Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord (26 page)

“It’s not garrisoned?” she asked in surprise. She had been considering various notions of how best to sneak into the keep under the nose of the Fief Lord’s guards.

“Not since the Trueblade fell. The drunken whore-chaser in Alltor seems happy to let it fall to ruin.”

Reva finished her meal, draining the rest of the ale. “I’ll need a room for tonight,” she said. “And a stable for my horse.” She offered him payment which he refused, leading her to a room on the upper floor. It was small and not especially clean but the sight of the narrow bed, the first she had seen since leaving the Darkblade’s house, dispelled any misgivings.

“I met him once,” Shindall said, lingering at the door, eyes still fixed on her face. “The Trueblade. It was not long after the Father had saved him from the outlaw’s arrow, the scar was still fresh, red like a ruby, bright in the morning air when he stood up to speak. And his words . . . so much truth to hear in the space of a few moments. I knew then I had heard the Father’s call in those words.” His gaze was intense and the thickness in his voice reminded her of the swordsmith in Varinshold when he said, “You have his eyes.”

Reva placed her cloak and sword on the bed. “Do the Realm Guard patrol the peaks?”

Shindall blinked, then shook his head. “The lowland roads only, most likely places for outlaws. Don’t get ’em in the mountains, too cold I expect.” He placed a lit candle on the room’s only table and went to the door. “Earliest bell’s at the fifth hour.”

“I’ll be gone by then. My thanks for your diligence.”

He gave her a final glance before leaving the room, swallowing before he said, “Seeing your face is the only thanks I’ll ever need.”

◆ ◆ ◆

She had never been to the Greypeaks before and found the sheerness of the mountains disconcerting, unassailable cliffs rising on all sides to ever-greater heights the deeper she went. The air held a perennial chill made worse by frequent drizzle or descending mist. The road ended at a broad, swift-running river tracking away towards the east. She began to follow it, the silk map having told her it provided the most direct route to the keep, the grey hunter snorting in protest as she guided him over the rock-strewn bank.

“Snorter,” she said, smoothing a hand along his neck. “That’s what I’ll call you.”

A clacking scatter of stone made her turn in the saddle, seeing another rider arriving at the road’s end. Reva sat and waited for him to catch up, a large boy on a small horse.

“Did you steal that?” she asked as Arken drew level.

“The brothers’ coin,” he said, coughing then fidgeting in his too-small saddle.

Reva sat in silence, watching him blush and cough some more.

“I stay with them one more day and I’ll kill him,” he said eventually. “And I owe you a debt.”

A faint rumble of thunder sounded overhead and Reva looked up to find a dark bank of cloud approaching from the west. “We’d best move back a ways from the river,” she said, kicking Snorter forward. “It’s like to flood when it rains.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“He was just a wheelwright,” Arken said. “Skilled and a little more learned and Faithful than most men in the town, but still just a wheelwright. Then one day the Aspect of the Second Order came to visit the mission house and father went to her for catechism. After that, everything changed.”

They had found shelter from the rain in a narrow crack in a cliff face. It kept the worst of the deluge off but was still too damp for a fire, obliging them to huddle in their cloaks, warmed only by the breath of the horses.

“Every spare hour spent speaking to any who would listen,” Arken went on. “Every spare coin gone to pay the blocker to print his tracts, handed out for free to any who’d take them, me and my sister standing in the street hour after hour whilst he droned on. The worst thing was some people actually stopped to listen. I hated them for that. If no-one had listened, he might have given it up, and the Fourth Order might have left us alone. Your god has no Orders, does he?”

“This world was made by the will of one Father,” she said. “So we might know his love. One world, one Father, one church.”
Venal and corrupt though it is.

Arken nodded then sneezed, a bead of water lingering on the tip of his nose.

“Will they look for you?” Reva asked.

His face became downcast. “I doubt it. Words were said.”

“Words are not arrows, they can be taken back.”

“He ordered us to do
nothing
!” Arken’s jaw clenched, his fists balled beneath his cloak. “Just sat there when they came riding out of the woods, whispering his catechisms. What kind of man does that?”

A faithful man,
she thought. “What did he have to say that angered them so much?”

“That the Faith had lost its way. That we were guilty of a great error, that the Red Hand had twisted our souls, made us hate when we should have loved. Made us kill where we should have saved. That the persecution of the unfaithful had raised a wall between our souls and the Departed. One day a brother from the Fourth came to the house with a letter from his Aspect. It was polite but firm: stop speaking. Father ripped it up in his face. Two days later the shop burned down.”

