Master Of The Planes (Book 3) (59 page)

“The queen gave the ordering of these counties to me, Lord Torsden.”   

“And, Johannssen, she gave me the task of protecting its people.”

Jay glanced from one stern face to the other, trying to guess which way the Nordsalve warriors’ argument would fall.  As the son of the famous Mayor Hiral, he had found himself a position at the heart of local government.  A useful go-between for the Constable of Nordsalve as Johanssen picked up some of the mantle that Maelgrum had so bloodily stripped from Jay’s father’s shoulders.  Jay knew the men of power and influence, well at least those such men who had survived the purges of Maelgrum and Quintala.  He knew who Johanssen could trust and who he should doubt, and so far he had been right. 

But, for all the favour his position brought him and for all the kindness that the gruff Johanssen had shown him, Jay hankered after service with Lord Torsden.   The giant lord rode out on a weekly sweep along the ragged boundary between those counties where the queen’s writ ruled and the region still occupied and enslaved by the enemy.  Each week he came back with the heads of a half dozen orcs or outlanders dangling from the neck of his great steed. The grisly trophies hung in testament to another enemy patrol rudely disabused of its right to stray within reach of the Nordsalve cavalry.

Jay had a hunger to make servants of the Dark Lord scream, to wrench a cry from the lipless mouth of Maelgrum himself.  His father demanded no less of him, not in any words that Mayor Hiral might have spoken, but in the deep hooded eyes of grief that had been Jay’s last sight of his father.  A sight endlessly revisited in dreams that brought the boy – once known as little jorgy – no comfort at all. 

So, Jay stood on both sides of the argument.  The consideration and privilege that Johanssen had granted deserved his support and obedience, the martial prowess of Torsden inspired his respect and admiration.

“Let me strike at them Johanssen, disrupt their plans, set back their preparations, send them home to think again.”  Torsden paced the receiving room filling it with his impatience.

“How can you know where to strike, Lord Torsden?”

“Johanssen,” the towering warrior flung a hand westwards.  “Anywhere I go, I will find enough enemy to kill, enough to make a pyre that will burn for days.”

Johanssen shook his head.  “I cannot let you go, you risk destruction and that would diminish our protection here.”

“No,” Torsden thundered.  “Let us scatter the storm of enemies while they are still gathering.  Why linger here while they assemble to break upon us in full flood?”

“Without your men I have not the force to hold this place.  There are armies gathering to the queen’s cause, let us not strike prematurely.”

“There are armies gathering to the enemy’s flag and they are gathering faster.  Let me strike a blow as will delay them enough that our own forces can converge here.” Torsden was pleading now, his great head hung low in supplication.

Jay held his breath, willing Johanssen to say yes.  The constable glared up at Torsden for a long suspended second.  Then with a curt dip of his iron grey beard he lit up both Jay and Torsden’s faces in broad smiles.

“You will not regret this, Johanssen,” Torsden told him.

“I hope not, Lord Torsden.”

“I will take only cavalry, that way I can be sure to outrun whatever I cannot outfight.”

“Very well, you had best bid your men saddle up.”

Torsden grinned and bounded towards the door. Johansssen shook his head wearily at the Northern Lord’s departure.   Jay watched and waited, trying to gauge the moment when it would be best to ask leave to ride out with Torsden. 

The deer bent its head plucking berries from the bush with a dextrous combination of lip and tongue, oblivious to the hand that Marvenna reached out to stroke its flank.  The steward smiled, amused by her own skill in drawing so close to the animal. It was in woodcraft that she still found herself most at ease. All tribulations of rulership, the petty and the great, disappeared as she lost herself in communion with the forest.

“Marvenna, Steward Marvenna, you must come, come now!”

The deer started and fled, just a flash of white rump as it thrust itself two footed over the bracken. Marvenna sighed as Captain Voronyis emerged in haste from behind a clump of black hawthorn.

Marvenna turned wearily to face the newcomer, sensing that she was to be dragged back from her solitary delight and doubting that anything much would justify the urgency with which Voronyis had burst upon her.

“You must come.  Come now.” Voronyis was so beside himself as to seize the steward’s forearm and make to drag her away.  Marvenna was stunned at the impertinence, she had but rarely touched Lady Kychelle, and never Lord Andril except with his express permission or command. She blenched at another indication of how slight her own authority was compared to what theirs had been.

Despite her arch glare at his offending hand, Voronyis did not attempt to move it, instead he gripped more tightly and pulled her forwards.  “Now, Steward.  Now.”

“What is the meaning…”

“It is Captain Tordil.”

Voronyis had her attention now.

“He stands at the foot of Malchion. Elyas and the other Hershwood elves are there too.”

She was running past him, too fast for the captain to follow. Soon she was running past others, most walking but some running.  There were silver elves and the elves of Hershwood all converging on the sacred clearing at the foot of Malchion.  They thronged more with curiosity than alarm, stepping lightly aside as Marvennna rushed past.

