The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) (56 page)

“Good morning, Your Majesty. I have discovered something of importance which I think you should know about.”

Vorgret held up his hand to forestall his magician’s outpouring. “Tell me how you killed the Lady Tarraquin and destroyed the two magicians.”

Sadrin stopped dead. That was moon cycles ago and unimportant. He let some of the irritation colour his voice. “I told you. She was hiding at the top of the tower so I turned her to ash and when the two magicians tried to attack me I burned the tower down with them inside it.”

Vorgret stood and took a step down from the dais, his face dark with anger. “You lie to me, boy. They are still alive and the bitch has whelped Borman’s bastard.”

“Oh.” There wasn’t much else he could say but Vorgret took a threatening step forward so he thought he had better say something. “I’m sorry, My Lord, I made a mistake, I just assumed they were in the tower but what does it matter now? She is just one woman and you can have any woman you want.”

The king made a snarling noise like some enraged animal, grabbed Sadrin by the front of his robe and dragged him forward, close enough that his spit sprayed into the magician’s face. “It matters because she was mine and you have made a fool of me!” He pushed Sadrin away from him slightly, hit him across the face with the back of his hand splitting his cheek and lip and dropped him in a heap onto the floor. “And now I am going to teach you a lesson you will never forget. I own you, boy, and you will not lie to me or make me look a fool ever again.”

He undid the thick belt which held his jerkin together, slipped it out of its loops and brought it down as hard as he could on Sadrin’s shoulder and back. Before he could do anything to protect himself, Vorgret hit him again with the heavy strap and then again. Sadrin squealed in hurt and pain and tried to squirm away from the beating, but Vorgret followed him and then stood on the edge of his robe preventing him from going any further whilst he continued to strap the helpless magician with his belt.

Sadrin curled into a ball and covered his head with his arms crying out in pain every time the belt cut across his back. His robe gave him some protection, but each blow felt as if a hot iron had been pressed into his flesh. Despite his robe, he could feel welts rising along his back and shoulders and the pain of bruising underneath. He closed his eyes and cried in fear and desperation pleading for the man to stop. Then his thoughts slipped away from him and he was back as a boy again, cringing in the filthy farm yard knowing that the beating would go on until he lost consciousness.

His father always beat him bloody and for no reason at all, just because he was different. He would beat him with his belt strap until he could no longer cry out, and then he would still carry on until his arm was too tired to raise it again. But Sadrin wouldn’t stand for it, not anymore. He was a man now not a boy, and he would kill the bastard he hated so much. The strap came down again catching him on his exposed arm where the robe had slid back and Sadrin screamed in pain and anger and raw hatred, releasing the power within him in a blast of heat and white flame.

For a long moment he lay on the floor panting with the pain and weak from the uncontrolled release of power. Everything was silent and the only movement was a gentle fall of soft flakes, like snow but not so cold. Slowly he pulled his arms away from his head so he could see the flakes settle on the floor around him. The flakes weren’t white, they were grey, and he was lying on a stone floor not in the mud of a farmyard. Realisation of where he was and what must have happened stole across his mind, and he shuddered at the enormity of what he’d done. He hadn’t killed his drunken father, but a king, and not just any king but his master. It shouldn’t have been possible, it was against the Goddess’s laws, but he’d done it anyway. Vorgret was dead and he was free.

He sat up and surveyed the room, a big grin on his face despite his hurt and the devastation around him. Everything had gone; every chair and table, book and scroll. Where the throne had stood there was just an unrecognisable lump of welded stone, melted, glassy and bright. Of Vorgret there was no sign, not even a greasy smudge on the floor. Sadrin stood and held out his arms brushing the flakes of ash off his black robe and laughing. Vorgret was ash, just grey flakes of nothing, indistinguishable from the remains of anything else in the room. He kicked out at the ash on the floor sending up a small cloud of dust which quickly settled and laughed again.

