Morningstar (39 page)

“What did he tell him?”

“I don’t know, Owen. That’s what I have waited all these years to find out. All these years … lonely years.”

“And you found no other lovers?”

A sound came from her then, a dry chuckle, and her eyes glinted. “Hundreds,” she said. “As the centuries passed, I whiled away many a year with handsome men. Some gave me real pleasure, some even happiness. But none was Rabain … none was Rabain.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. That’s what was … is … so painful. He knew he was riding into great danger, as did I. But neither of us spoke of death. He told me he would come back, and I said I believed him. And I dressed him in his armor, fastening every hook, greasing the shoulder plates. Every hook. And at last I stood before him, and he leaned down and kissed me. And the armor was cold, so cold.”

“How long were you together?”

“Ten years. The merest fraction of my lifetime. I bore him a son, a fine boy who became a good man. He in turn had many sons and the line grew. I tried to keep them all in my mind, but it was not possible, save for one line that held true: the Arkneys. They are the blood of Rabain. When the Angostins first invaded the north, the Earl of Arkney married a Highland princess and
the line continued. That was what pleased me so much when Raul Raubert stood tall alongside the Morningstar. He is the last of that line, and the blood is still true.”

Once more she fell silent, then she smiled again, her eyes sorrowful. “But the line also produced Gilbaud Azrek.” She sighed. “I have lived too long and seen too much.”

Her voice faded away, and I called her name. Her eyes flickered, and her voice whispered into my mind.

“You will see me again, Owen, but I will not know you.”

And she died there, slipping away without pain.

I held her hand for a little while. Then I covered her face and left the cabin.

I found Mace sitting by the lakeside, skimming flat pebbles across the surface of the water. I sat beside him, but he did not look at me.

“Bastard life!” he said, hurling yet another stone, which bounced six times before disappearing below the water.

“You liked the old woman, didn’t you?”

“Don’t try to climb inside my head!” he stormed.

“I do not wish to be intrusive. But she is gone, Jarek; she passed away without pain.”

He said nothing but turned his face from me.

“How did you meet her?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I was sitting by a camp fire, when she just walked from the trees. She sat down as if I was an old friend and began to talk. You know? The weather, the crops, the fishing. Just talk. I shared my meal with her. It was cold, and around dusk she stood and said she had a spare bed in her cabin. So I went with her.”

“Have you known her long?”

“No, maybe a month before I saw you in the forest. But she was good to talk to. She didn’t ask for anything. And she liked me, Owen … for myself. You understand? Just for me—Jarek Mace.”

“Like a mother?”

“I told you not to get inside my head! She was just an old woman. But I was comfortable with her. I didn’t have to think about bedding her; I didn’t have to woo her. You can have no idea how good that is sometimes. Just to talk to a woman and to listen. No seductive voice, no easy charm. And she was a
good woman, Owen. Back there when she faced the burning, I did want to help. I wanted … ah, what does it matter? Everything dies. Gods, you should know that by now.”

It was as if he had slapped me, for Ilka’s face flashed into my mind and I felt the weight of grief.

“I’m sorry, Owen,” he said swiftly, reaching out and gripping my arm. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. She was a good girl; she deserved more.”

“Well,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice, “she was bedded by the Morningstar, so her life wasn’t a complete waste.”

“Don’t say that!”

“What would you have me say? She was barely eighteen, and she’s dead. I made love to her nine times; we had merely days.”

“That’s all any of us has, Owen. Just days. A few moments in the sun. Yours were shorter than most, but you had them. My mother gave me very little, but she offered one piece of advice I have long treasured. She used to say, ‘What you have can be taken from you, but no one can take what you have already enjoyed.’ You understand?”

“I wish I had never met her,” I said, and at that moment I meant it. The sharpness of my sorrow seemed immensely more powerful than the love we had experienced.

“No, you don’t,” he assured me. “Not even close. You said it yourself: Her life was one of tragedy. But you supplied something pure, something joyful. You gave her a reason for being. Be proud of that!”