The clearing at the foot of the great sequoia was still far from full, but it was filling up. Marvenna looked over the heads of the embryonic crowd, towards the spiralling stairway around Malchion’s trunk. She could see four figures, one taller than the others.

“See, Steward.” Voronyis caught up with her.  “It is Tordil and the other three.”

“How?”  The single syllable was strained through Marvenna’s gritted teeth.

“He came here singing, Elyas that is.  I told him he should amuse himself elsewhere, that this was not a place for ordinary elves of the Silverwood to come, save on special occasions.  He apologised, asked to sing one more stanza in celebration of Malchion’s majesty.  I bid him take his song elsewhere and he strode away singing.”

Voronyis paused in his telling, his breath heavy.

“And?”  Marvenna demanded.

“Another voice struck up, in harmony with his. It was Tordil.”

The steward seized the miserable captain by the shoulders.  “And you let him climb up?  You let him ascend into the canopy of Malchion?”

“I had no reason not to,” Voronyis confessed.  “The guards were not of your inner circle, Steward.  I could not command them, not with Elyas so insistent and Tordil’s song echoing from the branches above.”

Marvenna pushed him away. “Begone, fool.  You have failed me, you have failed Lord Andril’s commands and Lady Kychelle’s memory.”

“Steward,” Voronyis wailed after her as Marvenna pushed her way through the crowd gathered around the trunk of the towering sequoia.  The elves parted easily before her.   She could hear Tordil’s voice calling out, some talk of imprisonment and of treachery.  There were gasps of suppressed horror at the first word, but a frisson of something darker at the second word a collective frown from the proud elves of the Silverwood.  Marvenna quickened her pace, all was not yet lost.

Elyas espied her, thrusting through the gathering and tugged at Tordil’s arm to point her out. “Ah, here she comes,” the tall elf cried.  “Mother of infamy, let us hear what answer she can make to these charges.”

There was a collective intake of breath from the crowd and the last few ranks parted to open a passage for Marvenna.  She leapt lightly up the first few steps of the spiral stairway to stand just below the new liberated Captain of Hershwood.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

Her air of indignation wrong footed the tall elf. His jaw dropped, mouth working in silence for a second as he sought his own best path to the moral high ground.

“The meaning of this?” he echoed.  “Why the meaning is simple, thanks to the efforts of Elyas I have been freed from the unjust imprisonment you subjected me to for nigh on four months.”

A gasp rippled out amongst the crowd as Tordil’s words were heard or relayed to the furthest reaches of the gathering.

“Do you deny it, witch?” Tordil glared his fury focussed on the steward, while Marvenna in turn watched and gauged the crowd’s reaction.  “Do you deny leaving me to languish in a prison cell within the heart of your most sacred tree?”

Marvenna drew a deep breath.   What would Andril have done?  “I deny nothing,” she called out boldly. “I admit only that I have always acted in the best interests of the Silverwood and in pursuit of the policies and axioms set out by Lord Andril.”

“By locking me up?” Tordil’s eyes bulged with disbelief.

Marvenna found herself strangely calm.  The months of anguished secrecy were gone, the decisions she had made were now laid bare for more public scrutiny.  And that was good, for she had been right in what she chose to do. If not she would not have done it, could not have done it.

“You have been a danger to the Silverwood and yourself, Captain Tordil.”   Her eyes looked into his but her mouth was turned and her voice projected so that her words would carry to the still growing gathering.   “You may still be a danger.”

“I came to hold you to a promise, witch” Tordil glared into her eyes.   “A promise you made over the Lady Kychelle’s body, a promise to honour her last command to you.”

“I have broken no promises, Captain Tordil, and I think it ill that you abuse me so when I have greeted you with formal courtesy.”

“Forgive me, Lady Steward.” Tordil’s voice dripped with sarcasm, his low bow reeked of insincerity.   “My courtly manners have had little exercise these past seasons, confined in a narrow cell.  But well I remember the promise you made over Kychelle’s corpse, do not deny that now.”

“I made no promise save to hear what your queen had to say when and if Kychelle’s murderer were uncovered.”  Marvenna found a boldness seized her, here on the steps of Malchion in the presence of her people and beneath the shadow of the Lord Andril.   This land was hers, held in trust, who was this captain to torture her with doubt?   “And I have heard her message and you have my answer.”

“And you imprisoned me because I would not accept it?”

“I imprisoned you, aye.”  Marvenna had to wait while an excited hubbub thrilled the crowd.  “Aye I imprisoned you, Captain Tordil, because in your fury and disappointment you were set to shatter the peace and security of this realm.”

Tordil shook his head and gave a broad sweep of his hand towards the assembled elves.  “You will find Maelgrum shatters this realm far more deeply than any words of mine.”

Marvenna scoffed and in so doing drew a finger wagging admonition from Tordil.  “You think he will not come here, you think he cannot come here? Believe me Marvenna, believe me all of you.” He turned to address his warning to the crowd.  “When Maelgrum is done with men and with dwarves, when they are trampled into destruction beneath his heel because you would not come to their aid, then he will come for you. And when you ask in that fearful time why no-one comes to your aid, it will be because your cowardly idleness has ensured you make that last stand entirely on your own.”

