought her to me at the border forts along the lower river,” Johanssen resumed the sorry tale.  “I’d been there waiting for your arrival, or a herald’s return.”  He gave the queen an eyeblink of reproach before moving on.  “We gathered the most loyal troops.”

“Which was pretty much all of them,” Pietrsen added.

“And we marched back here to Karlbad.” 

As Johanssen tried to stare Pietrsen down, Margrave nipped in with his own contribution.  “Torsden had gone too far and he knew it.  A lot of his allies just melted away.  He knew the end was coming.”

“And he fled,” Johanssen snapped. “He left the day before we got here, with a handful of his most loyal followers.”

“And my boy, he took my boy with him.”

“Where is Torsden now?”

“Nobody knows,” Isobel cried.  “Nobody can find him.”

“He is a mountain wolf,” Johanssen said.  “He has friends and hideaways all over the mountains and plains of the North.  We have parties out looking, but he could be anywhere.”

“My son could be dead.”

“Calm yourself, my lady,” Johanssen insisted.  “Torsden was your husband’s greatest friend.  That twisted friendship may have driven him to command the murder of poor Zoirzi, but I am sure he will not harm even so much as a hair on the head of Hetwith’s heir.”

“We buried poor Vaddi,” Isobel told Sorenson.  “I gave him a good funeral, a service of honour and appreciation.  He came from a sunny land. He did not deserve such an end, butchered in the depths of winter.”

Johanssen winced.  “A little less honour to the dead tutor might have served our cause a great deal better, my lady,” the constable said.  “The grandeur of the funeral has re-awakened those prejudices which Torsden played on.   A murdered foreigner is a horrific crime, a foreigner so honoured in death is a feast for scandalmongers. It is hampering the search for your son.”

“How can it?”

“Because, my lady,” Johanssen said grimly.  “As I was about to tell you, before the bishop’s arrival, It means I cannot trust the loyalty of half my foot soldiers.  The officers will answer to my will, but the common privates and corporals are a simple lot, easily swayed by xenophobia, a xenophobia rekindled by the princely interment of a simple foreign tutor.  With such a charismatic presence as Torsden, I dare not send them in pursuit of him.  Indeed, I fear there are some might mutiny and seek him out themselves even now, thinking to serve him rather than arrest him.”

“So you have two problems.” Kimbolt screwed up his face in contemplation.  “You have to seek out Torsden with the stolen prince, and you have to re-secure the loyalty of the infantry garrisons along the lower river.”

Johanssen nodded slowly, a smile of appreciation for Kimbolt’s analysis.  “Yes, Seneschal, yes, that is pretty much how it is.”

“Then we had better get to work,” Niarmit said. “Neither sounds like a short task, but both will be sooner done if sooner started.”

The barn was just an indistinct darker nucleus within the midnight gloom.  Jay shifted in his hiding place, snow crunching beneath his arms as he watched the space he knew held a building, an empty building.

There was a sliver of light, a door opening a crack.  The light blinked out then back again, briefly eclipsed by a shape slipping through the opening, and then the light disappeared altogether as the door was pulled closed.

A soft hiss of triumph escaped Jay’s frozen lips, his suspicions vindicated. He levered himself up on elbows and knees and shuffled forward a fraction.  Suddenly the blackness went darker, coarse material with an odour of wet potatoes against his cheek.  The same sack that had been dropped over his head was used to pull him upright, the hessian twisted tight around his neck.  He wriggled, squawking muffled shouts from within his sackcloth shroud.   Then something cold and sharp was pressed against his ribs, biting through jacket and shirt to prick the skin beneath.  Jay stopped wriggling. More simple physical commands urged him forward, a shove between the shoulder blades a pinch on his elbow.  He obeyed.

The crunching snow gave way to gravel.  A door creaked.  A wave of warmth enveloped him, but could not stop the shivering that seized him.  He was pushed to his knees.  The bag was whipped off and he blinked in the sudden glare of a dim lantern light.

“What have we got here?” A rough voice rasped.

“I caught him outside, spying.”  Jay’s captor was younger; he couldn’t have been many years older than Jay himself.  Maybe they’d been at school together, in the days when there was still school.  He wanted to twist round to see, but the knife was at his neck now and it didn’t leave much room for movement.

“Hey, that’s Mayor Hiral’s boy.”  His eyes, accustomed to the light, could make out the third speaker.  A short nervous man, thin faced beneath slick black hair.

“Can’t be,” the lad with the knife said.  “They was all killed, the whole family.  Butchered by orcs.”

“Not all.”  The group’s leader took his turn to step into the light.  Broad shouldered but with clothes that still hung loose upon his frame.  At his neck a filigree silver crescent scattered the lamplight in myriad directions.

“You’re a priest!” Jay gasped.  “I thought they killed all the priests.”

“They thought so too,” the priest agreed.  “Looks like you were both wrong.  Father Simeon, at your service. Formerly of the parish of Colnham, but latterly bishop of this barn,” he waved his arm around the enclosure.

“Why are you telling him your name?” the rat faced one cried. “He might be a collaborator.”

