Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles (25 page)

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Authors: Katya Reimann

BOOK: Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles
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“It is
you
who must control the magic!” Mervion called to Benet. “It will serve you—it is yours!”
Benet, grappling with the dying swordmaster, got his hand over the man’s sword hand, still clasped over his sword’s hilt, and tried to press it backward. “I can’t!” he panted. “It is too much!” Yet even as he spoke, his action belied his words, and the swordmaster’s blade fell back.
Odd light glimmered in the Prince’s eyes. The doomed swordmaster continued to fight despite his horrific wounds, but Benet had him in retreat. The angry magic sheathed them in vivid, pulsing green, slapping Gaultry free and knocking her against the wall as it sought to focus and sustain itself. “Gods in me!” Benet screamed, his voice unnaturally high, full, unearthly. “This is my land! I am master!”
A fresh shock of power rocked the room. The green fire shattered into a thousand bearded sparks, fizzled, and vanished.
Benet knelt, alone, over the dead body of his opponent, breathing heavily. The armsman who had killed the swordmaster threw down his
blade, cursing and crying together. “Siànne! Why did you bring us here! Oh Siànne!”
The other armsman threw down his weapon as well, his face as pale as death. “Stop the fighting!” he shouted, turning back toward the landing. “Stop, oh stop! Benet himself is here!” Darting to the door, he almost met his death on the tip of the Sharif’s sword, as she appeared, soaked in blood, in the doorway.
“Is over,” she said, jerking her blade aside to avoid running the man through. “Is over.” The armsman dropped to his knees and covered his face with his hands.
Behind the Sharif, another face. Coyal. The young knight was kitted in half-armor, his bloody sword held at rest. “Mervion!” Relief spread on his face as he spied her, safe, backed behind the sofa at the far end of the room. “I saw them pushing their way in. Gods in me—I wasn’t sure if I should go after them, but I knew Benet was with you … .” Catching sight of the Prince, his words dribbled away.
The Sharif stepped into the room. Before any of the Tielmarans could forestall her, she ran quickly across to Benet, and helped him up.
“Tielmark’s Prince,” she said, in her strong accent, her honey-gold desert voice. Then, more strangely, in her mind voice, crashing through Gaultry’s senses so sharply that it was painful:
This is my land! I am master!
Her words—they were in Benet’s voice, just as he had spoken them before banishing the magic. There was something reverent in the Sherif’s demeanor, and she held her hand out to him.
Sun-marked, for certain
—that in her own more familiar voice.
Gaultry, not sure what the war-leader meant by this mysterious invocation, started toward her—then realized that the Sharif’s mind-speak had not been intended for her. Benet’s face was turned upward and he stared at the tall war-leader with a look of spreading wonder. At first Gaultry did not understand what she was seeing—she had never seen the Sharif accord trust instantly to another, never seen her make the leap of mental communication without delay.
Benet, dazed, stared deep into the woman’s eyes. Gaultry was certain that the Sharif once again spoke to him. Did Benet reply? The Sharif put her hands on his shoulders, and raised him up. “Andion Vesa!” she cried aloud. “Andion Vesa!” Something passed between them—a communication, or magic, Gaultry could not determine which.
“Let me be,” Benet said raggedly, all at once pushing the Sharif’s
hands away. “This is too much, too quickly. Great Twins in me—who is this woman, to touch me so?”
Gaultry dragged over a chair, wishing she were privy to their interplay. From the landing, Coyal pushed a pair of frightened men into the room and made them stand by the hearth. Then he lined up the two armsmen beside them. “There are two injured men out on the landing, and three dead,” he reported. He gestured to the Sharif. “That one’s cat is watching them.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it—and hope I won’t again.”
Gaultry looked at the armsman who had avoided the worst of the fighting—the man who had called for its end. His lined face was set in the expression of one who expected the worst—and fervently believed he had earned it. “Who sent you?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “Siànne knew.” He sighed. “Siànne only. We are loyal men, all of us, what could we do but obey? I don’t know why the gods would punish us, sending us here.”