Snorter began stomping the rock with his fore-hoof, head jerking in impatience. She was starting to understand his moods, and inactivity was not something he appreciated. She got up, taking a carrot from the saddlebag and holding it to his mouth as he chomped. “You don’t owe me any debt,” she told Arken. “And travelling with me could prove . . . dangerous.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “About the debt. And I don’t care about any danger.”

His gaze was full of earnest intent, and something more, which was a shame.
Still just a boy,
she thought.
Despite all his troubles.
“I’m looking for something,” she told him. “Help me find it and the debt between us is settled. After that, you go your way.”

He nodded, smiling a little. “As you wish.”

She took something from the saddlebag and tossed it to him. “Your father forgot to check the Ranter for weapons.”

He turned the knife over in his hands, pulling the blade free of the scabbard. It was a long-bladed weapon of good steel, well balanced, the ebony hilt cross-etched for a strong grip. “I don’t know how to use it. Father wouldn’t even let me have a wooden sword when I was younger.”

She peered out at the rain, seeing it was starting to dwindle into a light drizzle, and took hold of Snorter’s reins to lead him from the crack. “I’ll teach you.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It was like playing with a child, a child half a foot taller and twice the bulk of her, but a child nonetheless.
He’s so slow,
she wondered as Arken stumbled past, his sheathed knife missing by an arm’s length as she dodged away. She leapt onto his back and put her own knife to his throat. “Try again,” she said, jumping clear.

She saw a slight flush on his face as he turned towards her, a flustered hesitancy in the way he hefted his knife.
It’s not shame,
she realised.
I’ll have to stop jumping on him.

For the next four days she spent an hour at night and another in the morning attempting to teach him the basics of the knife, finding it a mostly hopeless task. He was big and strong but had none of the speed or agility required to match even her weakest efforts. In the end she told him to put the knife away and concentrated on unarmed combat. He did better at this, mastering the simpler combinations of kick and punch with relative ease, even landing a stinging blow on her arm as they engaged in some light sparring.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped as she rubbed at the bruise.

“For what? My fault for being too”—she ducked under his guard, delivered a hard open-handed smack to his cheek and twisted away before he could react—“slow. That’s enough for tonight. Let’s eat.”

She was aware allowing him to stay was another indulgence, meeting a need for human company unfulfilled since her escape from Al Sorna. Also, he had taken on the role of menial without complaint, making the fire, seeing to the horses and cooking the meals every night with an almost martial efficiency.
This is unfair,
she thought, watching him cut strips of bacon onto the skillet.
I don’t need his help. And the way he looks at me . . .
It wasn’t lustful exactly, or leering in any way. More a kind of longing.
Still just a boy.

The High Keep came into view the next day, a jagged spike in the distance. From the tales she had heard of the place she had expected something grander, taller, a fabled castle fit for her father’s martyrdom, but its lack of glamour became more obvious the closer they came. There were large holes in the walls and jagged gaps in the battlements, as if some giant had come along and taken a few bites out of the stonework. The road on the earthen ramp leading up to the gates was marked by patches of broken stone and home to a herd of long-horned mountain goats, feeding on the weeds sprouting from the paving and paying them scant heed as they passed.

“It’s amazing!” Arken enthused as they stood before the gate, looking up at the walls rising above. “Never knew a tower could rise so high.”

A squeal of metal called their attention to a door set into the gate, seeing an aged face peering out from the shadowed interior. “Got nothing here worth stealing,” it said.

Reva made the sign of the Trueblade and the hostility faded from the face. “Best come in,” it said then disappeared back into the gloom.

The old man stood back as she entered. Reva found it impossible to guess his age, anywhere past his seventieth year was her best estimate from the sagging wrinkles dominating his features. He wore mean clothing which she doubted had seen a wash-stone for some months, his torso wrapped in a threadbare blanket. He carried a head-high staff, more, she suspected, for support than armament from the way he leaned on it. “Vantil,” he introduced himself. “And I think I know who you are.” He nodded at Arken, left standing outside with the horses. “Him I don’t.”

“He has my trust,” Reva said.

That seemed to be enough for Vantil as he began hobbling towards a steep flight of stone steps. “’Spect you want to see the chamber first.”

“Yes.” Reva found her heart was beating harder than it had when she faced Ranter and his brothers. “Yes I would like that.”