Which bit of Vorgret was that? Perhaps it was his ugly head or his bloated belly or his fat prick which he’d been forced to hold once whilst the king had grunted in pleasure. He stamped down hard grinding the ash into the stone, hoping that it was Vorgret’s prick, and wherever dead kings went to he could feel that now. A quiet knock came at the door reminding him that there were others who would need to know of Vorgret’s passing and wondering where that left him. Would they accuse him of regicide and even if they did what would it matter? No one would dare touch him.

Then there were the kingdoms of Vinmore and Essenland to think about. Vorgret had no legitimate children, or bastards that he knew of, so who would rule? Perhaps as he was the nearest thing that Essenland had to nobility, they would offer the throne to him? He giggled mischievously. Now that would be different; the illiterate son of a peasant farmer on the throne of Essenland, but that might even have been an improvement. However he didn’t want to be king, he wanted to be High Master, as Vorgret had always promised him. He laughed again, louder this time. There was nothing stopping him now, he could have anything he wanted just by taking it.

Another knock came at the door, slightly louder this time and much more urgent. If he hadn’t been so happy, he could have become quite annoyed at being disturbed, but instead he brushed the last flakes of ash off his robe and skipped to the door, raising a small cloud of grey dust behind him. When he opened the door he couldn’t help but smile at the trio of shocked guards who stood beside the Guardcaptain, all trying to peer over his shoulder into the empty room.

“Guardcaptain Pillin, you had better come in.” The Guardcaptain stepped over the threshold and Sadrin closed the door behind him. He gave the man a moment to stare around the place and take in the devastation. “I regret to inform you that Vorgret is dead.”

The look on the man’s face was almost comical. “What happened?”

“The king and I argued and he lost.”

Pillin stared around the room in disbelief. He’d only been a Guardcaptain for a moon cycle, promoted from troop leader as nobody else wanted the job, and he had no idea of what he was meant to do under such circumstances. Normally, he supposed, if someone killed a king they would be arrested and then executed horribly. However, he didn’t fancy his chances of arresting the magician and staying alive long enough to march him off to prison, let alone execute him afterwards. Perhaps he would stand a better chance of surviving this if he treated the whole thing as an unfortunate accident, and let the magician decide what should be done next. After all, Vorgret was gone, and getting himself killed wasn’t going to bring the bastard back.

“That’s unfortunate. Does that make you king?”

Sadrin laughed. He really did like this young man. “Good Goddess no! I’m a magician not a ruler, and in any case I have business elsewhere. Now do me a service and gather a troop of guards together and enough supplies for a moon cycle. The Goddess calls me to her temple at the Enclave, and I want to be on my way before noon.”

“But, My Lord, you cannot go now. What of Vinmore and Alewinder? King Borman’s army has already crossed the border and will be here within days.”

“If I were you, I would pack up and leave Borman to it. There’s not much point in dying for a king who is just a dirty smudge on the floor, now is there?”

“You mean go home to Essenland?” Sadrin nodded. “If we return home, who is going to be our king?”

The magician shrugged. “I don’t know. You become king, or elect one or invite Porteous back from exile. Any one of them could do a better job than Vorgret did. Oh, and dispose of the prisoners as well, they are of no use anymore.”

Sadrin smiled and walked out of the room feeling very pleased with himself and leaving the stunned Guardcaptain to stare after his retreating back.

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CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

By The People

Tozaman had known that appealing to Borman would be a waste of time and that the King would just send him on his way without any compensation. He’d told the brotherlords what Borman’s reaction would be, but he hadn’t been able to persuade the twelve that they were wrong and he was right. That was one of the problems with being the youngest of the brotherlords, his voice carried less weight than any of the others,   and when they were all of a like mind his opinion meant less than that of a child.

If he’d managed to persuade Oraman to his point of view, he might have been able to convince them that Borman had no honour and would feel no guilt for the lives his treachery had cost. Unfortunately Oraman was too set in his ways and wouldn’t vote against the council of his brothers. At least he had spoken against sending him on this fool’s mission, not that it made any difference; none of the other brotherlords wanted to leave Sandstrone to talk to this foreign king, therefore it was inevitable that the task would fall to the youngest.