“Maelgrum will not come here, because he cannot come here.  The wards of Andril are strong enough to defy any invader. Prudence is not cowardice.”

Marvenna glanced round at the gathered elves.  She knew them all by name, well all save a few of the refugees from Hershwood. They were proud of their nation, proud of their heritage.  Tordil’s talk of cowardice and idleness had done more to rally them in support of their steward than any words of hers could have done. “Silver elves,” she called.  “My brothers and sisters, I imprisoned Tordil aye, but to protect him and you, not to punish him.  You hear the madness of which he speaks, will you take heed of that and set aside everything that Lord Andril ever taught and believed?  I had hoped some sense might come to him in time, in that I was mistaken and for that error and that error alone I accept the blame and beg your forgiveness.”

“My friends, my many new friends,” Elyas’s voice broke over the wave of sympathetic muttering.  “You have heard my songs and tales, you know of the world beyond the Silverwood and how your elven bretheren from the Hershwood have fought long and hard against the evil that is Maelgrum.  Does Talorin not tell you, as the Goddess also says, that the strong should protect the weak, that the wise should instruct the ignorant, that those who have should give to those who have not.  I have seen the gleam in your eyes when you have heard of the glory and the grace that my brothers and sisters have earned in the service of others.  Would you deny yourselves the same chance to make a difference in the world beyond this small forest?”

“There can be no question as to the courage of Feyril’s people,” Marvenna hastily admitted eager to seize back both the crowd’s attention and the momentum of a swelling argument.  “But the wisdom of their actions is less certain.”  She caught movement in the crowd as the small groups of Hershwood elves drifted together into a larger nucleus within the mass of silver elves. “A mere five hundred came to us from your shattered realm and did we not give to you who had not, freely sharing our land our riches and our wisdom.”

“But not our freedom,” Elyas interrupted.  “You gave none of us leave to cross your borders.  You confined us all here, in luxury aye, but confined nonetheless. A gilded cage is still a cage.”

There was a rumble of discontent, loudest in the core of Hershwood elves, as a simple but longstanding grievance bubbled to the fore.

Marvenna glanced around wide eyed.  What would Andril have done? She smiled as she recognised the moment for a grand gesture, the time to make a gift of something before it was taken from her anyway. She spread her arms.  “You may leave, Lieutenant Elyas, and Captain Tordil and any of the Hershwood elves who would forsake my realm.  Return to your own forest if you will, though from Elyas’s songs, I gather it is as like as not the home of orcs now.”  She suppressed a smile at the shock that thought sent around the gathered silver elves.  “Aye, no orc has set foot within the Silverwood, but if you would take yourselves from that security I will not raise a finger to stop you.”

“You will let us go?” Tordil was nonplussed.  “You will let my people go?”

Marvenna nodded.  “Aye you may go, you may all go, though if that is your choice it will be a final one.  The Silverwood is not an inn to be visited whenever a weary traveller seeks rest, it is a blessed home that is offered but once in a lifetime, even to elves.”

“I’ll live with that loss,” Tordil said.

Elyas was sharper in his observation.  “What if there are silver elves that would make the same choice, Steward Marvenna, elves of your people eager to sample life beyond your borders and to throw their force of arms into the great struggle that confronts us.”  He had spoken loudly for the crowd’s benefit and Marvenna saw a few quick nods from her amongst her own people before Elyas launched his final question.  “Will you let them go too?”

Marvenna flicked her tongue across her lips, scanning the crowd, gauging their mood.  There were always restless fools amongst the younger elves, would-be warriors who had already delighted in Elyas’s songs and would like as not spring at this opportunity to carve a place for themselves in some future ballad. But the question was how many, and would her realm be much the poorer for their loss.  She had a second or so to answer the Hershwood lieutenant, a second to identify the best response and just for once she did not ask what Andril would do, she did what Marvenna would do.

With a slow nod she said, ”aye, if there are those who would follow your banner, Elyas, then I will not stand in their way.”  She scanned the crowd. The incredulous faces of the older elves, the hopeful expressions on the younger ones, too many of the younger ones. “However, I lay on them the same stricture I lay on you and your companions, Elyas.  This is a choice each elf may make but once, and in so doing you forsake this home in the Silverwood for ever. If Elyas’s songs are strong enough to sunder families, to draw sons from mothers, to separate sweethearts, then so be it.  There is a magic in your words I cannot rival.  But I will not stand in your way, or theirs.”   She saw the ambition die in many of those expressions of youthful hope, and nodded grimly.   “So those who would leave with Captain Tordil and Lieutenant Elyas, then raise your hands now.”

The four elves beside her had raised their hands before she had even finished speaking. The five hundred strong contingent from Hershwood reached upwards as one a second later. Then, over a long stretched moment a few isolated hands were raised amongst the multitude of the silver elves.  At most another two hundred from the thousands gathered there and some of those hands were hastily lowered again as the wiser counsel of immediate peers prevailed against the impetuosity of youth.