Champion of the Rose - Kobo Ebook (13 page)

"Very," Soren replied, not knowing what to make of
this latest development. "The Rose
was having hysterics. The thing came and
looked at me first – it wasn't more than a dozen feet away – and then it went
straight after you."

"You're sure?" He seemed only half conscious of her presence, too caught up in rapid
thought. "Could you see it?"

"No." Soren
was silent, eyes on his. Her expression
would say it all. You know more than I
do. You need to explain.

She waited.

"We were visiting Aramond," Strake said finally,
staring at a point well to Soren's left. Voice, expression, posture: all were eloquent of his reluctance, of the
effort it took him to speak. "My
cousin, Sethane, was courting the Baron of The Oaks. We'd been there some weeks when a report came
of an attack out of The Deeping. A
farmer cut to pieces, not two feet from where her husband was preparing dinner.

"A message from Tor Darest came close behind. There had been deaths within The
Deeping. The Tzel Aviar had tracked the
killer across the border and requested permission to pursue into Darest. A joint hunt was arranged, and we headed for
Teraman."

He shifted in the chair, turning the book he held over,
smoothing its discoloured cover. The
Tzel Aviar, or 'Warden of the Borders', was an official of the Fair who dealt
with problems caused by Deeping magic straying into neighbouring territories. Soren only knew that the current Tzel Aviar
was a man reputed to loathe humans, and certainly hadn't done anything about
the incursion of trees.

"We couldn't track it by magic," Strake said, a
small vertical line appearing between his brows. "Even the Tzel Aviar could do no more
than hunt the faint physical traces it left, and follow its kills. We could not tell if it was man or
beast. Not a troll, as the Tzel Aviar
first believed. Its victims were ripped
by claws, but it did not feast. No troll
would behave so.

"After treating a bullock and a child the same as the
farmer, it turned back to The Deeping. And we followed. A frustrating
journey – we seemed to constantly blunder past it no matter our precautions,
and by the time we would find its track again it would be hours ahead.
Eularin
, the Tzel
Aviar, suspected that it was heading for the citadel of
Seldeering
,
some five days on. She suggested an
ambush."

Another pause. He was
gripping the book tightly now, its boards cutting into his fingers. "There was one logical point, a trail up
an escarpment. We set wards and laid a
web of spells which would hold fast anything larger than a rabbit. And waited.

"Two days later, the escarpment exploded. No warning at all, just a loud noise as rock
flew in all directions. I was one of the
few not injured. The Tzel Aviar was
killed outright, some of the horses, two retainers." Those long dark eyes were bleak, but he
continued the story in the same forced, flat tone. "We found traces of blood where we'd
laid our trap, but no corpse. No
blood-trail. No way to tell whether the
hunt had achieved its aim. We had too
many injured to continue. We set out for
Teraman.

"Four days from the border, we woke to find the Baron
of The Oaks spread in pieces around the camp. No sign at all of the guardsman set to watch. Or our horses." He looked at her then, for the first time
since he'd started speaking. Just a
quick glance, to check her expression perhaps. Soren was sure she was pale, her face as set as his. She had no idea what to do or say.

"The blood was still wet," Strake went on. "Still warm. Sethane summoned
keleyards
. You know what those are?"

Soren had heard of them. "A weapon of spirit," she faltered. "Will and magic."

He nodded. "They
look a little like hawks. Or
blades. Or sunlight. They circled out from the camp, ready to
strike anything which moved. Vanished
among the trees." He paused, lips
forming a word, then he lifted one hand, fingers splayed, spoke soft
words. An image spun into existence, a
woman standing among golden trees. Her
face was bruised, and tears streaked her cheeks, but her eyes, long and
blue-black, were full of cold, furious determination. A hunter's resolve.

Then her eyes widened and she threw up one hand. And fell, crumpling into a heap, her image
melting into a glimmer of light on the rug.

"We could not revive her," Strake said, and his
voice shook with an effort he could not hide. He was sweating, sitting as if he endured some torture, an ordeal far
greater than words.