I looked at him with new eyes. “Is this the Jarek Mace who led a woman to suicide? Is this the robber who cares only for gold?”

He struck me then, a sharp blow with the back of his hand that made my head spin, and pushed himself to his feet. “Wallow in self-pity if you must,” he said coldly. “I have more important matters to attend to.”

We buried Megan in a meadow beneath the branches of a willow, an open spot overlooked by the mountains, with a stream close by. We made no headstone and did not even mark the spot. Such was the way of death in the forest at that time.

No prayers were spoken by any, but when the grave diggers had moved away and I stood alone by the small mound of earth,
I said my farewells, allowing the wind to carry my words wherever it traveled.

Horga the enchantress was gone from the world to whatever oblivion or paradise existed beyond the veils of life. As a bard I could hope that Rabain was waiting for her somewhere between worlds, but as a man I could feel only sadness at her passing.

The next few months were both chaotic and memorable. Angostin citadels were overthrown throughout the land, and the people were filled with the spirit of freedom. Yet these were not easy times. For despite the tyranny of Angostin rule, they still supplied law of a kind. Without them arnarcy beckoned, and Brackban was forced to become a judge as well as a general. Units were sent to police towns and cities; new laws were struck in the name of the Morningstar. Disputes needed to be settled, the rights to land established.

I remember well one case in which five families laid claim to a tavern in Ziraccu. The first maintained that it had ownership rights stolen during the days before the Angostin invasion; the second claimed to have bought the rights from Azrek; the third had an earlier claim, based on a deed signed by the Highland king some sixty years previously. The fourth swore that the most recent owner had willed it to them and produced documents to support its story. As to the fifth, well, it was in possession, having moved in following the slaying of the Vampyre kings. Their claim was that they had taken over a shell with no stock and had built up the custom, investing their own capital.

There were scores of cases like these, some judged by Mace, others by Brackban or Raul Raubert. But the lists grew, and other judges were appointed. Most came from the church, bishops and priests—even an abbess, though having a woman as a judge proved unpopular at first. Others were clerks or lawyers from freed cities.

Slowly, as autumn moved into winter, some degree of order was established.

The outlaws of Corlan now followed Mace like an elite royal guard, and Brackban continued his training of recruits and officers. The pace of revolution slowed, but despite the many irritations, the mood remained optimistic. Even when travelers, merchants, and tinkers moved up from the south with news of
Edmund’s gathering army, there was little gloom. “We have the Morningstar,” said the people. “Nothing can defeat him.”

During those months I saw little of Mace. He rode through the land with Raul gathering men, giving speeches, collecting coin to pay for the weapons the new army would need. There was no line of credit offered by merchants, for they did not believe in the Morningstar. All they knew was that the Angostin battle king was preparing to march north in the spring, and where he marched, death and destruction followed.

Desperation makes for cost, my dear ghost. Our army was in dire need of weapons, and the iron for those was found only in the south. Therefore, we needed to pay men who were willing to smuggle them across to us. An iron-tipped spear that should have cost as little as two pennies now sold for twenty. Swords and halberds were seven, eight times the price. And armor? No matter how much coin we raised, the cost was prohibitive.

Edmund had closed off the southern borders, and merchants found with wagons loaded with weapons were hanged, drawn, and quartered. The ports were sealed also, and Ikenas galleons were anchored offshore, ready with the grappling irons to storm any ship that tried to sail past.

Our biggest fear was starvation, for a great deal of the food consumed in the north was imported from the richer, more fertile southlands.

Wulf and Piercollo were placed in charge of supplies for the army, but their roles widened as winter took hold. The movement of food to villages and towns cut off by snow, the filling of storehouses in cities, the distribution of supplies throughout the north—this consumed all their time. The winter months were fraught with peril, but save for isolated cases, there was no starvation. In the northern city of Callias a mob looted the storehouse, but Brackban’s militia routed them, hanging twenty of the ringleaders as an example to others. It was the only serious incident of that long, bitter winter.

