Valour and Victory (37 page)

“If you like.
What is it? I’m buying no pigs in pokes Elliot. I know what you are
like, I should by now. Devious doesn’t describe even the half of
you.”

Elliot
laughed.

“I’d like you
to deliver another letter, a private one, to Zilla Talansdochter
and if she says yes then bring her back to me.”

“You dark
horse!” exclaimed Robain with a knowing wink. “You never said
exactly, but I knew it! All those bells the two of you spent
together in the stables at the inn. You obviously weren’t
discussing the merits and demerits of certain breeds of
horses.”

“I’m going to
ask her to become my wife,” agreed Elliot, his face a fiery
red.

“These Dukes of
yours will have collective apoplexy,” Robain declared.

“One of them
won’t,” said Elliot.

“Just the
one?”

“The Duke of
Sahara,” Elliot informed him with a sly grin.

“I didn’t know
Sahara had a Duke.”

“It will have
if the man I have in mind chooses to accept.”

“You intrigue
me. What are you planning? Who is it?”

“You.”

“Me?
Me!
Duke of Sahara!”

“You can rename
it Hallam. New beginning, new name. It’s a tough undertaking and
you are the only man I know who has any chance of success. The
slaves are free. A good many intend to go back there. Mining is all
they know but they return as free men and women and will get paid a
wage for the candle-marks they work. It’ll be your job to organise
it.”

“Well …”

“I also most
definitely don’t want you to return to the north. I need friends
around me and I also need your support in Conclave. This country of
mine is long overdue for a shake up. With you by my side I can do
it, emancipation of all the slaves, rights for women. In fact I’ll
be starting on the latter immediately.”

Robain stared
into the fire. Why not? With Hilla dead there was really nothing to
draw him back to Argyll and Elliot had become a good friend.

“Okay, okay,
I’ll do it. I accept. I still think the dukes will have a fit
though. Promise me you’ll keep it under wraps for a while, at least
until I get used to the idea.”

“We’ll keep it
a secret, so no telling even your brother when you meet him and
that includes your commanding officer if you see
him
. Just
ask to extend the detachment.” He rubbed his hands together with
anticipation. He was so looking forward to the time when he could
spring all his plans on the ultra-conservative nobility.

* * * * *

The Convent

The smell of
old death was all pervading. The group of armed townsmen from
nearby Brindal tied cloths soaked in vinegar round their faces
before they attempted to enter the eerily silent building.

A teenage boy
called Danny was with the men. He had been the last person to have
seen the Sisters alive.

The townspeople
had survived the advance of the Larg kohorts by barricading
themselves inside their church. They were very glad that a town
priest, now long dead, had insisted that their ancestors build
their church of stone and brick and not of the more common but much
cheaper wood. He had also insisted that it be built tall, with
thick walls and that its windows be narrow.

When the
kohorts had irrupted into the town, all of its inhabitants, no
matter of what class and status, had been inside the church. They
had even managed to bring inside a proportion of their livestock
and enough food and water to withstand a siege of at least two
tendays if they were careful.

Every one of
the townspeople had survived.

This was not
the case elsewhere along the route the kohorts had taken. Some of
those who had lived there had managed to flee west, usually those
with means, who had the horses at their disposal with which they
had a chance to outrun the Larg. Very few of those who had remained
had lived. The Larg had swept through the area east of the River
Murdoch like a swarm of avenging ondises, sniffing out and killing
every living creature they could put their paws on.

The relieved
inhabitants of Brindal were scouring the countryside looking for
survivors and doing what they could for the few, the pitifully few,
they came across.

The majority of
the bodies they found were unrecognisable, bones for the most part,
gnawed clean by the hungry and kill-crazy Larg.

Rumours were
beginning to reach the townspeople about that events that had
transpired elsewhere, that the Larg had been defeated and had gone
back home. There was even talk that the Larg would never again
attack Murdoch; that they had seen the error of their ways but
nobody really believed that. The half-fearful rumours of dragons in
the sky they discounted as the fevered imagination of the insane
but even if a quarter of the rumours were true it seemed that they
and their loved ones were safe again, for a time. They would never
however think of the Larg as anything but evil.