Whilst he’d known that Borman would laugh at his request, he could understand why the council had sent him. His brothers were desperate. They had recovered what gold and gems they could from the burnt out remains of Tallison’s pavilion, and they had discovered some of the wealth which he had hidden away, but so much of what should have been there was missing.

His male relatives, who had guarded Tallison, might have known where a decade of gemstones had been hidden, but in the riots which followed Tallison’s death, they had been torn to bloody scraps by the vengeful mob. Not only had the wealth of Sandstrone disappeared, but many of the gemstone mines had been played out, and others had been allowed to fall into ruin, their gem caves sealed forever. The truth of the matter was that Sandstrone had no coin, the people were starving and the repairs to the abandoned and pillaged city remained undone.

He dismounted and led his stolen horse through the swirling, ankle-deep water. Had it been his own horse, a fine Leersland bred stallion, it would have crossed the spreading water of the Blue River at Crosslands Gap without hesitation. Unfortunately someone had stolen his horse after he’d been thrown into a dark cell, believing that he was unlikely to ever need it again. The unknown thief was wrong though. Borman had rescinded the order to imprison anyone who had visited the palace within the last seven day, but by then his horse had long gone.

Of course, if he was found with this stolen horse, he would be back where he started, but that was unlikely as the horse wasn’t worth enough for someone to face the dangers of crossing Crosslands Gap to get it back. It didn’t bother him; he knew the pathways through the gap as well as he now knew the once forbidden streets of Tilital. When he reached the Stone Hills, one of the armsbrothers would have the honour of gifting him his horse, and when he rode through Leersland, he would find a replacement worthy of a brotherlord and would return the gift tenfold.

The council may not have agreed with him about the futility of asking Borman for restitution, but at least they had the sense to agree a contingency plan; his three hundred hand-picked warriors waited for him in the Stone Hills. He would have preferred to have taken all the armsbrothers of his tribe, but the council were right; three hundred could live off the land and move swiftly whilst a thousand would need provisions. His people could ill afford to spare so much, and in any case, such a large number of mounted warriors would lose him the advantage of surprise.

They would ride through Leersland and into Northshield and would take by force what Borman had refused to give them as their right. Every one of the brotherlords had agreed to lead that raid, but Oraman had insisted that the honour be given to him, and as the eldest of the brotherlords, Oraman’s voice on the council held sway. One day, Tozaman thought, he would be the eldest, and the council would listen to him, but for now he had a task to do on which the future of his people could well depend.

*

It had been a busy night and so far the day didn’t look like it was going to get any easier. With the exception of the arms merchant, who lay asleep and gently snoring on the pallet in the corner, they had all been awake for a day and a half, and the strain was starting to show. Tuckin looked pale beneath his dark stubble, and Redruth’s eyes were almost the colour of his hair.

Of them all, Barrin looked the worst. Not only was he exhausted, but the news that his father had been arrested and taken to the palace for questioning had hit him hard. There had always been the possibility that he and his friends would be discovered and arrested, but it had never occurred to him that his father would be implicated. To make things worse, it was the fire spitting-magician who had ordered his arrest, and they all knew what the black robe was capable of.

When Redruth had returned to the inn with the news that the arms merchant had been followed by the magician, they had acted immediately. They had shut down their safe room, hiding any signs that they had been there, and left the Soldiers Rest and his father behind. From there they had gone to the counting house master and had helped him, his family, and as much of his coin as they could carry, to relocate to a safer place.

Finally, just before dawn broke, they picked up the arms merchant and escorted him to the rooms where the leaders of the Vinmorian freedom fighters met. He’d been a fool. He should have insisted that his father came with them instead of leaving him at the inn. Now he was in the cells beneath the palace and whilst they could get in and out of most places in the city that was one place where any attempt at rescue would be suicide.