It was just a room. Larger than the others they passed on the way, and in a similar state of disrepair, but still just a room, chill stone and shadow, empty save for a high-backed chair facing the door. At her request Vantil provided a torch and she began to scour the shadows, playing the flame over the walls, behind the pillars, beneath the chair.

“Don’t you want to pray before the chair?” Vantil asked, clearly puzzled by her behaviour.

Reva ignored the question, completing her first search of the room and immediately starting another, then another. Every corner of the chamber examined, every possible hiding place prodded, every shadow banished with the torch.
Nothing.

“How long have you been here?” she asked Vantil.

“Came not long after the Trueblade fell.”

“You must know what I seek here.”

The old man shrugged. “To offer prayers for the Trueblade. To speak to the Father in the place of his holy martyrd—”

“He had a sword. Here in this room when he died. Where is it?”

Vantil could only shake his head in bafflement. “No sword here, and I know this keep better than any living soul. Everything got taken, if not by the Darkblade’s cutthroats then by the Fief Lord’s House Guards.”

“The Darkblade didn’t take it,” she muttered. “When did the Fief Lord’s men come?”

“They come every year, make sure the place is empty of pilgrims. We hide in the mountains until they’re gone. The last visit was two months ago.”

So many miles for nothing. It wasn’t here, Al Sorna’s men didn’t take it which left the Fief Lord, in Alltor.

“Do you have somewhere I can rest for tonight?” she asked Vantil.

“The blood of the Trueblade is welcome here for as long as she likes.” He fidgeted for a moment, his staff beating on the stones a few times. “The, ah, prayers?” he asked.

Reva gave the chamber a final glance.
An empty chair in an empty room.
No sign of the Trueblade, not even a bloodstained stone to mark his passing.
Did he ever think of me?
she wondered.
Did he even know I lived?

“The Father knows well the depth of my love for the Trueblade,” she told Vantil, moving to the door. “I’ll need a bed for the boy as well.”

H
e found a hiding place in the hills several miles from the villa, a cluster of rocks atop a rise affording a clear view of the surrounding scrub desert, with sufficient brushwood for fuel and a rudimentary shelter. He set the stallion loose, whipping it towards the south in the hope it would lead any pursuers away. She continued to bleed that first night, thick streams of red flowing from her nose, ears and eyes, the dampness on her trews indicating she bled from everywhere she could. He stripped her and continued to wipe the blood away until, slowly, the flow began to ebb. She lay pale, naked and senseless, her breathing shallow, no fluttered eyes or groans to signal she might be dreaming. It occurred to Frentis that she might never wake, and if so, he could well be sitting here watching over her corpse for the rest of his life. The binding was as strong as ever, the itch vanished. He was hers again, even though she was defenceless, even though he wanted to sink his knife into her chest over and over. Instead he nursed her, kept her warm and sheltered against the night’s chill, until her eyes snapped open on the morning of the third day.

She smiled when she saw him, gratitude shining in her eyes. “I knew you couldn’t abandon me, my love.”

Frentis stared back, hoping she saw the hatred in his gaze, and said nothing.

She pushed aside the cloak he had used to cover her, stretching and flexing her limbs. She was thinner, but still lithe and strong . . . and beautiful. It made him hate her even more.

“Oh don’t sulk,” she said with a groan. “They were a necessity. For us as well as the Ally. You’ll understand in time.”

She grimaced at the sight of her blood-soiled clothing but pulled on the black cotton shirt and trews without hesitation. “Do we have food?”

He pointed to the only game he had been able to catch, a rock snake, caught, skinned and filleted the day before. He hung the strips of meat over a low-burning fire to smoke, finding it surprisingly tasty fare.

The woman fed on the remaining snake with evident gusto, grunting in pleasure as she chewed and swallowed. “A man of unending talents indeed,” she said when finished, grease shining on her lips. “What a fine husband you’ll make.”

They struck out in a north-easterly direction before the sun grew too hot to permit travel. A shallow rain pool nestling in a shaded crevice amidst the rocks provided a decent supply of water, though the going was hard due to the meagre sustenance of the last few days. A day and a half of slogging through the scrub brought them in sight of the coast, the woman judging them a good twenty miles north of Alpira.

“The port of Janellis lies another half-day north,” she said. “We’ll need to do some stealing, now that we’re just beggars in rags.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Frentis hadn’t stolen anything of true value since his days as a pickpocket on the streets of Varinshold, the thievery he had been encouraged to indulge in during his time at the Order House had been much less lucrative in monetary terms. It transpired his childhood skills hadn’t deserted him, a few hours wandering the streets of Janellis netted two full purses and a decent collection of jewellery, sufficient for new clothes and a room at a suitably unremarkable inn. They were husband and wife again, newly wed and in the flush of marital bliss, seeking a ship to the northern ports to visit relatives. The innkeeper recommended a merchantman due to depart for Marbellis the next morning.