The townsmen
kept their weapons beside them. Some of the younger men, the more
hot headed, were keeping their eyes peeled for any Larg
stragglers.

Each man
carried a shovel that he would use to bury the pitiful remains of
each dead man, woman and child he came across. The countryside was
littered with new dug graves.

Now it was the
convent’s turn.

“How many were
there?” asked the Town Headman in a hushed voice as they traipsed
through the entrance chamber with its broken-hinged door and into
the convent proper.

“Must have been
around sixty,” answered Danny.

“There were
schoolgirls here too,” said the blacksmith in his rasping voice. He
looked green around the gills. “They didn’t stand a chance.”

“No,” agreed
the Headman with a glance in Danny’s direction. “You stay here son,
there’s no need for you to come in.”

Danny swallowed
but shook his head. “No, I have to see what happened. I spoke to
Mother Breguswið that day. She was so calm and brave, sort of
accepting, somehow.”

“They’ll be in
the chapel,” said the Headman and led the way towards it.

The sickly
smell of death was growing stronger. All the men, and Danny, were
breathing it in. Their soaked cloths were doing little to sanitise
it.

This is
going to be bad
, thought the Headman, his boots scrunching on
the broken glass underfoot. “This will likely be the worst we’ve
seen,” he said aloud. The buildings around the tower at the manor
house at Cocteau had been like a charnel house but here the
buildings had not been on fire and what was left of the bodies had
been lying for many days.

The Headman
pushed open the wreck of the chapel door and retched. Nothing had
prepared him for this. This was horror incarnate.

Part eaten
bodies lay everywhere, on the floor and slumped in the pews. A
headless, grey habited, blood spattered corpse lay spread eagled
over the altar. The body had no arms.

The Headman
stood silent, trying to pull himself together. Beside him was Danny
who had peeked inside. He was being noisily sick.

“As I said,
they never stood a chance,” said the rasping voice of the
blacksmith. “Is this all of them? They all appear to be Sisters.
Every one of them is wearing the habit. Where are the
children?”

“Probably
further in,” the Headman answered. “Mother Breguswið would have
known that the chapel wasn’t safe. She was a brave woman. She would
have tried to hide the children in the hope that once the Larg had
killed her and her Sisters they would go away.”

“Small chance,”
said the blacksmith who seemed to be addicted to the word chance,
“their blood lust was up. That door over there, the one with the
bolts, where does it lead to?”

The Headman
walked through the chapel, being careful not to stand on what was
underneath and reaching the door, drew back the bolts. The door
opened without any bother and he took a quick glance at what lay
within. What he saw would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He refused to
let Danny look inside the strong room. He and the blacksmith took
it upon themselves the task of clearing it of the bodies of the
children and the younger nuns.

They buried the
nuns and the girls in the convent graveyard. They didn’t try to
identify them. There was no point. There was not enough left,
especially the children, to make the exercise worthwhile.

“Do you think
the nuns will come back some day?” asked Danny as they left the
building six candle-marks later.

“Perhaps,” the
Headman answered, gathering the reins of his horse. The animal was
wary and restless. He sighed. “I don’t think the Grey Sisters would
ever want to.”

“But it is
their Mother House,” protested Danny.

“It was,” he
said, “and they can build another. A convent isn’t bricks and
mortar. It is the Community within. The buildings here will crumble
away and perhaps that is as it should be.”

“I’ll never
forget them,” vowed Danny.

* * * * *

Elliot

“Elliot, you
need
to marry. You
must
secure the succession.”

“Do I?” Elliot
raised his head from the papers he was studying, only half paying
attention to what the Archbishop was saying.

“You need a
wife.”

“I suppose
you’ve got a candidate in mind Lord Archbishop?”