Gaultry turned to the Prince. “Who knew you were coming here?” she asked. “Whoever sent these men didn’t know you would be here.”
The Prince roused a little. “Not many,” he said. “My day-warder, Sieur Jardine. He keeps the day’s appointments. Also Jardine’s servants. I came here in private—but not in secret.”
“Melaudiere’s people?” Gaultry asked. “Did you tell them why you would have to be late to her service?”
Benet shook his head. “No. Jardine gave them only the message that I would be delayed. Who else? High Priestess Dervla knew. She and Dame Julie were with me when the news of Melaudiere’s death arrived. Their servants knew, and mine, of course.”
Gaultry looked down at the body of the dead swordmaster, at the silver gorget that lay exposed at his throat, repository of the green magic that had moved him. A pang of unexpected disappointment stung her. Some part of her had been certain that Dervla’s hand had been in this. The strength of the green magic that possessed the man had been well beyond what an ordinary priest or village sorcerer could call. But the attack, however powerful, had fallen into shambles the moment Benet’s presence had been discovered. If Dervla had been behind the attack, that did not make sense. Gaultry did not believe the High Priestess was so subtle that she would plan an attack which she intended would fail.
“So with this man dead, we cannot know who sent you.”
“On my life I swear to you, that is the truth of it.” The man paled. “But we are palace soldiers, lady, drawn from the morning watch of the sea gate. Siànne would not have taken orders from anyone outside the court.”
“You
were
palace soldiers,” Benet said. Glum silence answered him. For a moment, a suspended quiet filled the room, as everyone took stock.
Then, as the last light of day faded, the deep, far-off sounding of bells awakened them.
“Sunset tolls the palace bells,” the Prince said. “For Melaudiere. I must get back to the palace.” He glanced around the darkening room and grimaced. “Though not before matters are set in order here. Perhaps I should have brought Jardine with me after all.” Jardine, Gaultry knew, was a counselor as well as an appointment-keeper.
But it seemed to Gaultry that Benet managed well enough without him. First, with an expression of bemusement, he ordered Coyal to round up the former castle soldiers and chivy them back up to the palace, where they would be more thoroughly questioned and the matter of their punishment sorted. An ironic arrangement, considering that Coyal was supposed to be in disgrace, tarred with the brush of his Bissanty collaboration. But the young knight’s well-timed appearance, the unrestrained way he’d thrown himself into the battle, supporting the Prince’s side, had at least temporarily restored his name to the roster of the trusted—Gaultry’s narrowed eyes watched him, as he organized the melancholy little troop.
The disgraced knight’s arrival might have appeared a little too convenient for his self-reconstruction as a true Prince’s man had it not been for the fact that Mervion had requested he shadow her and wait outside the house for her protection. The thought that her sister looked to him in this way made her stomach twist. She did her best to conceal her jealousy when he stooped to kiss Mervion’s hand before he took his leave—even with the Prince and the rest of them watching.
Benet appointed the Sharif and Aneitha to return with him to the palace as a sort of an honor guard—a surprise to Gaultry, but she presumed that the Sharif must privately have agreed to it.
Where did this trust come from?
she asked the war-leader, bewildered.
The Ardana only shook her head.
Later. Your Prince and I will talk first.
Gaultry had no idea what to make of that!
Then it was her turn, and Mervion’s. “Ladies,” Benet said, “I’m assigning you the less than pleasant task of staying here to see to the corpses.
I’ll send someone down from the palace to help you. And
you,”
he said, finally addressing Tullier. “You will stay out of trouble until we find time to speak again. I am hereby appointing Lady Gaultry your guardian, and extending you the full mantle of my protection. I will have Jardine enter this order in the rolls as soon as I reach the palace.” He turned to Gaultry. “Do you have any objections to this responsibility? Consider carefully: To accept Bissanty’s Orphan Prince of Tielmark as your ward is not a casual thing. I will expect you to keep
my
interests foremost, even as your obligation will be to keep
him
safe.”
“My Prince—” After all the suspicions Benet had aired against Tullier, Gaultry had not expected this generosity. “Are you sure this is wise?”