“I was expecting more of a reaction,” the woman mused that night, lying next to him. Her using had been gentler tonight, she had kissed him for the first time, trying to make their intimacy a reality he supposed. The binding forced him to reciprocate, to kiss and caress, hold her close as she shuddered against him. Afterwards she entwined her legs with his, fingers smoothing over the hard muscle of his belly.

“The wife and son of their fallen Hope die in a fiery calamity,” she said. “And not a voice speaks of it.”

Frentis willed the itch to return, to bring back the wonderful liberating agony that had allowed him to
move
, to be a man who saved rather than killed. He was careful to keep the truth from his thoughts, calling up images likely to provoke guilt and despair in an effort to mask the true outcome of their mission.
The farmhand, the innkeeper, the boy staring up from the bed . . .

“Perhaps the Emperor has stifled the news,” she wondered. “Sparing his people the shock of it. First the Hope, now this, just as he’s about to announce a new Choosing. Not that there’s anyone to choose now that bitch is dead.” She giggled a little, sensing his surprise. “I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest, darling. It wasn’t the boy’s name on the list, it was his mother. He was just my little lesson for you. No, she was the prize, the one name that had to be struck through, Emeren Nasur Ailers, the Emperor’s choice as the new Hope, future Empress of the Alpiran Empire.” She lay her head on his shoulder, voice fading as sleep took her. “Doesn’t matter who he chooses now, all hope is gone . . .”

◆ ◆ ◆

The voyage to Marbellis took another eight days, all the time playing the loving young couple for the merchantman’s crew. They were a cheerful lot, given to ribald jokes and unsolicited advice concerning Frentis’s husbandly duties, although his meagre Alpiran forced him to limit his responses to embarrassed laughter. In their cabin at night, when she was done, he would use the limited freedom allowed him to explore the scar where the itch had burned. There was a definite change in the texture now, the smoothness more discernible, and he had a sense it might have grown in size. But still no itch, no freeing surge of pain.
Grow,
he implored continually, trying to keep his frustration in check lest she sense it.

They docked at Marbellis with the morning tide, exchanging farewells and a final bout of raucous banter with the sailors as they descended the gangplank. “Right.” The woman turned to survey the city beyond the quay. “Time to find some scum.”

Like all ports Marbellis had districts where wise feet didn’t tread. In Varinshold it had been the entire western quarter, here it was smaller, a cramped slum of listing terraces clustered around the warehouse district. As they walked the streets evidence of the Realm Guard’s occupation was still plain in the gaps in the terraces and patches of ash-blackened wall. The bustle of the docks and the liveliness of the people told of a city that had healed a great deal in the years since the war, but the poorer recesses still showed the scars of battle.

“They say a thousand women or more were raped when the walls fell,” the woman commented as they passed a hollowed-out shell that had once been a home. “Many of them had their throats cut afterwards. Is that how your people celebrate victory?”

I wasn’t here,
he wanted to say but stilled his tongue.
Here or not, doesn’t matter. Every soul in the army was stained by Janus’s war.

“Ah, guilt for the crimes of others.” She wagged a finger at him. “Won’t do, my love. Won’t do at all.”

She chose a wineshop in the darkest alley they could find, ordering a bottle of red with a conspicuous display of coin then settling down to wait at a table facing the door. Several patrons, mostly men in various states of dishevelment, got up and left in the few minutes following their arrival, leaving them alone save for a man sitting in an alcove, the smoke from his pipe pluming in the shadow.

“Always go for the one who lingers in a place like this,” the woman advised, lifting her wine cup to the man in the alcove and offering a bright smile. “He’ll have the keenest eye for opportunity.”

The man took another puff on his pipe then rose and sauntered over to their table. He was short, wiry but with a fighter’s face, displaying several gaps in the teeth he bared in a mirthless smile. Although Frentis judged him to be from northern climes he spoke to the woman in Alpiran.

“I speak the Realm’s tongue,” she replied. “And no, I have no need of five-leaf, thank you.”

The man inclined his head. “Ah, so it’s the redflower you’re after.” His accent was thick and familiar, Nilsaelin. He pulled a chair over to sit down at the table, helping himself to wine. “Available, but expensive. Not like the Realm here. The Emperor thinks redflower a great evil.”