And what of Owen Odell during this period? I had no place in the new government, and Mace did not speak to me for weeks after the incident by the lakeside. I had no niche, no specific role. I helped Wulf and Piercollo with the organization of food, and I worked alongside Astiana in caring for the sick; the Gastoigne sister had moved into Ziraccu to help the survivors of Golgoleth’s brief reign. There were orphans to be cared for,
families to be found who would take in an extra child during the harsh winter months. And she founded a school where each day she taught unwilling youngsters the principles of letters and arithmetic.

But for the most part I idled away my days thinking of Ilka and playing my harp. I lived then in Megan’s cabin and continued her work of curing meats, preparing geese and poultry for the table, and gathering the herbs that Astiana used to draw out infections and fevers.

With the coming of spring, however, the mood of the people began to change. The talk was all of the coming war and the ferocious reputation of the battle king.

One bright morning, as I sat on a hillside overlooking the lake, I saw a rider gallop his horse into the settlement square. People swarmed around him as he sought out Brackban, who was visiting the town. I did not go down; I knew by the chill in my blood the news the rider carried.

The battle king was coming.

The snows were melting on the hillsides when I was summoned to Ziraccu. And as the riders came, bringing a spare horse, I was sure that Mace needed my counsel. I had felt somewhat aggrieved during the winter when he did not call upon me or seek my advice. And now, as I rode a tall stallion, I practiced in my mind the manner of my rebuke to him for his lack of courtesy. I would be gentle and ultimately forgiving but nonetheless send a shaft that would strike home.

Mace had not taken up residence in the palace; it was closed now, and none ventured into it. The Vampyres had gone, but the memory lingered and the evil done there had, according to local legend, seeped into the walls. Instead the Morningstar had taken over a house in the rich merchants’ quarter. There were fine gardens around it, hemmed in by high walls. I rode with my escort to the front gates, where grooms led our horses away and servants ushered us into the main hall. The two riders who had accompanied me bowed and left me there, and it was Brackban, not Mace, who moved out to greet me. He led me through to a small library, and we sat in comfortable chairs of padded leather set beside a fireplace. The sun was hot outside, yet here in this room of stone it was cool, and a fire had been lit.

“Take off your boots and relax,” said Brackban, moving to
a wide table of oak on which were scattered documents, scrolls, letters, wax, and a seal bearing the mark of the Morningstar. He looked tired, I thought, and thinner, and his long blond hair had been harshly cut close to his head. Wearing a long robe of dark green, he looked more a cleric than a warrior. There was a jug of wine on the table, and Brackban filled two silver goblets, passing one to me. Then he sat opposite and quietly drained his drink.

“Where is Mace?” I asked him.

He said nothing for a moment, then sighed. “He is gone, Owen. I don’t know where.”

“Gone?” I echoed, mystified.

“Three days ago he was reported to be heading for Ziraccu. He should have been here late yesterday. I can only think that he has been waylaid or taken by agents of the king. God alone knows where he is now.”

I looked away from him. I knew instinctively that Mace had not been waylaid or captured; he had done what he always promised—he had cut and run now that the end was in sight. But what could I say to this strong, loyal man who had been left to pick up the pieces?

“Without him we are finished,” continued Brackban. “We have a fledgling army, maybe three thousand men. They are good men for the most part, and brave. Edmund will have three, four times as many, and they are seasoned warriors. We have archers and foot soldiers, but he has cavalry, heavily armored knights who can strike fast and hard.” He rubbed at his tired eyes. “What can we do, Owen? I am at the end of my strength. When word reaches the men that Mace is taken—or lost—then the desertions will begin. The lands will be open to Edmund. Have we done all this for nothing?”

“I will do my best to find him,” I promised.

He nodded. “You do not think he was captured, then?”

“I don’t know for certain what happened,” I hedged, “but I will send a search spell. In the meantime, don’t say anything about his disappearance. Where was he last seen?”

There was a map on the wall, black ink etched on pale leather. Brackban rose and walked to where it hung, stabbing his finger at an ornate triangle: the Angostin symbol for a city with a university. “He went to see the Bishop of Lowis; he is the senior tutor at the school there.”