“Is this wise?” Benet shook his head. “Only the gods can answer. But whoever sent these soldiers today intended to abscond with the boy before I had the opportunity even to extend such an offer. I will not see my choices thus usurped.”
Gaultry knelt and made the vows that formally invested her as Tullier’s guardian.
G
aultry found Melaney lying crumpled in the area just inside the front door. The young page was stone dead. Her neck was broken, her clothes disarrayed. Gaultry guessed she had been picked up and thrown. From the looks of things, Gaultry doubted Melaney had even had a chance to wound her attackers, let alone to worry or slow them.
“Who did this?” Gaultry whispered. The bodies on the landing had been terrible enough, particularly the two killed by Aneitha. But those men had been soldiers, committing treason against their Prince. Melaney had been sent to run errands, to answer doors; to stay safely at home another season, away from the battles in the west.
Gaultry smoothed the glossy hair back from the young face, unmarked save for dark, wounded-looking circles beneath the closed eyelids. She did not relish the prospect of reporting this disaster to Martin as he was struggling with the fresh grief of his grandmother’s death. “I’ll kill them for you,” she whispered. “Whoever planned this raid, I’ll kill them for you. This should never have happened.”
When Tullier and Mervion came back from the garden, where they had dragged the last of the attackers’ corpses, Gaultry was still kneeling over Melaney’s body, her eyes closed in prayer.
“What are you doing?” Tullier said. He held a bucket of soapy water and some rags. “Is she too heavy to carry out?”
“You’re looking better,” Gaultry said. A little hunched, but it was clear Mervion’s magic had somehow improved him. “But do you really think you should be up?”
“I can help you with that one,” Tullier said, “if you just want her put with the others.”
“We’re not dumping her in the alleyway,” Gaultry explained wearily. “We’ll clean her up and wait for Melaudiere’s people to come for her. She can go into one of the upstairs bedchambers while we’re waiting.” It was a little too much for her at the moment that Tullier was short on understanding burial customs. Fortunately for her temper, he caught her meaning, and did not insist on the imagined practicalities of piling all the dead together in the dry little court.
“I’ll help,” Mervion said. “He can scrub the landing clean while we cleanse her.”
The air of the long-closed bedchamber where they laid out the young squire’s corpse was cool and stale. Mervion removed the covers from the wardrobe and chest to make a protective pad for the bed before they set her down. They took Melaney out of her ruined tunic, then stripped the remainder of her clothes when it became obvious that she had fouled herself. Gaultry left the room to find something clean to cover her while Mervion sponged down the body.
“You made that man attack the swordmaster, didn’t you?” Gaultry asked, returning with an unsoiled sheet.
Mervion nodded. She was brushing out Melaney’s lovely thick hair. As Gaultry unfolded the sheet, she began to rebraid it.
“And you took back your Glamour-soul from Tullier, without even needing the soul-figure.”
Mervion, working intently with her fingers, nodded again. “Only half my Glamour-soul,” she corrected.
“It makes no difference,” Gaultry said. Her sister’s renewed appearance of calm was infuriating. “Not even Lukas Soul-breaker could coax a soul free without spells and magical apparatus. Without preparing, and making a big fuss, and imagining that the gods walked on earth in his body.”
“I knew you would come back,” Mervion said evenly. “I did prepare myself and make a fuss. And you are wrong. There is a great difference between moving half or all of a soul from its seat—or returning it there.”
“That’s not my point,” Gaultry said. “Your power—the things you can do—”
“Leave me alone, Gaultry.” Mervion abruptly set aside the brush and went to wash her hands in the newly filled basin on the bedstand.
“You could use it,” Gaultry said. “You could use it to help the Prince.”
“How?” Mervion asked, a little shakily. She lathered her hands, then plunged them in the water. “Tell me how. As a courtier? I have chosen an acknowledged traitor as my lover. Benet’s inner court will never accept me. As a bodyguard? I am not fit. Look what I did today, bringing death to the one man who could have explained what we witnessed.”

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