"She was cold, as if she had been dead for hours. While we covered her body the last two
retainers broke and ran. There was a
sound, a branch breaking, a scream cut short. I stood with Vahse, another cousin. Back to back, swords at ready. There were no trees close, no way for anything to approach unseen. We heard another scream, far distant,
then...birdsong.

"Birdsong?" Soren repeated, unable to help
herself. She had to fight down the need
to tell him to stop, to apologise for asking, to reach out.

Long eyes closed, opened. For a moment she thought he wouldn't go on, then, in a thread of a
voice: "The forest did not care
what was happening, did not seem to notice. Birds called. There was a
lark. Not close, but very clear. We stood there, waiting for something to find
and kill us, listening. There is an
almost frantic elation to the song of a lark. I could feel the press of Vahse's shoulders, warm against mine. The trees were in Autumn dress, the wind only
light as it rattled the leaves. Vahse
made the smallest sound, as if he had choked, and jerked against me. His elbow hit my ribs."

He hung there, on that memory, staring into the past as if
it were about to fall on him. Then he
hurried to the end, plainly bent on getting the tale over with. "I could smell the blood even as I spun. I cast as I turned, pushing everything behind
me away, panicking. I caught a glimpse
of Vahse's body, split and tumbling among whirling leaves. Golden. Red specks, liquid shining. I did
not see what killed him. Not at
all." The words choked to a stop.

"What happened then?" Soren asked, when it seemed
he would not go on.

"I don't know." Strake was white. He reached down
to place the book on the top of the pile, and she could see marks on his palms
from where he had been gripping it. Then
he straightened, as if that simple action had put everything at a distance, and
his voice was stronger after.

"Everything around me kept changing, dark and
light. Trees of every sort. I don't remember walking, but I always seemed
to be in a different place. There were
people, a dozen or so, just glimpses. It
lasted a handful of moments, no more. Then–" He shrugged. "I'd lost the sword, had a scattering of
coin in one pocket. No blood, no bodies,
no creature. I wandered several days,
then found the road to Teraman. Found
myself a Champion."

The words were incalculably bitter. He gazed across at her, a muscle jumping in
his jaw. "Are you carrying my
child?"

Soren couldn't quite manage not to flinch. This was a leap to the heart of things.

"I don't know."

"But."

"But." She
found her hands had closed into fists and forced them to relax before she met
his eyes again. "I can't think of
any other explanation for the Rose doing that to us. If it thought you were about to die."

"Champion brood mare." The words were cruel, but his anger had
already drained away. "I don't know
the reason for the black rose. I thought
it must be the hunter, that it had somehow found its way to now, as I had. But we couldn't track it with magic, and I
don't see why you'd be able to, any more than I understand why the Rose is so
willing to abandon me in favour of a...hastily-produced successor. If the thing we encountered in the Tongue is
the same that the Tzel Aviar hunted, then it has formidable magical
defences. But is that reason enough for
the Rose's behaviour? Whatever the case,
I don't intend to be shuffled aside. I
don't intend to leave anything of Darest to the Rose's devisings."

"What do you mean?"

"The Rose is bound into the Covenant and the
succession. The palace, the Rathens and
Darest itself, all intertwined into one. A way of strengthening, making what is formidable almost
insurmountable. All very well, when
there are Rathens, but it hasn't been good for Darest these last two
centuries. Whatever else Domina Rathen
planned, she certainly did not intend for Darest to be held in limbo by its own
protective enchantments. And never
beneath a thousand Suns would she expect a Rathen to tolerate being treated
as–" He stopped, face a mask of
anger. Took a breath, as if he needed it
to control his voice. "That is not
something I will tolerate. Tomorrow –
no, the day after – I intend to study the foundation of the Rose's enchantments. With a view to unmaking it."

"Do you expect me to object?" Soren asked, for he
was staring at her with evident hostility. What Strake was proposing would significantly weaken the Rathen
possession of Darest, but Soren could not be anything but supportive of
removing the Rose's ability to make her a puppet.

"I suppose not." Strake glanced away, controlling himself, and the hard lines of his face
eased. He took a deep breath and looked
back up at her. Almost human; resigned
and weary and rather worried. "What's your name?" he asked. "Your first name, I mean. They were full of 'Champion Armitage' at Teraman, but nothing
else."