“Relax Travis,” the priest assured him.  “If he is one of us there’s no harm in a few introductions.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“Then young Robard here gets to practise his knife skills.”

For emphasis, the youth with the knife ran the edge of his blade up Jay’s neck in what would have been the closest of shaves, had Jay been old enough to need the services of a razor.

“Yeah, that’s right he is Hiral’s boy.”  As Robard spoke Jay placed both the name and the voice, a big lad a couple of years older than him at school.  Must be all of sixteen now.  Had they got on? He tried to remember.

“All his family dead, horribly tortured and here he is,” Travis growled with suspicion. “The one that lived.”

Father Simeon leant in and rubbed his thumb down Jay’s forehead.  “Aye, the boy Maelgrum let go and not a mark on him.”  The priest shook his head ruefully, some doubt creasing his features. “What’s your name lad?”

“He’s called Jorgen,” Robard supplied the answer.

“Don’t call me that!” Jay snapped.

“Why not?” the older lad was puzzled. “It’s your name. It was always your name.”

“I’m Jay, just Jay.”  He shivered.  The rest of his name, like the rest of his family, lay in a past he rarely chose to revisit.

“And why is Just Jay Hiralson skulking around an old abandoned barn.”

“I’ve heard there are people fighting back.  I want to join them, I want to be one of them.”

“Want vengeance for your family eh?” Simeon nodded, lips pursed in appreciation of a credible argument.  “So come on lad, which one of the bastards do you want to kill?”

“Maelgrum, I want to kill Maelgrum.”

Travis laughed, Robard whistled and Simeon smiled.  “You’re a touch late lad.  That bastard’s been dead for over a thousand years, not that it’s slowed him down much.  Maybe you should start small and work your way up.”

“Yeah, start small,” Travis echoed.

“We plan on delivering another headless orc to the half-breed witch’s door,” Simeon said.  “Think you can manage that.”

“Anything.  I’ll do anything.”

The trio exchanged looks.  Simeon gave Travis a nod and, while Robard hauled Jay to his feet, the wiry little man scuffed away some loose straw to expose a trapdoor in the floor.  It was flung open with a crash to reveal a short stairway descending into darkness.  Jay instinctively resisted his captor’s pressure forcing him down the steps. “Relax, Just Jay, we ain’t going to hurt you,” Robard assured him.

“No,” Travis laughed.  “Not us.”

It stayed dark at the foot of the stairs until Simeon came down last of all, bringing the lantern with him.  The priest shone the shuttered lamp across the space.  It was a ten foot wide enclosure, stonewalled, dirt floored.  The beam of light caught a grey green shape snarling and writhing in its grip.  Then Jay saw the iron manacles by which the creature had been secured to the wall.

“I don’t rightly know why Farmer Slieg dug out this cellar in an old barn, still less why he put these chains in here, particular with the place so far away from everywhere, not even near the fields mind.”  Simeon chatted genially as he set the lantern down on a barrel, adjusting its light to fully illuminate the straining orc on the wall.  “Still old Slieg died in your father’s great battle against the Dark Lord.” The priest frowned.  “Or maybe he died running away from it. Still, it’s the thought that counts, and he left us a nice little hidey hole for entertaining our new neighbours.”  He waved at the orc and got a snarl and a spit in reply.

“I thought you said you were sending her a headless orc,” Jay stammered as the creature strained again against the tight restraint of its chains.

“Oh yes, Just Jay, but I didn’t say we’d finished it yet.”

“That’s where you come in,” Robard whispered.  “Here, you can borrow my spare knife.” A weapon was pressed into Jay’s hands.  “It’s not as big as my other knife, but it’s sharp enough for this job.”

“Go on Jay Hiralson,” Travis said.  “Make your old dad proud.”

Jay’s eyes stung with tears as he inched his way forward towards the trapped creature.  The orc writhed and shook and spat.  There was no fear in it, only anger. 

“Go on Just Jay,” Travis urged.  “Reckon it was this bastard as murdered your sisters, or maybe it’s the one that raped your mother.”

It wasn’t that one.  Jay remembered that one, its foul face haunting his dreams.  The apparition alternated with his father’s broken expression as Jay had walked away denying him a son’s absolution for having made an impossible choice.

“Come on, it probably fucked your sisters too.”

“Travis!”  Simeon shouted his associate into silence.

Jay lunged, punching the orc, but punching him with a knife. The creature roared.  Jay’s arm pumped back and forth driving deep into the creature’s gut.  He leant back and raised his arm to slash across the orc’s throat as its bellow turned into a gargle.  Jay’s hand moved in a frenzied whirl. Stabbing gouging, slashing.  His arms were thick with black ichor. Soft wet things were slipping from the orcs innards, as he hacked and thrust, throat, belly chest.  He was possessed.  The orc hung limply in the chains now its head dangling down its back, suspended by a stretch of skin that the knife hadn’t found.  Black gore puddled in the floor.

Jay dropped the knife and stepped back, almost slipping on scattered viscera.  His arms were black to the elbows, his shirt soaked in orc blood.

“By the Goddess, you were only supposed to cut its bloody head off,” Travis muttered.