“More than
one,” he answered, placing another piece of paper in front of his
young king.

“I’ve no time
to worry about such matters at present. This is not the right
time.”

“This is
exactly the right time. The Kingdom needs something to take its
mind off recent events, a bit of excitement.”

“We’ve got the
Fealtatis Ceremony coming up, then the Coronation and Conclave to
convene,” Elliot argued. “I’d say that that is enough excitement to
be going on with, wouldn’t you?”

“No I
wouldn’t,” insisted Tom Brentwood, “a pretty young queen at your
side, that’s what you need.” This was Archbishop Tom Brentwood at
his most persuasive but Elliot was not to be convinced and his face
showed his displeasure.

“You are the
King, you get to choose your bride yourself.”

Elliot’s head
came up.

“I do?”

“Just look at
the list Kellen Taviston has prepared, that’s all I ask.”

“I’ll look at
it later,” said Elliot, in a non-committal voice.

Later, much
later, when Elliot had finished wading through what he called
‘matters of state’, ‘little’ things such as who were to hold the
Conclave seats on behalf of the minor heirs and the immediate
problem of what to do with the thousands of freed slaves of Sahara
who were still residing in the Fort area, he rather thought he had
already come up with a tidy solution to that one, Elliot picked up
the list the Archbishop had left. It was sparse to the point of
extremism.

There were
three names and all three and been considered and rejected by
Conclave the previous year when Margravessa Isobel Cocteau had been
chosen.

First came
Contessa Ania Kirk of the Western Isles but she was only fifteen
and had been rejected then for reason of age. Martin Taviston had
noted that it would be politic to at least consider the match
saying that the ties with the islands should be maintained.

The other two
were daughters of Barons. Martin had included his niece Alison who
was sixteen. Elliot dimly remembered seeing her at Court the
previous year.

Wasn’t she one
of Isobel’s ladies? I rather think she was, plain little thing with
vuzy brown hair.

Last was
Kellessa Lucy Merriman, the same age as Elliot and sister of Derek
who had accompanied him on his grand tour of the northern
continent. Derek had often spoken of his sister and Elliot almost
felt he knew her already. Derek was dead now but if this Lucy was
anything like her dead brother, marriage to her might be all right
if his plan came to nothing.

Elliot sighed
as he picked up his pen and dipped it into the ink. He made two
annotations on the sheet, annotations Tom Brentwood saw and drew
his own conclusions.

Beside the name
Ania Kirk, Elliot wrote ‘too young’ and beside Alison Taviston’s
name Elliot wrote ‘too plain’.

As Elliot left
the paper on the desk in plain sight he probably shouldn’t have
been surprised when Kellessa Lucy Merriman arrived at Court under a
tenday later, nor should he have been surprised at the news that
Lucy Merriman was being widely tipped as Murdoch’s next Queen. The
days passed and Elliot said nothing.

Elliot was
waiting for the return of Robain who he had sent northwards with
despatches and invitations for the coronation scheduled for the
last day of the last month of the year.

There was an
invitation for everyone who was anyone on the planet, one to the
Head Councillor of Argyll and others to the Island Dukes and Earls.
For the first time invitations had gone out to Vadath and to the
rtathlians of the Lind, to the Lai and to the Larg.

* * * * *

Robain and
Zilla

“Nurse
Talansdochter,” said the flinty-eyed senior nurse entering the
hospital tent where Zilla was bent over one of her patients, a
young militiaman who had been badly burned when the Quorko had
attacked the support lines.

Zilla
straightened up. “Yes Sister Harrisdochter?”

“You have
another visitor.”

“Me?” queried
Zilla, wondering who could be visiting her now.

“Yes.”

The senior
nurse walked over to the bed and examined Zilla’s handiwork.
Changing a burns dressing was a finicky business and needed a firm
yet gentle touch.

“Yes, very
good. Off you go, I’ll finish here. Your visitor is waiting in the
mess tent.”