"Soren." It
had never occurred to her that he would not know it.

"I need you to understand something, Soren," he
said then, so grimly that Soren straightened. "What the Rose did to control me– You are not a mage, so you wouldn't have experienced it the same
way. You would have had no way to resist
it, would have...drowned in a moment. But I fought. It was holding my
head under water, and I was struggling with every scrap of strength to lift my
head, to break free. Fighting death of
self itself." He looked sick. "The Rose is too strong for any
individual mage. I drowned, and then I –
we – were used as we were. I'll try to
remember that you were as unwilling, but you must understand that as I struggled
to lift my head, to take 'breath', it was your face I saw. And I can't simply erase that."

He stood up, prowled around to stand behind his chair as if
he wanted it between them. "Intellectually, I can't blame you. On some level, I even recognise the Rose's motives, if that's what they
were. But that makes no difference to
what I feel when I see you." He
looked down at his hands, resting on the high padded back of the chair. "I am hardly the most temperate of
men. I've had my enemies, taken my revenges. I have never so wanted to punish another
human being as I do you."

He smiled, thin-lipped and sour, at the expression on her
face. His own was still pale.

"You're fortunate I'm not so petty as I am
quick-tempered. I tell you this only
because you need to remember that whenever I see you, for a moment I am
drowning. Hating." He shook his head. "I would never have believed I could so
want to hurt someone, to humiliate, to make them suffer."

Soren didn't, couldn't, say anything. After a prolonged pause he went on, staring
at the far wall.

"Even without the possibility of a child, I don't
suppose it would be politically wise to send you somewhere out of the way. Especially if the Rose's doom is
unavoidable. So I will master this,
teach myself not to react as I have been. Just remember that I have a temper. And that I don't want to be the first Rathen King to beat his Champion
to death."

It was at this faultless juncture that the Seneschal arrived
with their midday meal. Awkward silence
reigned, Soren thickly miserable and Strake brooding over his wine. They did not say another word to each until
they went together to the newly pristine throne room, where Soren watched
Strake sit for the first time upon his throne.

Then the Regent came to deliver a brief and gracious speech
of welcome, before announcing that she was quitting Tor Darest.

Chapter Eleven

A palace never truly sleeps.

Night is the realm of cats and mice, owls, spiders, moths,
roaches. Even a nest of furry grey
torlindars
hidden among the kitchen stores. Their perilous Court scuttled and squalled,
hunted, mated, battled and died while those who ruled the day lay snoring.

The borders between the two dominions were constantly
crossed. Countless visits to chamber pot
or privy, bed-hopping of every description, fractious babes tended by weary
nurses, and a handful who read or talked or watched Selune gazing back at
them. And there are always guards,
exchanging desultory comments, playing cards, making rounds of empty
corridors.

Lack of light didn't impede Soren's view, confirming her
belief that she wasn't really seeing at all. Nor did it matter whether she had her eyes open, or was even
conscious. Exhaustion had finally shown
her sleep despite the constant distraction, and even then the palace trooped
through her head, a silent pageant slipping between vision, memory and dream so
fluidly it became a tangled whole.

The fourth time Soren opened her eyes it was a little before
dawn and she was weary to the bone of her dozing observation over the palace,
and the tangle which made waking such torture. Three times during the night she'd woken a beat behind the strangled cry
and bolt-upright jerk of her King. She'd
watched him gasp and shudder, pace about the newly refurbished royal bedchamber,
just two rooms away, then finally settle back to sleep. He hadn't done this in the Tongue, and Soren
suspected she knew too well what haunted him now.

What do you do when your King has nightmares about
you
?

Haunted by an overwhelming sense of failure, and unwilling
to lie in bed any longer, Soren rose and dressed, though she left her
so-distinctive tabard off. The door to
the Hall of the Crown was still guarded, not by the tall Jutlanders who
protected the Regent, but a man and a woman wearing the same black touched with
gold as Soren's uniform. The Master of
Apparel had turned his energies to outfitting the King's Inner House.