“We’re not looking to buy any . . . amusements.” She gave a furtive glance around the shop, dropping her voice. “We need passage to the Realm.”

The wiry man sat back in his chair, grunting in amusement. “Good luck to you. Alpiran ships don’t dock there any more. You may have heard. There was this small matter of a war, y’see.”

The woman leaned closer, voice soft and intent. “I have heard there are . . . other ships for hire. Ships not so bound by the Emperor’s strictures.”

His face lost any vestige of humour, the eyes narrowing. “Dangerous talk, from a stranger.”

“I know.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We need to be gone from here. My husband . . .” She nodded at Frentis. “He is from the Realm, we met before the war. Things were so much easier then, our union was blessed by my parents, but now.” She put a sorrowful expression on her face. “The years since the war have been hard for us, shunned by family and neighbours alike. In the Realm though, perhaps we’ll find a welcome.”

The wiry man raised his eyebrows, giving Frentis a long look of appraisal. “From the Realm, eh? Whereabouts?”

“Varinshold.”

“Yeh, I can hear that in your voice. What brought you to the empire? You look more a soldier than a merchant.”

“A sailor,” he said. “Started as a cabin boy when things got difficult in the quarter. Needed to leave.”

“Difficult how?”

“One Eye.”

“Ah.” The wiry man drained his wine cup. “A name I know. Y’heard he died years ago now?”

“Yes. I didn’t weep.”

A faint smile twisted his lips. “I might have a name or two for you. But it’ll cost.”

“We can pay,” the woman assured him, displaying the fullness of her purse.

He stroked his chin, giving every impression of careful consideration before nodding. “Wait here. I’ll be back by the ninth bell.”

The woman watched him leave before turning to Frentis with a raised eyebrow. “One Eye?”

He drank some wine, saying nothing until she flared the binding. “My scars,” he hissed through the pain. “He was the one who gave me my scars. My brothers killed him for it.”

“So,” she murmured, letting the binding fade, “you were one of the Messenger’s.” There was a gravity to her voice as she said this, an unwelcome realisation. The look she turned on him was intense in its scrutiny, like the time in the temple, only this time she refrained from torture. After a moment she blinked, shaking her head and patting his hand. “Forgive my doubts, beloved. But the centuries have made me cautious.”

She rose from the table, adjusting the short sword beneath her cloak. “We’d best adjourn to await our benefactor.”

◆ ◆ ◆

They climbed onto the roof of a shed overlooking the alley and waited. The wiry man returned a good deal before the ninth bell, with four rather larger companions. They entered the shop in a rush, re-emerging almost as quickly. The largest of the wiry man’s companions rounded on him, hushed threats accompanied by hard jabs to the chest.

“Don’t kill any,” the woman whispered. “And keep the lingerer conscious.”

It was Frentis’s experience that the larger and more aggressive a man was, the poorer his fighting ability. Large men, especially those employed in criminal pursuits, were more accustomed to intimidation than combat. So it was scant surprise to find the man he dropped behind failed to duck the blow that crunched into the base of his skull, or that his even larger companion simply gaped and failed to react to the spinning kick that caught the side of his head. The third one, the least physically impressive, managed to pull his knife free before the woman’s punch found the nerve centre behind his ear. The fourth was swift enough to swing at her with a cudgel. She ducked under it, delivered a knee-cap-smashing backward kick and finished him with a blow to the temple.

She drew her sword and advanced on the wiry man, now cowering against the alley wall, hands raised and eyes averted. She placed the point of the sword under his chin and forced his face up. “We’ll take those names now.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“This is supposed to impress me?” The smuggler looked down at the wiry man’s beaten and bloody form with a mix of disdain and amusement. He had led them, after some persuasion, to a warehouse seemingly full of nothing but tea chests. The smuggler, plus several crew-mates were playing dice behind a wall that wasn’t a wall. He was a powerfully built man, speaking in a Meldenean accent, with a sabre propped within easy reach. His comrades were all similarly well armed.

“This is a demonstration,” the woman said, tossing the smuggler a bulging purse. “Of the consequences of failing to keep a bargain.”

The smuggler considered the purse a moment then aimed a kick at the wiry man’s huddled back. “This one goes about with four others. Where’re they?”

“They felt sleepy.” The woman held up their remaining purse plus a clutch of the jewelled bracelets Frentis had stolen. “Yours when we reach the Realm. This one says you’re due to make another run past the King’s excisemen. Consider us just a little extra cargo.”